France in the Nineteenth Century. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer
that all the screws but one that held up the heavy tester over the bed of the duchess, had been removed, and the holes filled with wax; it is certain that the duke partly unscrewed the bolt that fastened the door of her dressing-room.
On the evening of the family's arrival in Paris, the father and children went in a carriage to see Mademoiselle de Luzy. She told the duke that she could get a good situation, provided the duchess would give her a certificate of good conduct; and the duke at parting promised to obtain it for her.
The whole family went to bed early, that they might be ready to start for the seaside betimes upon the morrow. The children's rooms were in a wing of the building, at some distance from the chambers of their father and mother. The concierge and his wife slept in their lodge. Towards one o'clock in the morning they were awakened by screams; but they lay still, imagining that the noise came from the Champs Elysées. Then they heard the loud ringing of a bell, and starting from their bed, rushed into the main building. The noise had proceeded from the duchess's chamber. They knocked at the door, but there was no answer, only low moans. They consulted together, and then roused the maid and valet, who were sleeping in the attic chambers. Again they knocked, and there was no answer. The valet then went to the duke's room, which looked upon the garden and communicated with the dressing-room of the duchess by a balcony and window as well as by the door. The duke opened the door of his chamber. He was in his dressing-gown. When he heard what was the matter, he went at once through the window into the duchess's chamber. There a scene of carnage unparalleled, I think, in the history of murder met their eyes. The duchess was lying across her bed, not yet quite dead, but beyond the power of speech. There were more than forty wounds on her body. She must have struggled desperately. The walls were bloody, the bell-rope was bloody, and the floor was bloody. The nightdress of the duchess was saturated with blood. Her hands were cut almost to pieces, as if she had grasped the blade of the knife that killed her. The furniture was overturned in all parts of the room.[1]
[Footnote 1: We were then living near the Hotel Sébastini. The excitement in the neighborhood the next morning is indescribable.]
At once the valet and the concierge ran for the police, for members of the family, and for a doctor. The duke retired to his dressing-room. One of the gentlemen who first arrived was so sickened by the sight of the bloody room that he begged for a glass of water. The valet ran for the nearest water at hand, and abruptly entered the duke's dressing-room. He had a glass with him, and was going to fill it from a pail standing near, when the duke cried out: "Don't touch it; it is dirty;" and at once emptied the contents out of the window, but not before the valet had seen that the water was red with blood. This roused his suspicions, and when all the servants in the house were put under arrest, he said quietly to the police: "You had better search the duke's dressing-room."
When this was done there could be no more doubt. Three fancy daggers were found, one of which had always hung in the chamber of the duchess. All of them were stained with blood. The duke had changed his clothes, and had tried to wash those he took off in the pail whose bloody water he had thrown away. Subsequently it was conjectured that his purpose had been to stab his wife in her sleep, and then by a strong pull to bring down upon her the heavy canopy. The bolt he had unscrewed permitted him at dead of night quietly to enter her chamber.
The police were puzzled as to how they ought to treat the murderer. As he was a peer of France, they could not legally arrest him without authority from the Chamber of peers, or from the king. The royal family was at Dreux. The king was appealed to at once, and immediately gave orders to arrest the duke and to summon the peers for his trial. But meantime the duke, who had been guarded by the police in his own chamber, had contrived to take poison. He took such a quantity of arsenic that his stomach rejected it. He did not die at once, but lingered several days, and was carried to prison at the Luxembourg, where the poison killed him by inches. He died untried, having made no confession.
His son, who was very young at the time of his parents' death, married an American lady when he grew to manhood. It was a long courtship, for the young duke's income went largely to keep in repair his famous Château de Vaux, where Fouquet had entertained Louis XIV. with regal magnificence. Finally a purchaser was found for the ancestral seat; and relieved of the obligations it involved, the duke married, and retired to his estates in Corsica.
As to Mademoiselle de Luzy, she was tried for complicity in the murder of the duchess, and acquitted. There was no evidence whatever against her. But popular feeling concerning her as the inciting cause of the poor duchess's death was so strong that by the advice of her pastor—the Protestant M. Coquerel—she changed her name and came to America. She brought letters of introduction to a family in Boston, who procured her a situation as governess in Connecticut. There she soon after married a Congregational minister.
It seems hard to imagine how such a tragedy could have borne its part among the causes of Louis Philippe's downfall; but those who look into Alison or Lamartine will see it set down as one of the events which greatly assisted in bringing about the revolution of February. Mobs, like women, are often swayed by persons rather than by principles.
It was believed by the populace that court favor had prevented the duke from going to prison like any common criminal, and that the same influence had procured him the poison by which he escaped a public execution.
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