14 - Celebrated Crimes - The Massacres of the South by Alexandre Dumas

Dumass Celebrated Crimes isnt a series designed for the faint-hearted. The novelist pulls no punches in his graphic depiction of a tumultuous era, sometimes distorting facts and levelling unfounded accusations. Its a riveting read intended for discerning, seasoned readers who can appreciate and account for the authors dramatic liberties. As per the publishers note.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eight of Celebrated Crimes, Volume two, The Massacres of
the South. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by John van Stan Savannah, Georgia.
Celebrated Crimes, Volume two, The Massacres of the South by

(00:22):
Alexander Dumas, Chapter eight. For some days Avignon had its assassins,
as Marseilles had had them, and as names was about
to have them. For some days, all Avignon shudder of
the names of five men, Pontu, Fargus, Roquefort, Nodad, and Magnon.
Pontou was a perfect type of the men of the South,

(00:43):
olive skinned and eagle eyed, with a hooked nose and
teeth of ivory. Although he was hardly above middle height,
and his back was bent from bearing heavy burdens, his
legs abode by the pressure of the enormous masses which
he daily carried, he was yet possessed of extraordinary strength
and dexterity. He could throw over the lul gate a
forty eight pound cannonball as easily as a child could

(01:05):
throw its ball, he could fling a stone from one
bank of the Rhane to the other, where it was
two hundred yards wide. And lastly he could throw a
knife backwards while running at full speed, with such strength
and precision of aim, that this new kind of Parthian
arrow would go whistling through the air to hide two
inches of its iron head, and a tree trunk no

(01:26):
thicker than a man's thigh. When to these accomplishments are
added an equal skill with the musket, the pistol, and
the quarter staff, a good deal of mother wit, a
deep hatred for Republicans against whom he had vowed vengeance
at the foot of the scaffold on which his father
and mother had perished. An idea can be formed of
the terrible chief of the assassins of Avignon, who had

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for his lieutenants Fargas, the silk weaver, Roquefort, the porter, Nadad,
the baker, and mannon the second hand clothes dealer. Avignon
was entirely in the power of these fires of men,
whose brutal conduct these civil and military authorities would not
or could not repress. When word came that Marshal Brune,
who was at Luke, in command of six thousand troops,

(02:10):
had been summoned to Paris to give an account of
his conduct to the new government. The Marshal, knowing the
state of intense excitement which prevailed in the south, and
foreseeing the perils likely to meet him on the road,
asked permission to travel by water, but met with an
official refusal, and the Duke de Riviere, governor of Marseilles,
furnished him with a safe conduct. The cutthroats bellowed with

(02:32):
joy when they learned that a Republican of eighty nine,
who had risen to the rank of marshal under the usurper,
was about to pass through Avignon. At the same time,
sinister reports began to run from mouth to mouth, the
harbingers of death. Once more, the infamous slander, which a
hundred times had been proved to be false, raised its
voice with a dogged persistence, asserting that Bruna, who did

(02:55):
not arrive at Paris until the fifth of September seventeen
ninety two, had, on the second, when still at Lyon,
carried the head of the Princess de Lambala impaled on
a pike. Soon the news came that the marshal had
just escaped assassination at Eye. Indeed, he owed his safety
to the fleetness of his horses. Pontu, Forgas and Roquefort

(03:17):
swore that they would manage things better at Avignon by
the route which the Marshal had chosen. There were only
two ways open by which he could reach Lyon. He
must either pass through Avignon or avoid it by taking
a cross road which branched off at the Pontet Highway,
two leagues outside the town. The assassins thought that he
would take the latter course, and on the second of August,

(03:39):
the day on which the Marshal was expected, Ponteu, Magnon
and now Daud, with four of their creatures, took a
carriage at six o'clock in the morning, and, setting out
from the Rhone Bridge, hid themselves by the side of
the high road to Pontet. When the Marshal reached the
point where the road divided, having been warned of the
hostile feelings so ripe in Avignon, he decided to take

(04:02):
the cross road upon which Ponteu and his men were
awaiting him, But the Postilion obstinately refused to drive in
this direction. Saying that he always changed horses at Avignon
and not at Pointet. One of the marshals aide de
camp tried pistol in hand to force him to obey,
but the Marshal would permit no violence to be offered
him and gave him orders to go on to Avignon.

(04:24):
The Marshal reached the town at nine o'clock in the
morning and alighted at the Hotel de Palais Royal, which
was also the post house. While fresh horses were being
put to in the passports and safe conduct examined at
the lul gate, the Marshal entered the hotel to take
a plate of soup. In less than five minutes, a
crowd gathered round the door, and Monsieur Mouland, the proprietor,

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noticing the sinister and threatening expression many of the faces bore,
went to the Marshal's room and urged him to leave
instantly without waiting for his papers, pledging his word that
he would send a man on horseback after him who
would overtake him too or three leagues beyond the town,
and bring him his own safe conduct and the passports
of his aide de camp. The Marshal came downstairs, and,

(05:08):
finding the horses ready, got into the carriage, on which
loud murmurs arose from the Populace, amongst which could be
distinguished to the word zou, an excited cry of the provincial, which,
according to the tone in which it is uttered, expresses
every shade of threat, and which means at once, in
a single syllable bite, rend kill, murder. The Marshal set

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out at a gallop and passed the town gates unmolested
except by the howlings of the populace, who however, made
no attempt to stop him. He thought he had left
all his enemies behind, but when he reached the Rhone
Bridge he found a group of men armed with muskets
waiting there, led by Fargus, and broke a fort. They
all raised their guns and took aim at the Marshal,

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who thereupon ordered the postilion to drive back. The order
was obeyed, but when the carriage had gone about fifty yards,
it was met by a crowd from the Palais Royal
which had followed it, so the postilions stopped. In a
moment the traces were cut, whereupon the Marshal, opening the door, alighted,
followed by his valet, and passing on foot through the

(06:11):
lul gate, followed by a second carriage, in which were
his aide de camp, he regained the Palais Royal, the
doors of which were opened to him and his suite,
and immediately secured against all others. The Marshal asked to
be shown to a room, and Monsieur Moulin gave him
number one to the front. In ten minutes, three thousand
people filled the square. It was as if the population

(06:33):
sprang up from the ground. Just then the carriage which
the Marshal had left behind, came up the postilion, having
tied the traces, and a second time the great yard
gates were opened, and in spite of the press, closed
again and barricaded by the porter Fernay and Monsieur Moulin himself,
both of whom were men of colossal strength. The aide

(06:54):
de camp, who had remained in the carriage until then,
now alighted and asked to be shown to the Marshal,
but Moulin ordered the porter to conceal them in an outhouse. Ferney,
taking one in each hand, dragged them off, despite their struggles,
and pushing them behind some empty barrels, over which he
threw an old piece of carpet, said to them, in
a voice as solemn as if he were a prophet,

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if you move, you are dead men, and left them.
The aide de camp remained there, motionless and silent. At
that moment, Monsieur de Saint Chaman, Prefect off Avignon, who
had arrived in town at five o'clock in the morning,
came out into the courtyard. By this time the crowd
was smashing the windows and breaking in the street door.
The square was full to overflowing everywhere. Threatening cries were heard,

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and above all the terrible zow from which moment to
moment became more full of menace. Monsieur Moulin saw that
if they could not hold out until the troops under
Major Lambeau arrived, all was lost. He therefore told Fernay
to settle the business of those who were breaking in
the door, while he would take charge of those who
were trying to get in at the window. Thus, these

(08:00):
two men, moved by a common impulse and of equal courage,
undertook to dispute with a howling mob the possession of
the blood for which it thirsted. Both dashed to their posts,
one in the hall, the other in the dining room,
and found door and windows already smashed, and several men
in the house. At the sight of Fernay, with whose
immense strength they were acquainted, those in the hall drew

(08:22):
back a step, and Farnay, taking advantage of this moment,
succeeded in ejecting them and in securing the door once more. Meantime,
on shore, Mulan, seizing his double barreled gun which stood
in the chimney corner, pointed it at five men who
had got into the dining room and threatened to fire
if they did not instantly get out again. Four obeyed,
but one refused to budge, whereupon Mulan, finding himself no

(08:45):
longer outnumbered, laid aside his gun and, seizing his adversary
round the waist, lifted him as if he were a child,
and flung him out of the window. The man died
three weeks later, not from the fall, but from the squeeze.
Mulan then dashed to the window to secure it, but
as he laid his hand on it, he felt his
head seize from behind, and pressed violently down on his
left shoulder at the same instant, a pain was broken

(09:08):
into splinters, and the head of a hatchet struck his
right shoulder. Monsieur to Saint Chaman, who had followed him
into the room, had seen the weapon thrown at Moulan's head, and,
not being able to turn aside, the iron, had turned
aside the object at which it was aimed. Mulan seized
a hatchet by the handle and tore it out of
the hands of him who had delivered the blow, which

(09:30):
fortunately had missed its aim. He then finished closing the
window and secured it by making fast the inside shutters,
and went upstairs to see after the Marshal him he
found striding up and down his room, his handsome and
noble face as calm, as if the voices of all
those shouting men outside were not demanding his death. Mulan
made him leave number one for number three, which, being

(09:53):
a back room and looking out on the courtyard, seemed
to offer more chances of safety than the other. The
Marshal asked for writing mat titer curials, which mulamb brought,
whereupon the Marshal sat down at a little table and
began to write. Just then the cries outside became still
more uproarious. Monsieur de Saint Chamon had gone out and
ordered the crowd to disperse, whereupon a thousand people had

(10:16):
answered him with one voice, asking who he was that
he should give such an order. He announced his rank
and authority, to which the answer was, we only know
the Prefect by his clothes. Now it had, unfortunately happened
that Monsieur de Chaman, having sent his trunks by diligence
they had not yet arrived, and being dressed in a

(10:36):
green coat and and keen trousers in a peak vest,
it could hardly be expected that in such a suit
he should over all the people under the circumstances. So
when he got up on a bench to harangue, the
populace cries arose of down with the green coat, We
have enough of Charlatan's like that, And he was forced
to get down again. As Ferney opened the door to

(10:57):
let him in. Several men took advantage of the circumstance
to push in along with him, but Fernay let his
fist fall three times, and three men rolled at his
feet like bulls struck by a club. The others withdrew
a dozen champions, such as Ferney would have saved the Marshal.
Yet it must not be forgotten that this man was
a royalist and held the same opinions as those against

(11:18):
whom he fought. For him, as for them, the Marshal
was a mortal enemy. But he had a noble heart,
and if the Marshal were guilty, he desired a trial
and not a murder. Meantime, a certain onlooker had heard
what had been said to Monsieur de Chamin about his
unofficial costume, and had gone to put on his uniform.
This was Monsieur de pe, a handsome and venerable old man,

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with white hair, pleasant expression, and winning voice. He soon
came back in his mayor's robes, wearing his scarf and
his double cross of Saint Louis and the legion of Honor.
But neither his age nor his dignity made the slightest
impression on these people. They did not even allow him
to get back to the hotel door, but knocked him
down and trampled him under foot, so that he hardly escaped,

(12:03):
with torn clothes and his white hair covered with dust
and blood. The fury of the mob had now reached
its height. At this juncture, the garrison of Avignon came
in sight. It was composed of four hundred volunteers who
formed a battalion known as the Royal Angulemma. It was
commanded by a man who had assumed the title of
Lieutenant General of the emancipating Army of Vacluse. These forces

(12:26):
drew up under the windows of the Palais Royal. They
were composed almost entirely of Provenceaux and spoke the same
dialect as the people of the lower orders. The crowd
asked the soldiers for what they had come, why they
did not leave them to accomplish an act of justice
in peace, and if they intended to interfere quite the contrary,
said one of the soldiers. Pitch him out of the

(12:46):
window and we will catch him on the points of
our bayonets. Brutal cries of joy greeted this answer, succeeded
by a short silence, but it was easy to see
that under the apparent calm, the crowd was in a
state of eager expectation. Soon new shouts were heard, but
this time from the interior of the hotel. A small
band of men led by Forgas and Roquefort, had separated

(13:09):
themselves from the throng, and by the help of ladders,
had scaled the walls and got on the roof of
the house, and, gliding down the other side, had dropped
into the balcony outside the windows of the rooms where
the Marshal was writing. Some of these dashed through the
windows without waiting to open them. Others rushed in at
the open door. The Marshal, thus taken by surprise, rose and,

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not wishing that the letter he was writing to the
Austrian Commandant to claim his protection should fall into the
hands of these wretches, he tore it to pieces. Then,
a man who belonged to a better class than the others,
and who wears today the cross of the Legion of Honor,
granted to him perhaps for his conduct on this occasion,
advanced towards the Marshal, sword in hand, and told him,

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if he had any last arrangements to make, he should
make them at once, for he had only ten minutes
to live. What are you thinking of, exclaimed August ten
minutes did he give the Princess a de Lambala ten minutes?
And he pointed his pistol at the Marshal's breast, But
the marshal, striking up the weapon. The shot missed its
aim and buried itself in the ceiling. Clumsy, fellow, said

(14:13):
the marshal, shrugging his shoulders. Not to be able to
kill a man at such a close range. That's true,
replied Roquefort in his patois, I'll show you how to
do it, and receding a step, he took aim with
his carbine at his victim, whose back was partly towards him.
A report was heard, and the marshal fell dead on
the spot, the bullet which entered at the shoulder, going

(14:34):
right through his body and striking the opposite wall. The
two shots which had been heard in the street made
the howling mob dance for joy. One cowardly fellow called Catalan,
rushed out on one of the balconies which looked on
the square, and holding a loaded pistol in each hand,
which he had not dared to discharge even into the
dead body of the murdered man. He cut a caper,

(14:56):
and holding up the innocent weapons, called out, these have
done the b But he lied the braggart and boasted
of a crime which was committed by braver cutthroats than
he Behind him came the General of the emancipating Army
of Vacluza, who, graciously, saluting the crowd, said the Marshal
has carried out an act of justice by taking his

(15:17):
own life. Shouts of mingled joy, revenge and hatred rose
from the crowd, and the King's attorney and the examining
magistrate set about drawing up a report of the suicide.
Now that all was over and there was no longer
any question of saving the Marshal, Monsieur Mulin desired at
least to save the valuables which he had in his carriage.

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He found in a cash box forty thousand francs in
the pockets, a snuff box set with diamonds, and a
pair of pistols, and two swords. The hilt of one
of these latter was studded with precious stones, a gift
from the ill starred Selim. Monsieur Moulin returned across the
court carrying these things. The Damascus blade was wrenched from
his hands, and the robber kept it five years a trophy,

(16:01):
and it was not until the year eighteen twenty that
he was forced to give it up to the representative
of the Marshal's widow. Yet this man was an officer
and kept his rank all through the restoration, and was
not dismissed the army till eighteen thirty. When monche Moulin
had placed the other objects in safety, he requested the
magistrate to have the corpse removed, as he wished the

(16:21):
crows to disperse, that he might look after the aid
de camp While they were undressing the marshal. In order
to certify the cause of death, a leathern belt was
found on him containing five thousand, five hundred and thirty
six francs. The body was carried downstairs by the grave
diggers without any opposition being offered. But hardly had they
advanced ten yards into the square when shouts of to

(16:43):
the roan, to the roan resounded on all sides. A
police officer who tried to interfere was knocked down. The
bearers were ordered to turn round, They obeyed, and the
crowd carried them off towards the wooden bridge. When the
fourteenth arch was reached, the bier was torn from the
beararr's hands and the corpse was flung into the river.

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Military honors shouted some one and all who had guns
fired at the dead body, which was twice struck. Tomb
of Marshal Brune was then written on the arch, and
the crowd withdrew and passed the rest of the day
in holiday making. Meanwhile, the roan, refusing to be an
accomplice in such a crime, bore away the corpse, which

(17:24):
the assassins believed had been swallowed up forever. Next day
it was found on the sandy shore at Tarascon, but
the news of the murder had preceded it, and it
was recognized by the wounds and pushed back again into
the waters, which bore it toward the sea. Three leagues
farther on, it stopped again, this time by a grassy bank,
and was found by a man of forty and another

(17:45):
of eighteen. They also recognized it, but instead of shoving
it back into the current, they drew it up gently
on the bank and carried it to a small property
belonging to one of them, where they reverently interred it.
The elder of the two was monshal ord to Chartrussa,
or the younger Monsieur amade Pichat. The body was exhumed

(18:05):
by order of the marshal's widow and brought to her
castle of Saint justin Champagne. She had it embalmed and
placed in a bedroom adjoining her own, where it remained
covered only by a veil until the memory of the
deceased was cleansed from the accusation of suicide by a
solemn public trial and judgment. Then only it was finally interred,

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along with the parchment containing the decision of the Court
of Rim. The Ruffians who killed Marshal Bruna, although they
evaded the justice of men, did not escape the vengeance
of God. Nearly every one of them came to a
miserable end. Roquefort and Fargus were attacked by strange and
hitherto unknown diseases, recalling the plagues sent by God on

(18:48):
the people's whom he desired to punish in bygone ages.
In the case of Fargus, his skin dried up and
became horny, causing him such intense irritation that, as the
only means of belaying it, he had to be kept
buried up to the neck whilst still alive. The disease
under which Roquefort suffered seemed to have its seat in

(19:09):
the marrow for his bones. By degrees, lost all solidity
and power of resistance, so that his limbs refused to
bear his weight, and he went about the streets crawling
like a serpent. Both died in such dreadful torture that
they regretted having escaped the scaffold, which would have spared
them such prolonged agony. Pointu was condemned to death in

(19:30):
his absence at the ass's court of La Drome for
having murdered five people, and was cast off by his
own faction. For some time. His wife, who was infirm
and deformed, might be seen going from house to house
asking alms for him, who had been for two months
the arbiter of civil war and assassination. Then came a

(19:51):
day when she ceased her quest and was seen sitting
her head covered by a black rag. Pointu was dead,
but it was never known where or how, in some corner,
probably in the crevice of a rock, or in the
heart of the forest, like an old tiger whose talents
have been clipped and his teeth drawn. Nadad and Manyon

(20:12):
were sentenced to the galleys for ten years. Nodad died there,
but Manyon finished his time and then became a scavenger
and faithful to his vocation as a dealer of death,
a poisoner of straight dogs. Some of these cutthroats are
still living and fill good positions, wearing crosses in epaulets
and rejoicing in their impunity, imagining they have escaped the

(20:34):
eye of God. We shall wait and see end of
Chapter eight. Recording by John Van Stan Savannah, Georgia,