XV The Reckoning
It was not in fair fight that Dujarier had fallen. Before even he had been carried to his grave, with Balzac, Méry, Dumas, and De Girardin as his pall-bearers, the suspicions of all his friends had been aroused. At Dr. Vérons, the morning of his death, Bertrand showed Dumas his finger-tip still blackened by the barrel of De Beauvallon’s pistol. Would a pistol which had not been charged with ball leave such a stain? Experts present said no. The suspicion that De Beauvallon had made doubly sure of killing his adversary by trying his weapon beforehand ripened in the minds of many into conviction. How, too, had the Creole spent the early part of the morning? Why did he not come with his seconds to the Rue Pinon. What was he doing while Dujarier was awaiting him in the Bois? The affair began to wear a very sinister complexion. Representations were made to the police. Enquiries were set on foot, and De Beauvallon and D’Ecquevillez promptly retired across the Spanish frontier.
Lola had sustained a staggering blow. She was sincerely attached to Dujarier, who had been more to her than any other man had been. The memory of her husband was hateful. Liszt had flashed suddenly across her path, to disappear a few weeks later. Besides, he had given her up of his own accord. But this man had shared her life for months, had loved her to the last, had cared for her both as a lover and a husband. In his will he left her eighteen shares in the Palais Royal Theatre, representing twenty thousand francs. She referred, years after, and no doubt sincerely, to his death as a loss that could never be made up to her.
The luxury of grief is allowed in scant measure to those who minister to the public’s amusement. They must dry their tears quickly. Three weeks after the fatal duel, Lola made her appearance at the Porte-St.-Martin Theatre, in La Biche au Bois. The audience was no less critical than at the Opera. She was hissed, and with her usual audacity, she exasperated the public still more by expressing her contempt for them upon the stage. So ended her career as a danseuse in the French capital.
She lingered on in Paris, notwithstanding, frequenting the society of her dead lover’s friends in accordance with his last wishes. The legacy had relieved her for the moment of the necessity of earning her living. She longed to see retribution overtake the man who had robbed her of all that life held dear. Justice seemed for a time to pursue the slayer with leaden feet. In July the Royal Court of Paris practically exonerated the seconds, and De Beauvallon thought it safe to surrender voluntarily. The explanations he gave as to his movements on the 10th and 11th March did not, as he had hoped they would, satisfy the authorities. The Court of Cassation quashed the decision of the lower court, and sent the accused for trial, on the charge of murder, before the Assize Court of Rouen.
The case is one of the most celebrated in the annals of French justice. It all turned on the article in the code of honour that forbids a duellist to make use of arms which he has already tried, and with which he is proficient. All the witnesses—among whom were professed experts—agreed that this rule was absolute. The case, which raised many other nice points of law, was heard before the President of the Tribunal, Monsieur Letendre de Tourville. The prosecution was conducted by the King’s Procurator (General Salveton), the Advocate-General, and two very able counsel, Maîtres Léon Duval and Romiguière. But the defence had a tower of strength in the great advocate Berryer, the defender of Ney, Lamennais, Châteaubriand, and Louis Napoléon—the greatest pleader and, after Mirabeau, the greatest orator his country has produced.
A trial whereat Alexandre Dumas and Lola Montez, to say nothing of the lesser lights of the literary and theatrical world, appeared as witnesses, excited immense interest. Dumas produced a sensation which must have rejoiced his heart on entering the witness-box. He was asked his name and profession. “Alexandre Dumas, Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie,” he replied with evident complacency; “and I should call myself a dramatist if I were not in the country of Corneille.”
“There are degrees in everything,” replied the learned President.
Claudin, who heard these oft-quoted words, gives it as his opinion that Dumas expressed himself thus from a genuine sense of modesty, and that the judge did not succeed in being funny.
The great Alexandre was in very good form throughout the whole trial, which lasted from the 26th to the 30th March 1846, inclusive. He expounded the laws and principles of the duel, with copious commentaries. He quoted an authoritative work on the subject, drawn up by a body of noblemen and gentlemen—a work which the judge dryly observed he did not intend to add to his library. At the conclusion of the first part of his evidence (the gist of which we know) he solicited leave to return to Paris, to assist at the representation of one of his dramas in five acts. Dumas never lost an opportunity of advertising himself. He managed also to drag his son into the box, though the latter had really nothing to say.
The frail, fair ladies of the supper-party also had to run the gauntlet of examination and cross-examination. The virtuous ladies of Rouen, anxious to hear the most scandalous details of the case, filled the space reserved for the public, and having feasted their eyes on the demi-mondaines, obstinately refused to let these find seats among them. Mademoiselle Liévenne appeared in a charming toilette of blue velvet, with a red Cashmere shawl, and a pearl-grey satin hood. Lola, as befitted the melancholy occasion, wore the garb of mourning, and never, perhaps, showed to more advantage than in her close-fitting black satin costume and flowing shawl. She was the cynosure of all eyes. Though a year had passed since the event now being discussed, her utterance was choked with sobs, and the reading of Dujarier’s last note caused her to shed floods of tears. She declared that had she known it was De Beauvallon with whom her lover intended to fight, she would have communicated with the police and prevented the duel. “I would have gone to the rendezvous myself,” she cried with characteristic spirit. In her Memoirs, she adds that she would have fought De Beauvallon herself, and her life-story testifies that this was no empty gasconade.
That Dujarier’s death had been premeditated by his antagonist was abundantly proved at the trial. The pistols which the dead man’s seconds had been led to believe belonged to D’Ecquevillez were now admitted to be the property of the accused’s brother-in-law, Monsieur Granier de Cassagnac. They had been in the possession of De Beauvallon since the eve of the encounter. Circumstantial evidence went to show that he was familiar with the weapons, and had practised with them on the fatal morning. But the testimony of the witnesses, the facts themselves, the skilful pleading of Duval, prevailed not against the eloquence of Berryer. His magical powers of oratory brought the jury round to his point of view, and De Beauvallon was acquitted of the charge of murder, though cast in damages of twenty thousand francs towards the mother and the sister of his victim.
The affair did not end there. The friends of Dujarier refused to be diverted from the trail of vengeance. Fresh and conclusive evidence came to light, and De Beauvallon and D’Ecquevillez were placed on their trial for perjury during the first hearing. As regarded D’Ecquevillez, it was established that he was no viscount, but a bourgeois of doubtful antecedents named Vincent, that his rank in the Spanish service was merely that of a militia captain, and that his evidence, in general, was worthless. It was proved that De Beauvallon had tried the pistols the very morning of the duel in a garden at Chaillot, taking aim with them not once, but a dozen times. Dujarier had been the victim of a deliberate conspiracy. Both the accused were found guilty and condemned (9th October 1847) to eight years’ imprisonment. Both escaped from prison during the Revolution of the following year. The principal criminal returned to his native isle, where his liberation was judicially sanctioned. His subsequent appeal to obtain a reversal of his sentence was rejected by the Court of Cassation in 1855.
Lola had left France long before the assassin of her lover was finally brought to justice.
“In another six months,” writes “the Englishman in Paris,” “her name was almost forgotten by all of us, except by Alexandre Dumas, who now and then alluded to her. Though far from superstitious, Dumas, who had been as much smitten with her as most of her admirers, avowed that he was glad that she had disappeared. ‘She has the evil eye,’ he said, ‘and is sure to bring bad luck to any one who closely links his destiny with hers, for however short a time. You see what has occurred to Dujarier? If ever she is heard of again, it will be in connection with some terrible calamity that has befallen a lover of hers.’ We all laughed at him, except Dr. Véron, who could have given odds to Solomon Eagle himself at prophesying. For once in a way, however, Alexandre Dumas proved correct. When we did hear again of Lola Montés, it was in connection with the disturbances at Munich, and the abdication of her Royal lover, Louis I. of Bavaria.”