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And, in order to commit the crime, this domestic had brought away with him a pistol, and no ammunition; for Peytel has informed us that Rey, an hour before his departure from Macon, purchased six balls at a gunsmith's.
"All these circumstances," says the accusation, "throw a frightful light upon Peytel's plans. The letters and will of Madame Peytel are in the hands of her husband. Three months pass away, and this poor woman is brought to her home, in the middle of the night, with two balls in her head, stretched at the bottom of her carriage, by the side of a peasant."
Read the first part of the Peytel act of accusation; it is as turgid and declamatory as a bad romance; and as inflated as a newspaper document, by an unlimited penny-a-liner: "The department of the Ain is in a dreadful state of excitement; the inhabitants of Belley come trooping from their beds, and what a sight do they behold; a young woman at the bottom of a carriage, toute ruisselante, just out of a river; her garments, in spite of the cold and rain, raised, so as to leave the upper part of her knees entirely exposed, at which all the beholders were affected, and cried, that the FIRST DUTY was to cover her from the cold."
"As they left Rossillon, the weather became bad, and the rain began to fall: Peytel told his domestic to get a covering for the articles in the open chariot; but Rey refused to do so, adding, in an ironical tone, that the weather was fine. For some days past, Peytel had remarked that his servant was gloomy, and scarcely spoke at all.
Rey had no need to kill two people: he wanted the money, and not the blood. Suppose he had killed Peytel, would he not have mastered Madame Peytel easily? a weak woman, in an excessively delicate situation, incapable of much energy, at the best of times. "He does not fire till he knows his master's eyes are open." Why, on a stormy night, does a man driving a carriage go to sleep?
"Louise" Drawing-room in Rue des Batailles The "Cheval Rouge" Balzac's second visit to Italy Conversation with Genoese merchant Buys Les Jardies at Sevres Travels to Sardinia to obtain silver from worked-out mines Disappointment Balzac goes on to Italy Takes up his abode in Les Jardies Life there He hopes to write a successful play "L'Ecole des Menages" Balzac's half-starved condition He defends Peytel.
It was to rob him of 7,500 francs, said Peytel, that the attack had been made." Our friend, the Procureur's Substitut, has dropped, here, the eloquent and pathetic style altogether, and only gives the unlucky prisoner's narrative in the baldest and most unimaginative style. How is a jury to listen to such a fellow? they ought to condemn him, if but for making such an uninteresting statement.
The criminal, whom the public conscience had fixed upon; the man whose frightful combinations have been laid bare, and whose falsehoods, step by step, have been exposed, during the proceedings previous to the trial; the murderer, at whose hands a heart-stricken family, and society at large, demands an account of the blood of a wife; that murderer is Peytel."
"In like manner, we find that the servant, who was so remiss in the morning as to neglect to go to his master for orders, was ready for departure before seven o'clock, and had eagerly informed himself whether Monsieur and Madame Peytel were awake; learning from the maid of the inn, that they had ordered nothing for their breakfast.
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