Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/581

 . 14, 1863.] coachman!” says the widow. What on earth makes Ragouleau start and turn uneasily in his seat? Muttering something about the road being up, he tells the coachman that he can’t go that way; he must go by the barrier De la Villette. Off they start, Angélique, whom we may suppose to be the life of the little party, declaiming perhaps, as she was always doing, some theatrical scene in which her admirers declared she had no rival on the stage, or describing to her admiring mother some dreadful scene in the “Mysteries of Udolpho,” or some of the novels of that kind, which the girl always had in her hands. The barrier is reached, but a man just looks inside and then gives a word to three others who are standing ready; the coach is stopped, and Ragouleau being left to himself, the two women are arrested. The four men, who are agents of police, push them into the octroi building, and without the least compunction begin to search them. They find nothing, but Angélique asks what it is all about. “We were going,” she says, “with M. Ragouleau to see a house that my mother thought of buying.” The commissionnaire turns round, notices that she carries in her hand a handkerchief that does not look quite right, and makes a snatch at it, when out falls a little roll of paper. On examination this roll was found to contain fifteen drafts payable to order, but without name of drawer or payee, fourteen of them for 20,000 francs each, and the fifteenth for 10,000 francs, all on stamped paper, and dated the 30th of April last; another draft on unstamped paper, which seemed to have served as a copy for the others; three letters in Ragouleau’s handwriting; and a paper contained in an envelope, on which was written “Unseal and read.” This direction was obeyed by the police, who found the following composition in the handwriting of Angélique, like all the rest: ‘If ever in my life a day of justice come for me, you shall be the first to whom I will render it.’ This is what you said to me in the Louvre, when we met there, three days before I consented to give up to you voluntarily that which your crimes took from me by force, in the sight of every one who knows you. ’Twere useless to enter into the details of horrors which even yet cause me to shudder. How could nature vomit such a monster as are you? Here, then, it is settled shall be your day of justice—or my day of vengeance. Ah! what a luxury for the oppressed! In my my address has placed you. : death—or return to me that which is mine, and thank my children for the choice I give you. If I only existed, I would let my rage burst forth with all the ferocity required by the horrible monstrosities directed by you against me! Two hundred thousand francs is the amount of the drafts that you will sign. You will write on each draft, ‘Good for the sum of 20,000 francs value received in cash,’ and you will sign. I shall compare your writing, and take care that I find it like. I give you a quarter of an hour to choose. If you prefer my vengeance, on the instant I myself will execute it. You conceive that it can only be the affair of half a second: prudence so ordains. Ah! could I without fear prolong the pleasure—here would be a case in which to employ every kind of barbarity which imagination could suggest.”

On the arrest of the women, the police had sent off to a house at Clignancourt, which the widow had taken on lease, saying that she intended to establish a dairy. It was a small house in the middle of a large garden. Here, assisted by two servants, a man and woman whom they had hired for the purpose, the two women began the preparations which were necessary before the presentation of the above address to Ragouleau. Belonging to the house were two small cellars and one large one; these were lighted from the gardens above by two large openings. The first step was to have these openings completely blocked up. Here then was secured the subterranean vault, without which no melodrama of that day was complete. A stout post was next fixed firmly into the ground at the further end of the cellars. To this was fastened a chair, and to this again a padlocked chain. Before all was placed a table, on which were arranged writing materials. The light from above was replaced by two candles in iron candlesticks.

The widow and her daughter had bought a pair of second-hand pistols, and the man-servant was now charged to give lessons in shooting to Angélique, while the anxious mother listened up above in the garden to ascertain whether any noise made in the cellar could be heard. Not a sound; screams, cries, and shooting all passed unheard. Everything being thus prepared, a full rehearsal took place; but, as Ragouleau’s appearance could not be looked for under the circumstances, Lefebvre, the manservant, took his part. The widow, her daughter, and the female servant seized him, and bound him in the chair, then Angélique advanced with the pistols in her hands, and with a menacing gesture showed the bound man the document we have given above.

And it was to fill this part that Ragouleau had been invited to the country excursion. The police, who had gone to the house, found that everything was prepared for the final representation. Lefebvre and Jacotin, the two servants, were on the look-out for the arrival of the party. Post, table, chair, chain, and pistols—all were there; the candles had been kept alight constantly for three days past. Whilst the police were interrogating the servants, the mother and daughter were brought in. They confessed that all these preparations were for Ragouleau, who had swindled them, they declared, but in such a way that he could not be laid hold of; and that their object was to compel by force a restitution which the law would not order. Drafts for so large an amount (290,000 francs) had been prepared, that they might reject those which should seem to have been signed under constraint; they had no intention of doing more than frightening him into signing the drafts.

A noose of silk cord had been found in the cellar.

“What did you want that for?” they were asked; “the pistols were enough to frighten him.”

“If he had thought that the noise of the