Crime Nonfiction
One September afternoon in 1751, towards half-past five, about a score of small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a covey of partridges, issued from one of the religious schools of Chartres. The joy of the little troop just escaped from a long and w...
The house which Derues occupied stood opposite the rue des Menoriers, and was pulled down quite lately to make way for the rue Rambuteau. In 1776 it was one of the finest houses...
6. Chapter 6“Cider drinker! You were brought up in Normandy, that is clear. Well, you can learn from me, Jean-Baptiste Ducoudray, a wine grower of Tours, and a wine merchant for the last te...
4. Chapter 4Pierre-Etienne de Saint-Faust de Lamotte, one of the king’s equerries, seigneur of Grange-Flandre, Valperfond, etc., had married Marie-Francoise Perier in 1760. Their fortune re...
7. Chapter 7These two futile efforts might have compromised Derues had they been heard of at Buisson-Souef; but everything seemed to conspire in the criminal’s favour: neither the schoolmas...
9. Chapter 9“I will prove it presently,” answered Derues. “So I went to Buisson, as I have already told you. On my return I found a letter from Madame de Lamotte, a letter with a Paris stam...
2. Chapter 2Next morning early, a large and noisy crowd was assembled in the rue Saint-Victor before Derues’ shop of drugs and groceries. There was a confusion of cross questions, of inquir...
3. Chapter 3One of his uncles, a flour merchant at Chartres, came habitually twice a year to Paris to settle accounts with his correspondents. A sum of twelve hundred francs, locked up in a...
1. Chapter 1One September afternoon in 1751, towards half-past five, about a score of small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a covey of partridges, issued from...
10. Chapter 10“Really, I don’t know if it was before or after—doesn’t matter. Anyhow, it was bottled wine. The third time he brought a mason, and I am sure they quarreled. I heard their voice...
8. Chapter 8Derues hung down his head with an air of resignation; and Monsieur de Lamotte, seeing in this attitude a silent confession of crime, exclaimed, “Wretched man! what have you done...
11. Chapter 11“With regard to the petition of Pierre-Etienne de Saint-Faust de Lamotte, a Royal Equerry, Sieur de Grange-Flandre, Buisson-Souef, Valperfond, and other places, widower and inhe...