Rosalie Prudent
There certainly was in this affair an element of mystery which neither the jury, nor the president, nor the Attorney-General himself could understand.
The girl Prudent (Rosalie), a maid employed by the Varambot family, of Mantes, became pregnant unknown to her employers, was brought to bed during the night in her attic bedroom, and had then killed and buried her child in the garden.
The story was like all other stories of every infanticide committed by a servant. But one fact remained inexplicable. The investigations conducted in the girl Prudent’s bedroom had led to the discovery of a complete set of baby clothes, made by Rosalie herself, who for three months had spent her nights in cutting out and sewing them. The grocer, from whom, out of her own wages, she had bought the candles burned in this long labour had come forward as a witness. Moreover, it was known that the local midwife, whom the girl had informed of her condition, had given her all instructions and practical advice necessary in case her time happened to come at a moment when no help was at hand. She had further sought a place at Poissy for the girl Prudent, who foresaw her dismissal, since the Varambot couple took questions of morality very seriously.
They were there present at the assizes the man and his wife, an ordinary provincial middle-class couple of small means, furiously annoyed with this slut who had defiled their house. They would have liked to see her guillotined on the spot, without a trial, and they overwhelmed her with malicious evidence that in their mouths became veritable accusations.
The guilty woman, a fine strapping girl from Basse-Normandie, with as much education as a girl of her class would have, wept incessantly and made no reply.
There was nothing for it but to suppose that she had committed this barbarous action in a moment of despair and madness, since everything pointed to the fact that she had hoped to keep and rear her child.
The president made one more attempt to get her to speak, to wring a confession from her. He urged her with the utmost kindliness, and at last made her understand that all these men come together to judge her did not wish for her death and could even pity her.
Then she made up her mind.
“Come,” he asked, “tell us first who is the father of this child.”
So far she had obstinately withheld this information.
She answered suddenly, staring angrily at the employers who had spoken with much malice against her.
“It was Monsieur Joseph, Monsieur Varambot’s nephew.”
The couple started violently and cried out with one voice: “It’s a lie! She’s lying! It’s a vile slander!”
The president silenced them and added: “Go on, please, and tell us how it happened.”
Then she poured out a sudden flood of words, comforting her shut heart, her poor lonely bruised heart, spilling out her grief, the full measure of her grief, before the severe men whom until this moment she had looked upon as enemies and inflexible judges.
“Yes, it was Monsieur Joseph Varambot, when he came on leave last year.”
“What does Monsieur Joseph Varambot do?”
“He’s an N.C.O. in the artillery, sir. He spent two months in the house, you see. Two summer months. I didn’t think anything of it, I didn’t, when he began staring at me, and then saying sweet things to me, and then coaxing me all day long. I let myself be taken in, I did, sir. He kept on telling me that I was a fine girl, that I was nice to look at … that I was his sort. … I was pleased with this; I was, for sure. What’ud you expect? You listen to these things when you’re alone … all alone … like me. I’m alone in the world, sir. … I’ve no one to talk to … no one to tell about things that vexed me. … I haven’t a father, or mother, or brother, or sister, no one. I felt as if he was a brother who’d come back when he began talking to me. And then he asked me to go down to the river bank with him one evening, so we could talk without being heard. I went. I did. … How did I know what I was doing? How did I know what I did after that? He put his arm round me. … I’m sure I didn’t want to … no … no. … I couldn’t. … I wanted to cry, it was such a lovely night … the moon was shining. … I couldn’t … he did what he wanted. … It went on like that for three weeks, as long as he stayed. … I would have followed him to the end of the world … he went away. … I didn’t know I was going to have a baby, I didn’t … I didn’t know until a month after.”
She broke into such a passion of weeping that they had to give her time to control herself again.
Then the president spoke to her like a priest in the confessional: “Come now, tell us everything.”
She went on with her tale:
“When I saw I was pregnant, I went and told Madame Boudin, the midwife, who’s there to tell you I did, and I asked her what I ought to do supposing it happened when she wasn’t there. And then I made all the little clothes, night after night, until one o’clock in the morning, every night; and then I looked out for another place, for I knew quite well I’d be dismissed, but I wanted to stay in the house up to the very last, to save my bit of money, seeing I hardly had any and I had to have all I could, for the little baby. …”
“So you didn’t want to kill it?”
“Oh, for sure I didn’t, sir.”
“Then why did you kill it?”
“It’s like this. It happened sooner than I’d have believed. The pains took me in my kitchen, as I was finishing my washing up.
“Monsieur and Madame Varambot were already asleep; so I went upstairs, not without pain, dragging myself from step to step. And I lay down on the floor, on the boards, so I shouldn’t soil my bed. It lasted maybe an hour, maybe two, maybe three—I don’t know, it hurt me so dreadful; and then I pressed down with all my strength, I felt him coming out, and I gathered him up.
“Oh, I was so pleased, I was. I did everything that Madame Boudin had told me, everything. And then I put him on my bed. And then, if I hadn’t another pain, a mortal pain! If you knew what it was like, you men, you’d think a bit more about doing it, you would. I fell on my knees, then on my back, on the floor; and I had it all over again, maybe another hour, maybe two, all by myself, there … and then another one came out … another little baby … two—yes, two … think of it! I took him up like the first and laid him on the bed, side by side … two. Could I do with it now? Two children. Me that earns a pound a month. Tell me … could I do with it? One, yes, could be managed, with scraping and saving, but not two. It turned my head. I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t. How do you think I could choose one?
“I didn’t know what I was doing! I thought my last hour had come. I put the pillow over them, without knowing what I was doing. … I couldn’t keep two … and I lay down again on top of it. And then I stayed there tossing and crying until I saw the light coming in at the window; they were dead under the pillow for sure. Then I took them under my arm, I got down the stairs, I went out into the kitchen garden, I took the garden spade, and I buried them in the ground, as deep as I could, one in one place, the other in another, not together, so that they couldn’t speak about their mother, if little dead babies can speak. I don’t know about it, I don’t.
“And then I was so ill in my bed that I couldn’t get up. They fetched the doctor and he knew all about it. It’s the truth, your worship. Do what you like, I’m ready.”
Half the jury were blowing their noses violently, to keep back their tears. Women were sobbing in the court.
The president questioned her.
“Where did you bury the other one?”
“Which did you find?” she asked.
“Well … the one … the one who was in the artichokes.”
“Oh, well. The other one is among the strawberries—at the edge of the well.”
And she began to sob so dreadfully that her moans were heartbreaking to hear.
The girl Rosalie Prudent was acquitted.