Talk:Auguste Charlois

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The "Charlois" case[edit]

Mr. and Mrs. Charlois resided on the hill of Mount Gros since the founding of the Observatory. Despite the charm of this house, the solitude of Mount Gros weighed a few times with the astronomer and his wife who came to Nice on weekends and holidays in a small apartment located at 2 rue Gubernatis on the 3rd floor. The Charlois family used to come there on Saturday and only returned to the observatory on Monday morning. On Saturday, March 26, 1910, they left the observatory and rejoined their foot in Nice from where they were to leave on Tuesday to enjoy the Easter holidays in Genoa.

Towards midnight, as the couple was lying down, an individual approached the astronomer's home and knocked three knocks at the door. He shouted with a strong Provencal accent: "Monsieur Charlois, Monsieur Charlois, a telegram! ". Charlois looked out of the window to distinguish the silhouette that called him in the night. According to another version, Miss Derquié, who owned a dwelling on the first floor, went to the window and asked who was beating. "A dispatch for Monsieur Charlois," replied the unknown.

Be that as it may, the astronomer descended, and as soon as he opened the door, the man fired with a revolver. Charlois was touched in the heart. The autopsy will reveal that the 6-mm bullet has passed through the heart and, after about 25 cm in the body, has become lodged in the muscles of the back. In the rue Gubernatis obscure, passers-by and caretakers saw the assassin escape without yet being able to describe precisely his features. Mr. Geoffrey (Calixte Giauffret?) Saw a man with a gray beard, Mrs. Sarda, a concierge from the street, could not recognize him. Mr. Joubert (Amedee Jaubert?), A tenant, was awakened by a revolver shot and heard shouting "Assassin, assassin". Was it the voice of Charlois who had recognized his aggressor? Madame Charlois, who was waiting on the landing, quickly descended to the sound of the detonation, and found herself in the presence of her husband's lying body. The astronomer succumbed very shortly after his arrival at St Roch Hospital.

Married in second marriage, Auguste Charlois was 45 years old and at the height of his scientific career. This drama fascinated public opinion. The investigation and the twists and turns of the trial were relayed and taken up by numerous daily newspapers of the time, among which the Figaro, Aurora, Gil Blas, Cross, Morning, Time, XIXth century or West- Eclair. "The Charlois affair" also made several headlines of the Petit Parisien, one of the leading French newspapers under the Third Republic.

Quickly, suspicions were raised on the astronomer's brother-in-law, a Gabriel Brengues, a 46-year-old physician practicing in Nimes. Charlois, who had remarried, had married Marie Marie, a native of Monteux, in the Vaucluse. One of her sisters, Therese, was married to Dr. Brengues.

On October 20, 1902, Marie Charlois drew up a will in which she established her sister Therese as a universal legatee. Four years later, on November 16, 1906, Mary succumbed to an infectious erysipelas complicated with meningitis. Shortly before her death, she changed her will and wrote, on free paper and in pencil, to leave part of her fortune to Auguste Charlois. This arrangement irritated Dr. Brengues, who expected to see his wife collect this inheritance. Despite the small amount (about 1000 francs a year), Brengues declared the will false, pleaded in the first instance as well as before the Court of Appeal. He lost his trial twice, which was the cause of the hatred of his brother-in-law.

In the aftermath of Charlois's death, a despatch from the Nice public prosecutor's office mentioned the name of Brengues. The investigating judge Mr. Maret interviewed numerous witnesses and relatives of Charlois. General Bassot, director of the Observatory of Nice at the time was also heard. It turned out that the name of Brengues was well known to the entourage of Charlois and that the two men were in conflict. On 29 March afternoon, the examining magistrate went to the Observatory. There he found several letters from Brengues addressed to Charlois, in which the doctor's hatred for his brother-in-law was apparent. One of them dated February 1910 was very clear. "We have just received communication of the judgment. Your intrigues and lies are successful. We do not recall the memory of that unhappy Jeanne (the first Mme. Charlois) whom you only valued for her money. There is a fatal immanent justice. " Brengues later stated at the trial that it was not a threat but a simple claim calling for Charlois' conscience. In another (?) Letter dated February 5, 1910, Charlois was described as a "parasitic worm that had insidiously introduced into the Michel family". The letter was signed by Gabriel and Thérèse B. The doctor admitted that he had written this letter, but said that it contained no threat.

The funeral of Charlois took place in his native village on the 31st of March 1910 in the morning, before a large audience. Chance of the calendar, Brengues was arrested the same day and imprisoned at 21:30 at the house of arrest. At the time of his arrest, he protested his innocence and declared himself the victim of a very serious error. Until the end, Brengues will proclaim his innocence with determination. His attitude seemed disconcerting, he was impassive at times, aggressive at others: "I will argue with the witnesses," he said during his interrogation, "and I will prove to them that they are mistaken. Yes I will prove it! ". When Brengues was asked to pronounce the words "Monsieur Charlois, Monsieur Charlois, a telegram! "He refused, claiming the vexatious test and asserting that his accent was Gascon and not Provencal. Later, he even goes so far as to pretext an illness to avoid going to an audience.

On the 26th of March, in the afternoon of the murder, Brengues claimed to have gone to Milhaud, but no one saw him, neither the station-master who knew him, nor the shopkeepers of the avenue de la gare, doctor to go into town. In any case, Sunday morning, Easter day, we saw Brenguès between 9:05 and 9:20 at the station of Nîmes. The prosecution retorted that he was descending from the Nice train which arrived at 9:10. The doctor declared that he was bringing medicine to Mrs. Chardou, the wife of an employee whom he was treating. Chardou, questioned, answered simply that it was very possible. Another prominent witness of the charge was a certain Edmond Richard, bank manager in Orange, who was with his wife on Sunday morning on the train from Tarascon to Nimes. "At Tarascon, a traveler whom I knew by sight was mounted. He even upsets my wife a little. When Brengues was arrested, his portrait was published, and I recognized the traveler, who wore a dark overcoat and a soft hat. The defense replied that the witnesses on Gubernatis Street described an individual wearing a leather visor cap.

Concerning the weapon of the crime, Brengues declared that he had never had a revolver. At the hearing, he stated that the Browning gun he owned was a memory of a deceased friend. In addition to this, Brengues also had a Webley automatic pistol which he threw before being arrested in the Tortoni coffee pit. He denied the revolver when he had two. The story of this Browning is quite singular and involves a new witness, Mrs. Raynaud. This lady lodged with her a tenant Mr. Graby (Grabit?), A friend of the doctor and railway employee. When he died suddenly on December 23, 1909, Brengues was called to see the death.

In helping Mr. and Mrs. Raynaud to seek the deceased's will, the doctor found the Browning loaded in a drawer. He took off the cartridges and put the weapon in his pocket. "And the next day," said Madame Raynaud, knowing that we had inherited Dr. Brengues, brought us a bill of 4500 francs. Graby had always said that the doctor was looking after him for nothing. Brengues threatened us with a lawsuit. Then we gave him 1000 francs to compromise. "

Brenguès later told the judge that he had hidden himself from possessing the revolver because he feared that he would be accused of misappropriating the estate. "I considered this revolver as a memory and not as a weapon. Besides, I am very short-sighted and would not have known how to use it. "

This revolver, Brengues attempted to make it disappear Sunday, March 27 around 10 am. That morning he went into the Dunan pharmacy and handed to Desfours a packet: "Put it in your pocket," said the doctor. Take it home. " A few moments later he came to drop a box of cartridges. The clerk, guessing the revolver, opened the bundle to see if it was loaded. Brengues returned for the third time, took up the revolver and box, saying, "Is not it? You have not seen me today. " Then he carried the Browning to one of his friends Captain Baltzinger where he was found.

Strangely imprudent when one thinks it was much simpler to get rid of the weapon between Nice and Nimes. Moreover, Brengues suspected that the first suspicions would come to him on Sunday morning, when the despatch from the Nice public prosecutor's office arrived at Nimes. For Jean Grivolat, an expert at the court, this revolver was undoubtedly the weapon of the crime. The sleeve collected near Charlois's body was marked with the same series of letters as the sleeves taken from Graby. Moreover, the expertise showed that the socket was not hit by the firing pin exactly in the center. The revolver of Brengues had the same defect. "With another browning ever you will not get that. The gun is signed, "said the expert.

Defense witnesses lacked precision. M. Salel, a baker, thought he saw the doctor on Sunday at six o'clock in the morning, without being able to affirm it: the man resembled him, but his gait differed. If Brengues went to Nice, he traveled from Nimes to Tarascon without a ticket. An employee checked the tickets on the way but did not visit all the cars.

The doctor's caretaker is more categorical. On the evening of the 29th of March he met on the staircase an individual whom he did not recognize at first, but later declared at the trial that he was the doctor. The public prosecutor, M. Lafon du Cluzeau, remarked to the witness that the trial was less clear. He claimed that he had only seen the person's back and that it was night then.

A merchant from Nimes, Emile Thomas (Thomas Emile?) Thought he saw the doctor on Saturday night but could not affirm it. Two rural guards Mantel and Cottarel saw him also in the vicinity of Milhaud, but was it March 25 or 26? They could not tell.

Henriette Laurent, the servant of the Brengues family, disavowed his boss. Mrs Brenguès asserted that her husband had gone well to Milhaud, that he had returned for dinner, and that on Sunday morning at 8 o'clock the doctor was still in bed. The judge then asked if she had spoken with her husband about the tragic death of the astronomer on the morrow of the assassination. Mrs. Brengues made this disconcerting reply: "We learned of the death of our brother-in-law by the newspapers, but at no time did my husband and I speak of it. "

It is then that the judge confronts this statement with that of Henriette Laurent. "When I said that my master had dined at home on Saturday, March 26th, and that he had spent the night from Saturday to Sunday, I did not know that it was a crime. I did not learn of the assassination of Mr. Charlois until last Wednesday. At the entreaties of madame and friends of Monsieur, I declared that I had served him at dinner. Today, I can no longer hide the truth, Mr. Brengues left the apartment on Saturday, March 26 at 2:30 and did not return for dinner. On Sunday morning, I got up at 6:00 am, sir had not arrived. I went to Mass and made the deal. Monsieur returned at about 10am. Mrs Brengues remained in her position and was very aggressive towards Mrs Laurent during the last hearing.

Since November 19, 1908, Charlois was remarried to Mme Blanche Preve. Among the witnesses of the marriage are the poet Emmanuel Ducros and the astronomer Louis Fabry. The marriage is described in a magazine of the time, La Vedette (1-2), dated 26 November 1908.

The second Madame Charlois was "a young brown woman with delicate and energetic features at the same time," who, with long tears of a widow, made us the voice of the tragic night with tears in her voice. She was asleep when her husband was called to give him a despatch. A lamp in her hand, she illuminates the unfortunate Charlois on the stairs. Suddenly, a revolver, a loud cry, and "I no longer found a corpse that had already been put in a car to take him to the hospital." Mrs. Charlois also said during the hearings: "During my lifetime, my husband often told me I have an enemy in Brengues. When he left for Aix, he followed his lawsuit and arming himself. He was afraid of Brengues. It was Brengues who had looked after his first wife. He gave her injections and she died " Madame Charlois stopped, but it was understood that she suspected the doctor of having hastened this death. She was not the only one. At the hearing on December 10, 1910, Anatole Ducros, a friend of Charlois, reaffirmed the belief that the astronomer had apparently succumbed to his poison bites Dr. Brengues. This statement, however, contradicts the testimony of Dr. Camous of Nice, who treated Mme Charlois, who died of an erysipelas.

Charlois therefore knew himself under the threat of Brengues. At the funeral of the astronomer, one of his friends said that two years before Charlois received a box of candy without the sender's designation. He wrote to the confectioner of Toulon, whose name was on the box, but the latter replied that he had sent nothing to M. Charlois's address. The astronomer, finding the candy a suspicious color, forbade his second wife to touch it and enclosed the box in a piece of furniture, hoping to know the sender one day or another. Was it a first attempt by Brengues to hurt Charlois? Le Petit Parisien of April 4, 1910 wrote that the sweets were seized for analysis by the investigating judge M. Maret. However, no other source mentions the fate of these sweets or their analysis.

It was not until February 1911 that the consequences of the investigation were known. In December, the Court of Assizes had referred the case to another session following the declarations of the rural guard Mantel. According to him, the wife of the rural guard Cottarel told her that she had been visited by Mme Brengues, who reportedly said: "If your husband declares that he has seen the doctor on the road to Milhaud, I give him three thousand francs ". The guard Cottarel confirmed the fact by adding: "you understand, three thousand francs is good to take and besides I am a sworn guard, they will believe me in preference to any other witness."

This attempt to suborn the witnesses accused Mrs. Brengues caused the case to be referred. The second trial was therefore opened on 16 February. The room at the Court of Assizes was full at eight o'clock in the morning. The soldiers of the Alpine chasseurs regiment had the greatest difficulty in maintaining order. Brengues did not appear at the trial claiming to be ill. The court sent three doctors to examine Brengues in prison and report on his health. The president gave leave to everyone until the next morning, 9am. On the 13th of February, three days before the start of the second trial, Brengues filed an appeal challenging the jury of the Alpes-Maritimes before which he was to appear. The application for legitimate suspicion is a request for divestiture where one of the parties argues that the magistrates or the jury is, or may be, hostile or hostile towards the jury. On 16 February, the doctor's request was rejected.

On the 20th of February, the crowd which crowded the day before on the course of the Carnival of Nice, surrounded the carriage which transports the doctor, near the Palace of Justice. After the cries of joy at the Carnival, cries of death rang out around the Palace of Justice.

Despite his pugnacity, Brengues eventually fell. On February 21, 1911, the Assize Court of the Alpes-Maritimes sentenced him to forced labor for life in prison. Accused of premeditated murder without ambush, the doctor nevertheless escapes the death sentence by taking into account extenuating circumstances. Brengues appealed to the Court of Cassation on 27 May 1911 but his application was rejected by the Court the following day. Now, no legal remedy can delay or prevent the enforcement of the sentence.

But the doctor's story does not end there. On June 6, 1911, in the morning, Brengues left the prison of Nice to be transferred to the Ile de Re. On the 17th of June he arrived at La Rochelle with five other convicts by the Bordeaux train. At the station he tried to escape by jumping on an omnibus train, immediately took his race through the wagons but stumbled and fell on the rails where he was picked up by a guard. He was transferred the following morning by boat to the Ile de Re, in the penitentiary of St Martin de Ré.

The date of the departure of Brengues for Guyana is more uncertain. It seems to have been postponed. At the time, the convicts were only sent out twice a year, in July and December. The embarkation of December 21, 1911, was canceled on account of bad sea. The sources then mention two other dates, July 19 and August 2, 1912. It would seem, however, that on August 2, 1912, the steamer "Loire" left the port of La Pallice (La Rochelle) for Guyana. On board were 454 convicts, including Dr. Brengues.

One must believe that once in the prison the doctor had an exemplary behavior. His sentence was in fact commuted in twenty years of forced labor on account of his good conduct. During all these years the doctor never ceased to assert his innocence. Sixteen years after the assassination of Gubernatis Street, Brenguès died in Saint-Laurent du Maroni (French Guiana) on February 21, 1926. 64.175.41.116 (talk) 14:01, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of sources for murder[edit]

Do we really need that many sources for Charlois' murder? It seems excessive and unsightly. Dretler (talk) 01:44, 1 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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