Hautefaye case
The Hautefaye Affair, also known as the Hautefaye Drama, was a criminal incident that took place on August 16, 1870, during a fair in the village of Hautefaye in the Dordogne region, when Alain de Monéys, a young local nobleman, was beaten, tortured and finally burned alive by the crowd.
The case was set against the backdrop of the 1870 war and the heightened passions it aroused in the population of this small village. Following a simple misunderstanding, Alain de Monéys was mistaken for a Prussian, leading to his lynching. The barbarity of the event was further amplified by rumors—attributed to the mayor—that the villagers had committed acts of cannibalism. Of the twenty-one people accused of the murder, the four most responsible were sentenced to death and one to penal labor for life.
Several books have been written on the case. For writer Georges Marbeck, it symbolizes the ritualized murder of the scapegoat, while for historian Alain Corbin, in Le Village des « cannibales », the reasons have more to do with the political representations current at the time among Perigordian peasants, representations marked by anguish and fear of a plot hatched by the Republicans, nobles and priests to overthrow the emperor.
Context
The story takes place in August 1870, one month after France declared war on Prussia on July 15, 1870. The first reports of defeats on the Lorraine front, at Wissembourg, Forbach and Wörth, were announced on August 5 and 6. For Alain Corbin, the government's decision to restrict information following these defeats resulted in the spread of rumors about the presence of Prussian spies in the vicinity, and about collusion between nobles and priests to conspire against the Empire, and re-establish the monarchy. This sparked public concern and even collective fear.Several incidents took place. In Châtellerault, just a few days before, a railway employee was molested on suspicion of being a spy in the pay of the enemy. These worries and rumors were among the rumors that spread through the village and the fairground during Hautefaye's annual cattle fair. This event, a meeting and trading place for the inhabitants of the village and neighboring communes, was also affected by the consequences of the drought that hit the region in 1870.
The general political context in the Dordogne was compounded by a disastrous economic situation for farmers. In the summer of 1870, the region had been suffering for several months from a lack of rain, as well as high temperatures, which were damaging both livestock and crops. On August 16, the day of the Hautefaye fair when sales were generally good, business was very poor: combined with news of the war, this contributed to a climate of tension. The weather was particularly hot, and some of the farmers and craftsmen present at the fair drank alcohol as the day wore on.
The case
The protagonists
The victim, Alain Romuald de Monéys d'Ordières, was the son of Amédée de Monéys, former mayor of Beaussac. He managed the Château de Brétanges estate located between Hautefaye and Beaussac. An unmarried 32-year-old, he was exempt from military service due to his physical condition, and consequently from the conscription that followed the Prussian threat in 1870. However, having expressed a desire to enlist for his country, he had this immunity lifted and plans to leave soon for the Lorraine front. He had been a member of the Beaussac municipal council since 1865, and was the commune's first deputy. His family owned 80 hectares of land in Hautefaye. As manager of the estate, he attended the Hautefaye fair on August 16, 1870.The main perpetrators of the tragedy, designated as such by the courts, were inhabitants of Hautefaye and neighboring villages who had come to the fair. They were: François Chambord, 33, a farrier from Pouvrière, in the commune of Souffrignac, 9 kilometers from Beaussac ; Léonard, known as "Piarrouty", aged 53, ragpicker in Nontronneau; Pierre Buisson, known as "Arnaud" or "Lirou", aged 33, farmer; François Mazière, known as "Silloux", aged 29, sharecropper; brothers Étienne and Jean Campot, farmers in Mainzac.
Those who tried to protect and defend Alain de Monéys were the Abbé Victor Saint-Pasteur, parish priest of Hautefaye; Philippe Dubois, a pit sawyer from Hautefaye; Georges Mathieu, a craftsman from Beaussac and nephew of Bernard Mathieu, mayor of Hautefaye; and Pascal, the servant at Château de Bretanges.
First incident
The affair began with an incident involving Camille de Maillard de Lafaye, a 26-year-old cousin of Alain de Monéys, son of the mayor of Beaussac and known for his Legitimist views. He was the victim of an initial misunderstanding, of no personal consequence, but which was to affect Alain de Monéys.After reading dispatches on the battle of Wörth, Maillard announced that the French army had been forced to retreat. He was then taken to task by local residents, accused of spreading fake news and of being in the pay of the Prussians. Attempting to explain and clarify his remarks, he was accused of shouting "Vive la République!" As tempers flared, hostilities against him became increasingly intense. However, he managed to escape thanks to the intervention of his tenant farmer.
During the trial, one of Alain de Monéys' murderers, François Mazière, explained that a few days earlier, on August 9, during a fair in Charras, he had heard Maillard declare: "The emperor is lost, he has no more cartridges", and regretted that on that day, outraged by these remarks, he had not been able to "do his business" with him. For historian Alain Corbin, this implies that the August 16 killing of Monéys was clearly premeditated. According to Corbin, Maillard's escape forced the suspicious and heated inhabitants to fall back on Monéys, making him a scapegoat.
Second incident
Alain de Monéys arrived at the Hautefaye fairgrounds at around two o'clock in the afternoon, after Camille de Maillard had fled. Shortly after arriving at the fair, Monéys saw peasants approaching, armed with sticks. Asking about the situation, he learned from a peddler named Brethenoux, nicknamed "le Mexicain", that his cousin, Camille de Maillard, had shouted " Down with Napoleon! Long live the Republic!" Refusing to believe Brethenoux's words, Monéys accompanied the peasant to the scene of the incident to check whether other witnesses confirmed the facts. These included: Le Cussou, Pinard, Mazière, the Campot brothers and Buisson, all of whom confirmed Brethenoux's story. The group then rallied around Alain de Monéys, who continued to defend his cousin.Still refusing to admit that Maillard could have uttered these words, Monéys was taken to task by the growing and increasingly hostile group. Confused by some with Maillard, he became the center of the incident, and was in turn accused of having shouted "Long live the Republic", of being a traitor and a Prussian. Despite his denials, the group made the first death threats and struck the first blows.
The torture
Hanging attempt
Despite attempts to clear up the misunderstanding and demonstrate his good faith, Alain de Monéys found himself surrounded by increasingly angry peasants. One of them, Buisson, shouted, "He's a Prussian, we've got to hang him, we've got to burn him!" The Campot brothers threw the first blows, the act that precipitated the outbreak of collective aggression. Protecting himself from the blows, shouting "Long live the Emperor!" to calm the assembly, Alain de Monéys soon found himself outflanked and manhandled. Saint-Pasteur, parish priest of Hautefaye, intervened with a pistol in his hand to help him. But, faced with the aggressors' determination, and sensing that he himself was about to be exposed to the group's growing fury, he took refuge in the presbytery. He attempted a diversion by proposing that the peasants accompany him to drink to the emperor's health, which some of them agreed to do.Philippe Dubois and Georges Mathieu, the nephew of the village mayor, then intervened, trying to pull Monéys away from the repeated onslaughts of the peasants; they too were overwhelmed by the multitude, and were unable to shelter the nobleman, who had already been hit by hooves, sticks and goads. They tried to get him into the house of the mayor, Bernard Mathieu, but the latter forbade entry for fear that the forcenés would burst in and smash his crockery. The protectors, in turn, were unable to stop the group any longer. Mazière and Buisson then seized the victim and delivered him once again to the fury of the peasants, satiated with the wine offered by the parish priest.
The group, led by Chambord, initially planned to take Monéys to the authorities, but faced with the passivity of the village mayor, the peasants decided to hang him from a cherry tree. Alain Corbin points out that the mayor's lack of authority at this point allowed Chambord to become the leader of the punitive enterprise: he went so far as to claim to be a member of the Hautefaye town council, which authorized him to take the initiative. The attempt to hang him failed, due to the fragility of the tree's branches; it was decided to beat him to death.
Tortures
From then on, the intention to prolong the torture before Alain de Monéys was put to death was in place. Chambord harangued the group: "Before killing the Prussian, we must make him suffer". The torturers gave the victim a few moments of respite before returning to the attack. He was dragged into a room used as a workshop by the mayor, who was also a farrier. The assailants tied him tightly with straps to the cattle crush, while Bouillet alias "Déjeunat" violently beat him on the face and legs with hooves and sticks. Corbin points out that little about this episode emerged from interrogations and witness testimony. On his way to the fair to join his master, Pascal, the Monéys' servant, alerted by the screams and warned by Georges Mathieu and Dubois, ran to rescue Alain de Monéys from the workshop, taking advantage of the assailants' temporary absence. The group's return, however, thwarted the new rescue attempt. Once again beaten, Monéys was hit on the head by a severe blow from Piarrouty with his hook scale, which some witnesses believed to be fatal.At the insistence of the victim's protectors, the mayor offered to let him into his sheep barn. Alain de Monéys was sheltered and cared for by Dubois. The indictment mentions that, at that moment, "he believed himself saved. He wanted us to buy a barrel of wine to give to those who were chasing him". But external pressure from the group led by Chambord finally got the better of the door, which gave way just as Monéys, on Dubois' advice, tried to exchange his clothes for a smock in an attempt to escape unnoticed.
The Campot brothers seized the victim and handed him over to the peasants, whose violence reached a climax. According to witnesses, Alain de Monéys' head was "like a globe of blood". He was carried to the foirail, but Dubois tried to get him into the inn. The innkeeper closed the door on the ankle of the victim, who began to enter and collapsed from the pain. He was thought to be dead, but in an unexpected jolt, witnesses saw him get to his feet, walk to a barn, pick up a stake and point it at the forcenary group. Jean Campot had no difficulty in disarming Monéys and turning the stake on his victim, who was dragged under a cart. As soon as Monéys was extricated, Pierre Buisson used the stake to strike him in the back of the neck, which, according to witnesses, was the fatal blow. In all likelihood, from that moment on, it was a dying man, or even a corpse, who was the target of the crowd's wrath, everyone wanting to take part in the slaughter, which lasted around ten minutes. Corbin points out that, apart from Piarrouty's hook and a pitchfork, no sharp weapons - neither knives nor axes - were used. After the beating of the body, Mazière and Jean Campot each took one of the victim's legs with the intention of dismembering him, but only succeeded in removing his shoes.