Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 3 March 1878

I really was asleep as I was writing yesterday. This sleepless night makes me nervous — combined with reading all the newspapers, which reproduce and comment on Cassagnac's speech, which describe his duel. I have had enough of that name, Paul de Cassagnac. Must that wretch be so fortunate?
Don Carlos, Paul de Cassagnac, and the mandarins I eat all day long — dry and too sweet — all of this stupefies me, not to mention the commotion that reigns in the streets,
^5^ pp. 196-199
the carts, the whistles, the noise — which remind me of the last act of La Traviata; it goes without saying that I am Violetta, and that the carnival from which I am excluded makes me sad. Bah! I am not the only one. Not everyone has the good fortune of that wretch Cassagnac.
He truly has a luck that [Words blacked out: becomes insulting] in the end. I am keeping the newspapers, but [Word blacked out: the article] from the Figaro I am attaching to this very sheet — it is so amusing.
^5^ Why M. de Cassagnac had requested a closed session
We have received the following letter:
My dear Périvier,
Regarding the incident raised in the Chamber by the allusion I made to certain antecedents of M. Billioti's opponent in the Vaucluse election, you ask me, for the Figaro, to supply the documents I had in hand — which I was unable to read from the tribune and for which I requested, if necessary, a closed session. I have no objection to providing them. The document in question appears in full in the Annuaire historique de Lesur, year 1836, page 153, and in the Gazette des Tribunaux.
I submit it under my personal and legal responsibility.
Yours faithfully,
Paul de Cassagnac
###### Here is the document in question:
On the 18th of February, 1836, the lieutenant-colonel of the 46th line regiment appeared before the Second War Council of the Seine under the following circumstances:
M. Lieutenant-Colonel Talandier married in Provence, in 1827, Mlle Virginie G..., then twenty years of age. From this marriage were born two children. Until recently, nothing had disturbed the husband's peace of mind; he had entire confidence in his wife. His regiment came to Paris, and shortly thereafter the wife's half-brother arrived to continue his studies; he was received by his brother-in-law, who admitted him to his table whenever he wished. The young man renewed his visits with such assiduity as to arouse the husband's suspicions; but the lieutenant-colonel repelled all the thoughts that beset him — he dared not believe in an adultery, still less in an incest.
However, what the husband scarcely dared suspect, the servants had observed. Prompted by curiosity, they had acquired indubitable proof of their mistress's guilt. Her conduct had indeed become so free and familiar with M. Alphonse that the household staff felt a certain embarrassment whenever they found themselves in the drawing room at the same time as the young man: out of discretion they withdrew, and soon, from the kitchen, they could hear the expressions of tenderness that
the two lovers lavished upon each other.
M. the lieutenant-colonel communicated his fears and suspicions to his wife; she repelled these imputations with bitterness; however, as they were founded, the husband resolved to obtain the proof with his own eyes.
On the 21st of January, M. the lieutenant-colonel informed her of an invitation he had received to attend a ball on the 25th of the same month, quite persuaded that she would eagerly seize upon this circumstance to engage her brother to come to dinner. This foresight of the husband's was not deceived: Alphonse was invited and attended dinner. Despite the cruel presentiments that gripped his heart, the lieutenant-colonel, so as to arouse no suspicion, was obliged to restrain himself and make his young brother-in-law welcome.
At last the hour to set out for the ball arrived. A servant went to fetch a carriage and, at nine o'clock, the husband descended, leaving the young man in the drawing room, having received from him a firm handshake. The wife, though bareheaded, wished to accompany her husband into the street, and before he mounted the carriage she embraced him with the most heartfelt effusion, wishing him great pleasure at his ball.
A few steps from the house, M. the lieutenant-colonel dismissed his cabriolet and re-entered secretly; he made his way to his manservant's room and, having concerted with him, took up the two loaded pistols; he advanced toward the drawing room and, by means of two holes he had had made in the door, was able to satisfy himself that the incestuous adultery was flagrant. In that moment, difficult to describe, a convulsive movement seized the husband; he flung open the door and hurled himself at the guilty pair. The young brother immediately rose and received the first pistol shot, which struck him only in the left arm; the wife, remaining reclining on the sofa with only her face covered by her hands, received the second shot, which likewise wounded her in the left arm.
Although wounded, the young man threw himself at the lieutenant-colonel and engaged him in a struggle in which he made vain efforts to overcome his adversary; struck violently on the head with the pistol butt, he took flight, while the wife had dragged herself to the cellar, where her groaning soon drew the household.
The lieutenant-colonel, left alone in the drawing room, immediately sent word to the colonel and the surgeon-major of his regiment, as well as to the police commissioner of the district...
It was on account of these facts that M. Lieutenant-Colonel Talandier appeared before the war council. The president ordered a closed session for the testimony of the manservant and the cook, who had details too specific to allow that portion of the hearing to be public.
Major Mévil, the rapporteur, at the opening of his address, expressed himself thus: "The fact of the incestuous adultery is established, and the double attempt at murder is likewise certain; but the accused falls within the category of an excusable attempt at murder, provided for by articles 2, 304, 324, and 326 of the ordinary Penal Code. The question thus posed and resolved in favor of the prosecution would still carry a penalty: but the Code could not have foreseen the case in which adultery might be incestuous, and this circumstance so