THE OLD REGIME POLICE BLOTTER: Rape (Rapt) (II)
(In continuing the complex subject of rapt as a form of rape, I will generally use the French term, simply because it applies to such a broad range of possible activities - forcible kidnapping, seduction, etc. - that I hesitate to decide for readers of English which meaning applies in each case.) This introduction to one legal text provides insight into the link between 'rapt' and 'viol' in Old Regime law: "Of Rapt & Rape Though in our language these two crimes have different names & a distinction is made between them, & one may even be committed without the other, nonetheless they will be addressed under the same title, following the example of ancient Criminalists, with all the more reason, that... they are called by the same name, *raptus*, & are confounded together in determining penalties." Rousseaud de la Combe, Traite des Matieres Criminelles 1768 (27)
Rousseaud also remarks on the contrast between the severity of the statutes and actual practice: "And although the Statutes prescribe the death penalty for those who give counsel, comfort & aid in any manner whatsoever in committing the crime of rapt; nonetheless the Courts turn from this rigor according to circumstances, to which the first Judge is obliged to adhere." (30)
-A RIVAL'S RAPE (II)
A story told earlier of forcible rape was that of Catherine F., who was raped and beaten in the woods by four siblings as a result of the sisters' jealousy of her. Since the family (including the parents) went so far as to boast about this deed in their town, she would have seemed to have had a good case when she took this to court. But here (largely summarized) is what happened next:
Catherine F. files her complaint before the lieutenant-criminal [an investigating judge] of Saumur. She obtains permission to present the facts, and to issue an official proclamation. Based on the deposition, the lieutenant-criminal declares that the mother and father are to appear, and the siblings to make personal appearances: this decree announced, the accused go to court, and March 15, 1741, they obtain a ruling of defense... The same day, the father and the mother, to deflect the accusation, present to the court a request for a charge of rapt by seduction said to have been committed by Catherine F. against the two sons [The latter were undoubtedly minors.].
They were careful to have the facts brought before a lieutenant-criminal from a different area (Loudon) and so were able to present the facts to him in their own light, through witnesses of their choice, with the result that an arrest warrant was issued for Catherine F. She hid until a court ruling gave her time to organize her defense. Both sides ended up presenting their case before the local parliament. Master Mallet, Catherine F.'s lawyer,
proves that her party must remain the only accuser, that the crime she has brought to law is a grace, atrocious crime, and in consequence merits the most thorough, scrupulous investigation.
What is more, he establishes that the accusation of rapt brought against Catherine F. is an illusion, that were it as real as it is imaginary, it would be a recriminatory procedure, contrary to all the rules...
The sons hide poorly the darkness of their actions. They claim, through their defender, "that Catherine F. set a meeting with them in the woods; that their sisters whom they did not expect having happened upon them, they wanted to show that they did not approve of Catherine F.'s conduct, and it was then they had inflicted the treatment of which she complained".. They say that she is a dissolute girl, whose unfortunate inclination towards pleasure leads her into situations where her downfall is certain; that she has worked to cover herself with condemnation by her licentious conduct; from this they try to conclude that the punishment of such a girl is no awful crime.
The father too claimed that the part he played was to take revenge for Catherine F. for seduction "which he calls raptus in parentus." The deciding chamber's decision, delivered August 12, 1741, dismissed the charges against Catherine F., condemned the parents to two thousand pounds of damages and interests as well as expenses. Their appeals were rejected and the father and sons were arrested, to be tried by the lieutenant-criminal of Angers. (The account does not list the ultimate outcome of the case.)
P. F. Besdel, Abrégé des causes cèlébres et intèressantes, T.3 (126-129)
- THE BRANDED LAWYER
This is yet another case driven by jealousy. The journalist Linguet, an ex-lawyer, spends eleven pages on it in his Annales, almost as if pleading the case in court. This is a much summarized version of his account.
At Arras, in 1773, a young Lawyer, named Derugy, exercised his profession... he was upright and did not lack talent. He was to marry the eldest daughter of a widow of the same town, called Ferco. The younger sister appeared to him more agreeable: he preferred her.
This choice, which he did not feel obliged to hide, made the object [of his affections] hateful to the despised eldest, to the mother who loved her blindly, to an older brother, a hot-headed man, who found in the youngest a temperament less like his own. The latter was covered with ill-treatment; more than once the neighbors had to come running at her cries, and to take her bloody from the hands of these three enemies...
The mistreated daughter ended up running away. She begged, through an intermediary, to be allowed to enter a convent, but her mother refused. Though the young lawyer advised her to return home, her two brothers blamed him, waylaid and beat him, and left him for dead. Surviving, he brought charges against them. At this point, they charged him with rapt. The judges saw through this attempt, but in the process the two lovers saw each other more often and "after several consultations the persecuted young woman found herself pregnant". (Linguet states this almost as an inevitability, but in fact that alone might have supported a charge of rapt by seduction.) Derugy then warned her to hide. She first legally requested that she be sent to a convent, but instead she was ordered to a "house of force" (essentially, to prison). She did not go (and presumably hid). When she went into labor, she ended up going to her lover's mother and begged to be taken in. "The latter, cautious, at first refuses to receive her. Despair then troubles the reason of the unfortunate girl; she protests loudly that she will throw herself into a public well." Derugy's mother ended up dragging the girl into her house. Nonetheless, twenty-four hours after the birth, she demanded that the girl leave. The girl's family seized on this act of compassion to reopen the charge of rapt. Derugy, who could not help but care for his mistress, was followed and both were arrested. "The young man was condemned to the GIBBET; & his mother... to be HANGED AND STRANGLED." (Note: this is Linguet's habitual, emphatic tone.) The sentence was appealed (probably as a matter of course) to the Provincial Council of Arras, which reduced the sentence, though only (says Linguet indignantly) to nine years exile for the mother, and, for Derugy, "the GALLEYS for life, & first, to be MARKED WITH A HOT IRON, &c." Derugy was branded and taken to Paris in preparation for joining the 'chain' that would go south to the galleys. At this point a lawyer stepped in to help him, and the case became tangled in Old Regime legalities, largely due to the fact that the (reduced) sentence could only be appealed to the same body that had delivered it in the first place. Without plunging into the full legal thicket, it is instructive to read Linguet's summary of the rational behind the laws against rapt:
The menaces accumulated against rapt, had above all the goal of preventing unequal matches, to put a brake on the disorder that daily relations between persons of different sex, & of disproportionate condition, could introduce into families, a servant who seduces the daughter of his master, & ravishes her honor, in hopes that to restore it, it must cede him its fortune; a girl of inferior status or of mature age, who abuses her charms or her diversions to capture the inflamed imagination of a young man, & make him contract dishonorable bonds, these are the guilty practices the law proscribes.
But young people, whose age, rank, means, are roughly equal, when they surrender to an inclination that brings them together, must be put in an entirely different class. Loave, as was said a long time ago, is in this case, the only seducer.
The ouctome of the case is not indicated. But it is worth noting that simply being branded was considered a dishonor.
Linguet, Annales Politiques, Civiles et Litteraires du Dix-Huitieme Siecle, T. 4 1778 (502-512)
- AN INCESTUOUS SEDUCTION?
The following item from Marc-Rene d'Argenson, the Paris Lieutenant of Police, is frustratingly incomplete. It would be useful to know if a later editor added the heading 'INCEST', or if this was the exact term meant by the original. It is hard to imagine how a father could be held guilty of rapt - which often implied an opposition to parental authority. A parent could be condemned as an accomplice if they facilitated the abduction or other rapt of their daughter, but the text seems to imply an actual sexual relationship. Could the term be used here - very exceptionally - as a synonym for forcible rape? Otherwise, this passage is interesting for the remarks on 'contraband convents' and the liberty they allowed. (Reading between the lines, it appears that the daughter too risked a judgement and had requested instead to be sent to a convent.)
INCEST - July 25, 1701 - There is proof, in the trial of Desmarats, musician, convicted of the rapt of his daughter and condemned to death in absentia, that she aided his crime and that she participated in it in more than one way: besides it is nearly impossible that she satisfy the condition which she proposes in her request, since no regularly run convent would want to take her in hand and that is would be less problematic to put her under her family's supervision, than to put her in one of these contraband convents where one can go out at all hours and which properly speaking are only seminaries of debauchery.
Rapports de Police de Rene d'Argenson (59-60)
- SCORING POINTS
During a celebrated (and colorful) trial between the Marshal de Richelieu and Mme. de St. Vincent (she claimed he owed her money, he accused her of fraud), her relations tried at one point to accuse him of rape (rapt) as part of the complicated legal maneouvers around that case. "This request," says Linguet, 'was honored by a long list of names which gave it, in the eyes of the public, a weight which the form of this jurisprudence did not support." In the flurry of decisions that resulted from the case (in 1777), this charge was dismissed as unfounded. Linguet, Annales, T. 1, 1777 (187-189)
FOR READERS OF FRENCH
