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Frederick Schiller
The Pitaval Casebook
Introduction to the first part of the Pitaval most remarkable cases
People complain in general that in the literature specifically determined for the literary circles, a very few writings really improve either the reader's head or heart. The ever growing need to read even among the popular classes which expect very little spiritual education from the state and hence turn to good writers for such nobler goals, will hence always be abused by the terrible practice of mediocre scribes and greedy publishers who will ever continue their trade even at the cost of any popular culture and morality.
There are also spiritless, tasteless and morally corrupting novels, dramatized historical accounts, so called ladies' literature and anything similar which make up a great part of the books in libraries and which will completely destroy the small, remaining portion of more healthier principles which our theatrical poets have spared.
If people asked what caused taste to give birth to this mediocrity; hence, people will find it grounded in the human general inclination for intense passion and complicated situations; specificities which often do not lack in the most terrible literary products. However, why should people not use for a glorious goal the same inclination which protects from anything damaging? It would not be a lesser gain for Truth when the better writers would degrade themselves by pointing out to the bad ones the finesse they used in acquiring their readership and advancing the good cause.
Until such finesse will be generally practiced, or until our public
will be enough cultivated to appreciate Truth, Beauty and Good without any foreign addition; an entertaining book will already have enough merit if it reaches its goal of assuring the minimum level of entertainment without causing the damaging consequences which people must experience in most writings of this kind. At least, so long as such literature will be read, a more terrible goal will not intervene and hence, it will still contain, somehow, some reality for the mind; it will still spread the seeds of more useful knowledge; it can be used to direct the reader's reflection towards worthwhile goals: hence one cannot deny its worth in the literary kind to which it belongs.
Of this kind is the current work for which I am giving a public testimony; and I believe not having to justify its publication. People will find in this work a choice of legal cases which level of interest in actions, artificial complication and diversity of subjects, are almost raised into novel-like accounts, and yet, still prepares for the historical truth. People see here the human being in the most complicated situations which unfolds one's whole expectation and which gives a pleasant occupation to the reader's divination abilities. The secret game of passion develops itself here before our eyes, and many rays of truth will be shed over the secret aspects of intrigues, over the machinations unraveled by the spiritual as well as the worldly authorities in their deceit.
Motives which are hidden to the observer's eye in normal life, become more visible in such occasions where life, freedom and possessions are at stake, and hence is the criminal judge in stand to throw deeper looks into the human heart.
In addition, the circumstantial legal procedure is far more capable to bring into light the secret motivation of human actions than it otherwise took place; and when the most complete account of a story about the last scenes of an event, about the true motives of the active players leaves us often unsatisfied; hence, a criminal procedure often unveils to us the most inner thoughts and reveals the most hidden weaving of bad intentions. This important gain for the human knowledge and human behaviour, which is uplifting enough in itself to qualify this work for a good recommendation, will be elevated to greatness through the many legal knowledge which this work spreads and which is made clear and interesting through the individuality of cases in which people used such knowledge.
The level of interest which these legal cases already insure in their content, will be even more enhanced by the way their were written. Their authors have also cared, whenever applicable, to share with the reader the ambiguity which often set the judge into error, in the sense that they showed the same care and artistry in presenting the arguments of the opposed parties, in hiding the intrigues until the last developments and through that, in driving the suspense to the highest level.
A faithful translation of the Pitaval casebook has already been published by this same editor and will be continued until the fourth volume. However, the larger goal of this work makes necessary a change in its literary style. As the greater public was preferably chosen as the readership; hence, it would have been counter-productive to hold onto the same legal details which the original publication has preferably used for legal experts. Through the shortenings which it suffered under the hands of the new translator, the account has already earned a different interest without for that reason suffering in its comprehension.
A selection from the Pitaval casebook might run between three to four volumes: however, people are resolved to also accept important legal cases from other writers and from other nations (particularly wherever possible, from our fatherland) and through that, to progressively raise this collection into a seasoned magazine for this genre. The degree of perfection which they should reach, lies, from now on, upon the public support and on the acceptance which this first attempt will have.
The Brinvillier case
Mary Margaret of Aubray was the daughter of Lord Drogo of Aubray, a civil Lieutenant at the Châtelet, Paris. She married in 1651 the Marquis of Brinvillier, the son of Mister Gobelin, one of the richest presidents of the Account Committee. Both were of equal standing and fortune. The Marquis had a yearly income of 300 000 Pounds, his wife received a pension of 200 000 Pounds and was entitled to a considerable inheritance which she would have to share with a sister and two brothers after her father’s death. Being rich, however, was not the unique advantage of the Marquess. She was not lesser favoured by Nature than by chance. Of an average height, she had a round, friendly face in which grace and regularity of traits united with an expression of a soul totally pure and free of any passion, which gave it the highest attraction. This calmness predominating in all her traits was the true mirror of a soul which was innocent and did not know anger; it won her the trust of everyone with whom she was surrounded, while her Beauty captured all the hearts.
Her seducer would be a certain Mister Godin who called himself Saint Croix and was chief of the Trossi cavalry regiment. The Marquis of Brinvillier, as the highest commander in the Normandy regiment, made his acquaintance on the battlefield.
This Saint Croix was one of those knights of fortune who, because they themselves did not have anything, treated everyone else’s possession as their own. People spoke very suspiciously of his origins. People knew that he was born in Montauban; only that people doubted whether he really came from a good family, or was an illegitimate child from a good family. Luck has not favoured him very much; however, Nature was very generous with him.
He had a pleasant, spiritual face which easily inspired trust and inclination, and possessed the gift of a flexible mind which accepted any form with equal ease, and played so skillfully the role of the prudent person with whoever he precisely performs a deceit.
He was sensitive to human sufferings, attractive to the other gender to a point of generating passion, and jealous in love so much as to giving in himself to rage, even with persons who, because of their public profession, were justified to certain freedoms which could not be unknown to him. Deprived of the unlimited inclination for a dissipated life, because of lack of means, he was capable of any shameful act through which he hoped to win something. Some years before his death, he started to act like a bigot; and he was even supposed to have written suspicious books during this period. He spoke of God like a prophet, while serving him like a priest of Baal and gave himself under this mask which he only took away in the circle of his most trusted friends, the aspect of a totally saintly man, while he was the author and conjurer of the most abominable crimes.
The Marquis of Brinvillier who showed largesses in his lively