BARTHÈLEMY’S REFUSAL TO accept God, even at death’s door, caused consternation and some horror in Victorian England. Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the most vehement condemnations of him for his irreligion was to be found in a newspaper from the Protestant north of Ireland, the Belfast Commercial Chronicle: ‘It belongs to the all-seeing and infinitely just God1 to discern … the eternal destinies of men,’ it began humbly. ‘It is not, therefore, for us to dogmatise on the doom of Barthélemy.’ Having got this disclaimer out of the way, the newspaper went on to dogmatise:
… if ever a human spirit departed this life, giving assurance that it was about to plunge into ‘the blackness of darkness forever’, it was the soul of Emmanuel Barthélemy. A more hardened sinner never passed under the hands of the hangman, and to the last he was an inveterate Atheist, and a daring blasphemer. He said that he hoped his end would be an example; and surely it will – a most appalling one – to show to the rising generation the evils of infidelity and the blessings of religious education. Like the fool, he said in his heart, ‘There is no God’ – no judgement – no sin – no responsibility – no future existence.
Such sanctimonious lessons thickly littered the press. A cheap broadsheet simply created its own truth by depicting Barthélemy’s figure on the scaffold with hands clasped in prayer. A versifier imagined weepy last thoughts: ‘O pity me, O God on high2, and pardon me before I die.’ This was produced for the execution itself and accuracy was not at a premium. But the newspapers had to acknowledge Barthélemy’s defiance to the last.
The Abbé Roux, who had been on hand in Barthélemy’s last days3, was obviously unhappy at the wide reporting of Barthélemy’s sarcasm about religion and rejection of last confession. He wrote a letter to The Times in which he explained that his position as a Roman Catholic priest meant that there was much he could not say about what had passed between himself and Barthélemy, but he wished to deny ‘the imputation that has been adroitly placed in the mouth of the prisoner, “that I had too much good sense to trouble him on the subject of religion”’.
Now, Abbé Roux did admit that Barthélemy might well have actually uttered these words. Yet the newspapers were wrong, he said, to imply that this remained Barthélemy’s position throughout. Certainly, he refused to talk about religion on the first three nights Roux had visited him, but Roux had deliberately avoided matters of faith, seeking instead to build some rapport. From his fourth visit, they spoke frankly together on the subject of God.
On the night before his death, Barthélemy had continued animatedly to refuse faith in Christianity. He had quoted Voltaire’s searing lines on the supposed Mercy of God:
De Dieu qui sur nos jours versa tant de bienfaits
Quand ces jours sont finis nous tourments a jamais.
The God who bestowed so many gifts upon us,
When our days are done, torments us for eternity.
Despite this evident scepticism regarding the deity’s loving nature, Roux implied that Barthélemy had begun to reach out to God in the quarter of an hour before he ascended the scaffold. He declined to quote their discussion as he had no guarantee other than his own testimony. He did, however, cite a letter written by Barthélemy on the day of his execution, at 6 a.m.:
Dear Monsieur L’ Abbé, – Before ceasing to beat, my heart feels the necessity of showing you all its gratitude for the affectionate cares you have so evangelically bestowed on me during my last days. If my conversion had been possible, it would have been effected by you: I have told you; I believe nothing! Believe me, my incredulity is not the result of a proud resistance. I have sincerely done all I could, aided by your counsels; unhappily faith has not come to me, and the moment is near …. In two hours I shall know the secret of death. If I am mistaken, and if the future confirms your assertion, I do not doubt appearing before our God, who in His infinite mercy would willingly pardon me my sins in this world.
Yes, I wish I could share your belief, for I can understand that those who take refuge in religious faith find, in the hour of death, strength in the hope of another life; while I, who believe in nothing but eternal annihilation, I am obliged to lean at this awful moment on the reasonings, perhaps false, of philosophy, and on human courage.
Once more, thanks, and adieu!
E. Barthélemy.
Newgate, 22nd January, 1855, 6 o’clock in the morning.
Even Roux had to admit that this letter showed Barthélemy unreconciled to religion, which he endeavoured to pass off as ‘a few phrases, the last concessions to human pride’.
Barthélemy told the priest that – finally – he pardoned all his enemies. Roux claimed that Barthélemy then asked him to stay by his side at the scaffold. This, however, was not possible as the authorities most unusually refused to grant permission for a clergyman to administer last-minute religious consolation. Roux did not give the reason for this denial; it might have been because there was fear of shots towards the scaffold emerging from the crowd, or perhaps it was thought that a priest would stir up the sectarianism of the London mob. At any rate, Roux remained on the last step of the scaffold.
For the rest, I fulfilled religiously the last wishes of my unhappy countryman. He said to me, on leaving me, with an accent I shall never forget, ‘Pray, pray, pray!’ I prayed with fervour, and I trust that he, who declared that he was born a Catholic, and that he wished to die a catholic, felt at that awful moment one of those ineffable penitences that purifies the soul and opens the gates of eternal life.
We may admire the Abbé Roux’s piety and understand that Barthélemy’s convictions might have quavered as he faced the last seconds of this mortal life. Catholics take to heart the words of the sixteenth-century scholar and historian, William Camden: ‘Betwixt the stirrup and the ground, mercy I asked, mercy I found.’ But there is little doubt that for all human purposes Barthélemy died an atheist.
Von Meysenbug was much impressed with the Abbé Roux’s letter, and wrote to the priest asking him to tell her of Barthélemy’s state of mind before his death. Clearly she hoped for some evidence as to Barthélemy’s motivation for his crime, and perhaps some kind words for herself. In his reply, the priest indicated that he knew more than he felt able to say, but he willingly agreed with von Meysenbug that ‘Barthélemy possessed a brilliant mind, great character, and generous heart’, but his passions had ‘led to his disgraceful death’. The priest did not believe that Barthélemy was guilty of premeditated murder. While he deserved punishment, ‘an impartial justice system would not have sentenced him to death’. Roux had done ‘everything in my power to save his life’ and indeed had received assurances that clemency would be forthcoming. He clung to these hopes until the Sunday evening, only hours before Barthélemy’s execution the following morning. However, he wrote cryptically, ‘Circumstances out of our control tipped the scales in favour of severity.’
The Abbé Roux admired and pitied Barthélemy:
He died in a truly courageous manner4, but he suffered greatly. He felt the need for the consolation of religion, but was ashamed to receive it in front of on-looking friends standing far below. His soul went through an enormous struggle which would have broken a less determined man; but I have reason to believe that my presence and my words made the cup less bitter which he was forced to drink to the last drop. I have to admit that I cried, for he had become like a friend to me. Who knows how things might have turned out if I had known him when you did? ‘Your teachings are very beautiful,’ he told me on one of his final days; ‘if life permitted me, I should have spread them, without believing them myself, and perhaps I would have even learned to believe them myself.’ He bequeathed me a little book [likely his copy of Paradise Lost], his only possession in the world.
Malwida was deeply moved and heartbroken at Barthélemy’s death. He was ‘one of the most nobly significant men5 I have ever known, a man of action, full of spirit, beauty, poetry and immense energy’.
Much mystery remained about Barthélemy’s life and last crime. Herzen confirmed that Barthélemy ‘wrote some memoir’6 while in prison, but this remains tantalisingly out of reach: it ‘was not given after his death to the friend to whom he had bequeathed it’. Malwida von Meysenbug thought that the memoir had been spirited away: ‘When his lawyer came after the execution7 to collect the letters and other papers written to Barthélemy during his imprisonment, he found nothing but a few insignificant papers and denial that any others had ever existed: it was clear that people still feared the dead man. The things had probably been immediately delivered to the proper authorities.’ Any such writings have been lost.
Barthélemy did speak from beyond the grave, however. After his death, Barthélemy’s solicitor, Mr Herring, released the confession Barthélemy had in fact given him, excluding only those parts which would lead to the identification of the female.
In this, Barthélemy said that he had no intention of visiting Moore’s house until he met by chance with ‘the female’, who asked him to accompany her. Inside the house, the woman began speaking in French, which irritated Moore.
‘Why don’t you talk to me in English?’
Barthélemy interrupted: ‘You know she cannot understand English, and you have talked to me in French.’
‘It is no business of yours,’ responded Moore.
This seems like an anomalous piece of detail. Was Barthélemy anxious to give the impression that his female companion, apparently monolingual, was unlikely now to be found in Britain? Moore’s son and maid had sworn that Moore had never been to France, and there is certainly no evidence of French language competence in Moore’s quite substantial ‘commonplace book’, still extant, which comprises his handwritten poems and mementos collected over a lifetime. Barthélemy, it seems likely, was going out of his way to misdirect about the identity of his female partner.
His account continued, describing how the woman at this point took a letter from her pocket and began to read; again, ostensibly, in French. As she had nearly reached the end of the first page, Moore rose from his chair in a passion, and endeavoured to snatch the letter out of her hand. According to Barthélemy, at this point he also stood and pushed Moore back. Moore recovered himself, picked up the mallet and himself smashed the chair – which seems most unlikely – before advancing upon his visitors. He continued hitting Barthélemy, ‘although I was trying to get out as fast as I could’. As the servant was opening the door, ‘I … let the pistol off that shot Mr Moore, for which I am sorry – I having no ill will towards him.’
Unable to exit at the front, Barthélemy described how he went to the back of the house, lifting the distressed female over the wall, and then taking off in another direction. He was chased by a number of men and grabbed by one, ‘and then the pistol went off8 and shot poor Collard, which I feel much at, for I had never seen or known him before’. He was finally caught. Barthélemy ended his confession by referring once more to the duel: ‘I can assure you, Mr Herring, there was no foul play respecting the duel at Egham – the person I shot was a French spy.’
This was Barthélemy’s confession as published in all the newspapers. We may read from it that he had deliberately fired at Moore – ‘I let the pistol off’ – but had not intended to fire at Collard – ‘the pistol went off’. The question of motivation was hardly cleared up, however. One must bear in mind that Barthélemy had evinced on his last day of life little confidence in Mr Herring and implied that he had been forced upon him as his defence advocate. The mystery was not yet solved.
Carl Schurz, who as a German radical refugee had briefly met with Barthélemy in London and disliked him, wrote in his memoirs years later that he was not convinced that Barthélemy had cold-bloodedly killed at Warren Street, but believed that his political zealotry meant that he was very much capable of it. His execution was all to the good: ‘Nothing could be more certain9 than that if a pardon had liberated him his insane fanaticism which made him speak of a murder as of a breakfast would have led him to other bloody deeds, and would finally again have placed him in the hands of the hangman.’ Malwida von Meysenbug, of course, was more sympathetic. She accepted the rumours swirling amongst the refugees that Barthélemy had been seeking money from Moore to fund his assassination plans in Paris. Moore, it was said, had already promised money, but then changed his mind. As Barthélemy made ready to depart, ‘an argument … ensued which unnerved Barthélemy greatly and led him to commit the dastardly act’.
The mysterious woman, she learnt, was widely rumoured to be a French police spy, ‘sent to ruin the energetic refugee10. She had succeeded all too well.’ She had, von Meysenbug believed, rushed back from the scene of the crime to their joint lodgings where she had seized Barthélemy’s most important papers from the hiding-hole dug in the kitchen and delivered them to the authorities in France. When the police arrived, there were no papers to be found. Carl Schurz also heard that she was a spy of the French government, ‘sent to London with instructions to watch Barthélemi11 and finally to betray him’.
Wilhelm Liebknecht, writing on the affair in his memoirs of Marx, thought that the woman was not a spy as such, but had relations with policemen, ‘after the French fashion’. Though uninitiated in the plot, ‘she had heard this and that and gave information to the police12 that led to the right trail’. Liebknecht believed that the argument between Barthélemy and Moore had been simply over money owed for work done, though Barthélemy himself had let it be known to Mr Davis, the Protestant clergyman at Newgate, that there had been a political dimension to the quarrel. As Liebknecht heard it, ‘On the way to the boat [Barthélemy] remembers that he … has a debt outstanding with his last “patron” (boss) …. Barthélemy asks for his money, the proprietor directs him to his office, Barthélemy becomes violent, the proprietor threatens to throw him out, thereupon Barthélemy who feels that he is the weaker man13 sees “blood”, draws his revolver, fires and kills.’ But if this was simply a row about unpaid work, why would Sarah have read the letter?
The story that Barthélemy was seeking to extort funds from George Moore to carry out his plans to assassinate Napoleon III seems the most convincing. True, he already had a ticket for the boat to Hamburg and some little money for the onward journey. Having missed the train, however, his immediate plans had been set awry, and he was intensely frustrated. Rather than simply wait, he would make use of his last hours in London to add to his revolutionary kitty. There can be little doubt that the woman was part of the scheme. Sarah Lowndes had been attracted to Barthélemy as an imprisoned revolutionary. She had lived with him after his release and we can assume that she shared – or at least, went along with – his passionate ideals and ruthless convictions. In rushing back to their joint lodgings to clear away any incriminating conspiratorial documents before making her escape, she behaved as a self-conscious revolutionary operator.
We can surmise that the letter Sarah read to Moore was both a Blanquist screed condemning the tyranny of Emperor Napoleon – we know that revolutionaries like Barthélemy never wished to be seen as mere criminals – and a menace demanding funds in the great cause of liberating France. There was also in it a threat which roused Moore’s anger. Barthélemy had told the prison chaplain at Newgate that his companion was the disowned daughter of a French Roman Catholic priest. Other rumours had it that she was the daughter of George Moore himself. We will never be sure. But all the evidence converges on a threat to implicate Moore in a sexual scandal involving Sarah’s parentage. Little wonder that Moore reacted with such fury. But in grabbing at Sarah’s letter and bellowing at both his visitors, Moore inadvertently broke through Barthélemy’s customary but brittle self-control to unleash his instinct for flight or fight. There is little evidence that Barthélemy went to the house intending violence. As Herzen pointed out, if he had intended murder, the knife he carried would have been a silent and more efficient weapon than the pistol he in fact used. Liebknecht’s final suggestion, that Barthélemy ‘saw blood’ when he thought that he and his female companion were being bullied, is consistent with what we know of Barthélemy’s personality. George Moore had every right to be angry when faced with extortion and we can understand why he grabbed the letter from Sarah’s hands. It was his misfortune that he triggered the tightly wound personality of a man who had killed before, and who was set on killing again.