The Short Fiction of Catherine Crowe: “The Tile-Burner and His Family”

Retelling a Case of Injustice from the 1720s

“The Tile-Burner and His Family” is a part of the series Crowe called her “Tales of Continental Jurisprudence.” I’m very tempted to move these pieces to a separate list, since they aren’t technically works of fiction. These days, we’d probably called them “true crime,” though Crowe’s focus is on how the legal system handled—or truly mishandled—each crime.

“Tile-Burner” retells a case already chronicled in one of a series of pamphlets. That series had been written by François Gayot de Pitaval and titled Causes célèbres et intéressantes avec les jugemens qui les ont decidées (“Famous and Interesting Cases, with the Judgments that Decided Them”). Translated, one passage from a 1738 pamphlet reads:

Joseph Vallet’s tile works—where the tiles were crafted with greater skill than anywhere else—aroused the jealousy of other tile-makers and sparked in Frillet [the district Attorney-General] a desire to possess the establishment, and to acquire it at a bargain price. It has been alleged that this ulterior motive was the driving force behind the persecution Frillet inflicted upon Joseph Vallet, as well as the plot he hatched to bring about the downfall of an innocent man. He leveled two specific charges against Joseph Vallet and his family: he accused Joseph Vallet of having murdered Antoine Duplex, and he accused both him and his family of having taken the life of Joseph Sevos—both of whom were inhabitants of the parish of Priay, in the region of Bresse.

I have no evidence that Gayot de Pitaval served as Crowe’s direct source, though his pamphlets certainly would have suited her “Continental Jurisprudence” project well. She translated a couple of books from German to English, so it’s not impossible her French was also proficient. Regardless, in “Tile-Burner,” she uses the same names for the setting and the main players as Gayot de Pitaval. Well, Antoine Duplex becomes Antoine Dupler.

A Cheater’s Guide to “Tile-Burner”

The tale takes many twists and turns. Feel free to skip this next bit, but this might help a reader through the sequence of events:

• A man named Frillet served as Attorney General in the district of Pont de l’Ain, France. He wanted Joseph Vallet’s successful brick and tile burning business for himself.
• In 1705, Vallet’s neighbor Dupler died suspiciously while in the tile-burner’s company. Despite appearances, Frillet was unable to find the smoking gun to incriminate Vallet. The covetous Attorney General ground his teeth.
• In 1724, two shady characters named Joseph Sevos and Antoine Pin were seen in Frillet’s company. Soon afterward, Sevos went missing, and Pin promptly enlisted as a soldier. Frillet jumped on the situation and accused Vallet of having murdered Sevos. If Pin had done it, he’d have made himself scarce instead of remaining traceable.
• A man named Vaudan offered testimony:

He averred that, on the night of the 19th of February, having been to Mastalion, he was returning by Vallet's house, about three hours before daylight, when he heard a great noise, and clearly distinguished the words, "Help! help! I will confess everything! Forgive me this once, and spare my life !" Whereupon a voice, which he knew to be Joseph Vallet's, answered, "We want no more confessing; you must die!" 

• Boom! Frillet had what he needed to have Vallet and his whole family arrested. So he did. But was Vaudan reliable?
• Not everyone was convinced. The Vallets seemed like good folks, so Pin was summoned and also put behind bars. He claimed he had witnessed Vallet commit the murder! So we can trust Vaudan’s testimony? Things look bad for the Vallets.
• Hold on, hold on! Blood was found at Sevos’s house, suggesting his murder had occurred there, and Pin was both a murderer and a great big fibber. And by the way, there was new evidence that Vallet wasn’t even at home on the night he was supposed to have killed Sevos there! Come on, higher authorities, step in!
• After some hemming and hawing, the higher authorities did step in. They decided to punish both the Vallets and Pin! This was enough to make the latter confess. He and the missing-and-presumed-murdered man had visited Vallet that night, but afterward, Pin went to Sevos’s home and killed him there for “about forty dollars in silver.” Pin says he hid the body out back under a pile of manure. He was executed.
• But wait! Uh oh! No body was found out back under the pile of manure! (Did I mention things get complicated?) Was Vaudan’s version of what had happened closer to the truth, or is something else afoot?
• Well, all I’ll say is: there’s another surprise or two coming—and things work out fairly nicely.

Crowe as Crime Writer

Crowe’s interest in crime shows itself in short stories such as “A Traveller’s Tale,” in novels such as Adventures of Susan Hopley: or, Circumstantial Evidences, and in these non-fiction pieces. She wasn’t the first to explore true crime, though, and her “Tales of Continental Jurisprudence” are among several early examples of this genre. Carrie-Edmund Laben offers an excellent history of the many branches of true crime, prose to podcasts, in “The Unchanging Nature of True Crime: From the 1700s to Contemporary Podcasts.” Citing Gayot de Pitaval as a precedent, Laben looks closely at Alexandre Dumas’ “massive Celebrated Crimes series, published in eight volumes in 1839-40,” and glances at the Newgate Calendar. These both predate Crowe’s “Tales” and quite likely served as her inspiration.

And until I figure out how to treat them, I’ll continue to include these works with the short fiction of Catherine Crowe. Because they’re cool.

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