The tragedy of Camalès does not take long to reach the ears of the Justice of the Peace, Mr. Dulaur. Before she died, the magistrate visited Jeanne Bédouret on her bed of suffering. She was able to tell him how the Subervie couple tried to cremate him alive in the bread oven. Outraged by what he has just heard, Judge Dulaur immediately visits the Subervie couple. The head of the family pretends not to understand. Examining the still warm bread oven, the magistrate urges the two spouses with questions: “Subervie, do you believe in witches? “. The farmer replies: “Of course I believe in it, like everyone else”. Unconvinced by the couple’s lies, the justice of the peace ordered their immediate arrest by the gendarmes. Their trial opens a month later at the Tarbes courthouse on June 4, 1850. Despite the crushing heat, the crowd jostles, enticed by the murder of a woman burned alive under the pretext of her spells.
lame excuses
The main defendant, Father Subervie, has the floor: “This Jeanne Bédouret, she bewitched my wife, I wanted to scare her but not hurt her, oh no”. The farmer of Camalès admits that he installed her in the oven in order to force her to cure his wife of her spells. And he adds. La Bédouret met him one day and said to him: “Ah, you are in perfect health”. The next day he fell ill. A sneaky illness that he ended up curing by having two masses said to him by the village priest. But each time he saw her, his pain returned… The farmer unleashed a burst of laughter by saying that one day, the maleficent said to him: “oh, the superb cow you have there! “. Well the next day, she was dead. Father Subervie was inconsolable, he was the most beautiful milkmaid of his herd. As for Jeanne, his wife, she says that their daughter fell ill after having swallowed an apple offered by the lady Bédouret, a sort of devil in a petticoat.