At the Isère Assize Court
In everyone's opinion, she was a true “ray of sunshine”, whose “communicative laughter” will remain forever engraved in their heads. She embodied “the joy of living”, “gentleness”, “kindness”, benevolence too. Never one word higher than the other. Victorine Dartois had the misfortune of crossing paths with Ludovic Bertin on Saturday September 26, 2020. A paradox, the student was so fearful of men, to the point of “changing sidewalks” when she approached a group.
A few minutes earlier, she called her sister to tell her “I'll be there in fifteen minutes, I'm near the prairie stadium”. But the girl never came home. Friday, her friends and family came to speak about her before the Isère Assize Court, where the accused is being tried.
“I was lucky to have a daughter like her”
“She was exceptional. She left an impression on everyone with her laughter, her joy, her good humor,” says Lisa, adding that her high school friend was neither “shy nor exuberant”. But she knew how to be discreet so as not to “stand out”. “People told me I was lucky to have a daughter like her,” James modestly confesses, “her daddy.”
“A little thing made her happy,” remembers her best friend Salomé. They both met in kindergarten. “For his last birthday which fell on a Sunday, everything was closed. I brought him a donut with a candle. We both went to a park. We were so happy. » But Victorine will never be his best man at his wedding, nor the godmother of his children. And vice versa. Yet this is what they had promised each other, the young woman reveals with dignity, despite the tears flooding her face. “She was so funny. She made me laugh. She didn’t have an ounce of malice.”
Since then, Salomé can no longer “sleep without taking medicine”. She “was not able to follow the thread of her life” as she wanted. She stopped her studies, crushed by the “pain that tore her heart out”. At the stand, the young woman unfolds a letter, asking permission to read it. “Despite the distance between heaven and earth, our souls will never be separated. You were the sun of my life, you became my beautiful star. I love you with a love so powerful that my words cannot express,” she concludes before taking refuge in the arms of her best friend’s mother.
Romane, one of Victorine's sisters, says she “doesn't have the words” to express herself but suffers from stomach and headache “aches”. “My head is trying to deal with my sadness. My brain no longer works. I don't think anymore. My stomach burns from the inside every time I see a photo, a memory of her,” she explains, while Ludovic Bertin, head down, stares at the ground. Which doesn’t stop him from calling out to him: “You, the criminal. You stole our life, you stole my little sister's life to satisfy a sexual urge. Know that you took an angel from a united family. »
She wanted to become a nun
So close, the three Dartois sisters were nicknamed the “triplets”, despite their different ages. Perrine, 24, shared her room and all her “deepest secrets” with Victorine. Including their love life. The beautiful blue-eyed student didn't have time to have a boyfriend. Just a recent crush on actor Chris Hemsworth. “When she talked about boys, she put her hand over her mouth,” reveals her brother Rémy, seeing it as a “sign of shyness.” Deeply religious, she considered becoming a nun, explains Perrine.
For “four years, three months and two days”, everyone has tried to heal their wounds as best they can. Sylvie, the mother, goes to the cemetery every day to talk to her “little wolf” about what she feels on a daily basis. A daily life punctuated by absences. No more “I love you Mamounette”, no more Little House on the Prairie which the young girl liked to watch “because it had good morals”. No more smiles or thunderous laughter.
So she tries to talk about her “Titi”, imitating the sounds of her heart when she was born, or those more distraught when she came across Ludovic Bertin and understood that the trap was closing. She sings the first words of the song performed at his funeral, without being able to finish. No doubt fearing an incident, the president of the court told him to stop, putting an end to the proceedings. Taken to the room of lost steps, Sylvie stares insistently at Ludovic Bertin until he ends up hastily looking up at her. Then goes out to let out a shrill cry of pain into the room of lost steps. A cry that still resonates…
