In 1831, after a customer, Jean-Antoine Enjolras, was found dead by a nearby river with his skull smashed in, the owners of the inn, Pierre and Marie Martin, and their employee, Jean Rochette, were arrested and eventually charged with his murder.

During the subsequent trial, numerous witnesses testified to other crimes committed by the accused, including up to fifty murders at the inn, and to aggravating circumstances of rape and cannibalism.

On 25 October, the magistrate arrived at the Martins' to investigate the disappearance of Enjolras, whose body was found the next day on the banks of the Allier a few kilometres from the inn, his skull smashed and his knee crushed.

The Martins' servant, Jean Rochette (nicknamed "Fetiche"[c]) – incorrectly described in romantic literature as a South American mulatto, but actually a (well-tanned) native of the Ardèche – was arrested the next day.

The accused were linked to the death of Enjolras by the testimony of Claude Pagès, who said that Pierre Martin, Rochette, and a stranger had used a cart to move the body from the inn to the river.

[3] A local beggar, Laurent Chaze, testified in 'patois';[d] his testimony, as translated into French, was that on the night in question – unable to pay for a bed – he had been thrown out of the inn.

After the rejection of their appeal, and of a plea for clemency to King Louis Philippe, they were returned to the scene of their crime in order to be guillotined in front of their inn by the executioner Pierre Roch and his nephew Nicolas.

[7] The French expression "ne pas etre sorti de l'auberge" (roughly equivalent to 'not out of the woods yet') is sometimes said to refer to the crimes at Peyrebeille but, while they gave additional point to the saying, it predates them.

[9] Victor Chauvet [fr] prepared to publish in the journal Lyon Républican a serial "The Crimes of Peyrebeille", which was announced in a display by Jules Chéret.

[10] L'Auberge rouge (CNRS Éditions), by historian Thierry Boudignon, challenges the official theory and suggests that the case of the Red Inn was a terrible miscarriage of justice based on rumours, dubious witnesses, and the need to "make an example".

Facts forbidden by law were presented in order to discredit the couple; the inadmissibility of some evidence didn't prevent the legal system[e] from using it to secure a conviction.

Progressively, the author sows doubt, asking from the evidence reported in contemporary accounts, if this triple execution wasn't the biggest miscarriage of justice in the 19th century.

[12] Un òme aviá mas dos garçons; lo plus joeine diguèt a son paire: ei temps que sicho mon mèstre e qu’aio d’argent; chal que pòscho m’en anar e que veso de país.

Mas dengús li bailava ren; un sera, lo ventre voide se laissèt tombar sus un sochon, e sonhèt per la fenèstra los augiaus que volavan leugeirament.