The Crimes of Paris

by Dorothy Hoobler; Thomas Hoobler

  Adding insult to injury as far as the French police were concerned, Perugia’s insistence that he was a hero found sympathetic ears, at least in Italy. Every day, people gathered outside the jail in Florence to cheer him. He received gifts of homemade food, wine, cheese, cigarettes, and even money. At the hotel where he had stayed, the proprietor found that the contents of the now-famous trunk were in demand. People offered to buy them as mementos — even the paint-stained rags Perugia had used to wipe his hands. A reporter for the newspaper La Nazione interviewed him in jail, where Perugia protested, “I have rendered outstanding service to Italy. I have given the country back a treasure of inestimable worth, and instead of being thankful, they throw me in jail. It’s the height of ingratitude.” 17

  After a triumphal tour through Italy, where thousands of people stood in line for a look at the painting, the Mona Lisa resumed its old place on the wall of the Salon Carré on January 4, 1914. It had been gone for two years, four and a half months. In the next two days, more than one hundred thousand people filed past, welcoming back one of Paris’s icons. Outside, vendors sold postcards, including one that showed La Joconde in a Madonna-like pose, holding a baby. Standing behind her, as if he were a proud new papa, was Perugia.

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  Almost like a father, the man who had kidnapped her was embellishing his story and enjoying the notoriety it brought him. “My work as a house painter brought me in contact with many artists,” Perugia said. “I always felt that deep in my soul I was one of them.… I shall never forget the evening after I had carried the picture home. I locked myself in my room in Paris and took the picture from a drawer. I stood bewitched before ‘La Gioconda.’ I fell a victim to her smile and feasted my eyes on my treasure every evening, discovering each time new beauty and perversity in her. I fell in love with her.” 18

  The police branded Perugia’s romantic and patriotic declarations as sheer invention. In Paris, detectives had revisited the boardinghouse room where he had stayed, this time giving it a more thorough search. They came up with some interesting finds. First were two notebooks in which Perugia kept a kind of diary. Under a date in 1910 he had made a list of art collectors and dealers in the United States, Germany, Italy, and England. Among the collectors were John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie. Geri was among the Italians listed. Pretty clearly, Perugia had money on his mind at the very time he was helping to put the Mona Lisa inside a protective case — almost a year before the robbery. Perugia tried to deflect the new evidence — and Geri’s account of their discussions about money — by claiming he was being a dutiful son: “I was anxious to ensure a comfortable old age for my parents.” 19

  Something else the police found in Perugia’s room, however, only added to his romantic appeal. This was a bundle of ninety-three love letters, bound with red ribbon, sent to him by a woman who signed herself “Mathilde.” Somehow the police, or enterprising reporters (it was never quite clear), developed the story that Perugia had attended a dance where Mathilde had been stabbed by the man who had brought her. Perugia carried her to the house of an old woman, who nursed her back to health. Afterward, Mathilde and Perugia fell passionately in love. The icing on the cake, for the newspapers, was that Mathilde was said to have borne a remarkable resemblance to Mona Lisa.

  An intense hunt began to find this mysterious young woman. Analysis of the letters showed that her French was not very good. From that fact alone, speculation arose that she must be German, and that fueled the idea, never abandoned in some quarters, that the theft had all along been a German plot to embarrass France.

  Meanwhile, two detectives from the Sûreté had arrived in Florence to question Perugia. His legal situation was uncertain, for the French government had made no move to extradite him — and never would. It seems possible that the Italian government, recognizing Perugia’s popularity, willingly gave the painting back in exchange for France’s agreement to allow Perugia to remain in Italy. At any rate, since he freely confessed to the crime, the French detectives were more interested in identifying any accomplices he might have had.

  Apparently trying to convince his questioners that he had taken good care of the painting, Perugia said that because he feared it was too cold in his lodgings, he had stored it with a friend named Vincent Lancelotti. That sent French police in search of Lancelotti, another Italian who had come to Paris to find work. Here too they turned up information that proved embarrassing for the French authorities. Shortly after the robbery, Lancelotti had actually been questioned by Magistrate Drioux, and acting on a tip, Drioux had ordered Lancelotti’s rooms searched. When nothing was found, Lancelotti was released.

  Now the police returned to his apartment house on the rue Bichat, across the street from the Saint-Louis Hospital in the tenth arrondissement. Lancelotti’s mistress, Françoise Séguenot, answered the door and said he was out. Asked when he would return, she shouted, “You’re not going to start these annoyances again,” 20 and protested that Vincent had already been cleared of any involvement in the theft. The police left but staked out the building and were rewarded a few minutes later when a man with his collar turned up and a cap pulled over his eyes emerged. One of the detectives recognized him as Michael Lancelotti, Vincent’s brother. Michael was apparently not the brains of the family, for when the police stopped him, he let slip he was going to the Practical School of Hypnotism and Massage, where his brother was a student. Françoise had told Michael to give Vincent ninety francs and to tell him to take the train to Belgium at once.

  The police took the Lancelottis and Séguenot in for questioning. When Vincent heard that Perugia had accused him of hiding the Mona Lisa, he vehemently denied it. He admitted knowing Perugia and also acknowledged that he and his brother had gone to the railway station when Perugia left for Italy, but that had been no more than a friendly gesture toward their fellow Italian.

  Séguenot was emphatic as well. “I work at home as a washerwoman,” she said. “Nothing, however small, could have been brought into our miserable little room without my noticing it immediately.… If I had seen [the painting] in Perugia’s possession, I would have torn it fom his grasp and rushed it back to the Louvre.” 21 In fact, she added under further questioning, “It was only when Perugia was arrested that I even learned that the painting existed!” The police official who questioned her expressed some surprise at this, as well he might have, for it seemed unlikely that anyone living in Paris in 1911 could have been oblivious to the theft.

  Despite their denials, Magistrate Drioux ordered all three suspects charged with receiving and concealing an art object stolen from a state museum. He released Séguenot and Michael, ordering only Vincent to be held at La Santé Prison.

  Those who believed that Perugia could not possibly have acted alone felt that the Lancelotti brothers did more than merely conceal the painting. It was suggested that they could have been his accomplices in physically removing the painting and its heavy frame from the wall of the museum. The argument against this scenario, of course, is that the only two people known to have seen the thief — the plumber who opened the stairway door for him and the passerby who saw him throw away a doorknob outside the museum — both told police that there had been only one man.

  In any case, Drioux eventually dropped all charges against the trio when it became clear that Perugia would not be returning to France to testify against them. His testimony was the only evidence of their involvement, though many accounts of the case since then have mentioned them as co-conspirators.

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  In January 1914, Perugia’s hopes of receiving a reward for returning the painting were finally dashed. Alfredo Geri collected the twenty-five thousand francs that had been offered by Les Amis du Louvre, a society of wealthy art lovers, for information leading to the return of the painting. The grateful French government also bestowed upon him its most prestigious decoration, the Légion d’honneur, as well as the title officier de l’instruction publique. Geri showed what were perha
ps his true colors when he promptly turned around and sued the French government for 10 percent of the value of the Mona Lisa. His contention was that a Gallic tradition gave the finder of lost property a reward of one-tenth the value of the object. In the end, a court decided that the Mona Lisa was beyond price and that Geri had only acted as an honest citizen should. He received no further reward.

  Perugia, meanwhile, was growing depressed in jail. Perhaps it bothered him that Geri collected the reward he had hoped to get, or merely that the authorities insisted on keeping him locked up, not willing to accept him as a hero. Guards reported that he occasionally wept. A psychologist came to see him, but Perugia at first refused treatment, insisting that he wasn’t crazy. After a little coaxing, however, he began to discuss his feelings. By the time his trial began on June 4, he was again calm and self-possessed, insisting that he had acted as a patriot.

  Since there was no question of guilt, the legal proceedings were more like an inquest intended to establish the truth, if such a thing were possible. Three judges presided in a large room that had been remodeled to provide space for journalists from around the world. The designer of the room had placed on a cushion, in the middle of a semicircle, a massive silver hemisphere that symbolized justice. A cynical journalist remarked that it would not be prudent to allow the defendant to sit too closely to this artistic treasure.

  Perugia was handcuffed when he entered the courtroom at 9:00 A.M., but he smiled graciously at the photographers. Cavaliere Barilli, president of the court and head of the three-judge panel, called the proceedings to order. He asked a few questions of Perugia to establish his parentage, the town where he was born, and his occupation. Again, asked if he was a housepainter by trade, Perugia insisted that he was a pittore, an artist. The judge asked if he had ever been arrested before, and Perugia’s memory failed him. The judge reminded him of the two occasions when he had been arrested in France, once for theft.

  With that completed, the court allowed one of Perugia’s lawyers to make a motion to dismiss the case because the crime did not occur in Italy and there had been no formal complaint by the French government. Barilli reserved judgment on that matter and resumed his questioning of Perugia. Like everyone else, the judge was curious to learn how this apparently humble man could have carried out the audacious crime. Could Perugia describe what happened on August 21, 1911, when he stole the Mona Lisa?

  Somewhat eagerly, Perugia asked if he could also tell why he had committed the crime, but the judge told him that he must do that later. For now, he wanted a description of the act itself.

  Perugia offered an abbreviated version: He had entered the Louvre through the front door early that Monday, wandered through various rooms, took the Mona Lisa from its place on the wall, and left the same way. The judge pointed out that during the pretrial interrogations, Perugia had admitted trying to force the door at the bottom of the little stairwell that led to the Cour du Sphinx. Perugia had no answer for this, and the judge did not press him for one.

  It is difficult to understand why Perugia changed his story or even why he did not tell the full truth about how he entered and left the museum, given the fact that he freely confessed to the crime itself. Perhaps he was afraid of implicating others, such as the Lancelotti brothers, or even people who might have helped him in other ways, both before and after the theft. The alibi that he had concocted for himself — that he was a patriot reclaiming one of Italy’s treasures — sounded better if he had been the sole actor in the drama.

  Now, Perugia was asked why he had stolen the Mona Lisa. He responded that all the Italian paintings in the Louvre were stolen works, taken from their rightful home, Italy. When asked how he knew this, he said that when he worked at the Louvre, he had found documents that proved it. He remembered in particular a book with prints that showed “a cart, pulled by two oxen; it was loaded with paintings, statues, other works of art. Things that were leaving Italy and going to France.” 22

  Was that when he decided to steal the Mona Lisa? Not exactly, Perugia replied. First he considered the paintings of Raphael, Correggio, Giorgione… all great masters. “But I decided on the Mona Lisa, which was the smallest painting and the easiest to transport.”

  “So there was no chance,” asked the court, “that you decided on it because it was the most valuable painting?”

  “No, sir, I never acted with that in mind. I only desired that this masterpiece would be put in its place of honor here in Florence.” 23

  Allowed to continue recounting his experiences in Paris, Perugia described how the French workers looked down on him. They hid his tools. They mocked him. They put salt and pepper into the wine he drank with his lunch. Finally, they called him “macaroni” and “dirty Italian.” The reporters wrote the slurs down, their pencils moving furiously. When that part of Perugia’s testimony appeared in print, his popularity at home was secure.

  Perhaps thinking that it would be wise not to allow Perugia to turn the proceedings into his personal forum, Barilli played one of the prosecution’s trump cards: “Is it true,” he asked, “that you tried to sell ‘La Gioconda’ in England?”

  Accounts of the trial say that this was one of the few moments when Perugia lost his composure. He glared around the courtroom, clenching his fists as if to do battle with his accusers.

  “Me? I offered to sell La Gioconda to the English? Who says so? It’s false! Who says so? Who wrote that?”

  Barilli pointed out that “it is you yourself who said so, during one of your examinations which I have right here in front of me.”

  Unable to deny that, Perugia recalled going to England on a pleasure trip with some friends. He saw some postcards of the Mona Lisa, and that made him decide to get advice on how he could take the painting to Italy. “I was certainly not going to get this kind of advice in France! Therefore from this same postcard vendor, I got the name of an antiques dealer. That’s how I found out about Duveen. At the antiques dealer, I asked how I could take the Mona Lisa to Italy, but Duveen didn’t take me seriously. I protest against this lie that I would have wanted to sell the painting to London. If such a thing had ever been my intention… I would have knocked on the door of all the antique dealers and asked for money.… But I wanted to take it back to Italy, and to return it to Italy, and that is what I did.” 24

  “Nevertheless,” said Barilli, “your unselfishness wasn’t total — you did expect some benefit from restoration.”

  “Ah benefit, benefit —,” Perugia responded, “certainly something better than what happened to me here.” 25

  That drew a laugh from the spectators.

  The hearing took only two days — quite speedy, reporters noted, for an Italian legal proceeding. It was clear that the judges didn’t want the publicity generated by the trial to go on for long. Nor did they tarry over their decision: the next day, Barilli called the court to order and announced a sentence for Perugia of one year and fifteen days. As Perugia was led away, he was heard to say, “It could have been worse.” 26

  It actually got better. The following month, Perugia’s attorneys presented arguments for an appeal. This time, the court was more lenient, reducing the sentence to seven months. Perugia had already been incarcerated nine days longer than that since his arrest, so he was released. A crowd had gathered to greet him as he left the courthouse. Someone asked him where he would go now, and he said he would return to the hotel where he had left his belongings. When he did, he found that the establishment’s name had changed. No longer was it the Tripoli-Italia; now it was the Hotel La Gioconda — and it was too fancy to allow a convicted criminal to stay there. Perugia’s lawyers had to vouch for him before the concierge would give him a room.

  Was that the full story? Had the truth of the Mona Lisa’s disappearance been revealed? Many people did not think so. Though the romantic tale of the humble Italian workman falling in love with the painting and liberating it for his native country was charming, some felt that such a great theft required a la
rger explanation, a more elaborate plot — a mastermind, not an ordinary workman. Certainly the Sûreté would have preferred to have been outwitted by a criminal genius instead of having to explain why they had miserably bungled the investigation.

  But Paris had many more crimes to offer — including two spectacular murder cases — and though few knew it, the Mona Lisa case was not quite closed, either.

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  CHERCHEZ LA FEMME

  It was Alexandre Dumas père, in a book called Les Mohicans de Paris, who first coined the phrase cherchez la femme (“look for the woman”) to suggest that at the heart of every crime there was a woman. His dictum made its way into the consciousness of French criminologists, and even Bertillon, who strove for the objectivity of a scientist, when faced with a mystery nevertheless could not resist asking, “Where is the woman?” 1

  The female criminal was the subject of considerable theorizing among social scientists during the Belle Époque. Cesare Lombroso, who argued that criminals were atavistic types — that is, degenerates who had regressed on the scale of evolution — believed that all women were biologically inferior to men and hence inherently atavistic. 2 This did not mean that all women would eventually become criminals, but that they were more susceptible than men to influences that could produce aberrant behavior. These influences were as varied as the menstrual cycle, the pressures of urban life, and even the faits divers crime stories found in the daily newspapers. Any of these might produce a passionate response that could drive women to criminal acts. So could feminism. In the words of Théodore Joran, a rabid antifeminist, emancipated women acquired “a taste for carnage” because they could no longer contain “the instincts of brutality and savagery that, in [women’s] proper state of subordination,” were kept under control. 3