Three years before the trial, Dr Blanche states, he examined Madame Bière after she had been apprehended by the police on a minor charge. Since the period was one in which ‘kleptomania’ became a frequent diagnosis, it is just possible that Madame Bière was caught in the act in one of the city’s tantalizing department stores, like Le Bon Marché, designed by the very same Eiffel as the tower that bears his name. Madame Bière seemed quite mad. She was in a state of ‘mental hyper-excitation’, and although she was soon released, Dr Blanche was reminded of her case when he read about Marie in the press, and he informed the police of it.
After Dr Blanche has run through the incidence of ‘heritable’ madness in this family of aliénés, he interestingly points to Marie’s childhood environment as implicated amongst the causes of her condition – as if Pasteur’s increasingly popular germ theory of contagion also had psychological applications. He describes Marie’s rearing by an extravagant mother, who was at times depressed, and at other times manically nervous. One day Marie was threatened with a knife; on another, with being thrown from a window. And so she acquired her disposition to illness. From a very young age, her exalted intensity was in the making.
To the public’s own ever-growing excitement, Dr Blanche then tells the story of how at the age of twelve at her convent school, Marie fell head and heart in love with one of her classmates. When her friend appeared indifferent, this ‘violent affection’ led to two suicide attempts. Marie’s state of excitation followed her into adulthood and she became a woman dominated by passion. She was always in the sway of her emotions. She told me, Dr Blanche states – adding that her sincerity was manifest – that the day her child died, she resolved to kill her lover.
Blanche’s next statement provokes commotion in the courtroom, so rare is it to utter such thoughts in public: T know that she considered abortion early in her pregnancy. But once she felt her baby move, her maternal affection was awakened: it was profound and all powerful. I have no doubt that this exalted, exaggerated maternal sentiment was the motive for her murder attempt on 7 January.’
A seasoned court performer, Dr Blanche then iterates what it means to be an expert witness in France, where the psychiatrists are attached to the courts. He never appears, he says, either for the defence or for the prosecution. He is a man of conscience, as befits a member of a profession working in the service of the public.
Indeed, unlike their contemporaries in Britain’s open market in alienism, the remuneration that French psychiatric experts officially received for their medico-legal work was small: ten francs for a consultation of three hours, a sum that some have argued remained largely unchanged since it had been set down in the Napoleonic Code d’instruction criminelle in 1808; (though in 1884 in the case of Hippolyte Forgerol, a trio of doctors including Blanche and Motet were receiving seventy francs each for visiting the patient and reporting, so perhaps payment hadn’t remained altogether fixed). As a man of conscience, Blanche can testify that when Marie Bière aimed at Monsieur Gentien she knew very well what she was doing, but she was under the influence of such passions – of such morbid exaltation – that ‘there was no resisting the forces that dominated her and obliterated her moral sense.’ She was, in other words, at the mercy of what the US courts will call an ‘irresistible impulse’.
It is this last formulation that will serve as the doctors’, and often enough the jury’s, explanation for crimes of passion: reason, responsibility, the moral sense are overcome by violent emotion. Irrational impulse holds sway, doing away with rational volition. It may seem that such a description could be given to any violent crime: rational judgement fails before strong emotions, passion topples reason and crimes are committed. In Anglo-Saxon courts such a plea for reduced responsibility or mitigation rarely passes muster. Nor does the French penal code ever altogether designate a crime of passion. But French courts did have something of a precedent to build on. The 1810 Code Napoleon contained one entry that provided a circumstance for a justifiable love crime. In the section dealing with ‘Excusable Crimes and Delicts’, Article 324-1 reads:
Murder, committed by the husband, upon his wife, or by the wife, upon her husband, is not excusable, if the life of the husband or wife, who has committed such murder, has not been put in peril, at the very moment when the murder has taken place.
The mitigation here is self-defence, a principle that also holds in English courts and was extended by a 1992 precedent sometimes also to include psychologically damaged abused wives for whom longterm mistreatment could equal provocation. But the next line, 324-2, defines the famous in flagrante delicto exception:
Nevertheless, in the case of adultery, provided for by article 336, murder committed upon the wife as well as upon her accomplice, at the moment when the husband shall have caught them in the act, in the house where the husband and wife dwell, is excusable.
Men, the code in its patriarchal wisdom allowed, could murder their wives if their wives were caught in the act of compromising their and the family’s honour. An understandable passion of jealousy would then prevail, and provide mitigation. Women had no parallel exception in law: their husbands could only be fined for an adulterous offence, and then only if it had taken place in the family home. (The exception for wife murder was only repealed in 1975.)
During the belle époque, however, women occasionally behaved as if the law stretched to mitigate their passionate crimes as well as men’s, particularly if their honour was at stake. Juries were more often than not on their side. The period’s understanding of the feminine as less attached than the masculine to reason and moral judgement meant that in any event women were considered constitutionally more susceptible to passion and extreme, volatile emotion. Such a view slipped effortlessly into the ragbag diagnosis of hysteria, which could as easily implicate any woman, or apply to the very essence of femininity, as refer to what Freud later called ‘conversion hysteria’, with its more extreme set of symptoms from paralysis, to anaesthesia and muteness.
Whatever, if any, her precise diagnosis, Marie Bière’s was one of the cases that set a precedent for other women afflicted with a severe case of moral outrage at the prevailing sexual etiquette.
Law may wear a blindfold, but its judges and juries are rarely blind to gender differences. At the turn of the last century, public feeling transmitted through press and juries seemed to want a different balance between the sexes: women’s intimate crimes of passion as played out in the courtroom crystallized some of the dissatisfaction, and saw it judged. Those judgements sent out moral signals to society at large. Perhaps in the same spirit as our contemporary worries about sexual violence towards women, from the 1880s on, male attitudes to women, particularly the attitudes of the worldly male to the mothers of the future, were found severely wanting.
20. The Verdict
After Dr Motet echoed his eminent older colleague’s testimony, Marie’s trial moved towards its final moments. There were still witnesses to call and depositions, penned in Judge Guillot’s fine prose, to be read. These include that of Robert Gentien’s administrator and intermediary, Monsieur Oudinet, who during his deposition had stammered over Marie’s questions – trapped, as Guillot’s rendition made him seem to be, between his loyalty to his employer and his less than total approval of his relations with women and the Don Juanesque aspects of his behaviour. Oudinet also had an evident soft spot for Marie, though he didn’t want it to be seen in open court.
To counterpoint, Mathilde Delorme, Marie’s best friend since 1863, talked of her irreproachable character until Gentien had led her astray. The midwife who had delivered the baby in Montmartre described how difficult the birth had been, how sad Marie was, ever hoping that Gentien would fall in love with the child. Quizzed on whether Marie harboured plans of marrying Gentien, the midwife responded that Marie had hopes, of course: she had said, ‘Why not? I’m well brought up, my family is honourable.’ But the coldness of his demeanour was distressing: when he came to visit, he didn’t e
ven want her dress to touch his trousers.
Then it was the turn of Gentien’s friends, who told the court how he had been frightened of Marie’s character, how it was clear she was mad and could kill, and how his friends had advised him to alert the police. The guardian of the peace who had stopped Marie from firing her third shot recounted that when he had taken away her revolver, Marie had exclaimed that there was no point worrying that she would kill herself – but if he was dead, of course she would. She had also immediately blurted out that Robert was the cause of her daughter’s death.
Here Marie interrupted, stating in a firm voice that she had no intention of starting all that again. She no longer considered Monsieur Gentien worthy of any passionate acts from her.
Finally, before the court rose on this penultimate day of the trial, which would be followed on the morrow by theplaidoirie – the summing- up statements from the prosecution, the defence and the trial’s president – the audience heard a reading of Robert’s interview with the juge d’instruction, based on Marie’s questions to him; and the tense encounter of the former lovers in front of the judge.
Marie’s questions are about her personal honesty and love; Robert’s answers are about playboy rules, in other words about sex for money. His repeated insistence that Marie was never a ‘disinterested’ mistress, that she had always been calculating and dreamed of marrying him in order to get her hands on his fortune, won him no favours with the public. Nor did his recurrent emphasis on being un parfait galant homme, a perfect gentleman who had given Marie a monthly pension. After the public had heard Investigating Magistrate Guillot’s finely honed description of Robert’s cool assurance contrasted with Marie’s extreme pallor, her fixed stare at her lover as she emphatically denied everything he said, came her dramatic final words to Guillot, uttered in exhausted despair: ‘I was sure he would be forewarned of my questions to him. He could prepare his defence, while my strength utterly left me. I feel dead. He’s a liar, a dishonest man! May God lend me the strength to confound him before the court; without that, I’d be better off dying right away!’
Sensation erupted in the courtroom.
The next day, 8 April, Maître Lachaud makes his summary statement for the defence. It lasts three-and-a-half hours. According to the participants, these are dramatically breath-taking hours in which Marie’s entire life and great love are given expression. Reading out her letters, evoking her trajectory, Lachaud describes a feminine heart tossed between indignation at her lover and hope that he might recognize their child. The portrait that emerges is of an utterly honest woman, so innocent and decent, despite the theatrical world she moves in, that she doesn’t recognize vice; a woman consumed by love for her child, a good woman who wanted only to love and instead found herself tormented, dishonoured and abandoned by a worldly seducer. Honour is key to Marie’s final retributive act. There is more to life than mere life, Lachaud states: there is honour.
Lachaud’s address is about far more than a justifiable sur-excitation on Marie’s part: what is on trial here are the morals and sexual etiquette of an entire class. A war of values is under way. Why shouldn’t an honest and good woman of heart, not a prostitute, a woman of rectitude and generous passion like Marie, sincerely believe a man like Gentien when he pays court to her, telling her she ‘makes him a better man’, and not think he’s in search of nothing more than a roll in the hay, a passing affair. But no, Gentien belongs to a class of men who only want fleeting liaisons. The prosecutor had made reference to the estrangement of Marie’s ambitions. For him a difference of wealth would seem to put an insurmountable obstacle in the way of union. But Lachaud has only contempt for this attitude. He doesn’t understand why a young independent man of a fortune, valued at eighty thousand francs in annual rents, shouldn’t have the right to give his name to a poor but estimable woman, if he loves her and has made her a mother.
The public erupt in cheers at Lachaud’s moral fury. As if they were in a boulevard theatre, they applaud his peroration. Marie has given her word that she will never again target the man she now contemns. She has never lied.
‘Will you condemn her, Gentlemen of the Jury?’ Lachaud asks. ‘No you won’t: there is a limit to human endurance. You’ll say that beyond the life of man there is something even more valuable: honour. You’ll see beyond this regrettable act and you’ll ask yourselves if this man shouldn’t serve as an example to those sceptics who live life á la Gentien. That will be the great educative value of this trial.’
Turning to Marie, he offers her his closing remarks:
‘Courage, my child. Life is hard because this man has taken everything from you – your honour, your future, your tranquillity of spirit. You will suffer greatly; liberty won’t give you happiness. The verdict of acquittal which will soon be pronounced won’t be a consolation. None is possible. But at least it will give you some relief. Slowly through work, calm and a regular life, you’ll pull yourself together, and achieve the rehabilitation you wish for.
‘I place this unfortunate woman in your hands, members of the jury. I have confidence in your justice.’
Apparently exhausted, Maître Lachaud then sat somnolent, head in arms, while the president of the court summed up. In his attempt to be even-handed and perhaps redress the feeling against Gentien, President Bachelier made the mistake of saying to the jury that they needn’t worry, in their deliberations, about the set sentence: ‘It’ll be as you wish it.’
Quick as lightning Maître Lachaud was on his feet again, creating the moment that appears in all his obituaries and which resulted in a change in French legal procedure.
‘You have no right to say this,’ he tells the president. ‘No right to suggest that Marie Bière could serve a mere few months in prison, when you clearly know the contrary. The jury needs to have it plainly spelt out that if they condemn this woman without mitigating circumstances, it means death. With mitigation, the sentence still means a minumum of five years of forced labour.’
Bachelier’s monocle falls from his eye, he loses his place in his notes. The public, meanwhile, have exploded in shouts of ‘Bravo!’ For a full five minutes there is havoc in the courtroom. Everyone protests at the ways in which presidents present their résumés to the jury (in other words, ‘direct’ the jury). When Bachelier speaks again, he is so befuddled that he calls Maître Lachaud ‘Monsieur Bière’ and the accused ‘Mademoiselle Lachaud’ ... Or so the papers like to report.
The jury go out for a mere five minutes before returning with a unanimous acquittal. It is clear that Marie Bière is guilty of having attacked and maimed Robert Gentien. But these good men and true are acting on that conviction intime, that intimate conviction, that the revolutionaries of the 1790s had built into the jury system: they, better than all the professionals, know where justice lies. This waif- like suffering mother who has lost her child and mourned her with a passion beyond reason is a Republican heroine. Her criminality is only an excess of what is best in virtuous women – their nurturing, maternal souls.
Given that French newspapers could cover all aspects of a case both before and during the trial, and that juries had no restriction on what they could read or whom they could discuss the case with, their own ‘inner conviction’ was inevitably also that most loudly sung in the press.
When the verdict on Marie Bière is announced, jubilation breaks out in the courtroom. According to Albert Bataille, no one wants to leave. People stay to watch the smile illuminating Marie’s face, the kiss she gives Maître Lachaud, the hug she receives from her oldest friend ... Marie Bière has regained her liberty. She has also struck a new note of freedom for women of all classes. The insouciant and oft-damaging behaviour of careless cavalier seducers is no longer to be universally tolerated as a norm. To be poor, to be a performer, is no longer a certain mark of exploitable availability for rich rakes.
But the jury’s and clearly the attendant public’s verdict on Marie Bière sends out other unspoken signals to the ten-year-old Rep
ublic. It now seems more permissible for women to act, and to act violently if need be, to protect or avenge their honour. Passion that topples reason can create a mitigating partial madness, unwritten in law but understood by juries. This condition needn’t affect the rest of one’s mental properties, nor is it socially dangerous, in that it is unlikely to recur.
Over the next decades, love crimes committed by women become a feature of the belle époque – a period enamoured of the drama of public spectacle, whether on the boulevards, in the playhouses or in the courts, in the press, in medical fora such as Jean-Martin Charcot’s lectures where hysterics are paraded, or in Parliament. Through this multi-faceted theatre, the new Republican democracy is arguing out the values it wants to embrace: what it means to be a responsible citizen, what it means to be male or female, father or mother, mad or sane. Republican governments come and go, arguments about the secular and the religious state and the institutions that belong to each are as turbulent as those between the sexes, until in 1905 the separation of Church and state is enacted. Meanwhile, between 1871 and the turn of the century some 264 people pleading at the Central Criminal Court in Paris, the Cour d’Assises, claim their crimes are crimes passionnels.
As Ruth Harris has pointed out in her groundbreaking study, Murders and Madness (1989), the crime-of-passion defence rose faster in this period than the overall rate of murder, though this also went up. In 1880, out of a total of thirty crimes in the Paris area there were six crimes of passion. By 1905 the number had risen to thirty-five out of a hundred. The great majority of these love crimes – two hundred – were committed by men against wives or partners in incidents of alcohol-fuelled domestic violence, which archives show to be endemic and often too matter-of-factly accepted, particularly amongst the poor.
As a proportion of the total crime that women commit, the number of women’s passionate crimes is much higher than men’s. Male passionate crime never rises above a third of total murders or attempted murders. For women, it is the principal form: five out of six in 1881, nine out of eleven in 1905, fourteen out of fourteen in 1910. Juries tend to acquit ‘passionate’ women more than men, though they also acquit men when their wives or partners can be shown, often enough through gossip or by suggestion with little grounding in hard material evidence, to be straying. When female offenders are not acquitted, the sentences they receive are proportionately far lighter than men’s. Class plays its part in this configuration: middle- class and therefore virtuous women – popular myth admixed with a degree of reality wants to show – will only engage in violent crime if catapulted into it by that passion which overturns reason and is akin to madness. And women’s reason, as the mind doctors have long suggested, is more easily unseated than men’s.
Trials of Passion Page 20