She Stands Accused

by She Stands Accused(Lit)

  This last answer was true in part. The evidence on which Helene had been dismissed the convent was circumstantial. A sister from the community described Helene's behaviour otherwise as edifying indeed.

  After the merciless fashion of French judges, the President came back time and again to attack Helene on the question of poison. If Perrotte Mace did not get the poison from her—from whom, then?

  ``I don't know anything of poison,'' was the reply, with the pious addendum, ``and, God willing, I never will!''

  This, with variations, was her constant answer.

  ``Qu'est-ce que c'est l'arsenic? Je n'en ai jamais vu d'arsenic, moi!''

  The President had occasion later to take her up on these denials. The curate of Seglien came to give evidence. He had been curate during the time of M. Conan, in whose service Helene had been at that time. He could swear that M. Conan had repeatedly told his servants to watch that the domestic animals did not get at the poisoned bait prepared for the rats. M. Conan's servants had complete access to the arsenic used.

  Helene interposed at this point. ``I know,'' she said, ``that M. Conan had asked for arsenic, but I wasn't there at the time. My aunt told me about it.''

  The President reminded her that in her interrogaion she had declared she knew nothing of arsenic, nor had heard anyone speak of it. Helene sullenly persisted in her first declaration, but modified it with the admission that her aunt had told her the stuff was dangerous, and not to be used save with the strictest precautions.

  This evidence of the arsenic at Seglien was brought forward on the second day of the trial, when witnesses began to be heard. Before pursuing the point of where the accused might have obtained the poison I should like to quote, as typical of the hypocritical piety exhibited by Helene, one of her answers on the first day.

  After reminding her that Rose Tessier's sickness had increased after taking a tisane that Helene had prepared the President asked if it was not the fact that she alone had looked after Rose.

  ``No,'' Helen replied. ``Everybody was meddling. All I did was put the tisane on to boil. I have suffered a great deal,'' she added gratuitously. ``The good God will give me grace to bear up to the end. If I have not died of my sufferings in prison it is because God's hand has guided and sustained me.''

  With that in parenthesis, let us return to the evidence of the witnesses on the second day of the trial. A great deal of it had to do with deaths on which, under the prescription, no charge could be made against Helene, and with thefts that equally could not be the subject of accusation.

  Dr Galzain, of Ponivy, who, eighteen years before, had performed the autopsy on Le Drogo, cure of Guern, testified that though he had then been puzzled by the pathological conditions, he was now prepared to say they were consistent with arsenical poisoning.

  Martel, a pharmacist, brother of the doctor who had attended Le Drogo, spoke of his brother's suspicions, suspicions which had recurred on meeting with the cases at Bubry. They had been diverted by the lavishly affectionate attendance Helene had given to the sufferers.

  Relatives of the victims of Locmine told of Helene's predictions of death, and of her plaints that death followed her everywhere. They also remarked on the very kind ministrations of Helene.

  Dr Toussaint, doctor at Locmine, and son to the house in which Helene had for a time been servant, told of his perplexity over the symptoms in the cases of the Widow Lorey and the youth Leboucher. In 1835 he had been called in to see Helene herself, who was suffering from an intermittent fever. Next day the fever had disappeared. He was told that she had been dosing herself, and he was shown a packet which had been in her possession. It contained substances that looked like kermes-mineral,[30] some saffron, and a white powder that amounted to perhaps ten grammes. He had disliked Helene at first sight. She had not been long in his mother's service when his mother's maid-companion (Anne Eveno), who also had no liking for Helene, fell ill and died. His father fell violently ill in turn, seemed to get better, and looked like recovering. But inexplicable complications supervened, and his father died suddenly of a haemorrhage of the intestinal canal. His sister Julie, who had been the first to fall sick, also seemed to recover, but after the death of the father had a relapse. In his idea Helene, having cured herself, was able to drug the invalids in her care. The witness ordered her to be kept completely away from the sufferers, but one night she contrived to get the nurses out of the way. A confrere he called in ordered bouillon to be given. Helene had charge of the kitchen, and it was she who prepared the bouillon. It was she who administered it. Three hours later his sister died in agony.

  [30] Or, simply, kermes—a pharmaceutical composition, containing antimony and sodium sulphates and oxide of antimony—formerly used as an expectorant.

  The witness suggested an autopsy. His family would not agree. The pious behaviour of Helene put her beyond suspicion, but he took it on himself to dismiss her. During the illness of his father, when Helene herself was ill, he went reluctantly to see her, being told that she was dying. Instead of finding her in bed he came upon her making some sort of white sauce. As soon as he appeared she threw herself into bed and pretended to be suffering intense pain. A little later he asked to see the sauce. It had disappeared.

  He had advised his niece to reserve his sister's evacuations. His niece replied that Helene was so scrupulously tidy that such vessels were never left about, but were taken away at once to be emptied and cleaned. ``I revised my opinion of the woman after she had gone,'' added the witness. ``I thought her very well behaved.''

  HELENE. I never had any drugs in my possession—never. When I had fever I took the powders given me by the doctor, but I did not know what they were!

  THE PRESIDENT. Why did you say yesterday that nothing was ever found in your luggage?

  HELENE. I didn't remember.

  THE PRESIDENT. What were you doing with the saffron? Wasn't it in your possession during the time you were in Seglien?

  HELENE. I was taking it for my blood.

  THE PRESIDENT. And the white powder—did it also come from Seglien?

  HELENE [energetically]. Never have I had white powder in my luggage! Never have I seen arsenic! Never has anyone spoken to me of arsenic!

  Upon this the President rightly reminded her that she had said only that morning that her aunt had talked to her of arsenic at Seglien, and had warned her of its lethal qualities. ``You deny the existence of that white powder,'' said the President, ``because you know it was poison. You put it away from you with horror!''

  The accused several times tried to answer this charge, but failed. Her face was beaded with moisture.

  THE PRESIDENT. Had you or had you not any white powder at Losmine?

  HELENE. I can't say if I still had fever there.

  THE PRESIDENT. What was that powder? When did you first have it?

  HELENE. I had taken it at Locmine. Somebody gave it to me for two sous.

  THE PRESIDENT. Why didn t you say so at the beginning, instead of waiting until you are confounded by the witness? [To Dr Toussaint] What would the powder be, monsieur? What powder would one prescribe for fever?

  DR TOUSSAINT. Sulphate of quinine; but that's not what it was.

  Questioned by the advocate for the defence, the witness said he would not affirm that the powder he saw was arsenic. His present opinion, however, was that his father and sister had died from injections of arsenic in small doses.

  A witness from Locmine spoke of her sister's two children becoming ill after taking chocolate prepared by the accused. The latter told her that a mob had followed her in the street, accusing her of the deaths of those she had been servant to.

  Then came one of those curious samples of `what the soldier said' that are so often admitted in French criminal trials as evidence. Louise Clocher said she had seen Helene on the road between Auray and Lorient in the company of a soldier. When she told some one of it people said, ``That wasn't a soldier! It was the devil you saw following her!''

  On
e rather sympathizes with Helene in her protest against this testimony.

  From Ploermel, Auray, Lorient, and other places doctors and relatives of the dead came to bear witness to Helene's cooking and nursing activities, and to speak of the thefts she had been found committing. Where any suspicion had touched Helene her piety and her tender care of the sufferers had disarmed it. The astonishing thing is that, with all those rumours of `white livers' and so on, the woman could proceed from place to place within a few miles of each other, and even from house to house in the same towns, leaving death in her tracks, without once being brought to bay. Take the evidence of M. Le Dore, son-in-law of that Mme Hetel who died in Auray, His mother-in-law became ill just after Helene's reputation was brought to his notice. The old lady died next day.

  ``The day following the revelation,'' said M. Le Dore, ``I put Helene out. She threw herself on the ground uttering fearsome yells. The day's meal had been prepared. I had it thrown out, and put Helene herself to the door with her luggage, INTO WHICH SHE HASTILY STOWED A PACKET. Mme Hetel died next day in fearful agony.''

  I am responsible for the italicizing. It is hard to understand why M. Le Dore did no more than put Helene to the door. He was suspicious enough to throw out the meal prepared by Helene, and he saw her hastily stow a packet in her luggage. But, though he was Mayor of Auray, he did nothing more about his mother-in-law's death. It is to be remarked, however, that the Hetels themselves were against the brusque dismissal of Helene. She had ``smothered the mother with care and attentions.''

  But one gets perhaps the real clue to Helene's long immunity from the remark made in court by M. Breger, son-in-law of that Lorient couple, M. and Mme Dupuyde-Lome. He had thought for a moment of suspecting Helene of causing the child's death and the illness of the rest of the family, but ``there seemed small grounds. What interest had the girl in cutting off their lives?''

  It is a commonplace that murder without motive is the hardest to detect. The deaths that Helene Jegado contrived between 1833 and 1841, twenty-three in number, and the six attempts at murder which she made in that length of time, are, without exception, crimes quite lacking in discoverable motive. It is not at all on record that she had reason for wishing to eliminate any one of those twenty-three persons. She seems to have poisoned for the mere sake of poisoning. Save to the ignorant and superstitious, such as followed her in the streets to accuse her of having a ``white liver'' and a breath that meant death, she was an unfortunate creature with an odd knack of finding herself in houses where `accidents' happened. Time and again you find her being taken in by kindly people after such `accidents,' and made an object of sympathy for the dreadful coincidences that were making her so unhappy. It was out of sympathy that the Widow Lorey, of Locmine, took Helene into her house. On the widow's death the niece arrived. In court the niece described the scene on her arrival. ``Helene embraced me,'' she said. ``'Unhappy me!' she wept. `Wherever I go everybody dies!' I pitied and consoled her.'' She pitied and consoled Helene, though they were saying in the town that the girl had a white liver and that her breath brought death!

  Where Helene had neglected to combine her poisoning with detected pilfering the people about her victims could see nothing wrong in her conduct. Witness after witness —father, sister, husband, niece, son-in-law, or relation in some sort to this or that victim of Helene's—repeated in court, ``The girl went away with nothing against her.'' And even those who afterwards found articles missing from their household goods: ``At the same time I did not suspect her probity. She went to Mass every morning and to the evening services. I was very surprised to find some of my napkins among the stuff Helene was accused of stealing.'' ``I did not know of Helene's thefts until I was shown the objects stolen,'' said a lady of Vannes. ``Without that proof I would never have suspected the girl. Helene claimed affiliation with a religious sisterhood, served very well, and was a worker.''

  It is perhaps of interest to note how Helene answered the testimony regarding her thieving proclivities. Mme Lejoubioux, of Vannes, said her furnishing bills went up considerably during the time Helene was in her service. Helene had purloined two cloths.

  Helene: ``That was for vengeance. I was furious at being sent away.

  Sieur Cesar le Clerc and Mme Gauthier swore to thefts from them by Helene.

  Helene: ``I stole nothing from Mme Gauthier except one bottle of wine. If I commit a larceny it is from choler. WHEN I'M FURIOUS I STEAL!''

  It was when Helene began to poison for vengeance that retribution fell upon her. Her fondness for the bottle started to get her into trouble. It made her touchy. Up to 1841 she had poisoned for the pleasure of it, masking her secret turpitude with an outward show of piety, of being helpful in time of trouble. By the time she arrived in Rennes, in 1848, after seven years during which her murderous proclivities seem to have slept, her character as a worker, if not as a Christian, had deteriorated. Her piety, in the face of her fondness for alcohol and her slovenly habits, and against her now frequently exhibited bursts of temper and ill-will, appeared the hypocrisy it actually was. Her essays in poisoning now had purpose and motive behind them. Nemesis, so long at her heels, overtook her.

  % III

  It is not clear in the accounts available to me just what particular murders by poison, what attempts at poisoning, and what thefts Helene was charged with in the indictment at Rennes. Twenty-three poisonings, six attempts, and a number of thefts had been washed out, it may be as well to repeat, by the prescription legale. But from her arrival in Rennes, leaving the thefts out of account, her activities had accounted for the following: In the Rabot household one death (Albert, the son) and three illnesses (Rabot, Mme Rabot, the mother-in-law); in the Ozanne establishment one death (that of the little son), in the hotel of the Roussells one death (that of Perrotte Mace) and one illness (that of the Veuve Roussell); at the Bidards two deaths (Rose Tessier and Rosalie Sarrazin). In this last establishment there was also one attempt at poisoning which I have not yet mentioned, that of a young servant, named Francoise Huriaux, who for a short time had taken the place of Rose Tessier. We thus have five deaths and five attempts in Rennes, all of which could be indictable. But, as already stated, the indictment covered three deaths and three attempts.

  It is hard to say, from verbatim reports of the trial, where the matter of the indictment begins to be handled. It would seem from the evidence produced that proof was sought of all five deaths and all five attempts that Helene was supposed to be guilty of in Rennes. The father of the boy Ozanne was called before the Rabot witnesses, though the Rabot death and illnesses occurred before the death of the Ozanne child. We may, however, take the order of affairs as dealt with in the court. We may see something of motive on Helene's part suggested in M. Ozanne's evidence, and an indication of her method of covering her crime.

  M. Ozanne said that Helene, in his house, drank eau de vie in secret, and, to conceal her thefts, filled the bottle up with cider. He discovered the trick, and reproached Helene for it. She denied the accusation with vigour, and angrily announced her intention of leaving. Mme Ozanne took pity on Helene, and told her she might remain several days longer. On the Tuesday following the young child became ill. The illness seemed to be a fleeting one, and the father and mother thought he had recovered. On the Saturday, however, the boy was seized by vomiting, and the parents wondered if they should send for the doctor. ``If the word was mine,'' said Helene, who had the boy on her knees, ``and the child as ill as he looks, I should not hesitate.'' The doctor was sent for about noon on Sunday. He thought it only a slight illness. Towards evening the child began to complain of pain all over his body. His hands and feet were icy cold. His body grew taut. About six o'clock the doctor came back. ``My God!'' he exclaimed. ``It's the croup!'' He tried to apply leeches, but the boy died within a few minutes. Helene hastened the little body into its shroud.

  Helene, said Ozanne, always talked of poison if anyone left their food. ``Do you think I'm poisoning you?'' she would ask.

&nb
sp; A girl named Cambrai gave evidence that Helene, coming away from the cemetery after the burial of the child, said to her, ``I am not so sorry about the child. Its parents have treated me shabbily.'' The witness thought Helene too insensitive and reproached her.

  ``That's a lie!'' the accused shouted. ``I loved the child!''

  The doctor, M. Brute, gave evidence next. He still believed the child had died of a croup affection, the most violent he had ever seen. The President questioned him closely on the symptoms he had seen in the child, but the doctor stuck to his idea. He had seen nothing to make him suspect poisoning.

  The President: ``It is strange that in all the cases we have under review the doctors saw nothing at first that was serious. They admit illness and prescribe mild remedies, and then, suddenly, the patients get worse and die.''

  M. Victor Rabot was called next. To begin with, he said, Helene's services were satisfactory. He had given her notice because he found her stealing his wine. Upon this Helene showed the greatest discontent, and it was then that Mme Rabot fell ill. A nurse was put in charge of her, but Helene found a way to get rid of her. Helene had no love for his child. The child had a horror of the servant, because she was dirty and took snuff. In consequence Helene had a spite against the boy. Helene had never been seen eating any of the dishes prepared for the family, and even insisted on keeping certain of the kitchen dishes for her own use.

  At the request of his father-in-law Helene had gone to get a bottle of violet syrup from the pharmacist. The bottle was not capped. His father-in-law thought the syrup had gone bad, because it was as red as mulberry syrup, and refused to give it to his daughter (Mme Rabot). The bottle was returned to the pharmacist, who remarked that the colour of the syrup had changed, and that he did not recognize it as his own.

  Mme Rabot having corroborated her husband's evidence, and told of Helene's bad temper, thieving, and disorderliness, Dr Vincent Guyot, of Rennes, was called.