Spanish authorities, informed of his presence in Havana, directed the
police to spare no effort to lay hands on him. The Hotel Roma, at which
he had been staying, was visited; but Eyraud, scenting danger, had gone
to an hotel opposite the railway station. His things were packed ready
for flight on the following morning. How was he to pass the night? True
to his instincts, a house of ill-fame, at which he had been entertained
already, seemed the safest and most pleasant refuge; but, when, seedy
and shabby, he presented himself at the door, he was sent back into the
street. It was past one in the morning. The lonely murderer wandered
aimlessly in the streets, restless, nervous, a prey to apprehension,
not knowing where to go. Again the man from Sevres met him. "It's all
up with me!" said Eyraud, and disappeared in the darkness. At two in the
morning a police officer, who had been patrolling the town in search of
the criminal, saw, in the distance, a man walking to and fro, seemingly
uncertain which way to turn. Hearing footsteps the man turned round and
walked resolutely past the policeman, saying good-night in Spanish.
"Who are you? What's your address?" the officer asked abruptly. "Gorski,
Hotel Roma!" was the answer. This was enough for the officer. Eyraud was
know{sic} to have passed as "Gorski," the Hotel Roma had already been
searched as one of his hiding-places. To seize and handcuff "Gorski"
was the work of a moment. An examination of the luggage left by the
so-called Gorski at his last hotel and a determined attempt at suicide
made by their prisoner during the night proved conclusively that to the
Spanish police was the credit of having laid by the heels, ten months
after the commission of the crime, Michel Eyraud, one of the assassins
of the bailiff Gouffe.
On June 16 Eyraud was delivered over to the French police. He reached
France on the 20th, and on July 1 made his first appearance before the
examining magistrate.
It will be well at this point in the narrative to describe how Eyraud
and Gabrielle Bompard came to be associated together in crime. Gabrielle
Bompard was twenty-two years of age at the time of her arrest, the
fourth child of a merchant of Lille, a strong, hardworking, respectable
man. Her mother, a delicate woman, had died of lung disease when
Gabrielle was thirteen. Even as a child lying and vicious, thinking only
of men and clothes, Gabrielle, after being expelled as incorrigible from
four educational establishments, stayed at a fifth for some three years.
There she astonished those in authority over her by her precocious
propensity for vice, her treacherous and lying disposition, and a
lewdness of tongue rare in one of her age and comparative inexperience.
At eighteen she returned to her father's house, only to quit it for a
lover whom, she alleged, had hypnotised and then seduced her. Gabrielle
was singularly susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. Her father implored
the family doctor to endeavour to persuade her, while in the hypnotic
state, to reform her deplorable conduct. The doctor did his best but
with no success. He declared Gabrielle to be a neuropath, who had not
found in her home such influences as would have tended to overcome her
vicious instincts. Perhaps the doctor was inclined to sympathise rather
too readily with his patient, if we are to accept the report of those
distinguished medical gentlemen who, at a later date, examined carefully
into the mental and physical characteristics of Gabrielle Bompard.
This girl of twenty had developed into a supreme instance of the
"unmoral" woman, the conscienceless egoist, morally colour-blind, vain,
lewd, the intelligence quick and alert but having no influence whatever
on conduct. One instance will suffice to show the sinister levity, the
utter absence of all moral sense in this strange creature.
After the murder of Gouffe, Gabrielle spent the night alone with the
trunk containing the bailiff's corpse. Asked by M. Goron what were her
sensations during this ghastly vigil, she replied with a smile, "You'd
never guess what a funny idea come into my head! You see it was not very
pleasant for me being thus tete-a-tete with a corpse, I couldn't sleep.
So I thought what fun it would be to go into the street and pick up some
respectable gentleman from the provinces. I'd bring him up to the room,
and just as he was beginning to enjoy himself say, 'Would you like to
see a bailiff?' open the trunk suddenly and, before he could recover
from his horror, run out into the street and fetch the police. Just
think what a fool the respectable gentleman would have looked when the
officers came!"
Such callousness is almost unsurpassed in the annals of criminal
insensibility. Nero fiddling over burning Rome, Thurtell fresh from the
murder of Weare, inviting Hunt, the singer and his accomplice, to "tip
them a stave" after supper, Edwards, the Camberwell murderer, reading
with gusto to friends the report of a fashionable divorce case, post
from the murder of a young married couple and their baby--even examples
such as these pale before the levity of the "little demon," as the
French detectives christened Gabrielle.
Such was Gabrielle Bompard when, on July 26, exactly one year to a day
before the murder of Gouffe, she met in Paris Michel Eyraud. These two
were made for each other. If Gabrielle were unmoral, Eyraud was immoral.
Forty-six at the time of Gouffe's murder, he was sufficiently practised
in vice to appreciate and enjoy the flagrantly vicious propensities
of the young Gabrielle. All his life Eyraud had spent his substance in
debauchery. His passions were violent and at times uncontrollable,
but unlike many remarkable men of a similar temperament, this strong
animalism was not in his case accompanied by a capacity for vigorous
intellectual exertion or a great power of work. "Understand this," said
Eyraud to one of the detectives who brought him back to France, "I have
never done any work, and I never will do any work." To him work was
derogatory; better anything than that. Unfortunately it could not be
avoided altogether, but with Eyraud such work as he was compelled at
different times to endure was only a means for procuring money for
his degraded pleasures, and when honest work became too troublesome,
dishonesty served in its stead. When he met Gabrielle he was almost at
the end of his tether, bankrupt and discredited. At a pinch he might
squeeze a little money out of his wife, with whom he continued to live
in spite of his open infidelities.
Save for such help as he could get from her small dowry, he was without
resources. A deserter from the army during the Mexican war in 1869, he
had since then engaged in various commercial enterprises, all of
which had failed, chiefly through his own extravagance, violence and
dishonesty. Gabrielle was quick to empty his pockets of what little
remained in them. The proceeds of her own immorality, which Eyraud
was quite ready to share, soon proved insufficient to replenish them.
Confronted with ruin, Eyraud and Gompard hit on a plan by which the
woman should decoy some would-be admirer to a convenient trysting-place.
There, dead or alive, the victim was to be made the means of supplying
their wants.
On further reflection dead seemed more expedient than alive, extortion
from a living victim too risky an enterprise. Their plans were carefully
prepared. Gabrielle was to hire a ground-floor apartment, so that any
noise, such as footsteps or the fall of a body, would not be heard by
persons living underneath.
At the beginning of July, 1889, Eyraud and Bompard were in London. There
they bought at a West End draper's a red and white silk girdle, and at
a shop in Gower Street a large travelling trunk. They bought, also in
London, about thirteen feet of cording, a pulley and, on returning to
Paris on July 20, some twenty feet of packing-cloth, which Gabrielle,
sitting at her window on the fine summer evenings, sewed up into a large
bag.
The necessary ground-floor apartment had been found at No. 3 Rue
Tronson-Ducoudray. Here Gabrielle installed herself on July 24. The
bedroom was convenient for the assassins' purpose, the bed standing in
an alcove separated by curtains from the rest of the room. To the beam
forming the crosspiece at the entrance into the alcove Eyraud fixed a
pulley. Through the pulley ran a rope, having at one end of it a swivel,
so that a man, hiding behind the curtains could, by pulling the rope
strongly, haul up anything that might be attached to the swivel at the
other end. It was with the help of this simple piece of mechanism and a
good long pull from Eyraud that the impecunious couple hoped to refill
their pockets.
The victim was chosen on the 25th. Eyraud had already known of Gouffe's
existence, but on that day, Thursday, in a conversation with a common
friend, Eyraud learnt that the bailiff Gouffe was rich, that he was in
the habit of having considerable sums of money in his care, and that on
Friday nights Gouffe made it his habit to sleep from home. There was no
time to lose. The next day Gabrielle accosted Gouffe as he was going to
his dejeuner and, after some little conversation agreed to meet him at
eight o'clock that evening.
The afternoon was spent in preparing for the bailiff's reception in the
Rue Tronson-Ducoudray. A lounge-chair was so arranged that it stood with
its back to the alcove, within which the pulley and rope had been
fixed by Eyraud. Gouffe was to sit on the chair, Gabrielle on his knee.
Gabrielle was then playfully to slip round his neck, in the form of a
noose, the cord of her dressing gown and, unseen by him, attach one end
of it to the swivel of the rope held by Eyraud. Her accomplice had only
to give a strong pull and the bailiff's course was run.(17)
(17) One writer on the case has suggested that the story of the murder
by rope and pulley was invented by Eyraud and Bompard to mitigate the
full extent of their guilt, and that the bailiff was strangled while
in bed with the woman. But the purchase of the necessary materials in
London would seem to imply a more practical motive for the use of rope
and pulley.
At six o'clock Eyraud and Bompard dined together, after which Eyraud
returned to the apartment, whilst Bompard went to meet Gouffe near the
Madeline Church. What occurred afterwards at No. 3 Rue Tronson-Ducoudray
is best described in the statement made by Eyraud at his trial.
"At a quarter past eight there was a ring at the bell. I hid myself
behind the curtain. Gouffe came in. 'You've a nice little nest here,' he
said. 'Yes, a fancy of mine,' replied Gabrielle, 'Eyraud knows nothing
about it.' 'Oh, you're tired of him,' asked Gouffe. 'Yes,' she replied,
'that's all over.' Gabrielle drew Gouffe down on to the chair. She
showed him the cord of her dressing-gown and said that a wealthy admirer
had given it to her. 'Very elegant,' said Gouffe, 'but I didn't come
here to see that.'
"She then sat on his knee and, as if in play, slipped the cord round his
neck; then putting her hand behind him, she fixed the end of the cord
into the swivel, and said to him laughingly, 'What a nice necktie it
makes!' That was the signal. Eyraud pulled the cord vigorously and, in
two minutes, Gouffe had ceased to live."
Eyraud took from the dead man his watch and ring, 150 francs and his
keys. With these he hurried to Gouffe's office and made a fevered search
for money. It was fruitless. In his trembling haste the murderer missed
a sum of 14,000 francs that was lying behind some papers, and returned,
baffled and despairing, to his mistress and the corpse. The crime had
been a ghastly failure. Fortified by brandy and champagne, and with the
help of the woman, Eyraud stripped the body, put it into the bag that
had been sewn by Gabrielle, and pushed the bag into the trunk. Leaving
his mistress to spend the night with their hateful luggage, Eyraud
returned home and, in his own words, "worn out by the excitement of the
day, slept heavily."
The next day Eyraud, after saying good-bye to his wife and daughter,
left with Gabrielle for Lyons. On the 28th they got rid at Millery of
the body of Gouffe and the trunk in which it had travelled; his boots
and clothes they threw into the sea at Marseilles. There Eyraud borrowed
500 francs from his brother. Gabrielle raised 2,000 francs in Paris,
where they spent August 18 and 19, after which they left for England,
and from England sailed for America. During their short stay in
Paris Eyraud had the audacity to call at the apartment in the Rue
Tronson-Ducoudray for his hat, which he had left behind; in the hurry of
the crime he had taken away Gouffe's by mistake.
Eyraud had been brought back to Paris from Cuba at the end of June,
1890. Soon after his return, in the room in which Gouffe had been done
to death and in the presence of the examining magistrate, M. Goron, and
some fifteen other persons, Eyraud was confronted with his accomplice.
Each denied vehemently, with hatred and passion, the other's story.
Neither denied the murder, but each tried to represent the other as the
more guilty of the two. Eyraud said that the suggestion and plan of the
crime had come from Gabrielle; that she had placed around Gouffe's neck
the cord that throttled him. Gabrielle attributed the inception of the
murder to Eyraud, and said that he had strangled the bailiff with his
own hands.
Eyraud, since his return, had seemed indifferent to his own fate;
whatever it might be, he wished that his mistress should share it. He
had no objection to going to the guillotine as long as he was sure that
Gabrielle would accompany him. She sought to escape such a consummation
by representing herself as a mere instrument in Eyraud's hands. It was
even urged in her defence that, in committing the crime, she had
acted under the influence of hypnotic suggestion on the part of her
accomplice. Three doctors appointed by the examining magistrate to
report on her mental state came unanimously to the conclusion that,
though undoubtedly susceptible to hypnotic suggestion, there was no
ground for thinking that she had been acting under such influence when
she participated in the murder of Gouffe. Intellectually the medical
gentlemen found her alert and sane enough, but morally blind.
The trial of Eyraud and Bompard took place before the Paris Assize Court
on December 16, 1890. It had been delayed owing to the proceedings of an
enterprising journalist. The names of the jurymen who were to be called
on to serve at the assize had been published. The journalist conceived
the brilliant idea of interviewing some of these gentlemen.
He succeeded in seeing four of them, but in his article which appeared
in the Matin newspaper said that he had seen twenty-one. Nine of them,
he stated, had declared themselves in favour of Gabrielle Bompard, but
in some of these he had discerned a certain "eroticism of the pupil of
the eye" to which he attributed their leniency. A month's imprisonment
was the reward of these flights of journalistic imagination.
A further scandal in connection with the trial was caused by the lavish
distribution of tickets of admission to all sorts and kinds of persons
by the presiding judge, M. Robert, whose occasional levities in the
course of the proceedings are melancholy reading. As a result of
his indulgence a circular was issued shortly after the trial by M.
Fallieres, then Minister of Justice, limiting the powers of presidents
of assize in admitting visitors into the reserved part of the court.
The proceedings at the trial added little to the known facts of the
case. Both Eyraud and Bompard continued to endeavour to shift the blame
on to each other's shoulders. A curious feature of the trial was the
appearance for the defence of a M. Liegeois, a professor of law at
Nancy. To the dismay of the Court, he took advantage of a clause in
the Code of Criminal Instruction which permits a witness to give his
evidence without interruption, to deliver an address lasting four hours
on hypnotic suggestion. He undertook to prove that, not only Gabrielle
Bompard, but Troppmann, Madame Weiss, and Gabrielle Fenayrou also, had
committed murder under the influence of suggestion.(18) In replying
to this rather fantastic defence, the Procureur-General, M. Quesnay de
Beaurepaire, quoted a statement of Dr. Brouardel, the eminent medical
jurist who had been called for the prosecution, that "there exists no
instance of a crime, or attempted crime committed under the influence of
hypnotic suggestion." As to the influence of Eyraud over Bompard, M. de
Beaurepaire said: "The one outstanding fact that has been eternally true
for six thousand years is that the stronger will can possess the weaker:
that is no peculiar part of the history of hypnotism; it belongs to the
history of the world. Dr. Liegeois himself, in coming to this court
to-day, has fallen a victim to the suggestion of the young advocate who
has persuaded him to come here to air his theories." The Court wisely
declined to allow an attempt to be made to hypnotise the woman Bompard
in the presence of her judges, and M. Henri Robert, her advocate, in his
appeal to the jury, threw over altogether any idea of hypnotic
suggestion, resting his plea on the moral weakness and irresponsibility
of his client.
(18) Moll in his "Hypnotism" (London, 1909) states that, after Gabrielle
Bompard's release M. Liegeois succeeded in putting her into a hypnotic
state, in which she reacted the scene in which the crime was originally
suggested to her. The value of such experiments with a woman as
mischievous and untruthful as Gabrielle Bompard must be very doubtful.
No trustworthy instance seems to be recorded in which a crime has
been committed under, or brought about by, hypnotic or post-hypnotic
suggestion, though, according to Moll, "the possibility of such a crime
cannot be unconditionally denied."
In sheer wickedness there seems little enough to choose between Eyraud
and Bompard. But, in asking a verdict without extenuating circumstances
against the woman, the Procureur-General was by no means insistent. He
could not, he said, ask for less, his duty would not permit it: "But I
am ready to confess that my feelings as a man suffer by the duty imposed
on me as a magistrate. On one occasion, at the outset of my career, it
fell to my lot to ask from a jury the head of a woman. I felt then
the same kind of distress of mind I feel to-day. The jury rejected my
demand; they accorded extenuating circumstances; though defeated, I left
the court a happier man. What are you going to do to-day, gentlemen? It
rests with you. What I cannot ask of you, you have the right to accord.
But when the supreme moment comes to return your verdict, remember
that you have sworn to judge firmly and fearlessly." The jury accorded
extenuating circumstances to the woman, but refused them to the man.
After a trial lasting four days Eyraud was sentenced to death, Bompard
to twenty years penal servitude.
At first Eyraud appeared to accept his fate with resignation. He wrote
to his daughter that he was tired of life, and that his death was the
best thing that could happen for her mother and herself. But, as time
went on and the efforts of his advocate to obtain a commutation of his
sentence held out some hope of reprieve, Eyraud became more reluctant to
quit the world.
"There are grounds for a successful appeal," he wrote, "I am pretty
certain that my sentence will be commuted.... You ask me what I do?
Nothing much. I can't write; the pens are so bad. I read part of the
time, smoke pipes, and sleep a great deal. Sometimes I play cards, and
talk a little. I have a room as large as yours at Sevres. I walk up and
down it, thinking of you all."
But his hopes were to be disappointed. The Court of Cassation rejected
his appeal. A petition was addressed to President Carnot, but, with a
firmness that has not characterised some of his successors in office, he
refused to commute the sentence.
On the morning of February 3, 1891, Eyraud noticed that the warders, who
usually went off duty at six o'clock, remained at their posts. An hour
later the Governor of the Roquette prison entered his cell, and informed
him that the time had come for the execution of the sentence. Eyraud
received the intelligence quietly. The only excitement he betrayed was a
sudden outburst of violent animosity against M. Constans, then Minister
of the Interior. Eyraud had been a Boulangist, and so may have nourished
some resentment against the Minister who, by his adroitness, had helped
to bring about the General's ruin. Whatever his precise motive, he
suddenly exclaimed that M. Constans was his murderer: "It's he who is
having me guillotined; he's got what he wanted; I suppose now he'll
decorate Gabrielle!" He died with the name of the hated Minister on his
lips.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Book of Remarkable Criminals, by H. B. Irving