On Tuesday, the 1st of July, in the year 1851, two gentlemen, sober
of face as of raiment, presented themselves at the office of the
Procureur-General in the City of Rennes. There was no need for them to
introduce themselves to that official. They were well-known medical
men of the city, Drs Pinault and Boudin. The former of the two acted as
spokesman.
Dr Pinault confessed to some distress of mind. He had been called in by
his colleague for consultation in the case of a girl, Rosalie Sarrazin,
servant to an eminent professor of law, M. Bidard. In spite of the
ministrations of himself and his colleague, Rosalie had died. The
symptoms of the illness had been very much the same as in the case of a
former servant of M. Bidard's, a girl named Rose Tessier, who had also
died. With this in mind they had persuaded the relatives of Rosalie to
permit an autopsy. They had to confess that they had found no trace of
poison in the body, but they were still convinced the girl had died of
poisoning. With his colleague backing him, Dr Pinault was able to put
such facts before the Procureur-General that that official almost at
once reached for his hat to accompany the two doctors to M. Bidard's.
The door of the Professor's house was opened to them by Helene Jegado,
another of M. Bidard's servants. She was a woman of forty odd, somewhat
scraggy of figure and, while not exactly ugly, not prepossessing of
countenance. Her habit of looking anywhere but into the face of anyone
addressing her gave her rather a furtive air.
Having ushered the three gentlemen into the presence of the Professor,
the servant-woman lingered by the door.
"We have come, M. Bidard," said the Procureur, "on a rather painful
mission. One of your servants died recently--it is suspected, of
poisoning."
"I am innocent!"
The three visitors wheeled to stare, with the Professor, at the
grey-faced woman in the doorway. It was she who had made the
exclamation.
"Innocent of what?" demanded the Law officer. "No one has accused you of
anything!"
This incautious remark on the part of the servant, together with the
facts already put before him by the two doctors and the information
he obtained from her employer, led the Procureur-General to have her
arrested. Helene Jegado's past was inquired into, and a strange and
dreadful Odyssey the last twenty years of her life proved to be. It was
an Odyssey of death.
Helene was born at Plouhinec, department of Morbihan, on (according to
the official record) "28 prairial," in the eleventh year of the republic
(1803). Orphaned at the age of seven, she was sheltered by the cure of
Bubry, M. Raillau, with whom two of her aunts were servants. Sixteen
years later one of those aunts, Helene Liscouet, took Helene with her
into service with M. Conan, cure at Seglien, and it was here that Helene
Jegado's evil ways would appear first to become manifest. A girl looking
after the cure's sheep declared she had found grains of hemp in soup
prepared for her by Helene.
It was not, however, until 1833 that causing death is laid at her
charge.
In that year she entered the service of a priest in Guern, one Le Drogo.
In the space of little more than three months, from the 28th of June to
the 3rd of October, seven persons in the priest's household died. All
those people died after painful vomitings, and all of them had eaten
food prepared by Helene, who nursed each of them to the last. The
victims of this fatal outbreak of sickness included Helene's own sister
Anna (apparently on a visit to Guern from Bubry), the rector's father
and mother, and Le Drogo himself. This last, a strong and vigorous man,
was dead within thirty-two hours of the first onset of his illness.
Helene, it was said, showed the liveliest sorrow over each of the
deaths, but on the death of the rector was heard to say, "This won't be
the last!" Nor was it. Two deaths followed that of Le Drogo.
Such a fatal outbreak did not pass without suspicion. The body of
the rector was examined by Dr Galzain, who found indications of grave
disorder in the digestive tracts, with inflammation of the intestines.
His colleague, Dr Martel, had suspicions of poison, but the pious sorrow
of Helene lulled his mind as far as she was concerned.
We next find Helene returned to Bubry, replacing her sister Anna in the
service of the cure there. In three months three people died: Helene's
aunt Marie-Jeanne Liscouet and the cure's niece and sister. This last,
a healthy girl of about sixteen, was dead within four days, and it is to
be noted that during her brief illness she drank nothing but milk from
the hands of Helene. But here, as hitherto, Helene attended all the
sufferers. Her grief over their deaths impressed every one with whom she
came in contact.
From Bubry Helene went to Locmine. Her family connexion as servants with
the clergy found her room for three days in the rectory, after which
she became apprentice to a needlewoman of the town, one Marie-Jeanne
Leboucher, with whom she lived. The Widow Leboucher was stricken ill, as
also was one of her daughters. Both died. The son of the house, Pierre,
also fell ill. But, not liking Helene, he refused her ministrations, and
recovered. By this time Helene had become somewhat sensitive.
"I'm afraid," she said to a male relative of the deceased sempstress,
"that people will accuse me of all those deaths. Death follows me
wherever I go." She quitted the Leboucher establishment in distress.
A widow of the same town offered her house room. The widow died, having
eaten soup of Helene's preparing. On the day following the Widow Lorey's
death her niece, Veuve Cadic, arrived. The grief-stricken Helene threw
herself into the niece's arms.
"My poor girl!" exclaimed the Veuve Cadic.
"Ai--but I'm so unhappy!" Helene grieved. "Where-ever I go--Seglien,
Guern, Bubry, Veuve Laboucher's--people die!"
She had cause for grief, sure enough. In less than eighteen months
thirteen persons with whom she had been closely associated had died of
violent sickness. But more were to follow.
In May of 1835 Helene was in service with the Dame Toussaint, of
Locmine. Four more people died. They were the Dame's confidential maid,
Anne Eveno, M. Toussaint pere, a daughter of the house, Julie, and,
later, Mme Toussaint herself. They had eaten vegetable soup prepared by
Helene Jegado. Something tardily the son of the house, liking neither
Helene's face nor the deathly rumours that were rife about her,
dismissed her.
To one as burdened with sorrow as Helene Jegado appeared to be the life
conventual was bound to hold appeal. She betook herself to the pleasant
little town of Auray, which sits on a sea arm behind the nose of
Quiberon, and sought shelter in the convent of the Eternal Father there.
She was admitted as a pensionnaire. Her sojourn in the convent did not
last long, for queer disorders marked her stay. Linen in the convent
cupboards and the garments of the pupils were maliciously slashed.
Helene was suspect and was packed off.
Once again Helene became apprentice to a sempstress, this time an old
maid called Anne Lecouvrec, proprietress of the Bonnes-oeuvres in Auray.
The ancient lady, seventy-seven years of age, tried Helene's soup. She
died two days later. To a niece of the deceased Helene made moan: "Ah! I
carry sorrow. My masters die wherever I go!"
The realization, however, did not prevent Helene from seeking further
employment. She next got a job with a lady named Lefur in Ploermel,
and stayed for a month. During that time Helene's longing for the life
religious found frequent expression, and she ultimately departed to pay
a visit, so she said, to the good sisters of the Auray community. Some
time before her departure, however, she persuaded Anne Lefur to accept a
drink of her preparing, and Anne, hitherto a healthy woman, became very
ill indeed. In this case Helene did not show her usual solicitude. She
rather heartlessly abandoned the invalid--which would appear to have
been a good thing for the invalid, for, lacking Helene's ministrations,
she got better.
Helene meantime had found a place in Auray with a lady named Hetel. The
job lasted only a few days. Mme Hetel's son-in-law, M. Le Dore, having
heard why Helene was at need to leave the convent of the Eternal Father,
showed her the door of the house. That was hasty, but not hasty enough.
His mother-in-law, having already eaten meats cooked by Helene, was
in the throes of the usual violent sickness, and died the day after
Helene's departure.
Failing to secure another place in Auray, Helene went to Pontivy, and
got a position as cook in the household of the Sieur Jouanno. She had
been there some few months when the son of the house, a boy of fourteen,
died after a sickness of five days that was marked by vomiting and
convulsions. In this case an autopsy was immediately held. It revealed
an inflamed condition of the stomach and some corrosion of the
intestines. But the boy had been known to be a vinegar-drinker, and the
pathological conditions discovered by the doctor were attributed by him
to the habit.
Helene's next place was with a M. Kerallic in Hennebont. M. Kerallic was
recovering from a fever. After drinking a tisane prepared by Helene he
had a relapse, followed by repeated and fierce vomiting that destroyed
him in five days. This was in 1836. After that the trail of death which
had followed Helene's itineracy about the lower section of the Brittany
peninsula was broken for three years.
In 1839 we hear of her again, in the house of the Dame Veron, where
another death occurred, again with violent sickness.
Two years elapse. In 1841 Helene was in Lorient, domestic servant to a
middle-aged couple named Dupuyde-Lome, with whom lived their daughter
and her husband, a M. Breger. First the little daughter of the young
couple died, then all the members of the family were seized by illness,
its onset being on the day following the death of the child. No more
of the family died, but M. Dupuy and his daughter suffered from bodily
numbness for years afterwards, with partial paralysis and recurrent
pains in the extremities.
Helene seems to have made Lorient too hot for herself, and had to go
elsewhere. Port Louis is her next scene of action. A kinswoman of her
master in this town, one Duperron, happened to miss a sheet from
the household stock. Mlle Leblanc charged Helene with the theft, and
demanded the return of the stolen article. It is recorded that Helene
refused to give it up, and her answer is curious.
"I am going into retreat," she declared. "God has forgiven me my sins!"
There was perhaps something prophetic in the declaration. By the time
Helene was brought to trial, in 1854, her sins up to this point of
record were covered by the prescription legale, a sort of statute of
limitations in French law covering crime. Between 1833 and 1841 the
wanderings of Helene Jegado through those quiet Brittany towns had been
marked by twenty-three deaths, six illnesses, and numerous thefts.
There is surcease to Helene's death-dealing between the years of
1841 and 1849, but on the inquiries made after her arrest a myriad of
accusers sprang up to tell of thefts during that time. They were petty
thefts, but towards the end of the period they begin to indicate a
change in Helene's habits. She seems to have taken to drink, for her
thefts are mostly of wine and eau de vie.
In March 1848 Helene was in Rennes. On the 6th of November of the
following year, having been dismissed from several houses for theft,
she became sole domestic servant to a married couple called Rabot. Their
son, Albert, who was already ill, died in the end of December. He had
eaten a farina porridge cooked by Helene. In the following February,
having discovered Helene's depredations from the wine-cupboard, M. Rabot
gave her notice. This was on the 3rd of the month. (Helene was to leave
on the 13th.) The next day Mme Rabot and Rabot himself, having taken
soup of Helene's making, became very ill. Rabot's mother-in-law ate a
panade prepared by Helene. She too fell ill. They all recovered after
Helene had departed, but Rabot, like M. Dupuy-de-Lome, was partially
paralysed for months afterwards.
In Helene's next situation, with people called Ozanne, her way of
abstracting liquor again was noticed. She was chided for stealing eau
de vie. Soon after that the Ozannes' little son died suddenly, very
suddenly. The doctor called in thought it was from a croup fever.
On the day following the death of the little Ozanne Helene entered the
service of M. Roussell, proprietor of the Bout-du-Monde hotel in Rennes.
Some six weeks later Roussell's mother suddenly became ill. She had had
occasion to reproach Helene for sullen ill-manners or something of that
sort. She ate some potage which Helene had cooked. The illness that
ensued lasted a long time. Eighteen months later the old lady had hardly
recovered.
In the hotel with Helene as fellow-servant there was a woman of thirty,
Perrotte Mace, very greatly relied upon by her masters, with whom she
had been five years. She was a strongly built woman who carried herself
finely. Perrotte openly agreed with the Veuve Roussell regarding
Helene's behaviour. This, with the confidence reposed in Perrotte by the
Roussells, might have been enough to set Helene against her. But there
was an additional cause for jealousy: Jean Andre, the hotel ostler, but
also described as a cabinet-maker, though friendly enough with Helene,
showed a marked preference for the younger, and comelier, Perrotte. The
Veuve Roussell fell ill in the middle of June. In August Perrotte was
seized by a similar malady, and, in spite of all her resistance, had to
take to her bed. Vomiting and purging marked the course of her illness,
pains in the stomach and limbs, distension of the abdomen, and swelling
of the feet. With her strong constitution she put up a hard fight for
her life, but succumbed on the 1st of September, 1850. The doctors
called in, MM. Vincent and Guyot, were extremely puzzled by the course
of the illness. At times the girl would seem to be on the mend, then
there would come a sudden relapse. After Perrotte's death they pressed
for an autopsy, but the peasant relatives of the girl showed the usual
repugnance of their class to the idea. Helene was taken red-handed
in the theft of wine, and was dismissed. Fifteen days later she took
service with the Bidards.
These are the salient facts of Helene's progression from 1833 to 1851 as
brought out by the investigations made by and for the Procureur-General
of Rennes. All possible channels were explored to discover where Helene
had procured the arsenic, but without success. Under examination by the
Juge d'instruction she stoutly denied all knowledge of the poison. "I
don't know anything about arsenic--don't know what it is," she repeated.
"No witness can say I ever had any." It was believed that she had
secured a large supply in her early days, and had carried it with her
through the years, but that at the first definite word of suspicion
against her had got rid of it. During her trial mention was made of
packets found in a chest she had used while at Locsine, the place where
seven deaths had occurred. But it was never clearly established that
these packets had contained arsenic. It was never clearly established,
though it could be inferred, that Helene ever had arsenic at all.