The first hearings of Helene's case were taken before the Juge
d'instruction in Rennes, and she was remanded to the assizes for
Ille-et-Vilaine, which took place, apparently, in the same city. The
charges against her were limited to eleven thefts, three murders by
poisoning, and three attempts at murder by the like means. Under the
prescription legale twenty-three poisonings, six attempts at poisoning,
and a number of thefts, all of which had taken place within the space of
ten years, had to be left out of the indictment. We shall see, however,
that, under the curious rules regarding permissible evidence which
prevail in French criminal law, the Assize Court concerned itself quite
largely with this prescribed matter.
The trial began on the 6th of December, 1851, at a time when France was
in a political uproar--or, more justly perhaps, was settling down from
political uproar. The famous coup d'etat of that year had happened four
days before. Maitre Dorange, defending Helene, asked for a remand to
a later session on the ground that some of his material witnesses were
unavailable owing to the political situation. An eminent doctor, M.
Baudin, had died "pour maintien des lois." There was some argument on
the matter, but the President ruled that all material witnesses were
present. Scientific experts could be called only to assist the court.
The business of this first day was taken up almost completely by
questions on the facts produced in investigation, and these mostly facts
covered by the prescription. The legal value of this run of questions
would seem doubtful in the Anglo-Saxon idea of justice, but it gives
an indication of the shiftiness in answer of the accused. It was a long
interrogation, but Helene faced it with notable self-possession. On
occasion she answered with vigour, but in general sombrely and with
lowered eyes. At times she broke into volubility. This did not serve to
remove the impression of shiftiness, for her answers were seldom to the
point.
Wasn't it true, she was asked, that in Locmine she had been followed and
insulted with cries: "C'est la femme au foie blanc; elle porte la mort
avec elle!"? Nobody had ever said anything of the sort to her, was
her sullen answer. A useless denial. There were plenty of witnesses to
express their belief in her "white liver" and to tell of her reputation
of carrying death.
Asked why she had been dismissed from the convent at Auray, she answered
that she did not know. The Mother Superior had told her to go. She had
been too old to learn reading and writing. Pressed on the point of the
slashed garments of the pupils and the linen in the convent cupboards,
Helene retorted that somebody had cut her petticoats as well, and that,
anyhow, the sisters had never accused her of working the mischief.
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.
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!"
One 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.