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.