The most complete and important testimony in the trial was given by M.
Theophile Bidard, professor to the law faculty of Rennes.
The facts he had to bring forward, he said, had taken no significance
in his mind until the last of them transpired. He would have to go back
into the past to trace them in their proper order.
He recalled the admission of Helene to his domestic staff and the good
recommendations on which he had engaged her. From the first Helene
proved herself to have plenty of intelligence, and he had believed that
her intelligence was combined with goodness of heart. This was because
he had heard that by her work she was supporting two small children, as
well as her poor old mother, who had no other means of sustenance.
(The reader will recollect that Helene was orphaned at the age of
seven.)
Nevertheless, said M. Bidard, Helene was not long in his household
before her companion, Rose Tessier, began to suffer in plenty from the
real character of Helene Jegado.
Rose had had a fall, an accident which had left her with pains in her
back. There were no very grave symptoms but Helene prognosticated dire
results. One night, when the witness was absent in the country, Helene
rose from her bed, and, approaching her fellow-servant's room, called
several times in a sepulchral voice, "Rose, Rose!" That poor girl took
fright, and hid under the bedclothes, trembling.
Next day Rose complained to witness, who took his domestics to task.
Helene pretended it was the farm-boy who had perpetrated the bad joke.
She then declared that she herself had heard some one give a loud knock.
"I thought," she said, "that I was hearing the call for poor Rose."
On Sunday, the 3rd of November, 1850, M. Bidard, who had been in the
country, returned to Rennes. After dinner that day, a meal which she
had taken in common with Helene, Rose was seized with violent sickness.
Helene lavished on her the most motherly attention. She made tea, and
sat up the night with the invalid. In the morning, though she still
felt ill, Rose got up. Helene made tea for her again. Rose once more was
sick, violently, and her sickness endured until the witness himself had
administered copious draughts of tea prepared by himself. Rose passed a
fairly good night, and Dr Pinault, who was called in, saw nothing more
in the sickness than some nervous affection. But on the day of the 5th
the vomitings returned. Helene exclaimed, "The doctors do not understand
the disease. Rose is going to die!" The prediction seemed foolish as far
as immediate appearances were concemed, for Rose had an excellent pulse
and no trace of fever.
In the night between Tuesday and Wednesday the patient was calm, but on
the morning of Wednesday she had vomitings with intense stomach pains.
From this time on, said the witness, the life of Rose, which was to last
only thirty-six hours, was nothing but a long-drawn and heart-rending
cry of agony. She drew her last breath on the Thursday evening at
half-past five. During her whole illness, added M. Bidard, Rose was
attended by none save Helene and himself.
Rose's mother came. In Rose the poor woman had lost a beloved child and
her sole support. She was prostrated. Helene's grief seemed to equal
the mother's. Tears were ever in her eyes, and her voice trembled. Her
expressions of regret almost seemed to be exaggerated.
There was a moment when the witness had his doubts. It was on the way
back from the cemetery. For a fleeting instant he thought that the
shaking of Helene's body was more from glee than sorrow, and he
momentarily accused her in his mind of hypocrisy. But in the following
days Helene did nothing but talk of "that poor Rose," and M. Bidard,
before her persistence, could only believe he had been mistaken. "Ah!"
Helene said. "I loved her as I did that poor girl who died in the
Bout-du-Monde."
The witness wanted to find some one to take Rose's place. Helene tried
to dissuade him. "Never mind another femme de chambre," she said. "I
will do everything." M. Bidard contented himself with engaging another
girl, Francoise Huriaux, strong neither in intelligence nor will, but
nevertheless a sweet little creature. Not many days passed before Helene
began to make the girl unhappy. "It's a lazy-bones," Helene told the
witness. "She does not earn her keep." ("Le pain qu'elle mange, elle le
vole.") M. Bidard shut her up. That was his affair, he said.
Francoise meantime conceived a fear of Helene. She was so scared of
the older woman that she obeyed all her orders without resistance. The
witness, going into the kitchen one day, found Helene eating her soup
at one end of the table, while Francoise dealt with hers at the other
extreme. He told Helene that in future she was to serve the repast in
common, on a tablecloth, and that it was to include dessert from his
table. This order seemed to vex Helene extremely. "That girl seems to
live without eating," she said, "and she never seems to sleep."
One day the witness noticed that the hands and face of Francoise were
puffy. He spoke to Helene about it, who became angry. She accused her
companion of getting up in the night to make tea, so wasting the sugar,
and she swore she would lock the sugar up. M. Bidard told her to do
nothing of the sort. He said if Francoise had need of sugar she was to
have it. "All right--I see," Helene replied sullenly, obviously put out.
The swelling M. Bidard had seen in the face and hands of Francoise
attacked her legs, and all service became impossible for the girl. The
witness was obliged to entrust Helene with the job of finding another
chambermaid. It was then that she brought Rosalie Sarrazin to him. "A
very good girl," she said. "If her dress is poor it is because she gives
everything to her mother."
The words, M. Bidard commented, were said by Helene with remarkable
sincerity. It was said that Helene had no moral sense. It seemed to
him, from her expressions regarding that poor girl, who, like herself,
devoted herself to her mother, that Helene was far from lacking in that
quality.
Engaging Rosalie, the witness said to his new domestic, "You will find
yourself dealing with a difficult companion. Do not let her be insolent
to you. You must assert yourself from the start. I do not want Helene to
rule you as she ruled Francoise." At the same time he repeated his order
regarding the service of the kitchen meals. Helene manifested a sullen
opposition. "Who ever heard of tablecloths for the servants?" she said.
"It is ridiculous!"
In the first days the tenderness between Helene and the new girl was
quite touching. But circumstance arose to end the harmony. Rosalie could
write. On the 23rd of May the witness told Helene that he would like her
to give him an account of expenses. The request made Helene angry, and
increased her spite against the more educated Rosalie. Helene attempting
to order Rosalie about, the latter laughingly told her, "M. Bidard pays
me to obey him. If I have to obey you also you'll have to pay me too."
From that time Helene conceived an aversion from the girl.
About the time when Helene began to be sour to Rosalie she herself was
seized by vomitings. She complained to Mlle Bidard, a cousin of the
witness, that Rosalie neglected her. But when the latter went up to her
room Helene yelled at her, "Get out, you ugly brute! In you I've brought
into the house a stick for my own back!"
This sort of quarrelling went on without ceasing. At the beginning of
June the witness said to Helene, "If this continues you'll have to look
for another place."
"That's it!" Helene yelled, in reply. "Because of that girl I'll have to
go!"
On the 10th of June M. Bidard gave Helene definite notice. It was to
take effect on St John's Day. At his evening meal he was served with a
roast and some green peas. These last he did not touch. In spite of his
prohibition against her serving at table, it was Helene who brought the
peas in. "How's this?" she said to him. "You haven't eaten your green
peas--and them so good!" Saying this, she snatched up the dish and
carried it to the kitchen. Rosalie ate some of the peas. No sooner had
she taken a few spoonfuls, however, than she grew sick, and presently
was seized by vomiting. Helene took no supper. She said she was out of
sorts and wanted none.
The witness did not hear of these facts until next day. He wanted to see
the remainder of the peas, but they could not be found. Rosalie still
kept being sick, and he bade her go and see his doctor, M. Boudin.
Helene, on a sudden amiable to Rosalie where she had been sulky, offered
to go with her. Dr Boudin prescribed an emetic, which produced good
effects.
On the 15th of June Rosalie seemed to have recovered. In the meantime
a cook presented herself at his house to be engaged in place of Helene.
The latter was acquainted with the new-comer. A vegetable soup had been
prescribed for Rosalie, and this Helene prepared. The convalescent ate
some, and at once fell prey to violent sickness. That same day Helene
came in search of the witness. "You're never going to dismiss me for
that young girl?" she demanded angrily. M. Bidard relented. He said that
if she would promise to keep the peace with Rosalie he would let her
stay on. Helene seemed to be satisfied, and behaved better to Rosalie,
who began to mend again.
M. Bidard went into the country on the 21st of June, taking Rosalie with
him. They returned on the 22nd. The witness himself went to the pharmacy
to get a final purgative of Epsom salts, which had been ordered for
Rosalie by the doctor. This the witness himself divided into three
portions, each of which he dissolved in separate glasses of whey
prepared by Helene. The witness administered the first dose. Helene gave
the last. The invalid vomited it. She was extremely ill on the night of
the 22nd-23rd, and Helene returned to misgivings about the skill of the
doctors. She kept repeating, "Ah! Rosalie will die! I tell you she will
die!" On the day of the 23rd she openly railed against them. M. Boudin
had prescribed leeches and blisters. "Look at that now, monsieur,"
Helene said to the witness. "To-morrow's Rosalie's name-day, and they're
going to put leeches on her!" Rather disturbed, M. Bidard wrote to Dr
Pinault, who came next day and gave the treatment his approval.
Dr Boudin had said the invalid might have gooseberry syrup with seltzer
water. Two glasses of the mixture given to Rosalie by her mother seemed
to do the girl good, but after the third glass she did not want any
more. Helene had given her this third glass. The invalid said to the
witness, "I don't know what Helene has put into my drink, but it burns
me like red-hot iron."
"Struck by those symptoms," added M. Bidard, "I questioned Helene
at once. It has not been given me more than twice in my life to see
Helene's eyes. I saw at that moment the look she flung at Rosalie. It
was the look of a wild beast, a tiger-cat. At that moment my impulse was
to go to my work-room for a cord, and to tie her up and drag her to the
justiciary. But one reflection stopped me. What was this I was about to
do--disgrace a woman on a mere suspicion? I hesitated. I did not know
whether I had before me a poisoner or a woman of admirable devotion."
The witness enlarged on the tortures of mind he experienced during the
night, but said he found reason to congratulate himself on not having
given way to his first impulse. On the morning of the 24th Helene came
running to him, all happiness, to say that Rosalie was better.
Three days later Rosalie seemed to be nearly well, so much so that M.
Bidard felt he might safely go into the country. Next day, however, he
was shocked by the news that Rosalie was as ill as ever. He hastened to
return to Rennes.
On the night of the 28th-29th the sickness continued with intensity.
Every two hours the invalid was given calming medicine prescribed by Dr
Boudin. Each time the sickness redoubled in violence. Believing it was
a case of worms, the witness got out of bed, and substituted for
the medicine a strong infusion of garlic. This stopped the sickness
temporarily. At six in the morning it began again.
The witness then ran to Dr Pinault's, but met the doctor in the street
with his confrere, Dr Guyot. To the two doctors M. Bidard expressed the
opinion that there were either worms in the intestines or else the
case was one of poisoning. "I have thought that," said Dr Pinault,
"remembering the case of the other girl." The doctors went back with
M. Bidard to his house. Magnesia was administered in a strong dose. The
vomiting stopped. But it was too late.
Until that day the witness's orders that the ejected matter from the
invalid should be conserved had been ignored. The moment a vessel was
dirty Helene took it away and cleaned it. But now the witness took the
vessels himself, and locked them up in a cupboard for which he alone had
the key. His action seemed to disturb Helene Jegado. From this he judged
that she had intended destroying the poison she had administered.
From that time Rosalie was put into the care of her mother and a nurse.
Helene tried hard to be rid of the two women, accusing them of tippling
to the neglect of the invalid. "I will sit up with her," she said to the
witness. The witness did not want her to do so, but he could not prevent
her joining the mother.
In the meantime Rosalie suffered the most dreadful agonies. She
could neither sit up nor lie down, but threw herself about with great
violence. During this time Helene was constantly coming and going about
her victim. She had not the courage, however, to watch her victim die.
At five in the morning she went out to market, leaving the mother alone
with her child. The poor mother, worn out with her exertions, also went
out, to ask for help from friends. Rosalie died in the presence of
the witness at seven o'clock in the morning of the 1st of July. Helene
returned. "It is all over," said the witness. Helene's first move was
to look for the vessels containing the ejections of the invalid to throw
them out. These were green in hue. M. Bidard stopped her, and locked the
vessels up. That same day justice was invoked.
M. Bidard's deposition had held his hearers spellbound for over an hour
and a half. He had believed, he added finally, that, in spite of her
criminal conduct, Helene at least was a faithful servant. He had been
wrong. She had put his cellar to pillage, and in her chest they had
found many things belonging to him, besides a diamond belonging to his
daughter and her wedding-ring.
The President questioned Helene on the points of this important
deposition. Helene simply denied everything. It had not been she who
was jealous of Rosalie, but Rosalie who had been jealous of her. She
had given the two girls all the nursing she could, with no intention but
that of helping them to get better. To the observation of the President,
once again, that arsenic had been administered, and to his question,
what person other than she had a motive for poisoning the girls, or had
such opportunity for doing so, Helene answered defiantly, "You won't
redden my face by talking of arsenic. I defy anybody to say they saw me
give arsenic."
The Procureur-General invited M. Bidard to say what amount of
intelligence he had found in Helene. M. Bidard declared that he had
never seen in any of his servants an intelligence so acute or subtle. He
held her to be a phenomenon in hypocrisy. He put forward a fact which he
had neglected to mention in his deposition. It might throw light on the
character of the accused. Francoise had a dress hanging up to dry in
the mansard. Helene went up to the garret above this, made a hole in the
ceiling, and dropped oil of vitriol on her companion's dress to burn it.
Dr Pinault gave an account of Rosalie's illness, and spoke of the
suspicions he and his colleagues had had of poisoning. It was a crime,
however, for which there seemed to be no motive. The poisoner could
hardly be M. Bidard, and as far as suspicion might touch the cook, she
seemed to be lavish in her care of the patient. It was not until the
very last that he, with his colleagues, became convinced of poison.
Rosalie dead, the justiciary went to M. Bidard's. The cupboards were
searched carefully. The potion which Rosalie had thought to be mixed
with burning stuff was still there, just sampled. It was put into a
bottle and capped.
An autopsy could not now be avoided. It was held next day. M. Pinault
gave an account of the results. Most of the organs were in a normal
condition, and such slight alterations as could be seen in others would
not account for death. It was concluded that death had been occasioned
by poison. The autopsy on the exhumed body of Perrotte Mace was
inconclusive, owing to the condition of adipocere.
Dr Guyot spoke of the case of Francoise Huriaux, and was now sure she
had been given poison in small doses. Dr Boudin described the progress
of Rosalie's illness. He was in no doubt, like his colleagues, that she
had been poisoned.
The depositions of various witnesses followed. A laundress said that
Helene's conduct was to be explained by jealousy. She could not put up
with any supervision, but wanted full control ofthe household and ofthe
money.
Francoise Huriaux said Helene was angry because M. Bidard would not have
her as sole domestic. She had resented Francoise's being engaged. The
witness noticed that she became ill whenever she ate food prepared for
her by Helene. When she did not eat Helene was angry but threw out the
food Francoise refused.
Several witnesses testified to the conduct of Helene towards
Rosalie Sarrazin during her fatal illness. Helene was constant,
self-sacrificing, in her attention to the invalid. One incident,
however, was described by a witness which might indicate that Helene's
solicitude was not altogether genuine. One morning, towards the end of
Rosalie's life, the patient, in her agony, escaped from the hold of her
mother, and fell into an awkward position against the wall. Rosalie's
mother asked Helene to place a pillow for her. "Ma foi!" Helene replied.
"You're beginning to weary me. You're her mother! Help her yourself!"
The testimony of a neighbour, one Francoise Louarne, a domestic servant,
supports the idea that Helene resented the presence of Rosalie in the
house. Helene said to this witness, "M. Bidard has gone into the country
with his housemaid. Everything SHE does is perfect. They leave me
here--to work if I want to, eat my bread dry: that's my reward. But
the housemaid will go before I do. Although M. Bidard has given me my
notice, he'll have to order me out before I'll go. Look!" Helene added.
"Here's the bed of the ugly housemaid--in a room not too far from the
master's. Me--they stick me up in the mansard!" Later, when Rosalie was
very ill, Helene pretended to be grieved. "You can't be so very sorry,"
the witness remarked; "you've said plenty that was bad about the girl."
Helene vigorously denounced the testimony as all lies. The woman had
never been near Bidard's house.
The pharmacist responsible for dispensing the medicines given to Rosalie
was able to show that arsenic could not have got into them by mistake on
his part.
At the hearing of the trial on the 12th of December Dr Pinault was asked
to tell what happened when the emissions of Rosalie Sarrazin were being
transferred for analysis.
DR PINAULT. As we were carrying out the operation Helene came in, and it
was plain that she was put out of countenance.
M. BIDARD [interposing]. We were in my daughter's room, where nobody
ever came. When Helene came to the door I was surprised. There was no
explanation for her appearance except that she was inquisitive.
DR PINAULT. She seemed to be disturbed at not finding the emissions by
the bed of the dead girl, and it was no doubt to find them that she came
to the room.
HELENE. I had been given a funnel to wash. I was bringing it back.
M. BIDARD. Helene, with her usual cleverness, is making the most of
a fact. She had already appeared when she was given the funnel. Her
presence disturbed me. And to get rid of her I said, "Here, Helene, take
this away and wash it."
The accused persisted in denying M. Bidard's version of the incident.
V
M. Malagutti, professor of chemistry to the faculty of sciences in
Rennes, who, with M. Sarzeau, had been asked to make a chemical analysis
of the reserved portions of the bodies of Rosalie, Perrotte Mace,
and Rose Tessier, gave the results of his and his colleague's
investigations. In the case of Rosalie they had also examined the
vomitings. The final test on the portions of Rosalie's body carried out
with hydrochloronitric acid--as best for the small quantities likely to
result in poisoning by small doses--gave a residue which was submitted
to the Marsh test. The tube showed a definite arsenic ring. Tests on the
vomit gave the same result.
The poisoning of Perrotte Mace had also been accomplished by small
doses. Arsenic was found after the strictest tests, which obviated all
possibility that the substance could have come from the ground in which
the body was interred.
In the case of Rose Tessier the tests yielded a huge amount of arsenic.
Rose had died after an illness of only four days. The large amount of
arsenic indicated a brutal and violent poisoning, in which the substance
could not be excreted in the usual way.
The President then addressed the accused on this evidence. She alone
had watched near all three of the victims, and against all three she had
motives of hate. Poisoning was established beyond all doubt. Who was the
poisoner if not she, Helene Jegado?
Helene: "Frankly, I have nothing to reproach myself with. I gave them
only what came from the pharmacies on the orders of the doctors."
After evidence of Helene's physical condition, by a doctor who had
seen her in prison (she had a scirrhous tumour on her left breast), the
speech for the defence was made.
M. Dorange was very eloquent, but he had a hopeless case. The defence
he put up was that Helene was irresponsible, but the major part of
the advocate's speech was taken up with a denouncement of capital
punishment. It was a barbarous anachronism, a survival which disgraced
civilization.
The President summed up and addressed the jury:
"Cast a final scrutiny, gentlemen of the jury," he said, "at the
matter brought out by these debates. Consult yourselves in the calm and
stillness of your souls. If it is not proved to you that Helene Jegado
is responsible for her actions you will acquit her. If you think that,
without being devoid of free will and moral sense, she is not, according
to the evidence, as well gifted as the average in humanity, you will
give her the benefit of extenuating circumstance.
"But if you consider her culpable, if you cannot see in her either
debility of spirit or an absence or feebleness of moral sense, you will
do your duty with firmness. You will remember that for justice to be
done chastisement will not alone suffice, but that punishment must be in
proportion to the offence."
The President then read over his questions for the jury, and that body
retired. After deliberations which occupied an hour and a half the jury
came back with a verdict of guilty on all points. The Procureur asked
for the penalty of death.
THE PRESIDENT. Helene Jegado, have you anything to say upon the
application of the penalty?
HELENE. No, Monsieur le President, I am innocent. I am resigned to
everything. I would rather die innocent than live in guilt. You have
judged me, but God will judge you all. He will see then ... Monsieur
Bidard. All those false witnesses who have come here to destroy me...
they will see....
In a voice charged with emotion the President pronounced the sentence
condemning Helene Jegado to death.
An appeal was put forward on her behalf, but was rejected.
On the scaffold, a few moments before she passed into eternity, having
no witness but the recorder and the executioner, faithful to the habits
of her life, Helene Jegado accused a woman not named in any of the
processes of having urged her to her first crimes and of being her
accomplice. The two officials took no notice of this indirect confession
of her own guilt, and the sentence was carried out. The Procureur of
Rennes, hearing of this confession, took the trouble to search out the
woman named in it. She turned out to be a very old woman of such a
pious and kindly nature that the people about her talked of her as the
"saint."
It were superfluous to embark on analysis of the character of Helene
Jegado. Earlier on, in comparing her with Van der Linden and the
Zwanziger woman, I have lessened her caliginosity as compared with that
of the Leyden poisoner, giving her credit for one less death than her
Dutch sister in crime. Having investigated Helene's activities rather
more closely, however, I find I have made mention of no less than
twenty-eight deaths attributed to Helene, which puts her one up on the
Dutchwoman. The only possible point at which I may have gone astray in
my calculations is in respect of the deaths at Guern. The accounts
I have of Helene's bag there insist on seven, but enumerate only
six--namely, her sister Anna, the cure, his father and mother, and two
more (unnamed) after these. The accounts, nevertheless, insist more than
once that between 1833 and 1841 Helene put away twenty-three persons.
If she managed only six at Guern, that total should be twenty-two. From
1849 she accounted for Albert Rabot, the infant Ozanne, Perrotte
Mace, Rose Tessier, and Rosalie Sarrazin--five. We need no chartered
accountant to certify our figures if we make the total twenty-eight.
Give her the benefit of the doubt in the case of Albert Rabot, who was
ill anyhow when Helene joined the household, and she still ties with Van
der Linden with twenty-seven deaths.
There is much concerning Helene Jegado, recorded incidents, that I might
have introduced into my account of her activities, and that might have
emphasized the outstanding feature of her dingy make-up--that is, her
hypocrisy. When Rosalie Sarrazin was fighting for her life, bewailing
the fact that she was dying at the age of nineteen, Helene Jegado took a
crucifix and made the girl kiss it, saying to her, "Here is the Saviour
Who died for you! Commend your soul to Him!" This, with the canting
piety of the various answers which she gave in court (and which, let me
say, I have transcribed with some reluctance), puts Helene Jegado almost
on a level with the sanctimonious Dr Pritchard--perhaps quite on a level
with that nauseating villain.
With her twenty-three murders all done without motive, and the five
others done for spite--with her twenty-eight murders, only five of which
were calculated to bring advantage, and that of the smallest value--it
is hard to avoid the conclusion that Helene Jegado was mad. In spite,
however, of evidence called in her defence--as, for example, that of Dr
Pitois, of Rennes, who was Helene's own doctor, and who said that "the
woman had a bizarre character, frequently complaining of stomach pains
and formications in the head"--in spite of this doctor's hints of
monomania in the accused, the jury, with every chance allowed them to
find her irresponsible, still saw nothing in her extenuation. And very
properly, since the law held the extreme penalty for such as she, Helene
went to the scaffold. Her judges might have taken the sentimental view
that she was abnormal, though not mad in the common acceptation of the
word. Appalled by the secret menace to human life that she had been
scared to think of the ease and the safety in which she had been allowed
over twenty odd years to carry agonizing death to so many of her kind,
and convinced from the inhuman nature of her practices that she was a
lusus naturae, her judges, following sentimental Anglo-Saxon example,
might have given her asylum and let her live for years at public
expense. But possibly they saw no social or Civic advantage in
preserving her, so anti-social as she was. They are a frugal nation, the
French.