In the United States, several people helped interpret the vast amounts of material I had collected. I cannot sufficiently thank Eva Zadeh, who at the time of my research was a visiting graduate student from Paris. Eva spent more than a year helping me review thousands of copies of handwritten documents, most of which were barely legible and in an antiquated form of the language. She organized the material, brought her considerable computer skills to bear in creating maps and interactive references, followed up on contacts, and spent countless hours helping me to understand the historical and cultural context of the materials. When she moved back to France, she continued to help with research and photography, while pursuing her own promising career in science journalism. Thanks also to Marie Dayot for help with interpretation and translations. My former graduate student Johannes Hirn, a physicist from France and now a science journalist in Canada, spent many hours translating detailed neurological and autopsical reports.
Early in my research, I contacted Nicole Rafter of Northeastern University, a widely published scholar in the history of criminology, who greeted me warmly, tolerated my naïve questions, and shared her expertise all the way through. I owe special thanks to two medical specialists—Dr. Karoly Balogh, associate professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, who teaches pathology and forensics at Brown and Boston universities and is former chief medical examiner for the state of Rhode Island—for providing scientific expertise, thereby helping to make nineteenth-century forensic science understandable to twenty-first-century readers. Both doctors did me the extraordinary favor of reviewing the final manuscript for scientific accuracy. At Boston University, Rhoda Bilansky of the interlibrary loan department of the Mugar Memorial Library tirelessly dug up old and arcane documents, no matter where in the world they might be. Many thanks to the staff of the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. My colleague Chris Daly in the Boston University journalism department shared his authoritative manuscript on the history of journalism and his knowledge of the early days of the tabloid press. Many thanks to forensic psychologists Tali K. Walters, Ph.D., and Ilizabeth Wollheim, Ph.D., who gave important insights into the criminal mind, and neurologist Dr. Daniel Press of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who helped me understand current neurological research. Professor Christian Sidor, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington (and my nephew, I’m proud to say), provided assistance on questions of anatomy. Thanks to John Merriman and his colleagues at Yale, who welcomed me to their scholars’ table and shared insights into everyday life in Belle Époque France. Personal thanks to Ellen Ruppel Shell, Larry Kahaner, and David Dan-forth, who gave crucial support and feedback during this process. Thanks to Steve, Chris, and Bob of the Corey Hill Surf Club for keeping it fun, and to Mishy and Wendy for keeping it real. Thanks to Seth, who gave me a push at a critical moment.
I’ve dedicated this book to my parents, Ruth and Arnold Starr, for their lifelong enthusiasm for every project I’ve ever undertaken, book-related or otherwise. Some of my earliest memories involve their taking us to our town library and showing us the shelves of writing with admiration and wonder. At home, our sons, Gordon and Gregory, contributed to this project by listening with relish to bloodcurdling scenes that their mother found difficult to tolerate at the dinner table. My wife, Monica Sidor, despite her queasiness, offered endless support and encouragement, and heroically read and commented on the manuscript. Thank you for that, and everything else.
Notes
1. THE BEAST
1 “UGLY WEATHER, ISN’T IT?”: Jules Besse, Le Tueur de bergers (Paris: Schwarz, 1897), p. 116. Besse recounted the actions and conversations pertaining to Vacher’s relationship and attempted murder of Louise Barant in detail, based on interviews with Louise, her mother, Vacher, and eyewitnesses, pp. 116–289. See also Émile Fourquet, Vacher: Le Plus Grand Criminel des temps modernes par son juge d’instruction (Besançon, France: Jacques et Demontrond, 1931), pp. 76–87.
2 “IT WOULD BE BEST IF YOU STOPPED WRITING TO ME”: Besse, Le Tueur de bergers, pp. 250–51.
3 ANY OF THE SOLDIERS: Collected testimony of Vacher’s comrades in Archives départementales de l’Ain, 218–48, “Le Séjour de Vacher au régiment, 16 novembre 1890–20 mai 1893”; Alexandre Lacassagne, Vacher l’éventreur et les crimes sadiques (Lyon: A. Storck, 1899), pp. 129–34.
4 NEIGHBORS IN BEAUFORT REMEMBERED: Lacassagne, Vacher l’éventreur et les crimes sadiques, pp. 9–10; Fourquet, Vacher, pp. 56–58; collected testimony of family and neighbors in Archives départementales de l’Ain, 72–175, “Dépositions des frères et soeurs de Vacher”; Archives départementales de l’Ain, 176–82, “Vacher séjour à Beaufort, 1869–1884.”
5 “CALM, RESPONDS MEEKLY TO QUESTIONS AND REGRETS THE ACT HE HAS COMMITTED”: Dr. Bécoulet, “Certificat de 24 heures,” July 8, 1893, in Charbonnier, Documents sur l’état mental de Vacher condamné à la peine de mort par arrět de la cour d’assises de l’Ain du 29 octobre 1898 (Grenoble: Allier, 1899).
6 “CRISIS OF AGITATION”: Dr. Léon Guillemin, “Rapport médico-légal constatant l’état mental du sieur Vacher Joseph inculpé de tentative d’assassinat,” in Lacassagne, Vacher l’éventreur et les crimes sadiques, pp. 130–33.
7 “EVERYTHING THAT IS DIRTY AND ABOMINABLE”: Letters from Joseph Vacher, April 10, 1898, and July 15, 1898, in Philippe Artières, Écrits d’un tueur de bergers (Lyon: Éditions à Rebours, 2006), pp. 109–12, 121–44.
8 “GENTLE, TOLERABLE, HUMANE”: M. Jodelet, Historique de la fondation de l’asile de Dole (Gray: Bouffaut Frères, 1902), pp. 7–9.
9 STILL, CONDITIONS AT DOLE WERE NOT WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN: ibid.; Henri Monod, “Aliénés recueillis après condamnation,” Annales médico-psychologiques (1895): 186.
10 THE POPULATION OF INSANE PEOPLE: “The Views of Two French Alienists,” American Journal of Insanity 3 (1893): 600; Edward Shorter, A History of Psychiatry (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), pp. 33–92; Claude Quétel, “L’Asile d’aliénés en 1900,” L’Histoire, December 1976, pp. 25–43; Marandon de Montyel, “L’Hospitalisation de la folie,” Annales d’hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 3d ser., no. 34 (1895): 411–34; Newth, “Valeur de l’électricité dans le traitement de l’aliénation mentale,” Annales médico-psychologiques 7 (1882): 311–17.
11 “WE WAIT FOR THEM TO DIE”: Quétel, “L’Asile d’aliénés en 1900,” p. 26.
12 VACHER SNEAKED OUT OF HIS ROOM: Fourquet, Vacher, p. 94.
13 “YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT”: Besse, Le Tueur de bergers, p. 303; Pierre Bouchardon, Vacher l’éventreur (Paris: Albin Michel, 1939), pp. 96–106; Juge d’instruction Émile Fourquet, interview with Joseph Vacher, October 11, 1897, in Archives départementales de l’Ain, 541–685, “Pièces d’information.”
14 “IN THE GRIP OF MELANCHOLIC IDEAS”: Dr. Bécoulet, “Certificat de situation,” October 26, 1893, in Charbonnier, Documents sur l’état mental de Vacher condamné à la peine de mort par arrět de la cour d’assises de l’Ain du 29 octobre 1898, p. 19.
15 “A DELIRIANT WITH A PERSECUTION COMPLEX”: Guillemin, “Rapport médico-légal constatant l’état mental du sieur Vacher Joseph inculpé de tentative d’assassinat,” p. 133.
16 “ENTIRE WORLD IS IN LEAGUE AGAINST HIM”: ibid.
17 “CURRENTLY REALLY QUIET”: Letter from Dr. Chaussimand, Asile Public des Aliénés du Jura à Dole, to Asile Saint-Robert, December 16,1893, from the files of the Saint-Robert asylum.
18 “TO SEE BLOOD RUNNING EVERYWHERE”: Fourquet, interview with Joseph Vacher, November 4, 1897, in Archives départementales de l’Ain, 541–685, “Pièces d’information”; Fourquet, Vacher, p. 93.
19 HE TRIED HIS “URINATION” ESCAPE: Bouchardon, Vacher l’éventreur, 121–22.
20 “ONE OF THE BEST INSTITUTIONS IN FRANCE”: Henry C. Burdett, Hospitals and Asylums of the World (London: J & A Churchill, 1891), p. 367.
21 �
�IN TEMPORARY AND EXCEPTIONAL CASES”: Dr. Edmond Dufour, “Le Congrès de Lyon à l’asile de Grenoble. Discours de M. le Dr. Dufour,” Annales médico-psychologiques, no. 14 (1891): 350.
22 “DEAR FRIENDS, LET US PRAISE GOD”: Artières, Écrits d’un tueur de bergers, p. 115.
23 “WHEN I ARRIVED HERE I THOUGHT I HAD ENTERED PARADISE”: Letter from Joseph Vacher to the director of the Saint-Robert asylum, January 29, 1894, in ibid., p. 34.
24 “IMAGINE MY SURPRISE”: Letter from Joseph Vacher to Louise Barant, June 8, 1897, in ibid., pp. 51–59.
25 WAKE-UP CALL CAME AT 5:00 A.M.: The conditions and treatment at Saint-Robert are discussed in the followng sources: Muriel Santo,“Les Aliénés au XIXe siècle: L’Asile public départemental de Saint-Robert” (Ph.D. diss., Université Pierre Mendès-France, 1995), pp. 64–135, 144–63; “XIIe Congrès des médecins neurolo-gistes et aliénistes de France et des pays de langue française … visite de l’asile de Saint-Robert,” Archives de neurologie 14, no. 79 (1902): 325–29.
26 “THE TOUCH OF A BRASS PAINTBRUSH”: Santo, “Les Aliénés au XIXe siècle,” p. 148.
27 “ELECTRIFY PART OF MY HEAD”: Letter from Joseph Vacher to the director of the Saint-Robert asylum, January 29, 1894, in Artières, Écrits d’un tueur de bergers, p. 35.
28 “DOCILE AND POLITE”: Fourquet, Vacher, p. 94.
29 “HE SHOULD BE GOVERNING ALL OF FRANCE”: Letter from Joseph Vacher to Louise Barant, June 8, 1897, in Artières, Écrits d’un tueur de bergers, p. 54.
30 “HE ALSO MADE IT CLEAR TO ME”: “Chronique: La Běte humaine,” La Dépěche de Toulouse, November 2, 1897.
31 PRESSURING DUFOUR TO RELEASE PATIENTS: Santo, “Les Aliénés au XIXe siècle,” p. 154.
32 “OPENING THE DOOR TO THE CAGE OF A WILD BEAST”: “Le Tueur de bergers,” La Dépěche de Toulouse, October 27, 1897.
2. THE PROFESSOR
1 TOUSSAINT-AUGUSTIN GOUFFÉ: Details on the case are taken from the following sources: Alexandre Lacassagne, L’Affaire Gouffé (Lyon: A. Storck, 1891); Edmond Locard, La Malle sanglante de Millery (Paris: Gallimard, 1934); La Presse, November 12–19, 1889; Le Figaro, November 10–20, 1889.
2 DR. JEAN-ALEXANDRE-EUGÈNE LACASSAGNE: Details about Lacassagne are taken from the following sources: Philippe Artières, “Dans les petits cahiers d’un savant,” Gryphe 2 (2001): 3–9; Marc Renneville, “Alexandre Lacassagne: Un Médecin-anthropologue face à la criminalité (1843–1924),” Gradhiva 17 (1995): 127–40; Léon Vervaeck, “Le Professeur Lacassagne,” Revue de droit pénal et criminologie (1924): 915–30; Martine Kaluszynski, “La Criminologie en mouvement: Naissance et développement d’une science sociale en France à la fin du XIXe siècle” (Ph.D. diss., Université Paris, Diderot, 1988); Étienne Martin, “A. Lacassagne,” Journal de médecin de Lyon (1924); Philippe Artières, Gérard Corneloup, and Philippe Rassaert, Le Médecin et le criminel: Alexandre Lacassagne 1843–1924, exposition de la Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon (Lyon: Bibliothèque municipale, 2004); Henri Souchon, “Alexandre Lacassagne et l’école de Lyon,” Revue de science criminelle et de droit pénal comparé 1 (1974): 533–59; Souvenir du Professeur Lacassagne à ses amis & à ses élèves (Lyon: A. Storck, 1901).
3 “STRONG, RHYTHMIC STEP AND EVER-CHEERFUL EYE”: Gérôme Coquard, “Le Prof. Lacassagne,” La Revue du siècle 43 (1890): 725–30.
4 HE LACKED THE ABILITY TO APPRECIATE MUSIC: Locard, La Malle sanglante de Millery, p. 56.
5 THE INSCRIPTIONS WERE EQUALLY FASCINATING: Examples of these are in the collection of Élisabeth Biot, Lacassagne’s great-granddaughter, and in that of the École nationale supérieure de Police, Saint-Cyr-au-Mont-d’Or, France.
6 “ONE OF THE MOST ENTERTAINING AND INSTRUCTIVE”: Science 28 (1883): 836.
7 “THE THODURE AFFAIR”: Alexandre Lacassagne and Dutrait, “Affaire de Thodure,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1898): 419–68.
8 “THE FATHER BÉRARD AFFAIR”: Alexandre Lacassagne, “L’Affaire du Père Bérard,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1890): 407–35.
9 “THE MONTMERLE AFFAIR”: Alexandre Lacassagne, “Diagnostic différentiel du suicide et de l’assassinat (Affaire de Montmerle),” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1894): 134–65.
10 “THE STUDENTS ALL FLOCKED TO HIM”: Locard, La Malle sanglante de Millery, p. 55.
11 IT IS A MIXTURE OF EVERY REPULSIVE ODOR: ibid., pp. 59–61. Author observations at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Lyon, June 29, 2007.
12 “A BUNGLED AUTOPSY CANNOT BE REDONE”: Alexandre Lacassagne, Vademecum du médecin-expert (Lyon: A. Storck, 1892), p. ii.
13 THE STATE OF ALL THOSE AGE-RELATED CHANGES: Autopsy details are taken from Lacassagne, L’Affaire Gouffé, pp. 29–66.
14 ROLLET OBTAINED THE CADAVERS: Étienne Rollet, “La mensuration des os longues des membres: étude anthropologique et médico-légale,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1889): 137–61.
15 “GRAINY, COARSE, AND DENTED”: Lacassagne, L’Affaire Gouffé, p. 39.
16 THE RIGHT HEEL AND ANKLEBONES WERE “SLIGHTLY STUNTED”: Lacassagne, L’Affaire Gouffé, pp. 39–41.
17 “HIS BIG TOE STUCK UP”: ibid., p. 38.
18 “NOW WE CAN CONCLUDE”: ibid., pp. 64, 66.
19 25,000 PEOPLE HAD FILED PAST: Jürgen Thorwald, The Century of the Detective (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), p. 132.
20 “IT WAS NO MIRACLE”: Locard, La Malle sanglante de Millery, p. 59.
21 TOY METAL CORPSE: Thorwald, The Century of the Detective, p. 137.
3. FIRST KILL
1 NONETHELESS, SHE AGREED TO TAKE HIM IN: Émile Fourquet, Vacher: Le Plus Grand Criminel des temps modernes par son juge d’instruction (Besançon, France: Jacques et Demontrond, 1931), pp. 97–98.
2 HE REALLY IS COMPLETELY CRAZY: Jules Besse, Le Tueur de bergers (Paris: Schwarz, 1897), p. 26.
3 EUGÉNIE DELHOMME: Fourquet, Vacher, p. 99; Alexandre Lacassagne, Vacher l’éventreur et les crimes sadiques (Lyon: A. Storck, 1899), pp. 74–78.
4 SHE WORE A RED-AND-WHITE-STRIPED SMOCK AND MOLIèRE SHOES: ibid., p. 75.
5 “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”: Fourquet, Vacher, p. 99.
6 EUGÉNIE’S BODY: ibid., pp. 99–100; “Une Jeune Fille assassinée,” Le Progrès, May 23, 1894.
7 “I CAN RECALL ALMOST NONE OF THESE OPERATIONS”: Henri Coutagne, “L’Exercice de la médecine judiciaire en France: Ses conditions actuelles et les réformes nécessaires à son fonctionnement,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1886): 50.
8 DOCTORS WOULD RECEIVE TWENTY-FIVE FRANCS: Alexandre Lacassagne, “Les Médecins-experts devant les tribunaux et les honoraires des médecins d’après le décret du 21 novembre 1893,” Bulletin du Lyon médical (1893): 558–65.
9 BROTTET GENERALLY FOLLOWED THE PROCEDURES: Fourquet, Vacher, p. 103.
10 POLICE FELL BACK ON THE INVESTIGATIVE METHODS: Details regarding the botched investigation of the Delhomme case are taken from ibid., pp. 102–7.
11 “COULD IT HAVE BEEN LACOUR?”: ibid., p. 105.
12 THEY MIGHT HAVE TALKED TO VICTORINE GAY: ibid., pp. 106–7.
13 THREE THOUSAND CITIZENS SIGNED A PETITION: ibid., pp. 104–5.
14 EUGéNIE DELHOMME’S ELDERLY FATHER: ibid., p. 105.
15 “A KIND OF FEVER CAME OVER ME”: Letter from Joseph Vacher, “Sa défense par lui-měme,” in Philippe Artières, Écrits d’un tueur de bergers (Lyon: Éditions à Rebours, 2006), p. 142.
16 “THIS TERRIBLE, ERRANT”: ibid., pp. 142–43.
4. THE INSTITUTE OF LEGAL MEDICINE
1 INSTITUTE OF LEGAL MEDICINE: “L’Enseignement de la médecine légale à Lyon,” Le Petit Journal, September 7, 1891; Alexandre Lacassagne, “Rapport sur l’enseignement de la médecine légale de la Faculté de médecine de Lyon,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1900): 363–72; E. Caillemer, “Revue bibliographique,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1887): 180–85; “Le Musée du laboratoire de médecine légale à Lyon,” A
rchives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1890): 364–67.
2 THE SCIENCE OF FORENSICS: Erwin H. Ackerknecht, “Early History of Legal Medicine,” in Legacies in Law and Medicine, ed. Chester R. Burns (New York: Science History Publications, 1977), pp. 239–71; Jaroslav Nemec, Highlights in Medico-legal Relations (Bethesda, Md.: National Library of Medicine, 1968); Cyril H. Wecht, “The History of Legal Medicine,” Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 33, vol. 2 (2005): 245–51; Julian L. Burton, “A Bite into the History of the Autopsy,” Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology 1, no. 4:277–284; “History of Forensic Medicine,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., s.v. “Medical Jurisprudence.”
3 THE NOTORIOUS PROSECUTION OF PAULINE DRUAUX: Paul Brouardel, “Un Cas d’empoisonnement par l’oxyde de carbone,” Annales d’hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 3d ser., no. 31 (1894): 376–89, 459–70.
4 ADÈLE BERNARD: Maurice Lailler and Henri Vonoven, Les Erreurs judiciaires et leurs causes (Paris: A. Pedone, 1897), p. 114.
5 NO LICENSING LAWS: Julie Johnson, “Coroners, Corruption and the Politics of Death: Forensic Pathology in the United States,” in Legal Medicine in History, ed. Michael Clark and Catherine Crawford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 269–82.
6 LACASSAGNE WAS APPALLED: Alexandre Lacassagne, Vade-mecum du médecin-expert (Lyon: A. Storck, 1892), pp. i–iii.
7 “THE MORE THAT I HURRIED …”: Paul Hervé, “Médecine légale et médecins légistes,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1904): 863–90.
The Killer of Little Shepherds Page 31
