8 THE EIGHTY OR MORE CRIMINAL AUTOPSIES LACASSAGNE AND HIS STAFF CONDUCTED: Lacassagne, “Rapport sur l’enseignement de la médecine légale de la Faculté de médecine de Lyon,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1900), 363–72.
9 “THERE IS NOTHING MORE INDISPENSABLE”: ibid., p. 365.
10 “ONE FINDS THERE WOUNDS”: “Le Musée du laboratoire de médecine légale à Lyon,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1890): 366.
11 ASSASSINATION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY JEAN-PAUL MARAT: Alexandre Lacassagne, “L’Assassinat de Marat,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1891): 630–45.
12 “THE MEDICO-LEGAL SCHOOL OF LYON”: “L’école médico-légale de Lyon,” Bulletin du Lyon médical 85 (1897): 64.
13 JACQUES INAUDI: Laupts, “Quelques mots sur M. Jacques Inaudi,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1893): 193–94.
14 INVESTIGATE A SHROUD: Albert Florence and Alexandre Lacassagne, “La Tunique d’Argenteuil: étude médico-légale sur son identité,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1894): 651–83.
15 “RIFLING MARKS”: Alexandre Lacassagne, “De la déformation des balles de revolver, soit dans l’arme, soit sur le squelette,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle, (1889): 70–79.
16 “FLOATING MORGUE”: Julien Bonnot, “Le Bateau-morgue: La Morgue de Lyon, 1850–1910” (master’s thesis, Université Jean Moulin Lyon III, 2003); Edmond Locard, La Malle sanglante de Millery (Paris: Gallimard, 1934), pp. 57–58.
17 PARIS MORGUE: Bonnot, “Le Bateau-morgue,” p. 103; “La Morgue à Paris,” La Nature (1886): 99.
18 THOMAS COOK TOUR COMPANY: Vanessa R. Schwartz, Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Paris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 46.
19 “BUT THIS OLD PATRIARCH”: Locard, La Malle sanglante de Millery, p. 57.
20 WEPT LIKE A CHILD: Bonnot, “Le Bateau-morgue,” p. 109n.
5. THE VAGABOND
1 VACHER WASHED HIS BLOOD-SPATTERED CLOTHES: Émile Fourquet, Vacher: Le Plus Grand Criminel des temps modernes par son juge d’instruction (Besançon, France: Jacques et Demontrond, 1931), pp. 107–8.
2 ACCOUTREMENTS FOR LIFE ON THE ROAD: M. Laurent-Martin, Le Roi des assassins: La Vie errante et mystérieuse de Vacher l’éventreur (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1897), p. 41.
3 A LANDOWNER NEAR GENEVA: Letter from H. Lardes to Émile Fourquet, November 10, 1897, Archives départementales de l’Ain, 258–324, “Emploi du temps de Vacher, avril 1894-août 1897.”
4 “WHERE DID YOU GET THIS RHINOCEROS?”: ibid.
5 BEGGARS HAD ALWAYS BEEN A FIXTURE: Timothy B. Smith, “Assistance and Repression: Rural Exodus, Vagabondage and Social Crisis in France, 1880–1914,” Journal of Social History 32 (1999): 821–46; Gordon Wright, Between the Guillotine and Liberty: Two Centuries of the Crime Problem in France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 145–61; Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1976), pp. 62–66; Émile Fourquet, Les Vagabonds: Les Vagabonds criminels, le problème du vagabondage (Paris: Librairie Générale de Jurisprudence, 1908); Robert A. Nye, Crime, Madness and Politics in Modern France: The Medical Concept of National Decline (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 54–95; Herbert A. L. Fisher, “The Protectionist Reaction in France,” Economic Journal 6 (1896): 341–55.
6 “TWO YEARS AGO, WITH A PAIR OF BOOTS”: Letter from Joseph Vacher to Louise Barant, June 8, 1897, in Philippe Artières, Écrits d’un tueur de bergers (Lyon: Éditions à Rebours, 2006), pp. 56–59.
7 “PEOPLE USED TO BE NICE TO US”: Fourquet, Les Vagabonds, p. 43.
8 LOUISE MARCEL WAS RETURNING: Fourquet, Vacher, pp. 111–16.
9 JOSEPH VACHER: His personal history is taken from the following sources: Fourquet, Vacher, 56–62; Alexandre Lacassagne, Vacher l’éventreur et les crimes sadiques (Lyon: A. Storck, 1899), pp. 3–5; collected testimony of family and neighbors in Archives départementales de l’Ain, 72–175, “Dépositions des frères et soeurs de Vacher,” and Archives départementales de l’Ain, 176–82, “Vacher séjour à Beaufort, 1869–1884.”
10 “RESIST CERTAIN TEMPTATIONS OF THE FLESH”: Fourquet, Vacher, p. 59.
11 “WE CALLED HIM THE JESUIT”: Jules Bissos, deposition to Grenoble police, November 5, 1897, in Archives départementales de l’Ain, 198–201, “À l’hôpital de Grenoble, septembre 1888–25 novembre.”
12 “I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME”: Fourquet, Vacher, 63.
13 “ONE DAY MY NAME WILL MAKE HISTORY”: ibid., p. 65.
14 POLICE ARRESTED CHARLES ROUX: ibid., pp. 114–17.
15 AN ELDERLY COUPLE WAS SLAUGHTERED: ibid., p. 119.
16 “INCORRIGIBLE, COWARDLY, UTTERLY DEPRAVED”: Todd Depastino, Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 4.
17 “DANGEROUS CLASSES,” “INFERIOR CLASSES,” “SOCIAL GARBAGE”: Smith, “Assistance and Repression,” p. 832.
18 “VAGABONDAGE IS IN THE BLOOD,” ibid., p. 833.
19 “WILD BEASTS MISPLACED”: Alexandre Bérard, “Le Vagabondage en France,” in Lacassagne, Vacher l’éventreur et les crimes sadiques, p. 156.
20 “HUNGER AND SEXUAL DESIRE”: Lacassagne, Vacher l’éventreur et les crimes sadiques, p. 304.
21 IN 1885, FRANCE HAD PASSED A LAW: Smith, “Assistance and Repression,” p. 836.
22 DETAINING FORTY THOUSAND FOR VAGRANCY IN 1900 ALONE: ibid.
23 “I FELT HIS KNEE LIFTING MY UNDERGARMENT”: Mme. Marchand, testimony, November 23, 1897, in Archives départementales de l’Ain, 258–324, “Emploi du temps de Vacher, avril 1894-août 1897; 1895 moi d’avril.”
6. IDENTITY
1 A BRONZE CASTING: Author’s visit with Élisabeth Biot, Lyon, January 11, 2007.
2 DEATH TO THE AUTHORITIES: ibid.
3 INSIDE THE COUNTRY HOUSE: Author’s visit with Denis Muller, Villerest, June 30, 2007.
4 NOTORIOUS TISZA-ESLAR AFFAIR: Eduard von Hofmann, “Consultation sur l’examen d’un cadavre de jeune fille retiré de la Theiss (affaire Tisza-Ezlar),” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1886): 537–74; Jürgen Thorwald, The Century of the Detective (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), pp. 141–67.
5 ALPHONSE BERTILLON: Henry T. F. Rhodes, Alphonse Bertillon, Father of Scientific Detection (London: Harrap, 1956); Alexandre Lacassagne, “Alphonse Bertillon,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1914): 161–66; Alexandre Lacassagne, “Un nouveau moyen de reconnaïtre les criminels,” Bulletin du Lyon médical 69 (1892): 522–24; “Proceedings of the Congress of the National Prison Association of the United States, Held in Boston, 1888,” American Journal of Psychology (1889): 339.
6 THE POLICE CHIEF IN PARIS OFFERED A TEN-FRANC BONUS: Martine Kaluszynski, “Alphonse Bertillon et l’anthropométrie,” in Maintien de l’ordre et polices en France et en Europe au XIXe siècle, ed. Philippe Vigier (Paris: Editions Créaphis, 1987), p. 271.
7 BERTILLONAGE: Martine Kaluszynski, “Republican Identity: Bertillonage as Government Technique,” in Documenting Individual Identity, ed. Jane Caplan and John C. Torpey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 123–38.
8 “THE PRISONER WHO PASSES:” Ida M. Tarbell, “Identification of Criminals: The Scientific Method in Use in France,” McClure’s Magazine, March 1894, pp. 355–69.
9 RAVACHOL: Rhodes, Alphonse Bertillon, pp. 83–84; Raymond Hesse, Les Criminels peints par eux-měmes (Paris: Grasset, 1912), pp. 220–27; Henry Brodribb Irving, Studies of French Criminals of the Nineteenth Century (London: William Heinemann, 1901), pp. 317–19; Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, The Anarchists, Their Faith and Their Record (London: John Lane, 1911), pp. 110–26.
10 BERTILLON OFFERED HIS SERVICES: Jeffrey Mehlman, Genealogies of the Text: Literature, Psychoanalysis, and Politics in Modern France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 73; Edmond Locard, L’Affaire Dreyfus et l�
�expertise des documents Écrits (Lyon: Desvigne, 1937); Jennifer Michael Hecht, The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism, and Anthropology in France (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 162–64.
11 URGED BERTILLON NOT TO GET INVOLVED: Rhodes, Alphonse Bertillon, p. 184.
12 DISMEMBERMENT HAD BECOME “À LA MODE”: Alexandre Lacassagne, “Du dépeçage criminel,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1888): 231.
13 “FAINT WHITE LINES”: Frank Winthrop Draper, A Text-Book of Legal Medicine (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1905), p. 82; “Cicatrices de sangsues,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1887): 384.
14 “SPEAKING SCARS:” Jane Caplan, “One of the Strangest Relics of a Former State: Tattoos and the Discourses of Criminality in Europe, 1880–1920,” in Criminals and Their Scientists: The History of Criminology in International Perspective, ed. Peter Becker and Richard F. Wetzell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 339.
15 HINTS AS TO THE VICTIM’S OCCUPATION: Allan McLane Hamilton and Lawrence Godkin, A System of Legal Medicine (New York: E. B. Treat, 1900), pp. 198–200.
16 HE CREATED ELEVEN PAGES OF CHARTS: Alexandre Lacassagne, Vade-mecum du médecin-expert (Lyon: A. Storck, 1892), pp. 4–15.
17 DENTAL FORENSICS: Henry C. Chapman, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1892), pp. 29–30.
18 DR. ÉMILE MAGITOT: I. D. Mandel, “Caries Through the Ages: A Worm’s Eye View,” Journal of Dental Research 62 (1983), pp. 926–29.
19 CASE OF LOUIS XVII: Émile Magitot, “Notes pour servir à l’âge probable d’un squelette exhumé le 5 juillet 1894,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1894): 597–604.
7. THE OAK WOODS
1 AUGUSTINE MORTUREUX: Details on the Mortureux case are taken from the following sources: Émile Fourquet, Vacher: Le Plus Grand Criminel des temps modernes par son juge d’instruction (Besançon, France: Jacques et Demontrond, 1931), pp. 124–30; “Horrible crime près de Dijon,” Le Lyon Républicain, May 14, 1895; “Jeune fille assassinée,” Le Petit Parisien, May 14, 1895.
2 “LOOK, MAMA,” SHE SAID: Fourquet, Vacher, p. 131.
3 FRIAR NAMED FRANÇOIS BRÛLÉ: ibid., pp. 124–25.
4 “IT’S THERE, I SEE IT!”: ibid., p. 126.
5 “WE’VE KNOWN ABOUT THIS”: ibid., p. 132.
6 DR. J. QUIOC: ibid., pp. 128–30; Alexandre Lacassagne, Vacher l’éventreur et les crimes sadiques (Lyon: A. Storck, 1899), pp. 86–88.
7 PROLIFERATION OF THE PENNY PRESS: Dominique Kalifa, L’Encre et le sang (Paris: Fayard, 1995); Thomas Cragin, Murder in Parisian Streets: Manufacturing Crime and Justice in the Popular Press, 1830–1900 (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 2006); Claude Bellanger et al., Histoire générale de la presse française, vol. 3. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972); Christopher Daly, Covering America: A Narrative History of U.S. Journalism, 1704–2004 (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, forthcomming); Gérard Corneloup, Joseph Vacher: Un Tueur en série de la Belle Époque (Brignais, France: Éditions des Traboules, 2007), pp. 116–25.
8 ONE AND A HALF MILLION READERS: Robert A. Nye, Crime, Madness and Politics in Modern France: The Medical Concept of National Decline (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 207.
9 TEN MURDERS FOR A PENNY: La Feuille, November 7, 1897. This paper is from the collection of Rémi Cuisinier.
10 “THE AUTHORITIES WOULD LIKE TO PRETEND”: Émile Fourquet, Vacher, p. 136.
11 “WHO KNOWS IF HE DID NOT SEE”: Fourquet, Vacher, p. 138.
12 “WHO BUT A WOMAN”: ibid., p. 137.
13 “WITNESSES” EMERGED: Fourquet, Vacher, pp. 126–62; “Le Crime du Bois du Chêne,” Le Progrès, October 12, 1895; Jules Besse, Le Tueur de bergers (Paris: Schwarz, 1897), pp. 430–663.
14 “DEATH TO GRENIER”: Fourquet, Vacher, p. 143; “Le Crime du Bois du Chêne.”
15 “WILL NOT BE SO EASY TO DESTROY”: Besse, Le Tueur de bergers, p. 456.
16 MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED PEOPLE FLOCKED TO THE CEMETERY: ibid., pp. 457–72; Fourquet, Vacher, pp. 143–44.
17 SHE FOUND A PIECE OF PAPER: Fourquet, Vacher, pp. 172–75.
18 “I TRIED TO GET HIM TO SEE THINGS WITH A BIT MORE SANGFROID”: Besse, Le Tueur de bergers, p. 550.
19 THEY SUMMONED ROUARD TO THEIR OFFICES: ibid., pp. 503–19.
20 SEVERAL MEN LEAPED ONTO THE RUNNING BOARDS: ibid., pp. 568–69.
8. THE BODY SPEAKS
1 “TO PLAY A ROLE IN A MEMORABLE AFFAIR”: Émile Fourquet,Les Faux Témoins (Chalon-sur-Saône, France: Émile Bertrand, 1901), p. 43.
2 “RETROACTIVE HALLUCINATION:” Hippolyte Bernheim, Suggestive Therapeutics: A Treatise on the Nature and Uses of Hypnotism (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889), pp. 167–69.
3 “WHAT DIFFERENCE IS THERE”: Maurice Lailler and Henri Vonoven, Les Erreurs judiciaires et leurs causes (Paris: Librairie de la Cour d’Appel et de l’Ordre des Avocats, 1897), p. 134.
4 “WOMEN LIE,” WROTE ÉMILE ZOLA: G. Ferrero, “Le Mensonge et la véracité chez la femme criminelle,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1893): 138.
5 THE TIME HAD COME FOR “TESTIMONIAL” PROOF TO BE REPLACED: Alexandre Lacassagne, “Des transformations du droit pénal et les progrès de la médecine légale,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1913): 347.
6 ETIENNE BADOIL: Facts and quotes regarding this case are taken from Alexandre Lacassagne, “L’Affaire de la rue Tavernier,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1897): 36–69.
7 LIVIDITY CREATED A WINDOW: Jessica Snyder Sachs, Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death (New York: Basic Books, 2001), pp. 16–20; author’s interview with Dr. Karoly Balogh.
8 ANOTHER WINDOW WAS PROVIDED BY: Alexandre Lacassagne and Étienne Martin, “Sur les causes et les variations de la rigidité cadavérique,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1899): 295–96; Sachs, Corpse, pp. 17–19; Paul Brouardel, Death and Sudden Death (New York: William Wood and Company, 1892), pp. 63–74; Frank Winthrop Draper, A Text-Book of Legal Medicine (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1905), pp. 217–24.
9 THE MOST OBVIOUS OF THESE PROCESSES WAS PUTREFACTION: Brouardel, Death and Sudden Death, pp. 76–98; Draper, A Text-Book of Legal Medicine, pp. 224–35; Alfred Swaine Taylor, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, 12th ed. (New York: Lea Brothers, 1897), pp. 70–71.
10 “UNQUIET SPIRITS”: Sachs, Corpse, 20.
11 “BLEED AFRESH”: Stanford Emerson Chaille, “Origin and Progress of Medical Jurisprudence 1776–1876,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 40, no. 4 (1949): 341.
12 “LONG BLUISH FLAMES”: Brouardel, Death and Sudden Death, p. 80.
13 JEAN-PIERRE MÉGNIN: Mark Benecke, “A Brief History of Forensic Entomology,” Forensic Science International 120 (2001): 2–14; Brouardel, Death and Sudden Death, pp. 104–9.
14 “WE HAVE BEEN STRUCK BY THE FACT”: Brouardel, Death and Sudden Death, pp. 105–7; Jean-Pierre Mégnin, “La Faune des cadavres,” Annales d’hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 3d ser., no. 33 (1895): 64–68.
15 ANGLE OF A STAB WOUND: Alexandre Lacassagne, “Blessure du coeur,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1888): 356–58.
16 ARMY’S NEW BAYONET: Alexandre Lacassagne, “Des Effets de la baïonnette de fusil Lebel,” Archives de l’anthropologie criminelle (1889): 472–76.
17 LIVER CONVERTS GLYCOGEN: Alexandre Lacassagne and Etienne Martin, “La Fonction glycogénique du foie,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1897) 446–51; Alexandre Lacassagne and Étienne Martin, “De la docimasie hépatique,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle (1899): 54–69.
18 MEDICAL EXPERTS TRIED TO CHARACTERIZE: Draper,A Text-Book of Legal Medicine, pp. 253–324; Taylor, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, pp. 398–460.
19 VON HOFMANN AND PARISIAN ANATOMIST AUGUSTE TARDIEU: Draper, A Text-Book of Legal Medicine, p. 283.
20 “TARDIEU SPOTS”: Taylor, A Manual of M
edical Jurisprudence, p. 404.
21 CAREFULLY EXAMINING THE SURFACE: Alexandre Lacassagne, “L’Affaire de la rue Tavernier,” pp. 36–69.
22 SPECTROGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF THE BLOOD: Allan McLane Hamilton, A System of Legal Medicine (New York: E. B. Treat, 1900), pp. 142–47.
9. THE CRIME IN BéNONCES
1 “WOE TO THOSE”: “Le Tueur de bergers,” La Dépěche de Toulouse, October 25, 1897.
2 AN EVIL WIND BLEW: Émile Fourquet, Vacher: Le Plus Grand Criminel des temps modernes par son juge d’instruction (Besançon, France: Jacques et Demontrond, 1931), pp. 175–81.
3 “IF THERE EVER WAS A CRIME I REGRETTED”: Fourquet, interview with Joseph Vacher, October 16, 1899, Archives départementales de l’Ain, 541–685, “Pièces d’information.”
4 THE VILLAGE OF BÉNONCES: Le Progrès, November 6, 1897; l’Abbé Léon Joly, La Paroisse de Bénonces: étude historique (Bourg, France: J. Dureuil, 1904); author’s observations on a visit to Bénonces, July 12, 2006.
5 “WE GIVE OUR STEW TO OUR WORKERS”: “Le Tueur de bergers,” Le Progrès, November 6, 1897.
6 “BUT DOES ONE HAVE TO WORK?”: ibid.
7 “THE THING THAT IMPRESSED ME MOST”: ibid.
8 “I’M NOT VERY RICH”: ibid.
9 “WHY AREN’T YOU WORKING?”: ibid.
10 THE RHYTHMS OF THE COWS GOVERNED FARM LIFE: “Renseignements liés au crime de Bénonces—rythme de pâture à Bénonces et hameau d’Onglas” (a report of gendarmes Jacques Chěne and Émile-Charles Grisey on interviews with local people about shepherds’ schedules), September 17, 1895, Archives départementales de l’Ain, 150–155, “Renseignements divers”; author’s interviews with Mayor Gilbert Babolat of Bénonces and local farmers, July 12, 2006.
11 THE AVERAGE PARISIAN ATE: Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1976), p. 142.
12 MANY SHEPHERDS LIVED WITH THEIR FLOCKS: ibid., p. 14.
13 “SUCH A SAD EXISTENCE”: “Bergers & Bergères,” Le Petit Parisien, October 14, 1897.
The Killer of Little Shepherds Page 32
