How much farther—or how much better—would Sophie Dawes have fared had her manners been less at the mercy of her temper? It is impossible to say. That she had some quality of greatness is beyond doubt. The resolution of character, the will to achieve, and even the viraginous temper might have carried her far had she been a man some thirty years earlier in the country of her greater activities. Under Napoleon, as a man, Sophie might have climbed high on the way to glory. As a woman, with those traits, there is almost tragic inevitability in the manner in which we find her ranged with what Dickens called ``Glory's bastard brother''—Murder.
VI: ARSENIC A LA BRETONNE
On Tuesday, the 1st of July, in the year 1851, two gentlemen, sober of face as of raiment, presented themselves at the office of the Procureur-General in the City of Rennes. There was no need for them to introduce themselves to that official. They were well-known medical men of the city, Drs Pinault and Boudin. The former of the two acted as spokesman.
Dr Pinault confessed to some distress of mind. He had been called in by his colleague for consultation in the case of a girl, Rosalie Sarrazin, servant to an eminent professor of law, M. Bidard. In spite of the ministrations of himself and his colleague, Rosalie had died. The symptoms of the illness had been very much the same as in the case of a former servant of M. Bidard's, a girl named Rose Tessier, who had also died. With this in mind they had persuaded the relatives of Rosalie to permit an autopsy. They had to confess that they had found no trace of poison in the body, but they were still convinced the girl had died of poisoning. With his colleague backing him, Dr Pinault was able to put such facts before the Procureur-General that that official almost at once reached for his hat to accompany the two doctors to M. Bidard's.
The door of the Professor's house was opened to them by Helene Jegado, another of M. Bidard's servants. She was a woman of forty odd, somewhat scraggy of figure and, while not exactly ugly, not prepossessing of countenance. Her habit of looking anywhere but into the face of anyone addressing her gave her rather a furtive air.
Having ushered the three gentlemen into the presence of the Professor, the servant-woman lingered by the door.
``We have come, M. Bidard,'' said the Procureur, ``on a rather painful mission. One of your servants died recently—it is suspected, of poisoning.''
``I am innocent!''
The three visitors wheeled to stare, with the Professor, at the grey-faced woman in the doorway. It was she who had made the exclamation.
``Innocent of what?'' demanded the Law officer. ``No one has accused you of anything!''
This incautious remark on the part of the servant, together with the facts already put before him by the two doctors and the information he obtained from her employer, led the Procureur-General to have her arrested. Helene Jegado's past was inquired into, and a strange and dreadful Odyssey the last twenty years of her life proved to be. It was an Odyssey of death.
Helene was born at Plouhinec, department of Morbihan, on (according to the official record) ``28 prairial,'' in the eleventh year of the republic (1803). Orphaned at the age of seven, she was sheltered by the cure of Bubry, M. Raillau, with whom two of her aunts were servants. Sixteen years later one of those aunts, Helene Liscouet, took Helene with her into service with M. Conan, cure at Seglien, and it was here that Helene Jegado's evil ways would appear first to become manifest. A girl looking after the cure's sheep declared she had found grains of hemp in soup prepared for her by Helene.
It was not, however, until 1833 that causing death is laid at her charge.
In that year she entered the service of a priest in Guern, one Le Drogo. In the space of little more than three months, from the 28th of June to the 3rd of October, seven persons in the priest's household died. All those people died after painful vomitings, and all of them had eaten food prepared by Helene, who nursed each of them to the last. The victims of this fatal outbreak of sickness included Helene's own sister Anna (apparently on a visit to Guern from Bubry), the rector's father and mother, and Le Drogo himself. This last, a strong and vigorous man, was dead within thirty-two hours of the first onset of his illness. Helene, it was said, showed the liveliest sorrow over each of the deaths, but on the death of the rector was heard to say, ``This won't be the last!'' Nor was it. Two deaths followed that of Le Drogo.
Such a fatal outbreak did not pass without suspicion. The body of the rector was examined by Dr Galzain, who found indications of grave disorder in the digestive tracts, with inflammation of the intestines. His colleague, Dr Martel, had suspicions of poison, but the pious sorrow of Helene lulled his mind as far as she was concerned.
We next find Helene returned to Bubry, replacing her sister Anna in the service of the cure there. In three months three people died: Helene's aunt Marie-Jeanne Liscouet and the cure's niece and sister. This last, a healthy girl of about sixteen, was dead within four days, and it is to be noted that during her brief illness she drank nothing but milk from the hands of Helene. But here, as hitherto, Helene attended all the sufferers. Her grief over their deaths impressed every one with whom she came in contact.
From Bubry Helene went to Locmine. Her family connexion as servants with the clergy found her room for three days in the rectory, after which she became apprentice to a needlewoman of the town, one Marie-Jeanne Leboucher, with whom she lived. The Widow Leboucher was stricken ill, as also was one of her daughters. Both died. The son of the house, Pierre, also fell ill. But, not liking Helene, he refused her ministrations, and recovered. By this time Helene had become somewhat sensitive.
``I'm afraid,'' she said to a male relative of the deceased sempstress, ``that people will accuse me of all those deaths. Death follows me wherever I go.'' She quitted the Leboucher establishment in distress.
A widow of the same town offered her house room. The widow died, having eaten soup of Helene's preparing. On the day following the Widow Lorey's death her niece, Veuve Cadic, arrived. The grief-stricken Helene threw herself into the niece's arms.
``My poor girl!'' exclaimed the Veuve Cadic.
``Ai—but I'm so unhappy!'' Helene grieved. ``Where-ever I go—Seglien, Guern, Bubry, Veuve Laboucher's—people die!
She had cause for grief, sure enough. In less than eighteen months thirteen persons with whom she had been closely associated had died of violent sickness. But more were to follow.
In May of 1835 Helene was in service with the Dame Toussaint, of Locmine. Four more people died. They were the Dame's confidential maid, Anne Eveno, M. Toussaint pere, a daughter of the house, Julie, and, later, Mme Toussaint herself. They had eaten vegetable soup prepared by Helene Jegado. Something tardily the son of the house, liking neither Helene's face nor the deathly rumours that were rife about her, dismissed her.
To one as burdened with sorrow as Helene Jegado appeared to be the life conventual was bound to hold appeal. She betook herself to the pleasant little town of Auray, which sits on a sea arm behind the nose of Quiberon, and sought shelter in the convent of the Eternal Father there. She was admitted as a pensionnaire. Her sojourn in the convent did not last long, for queer disorders marked her stay. Linen in the convent cupboards and the garments of the pupils were maliciously slashed. Helene was suspect and was packed off.
Once again Helene became apprentice to a sempstress, this time an old maid called Anne Lecouvrec, proprietress of the Bonnes-oeuvres in Auray. The ancient lady, seventy-seven years of age, tried Helene's soup. She died two days later. To a niece of the deceased Helene made moan: ``Ah! I carry sorrow. My masters die wherever I go!''
The realization, however, did not prevent Helene from seeking further employment. She next got a job with a lady named Lefur in Ploermel, and stayed for a month. During that time Helene's longing for the life religious found frequent expression, and she ultimately departed to pay a visit, so she said, to the good sisters of the Auray community. Some time before her departure, however, she persuaded Anne Lefur to accept a drink of her preparing, and Anne, hitherto a healthy woman, became
very ill indeed. In this case Helene did not show her usual solicitude. She rather heartlessly abandoned the invalid—which would appear to have been a good thing for the invalid, for, lacking Helene's ministrations, she got better.
Helene meantime had found a place in Auray with a lady named Hetel. The job lasted only a few days. Mme Hetel's son-in-law, M. Le Dore, having heard why Helene was at need to leave the convent of the Eternal Father, showed her the door of the house. That was hasty, but not hasty enough. His mother-in-law, having already eaten meats cooked by Helene, was in the throes of the usual violent sickness, and died the day after Helene's departure.
Failing to secure another place in Auray, Helene went to Pontivy, and got a position as cook in the household of the Sieur Jouanno. She had been there some few months when the son of the house, a boy of fourteen, died after a sickness of five days that was marked by vomiting and convulsions. In this case an autopsy was immediately held. It revealed an inflamed condition of the stomach and some corrosion of the intestines. But the boy had been known to be a vinegar-drinker, and the pathological conditions discovered by the doctor were attributed by him to the habit.
Helene's next place was with a M. Kerallic in Hennebont. M. Kerallic was recovering from a fever. After drinking a tisane prepared by Helene he had a relapse, followed by repeated and fierce vomiting that destroyed him in five days. This was in 1836. After that the trail of death which had followed Helene's itineracy about the lower section of the Brittany peninsula was broken for three years.
In 1839 we hear of her again, in the house of the Dame Veron, where another death occurred, again with violent sickness.
Two years elapse. In 1841 Helene was in Lorient, domestic servant to a middle-aged couple named Dupuyde-Lome, with whom lived their daughter and her husband, a M. Breger. First the little daughter of the young couple died, then all the members of the family were seized by illness, its onset being on the day following the death of the child. No more of the family died, but M. Dupuy and his daughter suffered from bodily numbness for years afterwards, with partial paralysis and recurrent pains in the extremities.
Helene seems to have made Lorient too hot for herself, and had to go elsewhere. Port Louis is her next scene of action. A kinswoman of her master in this town, one Duperron, happened to miss a sheet from the household stock. Mlle Leblanc charged Helene with the theft, and demanded the return of the stolen article. It is recorded that Helene refused to give it up, and her answer is curious.
``I am going into retreat,'' she declared. ``God has forgiven me my sins!''
There was perhaps something prophetic in the declaration. By the time Helene was brought to trial, in 1854, her sins up to this point of record were covered by the prescription legale, a sort of statute of limitations in French law covering crime. Between 1833 and 1841 the wanderings of Helene Jegado through those quiet Brittany towns had been marked by twenty-three deaths, six illnesses, and numerous thefts.
There is surcease to Helene's death-dealing between the years of 1841 and 1849, but on the inquiries made after her arrest a myriad of accusers sprang up to tell of thefts during that time. They were petty thefts, but towards the end of the period they begin to indicate a change in Helene's habits. She seems to have taken to drink, for her thefts are mostly of wine and eau de vie.
In March 1848 Helene was in Rennes. On the 6th of November of the following year, having been dismissed from several houses for theft, she became sole domestic servant to a married couple called Rabot. Their son, Albert, who was already ill, died in the end of December. He had eaten a farina porridge cooked by Helene. In the following February, having discovered Helene's depredations from the wine-cupboard, M. Rabot gave her notice. This was on the 3rd of the month. (Helene was to leave on the 13th.) The next day Mme Rabot and Rabot himself, having taken soup of Helene's making, became very ill. Rabot's mother-in-law ate a panade prepared by Helene. She too fell ill. They all recovered after Helene had departed, but Rabot, like M. Dupuy-de-Lome, was partially paralysed for months afterwards.
In Helene's next situation, with people called Ozanne, her way of abstracting liquor again was noticed. She was chided for stealing eau de vie. Soon after that the Ozannes' little son died suddenly, very suddenly. The doctor called in thought it was from a croup fever.
On the day following the death of the little Ozanne Helene entered the service of M. Roussell, proprietor of the Bout-du-Monde hotel in Rennes. Some six weeks later Roussell's mother suddenly became ill. She had had occasion to reproach Helene for sullen ill-manners or something of that sort. She ate some potage which Helene had cooked. The illness that ensued lasted a long time. Eighteen months later the old lady had hardly recovered.
In the hotel with Helene as fellow-servant there was a woman of thirty, Perrotte Mace, very greatly relied upon by her masters, with whom she had been five years. She was a strongly built woman who carried herself finely. Perrotte openly agreed with the Veuve Roussell regarding Helene's behaviour. This, with the confidence reposed in Perrotte by the Roussells, might have been enough to set Helene against her. But there was an additional cause for jealousy: Jean Andre, the hotel ostler, but also described as a cabinet-maker, though friendly enough with Helene, showed a marked preference for the younger, and comelier, Perrotte. The Veuve Roussell fell ill in the middle of June. In August Perrotte was seized by a similar malady, and, in spite of all her resistance, had to take to her bed. Vomiting and purging marked the course of her illness, pains in the stomach and limbs, distension of the abdomen, and swelling of the feet. With her strong constitution she put up a hard fight for her life, but succumbed on the 1st of September, 1850. The doctors called in, MM. Vincent and Guyot, were extremely puzzled by the course of the illness. At times the girl would seem to be on the mend, then there would come a sudden relapse. After Perrotte's death they pressed for an autopsy, but the peasant relatives of the girl showed the usual repugnance of their class to the idea. Helene was taken red-handed in the theft of wine, and was dismissed. Fifteen days later she took service with the Bidards.
These are the salient facts of Helene's progression from 1833 to 1851 as brought out by the investigations made by and for the Procureur-General of Rennes. All possible channels were explored to discover where Helene had procured the arsenic, but without success. Under examination by the Juge d'instruction she stoutly denied all knowledge of the poison. ``I don't know anything about arsenic—don't know what it is,'' she repeated. ``No witness can say I ever had any.'' It was believed that she had secured a large supply in her early days, and had carried it with her through the years, but that at the first definite word of suspicion against her had got rid of it. During her trial mention was made of packets found in a chest she had used while at Locsine, the place where seven deaths had occurred. But it was never clearly established that these packets had contained arsenic. It was never clearly established, though it could be inferred, that Helene ever had arsenic at all.
% II
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.
She Stands Accused Page 13
