About this same date a murder was committed in Paris, which will always fill a prominent place in French criminal records, from the hideous personality of the principal performer. Few members of the race of Cain are more widely known than the bloodthirsty monster, Lacenaire, of whom the saying is preserved: “I think no more of slaying a man than of taking a drink of water.” His detection and delivery to justice were due to the help afforded by treacherous confederates, who played the musique. The circumstances, with some account of the central figure, and the methods pursued, may well find a place here.
On December 14, 1834, an old woman, the Widow Chardon, residing in the passage Cheval Rouge of the rue St. Martin, was brutally done to death, and her son, who lived with her, was also killed. Both had been struck down with the same hatchet. The state of the premises, locks forced, furniture smashed, their contents strewed about the room, showed plainly that robbery had been the motive of the murder. A fortnight later another murder was attempted, and was all but successful, upon a banker’s clerk, who called, in the French fashion, to collect money on a bill or note of hand, which had been due, and was payable at the private address given by the acceptor, by name Mabrossier, No. 66, rue Montorgueil. The clerk climbed to the fourth floor, where he found the name Mabrossier inscribed in white chalk upon the outer door. He knocked, and was admitted into an empty room, where two men were evidently awaiting him. The door was slammed, and he was attacked murderously. The clerk was young and muscular, and fought sturdily for his life, uttering such loud cries for help that the miscreants were alarmed, and fled down-stairs out of the house.
The only clue to the outrage was the name Mabrossier, and he was known sufficiently well to the concierge, who gave a description of him. The machinery of the police was set in motion, by which the names of all who pass the night in hotels and common lodging-houses are inscribed day by day on the register, and the name Mabrossier was found finally in a low den kept by one Pageot. Close to it was another name, Ficellier, recorded the same day, and the landlord remembered and described his visitor. The portrait exactly fitted a certain François, at the time in custody, having been arrested within the last few days for fraud. The landlady, when pressed, also admitted that Mabrossier had previously been a lodger under the name of Baton.
The police pieced together the scraps that were coming to hand. M. Cauler, who was in charge of the case, openly taxed François with being Ficellier, and, on the shrewd suspicion that Baton was Mabrossier, arrested him, but was forced to release him for want of more definite evidence. Then a prisoner in La Force volunteered the fact that Baton was the intimate of one Gaillard, who sometimes passed under the name of Baton, but who, in one of his disguises, corresponded exactly with the much wanted Mabrossier. The next step was a hunt for Gaillard, and the name was soon found on another hotel register. They knew him well, there, and when asked whether he came often, or had left any traces, a bundle of songs was produced and a letter, said to be in his handwriting, containing an offensive diatribe on the prefect of police. Suddenly a light broke in on the police. The writing of the word “Mabrossier,” chalked upon the door in the house, where the assault was committed, was identically the same as in this letter.
It was now well known that Gaillard was wanted, and assistance was offered by another inmate of La Force, Avril by name, who declared that if let out for a week he would put Gaillard into the hands of the police. Nothing came of this boast, and Avril went back to gaol. Recourse was again had to François, who was fetched from the prison to be interrogated at the Prefecture. In the cab, en route, François made a clean breast of everything. He knew all about the murder of Mother Chardon; he had heard the whole story from the principal actor, Gaillard, who had thus a second and more serious crime to his charge than the attack on the bank clerk.
Gaillard’s identity was next placed beyond all doubt. Avril, the same prisoner who had fruitlessly sought Gaillard through Paris, confided to the police that the murderer had an aunt of the same name, a well-to-do person, who lived in great retirement. A visit was paid to her, and inquiries made as to her nephew, “Gaillard.” “His real name is Lacenaire,” she replied, “and I never wish to see or hear of him again. He is a miscreant, and I constantly go in fear of my life for him.” So the search was narrowed down to the real man Lacenaire, who fortunately was arrested at this very moment under the name of Levi Jacob, on attempting to pass a forged bill of exchange. He was brought at once to Paris, and, when visited in his cell by the head of the police, readily confessed himself the author of the crimes, of which he was suspected. When asked to name his accomplices, he refused until he heard that both François and Avril had informed against him, when he turned upon them and gave them completely away. They had betrayed him, and he would not spare them! It served him right for taking accomplices!
This was the burden of his recital in the many interviews he had with the police. “Always work alone, it is the only safe method. Partners and comrades can never be trusted.” Lacenaire gave many proofs of this from his own personal experience. Once at Lyons he was returning home from an orgie, when he met on the bridge of Morand a well-dressed gentleman, upon whose white waistcoat glittered a fat gold chain. The man staggered slightly, and was clearly under the influence of drink. They were quite alone together upon the bridge, and Lacenaire fell upon him, seizing his throat with one hand and emptying his pockets with the other. Then, after he had secured the watch and chain and well-filled pocketbook, he lifted the victim in his arms and threw him bodily into the river Rhone, which flowed rapidly beneath. “I never heard who this man was, nor did I think of the incident again,” said he. “Having worked alone, I was never discovered.” Again, when residing in Paris, just after his release from prison, he frequented the gaming-house, Palais-Royal, and watched the lucky players with the idea of following them in the street to rob and murder them. He followed a man, who had won 30,000 francs, and, catching him in a lonely place, threatened him with his life unless he surrendered at once the contents of his pockets. The approach of a passing patrol frightened Lacenaire, who took to his heels without the plunder. He escaped because he was alone. Had he been trammelled with an accomplice they would probably have got into each other’s way, or at least Lacenaire would have been obliged to think of some one beside himself. “Had I not worked with Avril in the murder of Mother Chardon, he would never have been able to betray me.”
The life and death of Lacenaire attracted considerable attention. There was much to interest the public, albeit unhealthily, in the personal record of this remarkable criminal, who came of decent parents, had been well educated, and yet yielded to the most ignoble passions; who from petty thief passed through all the phases of commonplace crime until he threw off all restraint and became a wholesale murderer. While honest society viewed him with horror, he became a hero to his fellows, who would have imitated him had they dared, but were satisfied to glorify him, to tattoo his name upon their breasts and to accept him as their chief and model. He was born in a village near Lyons, and graduated with honors at the college. Then he went to Paris and read law. When his father’s failure in business left him without resources, he enlisted, served for a time, came back to Paris and soon lapsed into crime. He could not bear the idea of an empty pocket, and was ready for any evil deed, that would fill it. The first committal to prison introduced him to friends, by whom he was willingly led astray, and prepared him for the criminal designs that took possession of him. When finally tried for his life, he was no more than thirty-five, and had been guilty of at least thirty heinous offences. His execution undoubtedly rid the world of a monster.
Some of the more atrocious and abominable crimes of French evil-doers will fitly find a passing reference here. They are mostly characterised by the traits peculiar to the worst side of the Frenchman,—of devilish ingenuity in design, savage resolution in performance, cynical apathy and indifference in the face of the forthcoming results, alternating often with sham emotion and hypocritical grief. Types re-appear constantly, crimes are repeatedly reproduced, generation after generation, by criminals who lack all originality in their actions, generally inspired by the same motives. The greed for gold, the craving for sensual self-indulgence, consuming passion and bitter jealousy and an unappeasable thirst for revenge, have at all times influenced the weakly moral sense and accomplished the most diabolical deeds. In murder cases, the disposal of the body is one of the chief difficulties that faces the perpetrator of the crime. It may be possible sometimes to leave the tell-tale evidence upon the theatre of the crime, but the danger of detection is greatly enhanced thereby, and murderers have therefore usually adopted some other plan of concealing or removing the corpse. There is nothing new under the sun, and some of these methods of disposal are to be met with in the earliest criminal records, and have found imitators down to the present day. One case may be quoted in which a number of workmen repairing the Pont de la Concorde fished a large parcel out of the water, and on opening it found it contained human remains. The bundle had been cleverly packed and tied in a common corn-sack, with an outer cover of packing-cloth. Shortly afterwards a second parcel, exactly similar in form and contents, was found at no great distance from the first. It was presently learned that a woman named Ferraud, otherwise Renaudin, who had lived in the street des Egout Saint Martin, had recently changed her domicile, and had been helped in the move by a certain L’Huissier, a furniture maker. Nothing more had been heard of him until a near neighbor vouchsafed his new address. L’Huissier was found there, in bed, surrounded by the effects of the murdered woman. He had let her an apartment in the same house, and accompanied her there; had secured her property and promptly killed her. Then he had made up his parcels, and, hiring a hand-barrow, wheeled his burden to the river, to which he consigned it. The case is interesting as one of the first instances of dismemberment as a means of disposal.
Forty years later human remains were found in the bedroom of a hotel in the rue de Poliveau, and were presently discovered to be those of a milkwoman, who employed Barré, a notary’s clerk, who concerned himself with the investments of any one who would trust him. The milkwoman was one of the number. She had come to Barré’s rooms to charge him with the sale of certain scrip, but was murdered when off her guard. Other similar cases were those of the “Woman of Clichy,” whose husband murdered her and buried her on the banks of the Seine. The criminal here was an old soldier, wearing the military medal, and nicknamed the “decoré.” A third case was that of Prévost, a police sergeant, who had killed a tailor’s traveller, who had called upon him in the hopes of disposing of some of his stock. When arrested and brought to trial it was proved that this was the second murder of which Prévost had been guilty. His first victim had been a housekeeper to a gentleman, who had made her his heir. She desired to buy the good-will of a small business, and consulted Prévost, at whose advice she realised part of her property, and brought it to him to complete the purchase. She dined with Prévost, having the money in her pocket, and was put out of the way that he might secure it.