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.