She Stands Accused
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Victor MacClure >> She Stands Accused
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(The reader will recollect that Helene was orphaned at the age of
seven.)
Nevertheless, said M. Bidard, Helene was not long in his
household before her companion, Rose Tessier, began to suffer in
plenty from the real character of Helene Jegado.
Rose had had a fall, an accident which had left her with pains in
her back. There were no very grave symptoms but Helene
prognosticated dire results. One night, when the witness was
absent in the country, Helene rose from her bed, and, approaching
her fellow-servant's room, called several times in a sepulchral
voice, ``Rose, Rose!'' That poor girl took fright, and hid under
the bedclothes, trembling.
Next day Rose complained to witness, who took his domestics to
task. Helene pretended it was the farm-boy who had perpetrated
the bad joke. She then declared that she herself had heard some
one give a loud knock. ``I thought,'' she said, ``that I was
hearing the call for poor Rose.''
On Sunday, the 3rd of November, 1850, M. Bidard, who had been in
the country, returned to Rennes. After dinner that day, a meal
which she had taken in common with Helene, Rose was seized with
violent sickness. Helene lavished on her the most motherly
attention. She made tea, and sat up the night with the invalid.
In the morning, though she still felt ill, Rose got up. Helene
made tea for her again. Rose once more was sick, violently, and
her sickness endured until the witness himself had administered
copious draughts of tea prepared by himself. Rose passed a
fairly good night, and Dr Pinault, who was called in, saw nothing
more in the sickness than some nervous affection. But on the day
of the 5th the vomitings returned. Helene exclaimed, ``The
doctors do not understand the disease. Rose is going to die!''
The prediction seemed foolish as far as immediate appearances
were concemed, for Rose had an excellent pulse and no trace of
fever.
In the night between Tuesday and Wednesday the patient was calm,
but on the morning of Wednesday she had vomitings with intense
stomach pains. From this time on, said the witness, the life of
Rose, which was to last only thirty-six hours, was nothing but a
long-drawn and heart-rending cry of agony. She drew her last
breath on the Thursday evening at half-past five. During her
whole illness, added M. Bidard, Rose was attended by none save
Helene and himself.
Rose's mother came. In Rose the poor woman had lost a beloved
child and her sole support. She was prostrated. Helene's grief
seemed to equal the mother's. Tears were ever in her eyes, and
her voice trembled. Her expressions of regret almost seemed to
be exaggerated.
There was a moment when the witness had his doubts. It was on
the way back from the cemetery. For a fleeting instant he
thought that the shaking of Helene's body was more from glee than
sorrow, and he momentarily accused her in his mind of hypocrisy.
But in the following days Helene did nothing but talk of ``that
poor Rose,'' and M. Bidard, before her persistence, could only
believe he had been mistaken. ``Ah!'' Helene said. ``I loved
her as I did that poor girl who died in the Bout-du-Monde.''
The witness wanted to find some one to take Rose's place. Helene
tried to dissuade him. ``Never mind another femme de chambre,''
she said. ``I will do everything.'' M. Bidard contented himself
with engaging another girl, Francoise Huriaux, strong neither in
intelligence nor will, but nevertheless a sweet little creature.
Not many days passed before Helene began to make the girl
unhappy. ``It's a lazy-bones,'' Helene told the witness. ``She
does not earn her keep.'' (``Le pain qu'elle mange, elle le
vole.'') M. Bidard shut her up. That was his affair, he said.
Francoise meantime conceived a fear of Helene. She was so scared
of the older woman that she obeyed all her orders without
resistance. The witness, going into the kitchen one day, found
Helene eating her soup at one end of the table, while Francoise
dealt with hers at the other extreme. He told Helene that in
future she was to serve the repast in common, on a tablecloth,
and that it was to include dessert from his table. This order
seemed to vex Helene extremely. ``That girl seems to live
without eating,'' she said, ``and she never seems to sleep.''
One day the witness noticed that the hands and face of Francoise
were puffy. He spoke to Helene about it, who became angry. She
accused her companion of getting up in the night to make tea, so
wasting the sugar, and she swore she would lock the sugar up. M.
Bidard told her to do nothing of the sort. He said if Francoise
had need of sugar she was to have it. ``All right--I see,''
Helene replied sullenly, obviously put out.
The swelling M. Bidard had seen in the face and hands of
Francoise attacked her legs, and all service became impossible
for the girl. The witness was obliged to entrust Helene with the
job of finding another chambermaid. It was then that she brought
Rosalie Sarrazin to him. ``A very good girl,'' she said. `` If
her dress is poor it is because she gives everything to her
mother.''
The words, M. Bidard commented, were said by Helene with
remarkable sincerity. It was said that Helene had no moral
sense. It seemed to him, from her expressions regarding that
poor girl, who, like herself, devoted herself to her mother, that
Helene was far from lacking in that quality.
Engaging Rosalie, the witness said to his new domestic, ``You
will find yourself dealing with a difficult companion. Do not
let her be insolent to you. You must assert yourself from the
start. I do not want Helene to rule you as she ruled
Francoise.'' At the same time he repeated his order regarding
the service of the kitchen meals. Helene manifested a sullen
opposition. ``Who ever heard of tablecloths for the servants?''
she said. ``It is ridiculous!''
In the first days the tenderness between Helene and the new girl
was quite touching. But circumstance arose to end the harmony.
Rosalie could write. On the 23rd of May the witness told Helene
that he would like her to give him an account of expenses. The
request made Helene angry, and increased her spite against the
more educated Rosalie. Helene attempting to order Rosalie about,
the latter laughingly told her, ``M. Bidard pays me to obey him.
If I have to obey you also you'll have to pay me too.'' From
that time Helene conceived an aversion from the girl.
About the time when Helene began to be sour to Rosalie she
herself was seized by vomitings. She complained to Mlle Bidard,
a cousin of the witness, that Rosalie neglected her. But when
the latter went up to her room Helene yelled at her, `` Get out,
you ugly brute! In you I've brought into the house a stick for
my own back!''
This sort of quarrelling went on without ceasing. At the
beginning of June the witness said to Helene, ``If this continues
you'll have to look for another place.'' ``That's it!'' Helene
yelled, in reply. ``Because of that girl I'll have to go!''
On the 10th of June M. Bidard gave Helene definite notice. It
was to take effect on St John's Day. At his evening meal he was
served with a roast and some green peas. These last he did not
touch. In spite of his prohibition against her serving at table,
it was Helene who brought the peas in. ``How's this?'' she said
to him. ``You haven't eaten your green peas--and them so good!''
Saying this, she snatched up the dish and carried it to the
kitchen. Rosalie ate some of the peas. No sooner had she taken
a few spoonfuls, however, than she grew sick, and presently was
seized by vomiting. Helene took no supper. She said she was out
of sorts and wanted none.
The witness did not hear of these facts until next day. He
wanted to see the remainder of the peas, but they could not be
found. Rosalie still kept being sick, and he bade her go and see
his doctor, M. Boudin. Helene, on a sudden amiable to Rosalie
where she had been sulky, offered to go with her. Dr Boudin
prescribed an emetic, which produced good effects.
On the 15th of June Rosalie seemed to have recovered. In the
meantime a cook presented herself at his house to be engaged in
place of Helene. The latter was acquainted with the new-comer.
A vegetable soup had been prescribed for Rosalie, and this Helene
prepared. The convalescent ate some, and at once fell prey to
violent sickness. That same day Helene came in search of the
witness. ``You're never going to dismiss me for that young
girl?'' she demanded angrily. M. Bidard relented. He said that
if she would promise to keep the peace with Rosalie he would let
her stay on. Helene seemed to be satisfied, and behaved better
to Rosalie, who began to mend again.
M. Bidard went into the country on the 21st of June, taking
Rosalie with him. They returned on the 22nd. The witness
himself went to the pharmacy to get a final purgative of Epsom
salts, which had been ordered for Rosalie by the doctor. This
the witness himself divided into three portions, each of which he
dissolved in separate glasses of whey prepared by Helene. The
witness administered the first dose. Helene gave the last. The
invalid vomited it. She was extremely ill on the night of the
22nd-23rd, and Helene returned to misgivings about the skill of
the doctors. She kept repeating, ``Ah! Rosalie will die! I
tell you she will die!'' On the day of the 23rd she openly
railed against them. M. Boudin had prescribed leeches and
blisters. ``Look at that now, monsieur,'' Helene said to the
witness. ``To-morrow's Rosalie's name-day, and they're going to
put leeches on her!'' Rather disturbed, M. Bidard wrote to Dr
Pinault, who came next day and gave the treatment his approval.
Dr Boudin had said the invalid might have gooseberry syrup with
seltzer water. Two glasses of the mixture given to Rosalie by
her mother seemed to do the girl good, but after the third glass
she did not want any more. Helene had given her this third
glass. The invalid said to the witness, ``I don't know what
Helene has put into my drink, but it burns me like red-hot
iron.''
``Struck by those symptoms,'' added M. Bidard, ``I questioned
Helene at once. It has not been given me more than twice in my
life to see Helene's eyes. I saw at that moment the look she
flung at Rosalie. It was the look of a wild beast, a tiger-cat.
At that moment my impulse was to go to my work-room for a cord,
and to tie her up and drag her to the justiciary. But one
reflection stopped me. What was this I was about to do--disgrace
a woman on a mere suspicion? I hesitated. I did not know
whether I had before me a poisoner or a woman of admirable
devotion.''
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.
Dr Pinault gave an account of Rosalie's illness, and spoke of the
suspicions he and his colleagues had had of poisoning. It was a
crime, however, for which there seemed to be no motive. The
poisoner could hardly be M. Bidard, and as far as suspicion might
touch the cook, she seemed to be lavish in her care of the
patient. It was not until the very last that he, with his
colleagues, became convinced of poison.
Rosalie dead, the justiciary went to M. Bidard's. The cupboards
were searched carefully. The potion which Rosalie had thought to
be mixed with burning stuff was still there, just sampled. It
was put into a bottle and capped.
An autopsy could not now be avoided. It was held next day. M.
Pinault gave an account of the results. Most of the organs were
in a normal condition, and such slight alterations as could be
seen in others would not account for death. It was concluded
that death had been occasioned by poison. The autopsy on the
exhumed body of Perrotte Mace was inconclusive, owing to the
condition of adipocere.
Dr Guyot spoke of the case of Francoise Huriaux, and was now sure
she had been given poison in small doses. Dr Boudin described
the progress of Rosalie's illness. He was in no doubt, like his
colleagues, that she had been poisoned.
The depositions of various witnesses followed. A laundress said
that Helene's conduct was to be explained by jealousy. She could
not put up with any supervision, but wanted full control ofthe
household and ofthe money.
Francoise Huriaux said Helene was angry because M. Bidard would
not have her as sole domestic. She had resented Francoise's
being engaged. The witness noticed that she became ill whenever
she ate food prepared for her by Helene. When she did not eat
Helene was angry but threw out the food Francoise refused.
Several witnesses testified to the conduct of Helene towards
Rosalie Sarrazin during her fatal illness. Helene was constant,
self-sacrificing, in her attention to the invalid. One incident,
however, was described by a witness which might indicate that
Helene's solicitude was not altogether genuine. One morning,
towards the end of Rosalie's life, the patient, in her agony,
escaped from the hold of her mother, and fell into an awkward
position against the wall. Rosalie's mother asked Helene to
place a pillow for her. ``Ma foi!'' Helene replied. ``You're
beginning to weary me. You're her mother! Help her yourself!''
The testimony of a neighbour, one Francoise Louarne, a domestic
servant, supports the idea that Helene resented the presence of
Rosalie in the house. Helene said to this witness, ``M. Bidard
has gone into the country with his housemaid. Everything SHE
does is perfect. They leave me here--to work if I want to, eat
my bread dry: that's my reward. But the housemaid will go before
I do. Although M. Bidard has given me my notice, he'll have to
order me out before I'll go. Look!'' Helene added. ``Here's the
bed of the ugly housemaid--in a room not too far from the
master's. Me--they stick me up in the mansard!'' Later, when
Rosalie was very ill, Helene pretended to be grieved. ``You
can't be so very sorry,'' the witness remarked; ``you've said
plenty that was bad about the girl.''
Helene vigorously denounced the testimony as all lies. The woman
had never been near Bidard's house.
The pharmacist responsible for dispensing the medicines given to
Rosalie was able to show that arsenic could not have got into
them by mistake on his part.
At the hearing of the trial on the 12th of December Dr Pinault
was asked to tell what happened when the emissions of Rosalie
Sarrazin were being transferred for analysis.
DR PINAULT. As we were carrying out the operation Helene came
in, and it was plain that she was put out of countenance.
M. BIDARD [interposing]. We were in my daughter's room, where
nobody ever came. When Helene came to the door I was surprised.
There was no explanation for her appearance except that she was
inquisitive.
DR PINAULT. She seemed to be disturbed at not finding the
emissions by the bed of the dead girl, and it was no doubt to
find them that she came to the room.
HELENE. I had been given a funnel to wash. I was bringing it
back.
M. BIDARD. Helene, with her usual cleverness, is making the most
of a fact. She had already appeared when she was given the
funnel. Her presence disturbed me. And to get rid of her I
said, ``Here, Helene, take this away and wash it.''
The accused persisted in denying M. Bidard's version of the
incident.
% V
M. Malagutti, professor of chemistry to the faculty of sciences
in Rennes, who, with M. Sarzeau, had been asked to make a
chemical analysis of the reserved portions of the bodies of
Rosalie, Perrotte Mace, and Rose Tessier, gave the results of his
and his colleague s investigations. In the case of Rosalie they
had also examined the vomitings. The final test on the portions
of Rosalie's body carried out with hydrochloronitric acid--as
best for the small quantities likely to result in poisoning by
small doses--gave a residue which was submitted to the Marsh
test. The tube showed a definite arsenic ring. Tests on the
vomit gave the same result.
The poisoning of Perrotte Mace had also been accomplished by
small doses. Arsenic was found after the strictest tests, which
obviated all possibility that the substance could have come from
the ground in which the body was interred.
In the case of Rose Tessier the tests yielded a huge amount of
arsenic. Rose had died after an illness of only four days. The
large amount of arsenic indicated a brutal and violent poisoning,
in which the substance could not be excreted in the usual way.
The President then addressed the accused on this evidence. She
alone had watched near all three of the victims, and against all
three she had motives of hate. Poisoning was established beyond
all doubt. Who was the poisoner if not she, Helene Jegado?
Helene: ``Frankly, I have nothing to reproach myself with. I
gave them only what came from the pharmacies on the orders of the
doctors.''
After evidence of Helene's physical condition, by a doctor who
had seen her in prison (she had a scirrhous tumour on her left
breast), the speech for the defence was made.
M. Dorange was very eloquent, but he had a hopeless case. The
defence he put up was that Helene was irresponsible, but the
major part of the advocate's speech was taken up with a
denouncement of capital punishment. It was a barbarous
anachronism, a survival which disgraced civilization.
The President summed up and addressed the jury:
``Cast a final scrutiny, gentlemen of the jury,'' he said, ``at
the matter brought out by these debates. Consult yourselves in
the calm and stillness of your souls. If it is not proved to you
that Helene Jegado is responsible for her actions you will acquit
her. If you think that, without being devoid of free will and
moral sense, she is not, according to the evidence, as well
gifted as the average in humanity, you will give her the benefit
of extenuating circumstance.
``But if you consider her culpable, if you cannot see in her
either debility of spirit or an absence or feebleness of moral
sense, you will do your duty with firmness. You will remember
that for justice to be done chastisement will not alone suffice,
but that punishment must be in proportion to the offence.''
The President then read over his questions for the jury, and that
body retired. After deliberations which occupied an hour and a
half the jury came back with a verdict of guilty on all points.
The Procureur asked for the penalty of death.
THE PRESIDENT. Helene Jegado, have you anything to say upon the
application of the penalty?
HELENE. No, Monsieur le President, I am innocent. I am resigned
to everything. I would rather die innocent than live in guilt.
You have judged me, but God will judge you all. He will see then
. . . Monsieur Bidard. All those false witnesses who have come
here to destroy me . . . they will see. . . .
In a voice charged with emotion the President pronounced the
sentence condemning Helene Jegado to death.
An appeal was put forward on her behalf, but was rejected.
On the scaffold, a few moments before she passed into eternity,
having no witness but the recorder and the executioner, faithful
to the habits of her life, Helene Jegado accused a woman not
named in any of the processes of having urged her to her first
crimes and of being her accomplice. The two officials took no
notice of this indirect confession of her own guilt, and the
sentence was carried out. The Procureur of Rennes, hearing of
this confession, took the trouble to search out the woman named
in it. She turned out to be a very old woman of such a pious and
kindly nature that the people about her talked of her as the
``saint.''
It were superfluous to embark on analysis of the character of
Helene Jegado. Earlier on, in comparing her with Van der Linden
and the Zwanziger woman, I have lessened her caliginosity as
compared with that of the Leyden poisoner, giving her credit for
one less death than her Dutch sister in crime. Having
investigated Helene's activities rather more closely, however, I
find I have made mention of no less than twenty-eight deaths
attributed to Helene, which puts her one up on the Dutchwoman.
The only possible point at which I may have gone astray in my
calculations is in respect of the deaths at Guern. The accounts
I have of Helene's bag there insist on seven, but enumerate only
six--namely, her sister Anna, the cure, his father and mother,
and two more (unnamed) after these. The accounts, nevertheless,
insist more than once that between 1833 and 1841 Helene put away
twenty-three persons. If she managed only six at Guern, that
total should be twenty-two. From 1849 she accounted for Albert
Rabot, the infant Ozanne, Perrotte Mace, Rose Tessier, and
Rosalie Sarrazin--five. We need no chartered accountant to
certify our figures if we make the total twenty-eight. Give her
the benefit of the doubt in the case of Albert Rabot, who was ill
anyhow when Helene joined the household, and she still ties with
Van der Linden with twenty-seven deaths.
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