The History and Romance of Crime 23

The History and Romance of Crime 23

Too often the male sex exhibit a very different spirit. With them it

is an ardent passion for vengeance, inditing hatred for a treacherous

companion, misplaced pride in their evil deeds. It is “Death to the

judge!” “We will avenge our sufferings!” “Vive anarchy!” “Vive the

revolution!” “Some day we will blow up all the prisons!” Innumerable

phrases like the following are to be met with: “I will kill you when I

get out;” “Death to the spy Fernand, who got me here; I will cut him

open.” “I should have been acquitted, but my wife betrayed my real

name; let her look out!” “B---- the victim missed his vengeance on his

miserable brother, but it will come yet,” and so on. The régime of

isolation apparently does not stimulate very edifying thoughts.

 

Reference has been made in another volume of this series to the

marriages of convicts under the sentimental idea of regenerating

society in New Caledonia. A matrimonial agency was set up in the

office of the Marine and Colonies. It was the rule to send a call for

the names of female prisoners selected by governors as suitable to

be sent out as wives. As might have been expected, no great success

attended this scheme. The marriages were never idyllic and seldom even

happy. Here are a few of the brides and their antecedents: Catherine

P., twenty-four years of age, a bad character, had three natural

children, strangled the last with the strings of her apron; Angelique

F., hopelessly bad, had two children, last crime, scaled the wall

surrounding the house of an aged woman of eighty, robbed her, and on

leaving, set fire to the house, not only burning her victim to death,

but causing the destruction of three neighboring houses; Julie Marie

Robertine C., twenty, a hopeless drunkard, stole a child and buried it

alive. Nevertheless applications were made by convicts on the eve of

embarkation to be supplied with a wife from Saint Lazare. One wrote,

“I am under sentence of eight years for forgery and daily expect to

embark for New Caledonia. My family have cast me off, but I am in great

hopes that if they thought I was on the way to rehabilitate myself

they might be willing to help me. The only way I can see of recovering

my position is to marry before I start for the Antipodes. I can have

no hope that any respectable person would accept me, and I must have

recourse to some one who like myself has come within the grip of the

law. Will M. Laumonier (this letter was addressed to the chaplain of La

Grande Roquette) put my proposal of marriage before any inmate of Saint

Lazare, who might be disposed to accept it?” Unfortunately orders for

removal came before any matrimonial alliance could be arranged, but it

was by no means an isolated case.

 

Another letter was received by the chaplain (l’Abbé Crozes) much to

the same effect. A convict sentenced to six years’ hard labor and ten

years’ supervision was equally anxious to marry before his departure,

and had already made his choice, but he appealed to the chaplain

to assist him in arranging the preliminaries. He is described as a

horrible looking ruffian, pale faced and weakly, who pretended to be

very much in love; but he would make no admissions as to where he had

met the girl who was barely sixteen years old. The chaplain interviewed

her and found that the girl had obtained the consent of her parents,

and the convict was greatly rejoiced. But next day a letter came from

the father directed to l’Abbé Crozes, to the effect that his daughter

had been deceived, and that he could not consent to her marriage with

a convict under sentence of six years. The chaplain then sent for

the man to communicate this refusal. But it was evidently no great

disappointment. “You are not upset?” he asked. “Not the least in the

world,” replied the philosophical bridegroom. As the abbé left the

prison he saw his friend sitting at the bar of the canteen with three

companions merrily employed on a substantial repast.

 

One more story of a proposed convict marriage. A cunning plot underlay

this. The convict’s scheme was that when taken to the church and

afterwards to the mayor’s office, he proposed to escape. His intention

was to call a halt at a wine-shop and ply his escort, two police

inspectors, with drink, and when he had succeeded in making them drunk

to get away. But his escort shrewdly penetrated the design, which

failed entirely, and the wedding party ended in the return of the

bridegroom to his gaol.

 

The whole question of French female criminality centres within this

prison of Saint Lazare. It is a remarkable fact that fewer crimes

are committed by females than males in France, and the rule obtains

the world over. The proportion varies, according to the statistics

presented at the Prison Congress in Stockholm some few years ago. It

is more than three per cent. in every hundred of both sexes combined,

in some parts of America, North and South, in Japan and India, but

it rises to ten per cent. in the United States, to twenty per cent.

in China, and throughout Europe it ranges from ten to twenty-one per

cent., the latter being the rule in Switzerland. The proportionate

number of women accused of crimes in France is between fourteen and

fifteen as against eighty-five and eighty-six men. A very intelligible

explanation is offered. There are many crimes which women are not

tempted to commit, for which they miss the opportunity, or lack

facilities and strength. For example, they are seldom convicted of

peculation and embezzlement, forgeries and robberies with violence and

resistance to authority. Their crimes are mostly inspired by passion

and greed. This last named motive reached its climax in the case of

the woman concerned in a singularly atrocious murder, who, when asked

why she had been a party to the crime, coolly answered, “I wanted a

new bonnet very badly.” There is one crime, however, that specially

recommends itself to the woman criminal,--that of poisoning,--a fact

attested by criminal records in every country and notably in France.

It is hardly necessary to quote the numerous instances in which women

of all classes have taken advantage of facilities so freely offered

to those constantly concerned in domestic affairs. The mistress of a

house; the cook in her kitchen; the nurse by the bedside; each of these

has it in her power to administer noxious drugs without interference

and not seldom without detection. For centuries the crimes of the

Marchioness de Brinvilliers, a Frenchwoman, have shocked the world and

rivalled the wholesale misdeeds of Lucrezia Borgia. The mystery of

Madame Lafarge has already been referred to in these pages. The most

determined poisoner ever known was the French woman Helene Jegardo, who

dealt death to all around her with a white powder which was always kept

by her for use in preparing food in her kitchen.

 

As regards crime in general it is universally agreed that a woman’s

influence for evil is often exercised over others. “_Cherchez la

femme_” is constantly quoted by French officers of justice, and it is

asserted that the woman plays a commanding part in all associations

of criminals so commonly encountered among the Latin races. The

organised “band” is very characteristic of the criminal methods in

France. It is recruited from all classes and all categories; the

lowest classes, habitual thieves and depredators, have no monopoly.

There have been bands like that of the “Habits Noir,” the well-dressed

people who ravaged Parisian society for some time, and who were

directed and assisted by ladies in good position. This band worked very

systematically. It had its own agents and men of business, bankers and

money lenders and a whole army of blackmailers. A long list might be

drawn up of the organisations that have flourished in France. We need

not go back to the _chauffeurs_, the product of the general unrest

after the French Revolution, when provincial France was at the mercy of

the most active and determined gangs of robbers. The females of these

bands rendered the most valuable assistance in seeking outlets for the

exercise of their evil practices. After them there was the “Thiebert”

band, the largest ever known, numbering some eight hundred members and

admirably organised with an effective subdivision of labor. Again, the

“Graft” band, a corporative society not unlike the well known firm of

English notoriety and addicted mostly to commercial frauds. The Lemaire

band was peculiar, not only in its extensive depredations, but because

it was mainly composed of the members of two families, a curious

instance of the effect of heredity toward the criminal bias.

 

The organised band still exists, and some of the most baneful have

flourished in modern times. That of Vrignault and Chevalier was broken

up in 1786 in a trial in which a hundred and fifty culprits were

charged. Chevalier with a certain Keippe, a devoted friend, were the

moving spirits, and they were well served by women who had passed

through Saint Lazare. Two of the women, Piat and Conturier, are said

to have surrendered and allowed themselves to be condemned, although

really innocent, in order that they might also be transported to New

Caledonia--an act of devotion which, according to the director of Saint

Lazare and the Parisian police, was by no means rare. Abadie, who

subsequently suffered on the guillotine with his confederate Gilles

for murdering a woman at Montreuil, desired to revive this method and

re-organised the broken up band of Chevalier in a systematic fashion.

He was a lad (no more) of extraordinary intelligence and possessed

the keenest criminal tendency. It is said of him that he had been

educated on criminal fiction and studied his business in the well-known

novels of Ponson du Terrail. He had a mania for writing, and, having

been reprieved, it was thought that he might assist in the conviction

of accused persons by becoming an official informer. He spent his

time in addressing letters to the instructing judge, full of false

confessions and unsupported charges. In forming his band he adopted

the code established by Chevalier, which has been preserved. It is a

curious document, showing his logical mind and his practical methods.

He formed his society of fourteen, twelve men and two women, and he

strictly forbade any of the members to enter into close relations with

others. No one was permitted to commit a crime without the express

consent of his chief. They were armed with revolvers, hunting knives,

loaded canes and knuckle-dusters. They were obliged to possess a

certain number of disguises; among others, a workman’s blue blouse, and

they were ordered to work when not at their business. They were fined

if found drunk in a wine-shop. A daily wage of six francs was accorded

to them with an additional ten francs out of the day’s thieving. The

women were to act as spies, and to take places as servants in the

neighborhood in houses marked for plunder. Those who joined the society

were not at liberty to leave it under pain of death. Other regulations

of the same tenor laid down strict rules of conduct, and there is

little doubt that had the society lasted it would have added greatly

to contemporary crime; but it was broken up by the discovery of two

murders committed within the first year. Abadie had many imitators,

such as the band of the “Bois de Boulogne,” organised by Houillon and

Leclerc. In all these it was abundantly proved that the females were

the moving spirits. They seldom acted themselves where violence was

necessary, but they advised, indicated and encouraged the crimes. They

were obeyed readily by their confederates, who were afraid of them,

knowing that if dissatisfied or distrustful they would pitilessly

betray any one. They were often impelled by jealousy, that powerful

incentive in the female character which has led to the invention by

French women of that cowardly method of obtaining revenge, the throwing of vitriol in the face of those who offend them.