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 gla.s.ses 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 gla.s.ses of the mixture given to Rosalie by her mother seemed to do the girl good, but after the third gla.s.s she did not want any more. Helene had given her this third gla.s.s. 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 subst.i.tuted 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 a.r.s.enic 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 a.r.s.enic. I defy anybody to say they saw me give a.r.s.enic."
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 a.r.s.enic 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 a.n.a.lysis.
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 n.o.body 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 quant.i.ties likely to result in poisoning by small doses--gave a residue which was submitted to the Marsh test. The tube showed a definite a.r.s.enic ring. Tests on the vomit gave the same result.
The poisoning of Perrotte Mace had also been accomplished by small doses. a.r.s.enic 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 a.r.s.enic.
Rose had died after an illness of only four days. The large amount of a.r.s.enic 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 circ.u.mstance.
"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 chastis.e.m.e.nt will not alone suffice, but that punishment must be in proportion to the offence."