Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris (37 page)

Liégeois stood his ground. “I say you had a duty to interrogate her in that state.”

It was curious, Liégeois went on, that Eyraud had demanded to see Gabrielle again after she was taken from him by Georges Garanger. In one of his menacing letters, he told Garanger he wanted to see her just for five or six minutes. He repeated this request several times in the letter. Liégeois wondered what Eyraud was hoping to accomplish. Eyraud was worried that Garanger would hypnotize Gabrielle and that she would reveal the truth. Eyraud would then find himself portrayed as the murderer he was. He wanted his five or six minutes with her to renew his posthypnotic suggestion eliminating her memory of the crime.

Now Liégeois turned to his displeasure with the prosecutor, Quesnay de Beaurepaire, who had ridiculed him for his opinions. Quesnay de Beaurepaire had argued that if the justice system
accepted Liégeois’s argument that criminals are not responsible for their actions, there would be no more criminals. Liégeois refused to allow his reasoning to be denigrated in this way, saying that was not his thesis at all. If an ordinary person commits a crime, of course they are responsible. But if a person commits a crime in a state of hypnosis, they cannot be judged responsible. “Am I alone in this opinion?” Absolutely not, he declared. He invoked his Nancy supporters: Dr. Hippolyte Bernheim and Dr. Ambroise Auguste Liébeault.

Having spoken now for another two hours, Liégeois brought his deposition to a close with a fervent declaration: “I would rather chop off my hands than sign a verdict of condemnation of Gabrielle Bompard.”

In the dock, Gabrielle had her head on Dr. Floquet’s shoulder and was sound asleep.

Judge Robert asked if the lawyers had any questions for Liégeois.

Prosecutor Quesnay de Beaurepaire took the floor on his unsteady feet. The squint of his eye and the tilt of his head conveyed an air of skepticism. Was it really possible, he asked as if the question itself was ludicrous, that a hypnotic suggestion planted in a subject’s head could persist over several weeks?

“Perfectly,” Liégeois replied.

The question was meant to cast doubt not only on Liégeois’s defense of Gabrielle but on the nature of Liégeois’s work. Posthypnotic suggestion was related to Liégeois’s contention about the existence of a second state—the condition in which he contended Gabrielle committed the crime.

Dr. Brouardel stepped forward in support of Quesnay de Beaurepaire’s misgivings, raising doubts about how long a suggestion could remain with a subject. To both men, it was all far-fetched nonsense, and they meant to demolish this vital element of the defense. If Liégeois had constructed a preposterous theory of a second state based on questionable research into posthypnotic suggestion, the men implied, why should the jury believe any of his testimony related to hypnosis in this case? Their attack was not limited to Liégeois alone. They were dismissing a large portion of the work of the entire Nancy school, for Liégeois, Bernheim, and another adherent, H. E. Beaunis, the chair of physiology at the University of Nancy, had all conducted experiments in long-term posthypnotic suggestions.

The school’s experiments were startling. Bernheim had a subject take a specific action 63 days after hypnosis, Beaunis after 172 days—and Liégeois a full 365 days. In this one-year experiment, begun on October 12, 1885, Liégeois told a hypnotized eye patient of Bernheim’s
that he would return to the doctor’s office exactly a year later to thank him for his treatment. Liégeois directed the patient to embrace both Bernheim and Liégeois on seeing them and then hallucinate a series of events: He would see a monkey and a dog in the office, and the monkey would be carrying the dog and they would romp and make faces. Five minutes later the patient would see a bohemian-type man enter followed by a tamed grizzly bear from America. The bohemian would be happy to find his dog and monkey, which he thought he’d lost, and then he would make the bear dance. As the bohemian was about to leave, the patient would ask Liégeois for six centimes and would hand the money over as a donation for the performance. After this elaborate scenario was planted in his head, the patient was brought out of his trance and sent on his way. According to Liégeois’s report, the patient returned exactly a year later, on October 12, 1886, at 10:10 a.m. Everything went off just as it was ordered, except that the patient didn’t embrace Bernheim and Liégeois and he said nothing about a bear. Liégeois hypnotized the patient and asked him why he saw the monkey and dog, and the patient replied that it was because Liégeois had given him the suggestion on October 12, 1885. But why didn’t he embrace the experimenters or see the bear? That was simple, the patient said; the dog and monkey suggestions were made three times, while the others were made only once. When the patient was awakened, he had no memory of any of his actions. Writing about the case in the
Revue de l’hypnotisme
, Liégeois said the experiment was an example of a subject carrying out deeds in a second state, the condition in which he contended that Gabrielle had carried out her deeds.
“All scientific precautions were taken to ensure the validity of the experiment,” Liégeois wrote in the journal.

To Brouardel, none of it was legitimate. How do you prove that a subject isn’t just saying what the experimenter wants to hear? In a harmless case with monkeys and dogs, the only damage from actions in a supposed second state was to one’s scientific credibility. In a murder case like Gabrielle’s the consequences were far more serious. If an implausible argument such as this held sway in the courtroom, the nation risked an unacceptable miscarriage of justice. Brouardel wondered if Gabrielle wasn’t just following the lead of her lawyer and witnesses like Liégeois simply to save her neck. How does the court weigh whether her defense isn’t a fiction based on faulty hypnosis
research? “What guarantee do we have of the sincerity of the subject?” Brouardel asked the jury.

He then denigrated Liégeois’s laboratory procedures. Did the law professor use proper scientific controls? Brouardel measured Liégeois’s work against that of eminent scientists such as Jean-Martin Charcot and Louis Pasteur. “Would they have proceeded in a similar manner?” he asked rhetorically. Next he circled back to Liégeois’s demand to examine Gabrielle under hypnosis. Out of the question, Brouardel asserted: It was not appropriate to wheedle a confession out of Gabrielle while she was under hypnosis. “That is a thing I would never do,” he declared, “and I am sure that my honorable confrères are of the same opinion.”

And what of Gabrielle’s actions prior to the murder: going to London, returning to Paris, renting an apartment, sewing the sack, helping Eyraud prepare the scene? “Do you seriously think that during all this time she was in a second state?” How could Eyraud have kept her from remembering everything? “I do not know of a case in which a person had put another to sleep and then as a last command barred him from remembering all previous hypnotizations,” Brouardel said.

What was the real source of Eyraud’s influence over Gabrielle? It was all very natural, Brouardel explained. When people are together, one exerts an influence over the other. “This is what we see every day and it is not necessary to see anything extraordinary in it,” he said. “It’s like three schoolboys who make a stupid mistake. Each father will say, ‘My son was dragged into it.’ ” Brouardel laughed and the courtroom laughed with him.

Fighting back, Henri Robert invited Dr. Sacreste to share his view. Did the doctor agree with the testimony put forth by Liégeois? Sacreste allowed for Gabrielle’s acquittal, or at least a mitigation of her sentence. “I consider Gabrielle Bompard not responsible,” he replied, “or at the very least that her responsibility is diminished.”

The judge asked Dr. Motet, Brouardel’s partner in the report on Gabrielle, if he wished to offer his observations. Motet said that if Gabrielle had been under hypnosis at the time of the crime, it was true she would have had no memory of what took place. However, she gave complete and precise testimony. She re-created for investigators and the court large portions of the crime and described her and Eyraud’s actions before and after the killing. “Thus, she was not hypnotized,”
he said. “We would have been very satisfied to have found such an interesting case.” But, he said, this was not it.

Henri Robert got to his feet. His defense needed a dramatic surprise. “If it pleases the court,” he said to the judge, “order Messieurs Brouardel, Liégeois, Voisin, or whichever expert it pleases you to designate, to examine Gabrielle Bompard here in public. I make this plea in the name of truth. All of us here have a passion for truth. We are here at trial for facts not theories.” He turned and addressed the jury. “You need facts, messieurs of the jury, and not a discussion of schools. You need facts and conclusions, so your expertise as a jury could be put to work.” Entreating the jury, he continued: “Put Gabrielle Bompard to sleep, interrogate her on the crime. I do not fear her revelations.”

“Monsieur Robert,” the judge interrupted, “it’s to the court and not the jury that you should address yourself. It is only the court that has the duty to decide on your plea.”

“That’s true,” Henri Robert said. “But the gentlemen of the jury can request this experiment. In a case as grave as this, if there is a way to discover the truth, no method should be refused.”

Quesnay de Beaurepaire stood up and thundered: “This has the air of a courtroom spectacle!” It didn’t promise any revelations but rather it was a last-minute wish to create a sensation in the courtroom. “What you’re asking for is a séance of magnetism! What purpose would this serve? What would be the value of any declarations Gabrielle Bompard makes during hypnotic sleep? She is a known liar. I ask the court to reject the plea.”

The judge had heard enough. He called a recess and retired to his chambers to deliberate on the request. If the trial weren’t already a sensation, this defense maneuver promised to turn it into a carnival. To hypnotize a young murderess in court would enthrall the world but also invite ridicule. If the judge ruled in favor of the defense’s request, he knew his decision would dance in headlines everywhere. But how was he to weigh the uproar against the search for truth?

His contemplation of the question didn’t take long.

On his return to the courtroom, Judge Robert came right to the point. He explained that the discussion of hypnotism had already been so thorough that the jury was in possession of enough information to reach a decision with complete knowledge of the issue. “Considering
that the experiments demanded in the name of Gabrielle Bompard are not necessary to the discovery of the truth,” he continued, “the request is denied.” And with that, he called another ten-minute recess.

When the session resumed, Albert Danet, the lawyer for Gouffé’s daughters, pleaded the civil case against Eyraud and Gabrielle. He spoke of the hardworking Gouffé who suffered the sad loss of his wife in 1882 and raised his young daughters on his own. To accentuate Gouffé’s saintliness he demonized Eyraud in every way possible. Then in conclusion he told the jury: “Voilà, gentlemen, my last word. Do not forget to think a bit of these orphans on whom I call your merciful attention.”

The judge adjourned for the day at five forty-five. The trial, which was supposed to last only four days, needed a fifth. On Saturday, the prosecution and the defense would deliver their final arguments. Then the jury would retire to consider its verdict.

Across the Atlantic, American newspapers played the case in large headlines.
“Hypnotic Mysteries” declared the
Daily Inter Ocean
in Chicago. “Interest of Many Scientific Men Drawn to French Murder Trial.” The paper was of the opinion that “the chances are that the head of the pretty strangler will not drop in the bloody basket from the guillotine.” It described Gabrielle as a modern Jekyll and Hyde: “Scientific men will prove that she is a very impressionable subject, and unconsciously possessed of a double nature, and that in the hands of an unscrupulous man she was actually unable to resist, her mind being completely in his power.”

The
San Francisco Chronicle
wondered about the potential impact of the case on future courtroom dramas. An acquittal for Gabrielle meant defense lawyers would have a new potent weapon in their arsenal.
“If Gabrielle Bompard succeeds in saving her life it is probable that hypnotism will come into general use as a defense in murder cases, rivaling the present popularity of emotional insanity, and even dividing honors with self-defense.”

In Paris, the defendants’ guilt was not in question. The conversation on the streets focused on sentencing: How severe a punishment? Would the men of the jury send both killers to the guillotine? Few Parisians had qualms about executing a strangler as vicious as Eyraud. But Gabrielle was another matter. Some French murderesses had lost their heads to the blade, but squeamishness over female beheadings
existed—especially if, as in Gabrielle’s case, there was any possibility she had been an unconscious pawn of Eyraud.

The courtroom drama was playing to tremendous reviews. Parisians were delighted to have the show extended another day.
Le Figaro
declared that the scenes in the Cour d’Assises were more fascinating than anything in the Parisian theater.
“The theater, that’s fiction,” the paper explained. “In the Cour d’Assises, that’s life.”

Warmer weather—forty-four degrees—and radiant sunshine brought out the largest crowd yet to mill about the courthouse. There was festive anticipation on the streets as the trial headed toward its climax. Inside, the prosecutor, Jules Quesnay de Beaurepaire, took the floor.
“I come to conclude in the interest of justice,” he told the jurors. “My task seems arduous because we have heard so many far-fetched stories. Forget all that has been said and all that has been written and form an opinion based on what will unfold before you now.” He sought to turn the jury away from consideration of a certain factor in the case that in his eyes was so outrageous it didn’t even merit serious discussion. But he had to address it nonetheless: It had distorted the trial and inspired the defense. “It is,” he said, “the love of the fantastic. This love of the otherworldly arises from the dramatic circumstances of this crime. Instead of it being seen for what it was—just a vulgar act—it has played on the imagination. We have seen something extraordinary in it.” He said the young heroine in this tale was regarded by some as pretty and engaging but she was also bizarre. “We are asked,” Quesnay de Beaurepaire continued, “to believe she committed this crime without her free will. But to believe that, one must venture back several centuries and see her as a veritable subject of possession.”