She Stands Accused Part 10

If the Prince had got up on a sudden impulse to commit suicide he is hardly likely, being a prince, to have attempted remaking his bed. He must, moreover, since he could normally get from bed only by rolling on his side, have pressed out that heightened edge. Manoury, the valet who loved him, said that the bed in the morning looked more as if it had been SMOOTHED OUT than remade. This would tend to support the theory of Dr Dubois. The murderers, having suffocated the Prince, would be likely to try effacing the effects of his struggling by the former method rather than the latter.

But the important point of the affair, as far as this chapter on it is concerned, is the relation of Sophie Dawes with it on the conclusion of murder. How deeply was she implicated? Let us see how she acted on hearing that there was no reply to Lecomte's knocking, and let us examine her conduct from that moment on.

Note that the Baronne de Feucheres was the first person whom Lecomte and the Prince's surgeon apprised of the Prince's silence. She rushed out of her room and made for the Prince's, not by the secret staircase, but by the main one. She knew, however, that the door to the secret staircase from the Prince's room was not bolted that night. This knowledge was admitted for her later by the Prince's surgeon, M. Bonnie. She had gone up to the Prince's room by the main staircase in order to hide the fact, an action which gives a touch of theatricality to her exhibited concern about the Prince's silence.

The search for doc.u.ments spoken of by M. Pasquier in his letter to the King had been carried out by Sophie in person, with the aid of her nephew de Fla.s.sans and the Abbe Briant. It was a thorough search, and a piece of indecorousness which she excused on the ground of being afraid the Prince's executors might find a will which made her the sole heir, to the exclusion of the Duc d'Aumale.

Regarding the 'accident' which had happened to the Prince on the 11th of August, she said it was explained by an earlier attempt on his part to do away with himself. She tried to deny that she had been at Saint-Leu at the time of the actual happening, when the fact was that she only left for Paris some hours later.

When, some time later, the Prince's faithful valet Manoury made mention of the fact that the Prince had wanted to put the width of the country between himself and his mistress, Sophie first tried to put the fear of Louis-Philippe into the man, then, finding he was not to be silenced that way, tried to buy him with a promise of employment.

It is beyond question that the Prince de Conde was murdered. He was murdered in a wing of the chateau in which he was hemmed in on all sides by Sophie's creatures. It is impossible that Sophie was not privy, at the least, to the deed. It is not beyond the bounds of probability that she was an actual partic.i.p.ator in the murder.

She was a violent woman, as violent and pa.s.sionate as she was determined. Not once but many times is it on record that she physically ill-used her elderly lover. There was one occasion, it is said, when the Prince suddenly came upon her in a very compromising position with a younger man in the park of one of his chateaux. Sophie, before the Prince could utter a protest, cut him across the face with her riding-whip, and finished up by thrashing him with his own cane.

Here you have the stuff, at any rate, of which your murderesses of the violent type are made. It is the metal out of which your Kate Websters, your Sarah Malcolms, your Meteyards and Brownriggs fashion themselves.

It takes more than three years of scholastic self-discipline, such as Sophie Dawes in her ambition subjected herself to, to eradicate the inborn harridan. The very determination which was at the back of Sophie's efforts at self-education, that will to have her own way, would serve to heighten the sick rage with which she would discover that her carefully wrought plans of seven years had come to pieces. What was it that the Abbe Pelier de Lacroix had in "proof of the horrible a.s.sa.s.sination" of the Prince de Conde, but that he was prevented from placing before the lawyers in charge of the later investigation, if not the fact that the Prince had made a later will than the one by which Sophie inherited so greatly? The Abbe was the Prince's chaplain. He published a pamphlet declaring that the Prince had made a will leaving his entire fortune to the little Duc de Bordeaux, but that Sophie had stolen this later will. Who likelier to be a witness to such a will than the Prince's chaplain?

It needs no great feat of imagination to picture what the effect of such a discovery would be on a woman of Sophie's violent temper, or to conceive how little the matter of taking a life especially the life of a feeble old man she was used to bullying and mishandling--would be allowed to stand in the way of rescuing her large gains. Murder of the Prince was her only chance. It had taken her seven years to bring him to the point of signing that first will. He was seventy-four years of age, enfeebled, obstinate, and she knew of his plans to flee from her. Even supposing that she could prevent his flight, could she begin all over again to another seven years of bullying and wheedling--always with the prospect of the old man dying before she could get him to the point again of doing as she wished? The very existence of the second will was a menace. It only needed that the would-be heirs of the Prince should hear of it, and there would be a swoop on their part to rescue the testator from her clutches. In the balance against 2,000,000 francs and some halfdozen castles with their estates the only wonder is that any reasonable person, knowing the history of Sophie Dawes, should hesitate about the value she was likely to place on the old man's life.

The inquiry begun in September of 1830 into the circ.u.mstances surrounding the death of the Prince was cooked before it was dressed.

The honest man into whose hands it was placed at first, a M. de la Hurpoie, proved himself too zealous. After a night visit from the Procureur he was retired into private life. After that the investigators were hand-picked. They concluded the investigation the following June, with the declaration that the Prince had committed suicide, a verdict which had its reward--in advancement for the judges.

In the winter of 1831-32 there was begun a lawsuit in which the Princes de Rohan brought action against Sophie and the Duc d'Aumale for the upsetting of the will under which the latter two had inherited the Prince de Conde's fortune. The grounds for the action were the undue influence exerted by Sophie. The Princes de Rohan lost.

Thus was Sophie twice 'legally' vindicated. But public opinion refused her any coat of whitewash. Never popular in France, she became less and less popular in the years that followed her legal triumphs. Having used her for his own ends, Louis-Philippe gradually shut off from her the light of his cod-like countenance.[29]

Sophie found little joy in her wide French possessions. She found herself without friends before whom she could play the great lady in her castles. She gradually got rid of her possessions, and returned to her native land. She bought an estate near Christchurch, in Hampshire, and took a house in Hyde Park Square, London. But she did not long enjoy those English homes. While being treated for dropsy in 1840 she died of angina. According to the famous surgeon who was at her bedside just before her demise, she died "game."

It may almost be said that she lived game. There must have been a fighting quality about Sophie to take her so far from such a bad start.

Violent as she was of temper, greedy, unscrupulous, she seems yet to have had some instincts of kindness. The stories of her good deeds are rather swamped by those of her bad ones. She did try to do some good with the Prince's money round about Chantilly, took a definite and lasting interest in the alms-houses built there by "the Great Conde,"

and a request in her own will was to the effect that if she had ever done anything for the Orleans gang, the Prince de Conde's wishes regarding the use of the chateau of Ecouen as an orphanage might be fulfilled as a reward to her. The request never was fulfilled, but it does show that Sophie had some affinity in kindness to Nell Gwynn.

How much farther--or how much better--would Sophie Dawes have fared had her manners been less at the mercy of her temper? It is impossible to say. That she had some quality of greatness is beyond doubt. The resolution of character, the will to achieve, and even the viraginous temper might have carried her far had she been a man some thirty years earlier in the country of her greater activities. Under Napoleon, as a man, Sophie might have climbed high on the way to glory. As a woman, with those traits, there is almost tragic inevitability in the manner in which we find her ranged with what d.i.c.kens called "Glory's b.a.s.t.a.r.d brother"--Murder.

VI: -- a.r.s.eNIC A LA BRETONNE

On Tuesday, the 1st of July, in the year 1851, two gentlemen, sober of face as of raiment, presented themselves at the office of the Procureur-General in the City of Rennes. There was no need for them to introduce themselves to that official. They were well-known medical men of the city, Drs Pinault and Boudin. The former of the two acted as spokesman.

Dr Pinault confessed to some distress of mind. He had been called in by his colleague for consultation in the case of a girl, Rosalie Sarrazin, servant to an eminent professor of law, M. Bidard. In spite of the ministrations of himself and his colleague, Rosalie had died. The symptoms of the illness had been very much the same as in the case of a former servant of M. Bidard's, a girl named Rose Tessier, who had also died. With this in mind they had persuaded the relatives of Rosalie to permit an autopsy. They had to confess that they had found no trace of poison in the body, but they were still convinced the girl had died of poisoning. With his colleague backing him, Dr Pinault was able to put such facts before the Procureur-General that that official almost at once reached for his hat to accompany the two doctors to M. Bidard's.

The door of the Professor's house was opened to them by Helene Jegado, another of M. Bidard's servants. She was a woman of forty odd, somewhat scraggy of figure and, while not exactly ugly, not prepossessing of countenance. Her habit of looking anywhere but into the face of anyone addressing her gave her rather a furtive air.

Having ushered the three gentlemen into the presence of the Professor, the servant-woman lingered by the door.

"We have come, M. Bidard," said the Procureur, "on a rather painful mission. One of your servants died recently--it is suspected, of poisoning."

"I am innocent!"

The three visitors wheeled to stare, with the Professor, at the grey-faced woman in the doorway. It was she who had made the exclamation.

"Innocent of what?" demanded the Law officer. "No one has accused you of anything!"

This incautious remark on the part of the servant, together with the facts already put before him by the two doctors and the information he obtained from her employer, led the Procureur-General to have her arrested. Helene Jegado's past was inquired into, and a strange and dreadful Odyssey the last twenty years of her life proved to be. It was an Odyssey of death.

Helene was born at Plouhinec, department of Morbihan, on (according to the official record) "28 prairial," in the eleventh year of the republic (1803). Orphaned at the age of seven, she was sheltered by the cure of Bubry, M. Raillau, with whom two of her aunts were servants. Sixteen years later one of those aunts, Helene Liscouet, took Helene with her into service with M. Conan, cure at Seglien, and it was here that Helene Jegado's evil ways would appear first to become manifest. A girl looking after the cure's sheep declared she had found grains of hemp in soup prepared for her by Helene.

It was not, however, until 1833 that causing death is laid at her charge.

In that year she entered the service of a priest in Guern, one Le Drogo.

In the s.p.a.ce of little more than three months, from the 28th of June to the 3rd of October, seven persons in the priest's household died. All those people died after painful vomitings, and all of them had eaten food prepared by Helene, who nursed each of them to the last. The victims of this fatal outbreak of sickness included Helene's own sister Anna (apparently on a visit to Guern from Bubry), the rector's father and mother, and Le Drogo himself. This last, a strong and vigorous man, was dead within thirty-two hours of the first onset of his illness.

Helene, it was said, showed the liveliest sorrow over each of the deaths, but on the death of the rector was heard to say, "This won't be the last!" Nor was it. Two deaths followed that of Le Drogo.

Such a fatal outbreak did not pa.s.s without suspicion. The body of the rector was examined by Dr Galzain, who found indications of grave disorder in the digestive tracts, with inflammation of the intestines.

His colleague, Dr Martel, had suspicions of poison, but the pious sorrow of Helene lulled his mind as far as she was concerned.

We next find Helene returned to Bubry, replacing her sister Anna in the service of the cure there. In three months three people died: Helene's aunt Marie-Jeanne Liscouet and the cure's niece and sister. This last, a healthy girl of about sixteen, was dead within four days, and it is to be noted that during her brief illness she drank nothing but milk from the hands of Helene. But here, as. .h.i.therto, Helene attended all the sufferers. Her grief over their deaths impressed every one with whom she came in contact.

From Bubry Helene went to Locmine. Her family connexion as servants with the clergy found her room for three days in the rectory, after which she became apprentice to a needlewoman of the town, one Marie-Jeanne Leboucher, with whom she lived. The Widow Leboucher was stricken ill, as also was one of her daughters. Both died. The son of the house, Pierre, also fell ill. But, not liking Helene, he refused her ministrations, and recovered. By this time Helene had become somewhat sensitive.

"I'm afraid," she said to a male relative of the deceased sempstress, "that people will accuse me of all those deaths. Death follows me wherever I go." She quitted the Leboucher establishment in distress.

A widow of the same town offered her house room. The widow died, having eaten soup of Helene's preparing. On the day following the Widow Lorey's death her niece, Veuve Cadic, arrived. The grief-stricken Helene threw herself into the niece's arms.

"My poor girl!" exclaimed the Veuve Cadic.

"Ai--but I'm so unhappy!" Helene grieved. "Where-ever I go--Seglien, Guern, Bubry, Veuve Laboucher's--people die!"

She had cause for grief, sure enough. In less than eighteen months thirteen persons with whom she had been closely a.s.sociated had died of violent sickness. But more were to follow.

In May of 1835 Helene was in service with the Dame Toussaint, of Locmine. Four more people died. They were the Dame's confidential maid, Anne Eveno, M. Toussaint pere, a daughter of the house, Julie, and, later, Mme Toussaint herself. They had eaten vegetable soup prepared by Helene Jegado. Something tardily the son of the house, liking neither Helene's face nor the deathly rumours that were rife about her, dismissed her.

To one as burdened with sorrow as Helene Jegado appeared to be the life conventual was bound to hold appeal. She betook herself to the pleasant little town of Auray, which sits on a sea arm behind the nose of Quiberon, and sought shelter in the convent of the Eternal Father there.

She was admitted as a pensionnaire. Her sojourn in the convent did not last long, for queer disorders marked her stay. Linen in the convent cupboards and the garments of the pupils were maliciously slashed.

Helene was suspect and was packed off.

Once again Helene became apprentice to a sempstress, this time an old maid called Anne Lecouvrec, proprietress of the Bonnes-oeuvres in Auray.

The ancient lady, seventy-seven years of age, tried Helene's soup. She died two days later. To a niece of the deceased Helene made moan: "Ah! I carry sorrow. My masters die wherever I go!"

The realization, however, did not prevent Helene from seeking further employment. She next got a job with a lady named Lefur in Ploermel, and stayed for a month. During that time Helene's longing for the life religious found frequent expression, and she ultimately departed to pay a visit, so she said, to the good sisters of the Auray community. Some time before her departure, however, she persuaded Anne Lefur to accept a drink of her preparing, and Anne, hitherto a healthy woman, became very ill indeed. In this case Helene did not show her usual solicitude. She rather heartlessly abandoned the invalid--which would appear to have been a good thing for the invalid, for, lacking Helene's ministrations, she got better.

Helene meantime had found a place in Auray with a lady named Hetel. The job lasted only a few days. Mme Hetel's son-in-law, M. Le Dore, having heard why Helene was at need to leave the convent of the Eternal Father, showed her the door of the house. That was hasty, but not hasty enough.

His mother-in-law, having already eaten meats cooked by Helene, was in the throes of the usual violent sickness, and died the day after Helene's departure.

Failing to secure another place in Auray, Helene went to Pontivy, and got a position as cook in the household of the Sieur Jouanno. She had been there some few months when the son of the house, a boy of fourteen, died after a sickness of five days that was marked by vomiting and convulsions. In this case an autopsy was immediately held. It revealed an inflamed condition of the stomach and some corrosion of the intestines. But the boy had been known to be a vinegar-drinker, and the pathological conditions discovered by the doctor were attributed by him to the habit.