Crimes of Paris_ A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection - Dorothy Hoobler [120]
The trial, with so many defendants, promised to be a long one. Several hundred people were on the witness list, and some seven hundred exhibits entered into evidence, including all firearms that had been recovered. The ominous sight of these weapons, assembled on tables, faced the jury throughout the trial. On the first day, the judge announced that the question of politics was not to enter the deliberations of the trial. But of course virtually everyone in Paris knew of the crimes that the defendants were implicated in.
One of those accused, Marius Medge, was charged with the slayings of the old man and his housekeeper at Thiais. There had been fingerprints left at the murder scene, but apparently they were not distinct enough to incriminate Medge. Bertillon himself was called to the stand to interpret them. He pointed out irregularities in the prints and, with typical convoluted reasoning, said that these proved that the man who left them had been a cook. Unfortunately for Medge, the prosecution was able to produce proof that he had indeed worked as a cook. The jury, only partially convinced, found him guilty but asked the judge to show clemency. As a result, Medge was sentenced to life at hard labor (la guillotine sèche, the “dry guillotine”).
Ultimately, Callemin, Soudy, Monier, and the unfortunate Dieudonné (who the bank messenger in the first robbery had testified was, after all, the man who shot him) all were sentenced to the guillotine. Most of the others received prison terms; many were sent to Devil’s Island, the notorious French penal colony off the coast of South America.
Rather than face Devil’s Island, Carouy (who, largely on Bertillon’s shaky fingerprint analysis, had been convicted along with Medge of the murders at Thiais) swallowed a cyanide capsule someone in the courtroom had passed to him. He left a note: “Not having known the joys of existence, I shall leave this realm of atoms without regret. When I feel my muscles, when I feel my strength, it’s hard to imagine that all this can disappear for ever on the strength of one statement of my guilt. I cannot believe that Monsieur Bertillon can, in cold blood, really dare to send me to my death, because he is obstinate and doesn’t wish to admit that he’s wrong. Science is playing me a dirty trick.” 33 It wasn’t the first time Bertillon had incriminated a man because he couldn’t admit his mistake.
Appeals for the condemned men were presented to the courts and duly rejected. The only hope now was a reprieve from the new president of France, Raymond Poincaré. In view of the intense journalistic outrage at the gang’s crimes, it is surprising that Poincaré did in fact commute Dieudonné’s sentence to life on Devil’s Island. 34 Callemin, Soudy, and Monier were guillotined on April 21, 1913. Despite the fact that it was 4:30 in the morning and a light rain was falling, there was a crowd of spectators that had been steadily gathering since midnight. One of them was Gabriel Astruc, the impresario who had sponsored Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes: “I went with a magistrate friend of mine to the execution of the Bonnot gang.… First prisoner. Two steps forward. Plank tilts. Click. Corpse disappears. Three buckets of water. All over. Second prisoner: same business. Third prisoner: same business. An American reporter who had consulted his watch during the triple execution said to my friend: ‘You know, monsieur procureur, how long the whole thing lasted? Forty seconds exactly: it’s the new record!’ ” 35 Speed had scored another triumph.
Raymond-la-Science Callemin proved he deserved his nickname by declaring that his last wish was to have his body turned over to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris. That was done. Bertillon’s father and the Society for Mutual Autopsy would have approved.
8
THE THIEF
Ayear after the Mona Lisa vanished, the officials of the Louvre