Crimes of Paris_ A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection - Dorothy Hoobler [45]
“To kill without remorse is the highest of pleasures,” wrote Pierre-François Lacenaire. “It is impossible to destroy my hatred of mankind. This hatred is the product of a lifetime, the outcome of my every thought. I never pitied any one who suffered, and I don’t want to be pitied myself.” 2 These were the words — written as he faced the guillotine — of the most notorious criminal to appear in the decade after Vidocq’s retirement from the Sûreté in 1827. At heart a dandy with literary pretensions, Lacenaire sought to project himself as the greatest criminal of his generation. Though most of his crimes were petty ones, his self-promotion invited others to attempt to use him as a doorway into the criminal mind.
Born Pierre-François Gaillard, the son of a wealthy iron merchant in Francheville, he grew up with a profound sense of resentment. In his memoirs he recalled that his older brother was the favored son in the family. When Pierre was sixteen, he and his father had passed through the town square with the guillotine looming over it. “Look,” his father had said, “that is how you will finish up if you don’t change your ways.” 3 Lacenaire saw this moment as a turning point in his life. “From that moment,” he wrote, “an invisible bond existed between me and the frightful machine.” 4
As a young man, he went to Paris to study law; it was at this time that he adopted the name Lacenaire. Because the money his father sent him was not enough to survive on, he worked at many jobs, never achieving the success that he believed he deserved. Inspired by the Greek war for independence, Lacenaire went off to join the rebel forces. When he returned to France in 1829, he found that his father was bankrupt. Lacenaire had to fend for himself.
According to his memoirs, around this time Lacenaire fought a duel with the nephew of Benjamin Constant, a politician and writer. Lacenaire was the victor, and though the duel was not fatal, he claimed that the experience made him see how he could kill a person without remorse.
It was also in 1829 that Lacenaire served his first jail term, having been convicted in a swindling scheme. He was soon on the street again, and for the next three years he wrote lyric poems, songs, and essays. As no one would pay much for his literary creations, he continued his career of petty fraud, which brought him a second short prison sentence. After his release, the editor of Bon Sens, a radical political journal, asked Lacenaire to write an exposé of French prison life. This gave him a chance to express his contempt for authority and brought him some fame as well. “In this atmosphere… the wretched youth finds himself blushing at the last remnant of innocence and decency which he had still preserved when he entered the prison; he begins to feel ashamed that he is less of a scoundrel than those about him, he dreads their mockery and their contempt; for, make no mistake, there are such things as respect and contempt even in the galleys, a fact that explains why certain convicts are better off in jail than in a society which has nothing for them but contempt.” 5
Working for Bon Sens brought Lacenaire a forum but little money. Few others shared his delusions about his artistic talent, so in 1834 he embarked on the path of crime yet again. As a career choice, it was a mistake, for he was often inept in carrying out his criminal plans. At the time, banks sent messengers to their customers’ homes and offices to collect deposits. Since the messengers often carried large sums of money, Lacenaire thought they