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However, the evidence against Ravachol in the two Paris bombings was flimsy; he denied everything that Chaumartin said, and Chaumartin was himself the only person to have confessed to a role in the bombing. Furthermore, another bomb was set off while Ravachol was in jail — at the very restaurant where he had been arrested, killing the owner who had turned him in.

Nervously, the judges sent Ravachol to Saint-Étienne, where the pending charges against him seemed to offer a stronger case. Here, in fact, faced with the evidence, Ravachol gave up trying to deny his crimes and proclaimed himself the anarchist bomber. He defended himself by claiming that his violence was aimed at ending the suffering of the weak. “My object,” he declared, “was to terrorize so as to force society to look attentively at those who suffer.” 21

Sentenced to the guillotine, he was brought back to Paris for the execution on July 10, 1892. He sang as he was paraded through the streets of Paris: “If you want to be happy, hang your masters and cut the priests to pieces.” His final words, “You pigs, long live the Revolution!” were cut off when the blade of the guillotine severed his neck. 22

Bertillon was hailed as the savior of Paris. The capture of Ravachol earned him the Legion of Honor and a new position as head of the Bureau of Identification, which he would hold till his death. The general feeling was that his key identification had provided the only link between the criminal in Saint-Étienne and the Paris bomber and that without that identification, Ravachol might have continued his deadly career. The publicity did much to encourage police departments in other countries to adopt anthropometric identification systems.

v

After the Ravachol case, Bertillon’s reputation was secure, and the use of his system became as routine a procedure as fingerprinting is today. One notable case was solved personally by Marie-François Goron, the head of the Sûreté and one of Bertillon’s admirers. Goron, who had already gained fame for solving the Gouffé case, was asked by the Belgian government to try to find a swindler, Karslake, who was reputed to be in Paris. Goron immediately sought to question people who were rumored to have had dealings with Karslake. One in particular, Charles Vernet, struck him as being familiar — something in his attitude and manner awakened suspicion. But Vernet was a wealthy gentleman who had made a fortune on the Paris Bourse. His manner with Goron was open and indicated that he was willing to assist the police. Still, Goron could not shake his suspicions.

Goron began to search through police records from the time he had first joined the force. Finally he found what he was looking for. When he had been the police commissary of the Pantin Quarter in northern Paris, some twelve years earlier, a young clerk named Moulin had been stabbed to death after a fierce struggle in his home. The sounds of a fight had awakened a lodger on the floor below, who opened his door in time to see a man running down the stairs. The next day the police arrested a man named Simon, who was identified by the neighbor. Because the evidence was slight, he evaded the guillotine but was sentenced to twenty years at the French penal settlement at Cayenne in French Guiana.

Goron felt certain that Vernet, the wealthy stock trader, was that very man, but Simon should still have been serving his term on the blistering hot island prison. Checking further, Goron found that Simon had attempted to escape from Cayenne, accompanied by a fellow convict named Aymard. The pair had tried to make their way to the South American mainland, but pursuers found the body of Simon. Aymard had disappeared, but was presumed dead as well. Reading further, Goron found that the dead man’s face was battered beyond recognition; he had been identified only by his jacket, which bore the number assigned to Simon when he arrived at Cayenne.

Goron was not convinced. He was certain that if the Bertillon method was used, it would show