Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris by Steven Levingston
Authors: Steven Levingston
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craftier and more intelligent than the younger, more loyal Jean-Baptiste.“Oh, this one here,” she said of Michel, “has a well-organized head. He makes a lot of money. He is much more skilled than his brother.”
Marseille was an old port town full of mystery and surprise,populated by tough and tanned natives, sailors, Gypsies, and crooks. The wind howled and seagulls squawked overhead. Church bells rang from morning until night. For generations ships from around the world carrying strange souls and exotic things landed here. The dispossessed and the fugitive knew the hidden alleyways; and the dark corners of Marseille kept their secrets safe.
The writer M. F. K. Fisher, who was drawn to the town again and again in the twentieth century, used the French word
insolite
to describe the people and the place. But, she said, it is a word as“indefinable as Marseille itself.” She referred to the French
Larousse
dictionary for the meaning of
insolite
: “contrary to what is usual and normal.” Then she turned to the
Shorter Oxford Dictionary
and to
Webster’s Third International
and came up with three words to illustrate the term and the locale: apart, unique, unusual. “Marseille lives, with a unique strength that plainly scares less virile breeds,” she wrote. “Its people are proud of being ‘apart.’ ”
It was the kind of place that protected fugitives like Michel and Gabrielle, a hideout where they could contemplate their next move in comfort and security. They made themselves at home with Jean-Baptiste and lived off his sullen hospitality. Tensions lingered between the brothers from an ugly incident in the early 1880s when Jean-Baptiste was awarded the family vineyard in southern France. As the boys’ mother told a newspaper later, Michel was consumed by a“ferocious jealousy” toward his brother. Although she recognized the intellectual skills of Michel, she had long favored the gentler and slower Jean-Baptiste and believed the brothers’ relationship would survive “provided they didn’t come to kill each other.”
Jean-Baptiste accepted that his brother had the quicker mind and reluctantly turned to him for help when the vineyard was struck by an infestation of phylloxera, pale yellow insects that ate the roots of the vines. Phylloxera was attacking not just the Eyraud vineyards but was spreading to many properties in France, threatening the country’s wine production. Jean-Baptiste’s situation was particularly dire—creditors were hounding him and bankruptcy was imminent if he couldn’t come up with fifteen thousand francs.
Michel’s solution—which had a hidden motive—was for the brothers to visit their wealthy, aging mother in Paris and beg for the needed funds. She was fully aware of the crisis and had alreadydoled out a considerable sum to battle the infestation, even staying on the property for six months to oversee the effort. But now her health was failing and she was still in mourning for her husband, the family patriarch, who had died three years earlier.
Her sons found her in bed in her apartment at 45, boulevard Saint-Germain. Seeing his mother so frail, Jean-Baptiste could not bring himself to ask for the money. But Michel had no such qualms. His entreaties did not sway the old lady, however, and she denied him repeatedly until his voice rose so loud and his language turned so vile that his mother ordered him to leave the apartment. He refused and drew a revolver from his pocket and pointed it at his mother as she lay in bed.
Staring him down, the tough matron called his bluff. He may have been a bully and a schemer but he wasn’t fool enough to murder his own mother in her bed. Furious, Michel grabbed a photograph of his father from a bedside table and threatened to tear up the cherished memento and toss the pieces out the window. The old woman caved. Her devil of a son had exploited her weak spot: Losing the cherished photo of her husband would have been too much to
Marseille was an old port town full of mystery and surprise,populated by tough and tanned natives, sailors, Gypsies, and crooks. The wind howled and seagulls squawked overhead. Church bells rang from morning until night. For generations ships from around the world carrying strange souls and exotic things landed here. The dispossessed and the fugitive knew the hidden alleyways; and the dark corners of Marseille kept their secrets safe.
The writer M. F. K. Fisher, who was drawn to the town again and again in the twentieth century, used the French word
insolite
to describe the people and the place. But, she said, it is a word as“indefinable as Marseille itself.” She referred to the French
Larousse
dictionary for the meaning of
insolite
: “contrary to what is usual and normal.” Then she turned to the
Shorter Oxford Dictionary
and to
Webster’s Third International
and came up with three words to illustrate the term and the locale: apart, unique, unusual. “Marseille lives, with a unique strength that plainly scares less virile breeds,” she wrote. “Its people are proud of being ‘apart.’ ”
It was the kind of place that protected fugitives like Michel and Gabrielle, a hideout where they could contemplate their next move in comfort and security. They made themselves at home with Jean-Baptiste and lived off his sullen hospitality. Tensions lingered between the brothers from an ugly incident in the early 1880s when Jean-Baptiste was awarded the family vineyard in southern France. As the boys’ mother told a newspaper later, Michel was consumed by a“ferocious jealousy” toward his brother. Although she recognized the intellectual skills of Michel, she had long favored the gentler and slower Jean-Baptiste and believed the brothers’ relationship would survive “provided they didn’t come to kill each other.”
Jean-Baptiste accepted that his brother had the quicker mind and reluctantly turned to him for help when the vineyard was struck by an infestation of phylloxera, pale yellow insects that ate the roots of the vines. Phylloxera was attacking not just the Eyraud vineyards but was spreading to many properties in France, threatening the country’s wine production. Jean-Baptiste’s situation was particularly dire—creditors were hounding him and bankruptcy was imminent if he couldn’t come up with fifteen thousand francs.
Michel’s solution—which had a hidden motive—was for the brothers to visit their wealthy, aging mother in Paris and beg for the needed funds. She was fully aware of the crisis and had alreadydoled out a considerable sum to battle the infestation, even staying on the property for six months to oversee the effort. But now her health was failing and she was still in mourning for her husband, the family patriarch, who had died three years earlier.
Her sons found her in bed in her apartment at 45, boulevard Saint-Germain. Seeing his mother so frail, Jean-Baptiste could not bring himself to ask for the money. But Michel had no such qualms. His entreaties did not sway the old lady, however, and she denied him repeatedly until his voice rose so loud and his language turned so vile that his mother ordered him to leave the apartment. He refused and drew a revolver from his pocket and pointed it at his mother as she lay in bed.
Staring him down, the tough matron called his bluff. He may have been a bully and a schemer but he wasn’t fool enough to murder his own mother in her bed. Furious, Michel grabbed a photograph of his father from a bedside table and threatened to tear up the cherished memento and toss the pieces out the window. The old woman caved. Her devil of a son had exploited her weak spot: Losing the cherished photo of her husband would have been too much to
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