THE FRENCH BLUEBEARD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 10304, 2 March 1922, Page 4

THE FRENCH BLUEBEARD.

WERE MURDERS DONE UNC ONSCIOU SLY’/

Writing about Landru, the French bluebeard, who was executed last week, a- correspondent of the Weekly Dispatch ! - asks— What Was Landru’s secret spell? How did this bald-headed, spare* framed; long-bearded, 50-year-old father of a family of four, wdave such a charm round women that 283, of all ages, dispositions, and circumstances, gave themselves to him within a period of about four years? It was the eagerness to unravel this mystery which filled the Assize Court at Versailles for nearly a month on end with an audience which' was 80 per cent, women, of every social grade. There were princesses from the "Almanach de Gotha” ; there were well-known actresses like Mistinguett and Nina Myrtal; wives of diplomatists; respectable mothers of families, who happened to know one of the barristers or judges well enough to get one of the coveted cards of admission: and a Avholo host of over-dressed, over-painted, overnoisy young Parisian women of the Montmartre cabaret type, who had got there no one quite knew how. But to whatever this great feminine audience belonged, its main interest was not the progress of the trial, nor the flaming eloquence of Maltro do Moro-Glafferk for the defence, nor the strangely vague evidence of the 140 witnesses. The attention of all these women was concentrated upon the baffling personality of that enigmatic figure in the dock. How many contradictory impresoions one overheard during the trial of a month all but three days as one sat there on tho crowded benches, wodged In between these eager French women in their costly sables, with pearls shimmering on their necks, great solitaire diamonds flashing from their henna-dyed lingers, a subtle perfume radiating from their (limy frocks, and jewelled handbags lyiniron'" the ledgo before them, containing the tiny mirror, the stick of rouge, eyebrow-pencil, and dainty powder-puff, which tho foetid atmosphere of the dingy court brought into continual use. “He looks like a saint carved in ivory!" "Bah! the face of an undertaker!” ‘T can Imagine him tender, yet capable of burning passion.” “Oneneed only look at him to see that he is a madman, with the lust for inflicting pain.” "For a man of his class, his bearing is really most distinguished.” "How intelligent he is!” "A crafty hypocrite. His face is a living mask.” If one takes the sum-total of the opinions of these women, so freely expressed, the secret of Landru’s fascination for their sex appears. It was based on one quality—gentleness. In an age when men have almost forgotten to be courteous to women, Landru was elaborately polite. His letters, his conversations, as reported by witnesses who had heard them, reveal a habit of paying compliments of showing deference, of .adulating the female sex as a creation essentially finer in feelings and more spiritual iu temperament than men. Landru was a personified reaction against the cavalier, off-hand, casual behaviour towards women which is the counterpart of the feminine emancipation of the lust, few years, and which, in their deepest hearts, women so instinctively resent. As these 253 dupes of his listened to his phrases of an old-world courtliness, marked his scrupulous consideration' for their feelings, his careful avoidance of subjects which might be uncongenial, his evident wish to be regarded as a willing servant rather than as a condescending patron, or even as a "good pal,” they forgot his age, his baldness, his thin neck, h.is appearance of a rather rusty, elderly clerk, and they surrendered him their entire confidence, •their love—■even, as the jury has pronounced, their very lives. "He made me very, very, very happy,” said pretty little fair-haired Fernando Segret, the only one of his fiancees Who went to his mysterious cottage- ai Gnmbain and returned. As she said the words tho crowded court realised" that she loved him still, and' that but for the bar of the dock between, and the blue-coated gendarmes sitting by Landru's side, she would have gone to him, and flung her arms round that spare neck and accepted gladly the kisses of that boarded mouth. If Is probable that the world will never know the secret of this strange being's life. He will go down to history as one of the riddles of crime, ranking with Casanova, the Martinis de Sade. Charles Peace, and Sweencv Todd. Landru is not the typo of condemned man to make an eleventhhour'confession, even if—despite the fact that the jury. Immediately after condemning him to the guillotine, signed o petition for Ills reprieve—he is executed. I sat watching him (or no (ess than (10 hours during the trial, I studied bis face, listetied for Inflexions in his voice, observed his bearing, kept a look-out for those involuntary and unconscious twltchings of the hands which so often betray a wrongdoer—and l ueither saw nor heard anything which, without knowledge of tho circumstances, I would not have said to ho the speech and behaviour of a sincere and innocent man. One day there sat next mo in court a Scotland Yard detective, who for 31 years has had dealings with tho most cunning criminals in Europe. That man has pointed out to mo people of immaculate appearance in public places and identified them as com- 1 mon rogues; ho knows every sign and symbol of tho little lurking fears that lie buried in tho heart of every criminal, no matter how bold bis face or how hardened his conscience. “Would you suspect Landru from anything you see in hi;p or hear from him?" I asked. "He lias none of t lie signs that mark the murderer,” was the answer, "but he may lie an unconscious assassin who lias killed unconsciously in Interludes of Insanity.” That is a speculation which has been brought to the front by the jury’s verdict of “guilty" on each of these eleven’ charges of murder. Is La mini n Jiving example of U. L Stevenson’s "Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde?” Is ho liable to intermittent bouts of demoniac possession, in which he commits crimes that do not

even remain in his memory when he returns to Iris normal self? To that the reply is that for nearly three years he has been in gaol under the closest observation, and examined from time to time by mental experts of the international standing of Dr. Koubinovitch, yet no trace of eccentricity has been found iu him. His trial, under French rules of procedure was really a "third degree” process, lasting for a month, yet he supported it without any more signs of confusion and breakdown than one might reasonably expect to find In the case of an honest man submitted to a prolonged and racking memory-strain, with his life at stake. On the evidence, no British jury would have found him guilty, exconvict and confessed forger and swindler though he is. But in France, as the Advocate-General reminded the jury at Versailles, proofs are not necessary, so long 'as the jurymen have the conviction that tho prisoner is guilty. That conviction the majority of the Versailles jury had, but they showed their doubts by immediately signing a petition to the President, of the Republic to reprieve the man they had just condemned. As a French writer points out, (hey took the course which most Frenchmen adopt when in a difficulty ad called upon the Government to got them out of it.