They were an ill-assorted and unattractive couple. The man, a compound of coarse brutality6 and shrewd cunning, was at heart lazy and selfish, the woman a spoilt child, in whom a real want of feeling was supplied by a shallow sentimentalism. Vain of the superior refinement7 conferred on her by a good middle-class education, she despised and soon came to loathe8 her coarse husband, and lapsed9 into a condition of disappointment and discontent that was only relieved superficially by an extravagant10 devotion to religious exercises.
It was in 1875, when the disillusionment of Mme. Fenayrou was complete, that her husband received into his shop a pupil, a youth of twenty-one, Louis Aubert. He was the son of a Norman tradesman. The ambitious father had wished his son to enter the church, but the son preferred to be a chemist. He was a shrewd, hard-working fellow, with an eye to the main chance and a taste for pleasures that cost him nothing, jovial11, but vulgar and self-satisfied, the kind of man who, having enjoyed the favours of woman, treats her with arrogance12 and contempt, till from loving she comes to loathe him—a characteristic example, according to M. Bourget, of le faux homme a femmes. Such was Aubert, Fenayrou's pupil. He was soon to become something more than pupil.
Fenayrou as chemist had not answered to the expectations of his mother-in-law. His innate13 laziness and love of coarse pleasures had asserted themselves. At first his wife had shared in the enjoyments14, but as time went on and after the birth of their two children, things became less prosperous. She was left at home while Fenayrou spent his time in drinking bocks of beer, betting and attending race-meetings. It was necessary, under these circumstances, that someone should attend to the business of the shop. In Aubert Fenayrou found a ready and willing assistant.
From 1876 to 1880, save for an occasional absence for military service, Aubert lived with the Fenayrous, managing the business and making love to the bored and neglected wife, who after a few months became his mistress. Did Fenayrou know of this intrigue16 or not? That is a crucial question in the case. If he did not, it was not for want of warning from certain of his friends and neighbours, to whom the intrigue was a matter of common knowledge. Did he refuse to believe in his wife's guilt17? or, dependent as he was for his living on the exertions18 of his assistant, did he deliberately19 ignore it, relying on his wife's attractions to keep the assiduous Aubert at work in the shop? In any case Aubert's arrogance, which had increased with the consciousness of his importance to the husband and his conquest of the wife, led in August of 1880, to a rupture20. Aubert left the Fenayrous and bought a business of his own on the Boulevard Malesherbes.
Before his departure Aubert had tried to persuade Mme. Gibon to sell up her son-in-law by claiming from him the unpaid21 purchase-money for her husband's shop. He represented Fenayrou as an idle gambler, and hinted that he would find her a new purchaser. Such an underhand proceeding22 was likely to provoke resentment23 if it should come to the ears of Fenayrou. During the two years that elapsed between his departure from Fenayrou's house and his murder, Aubert had prospered24 in his shop on the Boulevard Malesherbes, whilst the fortunes of the Fenayrous had steadily25 deteriorated26.
At the end of the year 1881 Fenayrou sold his shop and went with his family to live on one of the outer boulevards, that of Gouvion-Saint-Cyr. He had obtained a post in a shady mining company, in which he had persuaded his mother-in-law to invest 20,000 francs. He had attempted also to make money by selling fradulent imitations of a famous table-water. For this offence, at the beginning of 1882, he was condemned27 by the Correctional Tribunal of Paris to three months' imprisonment28 and 1,000 francs costs.
Since Aubert's departure Mme. Fenayrou had entertained another lover, a gentleman on the staff of a sporting newspaper, one of Fenayrou's turf acquaintances. This gentleman had found her a cold mistress, preferring the ideal to the real. As a murderess Madame Fenayrou overcame this weakness.
If we are to believe Fenayrou's story, the most critical day in his life was March 22, 1882, for it was on that day, according to his account, that he learnt for the first time of his wife's intrigue with Aubert. Horrified30 and enraged31 at the discovery, he took from her her nuptial32 wreath, her wedding-ring, her jewellery, removed from its frame her picture in charcoal33 which hung in the drawing-room, and told her, paralysed with terror, that the only means of saving her life was to help him to murder her lover.
Two months later, with her assistance, this outraged34 husband accomplished35 his purpose with diabolical36 deliberation. He must have been well aware that, had he acted on the natural impulse of the moment and revenged himself then and there on Aubert, he would have committed what is regarded by a French jury as the most venial37 of crimes, and would have escaped with little or no punishment. He preferred, for reasons of his own, to set about the commission of a deliberate and cold-blooded murder that bears the stamp of a more sinister38 motive39 than the vengeance40 of a wronged husband.
The only step he took after the alleged41 confession42 of his wife on March 22 was to go to a commissary of police and ask him to recover from Aubert certain letters of his wife's that were in his possession. This the commissary refused to do. Mme. Gibon, the mother-in-law, was sent to Aubert to try to recover the letters, but Aubert declined to give them up, and wrote to Mme. Fenayrou:
"Madame, to my displeasure I have had a visit this morning from your mother, who has come to my home and made a most unnecessary scene and reproached me with facts so serious that I must beg you to see me without delay. It concerns your honour and mine.... I have no fear of being confronted with your husband and yourself. I am ready, when you wish, to justify43 myself.... Please do all you can to prevent a repetition of your mother's visit or I shall have to call in the police."
It is clear that the Fenayrous attached the utmost importance to the recovery of this correspondence, which disappeared with Aubert's death. Was the prime motive of the murder the recovery and destruction of these letters? Was Aubert possessed44 of some knowledge concerning the Fenayrous that placed them at his mercy?
It would seem so. To a friend who had warned him of the danger to which his intimacy45 with Gabrielle Fenayrou exposed him, Aubert had replied, "Bah! I've nothing to fear. I hold them in my power." The nature of the hold which Aubert boasted that he possessed over these two persons remains46 the unsolved mystery of the case, "that limit of investigation47," in the words of a French judge, "one finds in most great cases, beyond which justice strays into the unknown."
That such a hold existed, Aubert's own statement and the desperate attempts made by the Fenayrous to get back these letters, would seem to prove beyond question. Had Aubert consented to return them, would he have saved his life? It seems probable. As it was, he was doomed48. Fenayrou hated him. They had had a row on a race-course, in the course of which Aubert had humiliated49 his former master. More than this, Aubert had boasted openly of his relations with Mme. Fenayrou, and the fact had reached the ears of the husband. Fenayrou believed also, though erroneously, that Aubert had informed against him in the matter of the table-water fraud. Whether his knowledge of Aubert's relations with his wife was recent or of long standing50, he had other grounds of hate against his former pupil. He himself had failed in life, but he saw his rival prosperous, arrogant51 in his prosperity, threatening, dangerous to his peace of mind; he envied and feared as well as hated him. Cruel, cunning and sinister, Fenayrou spent the next two months in the meditation52 of a revenge that was not only to remove the man he feared, but was to give him a truly fiendish opportunity of satisfying his ferocious53 hatred54.
And the wife what of her share in the business? Had she also come to hate Aubert? Or did she seek to expiate55 her guilt by assisting her husband in the punishment of her seducer56? A witness at the trial described Mme. Fenayrou as "a soft paste" that could be moulded equally well to vice15 or virtue57, a woman destitute58 of real feeling or strength of will, who, under the direction of her husband, carried out implicitly59, precisely60 and carefully her part in an atrocious murder, whose only effort to prevent the commission of such a deed was to slip away into a church a few minutes before she was to meet the man she was decoying to his death, and pray that his murder might be averted61.
Her religious sense, like the images in the hat of Louis XI., was a source of comfort and consolation62 in the doing of evil, but powerless to restrain her from the act itself, in the presence of a will stronger than her own. At the time of his death Aubert contemplated63 marriage, and had advertised for a wife. If Mme. Fenayrou was aware of this, it may have served to stimulate64 her resentment against her lover, but there seems little reason to doubt that, left to herself, she would never have had the will or the energy to give that resentment practical expression. It required the dictation of the vindictive65 and malevolent66 Fenayrou to crystallise her hatred of Aubert into a deliberate participation67 in his murder.
Eight or nine miles north-west of Paris lies the small town of Chatou, a pleasant country resort for tired Parisians. Here Madeleine Brohan, the famous actress, had inhabited a small villa68, a two-storied building. At the beginning of 1882 it was to let. In the April of that year a person of the name of "Hess" agreed to take it at a quarterly rent of 1,200 francs, and paid 300 in advance. "Hess" was no other than Fenayrou—the villa that had belonged to Madeleine Brohan the scene chosen for Aubert's murder. Fenayrou was determined69 to spare no expense in the execution of his design: it was to cost him some 3,000 francs before he had finished with it.
As to the actual manner of his betrayer's death, the outraged husband found it difficult to make up his mind. It was not to be prompt, nor was unnecessary suffering to be avoided. At first he favoured a pair of "infernal" opera-glasses that concealed70 a couple of steel points which, by means of a spring, would dart71 out into the eyes of anyone using them and destroy their sight. This rather elaborate and uncertain machine was abandoned later in favour of a trap for catching72 wolves. This was to be placed under the table, and seize in its huge iron teeth the legs of the victim. In the end simplicity73, in the shape of a hammer and sword-stick, won the day. An assistant was taken in the person of Lucien Fenayrou, a brother of Marin.
This humble74 and obliging individual, a maker75 of children's toys, regarded his brother the chemist with something like veneration76 as the gentleman and man of education of the family. Fifty francs must have seemed to him an almost superfluous77 inducement to assist in the execution of what appeared to be an act of legitimate78 vengeance, an affair of family honour in which the wife and brother of the injured husband were in duty bound to participate. Mme. Fenayrou, with characteristic superstition79, chose the day of her boy's first communion to broach80 the subject of the murder to Lucien. By what was perhaps more than coincidence, Ascension Day, May 18, was selected as the day for the crime itself. There were practical reasons also. It was a Thursday and a public holiday. On Thursdays the Fenayrou children spent the day with their grandmother, and at holiday time there was a special midnight train from Chatou to Paris that would enable the murderers to return to town after the commission of their crime. A goat chaise and twenty-six feet of gas piping had been purchased by Fenayrou and taken down to the villa.
Nothing remained but to secure the presence of the victim. At the direction of her husband Mme. Fenayrou wrote to Aubert on May 14, a letter in which she protested her undying love for him, and expressed a desire to resume their previous relations. Aubert demurred81 at first, but, as she became more pressing, yielded at length to her suggestion. If it cost him nothing, Aubert was the last man to decline an invitation of the kind. A trip to Chatou was arranged for Ascension Day, May 18, by the train leaving Paris from the St. Lazare Station, at half-past eight in the evening.
On the afternoon of that day Fenayrou, his wife and his brother sent the children to their grandmother and left Paris for Chatou at three o'clock. Arrived there, they went to the villa, Fenayrou carrying the twenty-six feet of gas-piping wound round him like some huge hunting-horn. He spent the afternoon in beating out the piping till it was flat, and in making a gag. He tried to take up the flooring in the kitchen, but this plan for the concealment82 of the body was abandoned in favour of the river. As soon as these preparations, in which he was assisted by his two relatives, had been completed, Fenayrou placed a candle, some matches and the sword-stick on the drawing-room table and returned to Paris.
The three conspirators83 dined together heartily84 in the Avenue de Clichy—soup, fish, entree85, sweet and cheese, washed down by a bottle of claret and a pint86 of burgundy, coffee to follow, with a glass of chartreuse for Madame. To the waiter the party seemed in the best of spirits. Dinner ended, the two men returned to Chatou by the 7.35 train, leaving Gabrielle to follow an hour later with Aubert. Fenayrou had taken three second-class return tickets for his wife, his brother and himself, and a single for their visitor. It was during the interval87 between the departure of her husband and her meeting with Aubert that Mme. Fenayrou went into the church of St. Louis d'Antin and prayed.
At half-past eight she met Aubert at the St. Lazare Station, gave him his ticket and the two set out for Chatou—a strange journey Mme. Fenayrou was asked what they talked about in the railway carriage. "Mere88 nothings," she replied. Aubert abused her mother; for her own part, she was very agitated—tres emotionnee. It was about half-past nine when they reached their destination. The sight of the little villa pleased Aubert.
"Ah!" he said, "this is good. I should like a house like this and twenty thousand francs a year!" As he entered the hall, surprised at the darkness, he exclaimed: "The devil! it's precious dark! 'tu sais, Gabrielle, que je ne suis pas un heros d'aventure.'" The woman pushed him into the drawing-room. He struck a match on his trousers. Fenayrou, who had been lurking89 in the darkness in his shirt sleeves, made a blow at him with the hammer, but it was ineffectual. A struggle ensued. The room was plunged90 in darkness. Gabrielle waited outside. After a little, her husband called for a light; she came in and lit a candle on the mantelpiece. Fenayrou was getting the worst of the encounter. She ran to his help, and dragged off his opponent. Fenayrou was free. He struck again with the hammer. Aubert fell, and for some ten minutes Fenayrou stood over the battered91 and bleeding man abusing and insulting him, exulting92 in his vengeance. Then he stabbed him twice with the sword-stick, and so ended the business.
The murderers had to wait till past eleven to get rid of the body, as the streets were full of holiday-makers. When all was quiet they put it into the goat chaise, wrapped round with the gas-piping, and wheeled it on to the Chatou bridge. To prevent noise they let the body down by a rope into the water. It was heavier than they thought, and fell with a loud splash into the river. "Hullo!" exclaimed a night-fisherman, who was mending his tackle not far from the bridge, "there go those butchers again, chucking their filth93 into the Seine!"
As soon as they had taken the chaise back to the villa, the three assassins hurried to the station to catch the last train. Arriving there a little before their time, they went into a neighbouring cafe. Fenayrou had three bocks, Lucien one, and Madame another glass of chartreuse. So home to Paris. Lucien reached his house about two in the morning. "Well," asked his wife, "did you have a good day?" "Splendid," was the reply.
Eleven days passed. Fenayrou paid a visit to the villa to clean it and put it in order. Otherwise he went about his business as usual, attending race meetings, indulging in a picnic and a visit to the Salon94. On May 27 a man named Bailly, who, by a strange coincidence, was known by the nickname of "the Chemist," walking by the river, had his attention called by a bargeman to a corpse95 that was floating on the water. He fished it out. It was that of Aubert. In spite of a gag tired over his mouth the water had got into the body, and, notwithstanding the weight of the lead piping, it had risen to the surface.
As soon as the police had been informed of the disappearance96 of Aubert, their suspicions had fallen on the Fenayrous in consequence of the request which Marin Fenayrou had made to the commissary of police to aid him in the recovery from Aubert of his wife's letters. But there had been nothing further in their conduct to provoke suspicion. When, however, the body was discovered and at the same time an anonymous97 letter received denouncing the Fenayrous as the murderers of Aubert, the police decided98 on their arrest. On the morning of June 8 M. Mace, then head of the Detective Department, called at their house. He found Fenayrou in a dressing-gown. This righteous avenger99 of his wife's seduction denied his guilt, like any common criminal, but M. Mace handed him over to one of his men, to be taken immediately to Versailles. He himself took charge of Madame, and, in the first-class carriage full of people, in which they travelled together to Versailles, she whispered to the detective a full confession of the crime.
Mace has left us an account of this singular railway journey. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. In the carriage were five ladies and a young man who was reading La Vie Parisienne. Mme. Fenayrou was silent and thoughtful. "You're thinking of your present position?" asked the detective. "No, I'm thinking of my mother and my dear children." "They don't seem to care much about their father," remarked Mace. "Perhaps not." "Why?" asked M. Mace. "Because of his violent temper," was the reply. After some further conversation and the departure at Courbevoie of the young man with La Vie Parisienne, Mme. Fenayrou asked abruptly101: "Do you think my husband guilty?" "I'm sure of it." "So does Aubert's sister." "Certainly," answered M. Mace; "she looks on the crime as one of revenge." "But my brother-in-law," urged the woman, "could have had no motive for vengeance against Aubert." Mace answered coldly that he would have to explain how he had employed his time on Ascension Day. "You see criminals everywhere," answered Madame.
After the train had left St. Cloud, where the other occupants of the carriage had alighted, the detective and his prisoner were alone, free of interruption till Versailles should be reached. Hitherto they had spoken in whispers; now Mace seized the opportunity to urge the woman to unbosom herself to him, to reveal her part in the crime. She burst into tears. There was an interval of silence; then she thanked Mace for the kindness and consideration he had shown her. "You wish me," she asked, "to betray my husband?" "Without any design or intention on your part," discreetly102 answered the detective; "but by the sole force of circumstances you are placed in such a position that you cannot help betraying him."
Whether convinced or not of this tyranny of circumstance, Mme. Fenayrou obeyed her mentor103, and calmly, coldly, without regret or remorse104, told him the story of the assassination105. Towards the end of her narration106 she softened107 a little. "I know I am a criminal," she exclaimed. "Since this morning I have done nothing but lie. I am sick of it; it makes me suffer too much. Don't tell my husband until this evening that I have confessed; there's no need, for, after what I have told you, you can easily expose his falsehoods and so get at the truth."
That evening the three prisoners—Lucien had been arrested at the same time as the other two—were brought to Chatou. Identified by the gardener as the lessee108 of the villa, Fenayrou abandoned his protestations of innocence109 and admitted his guilt. The crime was then and there reconstituted in the presence of the examining magistrate110. With the help of a gendarme111, who impersonated Aubert, Fenayrou repeated the incidents of the murder. The goat-chaise was wheeled to the bridge, and there in the presence of an indignant crowd, the murderer showed how the body had been lowered into the river.
After a magisterial112 investigation lasting113 two months, which failed to shed any new light on the more mysterious elements in the case, Fenayrou, his wife and brother were indicted114 on August 19 before the Assize Court for the Seine-et-Oise Department, sitting at Versailles.
The attitude of the three culprits was hardly such as to provoke the sympathies of even a French jury. Fenayrou seemed to be giving a clumsy and unconvincing performance of the role of the wronged husband; his heavy figure clothed in an ill-fitting suit of "blue dittos," his ill-kempt red beard and bock-stained moustache did not help him in his impersonation. Mme. Fenayrou, pale, colourless, insignificant115, was cold and impenetrable. She described the murder of her lover "as if she were giving her cook a household recipe for making apricot Jam." Lucien was humble and lachrymose116.
In his interrogatory of the husband the President, M. Berard des Glajeux, showed himself frankly117 sceptical as to the ingenuousness118 of Fenayrou's motives119 in assassinating120 Aubert. "Now, what was the motive of this horrible crime?" he asked. "Revenge," answered Fenayrou.
President: But consider the care you took to hide the body and destroy all trace of your guilt; that is not the way in which a husband sets out to avenge100 his honour; these are the methods of the assassin! With your wife's help you could have caught Aubert in flagrante delicto and killed him on the spot, and the law would have absolved121 you. Instead of which you decoy him into a hideous122 snare123. Public opinion suggests that jealousy124 of your former assistant's success, and mortification125 at your own failure, were the real motives. Or was it not perhaps that you had been in the habit of rendering126 somewhat dubious127 services to some of your promiscuous128 clients?
Fenayrou: Nothing of the kind, I swear it!
President: Do not protest too much. Remember that among your acquaintances you were suspected of cheating at cards. As a chemist you had been convinced of fraud. Perhaps Aubert knew something against you. Some act of poisoning, or abortion129, in which you had been concerned? Many witnesses have believed this.
Your mother-in-law is said to have remarked, "My son-in-law will end in jail."
Fenayrou (bursting into tears): This is too dreadful.
President: And Dr. Durand, an old friend of Aubert, remembers the deceased saying to him, "One has nothing to fear from people one holds in one's hands."
Fenayrou: I don't know what he meant.
President: Or, considering the cruelty, cowardice130, the cold calculation displayed in the commission of the crime, shall we say this was a woman's not a man's revenge. You have said your wife acted as your slave—was it not the other way about?
Fenayrou: No; it was my revenge, mine alone.
The view that regarded Mme. Fenayrou as a soft, malleable131 paste was not the view of the President.
"Why," he asked the woman, "did you commit this horrible murder, decoy your lover to his death?" "Because I had repented," was the answer; "I had wronged my husband, and since he had been condemned for fraud, I loved him the more for being unfortunate. And then I feared for my children."
President: Is that really the case?
Mme. Fenayrou: Certainly it is.
President: Then your whole existence has been one of lies and hypocrisy132. Whilst you were deceiving your husband and teaching your children to despise him you were covering him with caresses133.
You have played false to both husband and lover—to Aubert in decoying him to his death, to your husband by denouncing him directly you were arrested. You have betrayed everybody. The only person you have not betrayed is yourself. What sort of a woman are you? As you and Aubert went into the drawing-room on the evening of the murder you said loudly, "This is the way," so that your husband, hearing your voice outside, should not strike you by mistake in the darkness. If Lucien had not told us that you attacked Aubert whilst he was struggling with your husband, we should never have known it, for you would never have admitted it, and your husband has all along refused to implicate134 you.... You have said that you had ceased to care for your lover: he had ceased to care for you. He was prosperous, happy, about to marry: you hated him, and you showed your hate when, during the murder, you flung yourself upon him and cried, "Wretch135!" Is that the behaviour of a woman who represents herself to have been the timid slave of her husband? No. This crime is the revenge of a cowardly and pitiless woman, who writes down in her account book the expenses of the trip to Chatou and, after the murder, picnics merrily in the green fields. It was you who steeled your husband to the task.
How far the President was justified136 in thus inverting137 the parts played by the husband and wife in the crime must be a matter of opinion. In his volume of Souvenirs M. Berard des Glajeux modifies considerably138 the view which he perhaps felt it his duty to express in his interrogatory of Gabrielle Fenayrou. He describes her as soft and flexible by nature, the repentant139 slave of her husband, seeking to atone140 for her wrong to him by helping141 him in his revenge. The one feature in the character of Mme. Fenayrou that seems most clearly demonstrated is its absolute insensibility under any circumstances whatsoever142.
The submissive Lucien had little to say for himself, nor could any motive for joining in the murder beyond a readiness to oblige his brother be suggested. In his Souvenirs M. Berard des Glajeux states that to-day it would seem to be clearly established that Lucien acted blindly at the bidding of his sister-in-law, "qu'il avait beaucoup aimee et qui n'avait pas ete cruelle a son egard."
The evidence recapitulated143 for the most part the facts already set out. The description of Mme. Fenayrou by the gentleman on the sporting newspaper who had succeeded Aubert in her affections is, under the circumstances, interesting: "She was sad, melancholy144; I questioned her, and she told me she was married to a coarse man who neglected her, failed to understand her, and had never loved her. I became her lover but, except on a few occasions, our relations were those of good friends. She was a woman with few material wants, affectionate, expansive, an idealist, one who had suffered much and sought from without a happiness her marriage had never brought her. I believe her to have been the blind tool of her husband."
From motives of delicacy145 the evidence of this gentleman was read in his presence; he was not examined orally. His eulogy146 of his mistress is loyal. Against it may be set the words of the Procureur de la Republique, M. Delegorgue: "Never has a more thorough-paced, a more hideous monster been seated in the dock of an assize court. This woman is the personification of falsehood, depravity, cowardice and treachery. She is worthy147 of the supreme148 penalty." The jury were not of this opinion. They preferred to regard Mme. Fenayrou as playing a secondary part to that of her husband. They accorded in both her case and that of Lucien extenuating150 circumstances. The woman was sentenced to penal149 servitude for life, Lucien to seven years. Fenayrou, for whose conduct the jury could find no extenuation151, was condemned to death.
It is the custom in certain assize towns for the President, after pronouncing sentence, to visit a prisoner who had been ordered for execution. M. Berard des Glajeux describes his visit to Fenayrou at Versailles. He was already in prison dress, sobbing152.
His iron nature, which during five days had never flinched153, had broken down; but it was not for himself he wept, but for his wife, his children, his brother; of his own fate he took no account. At the same moment his wife was in the lodge154 of the courthouse waiting for the cab that was to take her to her prison. Freed from the anxieties of the trial, knowing her life to be spared, without so much as a thought for the husband whom she had never loved, she had tidied herself up, and now, with all the ease of a woman, whose misfortunes have not destroyed her self-possession, was doing the honours of the jail. It was she who received her judge.
But Fenayrou was not to die. The Court of Cassation, to which he had made the usual appeal after condemnation155, decided that the proceedings156 at Versailles had been vitiated by the fact that the evidence of Gabrielle Fenayrou's second lover had not been taken ORALLY, within the requirements of the criminal code; consequently a new trial was ordered before the Paris Assize Court. This second trial, which commenced on October 12, saved Fenayrou's head. The Parisian jury showed themselves more lenient157 than their colleagues at Versailles. Not only was Fenayrou accorded extenuating circumstances, but Lucien was acquitted158 altogether. The only person to whom these new proceedings brought no benefit was Mme. Fenayrou, whose sentence remained unaltered.
Marin Fenayrou was sent to New Caledonia to serve his punishment.
There he was allowed to open a dispensary, but, proving dishonest, he lost his license159 and became a ferryman—a very Charon for terrestrial passengers. He died in New Caledonia of cancer of the liver.
Gabrielle Fenayrou made an exemplary prisoner, so exemplary that, owing to her good conduct and a certain ascendancy160 she exercised over her fellow-prisoners, she was made forewoman of one of the workshops. Whilst holding this position she had the honour of receiving, among those entrusted161 to her charge, another Gabrielle, murderess, Gabrielle Bompard, the history of whose crime is next to be related.
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mace
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| n.狼牙棒，豆蔻干皮 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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apprentice
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| n.学徒，徒弟 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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17
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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18
exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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19
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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rupture
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| n.破裂；(关系的)决裂；v.(使)破裂 | |
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21
unpaid
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| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
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22
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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23
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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24
prospered
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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deteriorated
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| 恶化，变坏( deteriorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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28
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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29
parlous
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| adj.危险的，不确定的，难对付的 | |
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30
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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31
enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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32
nuptial
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| adj.婚姻的，婚礼的 | |
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33
charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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34
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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35
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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36
diabolical
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| adj.恶魔似的，凶暴的 | |
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37
venial
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| adj.可宽恕的；轻微的 | |
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38
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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39
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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40
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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41
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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42
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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43
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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44
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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45
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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46
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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47
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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48
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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49
humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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50
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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51
arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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52
meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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53
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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54
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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55
expiate
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| v.抵补，赎罪 | |
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56
seducer
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| n.诱惑者,骗子,玩弄女性的人 | |
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57
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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58
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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59
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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60
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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61
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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62
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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63
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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64
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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65
vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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66
malevolent
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| adj.有恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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67
participation
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| n.参与，参加，分享 | |
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68
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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69
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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70
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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71
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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72
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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73
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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74
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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75
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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76
veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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77
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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78
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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79
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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80
broach
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| v.开瓶，提出(题目) | |
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81
demurred
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| v.表示异议，反对( demur的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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82
concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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83
conspirators
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| n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 ) | |
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84
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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85
entree
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| n.入场权，进入权 | |
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86
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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87
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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88
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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89
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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90
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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91
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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92
exulting
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| vi. 欢欣鼓舞，狂喜 | |
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93
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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94
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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95
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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96
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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97
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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98
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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99
avenger
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| n. 复仇者 | |
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100
avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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101
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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102
discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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103
mentor
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| n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导 | |
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104
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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105
assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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106
narration
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| n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体 | |
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107
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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108
lessee
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| n.（房地产的）租户 | |
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109
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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110
magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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111
gendarme
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| n.宪兵 | |
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112
magisterial
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| adj.威风的，有权威的；adv.威严地 | |
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113
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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114
indicted
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| 控告，起诉( indict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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115
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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116
lachrymose
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| adj.好流泪的，引人落泪的；adv.眼泪地，哭泣地 | |
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117
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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118
ingenuousness
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| n.率直；正直；老实 | |
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119
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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120
assassinating
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| v.暗杀( assassinate的现在分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏 | |
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121
absolved
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| 宣告…无罪，赦免…的罪行，宽恕…的罪行( absolve的过去式和过去分词 )； 不受责难，免除责任 [义务] ,开脱（罪责） | |
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122
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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123
snare
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| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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124
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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125
mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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126
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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127
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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128
promiscuous
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| adj.杂乱的，随便的 | |
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129
abortion
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| n.流产，堕胎 | |
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130
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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131
malleable
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| adj.(金属)可锻的;有延展性的；(性格)可训练的 | |
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132
hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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133
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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134
implicate
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| vt.使牵连其中，涉嫌 | |
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135
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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136
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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137
inverting
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| v.使倒置，使反转( invert的现在分词 ) | |
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138
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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139
repentant
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| adj.对…感到悔恨的 | |
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140
atone
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| v.赎罪，补偿 | |
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141
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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142
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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143
recapitulated
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| v.总结，扼要重述( recapitulate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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144
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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145
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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146
eulogy
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| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
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147
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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148
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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149
penal
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| adj.刑罚的；刑法上的 | |
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150
extenuating
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| adj.使减轻的，情有可原的v.（用偏袒的辩解或借口）减轻( extenuate的现在分词 )；低估，藐视 | |
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151
extenuation
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| n.减轻罪孽的借口；酌情减轻；细 | |
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152
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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153
flinched
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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154
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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155
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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156
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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157
lenient
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| adj.宽大的，仁慈的 | |
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158
acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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159
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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160
ascendancy
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| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
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161
entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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