Causes Cclcbres.
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CAUSES CÉLÈBRES. XI. HfiLENE jfiGADO.
MORAL perversity is something most inexplicable. The contemplation of it fills the reasoning mind with positive terror. A crime committed in the full con sciousness of its sinful nature, without ap preciable or sufficient interest, often for the sole pleasure of doing wrong, for the simple reason that it is a thing that should not be done, — this is an anomaly which confounds the physician, the magistrate, and the phi losopher. And yet, without going so far, perhaps, as murderous perversity, who will deny the inclination of human nature to vio late the law for the simple reason that it is the law and that it is right that it should be the law? The spirit of revolt is contem poraneous with the soul itself. It remains, therefore, to ascertain to just what point, in certain natures, responsibility survives the irresistible impulse which draws one toward evil. That is the question which addresses itself in such a case, not to society, which in the presence of such monsters thinks only of defending itself, but to the calm, dis passionate mind, which approaches it as a most delicate and most terrible moral problem. The trial of Helene Jegado presents this problem, but does not solve it. Here is a girl who during a long series of years pa tiently, persistently, and constantly devoted to death all those whom she approached; who in cold blood, without the slightest ap parent reason in most of the cases, poisoned more than thirty persons. What is the right, what is the duty, of society in the presence of such a monster? Is not this frightful perversity insanity; and if it is lawful to put a madman under surveillance, has one the right to punish him? Science hesitates in this case, as it always does when it meets a moral problem. Justice speaks in a loud 6S
clear tone, as it should always do when the irresponsibility of an accused is not clearly evident. The philosopher would not, per haps, decide as the magistrate, but he would not be confounded and hesitate as the physician. Without pretending to sound the impenetrable mysteries of human intelli gence, he would show the vanity of these un equal struggles between Science and Justice; and without solving this or that particular problem, he would strive to show what prin cipal cause of error obscures, even in our day, the general problem of human respon sibility before the law. On Tuesday, the ist of July, 1851, two eminent physicians of Rennes, Doctors Pinault and Baudoin, presented themselves at the office of the Procureur-general; and one of them, M. Pinault, made the following decla ration : "For a long time I have had a feeling, not of remorse, but of doubt and uncertainty, concerning the death of a girl named Rose Tessier, who was a domestic in the family of M. Bidard. I suspected at the time a case of poisoning. With my brother Baudoin, I have just been attending another servant in the same house, a girl named Rosalie Sarrazin; and she, who died with the same symp toms which I observed in the first case, has certainly been poisoned, — my confrire and I are convinced of that. Even if no traces of poison should be found in the organs, we should nevertheless remain firm in our conviction." A few moments later the authorities re paired to M. Bidard's house. " We have come upon a painful mission," said the mag istrate to the proprietor. "One of your servants has just died, and the physicians believe that she was poisoned."
