The
Catherine Bouhours cases is one of the most fascinating of all known female
serial killer cases. She was suspected of “eighteen or twenty” murders
committed in Paris and was guillotined by official executioner Henri Sanson on
May 16, 1808 while still in her early twenties (some sources state she was 22,
others 25). A 1907 article on guillotine executions lists the conviction and
execution dates and gives Catherine Bouhours age as 22.
1. ACCOUNT OF AN
UNNAMED CROSS-DRESSING FEMALE SERIAL KILLER
If
any true story can be thought a perfect illustration of William Congreve’s
famous adage, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” it is to be found in
the brief biography of Catherine Bouhours. The account published 29 years
following the execution does not name the young woman, but the details of the
remarkable murder career of the perpetrator provide an unmistakable match to
accounts found elsewhere.
“About the close of the government of the Directory, the
keepers of a hotel garni, in
the Rue de l’Universite, waited on the minister of police, and in a state of
great agitation, stated that one of his lodgers whom he named, had been
murdered on the preceding night. He had engaged the lodging about six o’clock
in the evening, describing himself as an inhabitant of Melun, who had come to
Paris for a day or two on business. After ordering his chamber to be prepared for
him, he went out, saying that he was going to the Odeon, and would return
immediately after the performance. About midnight, he returned, but not alone;
he was accompanied by a young and beautiful female, dressed in male attire,
whom he stated to be his wife, and they were shown to the apartment which had
been prepared. In the morning, continued the hotel keeper, the lady went out;
she appeared to be fearful that her husband should be disturbed; and she
desired that no one should enter the room until her return. Several hours
elapsed, and she did not make her appearance; at mid-day, considerable surprise
was manifested at her prolonged absence, and the servants of the hotel knocked
at the gentleman’s door, but without receiving any answer. It was now discovered
that the lady had locked the door, and carried the key away with her. The door
was broken open, and the unfortunate man was found dead in his bed. A doctor
was sent for, and he declared it to be his opinion that the man’s death had
been caused by a blow of a hammer adroitly inflicted on the left temple. The
female never again appeared; she was sought for in vain.
“In about a month after, a similar murder was committed.
The victim was likewise a man from the country, and his death was produced in
the manner I have above described. The affair excited considerable
consternation in Paris. Within another fortnight, a third crime of the same
kind was committed; and in all these affairs the mysterious female in man’s
attire was involved. It is scarcely credible, but nevertheless true, that
eighteen or twenty of these extraordinary murders were committed with impunity!
In every instance, the little that was seen of the woman rendered it difficult
for any one to give a minute description of her person: all the information
that could be obtained was, that she was young, very pretty, little, and well
formed. This description of course answered that of many women in Paris besides
the murderess.” [Baron Langon (Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon), Evenings with
Prince Cambacérés, Second Consul, Arch-chancelor of the Empire, Duke of Parma,
&c. &s. &., Vol. II, London: Henry Colburn, 1837. pp. 246-252]
It
was only after “eighteen or twenty” victims had met their death that police
managed to set a trap that ended the killing spree. The murderess was finally
apprehended by an undercover officer who had allowed himself to be lured by the
fugitive.
“On her first
examination, she gave the following romantic account of herself. She was of a
respectable family and of irreproachable conduct; but having bestowed her
affections on a young man, who had treacherously forsaken her, she had from
that moment vowed implacable hatred against all the male sex; and the murders
she had committed were actuated by no other motive than vengeance for the
injury inflicted on her feelings.” [Baron Langon (Étienne-Léon de
Lamothe-Langon), Evenings with Prince Cambacérés, Second Consul, Arch-chancelor
of the Empire, Duke of Parma, &c. &s. &., Vol. II, London: Henry
Colburn, 1837. pp. 246-252]
2. RESEARCH, FACT
& FICTION
I
first came across the case in an English translation of celebrated Italian
criminologist Cesare Lombroso. The single sentence describing the intriguing
case text misspelled Bouhours as “Bonhours,” thus my efforts to locate other accounts
was frustrated.
The celebrated Bonhours, a prostitute and murderess who
wore masculine garments, and was as strong as a man, killed several men by
blows from a hammer. [Caesar Lombroso & William Ferrero, The Female Offender, 1895, p. 131]
It
was not until I discovered several long, and beautifully written, articles
about an unnamed female serial killer reprinted in a variety of English
language newspapers under various titles over a long period in the mid 19th
century that I realized I had found “Bonhours.” Subsequent research efforts
using information from that text revealed several new threads: a) the 1837
source of the text; 2) plus the fact that “Bonhours” was a misspelling of
Bouhours, and 3) that the famous phrenologist Franz-Joseph Gall (1758-1828) who
had collected plaster casts of criminals (among wider classes of subjects) had
made a plaster cast bust of Catherine Bouhours.
Various
accounts of the case contain variants of her story, some saying she had women
among her victims. A brief retrospective account of the case appeared in 1855 in
a Paris newspaper. In this account the name was given as “Manette Bouhours.”
[A]t eight o'clock in the morning,
a young woman named Marye was surprised at home by a young man who, armed with
a hammer, caused her the most horrible wounds. In defending herself
energetically, she managed to open her window in the fear that her cries would
attract the neighbors, the murderer had fled. [From: “Faits divers.” . . . It was
only after six months of investigation that a woman, named Manette Bouhours
[sic], who hid her sex under the clothes of a man, and performed the duties of
a boy in a barber's neighborhood, was arrested, recognized guilty of these
three murders, sentenced to death and executed. La Presse (Paris, France), 24 avril, 1855, p. 2]
In
1869 the story Catharine Bouhours came to be fictionalized by the popular
French writer Alexis Bouvier (1836-1892), who produced a novel Auguste Manette – the male alias for the
cross-dressing murderess (whether the name was invented by Bouvier or based on
recorded fact has yet to be ascertained). A play based on the novel premiered
in Paris in 1873.
AUGUSTE-MANETTE, a drama in five acts and six tableaux, by M. Alexis Bouvier, has been produced at the
Théâtre des Arts. It is a crude but forcible drama, showing the revenge of a
girl with whose affections a young officer has trifled. As this takes the
substantial form of a triple murder, it is no laughing matter. [1875
production, The Atheneum, London, Feb. 18, 1875, p. 236]
A
cover of a pulp edition of the novel from the 1880s shows a lurid scene of a hammer attack
on a woman by a cross-dressing murderer. Its a sensational image that fails to
convey the central theme of the story, a woman’s obsession with revenging
herself against the male sex.
3. THE PHRENOLOGICAL
BUST
The making of life casts to capture the physiognomy and
shape of skulls arose in response to the late 18th century
science of phrenology. Plaster casts predated photography and provided a way
for researchers to bring back three-dimensional reproductions of living
subjects “without disguise and without art as required by the needs of
anthropology.” [“Anthropological Head Casts," Musée de L’Homme, Paris, France]
An
inventory report published in 1956 describing the Gall collection, housed at Musée de L’Homme in Paris, describes a bust of Catharine Bouhous featuring
“clavaium moulding,” a variety of phrenological marking that elucidates the
psychological characteristics of the subjects as revealed by cranial anatomy in
conformity with what was thought to be the “science” of phrenology.
Citation – p. 295: from the alphabetical list of the
Collection Phrénologie du Musée de L’Homme: “Bouhours (Bonhours?). Fille,
travestie, assassin. Buste, Gall 92; Calvarium, id. 204; moulage calvarium,
Dumoutier 577. [Erwin H. Ackerknecht, “P. M. A. Dumoutier et la collection
phrénologique du Musée de l'Homme,” - article ; n°5 ; vol.7, 1956, p. 289-308]
Gall
himself described the head of Catherine Bouhours, indicating the areas of the
brain thought to be the "seats" of her criminal propensities.
[I]n another criminal, to whom murder had become a habit;
in Bouhours, who killed her victims with a hammer, in order to rob them of
their money … In Bouhours, three organs had acquired a high degree of
development. The excessive activity of one produced a propensity to steal; of
the second, to murder; and of the third, to fight;—an unhappy concourse, which
can only explain the atrocious conduct of this monster.” [François Joseph Gall,
Organology, Or, An Exposition of the instincts, propensities, sentiments,
talents, or of the moral qualities, and the fundamental intellectual faculties
in man and animals and the seat of their organs.” 1835, Vol. 4 of 6 vols.,
Marsh, Capen & Lyon (Boston), p. 111-12]
Such
“seats” were marked on the plaster cases of the subjects that Gall collected.
The follwing photography shows what the bust of Catherine Bouhours, probably
still stored among hundreds of other such casts, must look like.
The
Catherine Bouhours case is one of the more remarkable historical serial killer
cases and is worth the attention of researchers both for its criminological
interest but also for its sheer story value. A search of the storage facilities
at Musée de L’Homme backed up by an examination of extant contemporaneous
legal records ought to produce fascinating results.
If
some industrious researcher would dig into the Bouhours case, then, more than two
centuries following the death of the cross-dressing female serial killer of
early 1800s Paris, who was guillotined when barely out of her teens, we will
learn the details of her story and learn what she looked like.
A
fascinating “true crime” mystery awaits solution.
# # #
[18060-2/19/21]
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