Saturday, May 18, 2019

Hell Hath No Fury Like Catherine Bouhours – A True Crime Historical Mystery from Early 1800s Paris


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.

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[18060-2/19/21]

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