ABSTRACT

In 1891 a sensational trial gripped Paris. The defendants were a twenty-six-year-old woman, Gabrielle Bompard, and her lover and occasional pimp, a middle-aged lowlife called Michel Eyraud. The year before, finding themselves in need of cash, Gabrielle had lured a bailiff called Alexandre-Toussaint Gouffé to her room with the promise of sex. Under five feet in height, with her hair cut short, it was not difficult for the gamin slut to entice him over to her bed, where she sensually unwound from her waist the silk rope which acted as her belt, and provocatively placed it around the unfortunate Gouffé's neck as he kissed her throat. This was the signal for Eyraud to come out from behind the curtain where he had been waiting. He took hold of the other end of the rope and hung Gouffé, who died without a struggle, and remarkably quickly, considering the amateur set-up. To their dismay the lovers found only a few francs on Gouffé's person. They dumped his body in a trunk and disposed of it in a wood near Lyons before fleeing to America.