Little demon in the city of light : a true story of murder and mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris Cover Image

E-book

Little demon in the city of light : a true story of murder and mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris / Steven Levingston.

ISBN: 9780385536042
ISBN: 0385536046
Physical Description: 1 online resource.
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Doubleday, [2014]
Copyright: &copy;2014

Summary:

Documents the brutal 1889 murder of a lascivious court official by a ruthless con man and his pliant mistress, tracing the ensuing manhunt and sensational trial against period debates about whether someone could be hypnotically compelled to commit crimes.

"The thrilling--and so wonderfully French--story of a gruesome 1889 murder of a lascivious court official by a ruthless con man and his pliant mistress, an international manhunt, a sensational trial, and an inquiry into the limits of hypnotic power. In France at the end of the nineteenth century a great debate raged over the question of whether someone could be hypnotically compelled to commit a crime in violation of his or her moral convictions. When Alexandre-Toussaint Gouffe entered a Parisian building at 3 rue Tronson Ducoudray for what he thought would be a delightful assignation with the comely young Gabrielle Bompard, only to be murdered--hanged!--by her and her ruthless companion Michel Eyraud, stuffed in a trunk, and dumped on a riverbank near Lyon, that question became the burning center of an inquiry into the guilt or innocence of a woman the French tabloids dubbed "The Little Demon.""-- Provided by publisher.