Naming the Crime: Responses to the Papin Murders from Lacan, Beauvoir, and Flanner

THE COMPAnATIST NAMING THE CRIME: RESPONSES TO THE PAPIN MURDERS FROM LACAN, BEAUVOIR, AND FLANNER Paula K. Kamenish On the evening of February 2, 1933, in the provincial French town of Le Mans, two maids bludgeoned and hacked to death their employers, Madame and MademoiseUe LanceUn. According to some reports, fear of being scolded for causing a fuse to blow led the perpetrators to beat and dismember their victims. The double murder not only stirred the curiosity and imagination of the general populace who foUowed the in-depth coverage ofthe trial through Paris-Soir articles by noveUsts Jérôme and Jean Tharaud, but it also ignited a spirited debate among members of the French-based intelligentsia, notably Jacques Lacan, Simone de Beauvoir, and Janet Flanner. Spurred by a desire to pinpoint the motive for the crime, renowned journahsts, psychoanalysts, and Uterary figures demonstrated an uncanny and continuing fascination with the psychology of the murderers, Christine and Lea Papin. The responses of Lacan, Beauvoir, and Flanner to the Le Mans murders prove to be crucial in a study ofUterary influence because they stimulated the creative imaginations of at least two criticaUy acclaimed playwrights: Jean Genet and, more recently, Wendy Kesselman. Those who reacted in print to the Papin crime fed off each other's ideas, hypotheses, and diagnoses in an on-going pubhc debate that is traceable in pubUshed studies or memoirs. Every retelUng of the double murder and of the information recorded at the trial is necessarUy an interpretation, a revision of the material. Each writer offers a personalized perception based on how he or she envisions the crime and its motives, thereby reveaUng, due to the sexuaUy charged innuendoes evidenced in the crime and trial, a voyeur's reading of the events. Moreover , in as much as each recorder has an audience and a purpose in mind, he or she exhibits a sociaUy constructed view of the controversy that is meant to influence and persuade others. The varied forms of the multivocal response to this particular crime reveal more about the commentators than about their captivating subject. Since a clearly explained motive for the heinous crime remained a mystery, speculation, influenced by sources ranging from local comm érage to newspaper buUetins and analyses, ran rampant among neighbors and shopkeepers. Within the bourgeois class fear fueled the discussion : if these two model servants could suddenly display such violence against their unsuspecting employers, then what middle-class famüy was safe? But the pubUc forum that grew out ofthe Papin trial was not Umited to bourgeois concerns. Repercussions from the crime extended across class, poUtical, occupational, and gender Unes. Consequently, a wide Vol·. 20 (1996): 93 RESPONSES TO THE PAPIN MURDERS array ofreaders was exposed to commentary about the trial of the maids ofLe Mans: One could consult, for example, the popular French Détective magazine, the left-wing newspaper L'Humanité, Vanity Fair, or even Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography. Understandably, the trial was no longer confined to the parameters of the courtroom. The anomaly of the good maids who suddenly became dangerous külers appealed to aU audiences , with the result that the trial was soon transformed into an unrestricted spectacle, property of the public domain where the sisters were punished or pardoned by their peers and a large reading audience. The traditionaUy monologic voice of a court of assize, designed to rule on the guilt of the sisters and issue their punishment, was diluted in the dialogic response to the murder. This multivocal phenomenon echoes Mikhail Bakhtin's anti-hierarchical notion of the carnivalistic moment in which barriers between the monologic (and authoritative) discourses of classes, genders, and occupational groups break down, that is, the point at which discourse becomes dialogue (Rabelais 246). Rules are broken, voices speak freely in this carnival atmosphere of expression: everyone feels free to propose a rendition of the crime and an opinion on its causes. Thus, what Michel Foucault might identify as a monologic voice (judge=power=truth) is discarded in favor of myriad dissenting voices, each formulating and expressing its own equaUy vaUd hypothesis. It can be said that early scrutinizers of the Papin trial such as Beauvoir, Lacan, and...