Confessions of Sergeant Francois Bertrand

"When I was 7 or 8 years old, my parents noticed that I was inclined to a special maladjustment that drove me to go for walks in the darker spots of woods, where I stayed for entire days in absolute sadness.

On the 23rd or 25th of February 1847, a strange kind of fury seized me and made me do the things for which I was arrested. Here is how it happened. One day, I went for a walk in the country with one of my friends when we came by a cemetery; we entered it, to satisfy our curiousity. Someone had been buried the day before; the undertaker, surprised by rain, had not finished covering the grave and had left his tools on the ground. When I saw this, I was overcome with gloomy thoughts. I suffered from a violent headache; my heart got carried away and I couldn't control myself anymore. I gave my friend the excuse that I had to go back to town immediately and when I got rid of him, I went back to the graveyard. I picked up a shovel and I started to dig the grave. When I finally removed the corpse from its tomb, I started to hit it with the shovel, driven by a rage I cannot explain. But a worker suddenly appeared at the cemetery's gate. I stood up, but then I saw no one. The man had gone to alert the authorities. I climbed out of the grave, and after re-covering the corpse with dirt, I jumped over the graveyard's wall...

Four months had passed since this happened. In the meantime, I stayed quiet; we had come back to Paris, and I believed that my madness had disappeared completely when my friends invited me to come and visit the Pere-Lachaise cemetery.

I enjoyed the dark alleys of this graveyard quite a bit, and I decided to come back for a walk during the night. I entered into the cemetery at 9 PM by climbing the wall. I strolled around for half an hour, my mind filled with black thoughts, then I started to dig a grave with my bare hands; I tore the body into pieces, then I left. It happened in June.

Then came the February 1848 cases. At this period, the regiment started to go on the road, and we only came back in Paris in June. We were camping near a village in the suburbs of Amiens, so I only came back to Paris on the 17th of July. After a few days of rest, the sickness came back, more violent than ever. We were staying in the Ivry Camp; at night, the guards were posted very near and their instructions were very severe, but nothing could stop me. I climbed out of the camp every night, to go to the Montparnasse Cemetery, where I satisfied my lust.

The first victim of my fury was a young girl whose limbs I scattered after having mutilated her. This desecration took place on July 25, 1848 Ever since then, I only came back twice to that cemetery. The first time, at midnight, under a bright moon, I saw a guard walking down an alley, a pistol in his hand. I was perched on a tree, near the surrounding wall, ready to climb down into the graveyard; he walked by me, but did not see me. When he was far enough from me, I left without even trying to do a thing. The second time, I dug up the remains of an old woman and a child; I treated them the same way as my other victims. I cannot remember when this happened. The other cases happened in a cemetery where only suicide victims and people who died in hospitals are buried. The first individual that I dug up in this place was a drowned corpse that I disemboweled. It was on July 30. You must notice that I seldom mutilated men. I did not take pleasure from it, whereas I had a great time mutilating the corpses of women. I do not know why.

By November 6, 1848, I dug up and mutilated four bodies, two men and two women. The women were at least 60 years old. I cannot remember the exact dates of these exhumations, but they happened every two weeks.

On November 6, at 10 p.m., someone shot at me while I was climbing the graveyard's wall. I was not hit. This fact did not discourage me. I laid on the wet ground and slept for at least 2 hours in the winter cold. I then entered the graveyard, where I dug up the body of a drowned woman. I disemboweled her...

At first, I committed these excesses only after drinking a pint of wine, but I never did this again under the influence of alcohol. Simple annoyance was enough to drive me to such extremes.

You could believe that I was also prone to assault living persons, but on the contrary, I was extremely kind to everybody. I wouldn't hurt a child. So I am sure that I have no enemies. All the non-commissioned officers appreciated my frankness and my cheerfulness."