Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris

Written by Steven Levingston

Narrated by John Lee

A delicious account of a murder most gallic—think CSI Paris meets Georges Simenon—whose lurid combination of sex, brutality, forensics, and hypnotism riveted first a nation and then the world.

Little Demon in the City of Light is the thrilling—and so wonderfully French—story of a gruesome 1889 murder of a lascivious court official at the hands of a ruthless con man and his pliant mistress and the international manhunt, sensational trial, and an inquiry into the limits of hypnotic power that ensued.

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 Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé entered 3, rue Tronson du Coudray, he expected nothing but a delightful assignation with the comely young Gabrielle Bompard. Instead, he was murdered—hanged!—by her and her companion Michel Eyraud. The body was then stuffed in a trunk and dumped on a riverbank near Lyon.

As the inquiry into the guilt or innocence of the woman the French tabloids dubbed the "Little Demon" escalated, the most respected minds in France debated whether Gabrielle Bompard was the pawn of her mesmerizing lover or simply a coldly calculating murderess. And, at the burning center of it all: Could hypnosis force people to commit crimes against their will?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9780449012987

Reviews for Little Demon in the City of Light

[loraineo_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A historical true crime murder mystery in Paris ,1889. I enjoyed this book, easy to read with lots of detail of the trial as it became a huge media sensation, partly due to one of the defendants pleading not guilty due to being hypnotized to participate in the murder.

[eva334 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm dismayed with the average rating. This book - though a non-fiction - reads like a thriller, and, at the same time, it paints the Belle Epoque Paris in all its many aspects. Packed with facts yet ultimately readable. Five stars with all my heart.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

With the title an obvious play on/reference to Devil in the White City, I was hoping this book would be at least half as interesting and entertaining as that one had been. And in the end, I'd say it was just about exactly that - half as interesting.

This true story takes place in Paris not long before the turn of the 20th century. Gabrielle Bompard, a young lady of somewhat flexible morals meets Michel Eyraud, an older man of no apparent morals at all. They begin a relationship, and eventually lure another man into a room in Paris to rob and kill him. They dispose of his body, and make their getaway to their new lives, stealing from people with scams instead of killing them. But of course, there would be no story if this were the perfect crime, and eventually their victim's body is found and identified. When they are put on trial, Gabrielle tries to use a hypnotism defense - she is so weak and suggestible that Eyraud was able to exert his will over her completely enough to force her to participate in the murder against her will.

You can probably guess how that went over from the dearth of modern cases using the same defense. The best part of the narrative, for me, involved the pioneering forensic work in identifying the victim's body. This was cutting-edge stuff at the time, and it's intriguing to learn how far outside the box this scientist had to think to connect the body to this case. The weakest part was just about everything involving hypnotism. That there were two schools of thought about the practice, that there was disagreement about whether or not hypnotism could really convince anyone to do something truly against their will, these are important to know. But the author goes on and on about these divergences, and talks in excruciating detail about the testimony given at the trial about it all. I feel like maybe the hypnotism angle was the wrong place to hang the story. Perhaps the hook should have been the police work involved, or the svengali-like personality of Eyraud instead.

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When Michel Eyraud met Gabrielle Bompard in Paris in 1889, both of them were in desperate financial circumstances. Eyraud, a middle-aged habitual con man and thief, was about to lose his respectable job at a trading company due to his shady dealings. Twenty-year-old Gabrielle was estranged from her well-to-do family and had no means of supporting herself. The two "became lovers" (to borrow the narrative's most overused phrase), and Eyraud soon hatched a plan: they would lure a wealthy man to their apartment with the promise of sex, then rob and murder him. The unfortunate Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé was their unwitting victim. Gabrielle, of course, was the bait, but was she a willing accomplice? At their subsequent murder trial, the defense claimed that Eyraud used hypnosis "to take her free will away."

Little Demon in the City of Light is impeccably researched, but the writing is pedestrian. I didn't find the hypnosis angle, described in great detail in terms of the conflict between the rival "Paris" and "Nancy" schools of thought, all that compelling. Far more intriguing were the descriptions of crime scene investigation before the development of modern forensic techniques. By the time the putrefied corpse was found, it was almost unidentifiable. The chief investigator, Marie-Francois Goron, went to great lengths to establish a link between the accused couple and the massive trunk in which the corpse was found, going so far as to have the damaged wooden box reconstructed. An early forensic scientist, Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne, used Gouffé's medical and dental records, along with samples of the dead man's distinctive chestnut hair, to identify the corpse.

The author's sympathies are clearly with Gabrielle, but I didn't feel sorry for either of the murderers. Gabrielle, the "little demon" of the title, reminded me of Charles Manson's female followers--sexy but childlike, terrified but devoted to their substitute father-figure. Unlike the Manson girls, however, Gabrielle did not remain loyal to her man when her own life was at stake.

Despite its flaws, this book is definitely worth reading, especially if you are interested in the beginnings of forensic science.

[maryreinert · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Paris was the center of all pleasures and eccentricities in the late 1880’s. The public was enthralled with extremes and theatrics. When a wealthy man mysteriously disappears with no trace, the Paris police take on the task of finding him. A murder isn’t a murder without a body, but finally the decomposed body of Gouffe is found, and it is apparent it is in fact a murder. The search for the body by two Paris policemen is a page-turner. Forensic science in the 1880’s was truly a matter of diligence, wit, and determination.

After finding the body, the next step is finding the perpetrators . Once again, it takes diligence, wit, and a lot of luck. Finally the twenty-two year old Gabrielle Bompard and Michel Eyrund, old enough to be her father, are arrested. Who is really responsible for the murder? Michel, who has hypnotized Gabrielle, or Gabrielle, who through love has influenced Michel? Now the story takes a turn of logistics, “scientific” investigation, and more than you could ever want to know about hypnotism.

Obviously very well researched, “Little Demon” is as much of a factual telling of the murder, investigation, and trial as can be. Yet, the story for the most part reads like a novel. The opposing views of hypnotism are greatly explored and explained, almost in too much detail for the general reader. Yet, this is an interesting combination of a murder mystery, historical novel, and non-fiction exposé

[undermyappletree · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

True crime and history buffs will love this richly detailed, well-researched account of a murder in turn-of-the-century France. That the accused committed the crime was not in question. What made this case unique and caused it to gain media attention was the woman’s claim that she had been hypnotized into helping commit the murder and therefore was not guilty.

There is a lot of detail of not only the investigation, the new science of forensics and the trial, but also of the backgrounds of each of the individuals plus interesting tidbits about Paris in the late 1800s. At times the author veers off into lengthy asides that threatened to interrupt the flow of the main story.

I enjoyed this interesting look at a criminal case through the prism of the justice system of the times, but I was frequently overwhelmed by the amount of detail provided.

Audio production: Skillfully narrated by John Lee, the audio production was an engaging listen.