Executed
1432–1440 · France
Gilles de Rais
A Marshal of France who fought beside Joan of Arc was hanged at Nantes in 1440 for murdering children. Can his confession be trusted?
Country
Historical crimes in France
11 cases with their main events in France.
11 cases10 solved0 unsolved1432–1946
Executed
Executed
1556–1560 · France
Martin Guerre
In 1556 a man walked into a Pyrenean village claiming to be its missing husband. His wife accepted him for three years, until the real one came home.
Executed
1677–1682 · France
Affair of the Poisons
Fortune tellers selling 'inheritance powders' to the Paris elite, a secret court lit by torches, and testimony that reached the king's own mistress.
Convicted
1839–1840 · France
Marie Lafarge
A Parisian bride, a crumbling former monastery in Corrèze, a husband dead of 'cholera', and the Marsh test that made toxicology a courtroom science.
Disputed verdict
1894–1906 · France
Dreyfus Affair
A torn note from a wastebasket, a Jewish captain sent to Devil's Island, and the real spy acquitted in three minutes: the injustice that split France.
Convicted
1902–1903 · France
Thérèse Humbert
For twenty years Paris lent fortunes against an American millionaire's legacy locked in Thérèse Humbert's safe. In May 1902 they opened it.
Convicted
1911–1914 · France
Mona Lisa theft
In 1911 a glazier walked out of the Louvre with Leonardo's portrait. It was gone 28 months, and the empty wall made it the world's most famous painting.
Executed
1915–1922 · France
Henri Désiré Landru
A fugitive swindler answered wartime France's lonely-hearts columns. Eleven people who went with him to rented villas outside Paris were never seen again.
Executed
1916–1917 · France
Mata Hari
France shot the famous dancer as a German spy in 1917. She took money from both sides; whether she gave either anything of value is still argued.
Convicted
1925–1947 · France
Victor Lustig
Did Victor Lustig really sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap in 1925? His counterfeiting and Alcatraz are on record. The tower sale rests on one later book.
Executed
1942–1946 · France
Marcel Petiot
In occupied Paris a doctor sold a secret route to safety for 25,000 francs a head. In March 1944 smoke from his chimney showed where his clients had gone.