Little Demon in the City of Light

December 16, 2013
The titular figure in this lively popular history is Gabrielle Bompard, a young woman who became infamous as the accomplice in a garish and notorious murder in 1889 Paris. Mistress of the con man Michel Eyraud, Bompard and her tragic story became a historical footnote; her case at trial rested on a precedent-setting hypnotism defense. In seeking to absolve her of responsibility, the reference to hypnotic suggestion (then an intensely researched subject in the medical community) brought into the spotlight opposing scientific camps, represented by Jules Liégeois—a law professor from Nancy who argued that the hypnotized criminal was not morally culpable—and the eminent Parisian neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, onetime mentor of Freud, who insisted the hypnotist could not override an individual’s moral makeup. Before reaching the spectacular trial, however, journalist Levingston (coauthor of The Whiz Kid of Wall Street’s Investment Guide) spends the first two-thirds of the book meticulously recounting the crime, principal characters, and relevant cultural context. Though limited as a cultural history, the book is lovingly constructed from available sources, including newspapers, memoirs, and secondary histories, and immerses the reader in a period whose newfound obsessions—science and pseudo-science of the mind, criminal forensics, mass media, the macabre, and fame—have a seminal connection to our own time. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writer’s House.

December 15, 2013
International journalist and Washington Post nonfiction book editor Levingston (Historic Ships of San Francisco, 1984) uses the story of a murder by a foolish girl and her lover to illustrate another side of belle epoque Paris. The author foregoes the tabloid excesses and exploitation of lurid details from that time and focuses on the debate as to whether a person is capable of committing a crime under hypnosis or even post-hypnotic suggestion. The supposedly duped 20-year-old girl, Gabrielle Bompard, and her lover, Michel Eyraud, lured a wealthy Parisian to her room, where Eyraud strangled him. They then stuffed him in a trunk and took it to Lyon, where Eyraud dumped the body over an embankment toward a river. Unfortunately for the lovers, the body landed against a bush, where the odor of decomposition soon revealed its location. The talent of Marie-Francois Goron, chief detective of the national police, "a stout bundle of energy...with a thick mustache that he waxed at the tips," is the most interesting part of the story. His doggedness in exploring every clue and hunch led to the discovery of not only the victim's body, but also the identities of the perpetrators. Finding and arresting Bompard and Eyraud proved to be a more daunting challenge. Ultimately, it's unclear whether Goron would ever have found them, since Bompard deserted Eyraud in California and returned to Paris with a new lover who convinced her to go to the police. With worldwide press, her lover was soon taken, and the two were tried together. Bompard believed that no one could ever blame her and relished her fame as the newspapers of the time reveled in sensationalistic reporting. What could have been a silly expose of Paris, hypnotism and detection is instead a well-constructed, informative work by a talented author.

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March 1, 2014

Journalist Levingston's (The Kennedy Baby; Historic Ships of San Francisco) latest title is a fascinating and easy-to-read true crime story about a sensational murder connected with hypnotism in late 19th-century Paris.He weaves historical details of the grisly murder of a court official by a con man and his mistress, the discovery of the body, the worldwide search for the suspects, and the subsequent trial with background information about the rise of hypnotism in the scientific world. In the style of books such as Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, Levingston's writing is entertaining yet informative, and clearly produced from years of research into Gabrielle Bompard, the woman called "The Little Demon" by the French press, and her lover/hypnotist, Michel Eyraud. This title also explores the sensational reaction by the public and the press to not only the missing victim, but to the unique defense claimed in court by Bompard. VERDICT Recommended for historic true crime fans, readers interested in 19th-century history, media historians, and general readers.--Amelia Osterud, Carroll Univ. Lib., Waukesha, WI

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2014
In belle epoque Paris, mesmerism, the ability to hypnotize others to do one's will, was quite the rage, and it wound up being quite the defense for one of the two accused of robbing and strangling wealthy widower Toussaint-Augustin Gouff'. Was the petite d'mon (little devil) Gabrielle Bompard, a good girl turned good-time girl, in thrall to bamboozling raconteur Michel Eyraud? Certainly, it made a great story then, one that the tabloids worldwide emblazoned in lurid headlines for months, and one that Levingston tells here, filled with clever and determined detectives (quotes from Sret' chief Marie-Franois Goron's own memoir are included), theories about criminology, opinionizing by such luminaries as writer mile Zola, and the ambience of an era that arguably can't be matched for its guilelessness. Levingston's smartly chipper prose and fine attention to detaildown to the otter trim on Gabrielle's hatadd an entertaining and authentic sensibility to this re-creation of a culture, a crime, and the first time an accused murderer had put forward a hypnotism defense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)