Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris

CHAPTER 26. THE PETIOT CIRCUS

For the trial of Marcel Petiot, most diligent biographers draw upon the text in Jacques Perry and Jane Chabert,

L’affaire Petiot

(Paris: Gallimard, 1957), hereafter PC. I have also supplemented my account with the

Extract des minutes de la cour d’assises de la Seine

, preserved in the Archives de Paris 30.W.4 and the stenographic record in the Archives Nationales at AN 334 AP 65. For the reactions of attorneys, jurors, and members of the audience, I have drawn upon a number of testimonies in newspapers, memoirs, diaries, and other eyewitness accounts. Citations are used for direct quotations or for more contentious points. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own.

1 “the most sensational” Washington Post, March 18, 1946.

2 All jurors The drawing of the jurors is covered in Extrait des Minutes du Greffier de la Cour d’Appel de Paris, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

3 His assistant … to the prosecution Thomas Maeder, The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980), 192, 185.

4 “devil’s poet” Claude Bertin, Les assassins hors-série: Gilles de Rais, Petiot, vol. 10 of Les grands procès de l’histoire de France (Paris: Éditions de Saint-Clair, 1967), 142.

5 Petiot took off Alain Decaux, present that day, described it in C’était le xxe siècle: la guerre absolue 1940–1945 (Paris: Perrin, 1998), 298.

6 “Gentlemen, please” Bertin, Les assassins hors-série, 143.

7 “willful homicide” PC, 175; Maeder, The Unspeakable Crimes, 194.

8 stooped over Spokane Daily Chronicle, March 19, 1946.

9 “like the edge” PC, 174.

10 he looked younger New York Times, March 19, 1946.

11 The dark circles under his eyes Jean Galtier-Boissière, Mon journal dans la drôle de paix (Paris: La jeune Parque, 1947), 206.

12 “famous hypnotic stare” Sydney Morning Herald, March 19, 1946. The Chicago Daily Tribune noted the staring sometimes at victims’ families, and Francine Bonitzer said it was a murderous glare in L’Aurore, March 19, 1946.

13 “What about Colonel” … “She told everyone” Bertin, Les assassins hors-série, 143–148. Report, February 6, 1946, APP, Série J, Affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

14 “Don’t mention it” Reported by Jean-François Dominique, who covered the trial as a reporter for La Républic du Sud-Ouest, in his L’affaire Petiot: médecin, marron, gestapiste, guillotiné pour au moins vingt-sept assassinats (Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 1980), 199.

15 “My first murder” PC, 176.

16 Petiot had good Le Figaro, March 22, 1946.

17 St. Antony Galtier-Boissière, Mon journal, 206.

18 “That was a story” … “Yes, I was convicted” PC, 176–177.

19 “Next you are going to tell” Maeder, The Unspeakable Crimes, 195.

20 “the prospectus of a quack!” … “No one ever knows” PC, 177–178.

21 “Nothing is simpler” … “there was no Resistance” PC, 179–180.

22 public that looked back The low opinion of the legal profession, particularly judges, is described by Megan Koreman in The Expectation of Justice: France, 1944–1946 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 98.

23 After a heckler suggested René Nézondet, Petiot “le Possédé” (Paris: Express, 1950), 145.

24 One film producer John V. Grombach, The Great Liquidator (New York: Zebra Books, 1980), 294.

25 “What are plastic explosives?” Bertin, Les assassins hors-série, 156.

26 “Is this” … “Why?” PC, 181–182. Reactions and Petiot’s words at the end are in L’Aube, March 19, 1946, and Le Pays, March 19, 1946.