Jean Teulé (1953–2022)

Fleur de Tonnere in Jean Teulé's book is Hélène Jégado a french serial killer. She was active in Brittany between 1833 until her public execution at Rennes in 1852. It is thought that she murdered at least 36 people by poisoning with arsenic.

Teulé's biography links Jégado's murderous exploits to the landscape and legends of Brittany. Jegado came from a poor family and earned her living as a cook, housemaid and sometimes prostitute. He tells her story in chronological order sticking closely to the known facts. His most inventive story telling is at the start of her murderous life where he tells of her taking part in a shipwrecking expedition on the Brittany coast with her lover, who she of course poisoned later. There seems to have been no motive for her murders, she just seemed to enjoy the power that she had over her victims, often nursing them, while poisoning them.

Of course there are a lot of murders to get through, but Teulé imagines that Jégado was influenced by L'Ankou who was a personified spectre from Celtic mythology who represented the dead. Jégado's parents died when she was young and Teulé imagines that she killed them and other members of her family using belladonna, from that time she imagines she hears the spectre L'Ankou sharpening a blade, which encourages her to murder. She also seems to be empowered by the standing stones that litter the Brittany landscape. After the deaths in her family Jégado starts her murderous journey criss-crossing Brittany, killing as the mood took her in the families of her employers. She seems to have inspired loyalty in some of her employers, or perhaps they found it difficult to find hired help. She did garner a reputation for bringing death with her, but life in rural Brittany in the mid 19th century was certainly more precarious. She was usually not under suspicion of murder, but when she felt that she maybe, she moved on; seeking employment in another town and another household.

Teulé does not try to explain her actions or her motivations, he busies himself by telling her story in the context of the times in which she lived, letting her speak and be spoken to, and being affected by the imagery of the houses, convents and bordels in which she lived. When she says to her employers that she will bake a special cake or that she will make her exceptional vegetable soup with herbs, the reader suspects that soon someone will fall ill. Hélène Jégado was a psychopath and in the towns and communities in which she lived she could function as she wished. It was only when she lived in the big town of Rennes as an elderly woman of 49 years that she got caught out when medical practitioners became suspicious. A sobering tale shot through with the imagery of the folklore and culture of Brittany in the 19th century 3.5 stars.… (more)