Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris
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 Gouffé. Was the petite démon (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 Sûreté chief Marie-François Goron’s own memoir are included), theories about criminology, ­opinionizing by such luminaries as writer Émile 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 detail—down to the otter trim on Gabrielle’s hat—add 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. --Eloise Kinney