It was when Helene began to poison for vengeance that retribution fell upon her. Her fondness for the bottle started to get her into trouble. It made her touchy. Up to 1841 she had poisoned for the pleasure of it, masking her secret turpitude with an outward show of piety, of being helpful in time of trouble. By the time she arrived in Rennes, in 1848, after seven years during which her murderous proclivities seem to have slept, her character as a worker, if not as a Christian, had deteriorated. Her piety, in the face of her fondness for alcohol and her slovenly habits, and against her now frequently exhibited bursts of temper and ill-will, appeared the hypocrisy it actually was. Her essays in poisoning now had purpose and motive behind them. Nemesis, so long at her heels, overtook her. III It is not clear in the accounts available to me just what particular murders by poison, what attempts at poisoning, and what thefts Helene was charged with in the indictment at Rennes. Twenty-three poisonings, six attempts, and a number of thefts had been washed out, it may be as well to repeat, by the prescription legale. But from her arrival in Rennes, leaving the thefts out of account, her activities had accounted for the following: In the Rabot household one death (Albert, the son) and three illnesses (Rabot, Mme Rabot, the mother-in-law); in the Ozanne establishment one death (that of the little son), in the hotel of the Roussells one death (that of Perrotte Mace) and one illness (that of the Veuve Roussell); at the Bidards two deaths (Rose Tessier and Rosalie Sarrazin). In this last establishment there was also one attempt at poisoning which I have not yet mentioned, that of a young servant, named Francoise Huriaux, who for a short time had taken the place of Rose Tessier. We thus have five deaths and five attempts in Rennes, all of which could be indictable. But, as already stated, the indictment covered three deaths and three attempts. It is hard to say, from verbatim reports of the trial, where the matter of the indictment begins to be handled. It would seem from the evidence produced that proof was sought of all five deaths and all five attempts that Helene was supposed to be guilty of in Rennes. The father of the boy Ozanne was called before the Rabot witnesses, though the Rabot death and illnesses occurred before the death of the Ozanne child. We may, however, take the order of affairs as dealt with in the court. We may see something of motive on Helene's part suggested in M. Ozanne's evidence, and an indication of her method of covering her crime.