According to the statement of the prosecution summarized by the Gazette, on July 17, 1884, the neighbors of Félix-Albert Pel took advantage of his absence to raise a ladder against his lodging in Montreuil. One of the women climbed to the transom window. She reported having glimpsed a bed dragged into the center of the room, overturned mattresses, and chloride of lime scattered across the floor. The neighbors had complained of an odor of putrefying flesh; in the stove, the brownish residues were described as thick and damp. Élise Bœhmer, who had been living with Pel, had vanished. No corpse was found.
Ten months later, on June 11, 1885, that very absence stood at the center of a hearing before the Seine Assize Court. The Gazette des Tribunaux describes the table of exhibits: phials, jars, boxes, books, a saw, a knife, and two small stoves. Fifty-four witnesses were summoned to be heard. The public crowded in from the early morning, while the guard admitted into the chamber only those bearing admission cards. Pel appeared shortly before noon. The presiding judge inquired after his identity: Félix-Albert Pel, born in Grand-Cœur, Savoy, on June 12, 1849.
The indictment contained two capital counts, both referred by the Gazette to Article 302 of the Penal Code. It charged Pel with having, in Paris in 1880, "willfully made an attempt upon the life" of his wife, Eugénie Buffereau, "by the effect of substances capable of causing death"; and further, at Montreuil in 1884, with having willfully made an attempt upon the life of Charlotte-Élisabeth, known as Élise Bœhmer, by the same means. These were the terms of the prosecution, not a verdict. The proceedings were to weigh the testimonies, the medical findings, and the replies of the accused.
The journal first retraced Pel’s past. He had served as an apprentice to several watchmakers before establishing his own business on the Rue Rochechouart in 1869. Following his father’s death in 1873, he came into an inheritance estimated by the Gazette at twenty thousand francs. He subsequently changed both his lodgings and his trade, presenting himself by turns as an organist, a teacher, or a physician, while dabbling in physics and chemistry. The article mentions earlier suspicions regarding Marie Mahoin and Eugénie Meyer, two women who had resided in his household and fallen ill. It specifies, however, that the preliminary investigation found insufficient grounds to include them in the charges brought before this court.
Eugénie Buffereau had married Pel on August 26, 1880. On October 20, she found it necessary to summon her mother, who resided in Évreux. The mother hastened to her daughter’s side, only to find her in a grave condition. The report describes violent cramps, vomiting, and unquenchable thirst. Doctor Raoult, called to the bedside on October 12, initially suspected mushroom poisoning. Pel and his wife declared they had eaten none; he then prescribed a course of treatment for gastroenteritis. Eugénie expired on October 24. According to the court report, Pel refused to permit the body to be shrouded, and no one remained by her side to keep watch. An inquest was contemplated and then set aside, the newspaper states, to avoid scandal.
Doubts did not dissipate. On October 23, 1884, the body was exhumed from the cemetery of Clichy. Doctors Brouardel and Lhôte examined the remains and the earth from the coffin. Their analysis revealed a significant quantity of arsenic in the portions corresponding to the abdomen, the liver, and the kidneys; soil samples taken from the grave showed no trace of arsenic. Nor did the antiseptic preparation used by the undertakers contain the poison. Pel replied that his wife had long undergone an arsenical treatment, taking Fowler’s solution in particular. The experts acknowledged that arsenical salts administered for therapeutic purposes may be detected in the viscera, but the journal reports that they did not consider this explanation adequate in view of their findings. These conclusions, entered into the dossier, did not constitute a determination of the jury.
Pel remarried in July 1881 to Angèle Murat-Belliole. The Gazette reports that he likewise petitioned his new wife’s mother to execute a will favoring her daughter. These elements lent the prosecution a pecuniary motive, but did not in themselves establish either the intent or the two counts. At the bar, Pel denied the allegations. His second wife and his mother-in-law, who might have answered certain questions, were residing in England and did not appear that day.
The history of Élise Bœhmer began with a timepiece. Born in Zweibrücken in 1840, she brought watches for repair to Pel, who was then working in Nanterre. She lent him five hundred francs, subsequently advanced further sums, and sold a Crédit Foncier bond. She also entrusted him with securities. The chronicle estimates that he thus had at his disposal a substantial portion of her savings. Pel then left Nanterre in her company and, on June 21, 1884, took up residence on the Rue de l’Église in Montreuil. The main room served as a shop; a bedchamber lay to the side, and another doorway gave access to the courtyard.
A letter dated July 2 from Montreuil was read aloud at the hearing: in it, Élise voiced her apprehension and stated her wish to speak with her correspondent in person. The presiding judge asserted that she was already ill when she penned it; Pel retorted that she had always been in poor health. The debate turned once more to the worsening of her condition. The neighbors, Mesdames Chesnel and Deven-Emus, visited her. According to their depositions as reported by the Gazette, Élise suffered from abdominal cramps, vomited, and complained of pain and thirst. Pel maintained that she suffered from cancer, and that he had scattered chloride of lime merely to overcome the foul odors of the disease. The witnesses did not entirely agree on the exact dates nor on the nature of the stenches they claimed to have smelled.
From July 15 onward, several inhabitants of the common courtyard reported a stench that suggested putrefaction to their senses. Some claimed to have seen intense fires blazing within the lodging. On the 17th, during Pel’s absence, the neighbors mounted to the transom window. Madame Deven saw the room in disarray, the bed dismantled, the mattresses displaced, and chloride of lime strewn about. The ashes in the stove were damp and brownish. In the indictment summarized by the Gazette, these residues and fires were interpreted as indications of an incineration; the article notes further that Élise’s body was never recovered. A saw seized in Pel’s rooms bore traces described by the experts as mammalian blood and animal matter. During experiments recorded in the case file, the experts burned a sixty-kilogram cadaver in a comparable stove: forty hours were required, leaving six kilograms of ashes behind. These trials demonstrated what the stove was capable of doing; they could not restore the missing body.
Pel maintained that Élise had abandoned him on July 13. He stated that he had gone to fetch a cab from the rank in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine; according to his version of events, she had stepped into the carriage bound for an address she had not disclosed to him. He asserted he had never seen her again. He declared he had spread chloride of lime throughout the lodging solely on account of her illness. The neighbors replied that they had seen no cab waiting before the house. The prosecution likewise confronted him with the fact that no trace of the cabman he described could be found in the municipal registries consulted, as well as the stenches, the fires, and the disorder observed following her disappearance. Pel contested these testimonies and remained silent before certain inquiries. The journal let these conflicting accounts stand without delivering a judicial conclusion.
The presiding judge dwelt at length upon Pel’s relations with his wives, his debts, and the sums received from Élise. The accused corrected certain amounts, took issue with the terms employed by the prosecution, and branded several narratives as slanders. His counsel, Maître Jolly, cross-examined the witness and urged that Pel was an industrious worker. The statements of the neighbors and the medical reports were already incorporated into the preliminary magistrate’s findings; they were not all heard from the witness stand during this opening day. Toward the end of the session, Sophie Reichembach recounted having known Pel while he was employed by her mother. She said she had seen her mother fall ill, and recalled that Pel had spoken of sending for a doctor, though she had seen none arrive before the end. Maître Jolly questioned her regarding Pel’s habits; she replied that he was at that time exceedingly studious, occupying himself with watchmaking and chemistry.
The hearing was adjourned at half-past six. The remainder of the witness testimony was carried over to the following day. Élise remained missing, and both capital indictments were yet to be decided. The account of June 12 breaks off here: it provides neither the conclusion of the trial nor the verdict. The prosecution had marshaled its circumstantial evidence and its narrative; the court had still to hear the witnesses. The reader departs from Montreuil with an open question, but without an answer that the journal had not yet published.