Some grief does not stay buried.
In France, a destitute woman named Alice Gillet became so overcome by the thought of losing her dead son a second time that she went to the cemetery by night, dug up his bones, wrapped them in cloth, and carried them away.
Her little Louis had been buried years earlier in a pauper’s grave. When Alice learned that the remains in such graves might be removed and burned, her already troubled mind broke under the fear.
Now, with the authorities searching for her, the grieving mother was said to be wandering through the cold woods and fields of France, clutching the remains she could not bear to surrender.
Flees With Bones of Her Dead Son
PARIS, France. — There is a woman, a poor distracted mother, wandering about a country part of France carrying in a black serge parcel the bones of her child whom she lost eight years ago. She dug up and took away these remains from the cemetery of La Norville, near Arpajon.
Now in her wretchedness she is wandering about the woods looking for shelter from the cold and the rain, and the curious eyes of men, and the authorities who wish to deprive her of her precious but ghastly burden. This woman, Alice Gillet, who is 44 years of age, was born at La Norville.
Her mother, who was extremely beautiful, lived for some time in gayety and luxury in Paris. She became the mistress of a wealthy man. Alice was born to them. Then destitution followed their former plenty, and ruined and wretched they came back with their child to the mother’s home. The young girl grew up very beautiful.
Of all those who courted her, she preferred a shoemaker named Brule, and to hime she was married.
Two Children Born
The couple went to Vitry, and then to Paris. Two children were born, a daughter and a boy, the little Louis who died eight years ago. Alice Brule was, however, jealous and dissipated, and after supporting her for a long time, Brule left her.
Then began her sad wandering life, for Alice Brule, the abandoned woman, who was too beautiful, was already somewhat wrong in her head. She took her two little ones by the hand and they started on wanderings which have never ceased. This is many years ago, and no one knows or no one dare ask how they lived since.
Among the many occupations she has resorted to has been ragpicker, servant, charwoman, and beggar — sometimes much worse.
At 18 years of age the daughter entered into service and little Louis at 12 years of age died and was buried in a pauper’s grave in the cemetery of Bagneux. The poor mother almost became totally mad. All alone now, she returned to the shameful and hideous life of a wanderer. She lived on the garbage of the markets and shops. Sometimes she sold flowers on the streets, and she sank to inconceivable depths of wretchedness because she was becoming too old and unattractive to live the life she had formerly led. Sometimes she returned to La Norville, where an uncle of hers is still living.
Burn Remains
Her child was buried eight years ago, and she remembered now that the time was approaching when, according to the rules in the cemeteries all the remains of the common pauper’s graves would be burnt, he child’s bones among them.
In utter distraction she went to the cemetery at Bagneux by night, recognized her son’s grave by the number on it, dug up the earth, took out the bones, wrapped them up in a portion of her dress, and with fiendish kind of joy went off with them. Then she went on foot the twenty odd miles to Bagneux.
The next morning she arrived at her uncle’s.
“What have you there,” he asked.
She replied, “It is my little Louis. They were going to burn him and so I have been to fetch him to put him in the grave where my grandmother, your mother, is.”
The uncle said, “If you think you have done right, I approve.”
On the affair becoming known, the poor woman was arrested and kept in prison at Corbell for some days, and released on her condition of mind becoming known. Arrangements were made for the interment in the coffin of the grandmother to take place, as Alice desired. The wretched woman had, by some means or other, got hold of some money and she went to a stonemason and asked him to make a small tombstone bearing the names and dates, and this addition,
“Brought from Bagneux by his mother.”
The bones were placed in a temporary vault, awaiting the opening of the grave in which they were to be put.
The evening before this was to take place, the poor woman went to the mayor of La Norville and said to him,
“Please let me take my little Louis from the cemetery again in order to keep him with me for a few days before they bury him again. I promise to bring him back.”
The mayor refused this request, and then the poor woman, half demented, planned another robbery as she had done at Bagneux. At 6 o’clock in the morning she went to the cemetery, scaled the wall, lifted the heavy stone which covered the temporary vault, took up her ghastly burden and fled.
She is now being sought for, but although several people think they have caught sight of her running about the fields or woods, she has not yet been caught.
Source: The Washington Times. Washington, D.C. January 19, 1908.
