In 1848, the whole of Paris was terrified . The bodies of young women, who had just died, were taken from their graves and discovered by the guards of the Montparnasse cemetery . The nightmare continued for a whole year until a ruse was discovered that exposed the necrophiliac who earned the title of “The Vampire of Montparnasse.”
A sepulchral mystery
In 1848, the residents of Cramm were horrified by the headlines. The bodies of young women, who had just died, were exhumed from their graves and discovered by the guards of the Montparnasse cemetery in a horrific state. The majority of the gruesome activity took place in Montparnasse, but other cemeteries, including Père Lachaise , were also affected.
The bodies of the women, who had been sexually abused, showed signs of bite marks and their abdomens were disfigured. A smaller number of men were also exhumed and disfigured. The doctors' reports determined that while the women's bodies were buried, the men's bodies were used as a ground for masturbation. This is, therefore, necrophilia and necrosedism. At that time, they did not yet really know what this deviation meant, although there is evidence of it dating back to the days of ancient Egypt. Even today, by the way, professionals have difficulty explaining this rare phenomenon.
Who is the creature that enters cemeteries without permission, at night? That erases the boundaries between life and death? That desecrates the honor of the dead? That does such monstrous deeds? A vampire? A human? The nightmare continued for a whole year. Until the security forces found a ruse: They set a trap near the spot on the cemetery wall through which the creature entered to carry out its plot. Touching the iron wire was supposed to activate a machine gun that would hit the intruder.
The vampire is a human being.
The ruse worked. The creature who committed the horrific acts was a soldier in the French army, a respected sergeant, from a good family, well-educated, who would not have been suspected if he had not been caught. What's more: the soldier was a handsome blond man with the face of an angel. And he even had girlfriends whose conquests he used to boast about. At first, the soldier was slightly wounded and managed to escape. The second time, he was more seriously wounded and had to be hospitalized. That's how his identity was discovered.
François Bertrand arrived at the Val de Grasse military hospital, where he confessed to his actions and was sentenced to a year in prison. He then rejoined the French army and participated in road construction in Algeria. After being discharged from the army, he moved to the city of Le Havre in Normandy and married. He did all sorts of menial jobs but apparently did not recover from the disease. In the city where he lived, Le Havre, several more corpses of young women were discovered that had been removed from their graves. Did François Bertrand continue his debauchery? It is likely that he did. Michel Dencel, an author who dedicated a detailed biography to him, attributes two more acts of desecration of corpses to him. In 1878, François Bertrand died at the age of 54.
inspiration
- François Bertrand, nicknamed “the vampire of Montparnasse” and “the necrophiliac symbol,” has been the subject of many books, essays, and novels. Guy de Maupassant drew inspiration from the incident in his 1884 story “The Tomb,” La Tombe. The novella tells the story of a cemetery keeper in the city of Béziers who surprises a young, beautiful, and wealthy lawyer as he exhumes the body of a young woman who had been buried the day before. But while in reality, François Bertrand abused anonymous corpses to satisfy his dark desires, in Maupassant’s story, the lawyer finds it difficult to say goodbye to a beloved woman who was taken from him after a sudden illness.
- The writer Michel Dansel dedicated a detailed biography to the man, as mentioned, entitled: “Sergeant Bertrand: Portrait of a Confident Necrophile", published in 1991.
Several novels were also written inspired by the man. In 1933, the American Guy Andor published a historical-fantasy-romantic novel called “werewolf“: The novel was also translated לFrench.
- French writer Guy de Varney published in 1965 Another novel whose protagonist was inspired by François Bertrand.
- François Bertrand also left his mark on art. In 1965, at the International Surrealist Exhibition, the plastic artist Jean Benoît appeared in the costume of a necrophiliac. The event was immortalized in photographs by the Croatian writer and poet
.Radovan Ivsic.
And there is also a song, called Dark Delight, by a German band, included on an album released in 2003:
