The Gruesome Killing of the Papin Sisters That Shocked France
Christine and Lea Papin killed their employers brutally that sparked nationwide outrage and intellectual, and psychological debates
Christine and Lea Papin brutally killed the wife and daughter of their employer on February 2, 1933, which shocked the French nation.
The horrific killing invited mixed reactions from various quarters of the population. Some opined to lynch the sisters while other cool-headed wanted to investigate the case through intellectual inquiry and to find out why the Pepin sister committed such a horrifying act.
They not only killed the two women but also mutilated their bodies with knives and hammers. However, they were put to trial legally amid the popular uproar to hang or guillotine them publicly to make them an example to others.
Background of the Pepin Sisters
Christine Papin was born on March 8, 1905, while Lea was six years younger and born on September 15, 1911. They were born to troubled parents Chemence Derre and Gustave Papin in Le Mans, France.
Gustave Papin dated Chemence Derre for a time, and when she became pregnant, they married happily in October 1901. After some time, Gustave found that Chemence had an illicit relationship with her boss, so Gustave suggested moving to another city to which Chemence overreacted and threaten to commit suicide.
This confirmed Gustave’s suspicions that deteriorated their marriage. He took to heavy drinking to escape the emotional pains.
Chemence was an unstable woman. She was not only a terrible wife but an unfit mother too. She was naturally misfits to provide motherly love and care to her children. She sent Emilia, her eldest daughter, to an orphanage when she was 10 years. After some time, Emilia entered a nunnery and ended her ties with her family effectively.
Christine and Lea shared the same fate and were given to their aunts and uncles before being sent to an orphanage. The life of the orphanage didn’t end their miseries but introduced them to physical and verbal violence. Christine declared to go to the nunnery but her mother declined and put them to work.
In the orphanage, they were trained in household duties. Christine grew into a hard worker and an excellent cook while Lea receded to a subordinate position and grew into a melancholic and introverted person.
Before being employed by the Lancelin family in 1926, they worked with other employers satisfactorily, but their mother objected to less pay and forced them to change places and employers frequently in search of a well-paying job.
Working for The Lancelin House
A retired lawyer, Monsieur René Lancelin, hired both the sisters and they worked for the Lancelin family for almost seven years.
In the initial years of their services, Madame Leonie Lancelin praised their work, yet she was demanding. Over the years, Madame Leonie Lancelin developed mental illness and grew depressed.
She suspected the work of the Papin sisters and would put on white gloves to check the cleanliness. A little mistake would drive Madame Leonie crazy and would attack the Papin sisters. She would often hit their heads against the wall.
However, according to local sources, the Lancelin treated the sisters well and provided them with a heated room and good food. Still, no one knew what was happening in the house.
However, the Papin didn’t complain despite pestering. They were considered antisocial and enjoyed their own company instead of socializing with others.
The day of the gruesome killing
Their murder resembles the scenes of many of the horror movies where the weather and the setting get gloomy and darker when something bad is about to happen.
On that day the wife and daughter of Monsieur René Lancelin were killed brutally, it was raining heavily and the day turned darker before night. Even more accidentally, that tragic day, Madame Leonie and her daughter Geneviève went shopping and weren’t expected to return home soon as Lancelin’s brother invited them to a dinner party.
The Papin sisters were busy doing their errands as usual. They were also told to fetch the iron which was given to an electrician for repairs. When they brought the iron home to press clothes, plugging it in an electric outlet blew the fuse, and the electricity went off.
They decided to repair the fuse in the morning as the Lancelins were expected to come late evening. But unfortunately, the mother and daughter arrived home in the early evening unexpectedly and when they were told that the light is out because of the short circuit.
Upon hearing this, Madame Leonie flew into an extreme fury and attacked Christine. Christine could not hold back her anger this time and attacked back. Genevieve sprang into the middle to help her mother and Christine gauged her eyes out with her fingers. Lea also came to aid her sister and she gauged Madame Lancelin's eyes out with her hands as ordered by Christine.
During the fight, Christine went down the stairs and brought a knife and a hammer. The mother and the daughter were already disabled and couldn’t see, the Papin sisters had the advantage to do whatever they wished.
They attacked the mother and daughter with a knife and hammer and mutilated their bodies after their death. According to some sources, the attack lasted for about two hours.
After the murders, the Papin sisters locked all the doors, went downstairs to their room, and light a candle, and retired to bed.
Later on, on his return home, Monsieur Lancelin found the house dark and thought his wife and daughter are already gone to the party, so he went to the party without checking the house. Upon reaching his brother’s house, he couldn’t find his family.
He got worried and rushed back to the house where he found that all the doors are locked from inside and the house dark except the Papin’s room. Which was alighted by candlelight.
He grew suspicious and went to a nearby police station to seek help. He was accompanied by police and they broke into the house only to find that his wife and daughter are brutally killed, littered with blood and pieces of the human body.
The police broke into the sister’s room, found them naked in their bed, along with the knife and the hammer with the hair stick with it which was laying there on the floor.
The sisters immediately confessed to their crime and were arrested on the spot.
The episodes of their trail
The gruesome killing invited a widespread interest of the people, and they wanted to know what happened exactly.
The things were very ambiguous at first because the sisters worked for Lancelins for seven years, behaved well, were quiet, and had no previous criminal record. According to the sources, they were also religious and regularly went to Church and offered prayers. So, the people wondered that how such meek and dumb creatures suddenly turned into bloody monsters.
The common people wanted to kill them but the intellectuals wanted to know the actual causes of the killings. Some intellectuals like Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, and Simone de Beauvoir held that the murders are the product of the class struggle.
They said the sisters didn’t like the behavior and attitude of their masters and reflected on the differences in the lives of rich and poor or working-class and master class. The thought overwhelmed them and they ended their lives to mitigate the class consciousness.
Others argued that the sisters were suffering from mental disorders. This disorder was apparent in their family as their uncles committed suicide, and their grandfather was known for a violent and quick temper. Thus, they were considered insane as was evident from their family disposition.
However, the court found them sane and guilty. Christine was sentenced to death by guillotine and Lea was given 10 years prison of hard labor because she was considered an accomplice.
However, while waiting for her death sentence, Christine tried to gauge her eyes out in a fit because she couldn’t bear her separation from Lea.
Considering her situation, she was put into a straightjacket to save her from herself. Her sentence was also commuted and turned into life imprisonment.
After the 8th month of prison, Christine wanted to see her sister Lea and begged the administration to be with her. Once she even rolled on the floor in bouts of fit, using profane and sexual language, the psychologist discovered that the sisters had an incest relationship which was denied by the sisters.
Upon rejecting her plea to be with her sister, she protested to eat, and gradually her health deteriorated. She reportedly developed mental illness and experience bouts of depression. The prison officials referred her to a mental institution in Rennes, hoping she would recover but she didn’t end her protests and died of cachexia (“wasting away”). She died on May 18, 1937.
Lea was released after eight years of prison because of her good behavior. She lived in the town of Nantes with a changed name Marie along with her mother. According to French film producer Claude Ventura, she died in 2001 after suffering a stroke that paralyzed her.
She was laid to rest next to her sister in the Cimeterie Boutellerie in Nantes.
The Papin sisters lived troubled life but they were viewed as submissive, religious, and well behaved. They had no such criminal record as well. However, what they did, or what force them to take such a gruesome step, is still a controversy.
Their horrific killings had a greater impact on the intelligentsia and they debated various possible motives for the murders. The majority of the intellectual claims that the exploitative nature of their master compelled them to do so while others empathized with their oppressive class struggle to which they stood rebellious.
