Jacques Latour

A carte-de-visite portrait of Jacques Latour, one of the two men tried for the murder of elderly miser Alexandre Bugad de Lassalle, aged 74, and his three servants on the night of 25-26 February 1864 at the château of Baillard near the commune of La Bastide-de-Besplas in southwestern France. The murdered servants were coachman Jean Lacanal (65), maid Pélagie Becheyre (55) and cook Raymonde Bergé (53).

Numerous British newspapers supplied their readers with lurid details of the crime. ‘The body of the maid Pelagie had been discovered on the ground floor. In a wood shed close by lay the corpse of Jean Lacanal, where it had evidently been dragged from the stable. […] On the first floor, where the two servants slept, was found the body of M. de Lasalle, at the foot of a bed, and behind the bed, half enveloped in the curtains, was Raymonde Bergé, her head nearly severed from her body. It seemed as if she had been the last attacked, and had endeavoured to defend herself herself with the bed hangings. The assassin, to accomplish his crime, must have got on the bed, for the sheets showed the marks of muddy boots. […] The four bodies were fearfully mutilated, and the details of the different wounds showed that unheard of ferocity had been practised on the victims after death. […] M. de Lasalle is said to have had no enemies, and the only motive for the perpetration of the crime was to obtain the treasure he was known to possess’ (London Daily News, 22 August 1864).

Latour, an escaped convict who had already been in prison for nine years, was condemned to death and was duly guillotined on 11 September 1864; his accomplice François Audouy was sentenced to hard labour for life.

Photographed by Jacques Provost of Toulouse.