Des crimes presque parfaits

In September 1869, in Pantin, near Paris, the atrociously mutilated bodies of Madame Kinck and her six children were discovered. The father remains untraceable. After investigation, the culprit, Jean-Baptiste Troppmann, is identified. The Troppmann affair is one of the most astonishing and sinister in the French criminal annals of the 19th century. It caught the imagination of public opinion like that of some of the greatest writers of the time: Flaubert, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Tourgueniev or Rimbaud.