In the spring of 1951, Yvonne Chevallier received an anonymous letter. It claimed her husband, Pierre, was having an affair. She searched his closets and found a love letter in a suit pocket. It was signed “Jeanne.”
Yvonne knew Jeanne. She was Jeanne Perreau, a beautiful and sophisticated neighbor. Jeanne was married to a wealthy, much older man who owned a prestigious department store. The affair was an open secret in Paris and in Orléans, but Yvonne had been the last to know.
Yvonne was born in 1911 to a poor farming family. She became a midwife and was described by colleagues as shy. At 24, she met Pierre Chevallier, a confident medical student from an eminent family. They were instantly attracted to each other despite their social differences. Yvonne moved into his apartment within weeks.
During World War II, Pierre joined the Free French movement. He became a leading figure of the resistance in Orléans. By the time the Allies liberated the city in August 1944, Pierre had helped build a thriving shadow government. For his bravery, he received the French Legion of Honor.
After the war, Pierre was elected mayor of Orléans. In 1950, he was elected to the National Assembly. He took an apartment in Paris and spent more and more time away from his family. Pierre was described as handsome and dashing. Yvonne was described as dull and socially unacceptable in French high society.
Yvonne tried to change her image to win back her husband’s love. She read about art and politics, frequented beauty salons, and bought flattering clothes. None of it worked. Pierre had lost all interest in intimacy with his wife. Yvonne turned to drugs and alcohol for comfort.
After discovering the affair, Yvonne confronted her husband in Paris. She was turned away from the National Assembly by an usher under strict orders. Pierre refused to meet with her. She returned home and confronted Jeanne Perreau. The argument ended badly, with screaming and shouting.
Yvonne then visited Jeanne’s husband, Léon. He told her he knew about the affair and would let it run its course. Pierre eventually returned to Orléans but refused to discuss the affair. He claimed it was a private matter and continued to treat his wife with contempt.
That same week, Pierre was nominated for a cabinet position as government minister for education, youth, and athletics. He believed a divorce would end his political career. France was a Catholic nation that tolerated affairs but not divorce.
Yvonne took the boys to the coast for a week’s holiday, hoping the distance would bring Pierre back. When she returned, nothing had changed. She overdosed on pills in what was considered either a suicide attempt or a cry for help. She recovered and went to the police station to apply for a handgun license.
She explained she needed protection since her husband was about to assume a ministerial position. She obtained the permit and bought a French-made semi-automatic pistol with a nine-round magazine. She also purchased 25 rounds of ammunition.
On August 11, 1951, Pierre was sworn into his ministry post in Paris. The next day, he had an appointment for his first public appearance at a county fair near Orléans. He instructed his chauffeur to stop at his house so he could change his clothes.
Yvonne saw this as a last-ditch effort to save their marriage. She threatened to send the boys to boarding school and deny him visits. Then she pleaded, saying she could not love another man and that it broke her heart to see him with another woman. She fell to her knees, begging him to love her.
Pierre’s dismissal was brutal. He said he no longer wished to have anything to do with her. Despite being a minister, he wanted a divorce so he could marry his mistress.
Yvonne left the room, emotionally stressed and angry. She got the gun from the linen closet where she had hidden it. She returned to Pierre’s dressing room and turned the gun on herself, telling him she would kill herself if he left her for another woman.
Pierre mocked her. He told her to go ahead and shoot herself, but to wait until he had left the room. Her emotions took over. With deadly precision, she pointed the gun at Pierre and fired four shots, hitting him in the chest, forearm, thigh, and chin.
Their oldest child, Matteo, burst into the room and saw his father on the floor. Yvonne led him back downstairs and handed him to the maid. She returned to Pierre’s dressing room and shot him a fifth and final time in the back.
Minutes later, she called the police station, saying, “Please come here at once, my husband needs you urgently.” The gendarmes arrived and arrested her.
Yvonne was accused of murder and confined to jail for more than a year while awaiting trial. The proceedings were moved to Rennes, 150 miles northeast of Orléans, in a failed attempt to reduce public interest. For months, the story was front-page news in France. It was also reported in Spanish, Italian, and British newspapers, as well as the New York Times and The New Yorker.
Initially, most French people were angry that their war hero had been taken from them. Newspapers portrayed Yvonne as a woman who married above her station. The public’s general opinion was, who could blame Pierre for seeking a more sophisticated companion?
As time went on, public opinion began to change. Details of Pierre’s affair and his cold, cruel treatment of his wife appeared in the press. Journalist Jean Laborde interviewed Yvonne’s family and was given access to her letters. Again and again, she swore emotional love to Pierre even as she revealed her anxiety over his relationship with his lover.
Yvonne Chevallier went on trial on November 5, 1952. In those days, the French Penal Code included a love-triangle provision. It absolved from punishment any man who committed homicide after finding his wife in bed with another man. In this case, the roles were reversed. The case was widely viewed as a crime of passion.
The defense portrayed Yvonne as a victim. She was a woman who fell in love, married, and had two children, then was discarded as her husband climbed the political ladder. The prosecution’s case was simple: Yvonne shot her unarmed husband five times in a cold-blooded, unprovoked killing.
Yvonne arrived in court dressed in a grey suit. Jail had been hard on her. She was thin and pale, which evoked sympathy from spectators, reporters, and the judge.
The judge questioned Yvonne closely about her marriage. She began to sob as she described her relationship with her husband’s family. “They regarded me as a mistake of Pierre’s youth,” she said.
The judge asked about her hostile meeting with Jeanne. He asked if she had told her husband’s lover that she was going to kill Pierre. “No,” Yvonne replied.
When the judge asked for her reaction when Pierre coldly informed her he would divorce her so he could marry Jeanne, Yvonne started to answer. She fainted.
After a 15-minute recess, the judge asked Yvonne to explain the circumstances of the fifth shot. She replied that she had intended to return to her bedroom to commit suicide beside the love of her life. She said the gun fired accidentally, hitting her husband in the back.
The next witness was Léon Perreau, the wealthy husband of Pierre’s lover. He testified that he knew of the affair and deemed the war hero worthy of his wife’s affections.
Then Jeanne Perreau took the stand. She was 34, glamorous, and cool, despite frequent jeers from the gallery. She said the affair had begun in May 1950 and continued to the day of the killing 15 months later. The lovers met in Paris two or three times a week. When asked whether she was ashamed of the affair, since she was the mother of three young children, she replied, “Not at all.” She felt pity for Yvonne but deep affection for Pierre and did not plan to end the affair.
The prosecution called relatives of Pierre who said Yvonne was a virtual recluse. She refused to attend Pierre’s family functions and was suspicious of any female who spoke to her husband. A policeman testified that Yvonne had given a series of differing accounts of the fatal events.
The last witness was a psychiatrist. He revealed that the Chevalliers had had a sexless marriage for years, which caused her physical depression. He said Yvonne suffered from social, physical, and intellectual inferiority complexes. She had retained the mentality of a teenager in love with a student.
At the end of the trial, it seemed the judge and even the prosecution were sympathetic toward Yvonne. The judge even swerved French judicial protocol. Instead of referring to Yvonne as “the accused,” he referred to her as “madame.” In his summing up, he stated Yvonne had no right to take the life of another person and should have controlled her jealousy.
As the judge summed up, Yvonne began to cry. She repeatedly said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
The jury retired to begin deliberations. A big crowd gathered outside the Rennes Palace of Justice. In just 30 minutes, the crowd grew to thousands and started to chant, “Free her, free her.”
The jury deliberated for only 45 minutes. They returned with a verdict of not guilty. The crowd outside erupted.
After the trial, Yvonne rejoined her sons at her family’s farm. The Catholic Church granted her absolution for the murder. She tried to resume a normal life, but her reputation as part of France’s most notorious crime of passion would not allow it.
Even though she had been absolved by the church, Yvonne could not rid herself of the overwhelming guilt she felt. She devised her own form of penance. She moved to French New Guinea with her sons, where she worked as a volunteer nurse in a hospital for the poor until her death in the 1970s.