Eugène circa 1867 Elizabeth circa 1876 Eugène Marie Chantrelle murdered his wife and former pupil Elizabeth Chantrelle (née Dyer) on 2 January 1878, and was convicted for his crimes and hanged at Calton Prison in Edinburgh, Scotland. The trial is claimed to have inspired

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll ...

to write the story '' Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' in which the socially respectable character Henry Jekyll has a violent and monstrous

alter-ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a different personality. Add ...

named Edward Hyde. Stevenson met Eugène Chantrelle, the basis for Jekyll/Hyde, at the home of Victor Richon (Stevenson's old French master).

Background

Eugène Chantrelle was born 1834 in

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

and by 1868 was a French teacher who lived in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

and taught at the private Newington Academy. He began a relationship with a pupil, Elizabeth Dyer (born 1851, 15 years old at the time). They married when she was age 16, moved in together at 81a George Street, Edinburgh, George Street, and Elizabeth gave birth to their first child 2 months after they were married.

Victimisation

The marriage was not a happy one from the start. His trial heard that in addition to physical violence, he regularly threatened to poison her. In August 1877, he took out a £1000 life insurance policy against her accidental death. She was found unconscious on the morning of 2 January 1878 and later died in hospital. Subsequently, traces of opium were found in vomit on her nightgown and so the death was suspected to be criminal in nature.

Arrest, trial, and execution

Eugène around the time of the trial in 1878 He was arrested after her funeral at Grange Cemetery on 5 January 1878. He pleaded not guilty to her murder. His trial lasted four days, and he was convicted by a jury within an hour and 10 minutes. He was hanged in the grounds of Calton Prison on 31 May, and his body buried in an unmarked grave on that site.

Aftermath

In 1906, the trial was included in a series of articles on Scottish trials published by ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

'' magazine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chantrelle, Elizabeth, murder of category:1878 deaths category:people from Nantes category:people from Edinburgh category:French emigrants to the United Kingdom category:French people convicted of murder category:people executed by Scotland by hanging category:19th-century executions by Scotland