rielle Fenayrou, who may
be described as passively criminal, chameleon-like, taking colour from
their surroundings. By the force of a man's influence they commit a
dreadful crime, in the one instance it is matricide, in the other the
murder of a former lover, but neither of the women is profoundly vicious
or criminal in her instincts. In prison they become exemplary, their
crime a thing of the past.

Gabrielle Fenayrou during her imprisonment, having won the confidence
of the religious sisters in charge of the convicts, is appointed head
of one of the workshops. Marie Boyer is so contrite, exemplary in her
behaviour that she is released after fifteen years' imprisonment. In
some ways, perhaps, these malleable types of women, "soft paste" as one
authority has described them, "effacees" in the words of another, are
the most dangerous material of all for the commission of crime, their
obedience is so complete, so cold and relentless.

There are cases into which no element of passion enters, in which one
will stronger than the other can so influence, so dominate the weaker as
to persuade the individual against his or her better inclination to an
act of crime, just as in the relations of ordinary life we see a man
or woman led and controlled for good or ill by one stronger than
themselves. There is no more extraordinary instance of this than the
case of Catherine Hayes, immortalised by Thackeray, which occurred
as long ago as the year 1726. This singular woman by her artful
insinuations, by representing her husband as an atheist and a murderer,
persuaded a young man of the name of Wood, of hitherto exemplary
character, to assist her in murdering him. It was unquestionably the
sinister influence of Captain Cranstoun that later in the same century
persuaded the respectable Miss Mary Blandy to the murder of her father.
The assassin of an old woman in Paris recounts thus the arguments used
by his mistress to induce him to commit the crime: "She began by telling
me about the money and jewellery in the old woman's possession which
could no longer be of any use to her"--the argument of Raskolnikoff--"I
resisted, but next day she began again, pointing out that one killed
people in war, which was not considered a crime, and therefore one
should not be afraid to kill a miserable old woman. I urged that the old
woman had done us no harm, and that I did not see why one should kill
her; she reproached me for my weakness and said that, h