Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well!
Today’s case is very violent, not only because of the crime itself but also because of the way it was handled. It is quite old but still resonates today in its own way, and I hope that my treatment of it will do it justice.
Without further ado, here is the Redureau case.

The year is 1913 in Le Landreau, a small town about 30 kilometers from Nantes in Northwestern France. Le Landreau is a quiet little town best known for its wine production.
Wine is precisely the Mabit family’s specialty. Jean-Marie Mabit, 42, runs a farm and a small vineyard in the hamlet of Bas-Briacé. He lives with his 79-year-old mother, his 38-year-old wife, who is seven months pregnant, and his four children: Marie, 8, Henriette, 7, Pierre, 4, and Joseph, 2. The family has no particular worries, is well-liked in the village, and Jean-Marie is considered hard-working and respectful.
The Mabit family is assisted by two servants: Marie Dugast, 16, who helps with household chores, and Marcel, 15, who helps with farm work. Not much is known about Marie. As for Marcel, he has been replacing his father at the Mabit family’s home since the summer of 1912. He works on the farm during the day and returns home in the evening, as his parents live in a neighboring village. The two families get along well, and there are no complaints about Marcel, who is shy, gentle, and docile to the point of lowering his eyes when spoken to. This makes the tragedy impossible to explain.

September 30, 1913, is an ordinary day. Jean-Marie Mabit goes to the market to sell his harvest and returns home with 2,000 francs (€7,622 or 8982 USD). It is the end of the grape harvest, so he goes to the wine press with Marcel around 10:30 p.m. to prune the vines before dinner.
While they are in the wine press, Jean-Marie makes a comment to Marcel about his work, and everything changes. Marcel knocks Jean-Marie unconscious with a pestle before slitting his throat with his pruning knife. The killing spree continues when he returns to the house. He finds Marie Dugast in the kitchen and immediately slits her throat. Attracted by the screams, Mrs. Mabit arrives in the kitchen and is also killed. Marcel slashes her throat and stomach, ensuring the death of the baby she was carrying. He then goes to Jean-Marie’s mother’s bedroom and kills her, before heading to the children’s bedroom. Marie, Henriette, and little Joseph suffer the same fate as their parents, their grandmother, and the young girl who helped raise them.
Once the massacre is over, Marcel stays for a while, and some sources say he attempts suicide. What we do know for sure is that he leaves for his parents’ village.

On October 1, 1913, around 5 a.m., the Mabit family’s neighbors begin their day and are surprised to see no movement at the Mabit house. They approach and find Pierre alone on the steps. The little boy is crying and talking about his parents and blood. They enter the house and discover Mrs. Mabit and Marie Dugast in the kitchen, lying in a pool of blood. They immediately go to the Leroux-Bottereau police station, and the police soon discover the rest of the massacre. The grandmother is dead in her bed, and three of the four children are lying in their bedroom. There is blood everywhere, on the walls, on the furniture… It is a scene of utter horror. Jean-Marie is the last to be discovered.
Marcel’s absence is immediately noticed, and the search begins. He is soon found in the neighboring village, near his parents’ house. He is calm, offers no resistance, and confesses to the murders in a rather cold manner. When asked why he spared young Pierre, he simply replies that he forgot about him, and that he would have killed him too if he had found him.
That same evening, Marcel is placed in Nantes prison, in cell No. 17. He is calm and docile as always, and nothing significant is mentioned in his file except for a few suicide attempts.

The crime sends shockwaves through the region. Locals are stunned by this senseless massacre committed by a quiet boy who had never caused anyone any trouble. Many people attend the Mabit family’s funeral in Le Landreau, or Marie Dugast’s funeral in La Chappelle-Heulin, her native village.
All the energy that cannot be put into explanations is put into anger. The villagers demand Marcel’s head and curse the reforms that prevent the state from giving it to them.
Indeed, the reform of July 1912 reduces the sentences of young criminals and prohibits their execution. Furthermore, according to Article 19 of the law of July 22, 1912, “The publication of reports on the proceedings of juvenile courts is prohibited. The same applies to the reproduction of any portrait of the minors prosecuted, any illustration concerning them or concerning the acts attributed to them.”
Similarly, Article 35ter of the law of July 29, 1881 condemns the dissemination, without the consent of the person concerned, of images of persons who have not been convicted of a crime wearing handcuffs or shackles. These two laws do not deter journalists in the slightest.
Newspapers prefer to risk heavy fines in order to sell more copies. Everything is published: photos of Marcel, with or without handcuffs, photos of the farm, photos of the Mabit family before and after the murders (yes, I’m talking about their dead bodies)…The case is served up to the curious on a platter, regardless of the law.

Many newspapers link this case to the Troppmann case, which is similar in that Jean-Baptiste Tropmann was guillotined in 1870 for killing eight members of the same family, with the difference that he did so for financial gain.
The calmness and apparent lack of remorse shown by young Marcel contribute to the public’s outrage, and the media adds fuel to the fire by portraying Marcel as a monster, even rewriting history in the process. For example, it was reported that he slept peacefully in the house where all the bodies laid, when in fact he left the house after the murders.
Newspapers also seem to link a fictional physical description to the monstrous act. Marcel is described as short with a low, bulging forehead and large ears, when in fact he had a perfectly ordinary head and was tall for his age.
A week after the murders, two laments (a type of popular song at the time that often recounted tragic events) have already been composed about the crime. Nearly a dozen in total would be written during the case. Although laments were a method of transmitting information at a time when many people could not read, one may question the intention of the composers, who often transform their account of this tragic crime into a moral lesson, calling on parents to raise their children in Christian virtue to prevent them from becoming like Marcel, without taking the reflection any further.
In addition to laments, postcards are created about the massacre with images of the farm or the Mabit family’s funeral. The tragedy literally becomes a consumer product.

According to the 1912 reform, Marcel should have been tried in juvenile court, but the justice system moves slowly, so at the time of the case, no juvenile court is available. The trial therefore begins on March 3, 1914, in the Assize Court, and despite the new regulations, the press attends the hearing.
Marcel’s parents are there, devastated. Marie Dugast’s father is also present, as are a few distant members of the Mabit family. Between the families, the media, the neighbors, and the curious onlookers, the room is packed to capacity. Everyone’s eyes are fixed on Marcel, who stands in his oversized suit, his eyes downcast.
The question of insanity is at the center of the debate. People are trying to understand why Marcel committed this massacre. When given the floor, Marie’s father, with tears in his eyes, asks Marcel why he killed a sweet, innocent girl who had done nothing to him. Facing him, Marcel remains silent, not even looking at him.
Experts deem him sane, and the defense attorney pleads youth, psychological fragility, and the difficulties of life as a servant. He points out Marcel’s lack of a criminal record, to which the judge replies that there is no excuse for these horrific murders. Marcel’s fate is sealed without any answers being provided, and he is sentenced on March 4, 1914. Due to his age, he is sentenced to 20 years in a correctional colony. On March 6, the first juvenile court is created.

On March 23, 1914, Marcel leaves the Nantes prison. He first goes to Fort du Hâ in Bordeaux, then arrives on April 11 at the Eysses correctional colony in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, near Bordeaux in Southwestern France.
To fully understand where he ended up, let’s talk a little about correctional colonies.
Starting in the 1840s, the French justice system decided to place young people as young as 7 in agricultural correctional colonies. The official intentions were good: to re-educate wayward youth through work and religion, far from the corrupting influence of cities, in order to make them upright and productive members of society.
In reality, these colonies are run by entrepreneurs and landowners, who immediately saw the criminal youth as an ideal opportunity to obtain cheap labor. As for the state, “out of sight, out of mind.” It turned a blind eye as soon as it could, happy to have found somewhere to put kids that no one wanted.
Conditions in the colonies are terrible: exhausting work, unsanitary conditions, quasi-military discipline, violent punishments. When you go to a correctional colony, you come out worse than before or you come out dead.
Starting in 1869, the state opened its eyes a crack and banned corporal punishment, but this ban is ignored almost everywhere.
As for the Eysses correctional colony, it was first a hospice, then a central prison, before becoming a colony in 1895. Whereas other colonies at least pretend to have a desire for rehabilitation, Eysses makes no secret of its purely repressive function, earning it the nickname “Eysses the Cursed.” Eysses is where young people end up when they are unwanted by other colonies, who are difficult to manage, or who have long sentences. Some inmates are there because they had committed crimes, but others are there simply because they have been sent to the colony by their unhappy parents and have ended up in Eysses through the magic of the prison system. It was legal, it was called paternal correction!
In 1914, Eysses houses around 400 inmates, who are subjected to a strict system of forced labor and violent punishment.

When Marcel arrives, his hair is cut and he is given his uniform: uncomfortable pants and jacket, and wooden clogs. He is placed in his dormitory, which consists of rows of iron beds. There is no privacy, no hygiene, and no heating. There is no mercy among the prisoners either.
The routine is brutal: wake up at 5 a.m., a quick and inadequate wash, roll call, breakfast (often just bread and soup), then off to the workshop or the fields. They often work for ten hours without a break, and punishment is immediate for any behavior deemed inappropriate, such as a rebellious look. Beatings, solitary confinement, deprivation of food… Even the cattle on the neighboring farm are treated better. There is no comfort at Eysses; the guards are not trained for that anyway. Most of them are former soldiers.
We have no testimony from Marcel about his time at Eysses: no letters, no diary, no prison report.

When World War I breaks out, many guards are sent to the front and replaced by older men or those unfit for military service. They are even less trained, so life becomes even harder for the young prisoners. In addition to the punishments, they also have to endure reduced food rations. They become increasingly malnourished, and soon disease spreads.
It is unclear when Marcel contracted tuberculosis, but given the circumstances, it is impossible that he received proper treatment. At Eysses, 15% of inmates die, and that’s in peacetime.
Marcel dies on March 9, 1916, at the age of 17. We don’t know where he is buried, probably in an unmarked grave or a mass grave. His parents had already moved to the south of France, and we don’t even know if they were notified of his death. Perhaps they didn’t want to know.

Indeed, among those directly affected by the crime, there seems to be a desire to heal through silence. Pierre, the sole survivor of the Mabit family, is raised by distant relatives and makes the tragedy such a taboo subject that the silence still persists among his descendants today.
The memory of the case is mainly passed down through laments and the people who grew up with them, which has allowed historians to study it since the 1980s with a little more tact than the media of the time.

As for the system that killed Marcel and many others, a decree dated December 27, 1927 reclassifies the colonies as supervised educational institutions, but progress remains too slow. In the 1930s, young inmates can no longer endure the conditions. Rebellions and escape attempts multiply and are violently suppressed.
A tragedy finally provokes widespread outrage and a re-examination of the system in March 1937. This tragedy is the death of young Roger Abel. He had been in Eysses since 1936, and a few months after his incarceration he had written to his parents: « They have ruined my youth. Eysses is real torture. All I have known are the iron bars of the room or the damp walls of the cell, as if I have committed a serious crime. When I arrived at Eysses, a guard sent me to the room and punished me for talking to one of my comrades during the night. The supervisor reported the reason to the director, who classified me as a hothead and had me put in the dungeon.“ He spent 38 days in the dungeon, about which he wrote: ”Little food, just bread and water. I was brought a meal only on Thursdays and Sundays. Considering this punishment insufficient, I was put in irons for three days and from then on I knew only the room, without ever seeing any of my companions. »
A few months after writing these lines, Roger dies, either from illness or mistreatment—we don’t know. In a cruel twist of fate, he dies innocent. He was there for a paternal correction; it was his parents who had sent him there.
The case naturally causes a scandal, but this is put on the back burner when World War II breaks out. From then on, the fighting and then the Occupation become a bigger problem.
Eysses retains its function but also becomes a political prison where members of the Resistance are incarcerated before being deported.

In 1942, the position of educational supervisor is created, and in 1945, education finally becomes a priority. The care of incarcerated minors is transferred from the prison administration to the supervised education system, which recruits specially trained staff for this purpose.
Today, there are 54 closed educational centers, six juvenile detention centers, and juvenile wings in jails. Despite progress, the system still has shortcomings: violence among inmates, easy access to illegal substances, and a general deterioration in living conditions (unsanitary conditions, etc.). These factors, combined with the breakdown of social ties, increase the risk of suicide among young inmates, 10 of whom unfortunately committed suicide between 2021 and 2023.
As for Eysses, it is now a regular prison for adults.

Ultimately, the Redureau case is terrible, not only because of the horror of the crime, but also because of how it was handled. It was one of the most widely reported crimes of the time, and yet we know almost nothing about it. There were many opportunities to ask questions, whether about the crime itself, the status of domestic servants, the treatment of young criminals, or even the lives of the victims after the crime (remember, Pierre was the only survivor and had to live with it all), but none were taken. We were treated to yet another sensationalist, sometimes misleading, often pseudo-moralizing, and above all superficial coverage. If I had to sum it all up in a caricature, I would imagine curious onlookers exchanging photos of the farm and the Mabit funeral as if they were Pokémon cards, while little Pierre stares into space, trembling, Marcel dies in a dungeon surrounded by other abused young people, and a young bread thief is tried in criminal court because the juvenile court is still not operational.
And that’s something I still notice today in the way people talk about crime. We still tend to observe crime from a distance, without really trying to think about its causes. I’m not saying that all crimes have a cause that warrants deep reflection. Often, human darkness is enough of an explanation. But still, I’ve seen many documentaries covering killers like Patrick Salameh without really asking why he mainly targeted sex workers, covering cases of children beaten to death by their parents without questioning the child protection system in France. And let’s not even touch on the femicides that are covered without really questioning how complaints are handled by the authorities.
Curiosity, morbid or not, is human, whether we like it or not. But if it has to be morbid, shouldn’t it also be useful?

Let me know what you think in the comments, or on Reddit / Tumblr / Bluesky / Threads / Instagram / Mastodon / Facebook! I hope you find some money on the ground, and I’ll see you next time !