Today’s musical selection: After I Say I’m Sorry performed byJoséphine Baker.

In August 1904, a pair of peculiar cases came to trial.

One case was a bricklayer named Merot, who lived in a village near Paris. Merot was before the court because he had killed his neighbor.
Merot admitted the deed but he had a perfectly rational explanation:  his neighbor possessed the evil eye and had cast a spell over him. The dead man, he told the Court, was a sorcerer who constantly predicted misfortunes, which always played out exactly as he had foretold. Day after day, the neighbor seemed to summon bad luck, and bad luck unfailingly appeared.
On the day of the murder, the neighbor declared that Merot had two weeks more to live. This put Merot right over the edge. He said he “saw red” and killed his neighbor.
Look, we don’t condone murder on Old Spirituals. However, this neighbor does sound like a very trying character. I wouldn’t want to live next door to someone who was continually (and correctly) forecasting misery in my future. It might have been more prudent to just put up a privacy fence but who are we to judge?

Merot’s defense might not fly everywhere.  But the French jury was understanding. They found that he had committed the murder while in a state in which he was not responsible for his acts. Merot was acquitted.

A Court at Nièvre took up a similar case on the same day. This case delved into a murder committed by a farmer named Daviot who murdered his cousin, Francis. Daviot had been plagued by misfortune. Several of his cows died suddenly and a horse had gone lame. Daviot was convinced these events were supernatural and consulted with the local sorcerer.
This spirit world intermediary advised Daviot that his cousin Francis had the evil eye. His prescription was to perform a series of mystical rituals. The young farmer complied but his bad luck continued unabated.  Why Cousin Francis was persecuting him and killing his cows, Daviot didn’t know. But he was convinced he was going to have to kill Francis to make it stop, and one night he did just that.
The Court  believed Daviot and sympathized  with him. He received  the mildest sentence possible: five years’ penal servitude.

The newspapers grouped these tales together because both murderers cited the Evil Eye but the stories have a key difference.  Merot’s neighbor brought it on himself with all of his doomsday projections. Cousin Francis seemed to be a perfectly upstanding citizen who was just incompatible with farm animals.
But that’s just my opinion. I’m eager to hear yours!