"The child was recognised by another child, who was mistaken.
The series of unwarranted recognitions then began.
"An extraordinary thing occurred. The day after a schoolboy had recognised the corpse a woman exclaimed, `Good Heavens, it is my child!'
"She was taken up to the corpse; she examined the clothing, and noted a scar on the forehead. It is certainly,' she said,my son who disappeared last July. He has been stolen from me and murdered.'
"The woman was concierge in the Rue du Four; her name was Chavandret. Her brother-in-law was summoned, and when questioned he said, `That is the little Filibert.' Several persons living in the street recognised the child found at La Villette as Filibert Chavandret, among them being the boy's schoolmaster, who based his opinion on a medal worn by the lad.
"Nevertheless, the neighbours, the brother-in-law, the schoolmaster, and the mother were mistaken. Six weeks later the identity of the child was established. The boy, belonging to Bordeaux, had been murdered there and brought by a carrying company to Paris."[4]
[4] L'Eclair, April 21, 1895.
It will be remarked that these recognitions are most often made by women and children—that is to say, by precisely the most impressionable persons. They show us at the same time what is the worth in law courts of such witnesses. As far as children, more especially, are concerned, their statements ought never to be invoked. Magistrates are in the habit of repeating that children do not lie. Did they possess a psychological culture a little less rudimentary than is the case they would know that, on the contrary, children invariably lie; the lie is doubtless innocent, but it is none the less a lie. It would be better to decide the fate of an accused person by the toss of a coin than, as has been so often done, by the evidence of a child.