Disappearance of Pauline Picard
Pauline Picard was discovered missing on 6 April 1922 from her family's farm in Saint-Rivoal, Brittany, in northern France.
When a similar girl was found in distant Cherbourg, Normandy, a month later, the Picards claimed her as their own and took her back to Brittany, despite discrepancies and reservations.
Pauline Picard was born circa 1919 or 1920, and at age two and a half,[1] she lived on her family's farm in the French village Goas-al-Ludu, Saint-Rivoal,[2] in the Monts d'Arrée mountain range.
[6] Christophe Kéramon (born c. 1860s) was an occasional agricultural worker for the Picards,[7] itinerant umbrella peddler, and had previously been imprisoned five years for rape.
[4] He had visited the farm on 6 April, and paid particular attention to Pauline Picard before leaving around 1 p.m. Arrested for not carrying his internal passport (carnet anthropométrique), Kéramon served a month in prison before his release on 10 May.
[3] Le Matin reported that when the girl's photo was shown to Picard's mother, she exclaimed, "'It is really my daughter,' cried she, 'my poor little Pauline!
Mais comment se trouve-t-elle si loin de nous ?») On 7 May, the Picards left for Cherbourg[9] on their first-ever journey by train.
The public prosecutor urged the family to stay at the hospice for another day, with Le Petit Parisien reporting that the Cherbourgeoise girl was likely not Pauline Picard.
[5] On 9 May, by which time the father assured the press it was his daughter, the public prosecutor gave the unspeaking girl to the Picard family, who left Cherbourg the next morning.
[11] Other discrepancies between Pauline Picard and the foundling came to be explained as amnesia due to post-traumatic stress disorder, assuming the toddler had been abused by her kidnapper;[2] doctors believed that returning her home would help her recover.
[12][13] Picard's parents, brothers, sisters, and neighbors all recognized the rescued girl,[2] and she cried frightened when taken to the abduction area.
(French: «Alors», dit-il en breton, «la petite est de retour?» [...] «C'est bien elle?», lit.
[16] Contemporary reports differ on the specifics, but agree that in late May 1922, the decomposing, mutilated body of a small girl was found near the Picards' farm.
"[6] Nearby, a pair of galoshes, socks, and fustian dress[14] were neatly folded and arranged;[15] these bloodstained clothes were identified by the Picard family as being their daughter's, worn the day she disappeared.
[18] By June 1922, however, rumors were circulating Brittany that Picard was still alive, having been kidnapped by a wealthy family who left the body of their own ill-fated progeny in her place.
