Meet the killer poet who inspired ‘Crime and Punishment’
The Sinner and The Saint: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece” (Penguin), out Tuesday.On December 14, 1834, Lacenaire (along with his axe-wielding henchman Victor Avril) knocked on the door to the apartment where Jean François Chardon lived with his widowed mother, Anne Marie Yvon Chardon, in Poissy, France. Jean François was a supposedly gay conman rumored to possess 10,000 francs — more than $200k in today’s money.