My daughter!... My G.o.d! Marthe was going to see me! I must not look so unhappy.... "_Ma Sur_, tell me, can one see that I have cried?"
I was led to the Director"s study. The Director was there, seated near a window.... Then I saw Marthe, with M. Chabrier.... She rushed into my arms, and for a long while, we wept and were both unable to speak. The Director, M. Pons, said: "You can only be together for a quarter of an hour."
I asked Marthe what had happened to her since the previous evening.
"After leaving you, mother, I drove home, and found there a journalist from the _Paris-Journal_, who when I had told him that I was exhausted and that he should have pity on me, shook me by my hand and went away without a word.
"At ten o"clock, three _Matin_ men arrived, de Labruyere, Barby and Bourse. They were less considerate. They refused to go, and started making me all kinds of offers. One said to me: "The _Matin_ will give you 30,000 francs (1200), will give even more than that if you will tell us all you know!" I said I knew nothing and had nothing to say.
They then began to ask me questions: "Confess it is your mother who committed the double murder! Come, confess it. You know everything; tell us the truth"... I grew so angry that they tried something else: "Who is it, then?" they asked. "M. Buisson? Mariette? Wolff? Geoffroy?
Couillard, after all?" They mentioned the name of every person we know who comes to our house.... I was alone with de Labruyere and Barby.
Bourse was in the next room keeping the Chabriers from joining me. I did not answer their idiotic questions. I repeated that I knew nothing....
Then they grew reckless, and gave their ugly scheme away: "Well, beware: You are going to see your mother at Saint-Lazare; we shall be waiting there, and we shall take you in a motor-car to a place in the country.
We shall keep you there until you speak. You will see.... To-morrow...."
They went away banging the doors.
"I have come, mother, with M. Chabrier and M. Hutin, who said he would protect me. I didn"t see any one, but I wonder how I shall reach home."
At that moment some one came to say that there was a great crowd outside, that the police were powerless, that he didn"t see how they would get Mlle. Steinheil away.
The prison-treasurer (_econome_), who was present, said: "She will have to leave by the door through which she came. There is no other way out."
"You don"t want this child to be mobbed, do you?" said the Director; and he gave some instructions.
(I heard afterwards that there had been a serious altercation, pa.s.sing from words to blows, between M. Hutin and M. Barby of the _Matin_, because the former"s taxi had been allowed to enter the prison, to the unspeakable rage of the latter, who had the _Matin_ car in readiness, and hoped to kidnap Marthe. M. Hutin"s taxi, with my daughter in it, was taken through various courtyards inside the prison to the alley leading to the so-called _porte des cond.a.m.nes_ (the door through which prisoners sentenced to death were taken to the guillotine). The old gate had not been opened for a long time, and it was difficult to open it; but at last it was thrown open, and the taxi, carrying Marthe, M. Chabrier, and M. Hutin, sped out of the prison into the square.... The crowd was surging outside the main entrance. When they saw the taxi, and realised that Marthe was in it, it was too late. Marthe reached the Impa.s.se Ronsin safely, thanks to M. Hutin, whom, when I heard of his kindness to my daughter, I almost forgave his conduct towards me on the so-called "Night of the Confession.")
From that day the _Matin_ hardly ever troubled my daughter.
I thanked the Director for what he had done for my child, and also for having allowed me to see her, not in the parlour, but in his study.
"Yes," he said, in his usual earnest manner, "you ought to be satisfied.
Think of the unfortunate women here who have to see their children, not even in the parlour across a table, but through two gates, between which a gaoler is sitting!... By the way, the doctor will see you often, and you must tell him if you are ill. There are remedies in our dispensary."
I always found M. Pons a very strict but admirably just director.
I was led back to my cell; I could hardly walk and when I reached it I sank on my bed.
The thought of having to remain in prison three months perhaps, drove me mad. Ghirelli and Rosselli spoke to me. They wanted to know what had happened.... Poor women! News, whatever it is, however sad, breaks the monotony of life in a prison cell.... But I was more dead than alive, and remained on my bed, crying and thinking of Marthe.
Towards the evening some one came to tell me that a pastor had come to see me. I put on my jacket. Outside the Boulevard des Pistoles--"the boulevard of the cells"--a hand touched my arm, and a kind voice said: "My poor friend. I don"t know you, but I know your family. I have read the newspapers, I heard you were here.... I am Pastor Arboux. I visit regularly the Protestant prisoners here and in other prisons. I have done so for the past twenty years.... How you must have suffered. Come with me! we will talk together, and we will pray."
I followed him up a few steps to a small chapel which contained a few chairs, a kind of desk with a Bible on it. I looked at the pastor, and found him a tall, strong man of about sixty, with a small grey beard, large kind eyes and refined features.
"You have seen your daughter," said M. Arboux. "That must have given you much courage. What a brave little girl she must be.... I hope you have a good counsel."... Then he asked me a few questions. I answered them, and he concluded: "I feel you are innocent. I have always thought so."
"Innocent of what?" I said.... "I am not innocent; don"t you know that I put the pearl in Couillard"s pocket-book?"
"The pearl? The pearl?..." He looked almost frightened.... "The pearl?
You mean to say your counsel has told you that you are here on account of that!"
"No, Maitre Aubin has told me nothing. He only said that I would be kept here for two or three months; he didn"t know."
Deeply affected, M. Arboux then said: "Let us pray! Kneel down, my poor woman!"
He knelt beside me and he prayed: "Oh G.o.d, Thou who hast allowed my sister here to lose her reason and do an act of injustice, forgive her, and give her the courage to bear everything, even the awful truth...."
He stopped, and I waited for some dreadful revelation....
The pastor, making a great effort, then added in a broken voice: "Give her the strength to hear... that she is accused of a terrible crime."
"A crime! What crime!..." I seized his hands.... "tell me everything....
I am accused of having..."
"Yes, of having..."
I interrupted him: "Don"t say it! Good G.o.d!..." And then I said it myself: "They believe I have strangled my mother and my husband...." And I fell forward, rocking and moaning in my grief and horror.
The pastor lifted me on to a chair: "Yes... that is why I came here to-night. I half thought that you might not know, and I thought you would suffer a little less if it were an old pastor who broke the awful news to you.... I have witnessed so much misery."
After a long while, when there were no more tears left to shed, he again tried to comfort me: "Be brave, perhaps the criminals will be found.
There will be a thorough, a searching _Instruction_. The truth will out, sooner or later.... It will be a terrible trial to you, to be in this prison, awaiting the decision of the judges, but you must not lose heart. You must expiate past faults.... Try to forget the brilliant world where you have lived all these years.... Every week I will come to you, and we will pray to Him who has all powers. Believe me: it is not human beings who will give you the courage to remain here and to live, and to hope."
He took the Bible on the desk, placed it in my hands, saying: "Here is the old, old book; it has consoled the worst afflicted. I will see you every week, as often as my other duties will allow."
Pastor Arboux kept his promise, in a sublime manner. He gave me the courage to live, and reconciled me to this world. During the endless year of mental and physical agony, he came to see me twice a week, every Thursday and every Sunday, and remained each time at least one hour. He came even when he was ill or overwhelmed with work. During the summer of 1909, he took a well-earned three weeks" holiday, but even then, he came to Paris to give me the consolation which he knew I so sorely needed.
M. Arboux asked me: "What sort of women are those two in your cell?"
"It is terrible for me to be with them; they quarrel constantly, and they keep asking me questions. I refuse to speak to them, but sometimes, they are so pressing that I reply, but I am so ill, so tired, so miserable...."
"Try not to reply at all," said M. Arboux. "I will talk to the Director."
In spite of the pastor"s kind words, I spent the night weeping and lamenting. I, Marguerite Steinheil-j.a.py, to be accused of murder, accused of having strangled my husband and my mother! How could such a monstrous charge have been brought against me! It was maddening....
The next day, Sat.u.r.day, November 26th--no one came to see me, and the day seemed endless.
Another sleepless night followed, and then another day began, a Sunday!
Seated on my bed, I wept bitterly. The two women again asked me questions, but during the afternoon, Sister Leonide entered and said to me: "Take your things. You are going into another cell." Later, in January, when the _Matin_ published statements made by Ghirelli and Rosselli concerning a "full confession" which I was supposed to have made in their cell, the Director of the Saint-Lazare prison, sent a report to Judge Andre, in which he says, concerning my change of cell:
"... That Mme. Steinheil was taken from cell No. 15, and placed in cell No. 11.... On Sunday November 29th, 1908, in the afternoon, because of a paragraph in the _Matin_ of November 28th, which gave the number of Mme. Steinheil"s cell and the names of her companions. The indiscretion, it appears from the newspapers, was made by Maitre Camille Dreyfus, counsel of the prisoner called Rosselli."
(_Dossier_ Cote 3021)
Sur Leonide led me to a cell much larger and lighter than the other, but in the same dirty dilapidated state. It contained seven beds, and had two windows, not only heavily barred, but also fitted with iron trellis-work. The windows were of ground gla.s.s, so that it was impossible to see outside, except when they were open. One had to listen to the rain and to "guess" if the sun shone, when they were shut.
I sank on to an old chair. Sur Leonide comforted me, and, trying to be cheerful, "Do you know that everybody is spoiling you!" she said.