In spite of the hope my counsel gave me, in spite of Marthe"s love, M.
Arboux"s and the Sisters" exhortations, I fell seriously ill, and for over three weeks there were serious fears for my life. After a time, Marthe was allowed to visit me again, and she besought me to be brave, to make a supreme effort. I had been eight months in prison, I should try to grow used to the thought of remaining at Saint-Lazare three or four months longer, since victory was at the end.
"But the victory," my daughter explained in deep, powerful tones that contrasted so strongly with her slim, small figure, "can only be won if you work on the dossier of your case. You will have to ask for that dossier, and study it most carefully for your own defence. M. Aubin says so, and he knows."
She compelled me to eat, to take the various remedies ordered by the doctor and, seeing her so brave, I did my best to recover, and to call up courage and hope in the ordeal before me.
Soon afterwards, I was told that M. de Valles would be the Chief Judge at my trial, and M. Trouard-Riolle the Advocate-General (Public Prosecutor).
I had never met M. de Valles, but I was informed that he was a viscount, a grandson of Charles d"Hozier, "the last genealogist of France," and a descendant of another famous genealogist, Pierre d"Hozier, who, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, founded, with Renaudot and Richelieu, the _Gazette_, France"s first newspaper. I also heard that he was an able archaeologist, a learned Latinist, whose greatest joy was to sit in his library in the company of Horace, Lucretius, or the immortal Virgil, that he was a worthy, able, and extremely fair judge.
About M. Trouard-Riolle I needed no information. I had met him in various drawing-rooms at intervals for some fifteen years. I had known his beautiful and fascinating wife quite well, and I knew all about M.
Trouard-Riolle"s career, from the days he had left the Lycee at Rouen and had become a Doctor of Law, to the time when he was made an Advocate-General.
A few days later I was called down-stairs to the Director"s study. When I entered the little room I knew so well, I saw, near M. Pons, a tall, well-dressed man of about fifty with clean-cut features, clear eyes, grey hair and beard, and an expression of great firmness and refinement.
The Director of Saint-Lazare said: "President de Valles."
The latter said: "Sit down, Madame." Those three words were spoken in a cold yet polite tone, which was in sharp contrast to the coa.r.s.eness of another judge whom I had not yet forgotten. A _greffier_ read aloud a doc.u.ment.... I thanked M. de Valles for having come to the prison, and then said: "The thought of being tried publicly for a double murder of which I am innocent is unendurable, but I still hope that light will be thrown on the mystery. But what difficulties there are, _Monsieur le President_, for you as well as for me, in such a trial, for I understand that certain facts must be left in the dark!"...
M. de Valles did not answer my remark, but said: "Public opinion, Madame, is very much against you... and it is impossible not to recognise that your husband loved you."
"No, _Monsieur le President_, my husband did not love me, he adored me, and since he did anything I wished, I obviously had no reason to kill him. As for my mother, her letters to me and my letters to her ought to have made it impossible for Judge Andre to maintain his accusation."
It was quite clear that M. de Valles did not care to discuss any point in my case. He asked me to sign the doc.u.ment which his _greffier_ had read, and said: "I advise you to be calm, very calm, Madame. I can realise that the thought of the Court of a.s.size must be most painful to you, but, in order that you may get used, as it were, to the atmosphere of the Court, I intend, when your trial takes place, asking you first of all a number of questions of no great importance about your childhood and youth which you will find it easy to answer, however upset and distraught you may be."
I thanked him and said: "Is it true that my trial will be a kind of spectacle to which women will eagerly rush--and be admitted--to enjoy the sight of my grief and pain? If so, I must tell you, _Monsieur Le President_, that I shall be unable to control my feelings."...
M. de Valles pretended not to have heard, and said: "Maitre Aubin is an able counsel, with a great heart and a high conscience. Follow the advice he gives you, and since you say you are innocent, let your innocence give you the strength and power to convince the jury."
M. de Valles rose and rang a bell. A warder came, and I was escorted to my cell.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE DAYS IN PRISON (_continued_)
A few days later, my counsel came and said to me: "We are to receive the dossier, all the doc.u.ments of your case, and we shall then be able to read the evidence of all the witnesses, follow, page by page, the various clues in their reports, and learn all that has been done--and not been done.... Only, you will have to pay for that dossier."
"Pay!" I exclaimed. "Pay to know why I am accused of having murdered my husband and my mother! Pay to be able to defend myself! You must have lost your reason, Maitre Aubin!"
"You are quite right, Madame: it is an infamous thing that money should be demanded for your own dossier. It is scandalous, wicked, unheard-of.... I grant you all that. But still, we must have the dossier, and pay for it, since payment is demanded."
I shook my head: "Suppose I were a poor woman, should I have to do without it?"
"Of course not.... But your dossier is enormous. It contains 4000 doc.u.ments, and 15,000 pages. Think of it! At 150 words a page, it means two million and a quarter words. They want 1800 francs for it (72)."
"Can you not plead without it?"
"I could, certainly; I have been present at the whole of your _Instruction_, and therefore know all about the case.... But one never can tell, the Prosecution might spring some surprise upon us, at the eleventh hour; we might not be prepared for it, however absurd or fantastic it might be.... It would be better if we could study the dossier in its entirety, and acquaint ourselves with the exact replies of all the witnesses to the questions M. Hamard, M. Leydet, and M. Andre put."
"Very well, then; I will defend myself, alone, without the dossier, and without you, and my innocence shall triumph."
The next day, Marthe came and entreated me to buy the dossier, saying that I had no right to take any risks. She even threatened to buy it herself for me, if I did not alter my decision. I had to yield, and entrusted my solicitor with the care of "purchasing the doc.u.ments of my own case," adding that I wished him to "try and obtain a reduction."
My solicitor obtained the dossier after much haggling, for 48, instead of 72, and I knew then that another unlawful act had been committed...
by the Law!
It was the middle of summer now. It was light soon after three in our cell, and Juliette pinned a blanket across our window so that we might sleep a little longer. I still did much sewing for the Sisters, but devoted several hours a day to the study of the voluminous and amazing dossier. Twice, and sometimes three times a week, my counsel came, and we "worked" together.
I discovered many remarkable things in the dossier. I discovered, for instance, that ninety-nine per cent. of the persons whom I knew intimately, receiving them again and again at my house, and seeing them or communicating with them as often as two or three times a week--and this until a few days before the crime--had declared in their evidence that they hardly knew me at all!
One gentleman, a bright and thoroughly useless nonent.i.ty, who had known me for several years, and whom for the sake of his charming young wife, I had greatly helped in his career, stated that he had only met me once or twice... forgetting that I had possessed, and still possess, a few scores of his letters in which he beseeched me to help him out of his difficulties, and to intercede in his favour with this or that Minister of State! An aged lady, who ruled over a political Salon--whose chief aim in life was nothing more nor less than the overthrow of the Republic, and who invited me, though I never accepted, to secret meetings where political plots were hatched, and who, manifesting the greatest affection for me and my daughter, came _constantly_ to my house--after declaring in her evidence that in February 1908, she "was present at a dinner given by Mme. Steinheil, where she met M.
Dujardin-Beaumetz (Under-Secretary for Fine-Arts), Count and Countess d"Arlon, the wife of an ex-Minister... altogether some fifteen guests of incontestable morality." She went on to say that she had visited me, at the d"Arlons, after the crime, when I told her what had happened on the fatal night.... "She looked very upset and a prey to a kind of hallucination, which made her jump from one topic of conversation to another. To sum up, I had for the first time, the impression that Mme.
Steinheil had not been quite sincere with me, that she had wanted to use to her advantage the position I hold in Society, and I mentally decided to have nothing more to do with her!"
But perhaps the most "curious" doc.u.ment in the dossier was the evidence given by the wife of a well-known banker, who stated: "At a reception, three years ago (1906)... I heard Mme. Steinheil. I congratulated her, in the usual terms.... I visited her husband"s exhibition of paintings.
Mme. Steinheil then came to one of my receptions and promised to sing at one of my "musicals." A few days later I invited her; she came with her husband, sang, and was applauded. As I could not consider her as a professional singer, I went to the Impa.s.se Ronsin and bought one of her husband"s paintings.... I only saw Mme. j.a.py once, that was at the only "at home" which I attended at the Steinheils". This sums up the relations my husband and I had with the Steinheils, except a mere visit of condolence we paid to her, at Bellevue, after the crime."
(_Dossier_ Cote 3138)
The true facts about those relations are these: this lady during the three years of our acquaintance came to most of my receptions, and stayed frequently from three o"clock till past eight. She used my salon as a means of making and cultivating acquaintances who might be useful to herself and her husband. People prominent in politics, art, or society did not attend her receptions, and she frequently sought my help in her desire to alter this. She brought all her friends to my house, called on me with her husband, not only in Paris but at Bellevue, where she came not just once, for a "mere visit of condolence," but a dozen or fifteen times without being invited, and week after week she sent me charming letters, all beginning with the words, "My darling Nell,"--a name she had given me for some reason unknown to me--not every day, but almost!
As for the close friends who coolly declared they had never met me at all, their names would make a long list!... I have forgiven them all.
Friends in need are rare indeed; and was a woman ever in greater need--of sympathy--than I was during those terrible months that followed the crime! Well, I would rather that "devoted" friends ignored me than slandered me, as so many did, alas....
As a matter of fact, the only people who did have a kind or just word to say about me were not Society people, or wealthy or "prominent"
personages, but old servants whom I had nursed when they were ill, and poor artists--men and women--who were not ashamed to say that I had helped them.
The dossier, indeed, proved a mine of psychological information. It revealed in their true light the character of scores of people whom I had trusted, helped, and liked, and it showed up vividly a side of Parisian Society which it is perhaps best to ignore.
I experienced another surprise when I found that several persons whom I had never met, and had never heard of, gave evidence about me--most damaging evidence, of course.
The most "dramatic" discovery I made in the dossier was that of Comte de Balincourt"s career. The following doc.u.ment, especially, gave me one of the greatest shocks I ever experienced:
"Paris, December 9th, 1909. _Report_:
"According to my instructions, I called on the 3rd inst. on M. Sebille, Princ.i.p.al Commissary of the _Surete Generale_ at the Ministry of the Interior. This magistrate pointed out to our chief the interest there might be in consulting a dossier which M. Sebille possesses about Comte de Balincourt, whose name has been mentioned in connection with the Steinheil affair.
"M. Sebille first of all made it known that, at the beginning of December 1907, he had been concerned with de Balincourt. The latter had been marked out to him as the instigator of a burglary which was to take place at that time to the detriment of Mme. de Brossard, a lady of independent means, 23 Rue de l"Orangerie, at Versailles.
"This burglary was to be committed in circ.u.mstances which are related in the dossier which M. Sebille allowed me to consult.