that Madame Steinheil had murdered her husband in order to be free to
marry “the rich châtelain, M. Borderel.” In a slow, solemn voice, M.
Borderel stated: “Yes; Madame Steinheil did mention marriage to me, but
I said it was impossible. I adored my late wife, I adore my children, and
I felt I could not give them a step-mother; and Madame Steinheil fully
understood that my decision was irrevocable. Therefore the assumption of
the prosecution that Madame Steinheil murdered her husband in order to
become my wife, is unwarrantable.” Here M. Borderel broke down. “I loved
her. I was a widower. I was free. In becoming her lover, I behaved no
more wrongly than thousands of my fellow-countrymen. It is a base lie
that I ever suspected her of being guilty of that awful murder. On the
morning after the crime, I was full of the deepest pity for her; and
when she was accused in the newspapers I passionately told everyone she
was innocent.” Up sprang Maître Aubin, counsel for the defence, with
the cry: “Do you still believe her innocent?” And loudly, vigorously,
whole-heartedly rang forth the answer: “With all my soul, with all my
heart, upon my conscience.”
Even M. de Valles was moved by M. Borderel’s emotion, sorrow, chivalry.
The disclosure of the “rich châtelain’s” _liaison_ with the “Tragic
Widow” caused such a scandal in the Ardennes that M. Borderel had to
sell his estate; and he, too, has been persecuted continuously by Yellow
photographers and journalists. Equally chivalrous was the evidence of
Comte d’Arlon (to whose house Madame Steinheil was removed after the
night of the murder), of M. Martin (a State official), and of other
gentlemen who had been (platonic) friends of the “Tragic Widow.” Then,
more chivalry from M. Pouce, an officer in the detective police. “I
have been one of the detectives in charge of the Steinheil affair,” he
cried. “But I have always believed in the innocence of Madame Steinheil.
Had she told me she was guilty, I should not have believed her. She is
innocent.” And finally, exuberant, fantastic chivalry on the part of a
young man named René Collard: who, to the stupefaction of the Court,
walked up to the Bench and cried: “Madame Steinheil is innocent. I myself
am the red-headed woman who helped to commit the double murder.” M. de
Valles then wiped his brow with his huge handkerchief, rapped on the
silver inkstand with his paper-cutter, and cried: “Silence”—for the Court
was buzzing with excitement. Hesitatingly René Collard (aged perhaps
nineteen) related that he had disguised himself as a woman, bought a
red wig, broken his way into the Steinheil villa (in the company of two
friends), sacked the place, bound and gagged Madame Steinheil, strangled
her husband, suffocated her mother. “Take this young man away,” said M.
de Valles to a municipal guard, “and lock him up.” Two nights in prison
brought young René Collard to his senses. He had seen Madame Steinheil’s
photographs in the papers, had fallen in love with her: had resolved to
save her at the risk of being guillotined by the awful M. Deibler! Said
the examining magistrate: “Little idiot, I shall now send you home in the
charge of a policeman, who will deliver you over to your parents.” And
so, amorous, over-chivalrous young René Collard was conducted back to a
dull, bourgeois flat in the Avenue Clichy, where his father and mother,
after calling him a “villain,” a “criminal,” and a “monster,” took him
into their arms, and hugged him, and called him “the best and most
adorable of sons”; and then sent out Amélie, the only servant, to fetch
a cream cake and a bottle of sweet champagne with which to celebrate the
return home of the “wicked” but “adorable” Master René.
And now, half-past ten o’clock at night on Saturday, the 13th
of November.—I have passed over the address to the jury of M.
Trouard-Riolle, the Public Prosecutor—a mere repetition of the judge’s
savage cross-examination of the “Tragic Widow” on the first two days of
the trial; and I have also passed over Maître Aubin’s long, eloquent
speech for the defence. And the last scenes I have now to describe rise
up so vividly before me, that I adopt the present tense.
The jury have retired to an upstairs room to consider their verdict.
Madame Steinheil, watched by municipal guards, is waiting—deadly pale,
green shadows under her blue eyes, exhausted, a wreck—in the “Chambre
des Accusés.” And in the stifling Court of Assizes, and in the cold
marble corridors of the Palais de Justice, barristers, journalists and
a few ornaments of _le Tout Paris_ (who, somehow or other, have at last
obtained admittance to the Law Courts) are frantically speculating upon
the fate of Madame Steinheil. Most barristers say: “There are no proofs
whatsoever. Therefore, acquittal.” The _Tout Paris_ cries: “She should
be imprisoned for life.” (And here, in yet another parenthesis, let us
suggest that the _Tout Paris’_ mocking, vindictive attitude towards
Madame Steinheil is provoked by malevolent jealousy. Madame la Comtesse,
lively Pauline Boum, stout Baronne Goldstein cannot forgive the “Tragic
Widow” for having been _une femme ultra-chic_—the favourite of the late
President Félix Faure. Yet, as we all know in Paris, the life of these
ladies is very far from exemplary. How terrifically would our great,
kindly, satirical Thackeray have laid bare the true causes of the bitter
hostility directed against the “Tragic Widow” by French Vanity Fair!)
Eleven o’clock; half-past eleven; midnight. Twice, so we hear, have M.
de Valles and counsel for the prosecution and the defence been summoned
to the jurors’ room, to explain certain “points.” The _Tout Paris_,
and Henri Rochefort, are jubilant. “When the jury sends for the judge
it usually means a conviction,” croaks Rochefort, rubbing his hands,
and still sucking his impotent lozenges. We hear, too, that a crowd of
thousands has assembled in front of the Palais de Justice; that the
boulevards are wild with excitement, and——
“The judge has been summoned a third time to the jurors’ room,” we are
told at twenty minutes past twelve.
“Five years’ imprisonment at least,” chuckle the ladies and fatuous
gentlemen of _le Tout Paris_.
“Ten years—fifteen—twenty, I hope. She was in the pay of the Dreyfusards,
and killed Félix Faure,” mutters Rochefort.
“The Court enters; the Court enters,” cry the ushers and the municipal
guards, at half-past twelve.
As the jury files into the box, barristers and journalists mount their
benches, and, upon those rickety supports, sway to and fro. “Silence,”
shouts M. de Valles, rapping his paper-cutter for the last time. His
question to the foreman of the jury is inaudible. But the reply rings out
firmly, vigorously:
“Before God and man, upon my honour and conscience, the verdict on every
count of the indictment is: Not Guilty.”
For a few seconds, silence. Then a shrill cry (from one of the
brown-haired, blue-eyed, very charming lady barristers) of “Acquitted!”
And after that, enthusiastic uproar. Rocking and swaying to and fro
on their rickety benches, the barristers applaud, cheer, fling their
black _képis_ into the air. Up, too, go the caps of their fascinating,
brown-haired colleagues, as they cry: “Bravo.” More shouts and bravoes
from the journalists. (One of them—an Englishman—cheers so frantically
that half-an-hour later his voice is as hoarse as Henri Rochefort’s.)
And so the din continues, increases, until the demonstrators suddenly
perceive the dock is empty. Again, for a second or two, silence,
followed by exclamations of astonishment, alarm. M. de Valles, the
two assistant judges, and the jurors lean forward. Maître Aubin looks
anxious. Where is the “Tragic Widow”? Is she ill? Is she——? But at last
the small door at the back of the dock opens, and Madame Steinheil,
livid, held by either arm by a municipal guard, staggers forward. She has
not yet heard the verdict, but the renewed wild cheering (which drowns
the judge’s voice as he addresses her) tells her what it is. Dazed,
half-fainting in the doorway, she looks around the Court. For the first
time throughout the ten days’ trial she smiles—heavens, the relief, the
gratitude, the softness of that smile! And then amidst shouts of “Vive
Madame Steinheil,” and of “Vive la Justice,” the “Tragic Widow” falls
unconscious into the arms of the _Gardes Municipaux_ and is carried out
backwards through the narrow doorway of the dock.
Paris, too, demonstrates excitedly. Cheers are given by the vast crowd
assembled outside the Law Courts for Madame Steinheil, Maître Aubin and
the jury. M. Trouard-Riolle, the public prosecutor, leaves the Palais de
Justice by a side door, followed by Henri Rochefort, yellower than ever
in the face, his eyes blazing with vindictive fury. Almost encircling
the Palais are the 60 and 90 h.p. motors of the Yellow Reporters, still
bent on pursuing and persecuting the “Tragic Widow.” But she evades them;
passes what remains of the night in the Hotel Terminus; speeds off in an
automobile to a doctor’s private nursing-home at Vésinet next morning.
Acquitted, yes; but by no means rehabilitated, far less left in peace.
Outside the nursing-home at Vésinet, behold rows of motor cars, packs
of Yellow Reporters and photographers. A din in this usually tranquil
country place; a din, too, outside the Impasse Ronsin Villa, and in front
of the Bellevue Villa, where inquisitive Parisians jest, and laugh, and
point and stare at the shuttered windows. Over those “five o’clock’s” of
pale tea, port and sugared cakes, _le Tout Paris_ declares that Madame
Steinheil was acquitted by order of the Government. In the _Patrie_,
Henri Rochefort still calls her the “Black Panther,” and, alluding once
again to the death of Félix Faure, bids President Fallières to beware
of her. And on the boulevards, swarms of _camelots_ thrust under one’s
eyes “picture post cards” of Mariette Wolff; of huge, bloated Alexandre;
of mild Mr Burlingham; of chivalrous Count d’Arlon; of M. Borderel; of
Mademoiselle Marthe Steinheil; and of the “Tragic Widow.”
And the bourgeoisie?
“Acquitted, yes; but the Impasse Ronsin crime, committed eighteen months
ago, remains a mystery,” says a Parisian angrily to me. “The trial has
elucidated nothing: but it has cost enormous sums.” And then, as he
is a thrifty, rather parsimonious little bourgeois, the speaker adds
indignantly: “As Madame Steinheil has won, it is the Treasury, in other
words the unfortunate taxpayer, myself, for instance, who will have to
put his hand in his pocket, and settle the bill.”
[5] 1909.
XII
THE LATE JULES GUÉRIN AND THE DEFENCE OF FORT CHABROL
The month of May, 1899—how long ago it seems!
At that time, up at Montmartre, in a large house, overlooking a garden,
resided M. Jules Guérin, most savage of Anti-Dreyfusards, and chief of
the Anti-Semitic party.
A fine house, but an unlovely garden. A gaunt tree or two; four or five
gritty, stony flower-beds; in a corner, a dried-up, dilapidated old
well. But this waste of a garden suited M. Guérin’s purposes,—which were
sinister.
“If my enemies attack me here, I shall shoot them dead and bury them
beneath this very window—by that tree, in that flower-bed.”
“Oh!” I expostulated.
“Or I shall throw their infamous bodies into that well,” continued M.
Guérin, again pointing out of the window. “I am prepared; I am ready. You
see this gun? Then look at those revolvers. All are loaded.”
A long, highly polished gun rested in a corner at M. Guérin’s elbow.
Curiously then I glanced at a collection of revolvers that bristled
murderously on the wall, and next at Jules Guérin, a powerfully built
man, with massive shoulders, a square chin, lurid green eyes, a fierce
moustache, and a formidable block of a head on which a soft grey hat of
enormous dimensions was tilted jauntily on one side. Thus, although he
sat in his study before a vast, business-like writing-table, Jules Guérin
wore his hat, or rather his sombrero, and also an overcoat; but then (as
he explained) he might be called out at any moment to take part in a
political brawl, or to chastise a journalist, or to arrange a duel—even
to dig the grave of an enemy; and so was dressed ready to sally forth
anywhere, and with ferocious designs upon anyone, at the shortest notice.
Vehemently, he puffed at a cigarette. Now and again he pulled at his
fierce moustache. As he spoke he gesticulated, thumped the writing-table
savagely, and, when he thumped, the ink-bottles and penholders leapt and
danced, and the gun in the corner trembled.
“Downstairs I have twenty clerks and assistants. All are armed with
revolvers; all are devoted; and thus my enemies are their enemies. And so
if the brigands attack us, into the earth with them, or into the well, or
into——”
“But who are these enemies?” I interrupted. “These brigands?”
“The Government—Lépine, Chief of the Police—Loubet, President of the
Republic—a hundred other traitors and assassins,” cried M. Guérin. “But
the garden is waiting for them. I desire that this garden shall be their
cemetery.”
Of course, an impossible ambition. But so incoherent, so chaotic was the
state of mind of the Anti-Semites fourteen years ago, that I refrained
from suggesting that it was highly improbable President Loubet or his
Ministers would invade M. Guérin’s bit of waste ground up there in the
rue Condorcet. Nor was my host a man to stand ridicule. A flippant word
from me, and he would have shown me the door. So I listened patiently
to his wild, savage denunciations of the Jews—of Captain Dreyfus in
particular, who was lying (burnt up with fever, broken and battered in
everything except determination) in his cell on the Devil’s Island;
whilst here, in Paris, the Cour de Cassation was deliberating whether
there was sufficient “new” evidence to justify the prisoner being brought
back to France and given a new trial. Rumours were flying about to the
effect that the Court had already made up its mind to order the revision.
Thus, fury of the Anti-Dreyfusards; frenzy of the Anti-Semites, and, in
their newspapers, the statements that the Cour de Cassation had been
“bought” by the Jews; that the Jews, being the masters of France, had
“sold” the country to Germany; and that, therefore, the only thing to do
with the Jews was to hang them on the lamp-posts of Paris. Particularly
bloodthirsty and barbarous was M. Guérin’s weekly journal, _L’Anti-Juif_,
which stood on the floor, in three or four stacks, of this extraordinary
study. In it were published the name and address of every Jewish
tradesman in Paris. Each column was headed with exhortation: “Français,
N’achetez Rien Aux Juifs.” Then, hideous cartoons depicting the flight
of the Jews along the boulevards and their panic and agony—and their
massacre.
“Now,” said M. Guérin, “you have seen the official organ of the
Anti-Semitic League, and I could show you pamphlets and posters that
are equally powerful. No League in Paris is so resolute, so strong, so
efficiently organised. Such is our success that I am shortly removing to
more spacious quarters. There we shall deliver Anti-Semitic lectures,
and give Anti-Semitic plays—open to all, not a centime will be charged.
Then, boxing and fencing classes, pistol practice, a library, a doctor
and a solicitor on the premises—always, no charge. The Parisians, being
thrifty, will flock to us. They will cry: ‘Here we get entertainment,
medical and legal advice for nothing; it is admirable. Vive Guérin! Vive
la France! À bas les Juifs!’ The Government will be furious. Loubet in
the Élysée will shake in his shoes. And Lépine will shout: ‘We must
arrest that _canaille_ Guérin!’ But let him come. I shall be armed more
strongly than ever in my new quarters in the rue de Chabrol.”
“A garden?” I ventured.
“There are no gardens in the rue de Chabrol: but there are cellars,”
grimly replied M. Guérin. “Come and see me there. You will be astonished.
Au revoir.”
Out in the passage, and on the staircase, I encountered four or five of
Jules Guérin’s clerks and assistants; coarse, powerful young men, with
bull-dog faces, who had been recruited by the chief of the Anti-Semites
from the ghastly slaughter-house of Villette. In the garden I paused to
inspect the stony flower-beds and the dilapidated well.
“The future cemetery of my enemies. Ah, the traitors, the brigands, the
assassins! Let them come.”
At an open window, in his sombrero and smoking his eternal cigarette,
stood fierce Jules Guérin.
“Lépine in _that_ flower-bed,” he shouted, and then closed the window.
But reopened it, when I reached the gateway, to cry:
“And Loubet, in the well.”
A month later, Paris in uproar. On the afternoon of the 3rd June the
Cour de Cassation ordered the revision of the Dreyfus Affair; the
same night official arrangements were made for the return to France
of the shattered prisoner of the Devil’s Island; next day, during the
race-meeting at Auteuil, President Loubet’s hat was smashed over his head
by the stick of a certain Baron Christiani, a Royalist Anti-Dreyfusard.
Then, the fall of the Dupuy Ministry, and M. Loubet in a dilemma. M.
Poincaré, astutest of statesmen, was summoned to the Élysée; but, with
characteristic shrewdness, declined the task of forming a Cabinet in
such unfavourable circumstances. M. Léon Bourgeois (absent on a Peace
mission at The Hague) was telegraphed for, but could not be persuaded to
exercise a pacific influence in his own country. M. Waldeck-Rousseau was
next requisitioned; and left the Élysée with the assurance: “Monsieur
le Président, I will do my best to succeed.” Nothing could have been
more admirable than his subsequent exertions, for, in making them, M.
Waldeck-Rousseau, the most distinguished and most prosperous lawyer at
the Paris Bar, had nothing to gain and everything to lose; and he must
have been dismayed at the refusal, or the reluctance, of highly esteemed
politicians to serve their country by fighting a just if an unpopular
cause. Well, for a whole week the most painstaking, the most level-headed
and truly patriotic Prime Minister who has yet worked for the Third
Republic, visited prominent statesmen with the earnest desire to form a
_ministère d’apaisement_, founded on the principles of disinterestedness
and justice. Throughout that week, he was hooted in the streets, and
ridiculed and insulted by MM. Rochefort, Millevoye, Drumont and Jules
Guérin, who triumphantly predicted in their newspapers that “Panama
Loubet”—like “Père Grévy” before him—would be compelled to resign for
want of a ministry. And biting was the satire, and more savage became
the contumely, when at last the Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry was completed,
by the inclusion of such opposite, hostile personages as the “citizen
Millerand” and fierce, aristocratic and despotic old General the Marquis
de Galliffet. “After this,” wrote Henri Rochefort, “the deluge.” “At
last,” declared M. Drumont, “Paris will rebel; and the next events will
prove fatal to this unspeakable Republic.” The next important event was
the landing in France, in the middle of the night, of a bent, prematurely
aged figure: Captain Dreyfus. How the musty old carriage in which he sat,
dazed, exhausted, shivering, rattled over the cobble-stones to the Rennes
prison! How the prison gates clanged to when the shabby vehicle had
entered the dark, grim courtyard! And how split and how cracked was the
voice of the prisoner from the Devil’s Island when, at the court-martial
a few days afterwards, he protested his innocence and refuted the new
monstrous accusations of highly respected and brilliantly uniformed
Generals Gonse, de Boisdeffre and Mercier! Solitary confinement had left
him almost inarticulate. But he defended himself heroically: and, with an
effort, straightened his bent back when questioned by his judges. Then
how the trial dragged on; and what scenes took place in the streets,
hotels and cafés of Rennes, which were crowded with _le Tout Paris_ and
echoed with Parisian exclamations and disputes! Brawls, duels, Henri
Rochefort’s white “Imperial” pulled; Maître Labori, Captain Dreyfus’s
brilliant counsel, shot between the shoulders; a famous _demi-mondaine_
expelled the town; arrests, startling _canards_, alarms; hysteria,
chaos, and delirium enough for Paris itself; and in Paris—whilst these
exhibitions were occurring in the Rennes streets, and Captain Dreyfus (in
the severe court-room) was stiffening his back and straining his split
voice until it rose to an uncanny scream—what of Jules Guérin in Paris?
and of his guns and revolvers, his well and his flower-bed? and of his
assistants and clerks, the young men with the bull-dog faces, whom he had
recruited from the ghastly slaughter-house of La Villette?
Well, first of all, came the dishevelled, dusty confusion of a
_déménagement_ in the rue Condorcet. The study walls were stripped of
their revolvers; the basement was cleared of the printing-press that
produced the murderous _Anti-Juif_; huge packing-cases were passed into a
number of furniture vans; and so, farewell to the stony garden—in which
not an “enemy” lay buried; and _en route_ to No. 12 rue de Chabrol, a
commodious, massive building with large windows and a solid oak door.
The arrival of Jules Guérin and his assistants caused consternation
amongst the peaceful, bourgeois inhabitants of the street. Lurid
Anti-Semitic posters were stuck to the walls of No. 12; the din of
the printing-machines disturbed the neighbours—and Guérin’s voice of
thunder (execrating the Jews and demanding the lives of his enemies)
was to be heard through the open windows, while his enormous sombrero
was another disquieting element in the orderly, dull thoroughfare. The
Anti-Semitic lectures and plays were announced; a solicitor and a doctor
were engaged—and Paris was invited to visit No. 12 rue de Chabrol and
partake of its pleasures and advantages. Then came the suggestion in
the _Anti-Juif_ that Paris should fix a day and an hour when the Jews
should be hanged on the boulevard lamp-posts. And then followed the
resolution of the Government—to have done with Jules Guérin! A warrant
was issued for his arrest on the charge of “incitement to rebellion.”
Somehow or other the news reached No. 12; and when the Commissary of
Police (armed with his warrant) rang at the oak door, the massive form of
Guérin appeared at a window. “Bandit,” he shouted. “There are twenty of
us in here: and not one of us will be taken alive. Tell the Government
of Traitors we shall fight to the death.” And he flourished a revolver,
and his assistants, assembled behind him in the window, cheered wildly.
Away went the Commissary of Police for further orders. Up came MM.
Drumont, Millevoye and other leading Anti-Semites with exhortations to
surrender. But Guérin, from his window, reiterated his determination to
die heroically at his post: and again the young men with the bull-dog
faces cheered enthusiastically. And there were cries of “Mon Dieu,
quelle affaire!” and angry protests, lamentations and tears amongst the
shopkeepers and peaceful old _rentiers_ of the street. Many of them put
up their shutters and fled, when policemen and Municipal Guards marched
up and stationed themselves outside No. 12. Jules Guérin greeted them
with cries of “Assassins!”; shook his great fist threateningly; rushed
from window to window, shouting forth abuse. More cheering from his
assistants, who pointed guns at the authorities.
“It is a revolution,” cried the householders. “Let us save ourselves
quickly.”
Shutters were hurried up everywhere; cabs carried off distracted
_rentiers_ and their smaller belongings; policemen and Municipal Guards
barred either end of the rue de Chabrol, and permitted only people who
had business in the street to pass them; and with the cutting off of
water and gas supplies, the siege of Fort Chabrol began in earnest.