Captain Edouard Anselme Jean Herail, of the Eleventh Regiment of
French Hussars, but formerly of a cuirassier regiment, killed his wife
at Compiegne, because she insisted on staying in a place where his
regiment was encamped in defiance of military orders, which required
that officers' wives must not visit them. Herail was threatened with
disgrace for failure to obey orders.
Captain Herail was tried for the murder before a court-martial in
Paris. The courtroom was crowded by a fashionable attendance, largely
consisting of women, for the case involved most delicate and unique
domestic problems, and the persons concerned were of high social
position. The Captain's father was a prominent judge. His wife had one
brother who won the Nobel Prize, and another brother is a well-known
lawyer.
She was tall, slender, with a mass of Titian red hair and large blue
eyes. She had an artistic temperament and a seductive personality, when
not enraged.
The Captain is a man of middle height, strongly built, his thick hair
brushed back, his complexion ruddy, altogether a good type of the
cavalry officer. A reddish mustache adds to the impression of physical
vigor, but his manner is gentle.
The address of the prosecuting attorney showed that on November 23
last the regiment of cavalry to which the captain belonged had been
withdrawn from the front and sent to camp at Campiegne for a period of
rest, after extremely severe fighting in Lorraine and in the north,
where the officers and soldiers of the regiment had lost heavily and
performed their duty in a very gallant manner. Captain Herail, for his
bravery, was recommended by his superiors for the cross of knight of
the Legion of Honor.
Mme. Herail, who had been at Narbonne with her three children, learned
three days after the regiment came to Compiegne that it was there.
She hurried immediately to meet and embrace her husband, who was
embarrassed by her presence from the beginning.
He felt obliged to take every means to hide the presence of his wife
in the town, for a note from the commanding general of October 4 had
absolutely forbidden the wives of officers to be with their husbands,
and it was added that any infraction of the order would be severely
punished. Much disorder and disregard of discipline had been caused
in the army by the presence of wives and also of those who were not
wives. In spite of this officers' wives had frequently broken the order
and had settled down in the vicinity of the camp. Lieutenant-Colonel
Meneville, commanding the Captain's regiment decided to call the
attention of his officers a second time to the necessity of observing
the rule.