THE "INSTRUCTION"
From December 5th, 1907, to March 13th, 1909, my "Instruction" took
place in the Palace of Justice, in the Cabinet of M. André, the
Examining Magistrate.... I am not superstitious, but I state for the
sake of those interested in such coincidences, that the cell to which I
was taken after my arrest was cell No. 13, that my _Instruction_ lasted
13 weeks, that my final interrogatory took place on March 13, and that
the jury returned to decide my fate on November 13 (1909).
As I have already explained, what is called the "Instruction" in France
is the preliminary but exhaustive, definite inquiry into a crime.
Before my first appearance at the Palace of Justice, Maître Aubin came
to Saint-Lazare.
"The _Instruction_ will begin to-day, Madame. Summon to your assistance
all the courage you possess. André is no genius; but he is a relentless,
pertinacious judge who will do his utmost to make you contradict
yourself and draw terrible conclusions against you from those
contradictions. You are innocent, but he will make you feel that you are
guilty; every hesitation, every slip, however unconscious or
unimportant, every reticence will become formidable weapons in his
hands. Don't accuse any one--Couillard or Wolff, or Balincourt. Even
though he examines your private life--and he is sure to do that--don't
mention your 'friendship' with M. B., the Attorney-General, or your
intimacy with President Faure. They would only irritate him. Besides, if
you did, he would only change the subject of 'conversation.' You must
forget that you have received in your Salon, Ministers of State and
Diplomatists, eminent politicians and eminent judges, even though you
are asked who came to your house. Just reply to André's question and
nothing else. Say merely 'Yes,' or 'No,' whenever possible, for he will
twist your replies as often as he can do it 'legally,' into something
damaging to your case. I know that he is absolutely convinced that you
are guilty and he will do his best to make even you believe it! It is
scandalous, infamous, and everything else you like to call it, Madame,
but I can't help it!"
I was bewildered!
Marthe came that same morning to give me courage, and also Pastor
Arboux, Soeur Léonide and one or two other Sisters accompanied me, on
my way to the prison door, as far as they could, and they, too, spoke
many kind words to me.
Downstairs, under the porch, I saw three of the inspectors I knew so
well, waiting for me. I was told to enter a taxi. One of the inspectors
sat near the driver and the other two men inside with me. They were
armed with revolvers, and looked anxiously through the windows.... They
feared the crowd, but our journey was uneventful.
"Have you discovered anything?" I asked them. "Have you found any new
clue? Are you on the tracks of the murderers, at last?..."
"Alas, no, Madame."
"Will the _Instruction_ be very long?"
"Most likely it will. Ah! that judge! He is making all kinds of
investigations. He sends us to all kinds of places. We don't get a rest.
M. André is killing us!..."
"So much the better!" I replied in my eagerness.
The two inspectors laughed.... That was the first laughter I had heard
since Ghirelli and Rosselli had burst into endless laughter because I
did not know that the coffee was sold ready prepared.
We reached the _Dépôt_ near the Sainte Chapelle, the stained windows of
which I saw from a distance; and I thought of the day when I took Marthe
to that marvellous Gothic jewel to admire her grandfather's work. The
inspectors, after wishing me "good luck," entrusted me to the care of
the _portier_ who in his turn led me to the Sisters' gate. The
_portier_, too, was kind and polite. A man of middle age with clean-cut
features and grey hair, he saluted me in the military fashion.... Every
time I came to the _Dépôt_, he had a good word for me, and these little
attentions were a source of great comfort to me, who, at Saint-Lazare,
heard day after day the foulest and vilest insults.
A Sister took me to a small cell, and locked the door on me. But it was
soon opened again, and I heard a voice say, "The Sister Superior." I
looked up and was transfixed. I have seen many beautiful women, both in
life and in art, but none could have compared in divine loveliness with
the woman who entered my cell at that _Dépôt_. The oval of her face was
perfect, her eyes, which seemed like liquid and transparent turquoises,
neither blue nor green, were exquisite.... Her voice was the most
musical I had ever heard. Her refined and shapely hands were poems of
loveliness. But her supreme charm was her expression. It was not of this
world; it was too noble, too lofty, and, above all, too serene....
Later, when we had often spoken together, I begged her, discreetly,
hesitatingly, to tell me about herself. She merely said, "I am the
Sister Superior of the _Dépôt_... and I have suffered a great deal in
the past...." I never dared ask her another question, but I have often
wondered what great lady she was... and to what great sorrow she
referred....
My cell at the _Dépôt_ was even worse than my cell at Saint-Lazare. It
was small and low, and had only an air-hole for window; there was a bed,
a board fastened into the wall, used as a table, and a three-legged
stool held to the floor by a chain.... But when the Sister Superior
entered the cell, everything seemed radiant and beautiful.
She coaxed me into eating a little, asked me a few questions about my
daughter, and comforted me.
Then the Director of the _Dépôt_ entered, a tall, well-dressed,
stern-faced man, with the look of the officer about him. He, too,
compelled me to eat: "The _Instruction_ will exhaust you. You will need
a great deal of physical as well as moral strength." After he had gone,
the Sister Superior advised me to lie down on the bed until I was sent
for, and I did as she told me.
A sister came to fetch me, and led me to a door where two soldiers of
the Municipal Guard were waiting for me. It was an awful blow to me. I
did not mind the inspectors. I knew and liked them, and they had long
worked with and for me... but a soldier on either side of me!...
They saluted me, however, and later, when I asked one of them why he
always saluted me, a prisoner accused of murder, as he would an officer,
he replied: "I don't know myself, I'm sure, Madame... but there, I can't
help it."
The two guards took me along a passage. We passed before a row of cages,
inside which were men with horrid faces. They shouted at me through the
bars, and the guards told me to hasten.... I learned afterwards that the
official name of this passage lined with cages is "_La Souricière_"--the
"mouse-trap."
We reached another building. The authorities were so afraid of
enterprising journalists that guards had been posted at every door, a
precaution, however, which did not prevent a photographer--on the
_Matin_ staff, of course--who had climbed up to a carved-stone ledge
above a door at the top of a staircase, from taking a snapshot of me as
I walked up the steps between the guards!... I confess, however, that I
was so frightened for the man's safety in his perilous position, that I
forgot to be angry.
I entered a room where I found my three counsel. After a few words of
encouragement, Maître Aubin took me to Judge André's Cabinet.
I felt miserable, ashamed, and indignant.
I saw M. André. He wore a frock-coat and a black tie. He seemed a man of
about fifty, was very stout, with a red, congested face, and a greyish
beard. His hair was dark and spare. His eyes seemed to jump about behind
the pince-nez, and they seldom looked straight at any one.
"Sit down!" he ordered. His voice was even more vulgar and aggressive
than his appearance.
He sat at a long table, with my counsel behind him; opposite him sat his
clerk, M. Simon, who wrote down the main questions and answers. I sat at
one end of the table, with the two municipal guards behind me, and
opposite, at the other end of the table, was the window, so that the
light struck me straight in the face.
M. Simon, the _greffier_, was middle-aged, slim, and had a shrewd,
pleasant face. He was calm, methodical, and kind. How many times, during
that bewildering and painful _Instruction_, did he give me a glance of
sympathy! How many times did he stealthily wipe away a tear!... How
often, when I made a triumphant reply, did he half-mischievously wink at
me, like a _gamin de Paris_, as if to say: "You got home all right that
time."
Behind me the guards sometimes whispered, after some fierce battle of
words between M. André and me: "Well done!"... and in their own simple,
spontaneous way, they added:... "little woman!"
That "Well done, little woman" of the guards, and the winks of
encouragement from the clerk, more than once gave me renewed strength at
moments when, worn by my ceaseless efforts, I was about to give up the
awful struggle, not in despair, but through sheer physical and mental
exhaustion.
* * * * *
M. André's first move was a dramatic one, and one which he evidently
thought would crush me outright. He handed me a letter--written by
myself to my husband, in a rather angry tone--and asked impressively:
"Was this written by you?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"To whom was this letter addressed?"
"To my husband."
"At what date?"
"I don't remember!..." I then explained that M. Steinheil and I always
wrote to each other when we did not agree on some point, 'so as to avoid
discussions and scenes....' And M. André thus led me to state that my
husband and I were not on the best of terms, and that I did not love
him.
I meant, of course, that there was no question of passion between us;
but the sentence was written... "I did not love my husband," and these
words became one of the greatest arguments against me, one of the
proofs of my guilt.... You did not love your husband, therefore you
killed him!
Having achieved this momentous victory, M. André proceeded, in the most
aggressive tone, to interrogate me about my "friends," but took good
care not to question me about the Attorney-General or President Faure.
And as Maître Aubin made signs to remind me of his warnings, I did not
mention them.
After that, the examining magistrate put to me endless questions about
my jewels.... I have explained at length all about them to the reader,
and need not go into the matter again. Nor need I reproduce here the
whole of the _Instruction_. Several parts of it have already been
quoted, and I intend quoting the last episode of this atrocious
martyrdom in full.
* * * * *
From time to time M. André ceased questioning me, and tried by little
dramatic interludes to throw me off my balance.
During the very first hour of the first _Instruction_ he abruptly turned
to me and exclaimed fiercely: "Your veil is down; why is your veil
down?... It is down because you want to hide your face, it is down
because you are guilty!... Raise that veil at once, raise it, I say!..."
Another time, he rose, bent forward towards me, and shouted: "You are
the assassin!"... I rose in my turn, and, completely losing control of
myself, I cried back: "It is you who are the assassin! You are murdering
my daughter and me!"
He was furious. "I'll have you arrested!" he shouted.
"I'm arrested already," was my obvious reply. He made a violent gesture,
went into the next room, and banged the door.
M. André invariably sought refuge in the next room, whenever I had the
better of him.
He smoked cigarette after cigarette during my _Instruction_, and blew
the smoke in my direction. It was so obvious an impertinence, and he
showed such satisfaction at my impatience, that one day I did not reply
to his question.
"Why don't you answer?" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Is it that you
realise that it is no longer any use struggling against all the evidence
that reveals your guilt?"
I merely replied: "I cannot speak on account of the smoke, _Monsieur_."
M. André continued smoking, but henceforth blew the smoke in a different
direction.
"It is really amazing..." he said to me one day. "Can't you see that, if
you were not guilty, you would ask your whole family, your friends, to
visit you at Saint-Lazare! You are ashamed, because you are a criminal!"
Such words hurt beyond description, but I managed to reply:
"Monsieur, Marguerite Japy does not receive her friends in a
prison-parlour."
M. Simon, my three counsel and the guards, nearly clapped their hands.
Another time, he suddenly placed under my eyes photographs of the bodies
of my husband and my mother, as they had been found on the morning after
the crime.... I have been told that all I said was: "Poor mother, poor
Adolphe; at any rate, they probably did not suffer much, they must have
died very quickly... there is no expression of agony on their faces. I
wish I too had died that night."
M. André tore the photographs from my hands; his dramatic move had not
had the result he expected.
The most extraordinary incident--I could say comical, had the
circumstances not been so tragic--during that eventful and harrowing
period, took place towards the end of the _Instruction_.
M. André, haunted by the thought of my guilt or rather by the thought
that he must find me guilty, stood up and suddenly exclaimed in his
usual hoarse and angry voice, and underlining, as it were, his every
word with threatening gestures: "Yes, you are guilty! I tell you that
you have strangled your own husband and your own mother, with your own
hands, your powerful assassin's hands!"
[Illustration: M. ANDRÉ, MY EXAMINING MAGISTRATE
"You are the Assassin!"]
Now I have unusually small hands, and scores of times Bonnat and Henner
have sketched or painted them, and made amusing remarks about "those
ridiculously tiny hands." I stretched out my arms, and placed my hands
under the very eyes of the examining magistrate.
In spite of his blind fury, he was able to realise their size, but he
was not going to allow himself to be thwarted by such a trifling matter.
He caught his breath, then, coming nearer to me, he exclaimed: "Yes, all
murderers have long arms and enormous hands.... Well, you are different,
you are an exception, that's all.... And the very smallness of your
hands proves that you are guilty. Even in your physique you deceive, you
lie.... And those little hands which look so innocent are the more
criminal, since they look so innocent. There!"
And he concluded this frenzied outburst by dealing a terrific blow on
the table with his clenched fist.
I looked at him, I watched _his_ hands....
"What's the matter! Why do you look at me like that!"
I looked fixedly at the hands of the examining magistrate, enormous,
red, hairy hands, and then let my gaze wander over his long arms, until
my eyes met his....
I was trembling with pain and anger. This man had treated me like a
murderess from the very first minute of the _Instruction_, and had
tortured me as those two journalists had one night, only more
relentlessly, and with greater persistence.... They had an excuse--they
were after copy--but this judge had none. He was supposed to be seeking
light, and truth, and justice. And no judge should take it for granted
that the person he is interrogating has committed the crime of which
he--or she--is suspected.
"What are you looking at?" M. André asked.
"I was examining your hands, _Monsieur le Juge_."...
"Well...?"
"... And I was thinking what a fortunate thing it was for you that you
are not accused of any murder, for even though you were as innocent as I
am, the size and look of your hands would unmistakably denounce you as a
murderer--if you had to deal with a judge after your own heart!"
M. Simon, the _greffier_, had ceased writing, Maître Aubin was smiling.
I could hear the two guards chuckle, and M. André, utterly routed, left
the Cabinet, and for a long while we heard him walking up and down in
the next room.
Each _Instruction_ lasted from noon until seven or eight in the evening.
I was then taken back to the _Dépôt_, where I waited one hour and often
much longer before being escorted to Saint-Lazare by two or three
inspectors. It was sometimes ten or eleven, when, thoroughly exhausted,
and having had no food for twelve hours or so, I entered my cell where
Firmin and Jacq were waiting for me. Firmin never went to bed until I
was back.
Sister Léonide, too, awaited me.... After the third or fourth
_Instruction_, she was so alarmed at my appearance that she thenceforth
always had some kind of surprise in store for me when I returned from
the Palace of Justice. On one occasion she gave me a little plate, an
ordinary, coarse, penny white plate, but what a luxury!... Then she
presented me with three parcels wrapped in tissue paper, and in them I
found a little salt, a small piece of butter, and... three hot potatoes
in their jackets. It seemed to me that I was hungry, that I must be
hungry, after those _Instructions_, but somehow I could not eat. On that
occasion, however, I was overjoyed to see food _on a plate_, and Sister
Léonide fed me with a spoon, as one feeds a child. After that she
brought me three baked potatoes every evening.
She asked me one day how it was that I was so fond of them, and I told
her that it was my father's favourite dish. Potatoes "in their jackets"
are called in French _pommes de terre "en robe de chambre"_ (in their
dressing-gowns), but my father said, far more prettily: "_en robe des
champs_," which sounds alike, but means in their country clothes, in
nature's garb.
In spite of Sister Léonide's care, of my daughter's solicitude, and of
the devotion of my three counsel, that _Instruction_ was using up the
little vitality and strength I still possessed. It was dreadful to have
to reply to all kinds of insidious and perfidious questions, for seven
or eight hours at a time, especially as the questioner never once ceased
to make it perfectly obvious that he considered me a murderess, a
murderess without even an accomplice... until the very end, when, after
reading the various experts' reports, he admitted that I had probably
been assisted.
M. André was convinced that I was guilty, but in view of the long report
which he would have to draw up at the end of the _Instruction_, and
which would go to the _Chambre des Mises en Accusations_, he had to
accumulate at least as many proofs as possible of my guilt, and as there
were none, his task was arduous! And it was the very difficulty of his
task which made him so aggressive, threatening, and palpably unjust.
There was not a method, there was not a trick, that he did not think
permissible. In order to put me off my guard, as it were, he would jump
from one question to another, question me, for instance, about a detail
of my life at Bellevue, then abruptly ask me the exact figures of the
various sums of money that I said were to be found in the drawer of the
desk of my boudoir, on the night of the crime. After bewildering me with
questions about the exact origin of such amounts (six months after the
money had been stolen) he would ask me a list of the contents of our
medicine-chest at the time of the murder!
At every _Instruction_ he dealt with everything--at once....
And when I hesitated, faltered, made a slight mistake or did not exactly
repeat the answers I had made on other occasions to the same questions,
he jumped up with glee: "I've got you!"...
Another of the examining magistrate's favourite methods was to ask me a
question of such a length that when written down, it covered quite two
large pages.... And woe betide me if I missed a single one of the
numberless points included in that one question! When, on a few
occasions, I ventured to ask that some portion of the endless question
be repeated to me, I was told, in a melodramatic tone, that I wanted
time to reflect, and that I should not need to reflect if I were
innocent, that the truth never hesitated, but burst forth at once.
When I collected myself by a truly superhuman effort and appeared calm,
I was cleverly concealing my hand, and therefore I was guilty.
When my nerves failed me, and I broke down, or sobbed; my weakness, my
grief, were due to remorse; therefore I was guilty.
When I cried that I was innocent, I was playing a comedy, but he was not
to be taken in by my grimaces! I was acting; therefore I was guilty.
When I did not mention my innocence, I was overwhelmed with shame, and
did not even dare to say that I was not guilty; therefore I was guilty!
Whilst I was thus being slowly tortured, the three men and the woman who
that night entered my house in the Impasse Ronsin, who committed the
double murder, who robbed, who bound and gagged me... were free,
somewhere in the world, in Paris, perhaps, and possibly reading the
latest details of my _Instruction_ in the newspapers, for after each
"sitting" a résumé of the proceedings was handed to the Press, in which,
as the reader may surmise, I appeared more and more guilty!
Eight months after the end of the _Instruction_, at my trial, the Judge,
M. de Valles, was to declare: "I feel the shudder of a judicial error,"
and the jury acquitted me. Eight months! Why did not M. André feel that
"shudder of the judicial error"? Because, and this is his only excuse,
he was obsessed by the firm conviction that I was guilty, and, more or
less unconsciously, he made nearly everything fit in with that
conviction, and, at the same time, ignored or passed rapidly over almost
anything that he could not. A few instances taken from the Dossier of
the _Instruction_--signed by M. André, M. Simon, and myself--will
illustrate my assertions:
(M. André had been asking me endless details about a ring and a pearl,
when he pointed out to me some contradictions in my past statements.)
_Answer._ "You are speaking to me about statements I made at a time when
I was half mad. At that time the question of my jewels was quite
indifferent to me. I had but one tormenting thought, the loss of my
mother."...
(M. André interrupted me with the following triumphant exclamation:)
_Question._ "Then you felt no sorrow at having lost your husband!"
_Answer._ "But yes, of course."...
Another instance:
_Question._ "It can hardly be admitted that robbery was the motive of
the crime, for one cannot very well conceive that the thieves, _after
committing a double crime in order to act at their ease_, would neglect
to rob, and should leave on the spot, the following booty: (1) In your
mother's room, three rings on a tray; (2) One diamond brooch, two
valuable pendants, two pins with small stones--which your mother had
brought to your house when she put up there in May.... (3) In your
husband's room, the latter's clothes were not searched, and yet they
were placed, conspicuously, on a chair, and they contained a gold watch,
a purse containing eighty francs (£3 4s.); (4) In the boudoir, a bank
note of fifty francs (£2) was left, although it was conspicuous; (5)
From the statements you made just now, some of your daughter's jewels,
which were then in her room, where you slept, were not stolen!"
_Answer._ "What can I answer you... anything may be found strange....
People who had just committed a murder would not perhaps be as calm as
you think and so would not steal everything."
(I then explained that my mother's bag was on the floor in a box-room,
that night.)
_Question._ "That explanation is hardly satisfactory."
_Answer._ "All I can say is that people, after committing two such
ghastly murders, and after believing they had made a third victim of me,
may have lost their heads, and only have had one thought: to disappear
as rapidly as possible."
(_Dossier_ Cote 3239)
* * * * *
What likelihood was there that the men had come to kill? M. André took
it for granted, and made the extraordinary remark that they had "killed"
_in order to act at their ease_! Personally, and it has been the
opinion of every person I have met who has carefully studied the case,
that the men came to steal, and were disturbed in their work, by the
sudden appearance of my husband, armed with an alpenstock, and by the
cries of my mother, and that it was then, and only then, that the
murders took place?
As for the robbery, did not the men steal several hundred pounds, and
some twenty pieces of jewellery, belonging to me and my mother?
_Question._ "Since your last examination, we have compared the recital
of the drama as you made it then with the one you made at the beginning
of the investigations (May 31st and June, 1908). We find that whilst you
merely mentioned to us, as the acts of violence you suffered at the
hands of the criminals, one blow on the head and the trampling on your
stomach, you had previously mentioned other acts of violence: on May
31st, 1908, to the police-commissary, you said that you had received
blows with a stick, on your head; on May, 31st, to the police-commissary,
and then to M. Leydet, you said you had been seized by the throat at the
beginning of the scene; on May 31st and on June 5th, to M. Leydet, you
said that one of the men had clasped your wrist, and finally, on June
26th, to M. Leydet--to whom you never mentioned more than 'one blow on
the head'--you declared with precision that the blow had been like one
dealt with a club, or with a hard body, and that it had evidently been
meant by the criminals to be the finishing stroke. How do you explain so
many _variations_ in your successive recitals?"
_Answer._ "You should not take into account the statements I made on May
31st (shortly after the fatal night); I did not know what I was saying
then, I was out of my mind, I was frightened of everything. One of the
men did seize my wrist.... If I spoke with more precision on June 26th,
about the blow on my head, it is because, since the drama, I had been
trying to recall every detail of it."
_Question._ "On November 26th (1908), you stated that you had invented
the whole story of the men with the beards, etc., and the red-haired
woman and the black gowns."
_Answer._ "That was the result of the work of the journalists. They led
me to distraction, madness."
_Question._ "In any case, _the tale of the black gowns_ is full of
material impossibilities. Why should the criminals, at the beginning of
the scene, have thrown a cloth on your head, since they did not keep it
there, and since you were able to get rid of it immediately afterwards?
How can you explain this: those dark lanterns threw a great light on
you, and yet, the criminals made the mistake and persisted in it, of
thinking they were in the presence of a young lady, of a child? They
were in the shadow, and yet you distinguished them so perfectly that you
were able to observe thoroughly every one of the actors of that scene,
to notice the absence of a collar from their special costumes, and the
ugliness of the red-haired woman, and to read clearly the expression on
the face of that red-haired woman. How can one explain that all the
doors being open, you did not hear your husband leave his bed and take
his alpenstock, nor hear either your husband or your mother scream
whilst they were being strangled?"
_Answer._ "A cloth _was_ thrown over my head. I don't know whether the
lanterns were dark lanterns or not. All I know is that their light was
the greater because it was reflected by the five mirrors in the room....
There is nothing extraordinary in the fact that the criminals took me
for my daughter. I look older now, but at that time I had quite a
youthful appearance, so much so that I was most of the time taken not
for my husband's wife, but for his daughter. As for the doors--which
were open when we all went to bed--I don't know whether the criminals
left them open. All I heard, I repeat it, was the word 'Meg,' spoken by
my mother at the moment I said."
(The next question, asked without any transition, was):
"Did you put a pearl in Couillard's pocket-book on November 20th?"
(_Dossier_ Cote 3249)
* * * * *
(The reader will probably agree that my answers, especially for a woman
tortured as I had been for so many months, were fairly clear, precise,
and satisfactory. The Examining Magistrate thought differently:)
_Question._"... Your cleverness at dissimulating before the Law has
become such that in the course of our interrogations we have rarely
obtained from you a clear and convincing explanation, such that, every
time we have asked you to reply in a precise manner to our questions
concerning the dominating facts of the case, you have, as a rule, tried
to avoid replying, often by saying you did not remember, or even that
you did not understand. _You have even gone so far as to let the fear
that your face might betray you in our presence, make you hide it behind
the black veil with the wide thick edge which you are still wearing, and
which, in spite of the exhortations we addressed to you during one of
our first interrogations, you have never raised above your forehead.
Your face has no more revealed itself than, willingly, you have revealed
the bottom of your thoughts._"
(_Dossier_ Cote 3240)
* * * * *
(I had been told not to speak about President Faure, even when asked
about my friends, nor about the famous pearl necklace, even when
questioned about the stolen jewels. The necklace was mentioned, however,
but not by me. And I realised then the truth of Maître Aubin's words,
when he had said that neither the Government nor the Law wished to have
anything to do with my relations with Félix Faure and the mysterious
necklace affair. M. André, who, when I hesitated, compelled me to reply
in no half-hearted manner, made a striking exception on that occasion,
as the reader may see from the following quotations from the Dossier.)
(It appeared that M. André had recently interrogated, amongst other
people, a man called Brun, a decorator, who had long been one of my
husband's acquaintances, and who years ago, at M. Steinheil's request,
pledged some jewels of ours at the Mont-de-Piété. The "pearl necklace"
affair came out quite accidentally. M. André asked me about Brun and the
pledged jewels, and I replied that I only remembered Brun having been
once to the Mont-de-Piété for my husband, and that, ten years ago.)
The Judge asked: "Don't you know that it was a pearl necklace Brun
pledged?"
I hesitated to reply, and finally said (I quote from the Dossier):
"Allow me not to talk about that. It was a necklace I received as a
present; it had five rows of pearls. I gave it to my husband, and told
him he could do what he liked with it, that he could sell it when he
pleased."...
(_Dossier_ Cote 8308)
* * * * *
I explained that my husband and I lived quite apart, but that I allowed
him to make use of my jewels when he was short of money. When I had
finished, M. André made no remark at all about the pearl necklace, and
proceeded with his interrogating as if that jewel had had no importance
whatever.
Two days later, however, during the next _Instruction_, M. André,
wanting, perhaps, to make sure that the necklace Brun had spoken of was
really the mysterious and all-important necklace given by President
Faure, asked me a few details about it. I replied:
"The five-row pearl necklace, of which I spoke to you the day before
yesterday, was sold during the past ten years little by little, that is,
pearl by pearl or in series of pearls, by my husband. I did not have
anything to do with those sales.... All I know is that at the time of
the drama there still remained some pearls from that necklace.... Those
pearls were then in the lower drawer of the wardrobe where I usually
placed my jewel-cases. I had seen, towards May 5th or 6th, about ten
pearls. I had not taken them to Bellevue, and since the drama I have not
seen them again. They have therefore been stolen, unless my husband had
sold them between May 5th and May 30th, but that would surprise me...."
_Question._ "Why have you not spoken about those pearls?"...
_Answer._ "On account of my daughter. I wished to keep silent about the
origin, that is, the giver, of those pearls."
_Question._ "By mentioning their disappearance, nothing compelled you to
indicate their origin?"
_Answer._ "I did not wish to speak about that necklace"....
(_Dossier_ Cote 3310)
* * * * *
Once again M. André did not insist.
During another _Instruction_, one month later (_Dossier_ Cote 3389), M.
André tried to make me contradict myself about the necklace, stating
that one of my accounts of the occasion when M. Brun consented to pledge
jewels for my husband did not tally with another; he also remarked that
my friend M. Mustel, the piano and organ manufacturer, who had seen the
famous pearls, had described, in quite a different way from that in
which I had described it, a family scene, at my house, about certain
debts of my mother's which I was ready to pay by selling the pearls I
still possessed. But all this had but a very vague connection with the
necklace itself. I may further state that M. Brun stated that he
received only about £6 for the necklace he pledged, so that either he
referred to a necklace of which I know nothing, or he made a huge
mistake. At any rate, I do not know of necklaces with five rows of
pearls that would merely fetch £6 when pledged!
I may quote a few lines from M. Brun's evidence:
"M. Steinheil asked me... to pledge at the Mont-de-Piété a pearl
necklace of several rows... On the same day, at the office in the Rue
des Blancs-Manteaux, I pledged the necklace, in my name, and received, I
believe, 150 francs (£6)."
(_Dossier_ Cote 1929)
* * * * *
Now, as every one knows, the Mont-de-Piété is a State Institution, and
its books are kept in the same thorough and methodical manner as that of
all other State "Administrations." The Mont-de-Piété, in reply to
inquiries ordered by M. André replied that:
"... The pledging of a pearl necklace (whether by the Steinheils or by
M. Brun) was not mentioned in their books..."
(_Dossier_ Cote 1919)
The pearls were not mentioned in the final report of M. André, nor in
the Indictment, nor were they once referred to at my trial. Can any one
blame me if I say I have always thought that "the authorities" _knew_
about the necklace but _did not want_ that mystery to be unravelled, no
more than they wanted to know that some of the jewels stolen on the
night of the crime came from a President, and two, at least, from an
Attorney-General. I have also always thought that "the authorities" knew
that I possessed important documents and the Memoirs of Félix Faure.
True, by order, I never spoke of them except to M. Desmoulin, the
Director of the Prison, my counsel, and Pastor Arboux--and I just
pronounced the word "documents" before M. Leydet and M. Hamard--but
whether the authorities knew about them or not, I can only say that no
mention of them was made to me.
* * * * *
At Saint-Lazare, one day--at the time of that long and nerve-racking
_Instruction_--two municipal guards came to take me to the Palace of
Justice.
I said to the gaoler: "Where are 'my' inspectors?"
"Madame," the man replied, "it is no longer M. Hamard who sends for you,
but M. André, the judge, and M. André, it seems, has given new
instructions."
The non-commissioned officer very politely made me enter a _fiacre_ (a
four-wheeled cab). He then sat down near me, and the other soldier sat
opposite me. Both had revolvers at their side. The carriage started on
its journey.
"Why have not the inspectors come, as usual?" I asked.
"Ah! Madame, we don't know.... Your judge doesn't seem to like you."...
"I hope not; I cannot believe that."...
As we neared the Palace of Justice, I noticed that the driver was not
taking us the usual way. The non-commissioned officer said: "We are
going round to the Boulevard du Palais," and when, seeing that I was not
being driven to the _Dépôt_, I asked where he was taking me, he replied,
after much hesitation: "To the _Souricière_ (the Mouse-Trap)."
"What!" I exclaimed in fearful dismay, "you mean to say that I am going
to be shut up in one of those cages, like a beast?... Is the women's
_Souricière_ like that of the men?"
"Yes. Madame.... You will have to wait there until the Judge is ready to
receive you."... And with great gentleness, the man added: "We have lost
a great deal of time on our way to Saint-Lazare, and fetched you as late
as possible, so that you will not have to wait long."
I thanked the officer, entered through the "new" door, and was taken
through low, damp, cold passages to the _Souricière_. Saint-Lazare is
bad enough, Heaven knows; the _Dépôt_ worse, but the _Souricière_ is an
abomination. Let the reader imagine two rows of cages, one on top of the
other, and with steps to reach the upper row. Opposite, on a kind of
platform, sits a Sister, who can see through the iron bars of each case
the prisoners of both rows of cages.
When she saw me, the Sister on duty, Soeur Berthe, a very old,
sweet-eyed sister, tottered towards me and took me to one of the empty
cages.
When I say cages, I am not exaggerating. Each cage, unspeakably filthy
and foul-smelling, is about seven feet high, five feet long, and three
feet wide. The door forms one wall, as it were; the upper half is a
square hole barred from side to side and from top to bottom. Air enters
through this hole, which has no glass. The door opens from the outside.
I had not been in "my" cage for one minute before I was ill, and I had
to remain there, frozen, dejected and ill, from nine o'clock--for, by a
refinement of cruelty, M. André had sent early for me at
Saint-Lazare--until noon. Women in other cages, near me and above me,
shouted at me. They could not see one another, but they had all
witnessed my arrival through the bars of their "windows"; somehow, they
knew who I was and the insults I heard at Saint-Lazare were hurled at me
again! Sometimes, one woman just to contradict the others, would take my
part and scream at the top of her voice: "I tell you she is a kid (_une
gosse_), and kids haven't what's needed to strangle a man and a woman!
Shut up, you fools!" Fierce quarrels ensued, from cage to cage. Every
woman shouted and thumped on "her" walls. The whole flimsy structure of
the "Mouse-Trap" shook ominously... and Sister Berthe on her platform
went on knitting quietly, without raising her head. She had witnessed
such scenes ever since she had been on duty at the _Souricière_, and did
not even take notice. After a time, the women quieted down, and I heard
them say to the Sister: "I am hungry.... Give me a cigarette. That
deceives hunger.... We all know you have cigarettes!" And the kind old
Sister sometimes handed them cigarettes through the bars!
I heard afterwards that those wretched women often had to wait in those
foul cages for eight or nine hours for the Examining-Magistrate or the
prison van--which they call the _panier à salade_ (salad-basket).
Eight or nine hours in a cage!... I thought of an examining-magistrate,
M. L., whom I had known years ago. He was a great admirer of mine, and
frequently forsook his duties to come and pay me compliments or to
listen to some music in my salon.... And I thought him a charming man!
Now, I realised that whenever he wasted time at my house the woman,
perhaps several women, had had to wait in a cage, hour after hour, until
his return, and I felt bitterly ashamed of myself for not having guessed
that a magistrate, like a doctor, has patients who cannot, who must not,
wait.
I waited only three hours in my cage! But when I entered M. André's
Cabinet, I felt more dead than alive, and I said to him: "You will not
see me again. You sent for me at Saint-Lazare hours too soon. I have
spent three hours at the _Souricière_, and I understand that it was
owing to an order given by you. How can you expect me to answer your
questions, after what I have just passed through?"
On three occasions, before _Instructions_, I was locked up in a cage at
the "Mouse-Trap," and from nine in the morning till seven or eight at
night I had to go without any kind of food. But after those three times
I looked so weak and haggard, I have been told, that M. André cancelled
his order, and once more I was placed in a cell at the _Dépôt_, pending
the _Instruction_, and once more the Sister Superior with the Madonna
face wrapped me about with her radiant kindness, comforting me with her
sweet, wise words, and the divine light that shone in her eyes.