Chapter XXXII Conclusion
My Memoirs have come to an end.
I have tried not to be bitter or revengeful, and it is only when I have had to justify myself or vindicate my daughter that I have mentioned certain facts, certain documents, or certain names; and I have no doubt that the reader will agree with me that I have done this only when it has been absolutely necessary.
I have been asked, time after time, for my theory of the crime. I have turned that terrible problem over and over in my mind ever since the awful night of May 30th-31st, 1908, until at times I have well nigh lost my reason—and I have no theory.
Sometimes, it seems to me that the murderers were models who knew my husband. Sometimes, I think the crime was committed by persons who were in still closer touch with my husband and myself, or with one of us. Sometimes, I fancy that the instigator of the crime was a man who was in love with me. And finally, I sometimes fancy that the drama must have taken place as follows:
A man, a suspicious character, a declassé, hears or discovers that there are important political documents in my house. Perhaps he knows my husband, perhaps he knows me, more or less. He goes to some official—I say official for the lack of a more adequate word—and tells him he can secure certain political papers of much importance, papers that would, if they were divulged, cause much embarrassment, to say the least, to many prominent persons. He wants money, and possibly demands a document that seals the bargain as it were. Being a professional malefactor, he decides to steal something else besides the Faure documents. He knows that I possess pearls and handsome jewels.... Possibly, he is acquainted with the mysterious foreign personage, whom my husband befriended, the Jew, who, perhaps, occasionally attends the performances at the Hebrew Theatre, and knows that baskets of costumes are left unattended in the corridor of that theatre. Being a professional malefactor, he is a coward, and since there may be “some trouble,” he decides that he had better not do the work alone. He and his friends to whom he has merely spoken of jewels and money—not of documents, for that he reserves for himself—examine the house; and possibly they are the men whom neighbours have seen lurking in the Impasse Ronsin. They have secured cards of invitation to the exhibition of M. Steinheil’s works, and one of them lost his card in the Underground on the day of the crime. That exhibition made it possible for them to enter the house at a time when it was crowded, and when, therefore, their movements would not be observed. Besides, one and possibly two of the gang, know the house well, already.
Plans are carefully laid. We are in May. They have discovered that the Steinheils almost invariably spend the week-ends at Bellevue at this time of the year. It will be quite easy to commit the burglary.
On May 30th one of the gang steals the black gowns from the Hebrew Theatre early in the evening. Towards midnight the three men, carrying bags containing their disguises enter the Impasse. Possibly there are four of them; the fourth remained on watch in the garden. There is also a red-haired woman with them, probably the mistress of one of the miscreants, who decided to accompany her “man” because there might be some trinkets to gather for herself.
They enter the garden—the gate has only to be pushed. They place a ladder against the wall, but one of them finds that the pantry door is not locked. They enter, light their lanterns, and don their disguises, which they have brought in case some one is about who might recognise one, two, or possibly all three of them. They notice an open cupboard, and seize the cord they see there. It may be handy to fasten parcels of stolen goods. Then they stealthily creep upstairs. They probably expect to find the place empty, though I suppose they knew Couillard slept near the attic on the third floor, which explains perhaps why they did not go to the studio, from which they might have been heard. Nor did they ransack the ground-floor, where besides the kitchen, the offices, the winter-garden, and the hall, the only rooms were the dining-room, and the drawing-room. As a rule, people do not keep their valuables in such places, but rather in their bedrooms.
The first room they see as they reach the first floor, is the one in which I am sleeping. For one moment, the men are taken aback; they mistake me for my daughter, in whose room I am resting. I am startled out of my sleep, and a revolver is pointed at me: “Where is the money?...” They have come to steal, not to kill. I point to the boudoir, the door of which is open. They find the money and take it. They return and ask for the jewels. The chief of the gang, who evidently knows me, asks for the documents.... Whilst the others enter the room where my mother is sleeping, the chief ransacks the boudoir, and finds the dummy parcel of documents, reads the words written on it and is satisfied. Meanwhile, the others—possibly soon joined by the chief—ransack the wardrobe in my mother’s room. She cries “Meg, Meg,” and tries to jump out of bed.... They pick up some wadding and force it into her mouth. She is stifled.... M. Steinheil has heard the noise, rushes out of his bedroom, but as he reaches the threshold of the bath-room, the men, who have heard him, spring on him, and he is strangled.
They have come to steal, not to kill.... They are anxious to escape. As they pass through my poor mother’s room they fasten a cord round her neck, to “make sure.” Perhaps they did this before murdering my husband. Hastily, they bind me to my bed, and gag me with wadding. One of the men had knocked over the inkstand in the boudoir; the end of his gown dragged through the pool on the floor, and as he came to my room, left a trail of ink behind him.
The woman wants me to be killed, but the chief of the gang says no. Two murders are quite enough.... All the same, they give me a heavy blow on the head. Then they disappear.
The murder is discovered; my husband’s card is found in the Underground; the black gowns are missed....
Is it madness to suppose that if this theory is true, the head of the gang saw the official who probably was wildly alarmed, and that he said to him: “If I am arrested, I shall prove by the paper I possess, that I was ordered to get hold of those documents, and the whole world will say that the Impasse Ronsin affair was a political crime”?
The police make investigations, in vain; the case is dropped; but I recklessly take it up again, convinced that the murderers will be found and resolve to find them. The reader knows the rest.
Possibly, I may even say probably, all this is hopelessly wrong, or contains only a small element of truth. Who knows?
I have a few conclusions to draw from the unusual and tragic experiences I have gone through.
I cannot doubt that by now my innocence is established in the eyes of the reader; I even venture to believe that I may have won his, or her, sympathy. In this long statement of facts I have all through based my remarks on documents, and those documents are, of course, undeniable.
But my own vindication and full rehabilitation were not my sole objects. Others have suffered, and are suffering, as I have suffered; others may suffer and will suffer so long as certain methods remain in use in France, so long as certain French prisons remain what they are, and certain examining magistrates are allowed to deal with prisoners as one of them did with me; so long as the procedure at trials for murder remains what it is; lastly, so long as a law making Contempt of Court a grave offence is not passed in the country from which I come, and which I love passionately.
I have described Saint-Lazare: the sooner that dilapidated, insanitary prison, with its poisoned atmosphere—poisoned in every sense of the term—is pulled down, the better.
I have described my Instruction: the sooner such “examinations” become public; the sooner examining magistrates are forbidden to have preconceived ideas about the guilt of the accused persons who are brought before them, and the sooner they are forbidden to threaten, intimidate, bully, and torture them to gain their doubtful ends—the better.
I have described at length my 353 days in prison: the sooner the French law realises that it has no right to keep a human being who is supposed to have or is suspected of having committed a crime, within the four walls of a cell for months and months, awaiting his or her trial—the better.
I have described my eleven days’ trial—my eleven days’ agony—for after nearly a year in prison a human being is nothing but a lump of suffering flesh and nerves: the sooner the procedure is altered, the sooner the judge’s interrogatory —inevitably partial and misleading—is suppressed, the sooner an overwhelmingly more important part is given to the cross-examination of the prisoner and all the witnesses, and the sooner the jury at a trial for murder is kept together and prevented, as it is in England, from having any communication with the outside world—the better.
I have described the amazing part the French Press—or rather a section of it—played in the “Impasse Ronsin affair,” how it roused Public Opinion against me, and used the worst conceivable methods of coercion and intimidation, how it made my life and that of my daughter an unendurable martyrdom: the sooner the French Press is forbidden to assume the role of so-called Justice, to publish the most indiscriminating, arbitrary, imaginary, and damaging articles against beings who are merely “accused,” and this not only before, but actually during the trial of those beings—the better.
Let the reader ponder, if only for one moment, over these facts, for instance: day after day, during my trial, a number of newspapers published long articles in which I was clearly and emphatically treated as a murderess, as a “Red Widow,” as a “Black Panther”! Day by day, the twelve men who were to decide my fate—and indirectly that of my daughter—went home after the hearings in the Court of Assize: they discussed the trial, my attitude, the evidence of the witnesses, the questions asked of me, and the answers I made to those questions, with their wives and their friends; they went to their cafés, where they talked and listened; they read the newspapers, and the next morning, before going into Court they talked and listened again, read the morning papers, and were once more exposed to influences.
I do not for one moment believe that French jurors allow their consciences to be misled in matters of life and death—and I have had a splendid proof of this, since the jury acquitted me—but, is it stretching probabilities to admit that, among the twelve members of a jury, one may be influenced by what he hears or reads, and in his turn influence his colleagues at the solemn pregnant hour, when they are sent to a room to deliberate over the fate of a human being?
That this book may prove useful to others is my most fervent wish.
I have forgiven my enemies, and I trust those whom I have wronged may forgive me.
As I write these lines, my daughter is resting near me, lying on a couch. She sleeps, and her young husband is painting by the window. There reigns ideal peace and serenity in this room, which overlooks a great English meadow, so fresh, so green.... It seems almost unbelievable after the years of maddening turmoil I have lived through....
My little Marthe will be a mother in a few months’ time.... Her child will one day read these Memoirs. May he, when that time comes, learn—like all other readers of this book, I trust—to understand my life, to forgive whatever weaknesses have been mine, and to love his mother’s mother, a woman who has made mistakes in life, but who, God knows, has paid all too dearly for them.