MY MEMOIRS
MADAME STEINHEIL Photo by Claude Harris, London
MADAME STEINHEIL
Photo by Claude Harris, London
MY MEMOIRS
BY
MARGUERITE STEINHEIL
ILLUSTRATED
New York
STURGIS & WALTON
COMPANY
1912
Copyright 1912
By STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY
——
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1912
| CONTENTS |
| CHAPTER | | PAGE |
| I | Childhood | 1 |
| II | Youth—My Father's Death—My Marriage | 15 |
| III | Arrival in Paris. A Separation. Marthe. Parisian Life | 29 |
| IV | My Salon | 38 |
| V | My Salon (continued) | 54 |
| VI | FÉlix Faure | 68 |
| VII | The Dreyfus Affair—Fashoda | 84 |
| VIII | The Mysterious Pearl Necklace—The Death of FÉlix Faure | 106 |
| IX | After President Faure's Death: the Documents—The Necklace | 116 |
| X | 1899-1908 | 127 |
| XI | Events that Preceded the Crime | 135 |
| XII | May 1908 | 149 |
| XIII | The Fatal Night | 160 |
| XIV | After the Murder | 173 |
| XV | The Black Gowns | 195 |
| XVI | Investigations | 208 |
| XVII | The Throne-Room | 221 |
| XVIII | M. Charles Sauerwein and the Rossignol Affair | 236 |
| XIX | The Pearl in the Pocket-book | 249 |
| XX | The So-Called "Night of the Confession" (November 25-26, 1908) | 269 |
| XXI | My Arrest | 286 |
| XXII | The Three Cells | 294 |
| XXIII | Alba Ghirelli, Marguerite Rosselli and the "Matin" | 310 |
| XXIV | Saint-Lazare | 330 |
| XXV | The "Instruction" | 342 |
| XXVI | The Last "Instruction" | 362 |
| XXVII | Three Hundred and Fifty-Three Days in Prison | 374 |
| XXVIII | Three Hundred and Fifty-Three Days in Prison (continued) | 398 |
| XXIX | The Trial | 416 |
| XXX | The Speech for the Prosecution—The Speech for the Defence | 437 |
| XXXI | After the Verdict | 456 |
| XXXII | Conclusion | 474 |
| | INDEX |
| ILLUSTRATIONS |
| Madame Steinheil | Frontispiece |
| FACING PAGE |
| Writing my Memoirs | 1 |
| My Father | 16 |
| My Mother | 16 |
| Bonnat—by Himself | 44 |
| My Daughter and Myself in 1901 | 60 |
| President FÉlix Faure | 72 |
| A Letter sent me by FÉlix Faure | 78 |
| The FÉlix Faure Talisman | 82 |
| The Gold Box in which President Faure sent me the Pearl Necklace | 110 |
| Invitation to the FÉlix Faure "In Memoriam Service" | 116 |
| My Husband, M. Steinheil, in 1898 | 122 |
| A letter sent me by Massenet in 1907 | 132 |
| Facsimile of the letter I sent to my Mother at Beaucourt a few days before the Crime | 150 |
| A view of the verandah of the house in the Impasse Ronsin | 162 |
| The Bed on which I was bound during the "Fatal Night" | 166 |
| The Desk in the Boudoir from which the Money and the dummy-parcel of Documents were stolen on May 30-31 | 182 |
| A view of the House in the Impasse Ronsin | 224 |
| M. de Balincourt and Remy Couillard | 252 |
| Alexandre Wolff and his Mother, Mariette Wolff | 262 |
| M. AndrÉ, my Examining Magistrate | 348 |
| My Cell, showing Juliette, my fellow prisoner, seated on her bed | 382 |
| In the prison yard at Saint-Lazare | 386 |
| Objects I used in Prison | 410 |
My Counsel, MaÎtre A. Aubin; The Judge, M. de Valles;
and the Advocate General, M. Trouard Riolle | 450 |
| Plan of the first floor of the house in the Impasse Ronsin | 479 |
Photo. by Claude Harris, London WRITING MY MEMOIRS
Photo. by Claude Harris, London
WRITING MY MEMOIRS
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD
("Monsieur et Madame Edouard Japy have the honour to inform you of the birth of a daughter." Beaucourt, April, 16th, 1869.)
BEAUCOURT is a village in the "Belfort Territory," not far from the Swiss and German frontiers. It was in that village, at the "ChÂteau Edouard"—all large mansions in that region are called "chÂteaux," and the name of the owner is added to the word—that I was born some forty years ago.
Beaucourt and nearly all of the surrounding country belongs to, or is dependent upon, the Japy family, whose vast factories and mills give a living to thousands of workmen.
After a family quarrel, my father, Edouard Japy, had severed his connection with "Japy Bros." some time before my birth. Having resigned his directorship of the Company, he busied himself exclusively with his huge estate, devoting his days to the farm and woods, to his beloved park and the picturesque cascades which he had designed himself, to his flowers and orchards, to his family and to music.
My mother was the daughter of the innkeeper of the Red Lion, the chief inn of MontbÉliard in those already distant days. Edouard Japy had married Mlle. Emilie Rau in spite of the opposition of his family, who had declared that such a marriage would be a mÉsalliance. He had married her—as he often told me when, as a young girl, I became more than his child: his friend and confidante—because "she was very beautiful and very good." My mother had dark eyes, large and very tender, and her raven-black hair, when loosed, streamed down to her feet. She was of a quiet and sunny nature, kind, serene, and smiling. She ignored evil, was exquisitely artless, and never understood a great deal of the realities of life, because she did not see them. She gave away and spent without counting, was indulgent in a manner as touching as it was unconscious, and went through life a simple and happy being, knowing neither great exultation nor deep depression, incapable of sustained effort or serious worry. Edouard adored Emilie, Emilie adored Edouard, and all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
The man who was to be my father having decided—and he had both will and charm—that Mlle. Rau should be his wife, managed to have her sent to a boarding-school at Stuttgart, so that she might complete her education. Mlle. Rau was then fourteen years old. Two years later she became Madame Japy. Her husband was then twenty-five.
I do not intend to sketch here the history of the Japys of Beaucourt; but after having given a few details about my parents, I may add a few about my grandparents, if only to satisfy the curiosity of those who believe as much in atavism as in heredity.
The first Japys who "matter" were two brothers, the grandfather and great-uncle of my father. The one, an inventor of genius, at first turned his attention to clocks and then to all kinds of machine tools—screwing, planing, riveting, bolting, boring, and so on. He created; his brother organised. The first had ideas; the second rendered them practical and profitable. I will not say any more about the financier and company-promoter, but the following story about the inventor is well worth telling: He had built for himself a small house, "on stilts," as it were. Below the floor of the large and only room, there was nothing but—air, and then the grass of the meadow. The inventor reached his retreat with the help of a rope ladder, which he withdrew when he had climbed up to his famous "idea-room." There, safe from intrusion, he worked, day after day, and for his meals was satisfied with a little bread and cheese. It was generally dark before he returned to earth and joined his wife, who, I have been told, was strikingly beautiful.
Later, the children of those two brothers, developed the already important undertaking of their fathers, and gradually the firm Japy FrÈres became what it is to-day, one of the largest and strongest industrial concerns in France.
I was educated by resident governesses and professors. One of the governesses, questioned thirty-five years later, was to declare that at the age of five, I used to lie a good deal but that I succeeded in being forgiven, thanks to my "talents as an actress."
At my trial in the Paris Assize Court, the Public Prosecutor made a great deal out of this evidence, and saw therein a sure sign of my precocious depravity.
Personally, I believe that all normal children tell fibs, more or less, and I am delighted to think that I was a normal little girl. As for my talent as an actress, I have since seen too many little girls of five to believe seriously in it. I smile, and I proceed....
My father looked after my education with charming care. My brother and my sisters were brought up in boarding-schools, but my school was at home, in a large room on the first floor. I still see that light and beautiful room, overlooking our park, the trees of which, alive with birds, were so often the cause of much inattention to my work. I see the two blackboards, the one covered at regular intervals with detested figures and the other written over with words and sentences or the names of places and people. My father, wearing a stern expression, kept entering the room to see "how the little one was getting on," and invariably had some recommendation to make: "Since you are telling her about the Odyssey, make her follow Ulysses' travels on a map," or "I see you are reading the Iliad, pray insist on Andromache, Hector, Achilles, but skip whenever you come to Nestor; he was a fool and a bore."... "Promise to take her to DomrÉmy if she learns to love Joan of Arc."... "You are studying Napoleon.... Wait one moment, I'll fetch an album of Raffet's drawings for her."... "What, you are drawing in this room, in this weather! Run down into the garden: that's the ideal place where to draw"... and I always thought my father was absolutely right.
There was a large globe in my schoolroom, and quite a library of travel-books. Ah! the tropics, the flowers, the birds! Ah! to see the birds of Paradise in Borneo, or humming-birds in Brazil! To gather orchids in Central Africa or in Queensland... I adore two rivers: the Orinoco and the Brahmaputra, and two mountains: Kilimanjaro and Popocatapetl, because of their extraordinary names! My favourite heroes were Hannibal and—Napoleon, of course.
My father began to teach me the violin when I was four, and the piano and the organ the following year. He had his own ideas on the education of girls, but applied them to me only. When I was a mere child, he taught me to bow, to arrange flowers, and to recognise and appreciate things beautiful, ancient or rare—old furniture, old tapestries, old china, old pewter. He showed me the hall-marks on silver, he made me caress cameos and enamel-work and touch embroideries and old lace reverently. He made me go up and down a staircase ten, twenty times in succession: "You see, darling, any one can go down steps without being ridiculous, but to go up a staircase, that's another matter. Now then, come down—that's it—raise your head—go slowly—like a queen in books of long ago. Look as though you came down from Heaven and had wings, and didn't press upon the carpet!" And he added gaily, "when I go down a staircase, I feel as if I were an emperor descending towards his loving people! You ought to imagine a long train behind you, held by two little eighteenth-century negroes, twenty steps above." And the lessons went on again: "Now walk upstairs. Lightly, lightly, little one! Don't move your arms. Now turn your head round ... Ah! there's a pretty picture! By the way, you must dress your hair in another way. And what is that gold bracelet round your wrist! A flower, that's the only jewel you may wear at present, Mademoiselle!"
He designed my dresses, and later on he insisted that I should learn to make them myself. He gave me a riding-master, a violin teacher and a piano teacher, besides the various governesses who taught me the "other things," but it was with him and through him that I learned the little I have learned. His was a beautiful life, and there sang in my young heart those words which my father often whispered in my ear: "I love you every day more than yesterday and less than to-morrow." I looked upon my father as a kind of marvellously beneficent Deity. Sometimes I heard it said that he was "not practical," but I pitied those who criticised him. If he hated to calculate, that was his own affair, after all! Though warned of the catastrophe which never befell him, he remained cheerful, kind and generous. Our house was known as "La Maison du Bon Dieu." Every one was welcome there, and my father, who was a gourmet, and had a remarkable chef, treated his guests to feasts worthy of Lucullus, and to the best wines in his cellars—under one condition, invariably the same: that they should listen to the concert in the drawing-room, afterwards.
My father kept my mother's whole family, paid the debts of his friends, and did his utmost to assist any one and every one. Whenever he passed through a village round Beaucourt, men, women, and children would appear at the windows or doors of their cottages, and greet him with a sign, a word, or a smile of gratitude. And I used to sit as close to him as possible, in the trap; I was proud and happy and felt like shouting to the good villagers: "You know, he is my daddy!"
Dear father! they were to slander him, too, at my trial. A member of his own family asserted that he was a brute and a drunkard. And when I revolted against such an abominable statement, my counsel tried to appease me. "Don't take any notice," he muttered. "The statement, it seems, has been made to save you at any cost. Being the daughter of a drunkard, you could be considered, to some extent, as irresponsible. It was tactics, not an insult!"
In my memory I can see next to my father the lovable figure of M. Doriand, my parents' "old" and my "great" friend.
M. Doriand was a professor in the Empress's College for girls at Moscow, and his conversation was a rare delight. He came every year to spend his holidays with us. He remained three months at Beaucourt, and during the rest of the year sent us a long letter every week. In the summer, when he was with us, he made me read over again all the lessons I had taken since the previous summer, and he discussed them so wittily and opened up to me such new horizons, retold me history in such a fascinating and personal manner, and managed to render mathematics so interesting, that I never thought of complaining of the unusual way of making me spend my holidays.
Then he painted very well, and gave me lessons in watercolours. He developed in me such a keen taste for art that later on my father decided I should attend an art school.
My "great friend" or my "grandpapa from Russia," as I often called him, had exquisite manners. When, many years later, I became what is called a "woman of the world," and even a Paris "Society Queen," if I may quote a term so often applied to me, I was able to judge the various types of people who composed that Society and their manners, and I realised then that M. Doriand did not belong to his time. He had the exquisite politeness of the "honest" people of the grand siÈcle. I still see him bowing with easy grace whenever he met my mother, my sisters or me. Never did a vulgar or trivial word pass from his lips. He loved what he called, not "beautiful" French, but "good" French. He had for the most humble the same little attentions and the same gentle and old-time courteousness as for his peers. He addressed his aged sister, who resided near Beaucourt, as he would have a queen, for he believed that nowhere more than in the home were perfect manners and courteous speech more becoming, and that to no one more than to his own people did a man owe respect. He took off his hat when he met the women about the farm, and never kept it on in a shop. He spoke slowly and softly, and cultivated the mot propre (the exact word). It was a joy to hear him, as much to the ear as to the mind. As long as I remained under his influence, I tried to speak as he did; but destiny took me to Paris, where, alas! they speak Parisian, not French.
My grandpapa from Russia seemed to know everything and to be able to do anything. He would, for instance, talk to me for an hour about a tragedy of Voltaire, which he afterwards compared with a tragedy of his beloved Racine; or perhaps a book by some little known Russian author, whom he placed far above the work of many celebrated writers—German, French or English. Then he would suddenly tell me the life of a plant at our feet or the story of the stone on which he sat. Afterwards, we would go to the kitchen, and there he taught me how to prepare some kind of soup or sweet dish À la Russe. When this was over we would go to the music-room and there I had to sing or play to him an air by Mozart, GlÜck, Lulli, or Rameau. He used to say: "You will play the music of Beethoven and Wagner (he, like my father, had already recognised Wagner's genius) when you are older. One must have suffered and loved to understand these geniuses." He taught me to sculpture, to bind books, to solder....
My father joined us and said: "My dear Doriand, you are monopolising my daughter. You have had her to yourself the whole morning."
"How dare you complain," the other retorted; "you have her the whole of the year."
How delightfully they spoiled me, those two dear souls, and how coquettish they made me! I recall them sitting on an old rustic bench in the large avenue of chestnut-trees. I felt that they were talking about me, and I ran into the house to put on my most becoming dress, and then went out and walked up and down slowly, with a book in my hand, and not too far from them, and knowing all the while that their eyes were following me! There did not seem to be any harm in this, but one day, my mother catching me at my little game, scolded me and my father and his old friend much more.... As a rule, when my dear mother scolded them, my father went to the organ and improvised a war-march and M. Doriand, standing near him, turned imaginary pages. My mother could not help laughing and we guilty three did the same, of course.
I had two sisters, Juliette, the eldest—who, when I was a little girl, became the wife of M. Herr, an engineer then residing in Bayonne, where, later, I met M. Steinheil—and Mimi, younger than I by four years, who was my mother's favourite, just as I was my father's. I had also a brother, Julien, who enlisted in an infantry regiment at Belfort and became there the friend of M. Sheffer, who was to be my fiancÉ of a few months.
We rose early at Beaucourt. After a quick breakfast and an hour given to recreation in the park, or to the care of my flowers—like my parents, I had a passion for flowers, especially hydrangea and roses—I went to the schoolroom for my lessons. The afternoon was divided between study, games and household duties. In the evening, after dinner, we had music in the large salon, the very one which during the war, the Germans sacked and threw into confusion.... Ah! it was awe-inspiring to hear my father describe their stay at the "castle" and tell us how this splendid drawing-room had been turned by those "Prussians" into a kitchen, the grand piano into a larder and the precious curtains of antique red damask into horse blankets and dish-cloths....
There was always a large number of guests at home. The three-storied house had forty rooms and they were more often occupied than empty. Our evening concerts were my father's great joy. He sat at the organ, the enormous and rubicund Mme. Koger, my piano teacher, settled down at the piano, I took my violin and three or four musicians from Belfort, violinists and 'cellists, completed our little orchestra.
During the winter—and the winter is extremely sharp in that part of France—we used to skate on the Rhone-Rhine Canal, or we went for long rides in a sleigh, on the roads deep in snow. And then, we tobogganned. A "train" of tobogganners was formed at the top of a hill with a "captain" at its head; we rushed at break-neck speed down the hill-side, the train broke up, the toboggans overturned and hurled us into the snow, when a free fight ensued over the responsibility for the accident. I generally triumphed over my cousins, both boys and girls, and was rather proud of it!
Had the examining magistrate in charge of my case known this detail, he would no doubt have come to the conclusion that, since, as a child, I was strong enough to be victorious, with snowballs, over my playmates, it was clear that, as a woman, I must have been strong enough to commit the horrible crimes of which he accused me!
Winter also brought with it an increased number of visits, to the sick and poor, and as my mother never allowed me to give them anything that I had not worked at myself, not a day passed without our devoting at least one or two hours to preparing warm clothes for the needy. As for my father, he had a wonderful knack of saying and doing the right thing whenever he called on the people he looked after, and this made it one of my happiest occupations to accompany him on this round of mercy.
Christmas was a great day to us. The Christmas tree, which my father always uprooted himself—it was almost a ceremony with him—was first lit up for the family, then for the servants and farmhands, and a third time for the poor people who came in crowds from the neighbouring villages, and whom my parents received one after another with a word of welcome and a pleasant personal remark which at once put them at their ease.
On January 1 we paid "morning" calls until 2 P.M. In all the houses where we went, the hosts and hostesses wished to detain my father for "at least an hour," for he was gay and charming, good to look upon and his kindness was proverbial... but he refused: "No, no—I must go, my dear friends; I have still so many visits to pay—for instance, I must call on this rascal here (and he laughingly dealt a blow at a friend close to him) whom I have already passed three times on the road and met in five drawing-rooms this morning. But there you are, I must, mustn't I, you rogue, express my good wishes for a happy New Year to him in his own house—and to think that afterwards I shall meet him again in half a dozen places and that, to cap it all, I will have to go home to receive him, so that he may return my good wishes. Ah! the old traditions!..."
Then came the family dinner, which lasted till the evening and the day ended with... music, of course. While we played, my mother slumbered peacefully in a fine old arm-chair, where once had sat my great-grandmother, the beautiful wife of the inventor.... But we went to bed early, for on the previous night we had hardly slept at all.
In fact, a few minutes before midnight, on December 31, songs rose under the windows of the "castle"—beautiful songs, simple, broad-winged, with words which varied a little from year to year, but with music centuries old, and always the same, for it could not have been improved upon. Then, surrounded by their children and their servants, my parents received the singers on the threshold of their house. The singers shook the snow from their coats and their fur caps, took off their wooden shoes, shook hands with us all, and the feast began. My father distributed among them baskets of apples and walnuts, whole hams, strings of sausages, sacks of potatoes, and Alsatian cakes. And when the good people had gone and their voices could no longer be heard—my father wrapped me up in furs and we went together to look at the snow. And somehow, it always seemed more wonderful and more blue to us on New Year's night. My father told me marvellous tales and I did not feel sleepy at all. But an hour later, assuming a gruff voice, he exclaimed: "What does this mean, Mademoiselle? Still up at three in the morning at your age." When he had gently carried me in his arms to my room, he said: "Go quickly to sleep, 'Puppele' (an Alsatian expression meaning 'little doll'), mother would be angry if she knew."
Mother knew perfectly well, for she had been waiting by the fireside in the dining-room and she never retired without having seen me in my bed and kissed me. But she was not angry on this occasion, and with her sweet, indulgent philosophy she said: "After all, there is but one First of January in the year."
On Sundays we attended service in the Temple of Beaucourt. The district is a Protestant one, a very Protestant one indeed. My first pastor was old M. Cuvier, a descendant of the great naturalist Baron Cuvier, who died in 1832.
He was very handsome and impressive, was Pastor Cuvier, with his mane of white hair and his gleaming eyes under the bushy eyebrows. My father used to tell me that he looked like Liszt, whom he had met on several occasions in Germany and Hungary, and in Paris. The old clergyman was a great orator, and although I did not always understand what he said, I loved to listen to him. He often called on us, and, in order to tease him, my father, a staunch Huguenot but broad-minded and endowed with a sense of humour, made him sit at the table next to the Catholic priest of Beaucourt. At the beginning of the dinner the two men hardly dared look at one another, and could hardly eat, much to my mother's alarm.... M. Cuvier said, "Let us not talk religion," and the priest added, "Nor politics." My father remarked, "You are both quite right"... and forthwith he started eulogising Darwin's theories and explaining to his two guests the law of natural selection and how it was quite evident that "each species was not independently created."... But all ended well, thanks to the good-humour of my father, the smiling grace of my mother, and the excellent wines and liqueurs in our cellars.
Old Pastor Cuvier was very kind to me. He often received me at his house, which stood opposite the wood in our estate. He had in his library all the works of his illustrious ancestor, and writing down the names on a slip of paper, which I have kept through all these years, he made me promise that I would read, when I was grown-up, the "Tableau ElÉmentaire de l'Histoire Naturelle des Animaux" and the "RÈgne Animal distribuÉ d'aprÈs son Organisation." I promised, of course, but did not keep my promise. May the two Cuviers, the naturalist and the pastor, forgive me!
M. Cuvier was fond of relating some episodes—within my understanding—of the Revolution and the First Empire. He talked about the Terror as though he had lived through those dreadful days, and about Napoleon as though he had known him intimately. We went several times to MontbÉliard together to visit the Cuvier Museum there, and he would stand in contemplation before the great man's enormous and very dirty cap. And my pastor would exclaim: "What a head! What a head!"
He so often talked to me about a certain book by Cuvier on elephants that the thought of elephants haunted me and I begged my father to show me one. And so it was that I went, when I was a little girl, to Paris. The elephant I saw there pleased me very much, although I would have liked it to have been more savage; and, in spite of a ride on the back of the great beast, I was somewhat disappointed.
My pastor was very, very old, and his son came to assist him in his work, but both left Beaucourt after a short time. The son, like thousands of Protestants in the Jura and Switzerland at the time, was a Monodist, and believed that Monod, the great preacher and revivalist, was Christ himself.... M. Cuvier died in Switzerland. A new pastor came to Beaucourt, M. Bach, and I became in time the organist of his church and the leader of the choir.
Three times a week the band organised by my father came to rehearse at our house. Chamber-music did not quite satisfy him, and he had founded this band, which numbered forty-five musicians. Ah! those rehearsals. When the weather was fair they took place under the chestnut trees, but if it rained or snowed the "forty-five" and their conductor would gather in the main drawing-room of the "castle," where two hundred people could have been seated comfortably, or in the dining-room, to the pathetic despair of my mother, who would ask my father: "Don't you think, Edouard, that your band is just a little too noisy?" My father kissed her laughingly, flourished the baton, and the rehearsal began.
One of my father's greatest delights, and mine, too, was to travel together. After my fourteenth birthday he took me to Italy, to Germany, and to Switzerland, where we went round the LÉman (he forbade me to say Lake of Geneva); and, of course, we continued to pay our periodical visits to Belfort, Nancy and BÂle.
It was in Belfort that I heard an opera for the first time. This was Faust. My father, who was a friend of Gounod, had told me all kinds of things about Gounod's "nice" music, but I was not half as impressed as I thought I should be. Perhaps it was because Faust was too stout, because Valentine sang too loudly as he died, because Mephistopheles was not diabolical enough, and perhaps, too, owing to the fact that Marguerite's spinning-wheel, having been mislaid, had been replaced at the eleventh hour by a—sewing-machine. And to think that they could have found a spinning-wheel in almost any house of the neighbourhood!
It was also at Belfort that I met M. Thiers, with whom my father was well acquainted. This "meeting" took place, I believe, in 1877. I had to hand a huge bouquet to M. Thiers. Every one was calling him "The Liberator and the Saviour of France," and those words so fixed themselves in my mind that I quite forgot the little speech I had learned by heart; and when M. Thiers stepped from his carriage, I handed him the bouquet and said, "There you are, Mr. Saviour" (Monsieur le Sauveur). The little fat and ugly man with the round head, the beady eyes, and the spectacles, took the bouquet, lifted me up and kissed me. Later on he spent an evening at our house, and naturally I asked for a story. Thereupon, describing some wonderful ceremony, he mentioned Napoleon, sixteen horses drawing a funeral car, and a magnificent palace with a golden cupola, near the Seine, in Paris.... And years later, I realised that Thiers had been telling me about the translation of Napoleon's ashes to the Invalids, in the days of King Louis-Philippe, when he was Prime Minister.
We used to go for long walks or rides, my father and I. We both loved to feel the wind in our faces, and we took joy in the smell of the earth, the smell of grass, the voice of the trees. Often he went out without me, but as soon as I was free from my work I went in search of him, fastening the ribbons of my big straw hat as I ran over hill and dale. Instinct led me in the right direction, and in time I found him, and rushing up, rested in his arms, which was ever my way of greeting him. We returned home together, and on the way never failed to admire our favourite old trees, to linger by the lakes we liked best, to gather ferns and foxglove, and to go at least once round the greenhouses.
And we had endless surprises, and we laughed at everything, often for no reason at all. A word, a common thought, the shape of a leaf or of a cloud, sent us into fits of ecstasy or laughter. And my father would kiss me and whisper: "We get on well together, we two, don't we, Puppele;" and I would answer: "I love you, my daddy."
"Quite right, too," he would say. "Try to love me as long as you possibly can. A father like the one you own is worth all the husbands in the world."
What happy days! What a lovely life! How everything smiled on me, how everything seemed good and simple.... Alas! a few years later disenchantment was to begin, bringing in its wake, temptations, weaknesses, struggles and sorrows; and finally the whole fabric of my life was to be brought crashing down in a terrible, "sensational" drama....
I fear that this note of poignant sadness and regret will sound again and again in these pages like a melancholy and distressing leit-motiv.... But how could it be otherwise? How could I fail to realise, in an intensely painful and bitter manner, all that I have lost and all that I have suffered unjustly, when I recall my childhood and my radiant youth, and the days spent in Beaucourt with a mother infinitely loving and a father passionately devoted, and when I compare those years of happiness with the feverish, tangled years that followed and that resulted, after the appalling catastrophe in which I lost my husband and my mother, both foully done to death, in my being tried and imprisoned in Paris on a double charge of murder.
CHAPTER II
YOUTH—MY FATHER'S DEATH—MY MARRIAGE
I MADE my dÉbut in society at seventeen. The circle was quite small, for there were Japys and ramifications of the Japys wherever we went, and, of course, as I knew them all, they were nothing new to me. It was only in Belfort that I met people whom I did not know. They were, however, for the most part only passing acquaintances that I made, for my parents guarded their "Puppele" most jealously....
I remember my first ball at Belfort. I wore a very simple gown, made of tulle in three shades of blue, and had a spray of apple-blossom in my hair and another at my waist. My father, taking a seat where he could survey the whole room, said gaily to me: "Meg (an affectionate diminutive for Marguerite), I distrust all these young men. Your entrance has caused a sensation, and all the officers of the garrison are staring at you. I hate it, but, on the other hand, I would have been furious if my daughter had passed unnoticed.... I allow you to dance... with your brother."
Julien was now a second lieutenant, having left the military school of Saint-Maixent, where he had passed brilliantly through his examinations. I admired him very much in his new uniform, and, besides, I had a deep affection for this big brother of mine, who was bright, witty, a little irresponsible, and very much of a mauvais sujet.
During the whole of the evening we danced together, under the amused eyes of my father, who, surrounded by a small crowd of officers of all ranks who were anxious to dance with me, said to them: "Gentlemen, you may sit down by my side. I will not forbid you to look at my daughter and I am even willing to introduce you to her; but she absolutely refuses to dance with any one but her brother, and you know the proverb: 'Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut'" (Woman's will, God's will).
I asked my father later on: "What have you against dancing, and why am I allowed to dance only with my brother? Did you, in your time, dance only with your sister?"
He did not reply directly to my question, but said: "I only care for slow, graceful, stately dances—dances from a distance, such as the minuet, the gavotte, or the pavane, in which the partners only touch fingers."
"But, father," I said, mischievously, "have you never danced modern dances—polka, mazurkas, valses?"
He assumed the expression of a child "caught in the act," and, with head bent down, whispered, as though he were making a confession: "The truth is I have loved, and still love dancing, any dancing, and I have spent whole nights dancing!" Then, raising his head, he added: "Only, you see, when one loves, one is illogical, and you don't know, my 'Puppele,' how I love you."
My mother said that my father's attitude was not fair to me, and that it was not right to close our door, as he seemed to wish to do, to all men under forty. We entertained more than ever, and at our evenings I played and sang... with my father. I saw a new meaning in our love-duets; I was a little intoxicated, my imagination ran loose, I sang with more feeling than I had done before.... And my parents were overwhelmed with suitors for my hand. My father consulted me, although he had quite made up his mind to do as he pleased in the matter. I always said "no," and he exclaimed: "Ah! how right you are.... It is really wonderful what a sensible daughter I have!... When you are twenty we will talk of marriage. Meanwhile, think a little of your father."
"A little!" When I thought of no one but of him! The following year he said the same thing to me, but with a slight alteration: "When you are twenty-one..." And I gently pinched his ear, as Napoleon did to his grenadiers.
MY FATHER MY MOTHER
MY FATHER MY MOTHER
And I did listen, the more readily because it would have been impossible for me to have caused this father whom I worshipped the slightest pain.
It was about this time that I noticed that my father, in spite of his good humour, was not so happy as he pretended to be. He had long hours of despondency. Perhaps this was nothing new, but I had not noticed it before. Heedless childhood observes things rather than people. His nature knew revolts and disappointments of which I was dimly aware, although I did not understand them. I believe that, intensely artistic and imaginative as he was, he had formed an ideal which became more and more unattainable. Besides, he was a man of great enthusiasm and strong emotions, a man who put all his force and feeling into everything he did. His joys were ecstatic, his sorrows abysmal. The slightest trouble became, in his sensitive heart, unbearable grief, but on the other hand, music, a gallop over the countryside, the strong, pure light of heaven, a favourite book, a kind word, a colour-scheme ... these things intoxicated him like wine. My mother, calm and sweet, knew no such emotion and was incapable of passion. My father told her that nothing could be great without passion, but she shook her head and said in her quiet way: "I have no temperament. I shall never be an artist or a poet. I like the earth and feel comfortable on it... and please don't be angry with me, mon ami." And with much common sense she would add: "You love to suffer ... that's your trouble."
Sometimes, my father would improvise on the organ in order to forget his troubles and to relieve his sorrow—the worst of all sorrows because it was without cause—and his music was so inexpressibly mournful that it wrung my heart. Or he would strike the ivory keys fiercely, almost viciously, as though he were trying to crush his grief. I always tried to console him and often succeeded.
Between those fits of depression, he was merry as ever, and fairly radiated vitality around him, so much so that I could feel in an empty room whether he had just been there or not.
In the summer-time there was a constant going to and fro of people, and we made up many large parties of relations and friends. Often the officers of the neighbouring garrisons joined us and organised games and rallies (a kind of paper chase on horseback). And at other times we made excursions to the beauty spots of that beautiful part of France, to the Ballon d'Alsace, the Saut du Doubs.... My father and my brother were of course present, and my dogs, two big Danes and two Saint Bernards, followed me everywhere. In the winter, we hunted the boar near Mulhausen.
It was when I was seventeen that I had my first love-affair. As I have stated, my brother's best comrade was M. Sheffer, now, like Julien, a lieutenant at Belfort. I had known M. Sheffer for several years, and he often came to Beaucourt. My parents thought him charming and clever, and I thought the same—gradually there grew between us a kind of poetical intimacy. He wrote verses for me, and I learned them by heart; we read together under an oak-tree or by the cascade in the park, and, one evening, between two songs, Edouard—his name was Edouard, like my father—told me that he loved me.
His mother, a widow, came from Geneva, where she lived, to see us. My parents and I were at once drawn to this modest and gifted lady, with her silvery hair and her smooth pure brow. My father, who had a sincere affection for Lieut. Sheffer, would not make any promises, however, and when I told him that I was fond of "Edouard" he uttered vague words.... But he allowed him to come to see me, and he even promised that we should write to each other, from time to time.
A year later, my father quite unexpectedly told me that I must "try to forget young Sheffer." He could not consent to the marriage.... I was too young, he was too poor.... And the thought that I should marry an officer, who might be called upon, at any moment, to move from one garrison to another, did not please my father. And he concluded, gently: "Believe me, 'Puppele,' it will be wiser to part as soon as possible. You'll soon forget this little idyl. You are still but a babe; your whole life lies before you.... In order that you may forget the more easily, I will send you on a holiday to Bayonne with my son-in-law (M. Heir, my eldest sister's husband, who was then spending a few days at Beaucourt)." I was broken-hearted.
A few days later, I went with my brother-in-law to Lieut. Sheffer, and handed back to him whom I had for a year considered my fiancÉ, the letters he had sent me, and received in return those I had written to him.
I saw Lieut. Sheffer once again, and it was in the following terms that he described that final meeting, to the examining magistrate in January 1909: "Wishing to see Marguerite once more, I drove to MontbÉliard [where the train was to pass that would take M. Herr and me to the South]. I wore civilian clothes and had a marguerite in my button hole.... It is a childish detail, but I haven't forgotten it. I was able to exchange one last glance with her. I never saw her again...."
Thus ended this pretty romance, so tender and so pure, but one which, like every page of the book of my life, like every one of my actions and words, was to be interpreted in an unfavourable way, during my examination and at my trial. My past was searched, pried into, ransacked and misconstrued, and even this naÏve and delightful romance, with my first emotions and my first dreams, was not spared, and failed to find grace in the sight of my tormentors. As my counsel declared in court: "They tried to find out, not only whether there had been intimate relations between Mlle. Japy and Lieut. Sheffer, but even whether, such relations being proved, a child was not born, who, having years later become an Apache, committed the double murder of the Impasse Ronsin, and spared his own mother!"
Nothing, however, it need hardly be said, was found against M. Sheffer or myself... except one thing! It appeared that I had once spent six days in BÂle, and this was at once construed into an elopement with M. Sheffer. But exhaustive investigations established the fact that the lieutenant was away at the time attending manoeuvres, and it was finally discovered that the elopement to BÂle was nothing more serious than the visit of my mother and myself to the dentist, there being none in Beaucourt!
It was at the Paris Court of Assize, in November 1909, more than twenty years after the end of my short-lived engagement, that I met once more the man who had been the hero of my first love-dream. I was sitting in the dock, on the "bench of infamy," as barristers call it, accused of having murdered my mother and my husband, and Major Sheffer came to the witness's "bar" in the well of the court and told our innocent little romance of long ago.
My dream was broken. Life did not seem worth living.... But youth soon forgets. "We are not even capable of being unhappy a long time," Pascal said.
I spent two months in Bayonne and Biarritz, wrote every week to my parents, and received nearly every day long and delightful letters from my father.
Then, suddenly, I heard that my father had died. While drinking a glass of icy water he had fallen stone dead... of heart failure. It was on November 14th, 1888. I was nineteen years old. I thought I should lose my reason. They put me in the train and I reached Beaucourt, too late, alas, to see once more the beloved face of my father. He had already been laid in his coffin.
My father had been loved by all, and the Beaucourt temple was crowded at his funeral. All the musical societies of the neighbourhood came to pay him a last honour, and, massed together, they played Chopin's funeral march.... My poor mother was so prostrated with grief that she was unable to attend the funeral.... I will not say any more about a day which was one of the most painful in my life.... Besides, I was so numb with grief that my memory of it is blurred.
During the days that followed, everything at home was thrown into such confusion, and the sight of all that my father had touched or loved was so distressing to me, that I begged my mother to let me leave Beaucourt for a while.... She raised her tear-stained face and said pitifully: "And I?" I felt ashamed of my selfishness, and we fell into each other's arms... and, of course, I thought no more of going away....
Mimi, my younger sister, was ill, and I should have fallen ill too, had I not had to nurse her and my mother. When they recovered, I spent whole days in the woods and by the lakes in our estate, in all those hallowed spots where my father and I spent so many unforgettable hours together.
For a year I was unable to take my violin from its case, or to open the piano. Everything was changed, and I felt like a lost soul.
Towards the end of the summer of 1889, I went to Paris with my sisters, to visit the Exhibition. Mme. Herr, who had come to Beaucourt to fetch me, had spoken a great deal to my mother about a great friend of hers, a certain M. Steinheil, a nephew of Meissonier, and I had been asked to go to Bayonne later on with the Herrs.
We stayed six weeks in Paris and as true "Provincials," anxious to see everything, we entered the Exhibition as soon as the gates were thrown open and left it at night only when we found ourselves almost too tired to stand. This lasted for a month, and then it occurred to me that there was something else to see in Paris besides the Exhibition.
I had not been in Paris since the time when I had gone there with my father to see a live elephant, and I drank in the beauties of the capital with avidity, under the happy guidance of a friend who was both an artist and antiquarian.
We went, on a certain Sunday, to a concert, and I heard for the first time Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, of which my father used to say: "If the whole of music were to be destroyed and forgotten, and only one work left, that work ought to be the 'Ninth.'"
When I returned to Beaucourt I found my mother had started on the building of large, sumptuous and extremely expensive greenhouses. We begged her in vain to have the work stopped. My mother loved building, and, as she said herself: "Every human being has his disease. Your father's was loving to suffer. I have the 'stone' disease. I love bricks, cement, sand, stone. To build has become my passion and at my age, you don't get cured of your passions."
A few days later, my mother, somewhat anxious about my health, suggested that I should go to Bayonne with the Herrs, and spend a few weeks in the South.
During the journey, they told me all kinds of wonderful things about M. Steinheil, to whom, they admitted, they had often spoken of me, and who was now in Bayonne, decorating the cathedral there.
At my sister's I was shown the photograph of the painter, a shortish man of at least forty, thin, with small eyes, a dark moustache, and a pointed beard. "No, thank you!" I exclaimed, "I'd never dream of marrying a man like that. Why, I'd look as though I were his daughter!"
I was, however, persuaded to meet him. One day, my sister said to me: "To-morrow, we'll go to Biarritz to have tea with some friends."
"All right," I replied, "while you are with your friends, I will play with my nieces on the sands."
The next day, just as we were going to board the narrow-gauge train which connects Bayonne with Biarritz, I saw my brother-in-law walk up to a small man, clean-shaven save for his moustache, and wearing a frock-coat that was far too long for him. I did not recognise him as the painter of the photographs. The two men came towards me and M. Herr introduced M. Steinheil to me. At that time I was still as frank and as impulsive as a child, and could not help remarking on the artist's changed appearance. Quite confused, he explained: "My beard was getting grey and I decided to shave it—yesterday."
In the train, my sister scolded me. "You have laughed at this poor M. Steinheil, and you have hurt his feelings. He is abnormally shy, but he is a charming fellow, a great artist, and the pupil of his uncle Meissonier whose talent you admire so much."
I rose and walked straight to M. Steinheil: "It appears I have hurt you," I said quite simply. "Please forgive me. You must not be angry. I always say what I think, and after all, what do I care whether you wear a beard or not!"
My sister, in despair, tugged at my skirt, but the painter said: "I admire your sincerity, Mademoiselle. Frank and impulsive people are becoming so rare nowadays."
He didn't please me at all.
I saw M. Steinheil very often after this first, uneventful meeting. And then, one day, I was persuaded to go to the Cathedral to see him at work. His conversation interested me very much, but I could not help teasing him.
I had pictured him wearing a black velvet coat or in ordinary attire, but this is what I saw when I entered the Cathedral: a tiny man lost in a white smock, like a house-painter, holding a gigantic palette, and perched on the top of a huge scaffolding.
I burst out laughing in spite of the solemnity of the place. M. Steinheil wheeled round, saw us, dropped his brushes and his palette, which fell noisily on to the flagstones beneath, came down from the scaffolding at top speed, and, when he reached the ground, greeted me with a number of quick, jerky little bows, all of the same depth, just as I had seen President Carnot bow in Paris a few weeks before. Meanwhile, my little nieces and I were forcing our handkerchiefs in our mouths.
Disconcerted, M. Steinheil took off his smock... and we had a fresh surprise. I thought that underneath that smock he was dressed like any man, but no, he wore a thick knitted brown sweater over his waistcoat, and that sweater reached down to his knees and gave him a most comical appearance.
We went slowly round the Cathedral, and the painter described to me all the frescoes, those that were the work of his father and those he had himself just completed. He spoke about his father with such feeling that, remembering my own father, I became quite serious, and thenceforth listened with keen attention to all that M. Steinheil said.
Afterwards, we examined the stained glass windows. "That is a branch of art," he said, "to which I have devoted many months. My father was master of it, and handed me his secrets. There is, for instance, a certain antique red which he alone knew how to produce—and now I am the only person who knows. It was my father who restored the windows of Strasburg Cathedral and of that Gothic gem, the Sainte Chapelle in Paris." And with obvious joy he added: "The great Ruskin himself wrote about my father's windows in the Sainte Chapelle where the whole story of the Bible is painted: 'So well has M. Steinheil matched the colours that it is not easy to distinguish between the modern glass and the little that still remains of the thirteenth century.'"
I began gradually to be interested in the artist.... He came and dined with my sister and I tried to be more kind to him and promised I would never tease him when he spoke to me on art.... A few days later, M. Steinheil added himself to my list of suitors, which already included two officers, a barrister, a wealthy nobleman, a lecturer, and a stout manufacturer. I felt no affection for any of them, but it was undoubtedly with M. Steinheil that I preferred to talk. We chatted not only of art and of Paris, but of Beaucourt and my mother. He told me the story of his life, of his career.... I heard he had "brought up" his sisters, and soon found that his timidity and reserve did not mean—far from it—a lack of intelligence and generous feelings.
He gave me painting lessons and spent more time at my sister's house than at the Cathedral. He became smarter in his dress: changed his necktie every day and shortened his frock-coat.
I was given to understand that he had intended to leave Bayonne for his home—at No. 6, Impasse Ronsin in Paris—eight days after my arrival. I remained six weeks in Bayonne, and he did not leave the town until the day after my departure. His friends chaffed him about this constantly protracted delay, but he replied with his usual far-away voice: "There is a fold in the cloak of my Saint Martin which is not yet finished." That never-completed fold almost became a proverb afterwards.
I returned to Beaucourt with my brother-in-law, and was overjoyed at being once more near my mother.... Alas, during my absence, she had not only gone on with the building of the great greenhouses, but had started upon a luxurious piggery, large enough for hundreds of pigs, and I heard she had been with an architect to an estate near Mulhausen, where she had inspected the famous model farm of a German prince, an exact replica of which she wanted to have built at Beaucourt.
Twice a week I received painting lessons by post. I sent my work to M. Steinheil, in Paris, and he returned it to me duly corrected and with pages of comment, which I eagerly read. The "Parisian painter," as my mother said, "had already a place in my thoughts."
Then, without warning, his letters ceased... after one in which he had mentioned that he was unwell.
In January 1890, my mother was visited by my aunt, Mme. Octave Japy, who brought a letter from M. Boch, an intimate friend of the Steinheils and the Meissoniers. In his letter M. Boch said, that after having seen how ill Adolphe (Steinheil) was, he had talked with the Steinheil family and had discovered that the painter "had no longer any desire to live," that he was desperately in love with Mlle. Japy, but dared not ask for her hand, as he knew only too well "that she would receive such a proposal with a shout of laughter." M. Boch's letter—which was handed to me—contained warm eulogies of M. Steinheil and ended as follows: "I should be glad to know whether Mlle. Japy might, some day, consent to become the wife of my old friend, or whether he must give up such hopes."
I was moved, but frankly told my mother that I had never seriously thought of M. Steinheil as a husband. Thereupon my aunt offered to go to Paris "to investigate things."
When she returned, she spoke of M. Steinheil, of his house, his position. Then, gaily, she confessed that she had been rather disconcerted when she had arrived at the villa in the Impasse Ronsin. "I found M. Steinheil," she exclaimed, "wearing a blue sweater and... wooden shoes. It was raining and he was about to walk across the garden to the studio of his brother-in-law who makes stained glass.... He was most sympathetic, however.... Of course he is furious that his little secret has been discovered. He loves you with all his heart and says he would do anything to make you happy.... I promised to talk to you and plead in his favour. I have done so."
I had several long talks with my mother and my aunt.... They both declared that happiness was far safer and lasting with a man of mature years than with the average young man.... And then, I wondered what my father would have thought of such a marriage, and it seemed to me that he would have approved of it.... M. Steinheil seemed grave and kind, two qualities which my father thought essential, and he was a talented artist, to which my father would certainly not have objected. Again, he used to tell me that an ideal married life is only possible when the husband and wife can be a good deal together.... Now M. Steinheil being a painter would spend much of his time at home, in his studio.... And then, the prospect of living in Paris appealed to me, as it did to every girl in our distant province. Finally, every one seemed in favour of that marriage....
Gradually, I saw this projected union in a new light; I grew used to the idea that I might become Mme. Steinheil, and at length I consented to meet the painter in Beaucourt.
He arrived a few days later, put up at my grandmother's, called on us every day and made the acquaintance of the whole family. He pleased every one, and his slow, serene and dignified ways, were in such perfect accord with my mother's character that she asked me how I could hesitate to marry such an ideal man. M. Steinheil's timidity was taken as the delightful sign of a deep love.
He was most attentive to me, spoke so convincingly, though without any passion—of the happiness that would be ours, and seemed so desperately anxious to hear me say "yes" after he had proposed, that I had not the heart to say "no."
Our engagement lasted four months, during which we exchanged letters that became longer and more frequent as the weeks passed by. Such noble feelings were expressed in his letters that I grew more and more happy at the thought of becoming the wife of Adolphe Steinheil.
