My Memoirs Part 50

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 Impa.s.se 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 resume 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. Andre 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 pa.s.sed rapidly over almost anything that he could not. A few instances taken from the Dossier of the _Instruction_--signed by M. Andre, M. Simon, and myself--will ill.u.s.trate my a.s.sertions:

(M. Andre 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. Andre 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. Andre 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 Maitre Aubin's words, when he had said that neither the Government nor the Law wished to have anything to do with my relations with Felix Faure and the mysterious necklace affair. M. Andre, 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. Andre 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-Piete. The "pearl necklace"

affair came out quite accidentally. M. Andre asked me about Brun and the pledged jewels, and I replied that I only remembered Brun having been once to the Mont-de-Piete 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. Andre 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. Andre, 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?"...