THE CHINA MAIL, SEPTEMBER 11, 1939
TO-DAY'S STRANGE STORY, OF REAL PEOPLE
"THE RED WIDOW"
BY AUGUSTUS ST. MARS.
THERE was great excitement at the
Elysee Palace, Paris. Attaches came and went hurriedly. It had been suddenly announced that Francois Felix Faure, President of the Re- public, had dropped dead of apoplexy at 10.15.
of
no
President Faure had been under a severe nervous strain. The Dreyfus scandal had harassed him greatly. So
at first the official announcement the cause of his death aroused skepticism, even in- cynical Paris. Later, however, there gradually leak- ed out rumours that he had met a vio- lent death and that the public had been deceived.
Hor's Was The Most Sensational Of Paris Trials
from
search proved that nearly everything trial, the newspapers described in de- of value had been taken
the tall her studied demeanor designed to exert her old lady. To account for premises.
her conwiles upon judge and jurors. After weeks of suspense, so cruelly trying to her charming daughter, then a young belle of 18, "The Red Widow" was acquitted.
During those times there dwelt in a
After recovering from her injuries, comfortable apartment in Paris a wo-
this remarkable woman, bearing all of man who possessed а voluptuous
the external marks of grief, zealously beauty that brought to her feet many aided the authorities in hunting down She was an object of high officials. She lived in apparent the murderers. harmony with her husband, Adolphe public pity. Suspicion fell upon one He was arrested and Steinheil, an artist; her daughter, Mar- Remy Couillaud. tha, a beautiful child
of 9, and an elderly woman, Madame Japy, whom Madame Steinheil introduced in later years as her mother. Madame Stein- heil had proved so attractive to men high in affairs of government that she readily made herself a political power. In fact, it was said that she became an official spy and that one of her com- missions from the government had been to fascinate the King of Cambo- dia during that dusky monarch's visit to Paris, and hold him in her clutches until he signed a treaty granting France valuable concessions.
even
of Meanwhile, the close scrutiny "The Red Widow's" past life, entailed charged with the doubled murder, but by the investigation connected with
connecting her with a tragedy shortly afterward was acquitted, and her trial, uncovered certain rumours Paris was dumfounded to learn that more serious than the murder of her Madame Steinhell herself had been husband and stepmother. According to in a story alleged to have been told arrested for the dual crime.
confidence by some one in the inner- most circle of the Elysee Palace, Pre- sident Faure had had an important engagement at the palace on the after- noon of February 16, 1899,
Under the ordeal of the third de- a gree, she is alleged to have made draniatic confession that she knew the identity of the slayer of her husband and of Madame Japy. It then became discovered that the latter was not her own mother, but only her stepmother, and thus arose the belief that she had claimed the closer relationship to avert suspicion that she herself had declared Nine years after the death of Pre- killed the fession, allenists sident Faure, or in May, 1908, Paris that Madame Steinheil had been suf- was shocked by the news of a horrible fering from a recognised form of hys- murder in Madame Steinheil's apart- teria which commonly manifests itself ment. The dead bodies of her hus- in extravagant statements of self-in- band and Madame Japy were found criminating character. bound, and in another room Madame Steinhell was discovered gagged and strapped to a bed-post. According to Madame Steinhell's story, told in а straightforward fashion to the police, she had awakened to find several fig- ures wearing masks and gowns enter- ing her room the night before, and a
palace
His non-appearance caused attaches to institute a careful search,
her husband
and Madame Faure became alarmed Certain by their failure to find him. suspicions having for some time been rankling in her bosom, Madame Faure, becoming desperate, proceeded to Ma- dame Steinheil's apartment, and, en- tering suddenly, found dead in a chair, his hands clutching Madame Steinheil's hair. After re- horrible shock, covering from the Madame Faure allegedly collected her wits and, with a great presence of mind, resolved to cover up the stain upon her husband's honour.
Her trial was one of the most sen- sational hearings ever held in Paris. Because of her penchant for wearing red, back in the gay days before her mourning, she became known in the annals of the news as "The Red Wi-
So, summoning some trusted dow." From day to day during the, vants from the palace, she was said to
ser-
have had the President's corpse cover- ed so as to avert suspicion, and after darkness had it smuggled into the Elysee Palace and placed in a chair where it might be discovered by those who later gave the alarm. According to some. Paris papers,:; the postpone- ment of "The Red Widow's" trial for the murders at her apartment had been carefully arranged by the high officials of the government until the statute of limitations had prevented the possibility of an official inquiry into President Faure's death.
After "The Red Widow's" acquittal, her alleged connection with the Pre- sident's murder became gradually for- gotten, and the world will probably never know just how Felix Faure died. Henri Rochefort, in Le Patrie, called attention to the fact that, on the very day of his death, Faure was to have been presented with the decree for the revision of Dreyfus case, and that he to had announced his determination withhold his signature from that do- cument.
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