HEINOUS CRIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 289, 5 December 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

HEINOUS CRIME.

MURDER SUSPECT. NOTED FRENCH BEAUTY. THERE was great excitement at the Elysee Palace, Paris, on the night of February IG, 1599. Attaches came and went hurriedly. It had been suddenly announced that Francois Felix Faure, President of the Republic, had dropped dead of apoplexy at 10.15. President Faure had been under a great nervous strain. The Dreyfus scandal had harassed him greatly. He had passed the half-century milestone, and it had been noted of late that he was careworn and haggard. So at first the official announcement of the cause of his death aroused no scepticism, even in cynical Paris.- 1 ' Later, however, there gradually leaked out rumours that he had not died from the causes stated. There were repeated hints that he had met a violent death and that the public had been deceived. One Paris newspaper declared that he had committed suicide to escape some sort of blackmailing conspiracy.

Madame Steinheil. During those times there dwelt in a comfortable apartment in Paris a woman of wonderful magnetism, who possessed a voluptuous beauty that brought to her feet many high officials. She lived in apparent harmony with her husband, Adoipli© Steinheil, an artist; hei daughter, Martha, a beautiful child of nine; and an elderly woman, Madame Japy, whom Madame Steinheil introduced in later years as her mother. Madame Steinheil had proved so attractive to men in high 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 commissions from the Government had been to fascinate the King of Cambodia during that dusky monarch's visit to Paris, and hold him in her clutches until he signed a treaty granting France valuable concessions. Nine years after the death of President Faure, or in May, 1908, Paris was shocked by the news of a horrible murder in Madame Steinlieil's apartment. The dead bodies of her husband and Madame Japy were found bound, and in another room Madame Steinheil was discovered gagged and strapped to a bedpost. According, to Madame. Steinlieil's story, told in a . straightforward fashion to* the police, she had-awakened to find several .figures wearing masks and gowns entering her room the night before, and a search proved that nearly everything of value had been taken from the premises. , . After recovering from her injuries, this remarkable woman, bearing all of the external- marks of' grief, zealously aided the authorities in hunting down the murderers. She was an object of public pity. Suspicion fell upon one Remy Couillaud. He was arrested and charged with the double murder, but shortly afterwards was acquitted, and Paris was dumbfounded to learn that Madame Steinheil herself had been arrested for the dual crime. Given Third Degree. Under the ordoal of the third degree she is alleged to have made a dramatic confession that she knew the identity of the slayer of her husband and Madame Japy. It then was discovered that the latter was not her own mothc'., but only her stepmother, and thus arose the belief that she had claimed the closer relationship to avert suspicion, that she herself had killed the old- lady. To account for her confession, alienists

declared that Madame Steinlieil had been suffering from a recognised form of hysteria which commonly manifests itself in extravagant statements of a selfincriminating character. Named "The Red Widow." Her trial was one of the most sensational 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 o the news as "The Red Widow." From day to day during the trial, the newspapers described in detail her studied demeanour, designed to exert her wiles upon judge and jurors. After weeks of suspense, so cruelly trying to her charming daughter, now a young belle of 18, "The Red Widow" was acquitted. Meanwhile, the close scrutiny of "The Red Widow's" past life, entailed by the investigation connected with her trial, uncovered certain rumours connecting her w T ith a tragedy even more serious than the murder of her husband and stepmother. According to a story alleged to have been told in confidence by someone in the innermost circle of the Elysee Palace, President Faure had had an important engagement at the palace on the afternoon of February 10, 1899. His non-appearance caused palace attaches to institute a careful search, and Madame Faure became alarmed by their failure to find him. Certain suspicions having for some time been rankling in her bosom, Madame Faure, becoming desperate, proceeded to Madame Steinheil's apartment, and, entering suddenly, found her husband dead in a chair, his hands clutching Madame Steinheil's hair. After recovering from the horrible shock, Madame Faure collected her wits, and, with a great presence of mind, resolved to cover up the stain upon her husband's honour. Body Smuggled into Palace. So, summoning some trusted servants from the palace, she had the President's corpse covered so as to avert suspicion, and after darkness had it smuggled into the Elysee Palace and placed in a chair where it might b| discovered by those who later gave the alarm. According to some Paris papers, the postponement 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 connection with the President's murder became gradually forgotten, and the world will probably never know whether Felix Faure died of apoplexy in his own apartment, whether he committed suicide, or whether he died in Madame Steinheil's apartment after having gone there of his own free will or having been lured there that he might be secretly disposed of. Henri Rochefort, in "Le Patrie," called attention to the fact that, on the very day of his death, President Faure was to have been presented with the decree for the revision of the Dreyfus case, and that he had announced his determination to withhold his signature from that document.