THE SPIRIT AND GENIUS OF MADAME HUMBERT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12242, 11 April 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SPIRIT AND GENIUS OF MADAME HUMBERT.

; Mme. Humbert is herself again. It is a proof of the extraordinary interest the creature creates that a journal like the Figaro practically gives up the whole of two or three of its issues to the trial, and all the staff are put on to describe it. I cannot give more than a, hurried account of the first skirmish in the great battle over the Phantom Millions. M. Cattaui was the plaintiff. It will be remembered by those who have the story that M. Cattaui was the one man who had turned and rent Mine. Humbert; and who, by putting the criminal law in action against her, had succeeded in getting the order for the opening of the famous safe, and so had brought down the whole fabric of the swindle in an hour after its existence of twenty years. It was M. Cattaui also, it is generally understood, who set that campaign in the Matin in motion which did more than anything else to expose the fraud. All this animosity on the part of M. Cattaui had been created by the fact that Mme. Humbert ■had lodged against him a criminal charge of usury in his transactions with her. He had retorted by bringing an action for defamation against her : and this was the small question which was tried recently, and which ended so triumphantly for Mme. Humbert. A GOOD BATTLEGROUND. If Mine. Humbert had been given her choice of battleground she could not have chosen one better for the preliminary skirmish. M. Cattaui is the kind of person against whom the opinion of Paris is irresistibly and distinctively hostile. He is of foreign origin ; he spsaks French with an accent that some have described as German and some as Levant ine, and undoubtedly he laid charged huge interest; lie was one of those mighty men of money who figure in the popular imagination as bloodsuckers. Add that M. Cattaui, personally and physically, is not a sympathetic person. Bald, thin, with stooped shoulders, with beaky nose, with high cheekbones, he looks in the caricature like some hungry bird of prey ; if he were to appear on the stage as Shvlock' he would require no make-up; he looks in real life the character of the famous moneylender of Venice. And then the feeling is very, and indeed sta.rtlingly, general in Paris—especially among women— in most of the frauds in which Mme. Humbert was involved it was a case of the biter bitten. Nobody had any sympathy with those big moneylenders, those tremendous bankers, those wealthy, extortionate jewellers, who figured as the largest creditors in tho great Therese's list of creditors. I find somewhat to my surprise that this is a feeling which does not end with the women of Paris ; it is a curious light on the inner mind of women that women of all nationalities have a certain respectful awe for this great example of their sex, and an ill-concealed admiration and glee at her robbery of the bourgeoisie of finance, frills, and pearls. It is, perhaps, because they know so much of the havoc which these classes have played with the honour, peace of mind, and lives of fashionable women. therese's immense personality. But it was the intensely interesting personality of Therese herself which helped her to get her verdict against M. Cattaui, and to win the sympathy of her audiences and of the public of Paris. Here is a description of the effect she produced, which I translate . from the account in the Figaro: —. " I have seen, I have heard Mme. Humbert. I no longer ask myself why people believed in the existence of the Crawfords; but rather how it was that they ever ceased to do so. I leave the Court delighted, subjugated by the cleverness of the language, the suppleness of the intelligence of this masterful woman." One of the discoveries which apparently have been made is that her ugliness has been much exaggerated, and also the commonness of her appearance. It is true that the face still remains in the eyes of all unfeminine. She has spoken too often of bills of exchange, of compound interest, and other such unfeminine things, to have retained the sweetness and grace that belong to the normal woman, and wrinkles on her forehead speak of sordid cares. Her cheek, too, hard and square, like that of a man, her long upper lip, her big nose, give her something of the look of a caricature. AS SHE LOOKS TO A WOMAN. These are the descriptions of a woman by men; let me add a description of the woman by a woman. Here is how Mrs. Crawford, the famous correspondent of Truth, writes about her: — " An ordinary woman in her place, with her stoutness and short stature, would have been une bonne grosse mere. But she seemed so completely out of the common that Mme. Sarah Bernhardt might have felt jealous had she been present. Her sister, utterly insipid and commonplace, seemed as if born to serve for her foil. . . . Mme. Humbert so spoke, looked, and acted as to seem injured innocence herself in. comparison with Cattaui . . . and with life in all her words, indignation that never became unbounded, admirable management of the hands in gesticulating, and an eloquence in the eyes that entranced an audience in which the artistic sense predominated. Her eyes were of surpassing interest. They are large and very full, and have that power of scrutiny so strong in the gipsies. She seemed as much at ease, as much the maitresse femme, as in her luxurious box at the Opera House. Her entrance predisposed in her favour. She held herself so erect, without stiffness, as really to seem tall. A tailor-made dress of black cloth gave shapeliness to the figure, which has grown thin in prison. The simple toque hat became her. If the cheeks and mouth were heavy until she stood on the defensive this defect entirely disappeared when once she began to attack Cattaui. The white gloves gave a spice of elegance to the dark toilette. Her spirit animated her whole person. She let escape no opportunity to win sympathy, and did not in the multiplicity of her words 'let fall a single one that her advocate might- have wished unsaid. He must have said often to himself, "Elle est terriblement forte!" Before she sat down Cattaui, and not Mme. Humbert, was on his trial."

Mrs. Crawford might have added that Frederic Humbert, the husband of the great Iherese, wag as much a foil as her sister. Tall, with scanty fair hail*, "with a body as thin as a skeleton, with a bald head, stooped shoulders, a narrow chest, and a big moustache which brings out the hollowness of the cheeks, he looks a poor anamiio creature, without strength of body or mind. And Madame Humbert increases the sense of his weakness and pliability by her attitude towards him— indeed, her attitude towards all her family bears out the claim she makes of sole responsibility for everything. She is, above all things, maternal. If one of her fellow-prisoners attempts to utter a word she is immediately on the watch—rerains, corrects, when necessary commands lueie was one final stroke in the comedy she is playing ; it was a triumphant bit of'business. When she entered the dock she first pressed the hands of her sister, and then— calmly, openly, as if she were in her Own sitting-roomshe planted a gentle, wifely kiss on the forehead of her husband It is no wonder that she defeated the Levantine moneylender.M.A.P.