The trial did not take place until the last week in May, 1891, when Jeanne Weiss was just twenty-three. She had, indeed, lived her life. In experience and intrigue she was an old woman, and it was hard to credit the story of her career as laid before judge and jury by the prosecutor. During her incarceration she had composed a sort of autobiography in which she attempted to put all the responsibility on Felix Roques, and when tired of that she persuaded herself that her husband had forgiven her, and that he would save her from punishment by giving evidence on her behalf. It was sheer invention, but it enabled her to enter the Court without a tremor, and feel hopeful of an acquittal.
The trial was conducted with all the emotion of which a French Court can be capable, and had it not been for the proofs in the prisoner's own handwriting her youth and her "fatal eyes" might have saved her from conviction. Jeanne's chief hope was that the sight of her distress might reawaken the love her husband first bore for her, the love that had once caused him to quarrel with his own mother. But Weiss had been sickened to the soul by the realization of her treachery. He could not look upon her without shuddering with horror, and from the moment he had been convinced that she had tried to murder him he declined to give her his name. Henceforth she was Jeanne Daniloff, and not Madame Weiss, and he would not permit anyone to speak of her as his wife.
Jeanne, who had decided to commit suicide if she was convicted, came into Court with a handkerchief which she constantly pressed against her face. No one knew that in the corner of it was a piece of cigarette paper which contained a dose of strychnine. This was to be her last resource if the verdict of the jury went against her.
The critical moment came when Weiss stepped into the witness-box. Now that Felix Roques was dead Weiss was the only person who could tell the inner history of the intrigue. Jeanne hoped that he would suppress everything likely to damage her, and all the time he was being questioned she kept her eyes on him.
But it was too late. Weiss was an older and a wiser, if sadder man now. Jeanne's eyes were no longer capable of hypnotizing him, and he simply told the truth. When he was given permission to leave the box he turned abruptly towards the jury and addressed them.
"I desire, gentlemen," he said, "to make the following declaration: I speak that I may reply to certain calumnies that have appeared in the press. I have never forgiven Jeanne Daniloff. I do not, and I never will, forgive her. Henceforth she is nothing to me. Whatever her fate, I stay near my children. I only wish never to hear her name again."
That statement sealed the doom of the accused. She uttered a gasp of terror, and would have fallen had not the wardress clutched her, and although the trial continued for several hours longer she scarcely understood what was happening.
It was at four o'clock in the morning when the jury returned a verdict of guilty, "with extenuating circumstances," and but for the latter the convict would have been sentenced to death.
The fatal eyes had, in fact, saved her; but Jeanne Weiss had no desire for life. To her, death was far more preferable than existence within prison walls, and when the judge's sentence was still ringing in her ears she bit her handkerchief as though trying to steady her nerves, though in reality she was swallowing the dose of strychnine she had concealed in the hem. A request to the wardress for a glass of water was instantly complied with, and Jeanne then washed the fatal poison down. A few moments later she was shrieking in agony.
They carried her into an adjoining room, and a doctor administered an emetic, but already the deadly dose was accomplishing its task. Jeanne Weiss was dying, and those who had assisted to bring her to justice stood around her as she passed into another world.