Later, I was told that Dr. Acheray, M. Buisson and his wife, and the elder M. Boeswilwald had attended me during that night of agony. I heard that the doctor had to give me morphia injections two or three times, and that I was very near to death....
On the Monday, thanks to my doctor's care and devotion, I came back to life, as it were.... And I can frankly say that I have regretted it since, more than once.
Many people visited the house. A magistrate came to "affix the seals." Detectives and policemen came... and journalists.... I was still so ill, however, that the doctor insisted that I should be taken to some nursing home or to the house of friends. Count and Countess d'Arlon offered me their hospitality, and so did M. and Mme. Buisson. I accepted the offer of the d'Arlons, who, unlike the Buissons, had no children.
Letters and telegrams of condolence arrived in piles, from every part of France and from people in every walk of life. This I only knew because I was told. I had not the strength to read the messages.
On June 2nd I was told that my mother's body had been removed to a Protestant, and my husband's to a Catholic, church. (They dared not tell me the bodies were at the Morgue.) It was then, and only then, that I yielded to the pressing entreaties of the d'Arlons. I was taken to their house in an ambulance. It was terrible to me to leave that house where less than forty-eight hours before I had been chatting with my husband about our summer.... In the garden I saw the rose-trees laden with white roses, which my mother had so much admired only two days ago!...
In the Impasse there was an immense crowd, and another near the Ecole Militaire, near which the d'Arlons lived. The crowd were hostile. What did it mean?... I could not understand.... Again I thought of the documents, of the pearls.... Mme. Buisson, who was with me in the ambulance, trembled with fear.... Later I was told that we had been escorted by detectives, to protect me!...
At last I arrived at the d'Arlons. Marthe was there. She was so very tender and affectionate, and I realised that she knew nothing about my life, about Félix Faure.... There was no semblance of reproach in her pure little face, no question in her big brown eyes.... I breathed again.
On the Wednesday (June 3rd), Dr. Acheray, finding I was worse, ordered a nurse. He also told me that I should soon be interrogated by M. Hamard and M. Leydet. "Tell them everything you know," he recommended; "the public seems to suspect you...."
I spent hours of torture. I wondered what I should say. I had already been asked about the jewels that had disappeared on the night of May 30th-31st. Was I to speak of those given me by M. B., the Attorney-General, and years later by President Faure (which had been stolen), and most of which were exactly copied from those my husband had given me, but set with more valuable stones?... But if I did, my reputation would be ruined in the eyes of my daughter, who worshipped her mother and who was engaged to be married, and of many friends who believed implicitly in me.... No, no, since the jewels had been stolen I would describe them without saying whence they came, and I would alter the duplicates I had at Bellevue.