My poor Marthe again. Journalists, the Law... everybody thought to silence me by making use of my love for my child! I was indignant. Let them arrest me! What did it matter! What did anything matter so long as the murderers were sought—and found! She was innocent; they could but recognise that at once. And as for me, what had I done? I had accused Couillard and placed a pearl in his pocket-book to have him arrested, to make him say what he knew.... I deserved to be punished for that. But since I had been urged in every conceivable way to denounce the valet, they would understand and soon forgive me.... Besides, he and Wolff would perhaps speak. The letters were unanimous: they knew—and the truth would at last be revealed.
And now Marthe arrived, accompanied by M. Chabrier. How pale she was! How tear-stained and frightened her dear eyes! She sank on my breast, clutched my arms, and sobbed. "Mother, mother," she cried, "they want to put us in prison. ... Can nothing be done? Say everything you know, if you know everything!"....
Then M. Grandjean, Substitut of the Procureur, tore my daughter away from me and said: "Ah! you love your daughter! Well, we shall make her suffer in order to make you talk!"
Since then, my daughter has told me that during the afternoon of that dreadful day the same M. Grandjean had threatened to arrest her, and also M. Chabrier, who had burst into tears.
From 4.30 A.M. till 7 P.M., with brief intervals, and one hour (2 P.M.) during which I was allowed to talk with Marthe and have some tea, I was subjected to endless examinations, in M. Hamard's Cabinet, by him, and by M. Grandjean and M. Leydet.
It was towards 5 P.M. when it was decided that I should be arrested. But, before that, I was once more interrogated by M. Leydet. We went from the Sûreté to the Palace of Justice, through a long chain of staircases and passages. I was accompanied by inspectors, the judge, the chief of the Sûreté, Maître Aubin, his two secretaries, and others. We hurried along, for there were swarms of journalists everywhere, whom the inspectors had to repel.
Alexandre Wolff, brought in by two municipal guards, was again confronted with me, and it was then that I ceased to accuse him as firmly as before, and asked him to "help me discover the murderer."
"Well, it was time you spoke like that," Wolff exclaimed. "I wasn't going to be guillotined just to please you!"
Many things were said to me or before me; but I did not hear them. I had no longer the strength or will to hear, or the power to reason....
M. Leydet said to me: "You are arrested." I did not mind at all. I could not understand the terrible meaning of those three words.