At night another prisoner joined us. She was Marie Jacq, a Breton woman of forty, who had been recently sentenced to two years, and had before that served seven terms of imprisonment. Jacq was employed all day as a kind of charwoman; she entered the cell at 8 P.M. to sleep, and left it at 6 A.M. She seemed to have but one craving, the poor wretch—drink.
At night, since sleep was out of the question, I had no option but to think and think, and wearily through the long hours I tried to thrash out and see clearly all the details of the strange and terrible drama which had claimed two victims, and was like to soon claim a third, for I felt that life was ebbing from my limbs.
Then one morning dear Sister Léonide came and told me, "You are going to change your cell once more. I have instructions to take you to No. 12. There you will have on one side your former cell, and on the other a lumber room. You will at last be able to breathe—and sleep."
Firmin shared this new cell with me, and Jacq, who had spent the nights in Cell No. 13, then in Cell No. 11 when I was there, joined us at night in No. 12. She had instructions to assist me—and watch over me.
CHAPTER XXIII
ALBA GHIRELLI, MARGUERITE ROSSELLI
AND THE "MATIN"
JUDGE ANDRÉ'S Instruction began in December 1908. But before dealing with it, I wish to acquaint the reader with a series of amazing and painful incidents, in which the two prisoners Ghirelli and Rosselli, Marie Anne Jacq—whose cell I shared for two days and three nights—and M. Charles Sauerwein of the Matin, were the chief actors, whilst, as usual, alas, I was the powerless central figure, the victim.
Maître Aubin, my counsel, came to me on two or three occasions in a state of great consternation. His first sentence was: "What have you done?" and his last sentence, after he had explained to me the new incident, was "All that is printed in the Matin." So, that newspaper, thinking that it had not made me suffer enough yet, continued its virulent attacks while I was in prison!
What did those articles in the Matin say? Merely trifles of this kind: According to one of my fellow prisoners, I had spoken of suicide, had accused Alexandre Wolff again, declared that before placing the pearl in Couillard's pocket-book, I had first placed it in that of my "cousin" M. Chabrier (whom I called cousin though he was no relation of mine, but a cousin of my husband). I had entrusted a secret mission to the care of Ghirelli and last but not least I had confessed to having committed the murder!
These various "statements," only dramatised and adorned by the Matin for the sole purpose of several columns of the most sensational copy, were published at intervals during January 1909.
I will now quote part of the most damaging and most fantastic "story" published by Le Matin, in its issue of Sunday, January 17th, 1909 (I was in prison at the time and undergoing my Instruction i.e. the preliminary examination by a magistrate):