"For many years past I have been visiting the poor, the patients in hospitals, and also prisoners. About a year ago the Minister of the Interior gave me permission to visit the prisons of the Seine Department, allowing me free access to my protégés. One of these, at Saint-Lazare, is a girl called Firmin. I visited her early in December 1908, and found that she had been placed in Cell 12, and having entered that cell I saw near Firmin a woman in mourning, and guessed that she was Mme. Steinheil.... Since then I have seen both several times. Of Mme. Steinheil I have always asked, 'And you, Madame, do you feel well?' And she has always replied, 'Oh, yes, Monsieur, my conscience always keeps me up!' Every time she has emphatically asserted her innocence in convincing tones. She has always expressed her great grief at being separated from her daughter. That throughout has seemed to me the most noticeable point about her mental state. Sometimes, I have seen her cry, especially when she talked about her daughter.
"(Signed) Simon.
Desmoulin.
André."
(Dossier Cote 3014)
There is one side to this "Ghirelli Affair," as it has been called, which the reader has probably not realised. Not only did those revelations published by the Matin still further exasperate public opinion against me, but they added many days, perhaps even weeks, to my imprisonment. Judge André's investigations into the absurd matter took a long time to make—they represent 112 pages added to the already voluminous Dossier; I have read, re-read... and counted them!—and meanwhile the Instruction was delayed, and therefore my imprisonment made longer... And I counted the days, the hours, at Saint-Lazare!
To sum up: Ghirelli denied, on oath, all her damaging statements, and other witnesses proved that they could never have been made; Firmin and M. Desmoulin gave evidence which fully vindicated me; there remained Marie Anne Jacq, who spoke against me and clung to her statements.
Well, I will give the end of Jacq's story:
She remained in cell No. 12 for several weeks. One day—the Instruction was over then—Jacq spontaneously came to me, burst into tears, and said: "Forgive me, Madame... You are too kind to me. To think that you know all I have spoken against you, and that you have not reproached me once. You give me your coffee, the eggs that your daughter brings... I can't stand it any longer. Listen. Ghirelli and Rosselli gave me wine, and I love wine, for life is hard here, Madame, and they told me what to say if I was called before the judge about you. I hated you, at the time; those two women said you had murdered your mother, that they knew it... and I promised anything they asked me.... And then, I thought: If I am called by the judge, it will mean leaving this wretched prison for a few hours, and that's a change.... It was dreadful of me to lie as I have done.... Look here, you must let me scrub the cell for you, in future, I will light your fire, help you in every way, only, forgive me, Madame...."
Of course, I forgave her.
When she returned from the cell, that day, she looked greatly depressed. I asked her what had happened: "Ah!" she sighed, "they are sending me to the prison at Rennes.... Please, please, do something, speak to some one.... I want to remain near you, I want to stop here...."
But poor Jacq had to go. When she was about to leave the cell, she looked round, slowly, sadly. Then she came to me and said: "I heard you say to Sister Léonide, 'It must be nice to see a flower....' Well, Madame, I picked one up in the chapel, when I swept there to-day." And she gave me a tiny branch of mimosa.... "You won't think too harshly of me, will you? Good-bye, Madame...."