Firstly: Of having, in Paris, during the night of May 30th-31st, 1908, voluntarily dealt death to M. Steinheil;
And that with premeditation.
Secondly: Of having, in the same circumstances, time and place, voluntarily dealt death to Madame Edouard Japy, your legitimate mother."
Answer. "It is an abominable and monstrous accusation, I protest against it with all my soul, and I beg with all my heart those who will be called upon to examine and judge your Dossier, I beg them in the name of my child to realise, to see, that I could not have murdered either my husband or my mother. No, I cannot be accused of such an infamous, abominable crime. There is nothing in my life which could explain such a deed on my part."...
"The accused cries and sobs."
(This document has been) "Read—Have signed:
"Widow Steinheil.
"Simon.
"André."
(Dossier Cote 3433)
..."She cries, she sobs," says the report of the final Instruction. Just four little words, but what deep grief and suffering they represent!
In these reports, the words spoken by the prisoner are very seldom exactly reproduced, for this reason: the Judge has before him a list of questions which he has carefully prepared beforehand; he asks the questions one by one, and dots down rapidly the prisoner's answers, or, at least, what he considers the essential part of those answers. Afterwards, using his notes, he dictates both his question and the reply of the prisoner to his greffier... with the result that very often the whole report seems to have been written by the same person, so similar in style are the questions and the answers. As a rule, at my Instruction, I did not even listen when the Judge dictated to M. Simon. During those few minutes of peace, which occurred every ten or fifteen minutes, I rested and collected my thoughts.... At the final and momentous Instruction, however, when all the Instructions were reviewed, I tried, although it was the most harrowing of them all, and I was more exhausted than ever, to listen to the words M. André dictated to M. Simon, and time after time I explained that he was not dictating the exact words I had used, or that he cut short my replies. I repeated what I had said, and generously the examining magistrate consented to alter those "trifling details," as he put it.
In spite of this, however, such a report does not convey the pathos and the tragic importance of the proceedings.