"Gentlemen of the jury, you have sat throughout eight hearings with the utmost patience. You have heard eighty witnesses. You have heard the experts. The voluminous dossier has been gone through by the President exhaustively.... The work and the strain have been truly terrible...."
Now he reviews my life story.... Every fact, every incident, from the days when I was a little girl of five, is turned and twisted into something damaging to my cause. Murmurs of disapproval punctuate this monstrous speech by the Public Prosecutor, but he goes on, implacably; and as he flings out his accusations as if they were personal attacks, as if he loathed me and wished the whole world to know it, his eyes blaze more and more fiercely....
There exist no proofs whatever of my guilt, but, like M. André, M. Trouard-Riolle is convinced that I am guilty, and this is enough. He is there to prosecute, to accuse, to call for the heaviest sentence, and he does so relentlessly, scornfully, wildly. And he seems to enjoy his "great" task.
He has not spoken for five minutes before he brands me—he is dealing with my childhood—as a consummate coquette, and a liar!
According to him, the parents of M. Sheffer must have had good reasons to object to the union of their son with the dangerous Marguerite!... According to him, I married M. Steinheil because he had distinguished connections and resided in Paris, and because I was anxious to shine in society.... "To shine, indeed, has ever been her great ambition, and she did not stop at anything to achieve her ends!"... Now he deals with my love-affairs. I am not only a comédienne and a dangerous liar, I am not only an immoral, but a mercenary woman! M. Trouard-Riolle quite forgets that M. de Valles paid a glowing tribute, a day or two ago, to my "absolute disinterestedness," and thunders forth that I am a low, shrewd, calculating business-woman!...
While M. Trouard-Riolle goes on criticising my home-life, I wonder how he dare judge me!... I want to speak, to cry out what I feel, but my three counsel entreat me once more to be calm, and Maître Aubin, with that shrewd bonhomie so typical of him, whispers to me: "Let him blindly accuse you... he is merely making my task easier!"
M. Trouard-Riolle explains that there are two women in "that creature!": the woman with the musical, enchanting, caressing voice, who conquers and deceives, and the woman who threatens, attacks, and stops at nothing.
"The motive of the crime was the anxiety of Mme. Steinheil to make a rich marriage, because she hated her husband and was in financial distress," and then comes this dramatic and unexpected declaration: "Mme. Steinheil has murdered her husband with or without the assistance of an accomplice. But that the accusation of matricide it not sufficiently established....
Friday, November 12. M. Trouard-Riolle continues his speech for the Prosecution. I have reached the extreme limit of physical and mental endurance. I breathe with the greatest difficulty, and can hardly open my eyes. During the night, I have suffered from a terrible nervous attack, and time after time, doctors have come to my assistance. I clutch the partition in front of me, but cannot feel it. My senses are numb, all except my hearing, alas....
M. Trouard-Riolle, speaks, speaks, speaks—his speech lasts altogether for nearly seven hours.