In March 1910 I had to go to Paris to settle various business matters, and I remained there three days with my hair powdered to change my appearance. I saw my solicitor and settled various matters with him. I wrote to my daughter beseeching her to meet me a few hours before my departure, at Maître Aubin's. There, I found that Marthe had not come... and I also found, outside, a number of journalists and photographers who had been warned of my arrival by a kind soul.
I was broken-hearted at not seeing my child. I remained for many hours at my counsel's, and, at night, managed to hoodwink the journalists and to reach the Gare du Nord, where I entrained for London.
I was desperate. I wrote a long letter to Marthe. M. Chabrier read it, told my daughter that it contained threats and compelled her to write and sign the following letter, from a copy he himself prepared:
Paris, March 12th, 1910.
Maître J. has handed me a letter from you to which I must reply telling you for the last time what you refuse to understand. The irrevocable decision I have taken of not seeing you again has not been dictated to me by any one. I have no advisers. My conduct and my actions arise solely from my conscience. I cannot forget the long sufferings and the ruin of my poor father, and I think that certain cruel recollections can break certain bonds. You refuse the only proof of disinterestedness I had asked you—the gift of the house in the Impasse Ronsin, and you accuse my imaginary adviser of that refusal, and then you offer me your help to bear the difficulties of life, a life which you created for me by your will and acts, a life very painful and sad and for ever broken. I repeat that I have taken my decision alone. You will never see me again. I must even ask you not to write to me any more, for there can be nothing between us except the absolute silence which separates two beings who ignore one another for ever.
"M. Steinheil."
It was of course easy for me to see at once that this ungrammatical and absurd letter had not been written by my daughter! She had not, thank Heaven, that kind of style, and I readily guessed who was the instigator of the letter. But I did not pay much attention to all this; I only saw that Marthe was in need, and although she had refused—or rather, I had been told she had refused—everything I so gladly offered her, I went to the French Consul-General in London and signed a paper by which I renounced the ownership of my Paris house and made it over to my daughter.
A month later, being terribly anxious about her, so anxious indeed that I once more fell seriously ill and had to be visited three times a day by a doctor, for several weeks, I persuaded a devoted friend to go to Paris and talk to my daughter. My friend went to the Impasse Ronsin and was received by M. Chabrier, who said he was very sorry but Mlle. Marthe was away in the country. My friend insisted, explained the gravity of my illness and begged for my daughter's address. It was in vain.
Since then, Marthe has told me that she was in the house that day, that she had insisted upon seeing the person I had sent to her, but that M. Chabrier, in whom she still had the greatest confidence, had locked her up in her room during the interview.
Again I sent letters to Marthe, but still no reply came. I tried to forget my only child, but a mother never forgets. I travelled through Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy—never France—and I recovered, but later despair seized me once more and for the second time in one year, I suffered from severe illness.