In 1906 I hired a villa at Bellevue, a delightful wooded village overlooking the Seine, near Paris. It was M. Ch., my great friend, who had discovered this charming summer residence nestling under the heavy foliage of beautiful old trees....
We are now nearing the tragic time of my life, but before I go into that long story of horror and agony—the murder of my husband and my mother, my struggles to find the murderers, the terrifying scenes at the Impasse Ronsin, my arrest, my life in prison, and my trial—I should like to recall a pretty incident which occurred at Bellevue.... There is nothing wonderful or unusually amusing about it, but perhaps the reader will welcome it as a sustaining draught of pure and fragrant air, before being plunged into the dark abyss of grief and terror where I suffered and struggled for so long.
"Vert-Logis" (green cottage), my Bellevue villa, stood at a short distance from the Meudon Observatory, the director of which was M. Janssen, the famous astronomer. The observatory was surrounded by a vast and splendid park, everywhere enclosed off. Through the bars of one of the gates Marthe and I saw, one fine summer's day, a large field that was one mass of marguerites. Marthe was longing to gather great bunches of them. We hailed a keeper, who was passing by, and asked him whether he would pick some of the flowers for us and pass them through the gate.... Or perhaps he would open the gate to us for a few minutes?
"Oh! Madame, all that is strictly forbidden," said the man.
"What a pity!"
I must have looked very disappointed, for hesitatingly he said: "Well, perhaps you might come in the morning, say at eight, before there are people about. I'll open the gate and you can gather a few flowers."
The next day Marthe and I returned from the observatory garden with so many flowers that we could hardly carry them.
The old keeper scratched his head, and remarked: "I thought you only wanted a few! You must be really fond of flowers, Madame."
Soon afterwards I met M. Janssen. We had many friends in common, and the savant gave orders that the gates of the park should always be opened to me and allowed me to gather as many of the flowers as I pleased. Then, with a typical courtesy, the aged astronomer—he was then over eighty years old—said to me: "Madame, since you love flowers so well, would you care to see the flowers of heaven?"