Answer. "Then the gag which Dr. Balthazard examined was not the one which had been so long in my mouth."
(Quoted from Dossier, Cotes 3308-3310.)
(And here I would quote a passage from the speech made by my counsel, Maître Antony Aubin, at my trial):
"In order to demonstrate that Mme. Steinheil was never gagged at all and that she lies, this is the argument used: There never was in Mme. Steinheil's room but one piece of cottonwool that might have been a gag, the piece that was on the pillow, on the right side of it. Now this gag was at once put under seal, on the spot, without any possible mistake. Handed later on to Dr. Balthazard, he found that it had never been wetted with saliva; therefore, the 'gag' on the pillow had never been in Mme. Steinheil's mouth.
"But an important question now arises. How many pieces of cottonwool were placed under seal, on the Sunday morning (May 31st)? Four. There was cottonwool everywhere, so much so that some one present remarked: 'One seems to walk on cottonwool.'
"Seal number one containing the gag 'which the criminals forced into Mme. Steinheil's mouth,' for those were the words written on the label attached to it—was put together without it being known by whom it (the gag) was picked up, who handed it to the Police Commissary, without its identity being ascertained if only by a question asked of Mme. Steinheil. No precaution was taken, there was no supervision—so that it is impossible to say whether the piece of cottonwool, placed under the seal, as 'having been forced into Mme. Steinheil's mouth,' is really the one which had been seen on her pillow, and which she herself pointed out.
"To demonstrate that the piece of cottonwool from the pillow and the one examined by Dr. Balthazard are not the same one is easy enough.
"The gag, which was seen by one or two witnesses near the pillow, was also seen by three or four other witnesses in various places—on the floor, on a chiffonier, on a small table! The gag wanders about. But how can one wonder that, in the excitement which upset everybody—and everything—some mistake as to all those pieces of cottonwool occurred?
"There is another point. In what terms do the witnesses describe the wandering gag? As a gag made of one single piece (pear-shaped), as big as the fist. If then the one examined by the expert contains one single piece and answers to the description given, one will be able to admit that this gag, pear-shaped, and in one piece, is really the piece of wadding found on the pillow. But Doctor Balthazard himself described the piece of cottonwool he examined as follows: 'This gag is made of two pieces, one rectangular, the other triangular and almost equilateral.'
"How disastrous for the Prosecution.... Besides, gentlemen, if the whole thing had been a sham, Mme. Steinheil, knowing of course the difference in appearance between dry cottonwool and moistened cottonwool, would not have failed to wet it, if only for a few seconds, especially as it was she who drew attention to the gag!"