After the separation the Baron and Helene Stille were at daggers drawn. They had some virulent litigation in Paris, and when the Baron came to New York with his family, consisting of his wife, two children, two men servants and three maid servants, she quickly followed. The Baron and his establishment were sojourning at the Clarendon Hotel, when he received the following letter:
"MONSIEUR HENRI DE REVIERE:
I wish to know whether you intend doing anything toward the support of your child? She is a poor, delicate little thing, being afflicted with curvature of the spine. I have had her under treatment of Dr. Taylor for the last three months and his charges are five hundred dollars, which for me, with my other expenses, is a great deal. I hope you will consider my claim a just one and act accordingly. Rosa de Lenia is one of the most beautiful children in the world, and I love her with such a love as you could never dream of.
Reply by bearer, or send reply later in the day, just as you feel disposed; but a reply I must have. I should think your amour proper would not allow you to abandon your child, as you have done for nearly three years.
Hoffman House, Sept. 26 HELENE DE STILLE"
The rejoinder was insulting, and so she had him arrested in order that "he might disclose those dreadful things he pretended to know about me."
There was a hearing of the lady's case before Judge Jones of the Superior Court, when most of the foregoing particulars of Miss Stille's history was drawn from her in cross-examination by the defendant's counsel. At a subsequent hearing the Baron contributed an affidavit containing many startling assertions accompanied by big figures.
"I left Paris in April for Madrid," he began, giving exactly the same route already described by Miss Stille. Continuing, he said, "Further, I have had an office as government contractor for artillery and ships of war. I also contracted with a Liverpool ship-builder (Laird) for two iron-clads and four steam corvettes for twelve million francs. I acted as agent and partner of L. Arman of Bordeaux and Vous of Nantes, and received in one year for my share eleven hundred thousand francs profit. I sold forty guns to the Danish government, receiving as my commission forty-five thousand francs. I sold in 1884, to the Prussian government, an iron-clad and two steam corvettes for seven million five hundred thousand francs, and received five per cent, commission." Then he professed to have had gigantic contracts in Chili, Peru and other parts of South America for artillery and guano. Altogether his story was of the Brobdingnagian type.
The case, however, never came to trial, the friends of both parties to the action suggesting an amicable settlement of their differences, which being adjusted to everyone's satisfaction, the Baron went his way, lecturing on "Love," a theme on which he was most conversant, and the fair Helene spent her time flitting between this city and gay Paris, in both of which cities she is thoroughly at home. And so the somewhat famous episode ended, so far as the office of Howe and Hummel was concerned.