Suddenly, however, consternation, indignation, fury, hysteria, in _le Tout Paris_. In an official decree, M. de Valles, the judge appointed to preside over the Steinheil “debates,” intimated that all those scented notes had been written, all those elaborate dinners had been given, all those striking dresses and complicated hats had been ordered, and tried on I don’t know how many times—_in vain_. “I have,” stated M. de Valles, “received over 25,000 applications for tickets of admission, and every one of them I have refused. Only the diplomatic corps, the Bar, and a certain number of French and foreign journalists will be admitted. Let it be clearly understood that this decision of mine is irrevocable.” Gracious powers, the commotion! _Le Tout Paris_ protested, raged, until it wore itself out with anger and hysteria. “I have made thousands of enemies. Even my wife’s friends refuse to speak to me,” said M. de Valles to an interviewer. True to his word, the judge remained inexorable. Passionate letters to him remained unanswered; to all visitors he was invisible. Hence the exceedingly bad temper of _le Tout Paris_ on that foggy, gloomy morning of the 3rd of November. And thus for the first time on record the heroine of an essentially Parisian _cause célèbre_ entered the dock of the dim, oblong, oak-panelled Court of Assizes, secure from the laughter, the mockery, and the opera-glasses of French Vanity Fair. An extraordinary woman, Madame Steinheil. Imagine Sarah Bernhardt in some supremely tragical rôle—pathetic, threatening; tender, violent; despairing, tearful; wrecked with indignation, suffering and exhaustion, and you will gain an idea of the “Tragic Widow’s” demeanour during the ten days’ dramatic trial. Her voice, like the incomparable Sarah’s, was now melodious and persuasive, then hoarse, bitter, frenzied; when she wept, it subsided into a moan or a broken whisper. Never even in Paris (where a widow’s weeds are perhaps excessively lugubrious) have I seen deeper mourning: heavy crape bands round the accused woman’s black dress, stiff crape bows in the widow’s cap, a deep crape border to the handkerchief which she clenched tightly, convulsively, in her black-gloved hand. Then, under her eyes, dark, dark shadows, which turned green as the trial tragically wore on. Her face, deadly pale, but for the hectic spot burning fiercely in each cheek. Her eyes, blue. Her hair, dark brown. Her ears, small and delicate; her mouth, sensitive, tremulous, eloquent. Her only _coquetterie_, the low, square-cut opening in the neck of her dress.