Even M. de Valles was moved by M. Borderel’s emotion, sorrow, chivalry. The disclosure of the “rich châtelain’s” _liaison_ with the “Tragic Widow” caused such a scandal in the Ardennes that M. Borderel had to sell his estate; and he, too, has been persecuted continuously by Yellow photographers and journalists. Equally chivalrous was the evidence of Comte d’Arlon (to whose house Madame Steinheil was removed after the night of the murder), of M. Martin (a State official), and of other gentlemen who had been (platonic) friends of the “Tragic Widow.” Then, more chivalry from M. Pouce, an officer in the detective police. “I have been one of the detectives in charge of the Steinheil affair,” he cried. “But I have always believed in the innocence of Madame Steinheil. Had she told me she was guilty, I should not have believed her. She is innocent.” And finally, exuberant, fantastic chivalry on the part of a young man named René Collard: who, to the stupefaction of the Court, walked up to the Bench and cried: “Madame Steinheil is innocent. I myself am the red-headed woman who helped to commit the double murder.” M. de Valles then wiped his brow with his huge handkerchief, rapped on the silver inkstand with his paper-cutter, and cried: “Silence”—for the Court was buzzing with excitement. Hesitatingly René Collard (aged perhaps nineteen) related that he had disguised himself as a woman, bought a red wig, broken his way into the Steinheil villa (in the company of two friends), sacked the place, bound and gagged Madame Steinheil, strangled her husband, suffocated her mother. “Take this young man away,” said M. de Valles to a municipal guard, “and lock him up.” Two nights in prison brought young René Collard to his senses. He had seen Madame Steinheil’s photographs in the papers, had fallen in love with her: had resolved to save her at the risk of being guillotined by the awful M. Deibler! Said the examining magistrate: “Little idiot, I shall now send you home in the charge of a policeman, who will deliver you over to your parents.” And so, amorous, over-chivalrous young René Collard was conducted back to a dull, bourgeois flat in the Avenue Clichy, where his father and mother, after calling him a “villain,” a “criminal,” and a “monster,” took him into their arms, and hugged him, and called him “the best and most adorable of sons”; and then sent out Amélie, the only servant, to fetch a cream cake and a bottle of sweet champagne with which to celebrate the return home of the “wicked” but “adorable” Master René.