Acquitted, yes; but by no means rehabilitated, far less left in peace. Outside the nursing-home at Vésinet, behold rows of motor cars, packs of Yellow Reporters and photographers. A din in this usually tranquil country place; a din, too, outside the Impasse Ronsin Villa, and in front of the Bellevue Villa, where inquisitive Parisians jest, and laugh, and point and stare at the shuttered windows. Over those “five o’clock’s” of pale tea, port and sugared cakes, _le Tout Paris_ declares that Madame Steinheil was acquitted by order of the Government. In the _Patrie_, Henri Rochefort still calls her the “Black Panther,” and, alluding once again to the death of Félix Faure, bids President Fallières to beware of her. And on the boulevards, swarms of _camelots_ thrust under one’s eyes “picture post cards” of Mariette Wolff; of huge, bloated Alexandre; of mild Mr Burlingham; of chivalrous Count d’Arlon; of M. Borderel; of Mademoiselle Marthe Steinheil; and of the “Tragic Widow.” And the bourgeoisie? “Acquitted, yes; but the Impasse Ronsin crime, committed eighteen months ago, remains a mystery,” says a Parisian angrily to me. “The trial has elucidated nothing: but it has cost enormous sums.” And then, as he is a thrifty, rather parsimonious little bourgeois, the speaker adds indignantly: “As Madame Steinheil has won, it is the Treasury, in other words the unfortunate taxpayer, myself, for instance, who will have to put his hand in his pocket, and settle the bill.” [5] 1909. XII THE LATE JULES GUÉRIN AND THE DEFENCE OF FORT CHABROL The month of May, 1899—how long ago it seems! At that time, up at Montmartre, in a large house, overlooking a garden, resided M. Jules Guérin, most savage of Anti-Dreyfusards, and chief of the Anti-Semitic party. A fine house, but an unlovely garden. A gaunt tree or two; four or five gritty, stony flower-beds; in a corner, a dried-up, dilapidated old well. But this waste of a garden suited M. Guérin’s purposes,—which were sinister. “If my enemies attack me here, I shall shoot them dead and bury them beneath this very window—by that tree, in that flower-bed.” “Oh!” I expostulated. “Or I shall throw their infamous bodies into that well,” continued M. Guérin, again pointing out of the window. “I am prepared; I am ready. You see this gun? Then look at those revolvers. All are loaded.”