THE RED WIDOW CLEARED OF MURDER IN FRANCE
Marguerite Steinheil was one of the most famous women in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Much to her chagrin.
Steinheil was implicated in two great scandals, the death of French president Felix Faure in 1899 and the murder of her husband and mother in 1908.
The press gave her a nickname, the Red Widow.
Steinheil was supposedly having sex with Faure when he had a cerebral hemorrhage and died on Feb. 16, 1899. But any connection between the two was kept out of the press until her husband and grandmother were murdered on May 30, 1908.
Then the rumours ran wild. “All the amateur detectives of Paris are advancing fantastic theories to account for the strangling to death of Adolph Steinheil and Madame Japy, his mother-in-law, in Steinheil’s studio last Sunday morning,” reported the Vancouver World on June 2, 1908.
Marguerite Steinheil was in the house with her husband and mother when they were murdered. But the assailant or assailants bound and gagged Marguerite instead of killing her, which led police to suspect she was in on the crime.
She also changed her story. At first she said she had been attacked by one man; a day later she said there had been four attackers, and that one of them was a woman.
The cops charged her with murder, and it became front-page news around the globe after word emerged of her liaison with the dead president.
“It was rumoured today that evidence had come to light that Mme. Steinheil’s hair was caught in the death grip of President Faure,” the World reported on Dec. 4, “and that the doctors who were summoned at the time of his death worked for hours in an effort to loosen his fingers rather than cut the woman’s hair.”
Some people thought Faure had been poisoned. France was in an uproar in 1899 over the Dreyfus affair, where a Jewish military officer was accused of handing French military secrets to the Germans. Alfred Dreyfus was convicted and sent to Devil’s Island, but many people believed he was innocent, and he was exonerated in 1906.
Steinheil’s trial was sensational. On Nov. 4, 1909, a man named Lefebvre rose in court and “electrified the assemblage” by confessing to the murders.
“Release that woman!” Lefebvre shouted. “She is innocent. I alone am responsible. Mme. Steinheil had nothing to do with the death of her husband and Mme. Japy. I killed them both and I am proud of it.”
The World reported Steinheil “appeared scarcely alive” while Lefebvre was making his statement.
“When she was carried to her chair, the ‘Red Widow’ completely collapsed,” said the World.
“When she had recovered sufficiently, she shrieked at the top of her voice: ‘I am innocent; I tell you that I am innocent. Now that this man has confessed, do you still believe me guilty?’”
Unfortunately for Steinheil, Lefebvre’s confession was false — he was simply infatuated with her. So the prosecution continued to summon witnesses, 87 in total, to prove Marguerite was a murderer.
Public opinion turned in her favour.
“The spectators (at the trial) are indignant at the bullying tactics assumed by the prosecutors, and frequently a buzz of disapproval sweeps over the audience,” the World reported on Nov. 6.
“Mme. Steinheil is able to sway the spectators at will. When Madame weeps, and that is frequently, the spectators weep with her. When she smiles they smile too.”
The verdict came down at 12:50 a.m. on Nov. 15: she was acquitted of all charges.
“A hysterical wave — ‘acquittal’ — was swept along by the hundreds in the corridors of the Palais de Justice and rolled across the sea of 200,000 persons who jammed the courtyard of the Palais and filled the surrounding streets,” said the World.
“Cafes, hotels and residences emptied their thousands into the streets to join the mob, wild with excitement. Hysterical Paris, almost universally of the opinion that the Red Widow is not guilty, turned night into day to shout their approval of her acquittal.”
In 1917 she married an English baron and moved to England. She died on July 17, 1954, at the age of 85.