Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

CELL OF TRAGEDY.

“PISTOLE” NUMBER 12. PRISON’S TRAGIC MEMORIES. Many are the tragic memories that beset the dreary, ancient prison of St. Lazare, in Paris, but none more tragic than those that centre round the cell known to the authorities and its tenants as “Pistole” No. 12. It was therein that Mme. Steinhell, the heroine of one of the most extraordinary murder mysteries of recent years, was incarcerated pending her trial. It was within that grimy apartment that Mme. Bloch awaited her triumphant acquittal—Mme. Bloch, who shot her husband’s mistress after considerable provocation and since her release has been living peacefully with her spouse again. Aud now No. 12 is the home of Mme. Caillaux, wile of a man who has been Prime Minister and Finance Minister of France, and the central figure of a drama of bloodshed whose political effects have yet to be gauged. Other women, too, whose sorrows or crimes have won them more than passing renown have been confined within its four walls. In an interview Mme. Bloch sai l much about the famous cell that has never before been published. “I remember it,” she said, “only too well, as I remember every detail of my stay in that mournful, humiliating place of memories. It was in Pistole No. 12 that I lived whilst my fate was being decided —■ far from my children and all I. loved, alone, aione, with my sad thoughts. It was a melancholy enough room this ‘Pistole’ Iso. 12. Sufficiently big to accommodate half a dozen o: more beds, its walls were painted black three-quarters of the way up aud the rest was daubed a dirty white. Great beams crossed the ceiling, from which hung enormous spiders’ webs that fluttered in the puffs of air that passed through the barred window. “And the furniture so ately allowed to prisioners not yet condemned—for convicted persons are not allowed the ‘comfortable’ accommodation of the ‘Pistole.’ There was a rusty iron bedstead covered with a brown coverlet on which was insciibed in big letters the word ‘prison.’ Nearby stood a little wooden table, and for chest of drawers and wardrobe a single shelf served. Just behind the bed was a peephole—a ‘Judas’ —so that my every movement could be watched. But the attendant knew that I was a ‘lady,’ and that although the giving of money is forbidden she might come in for a share of the delicacies I could promise. She had put a nail in the wall above the hole, and I hung clothes on to it at once, of course. Three windows looked out on to the exercise ground, and by pressing one’s face against the bars one could watch the prisoners taking the air twice a day. And our exercise hour was horrible ! The big courtyard was barred to us, and we had to tramp to and fro in the little court, surrounded by high walls, and spied on from windows by the hostile eyes of prisioners cooped in their cells. Oft-times they would hurl insults at one, and sometimes throw things down in malicious spite. A smelly gutter ran across the court loaded with fifth, and now and then a rat would pass across the flags without undue hurry.

“Those rats were the real horror of the ‘black house.' They were as big as cats ; hunting them was in vain, and one would see them

feeding side by side with the Sisters’ pet tabbies —official cats whose jobs fire mere siiuTUicM. They scurried about tin* ronMois, in the. courtyards, and in I hr cell'-., and at night wlu-u all wm-, Mill they gave one The hoi run.’ • >n f: cou’d nr : lie sure vvfimr they might not lurk and scurry away between one’s led. “The nights ! Ah, (fir.y terrible, for one may have no light in the ‘pistole’ «ivc one or two flickering candles, livery kind of lamp is forbidden, and nothing E more funereal in such a place than the feeble light ot a candle. And after the keys are turned on yon lor the night it would have to be a cataslysm that would briug to you the Sister in charge. Once, I recall, a woman near by screamed In vain all the night through.”

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19140618.2.19

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1260, 18 June 1914, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
707

CELL OF TRAGEDY. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1260, 18 June 1914, Page 4

CELL OF TRAGEDY. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1260, 18 June 1914, Page 4

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert