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On February 13, 1917, the French arrested Mata Hari for
espionage.
She was interrogated many times by Captain Pierre Bouchardon, a
thin, beady-eyed military prosecutor who habitually bit his
fingernails. To him, she gave a fairly truthful account of
her background rather than the exotic claptrap she fed her
audiences. She often shaved facts here and there to make her
history seem a tad more “respectable” and got dates and
similar details wrong. She categorically denied being a
double agent. “I am innocent,” she stated firmly.
“Someone is playing with me – French counter-espionage, since
I am in its service, and I have acted only on its instructions.”
She was held in Saint-Lazare prison while awaiting trial and
interrogated by Bouchardon no less than seventeen times before
facing an actual military jury. The prison had no baths so
the only way she could clean herself was in a small bowl that was
sometimes brought to her cell. The institution itself was
generally filthy, something that greatly distressed the fastidious
Mata Hari. She was isolated from other prisoners. This
may have been for her own protection since her fellow inmates may
well have wanted to exact their own justice upon a German spy but
it grated on the sensibilities of the extroverted suspect.
Since her arrest was kept secret from the public, she was not
allowed to write to Vadim. She was permitted no clean
changes of clothing and allowed only 15 minutes a day for solitary
exercise outside of her cell.
In between their face-to-face interrogations, Mata Hari wrote
to Bouchardon protesting her innocence and protesting against the
severe conditions of her confinement. In one such missive
she wrote, “You have made me suffer too much. I am
completely mad. I beg of you, put an end to this. I am
a woman. I cannot support [what is] above my strength.”
In another she pleaded, “I beg of you, stop making me suffer in
this prison. I am so weakened by this system and the cell is
driving me mad. I have not done any espionage in France . .
. Let me have provisional liberty. Don’t torture me
here.”
She wrote in vain.
There was one visitor allowed to her who came to see Mata Hari
almost daily. He was her attorney, Edouard Clunet. The
74-year old lawyer had once been a lover of Mata Hari and
continued to have warm feelings for her. He had handled
legal matters for the dancer and professional mistress for over a
decade. However, he was a poor choice to handle an espionage
case. Although his mental faculties remained sharp in his
seventh decade, his specialty was international corporate law –
an area in which he was considered the greatest expert in the
country – and he was out of practice in actually pleading in
court.
While Mata Hari’s arrest was kept secret during several
months of her detention, it was announced to the public just
before the beginning of her trial at the Palace of Justice on July
24, 1917. An enormous crowd wanted to see the famous sex
symbol during this time of disaster. They thronged into the
great antechamber and spilled out into the street.
The dusky-skinned, dark-haired, and overweight defendant had
taken care with her appearance on this day, wearing a lovely blue
dress and a hat with a delicate, diaphanous lace mantilla sweeping
across her face and flowing down her shoulders. Despite the
summer heat, she wore gloves on her hands and folded them into a
large fur muff.
Chief prosecuting attorney was André Mornet, a lieutenant in
the French army. The case had been transferred from
Bouchardon to him sometime before the trial began. Mornet
was a slender fellow who sported a very full mustache and beard.
Presiding over the trial was Lieutenant-Colonel Albert-Ernest
Somprou. The six “assessors” of the military court who
would decide the fate of the defendant were all career officers
approaching or beyond middle age.
The first request of the prosecutor was to hold the trial “in
camera” (in secret) and to seal the records for the good of
national security. Somprou granted the motion and the huge
crowd was shooed out of the courtroom.
Mornet carefully outlined the case against the accused.
She had been under suspicion and under surveillance since shortly
after she arrived in Paris in May 1916. He emphasized that
those who patronized this harlot were overwhelmingly military
officers, hoping to implant the notion that Mata Hari’s interest
was far more sinister than that of a sensuous woman with a thing
for men in uniform.
Radio messages from the German military in Madrid to Berlin had
been intercepted, Mornet told the jury. These identified
Mata Hari as Agent H 21 of the Cologne intelligence center.
Getting rather carried away with his own rhetoric, Mornet called
the defendant “a sort of Messalina, dragging a horde of admirers
behind her chariot.”
Five witnesses were called to confirm what the prosecutor had
said in his opening. Under the military trial rules of the
time, Clunet could not cross-examine the prosecution’s
witnesses. Even more damaging, the defense could not even
directly question its own witnesses!
However, a defense witness did appear to praise the accused.
Henry “Robert” de Marguérie was a high-ranking official in
the foreign ministry. He had known the defendant for
fourteen years and been a lover of hers. He had visited her
shortly after returning to Paris from fighting in the war and they
had not talked about the conflict at all.
Mornet found this hard to believe and pressed the witness.
“Are you asking us to accept, sir,” the prosecutor began
incredulously, “that you spent three days constantly in each
other’s company and not a word escaped your lips of the question
which obsesses us all, the war?”
De Marguérie’s answer was immediate and unequivocal.
“I am a very busy man,” he said, “and I am obsessed with the
war night and day. For just that reason, it was a great
relief to spend three days talking of philosophy, Indian art, and
love. It may seem unlikely to you but it is the truth.”
Without being asked, he volunteered, “Nothing has ever spoiled
the good opinion that I have of this lady.”
Before leaving the courtroom, de Marguérie ostentatiously
bowed to Mata Hari.
To an extraordinary extent, the hands of the defense were
simply tied. Thus, it is not that surprising that the
military court ended up finding her guilty. Their sentence
was harsh but not unexpected to one convicted of spying for an
enemy nation: “The Council unanimously condemns the named
person, Zelle, Marguérite, Gertrude, as mentioned above, to the
punishment of death.” She was also required to pay court
costs.
Mata Hari appeared to be in shock when she heard the sentence.
She stared straight ahead as if transfixed. Edouard Clunet
wept beside her.
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Mugshot of Mata Hari |
During the remaining months of her incarceration, Mata Hari was
alternately hopeful of a last-minute reprieve and utterly
depressed. She continued to gain weight from the starchy
prison food and the enforced lack of exercise. The last
photographs taken of her show a woman still attractive if plump
but weary, anxious, and sad.
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