by Pat Shipman
Who was working to ruin her reputation? She thought at the time that Ladoux was sabotaging her romance for some reason, but later she believed it was Colonel Denvignes. Denvignes had already proven himself a ridiculously jealous man when he had met her in Madrid. He monopolized her attention and after a few days’ acquaintance thought he had the right to question her sharply about whom she saw and where she went. He demanded to know the name of the officer with whom she was in love: de Massloff. Later, Denvignes had turned against her and failed to pass the information she had entrusted to him along to Ladoux.
Too soon, Vadime had to return to his unit and Mata Hari was again alone. When she failed to receive any instructions from Ladoux, her impatience took hold again. She went to Maunoury at the Prefecture of Police, asking for a travel permit to go to Holland via Switzerland. Maunoury told her Ladoux was on the Riviera for at least three weeks and no one could give her a travel permit without his approval.
As she had done when trying to get to Vittel, Mata Hari simply went to another office to apply for a travel permit. This time, because the Prefecture of Police had refused to give her a permit, she went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On February 10, 1917, a request for a warrant to arrest Mata Hari was written by the minister of war on the letterhead of the War Ministry, Army Headquarters, Cinquième Bureau, Section of the Centralization of Information number 3455—SCR 10. It was stamped secret and addressed to the General of the Division, Military Governor of Paris, Office of Military Justice. It read:
I WISH TO MAKE KNOWN that the here-named Zelle, divorced spouse of MacLeod, a.k.a. Mata Hari, dancer, Dutch subject, strongly suspected of being an agent in the service of Germany. [The italicized phrase is inserted between the original typed lines.]
This information came from a very reliable secret source and the following indications have become known to the counterespionage service of the Army Headquarters:
1) Zelle MacLeod belongs to the Cologne intelligence service where she is known by the designation H21.
2) She has been twice in France since the onset of hostilities, undoubtedly to receive intelligence for Germany.
3) During her second voyage, she offered her services to French intelligence, when in fact, as she showed later, she would share whatever she learned with German intelligence.
4) Arrested by the English on her attempted return to Holland, she was returned by them to Spain where she entered into relations with the German military attaché at Madrid, at the same time she offered to the French military attaché to pass on information about the activities of German intelligence in Spain.
5) She confessed the points mentioned in the above paragraph to the German military attaché, as is established by a secret document coming from her, and further that she had received 5,000 francs from the German intelligence service at the beginning of November in Paris.
6) She has, further, remitted to the German military attaché a series of intelligence reports about military and diplomatic orders which were then transmitted by the headquarters to Berlin.
7) She finally agreed to return to France where a sum of 5,000 francs was sent to her by successive transmissions from the German ambassador in Holland at the general consulate of Holland in Paris. This sum effectively reached Zelle on January 16, 1917, and then she had made a photo of the receipt signed M. Bunge, consul of Holland, whose exact role in this affair could not be established except by questioning.
I COMMUNICATE TO YOU THE information which will permit you to appreciate the opportunity that is offered by issuing an order of denunciation against Zelle MacLeod, on the strength of which two dossiers of information have been constituted, one by the Army Headquarters and the other by the Prefecture of Police, dossiers which they could use for investigation.
There are several interesting points about these charges. Item 4—embarking on an affair with Major Kalle and offering to pass information gathered from him through Denvignes to the French government—sounds damning but was exactly what Ladoux had asked her to do: to seduce a high-ranking officer and then to gather information for the French. Though the code name “H21” is mentioned, the telegrams that identified Mata Hari as H21 are not. When Ladoux had recruited Mata Hari, Ladoux had accused her of being enemy agent AF44, trained in Antwerp. She denied it and the matter was seemingly dropped. Now she had become H21, but again no evidence was offered.
Not knowing she was on the verge of arrest, Mata Hari returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 12 to inquire about her permit to travel. She was told her papers had not arrived. She returned to her hotel, hoping, as always, for a letter from Vadime.
The warrant for Mata Hari’s arrest was issued the same day, citing the crimes of attempted espionage, complicity, and passing intelligence to the enemy. The warrant was stamped for execution on February 12. Captain Pierre Bouchardon, an investigative magistrate of the Third Council of War (the military court that tried espionage crimes) instructed Police Commissioner Albert Priolet to carry out the arrest and a detailed search, seizing letters, other documents, messages, and bank information. He was also charged to intercept her ongoing correspondence.
On the morning of February 13 a knock came at the door of Mata Hari’s room, number 131 of the Elysée Palace Hotel. When the door was opened, Priolet led in five inspectors to find Mata Hari eating breakfast, probably dressed in an exquisite, lace-trimmed dressing gown of the sort she loved to wear. Contrary to rumors that circulated later, Mata Hari did not appear naked in front of the men who had come to arrest her. Priolet read her the warrant for her arrest. While Mata Hari dressed, his men began their search of her room and possessions. They itemized the various objects and documents they thought might be suspicious, placing them under seal.
Seal Number One. 1) A French visa issued at The Hague on the 27 of November 1915 to Madame Zelle (Register 312), issued for Paris for the last time the 4 January 1916 for the Low Countries via Spain and Portugal.
2) A travel permit issued under the number 1498 E to Madame Zelle for a trip to Vittel.
3) A residence permit in the name of Madame Zelle, issued in Paris the 13 December 1915.
4) An extract from the registry of enrollment for aliens in the name of Zelle. (Registry 41. 13, volume 32).
5) An addendum to the visa number 312 issued in London the 2nd of December 1915, to go to Hendaye 11 January 1916.
6) A visa issued in The Hague the 12 of May 1916 in the name of Madame Zelle (Dutch passport).
Seal Number Two (wrapped). One lot of correspondence.
Seal Number Three (wrapped). Different receipts, bills, and diverse papers.
Seal Number Four. Ten papers dealing with the sending of money, the rental of a safety deposit box, bank matters, the rental of an apartment at 33, avenue Henri-Martin.
Seal Number Five. A checkbook for Credit Lyonnais, account number 147045, in the name of MacLeod, Mata Hari.
Seal Number Six. Fifty-three diverse addresses.
Seal Number Seven. Thirty photographs.
Seal Number Eight (wrapped). A valise containing books, brochures, programs, and various objects.
Seal Number Nine (wrapped). A box containing a pendulum clock and addressed as a gift from Mme. Zelle.
Seal Number Ten (wrapped). A box containing various objects that Mme. Zelle intended to take to Holland, as gifts to her servants.
Seal Number Eleven (wrapped). A traveling bag containing toilet products being submitted for examination by the judicial identification service.
Seal Number 12. An envelope containing six bank notes in the value of 100 francs, numbers 79885324–79885326–06968003–28148089–58349558–67750343; a bill for 60 florins, number AA094887; a bill of 40 florins, number UB2363; a Russian bill, number 609466. (Separate from this, a sum of 100 francs was left with the aforenamed Zelle.)
After ransacking her belongings, Priolet and his men took Mata Hari for her first interview with the investigator, Pierre Bouchardon. He woul
d become her nemesis.
17
Grinding Her to Dust
MATA HARI ENTERED Pierre Bouchardon’s office at the Palace of Justice at eleven o’clock on the morning of February 13, 1917. The office was so small that Bouchardon referred to it as his cupboard; with two small tables and three chairs, one for Bouchardon, one for the accused, and one for his clerk, the room must have been uncomfortably crowded. As investigating magistrate, Bouchardon should have been fully informed of any information gathered by any source, but he had not. For his own reasons, Ladoux had not yet confided to Bouchardon any information about the coded telegrams. As for the surveillance reports, Bouchardon scoffed that they were little more than a list of addresses for couturiers and teahouses.
Bouchardon was a small man, forty-six years old, the son of a family in which law and medicine were the favored professions. He had worked as a substitute judge and an attorney before he obtained the post of assistant director of criminal law in the Ministry of Justice. When the Third Council of War was created, he was proud to be appointed its sole investigative magistrate. He liked to quote a passage from Robespierre: “Justice must know neither friend, nor parents. She grinds in front of her all those who are guilty.”
On the day of Mata Hari’s arrest, her interrogator, Pierre Bouchardon, wrote: “Was she, had she been pretty? Without a doubt…. Feline, supple, and artificial, used to gambling everything and anything without scruple, without pity, always ready to devour fortunes, leaving her ruined lovers to blow their brains out, she was a born spy….” (The Mata Hari Foundation/Fries Museum)
By nature, Bouchardon was tense; he smoked, chewed his fingernails, and paced across his office. He was obsessive about his cases; he wished to know everything, every detail. His colleagues knew him to be a relentless investigator and nicknamed him “the Grand Inquisitor.” As a contemporary of his remarked, his name—Pierre, meaning “stone,” and Bouchardon, derived from bouchard, or sculptor’s hammer—was especially apt. Like a stony hammer, he pounded away at the accused and at unsolved enigmas until he shattered them. And he proceeded to use this approach to the fullest with Mata Hari. Even if he had little or no evidence against her, he was sure he could break her mentally and physically and get her to confess.
The first meeting between Bouchardon and Mata Hari was of the utmost importance. It was witnessed only by Sergeant Emmanuel Baudouin, who took notes in shorthand that were later transcribed in full. Following standard procedure, Bouchardon first asked Mata Hari if she had read the warrant against her; she said she had. He informed her that she had the right to call a lawyer; Baudouin recorded that she replied she did not need one. He wrote down her statement, which she signed as accurate:
“I am innocent. Someone is playing with me—French counter-espionage, since I am in its service, and I have only acted on instructions!”
She maintained that she needed no lawyer. This was a very foolish decision. She formally waived the right to have her attorney present at her first and last questioning and so received little legal advice. She did not yet understand the gravity of her situation.
Of course, Mata Hari denied all accusations and at the end of the interview rose to go, thinking it was over. It would be, she may have thought, like that foolishness when she was arrested in Falmouth and mistaken for Clara Benedix. Instead, Bouchardon grimly informed her, she was to be committed to prison. He seemed to take a certain glee in her panic-stricken response. He wrote a description of her in his notes after the interview: “I saw a tall woman with thick lips, dark skin, and imitation pearls in her ears, who somewhat resembled a savage…. [When I told her she was to stay in Saint-Lazare prison], she turned to me, a haggard look came into her eyes, which were dumb with fear; bits of dyed hair stuck out at her temples.”
Philippe Collas, Bouchardon’s great-grandson, speculated that Bouchardon was especially merciless with Mata Hari because of her immorality. Bouchardon had recently discovered that his own wife had taken a lover. His personal notes indicate that he had decided upon Mata Hari’s guilt from their very first meeting, if not beforehand. He later wrote: “From the first interview, I had the intuition that I was in the presence of a person in the pay of our enemies. From that time, I had but one thought: to unmask her.” Not only was she guilty because she was an immoral wicked woman—like Madame Bouchardon—but she was guilty because she had been arrested, because the war was going badly for the French and she was accused of passing secrets to the enemy, because the French troops were starting to mutiny. Bouchardon and the French government needed someone to be guilty, and Mata Hari was perfect for the role.
One of Bouchardon’s most effective tactics was to isolate and disorient the prisoner. Another was to put her into the worst conditions possible, and Saint-Lazare was perfect for that purpose.
Bouchardon ordered her to be confined in the most horrific nightmare of a prison that Paris had to offer, the notorious Saint-Lazare. The first night she spent in a padded cell, a normal provision for newcomers. A suicide watch was kept on her, using a small hatch in the door. Her filthy, flea-infested straw pallet lay on the cold floor. She was assigned number 721 44625.
Bouchardon gloated that he had frightened Mata Hari when he told her she must stay in Saint-Lazare prison. “I saw a tall woman with thick lips, dark skin, and imitation pearls in her ears, who somewhat resembled a savage…. She turned to me, a haggard look came into her eyes, which were dumb with fear; bits of dyed hair stuck out at her temples.” (The Mata Hari Foundation/Fries Museum)
Saint-Lazare had originally been a prison hospital treating streetwalkers with venereal disease. In the early twentieth century it housed female criminals, usually from the lowest class and convicted of the most heinous crimes. The prisoners were attended to, minimally, by nuns of the order of Marie-Joseph. From February 13 until July 24 of 1917, Mata Hari lived in almost complete isolation. Two elderly nuns, Sister Léonide and Sister Marie, were assigned to her. Their company, a few meetings with her attorney, some examinations by the prison doctor, and interrogations by Bouchardon were all that broke the monotony.
Saint-Lazare was dark, damp, filthy, rat-infested, unheated, and furnished primitively. The prisoners had no privacy, and their food was scanty and appalling. The elegant demimondaine who had dined in the finest restaurants of Europe faced thin soup and bad coffee for breakfast, bread and boiled vegetables for her second meal, with a thin slice of poor-quality meat once a week—and she was forced to pay for these meals. The fastidious woman who had insisted on a private bathroom in every hotel was restricted to a small bowl of cold water in the morning for her ablutions. The glamorous dancer who favored silken costumes decorated with jewels now received a clean, coarse chemise once a week. The Amazon who rode horses beautifully and danced with strength and grace was permitted fifteen minutes of exercise a day if she caused no trouble.
Even for poor streetwalkers, conditions at Saint-Lazare were brutal; sometimes the prisoners actually revolted in protest. For Mata Hari, it was the crushing destruction of the world of luxury, comfort, and admiration she had built with such effort. The eventual result of her prolonged imprisonment was the nearly complete obliteration of the identity of Mata Hari.
The cells at Saint-Lazare were stark, filthy, and rat-infested. Mata Hari pleaded with her captors: “I cried from fear in the night and no one could hear me…. I think I am going mad. I beg you not to leave me locked up in this cell.” (Collection Roget-Viollet)
Léon Bizard, the senior prison doctor, remembered that he visited Mata Hari on her first night at Saint-Lazare, but there is no document describing such a visit in her dossier. He recalled that he asked her if she needed anything and she answered vigorously, “Yes! A telephone and a bath.” The prison had no bath and certainly did not supply telephones to prisoners. She did not yet comprehend the full horror of her situation.
Bouchardon gave Mata Hari a day to experience the realities of prison life and then called her in for an interview on February 15.
He was mentally set for a duel with a woman he felt was evil. After their first meeting, he had written a description of Mata Hari that bears little resemblance to descriptions offered by any other acquaintance of hers:
Was she, had she been pretty? Without a doubt, if one consulted the portrait taken in her youth which was the one in her passport. But the woman who was led to me in my office at the Third Council of War had suffered much at the hands of time. Her eyes large as eggs, bulbous, yellow and disfigured with red veins, the snub nose, the skin showing the application of too much rouge, the mouth stretching almost to her ears, lips like the fat rolls of a Negro, large teeth like paddles with a space between the incisors, hair graying at the temples where the dye had not lasted as long; in the pallid light that infiltrated the courtyard of the jail, she did not resemble at all the dancer who had bewitched so many men. But she had kept the harmony of her figure, the slenderness and a certain swing of the hips that was not devoid of grace, a little like the undulations of a tigress in the jungle.
Feline, supple, and artificial, used to gambling everything and anything without scruple, without pity, always ready to devour fortunes, leaving her ruined lovers to blow their brains out, she was a born spy…. She squandered money with such frenzy that she was often reduced to penury. Then she frequented the houses of assignation. Dr. Léon Bizard, doctor of the prefecture of police, encountered her in the course of his visits [to check prostitutes for syphilis], in an establishment in the quarter of l’Etoile. In addition, she had prohibitive rates, fifty louis for a “passing fancy” [a slang phrase meaning a quick and crude sexual encounter].