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Remarkable Rogues: The Careers of Some Notable Criminals of Europe and America

<h2 class="vspace">CHAPTER IV THE WOMAN WITH THE FATAL EYES</h2> Jeanne Daniloff was reared in an atmosphere of mystery, intrigue and squalor. Her father was one of the many victims of Russian tyranny, and he had been forced to wander about Europe, going from one cheap boarding-house to another, accompanied by a wife who resented his lack of worldly success, and by a daughter who, as she grew older, rebelled against the squalid isolation of the life they were leading. But Jeanne was not the sort of girl to accept her fate quietly. She had inherited her father's fanaticism, though she never applied it to political purposes, and also her mother's temper, and, becoming tired of the frequent quarrels between her parents, she eloped to Paris with an old gentleman. Jeanne was not sixteen, well developed, hardly a beauty, but possessed of a pair of remarkable eyes. She was well described later as "The woman with the fatal eyes." Jeanne was not destined to live many years, and yet during her brief career she hypnotized to their ruin three men, all of whom were, presumably, persons of education and position. The ambitious, fiery-natured Russian girl meant to have a good time. Jeanne Daniloff was a curious mixture of pride and self-abasement. She hated poverty and she loved love. In her opinion the world ought to have been populated only by handsome men able to48 provide her with every luxury, with a sprinkling of women to flatter her by their jealousy. Warm-hearted and warm-blooded, reared in poverty and trouble, Jeanne Daniloff was born to play a tragic rôle on the stage of life. Her first escapade did not last longer than six months and by the time her elderly friend had deserted her Jeanne was an orphan. At that moment her fate was trembling in the balance, and she might have been left in her loneliness to sink to the lowest depths had not her grandmother, who had always loved the reckless and irresponsible girl, offered her a home. Jeanne accepted, and went to live at Nice, encouraged, no doubt, by the knowledge that Nice had many carnivals, and was a resort of the rich. Her grandmother, who kept a boarding-house, was soon cured of her delusion that Jeanne would help her in the conduct of her establishment. Household work was not to the liking of the young girl, who thought only of dresses and dances and men, and while the old lady was left to look after her boarders Jeanne spent the days reading novels and the nights dancing. She became a well-known figure at the numerous dancing halls in Nice, and most men forgot her rather plain features once they came under the spell of her "fatal eyes." Jeanne had only to look at a man to bring him to her feet. Once she realized her power she revelled in it, and, despite her aptitude for doing nothing, she managed to educate herself to hold her own in the best society, into which she sometimes strayed. There is always at least one critical turning point in the careers of women of the Daniloff type, and Jeanne's came unexpectedly at a ball at Nice. She was chatting with a couple of friends between dances when the master of ceremonies begged to be allowed to present a newcomer to her. A few moments later Jeanne Daniloff was face to face with a tall, pale young man with a weak49 mouth and a nervous manner. Jeanne looked at him with her fatal eyes, and he was her slave. Weiss was a lieutenant in the French Army, of good family, and with a future. In that crowd of adventurers and witlings he was a somebody, and when the following day he called on Jeanne at her grandmother's boarding-house he thrilled her with a proposal of marriage. It was not unexpected. Jeanne must have known that she had fascinated him, but she was nevertheless pleased at the prospect of becoming Madame Weiss, and in her usual manner she flung herself impetuously into the arms of her lover. Her happiness was short-lived, however. Weiss's mother, when she heard of her son's intention, made it her business to interview Jeanne. Madame Weiss was not to be fascinated by the "fatal eyes," and she summed up the character of the boarding-house siren in terms that left no doubt in her son's mind that she would never consent to the union. As according to the law of France the young officer could not marry without his mother's permission the brief engagement between him and Jeanne came to an end. The Russian girl quickly recovered her spirits and once again abandoned herself to the gaieties of Nice. The prospect of losing her turned Weiss's love into a burning passion. He attended balls just to catch a glimpse of her; and it maddened him to see her smiling into the faces of men he imagined to be his rivals. Daily he pestered his mother to give her consent, but she held out against him, and at last Weiss had to resort to desperate measures. With his promotion to the rank of captain he received orders to go to Oran in Algiers. The night before he was due to leave Nice he sought out Jeanne and implored her to elope with him. Of course he was in complete ignorance of the fact that the girl had already had that "affair" with that elderly gentleman which had terminated50 in Paris. Young Weiss used all the eloquence of which he was capable, unable to realize that he was addressing one to whom elopement appealed irresistibly because it was an adventure. They left together for Oran, and shortly after their arrival set up housekeeping under the soft, alluring skies of Algiers. The humid climate suited Jeanne. The mysticism and romantic beauty of North Africa captivated her; she revelled in the colour, the movement and the variety of the native towns and villages. As the reputed wife of Captain Weiss she mixed in the best society, and Jeanne was soon a popular hostess, whilst her fascination for men was as remarkable as ever it had been. Meanwhile, the much-in-love Weiss had not ceased to pester his mother, and she, feeling that it would be foolish to resist any longer, gave her consent, and Captain Weiss and Jeanne Daniloff were married. The ceremony had a curious effect upon Jeanne. She became deeply religious. Every morning she read the Bible, and her prayers were never neglected. She took to visiting the poor and her charity was boundless. Her husband was delighted. He was her most devoted admirer, and as he possessed qualities which made him an ideal husband she ought to have been very happy. For a time Jeanne mastered herself sufficiently to appreciate him and to show her devotion by living only for him. His abilities had by now been recognized by the French Government, which had permitted him to retire from the army and take a well-paid civil appointment in the Algerian service. There was, therefore, no lack of money, and when in course of time Jeanne was the mother of two fine children, a son and a daughter, she seemed to be the happiest wife and mother in Oran. She had the means to give dinner-parties and garden-parties, and the very best people were amongst her intimate friends. It was, indeed, a decided change51 from the boarding-house at Nice and the cheap dancing halls. Soon after the birth of her second child—in the early part of 1889—Captain Weiss bought a charming house and grounds at Ain-Fezza, near Oran. It was an ideal residence, and everyone envied Madame Weiss her home, her children and her husband. She had the reputation of being a most devout Christian and a good wife and mother. The Paris elopement seemed to belong to another world. The reckless pleasure-seeking Jeanne Daniloff might never have existed, yet the time was fast approaching when her real self was to come to the surface again. Nothing could have prevented her being herself. She could not help her own nature. The daughter of the Russian revolutionaries, a veritable child of storm, could not maintain the character she had earned in Oran; and when all appeared well with her she plunged into a murderous intrigue which cost her everything—home, children, husband and life! In the year 1889 an engineer of the name of Felix Roques came to Ain-Fezza to work on the Algerian Railways. He had not been long in the place when he was compelled to listen to glowing accounts of Madame Weiss, in which her piety and love for her family were dilated upon. Roques's curiosity was aroused. It seemed impossible that the world should contain so perfect a creature as they told him Madame Weiss was. At this time Jeanne was only twenty-one, and in the full possession of her powers, physical and mental. Felix Roques had no difficulty in making her acquaintance. In common with the principal employés of the company that was constructing the railway, he was invited to a garden-party at Madame Weiss's, and there he was introduced to her by her husband. For some extraordinary reason the sight of Felix Roques aroused in Madame Weiss's breast all those doubtful52 passions which had lain dormant since her flight from Nice. In a moment she was Jeanne Daniloff again. She fell straightway in love with the handsome engineer. Home, husband, children and reputation became as nothing to her. She dropped the mask and was the wild child of nature again. All the blood of her fanatical, revolutionary ancestors coursed through her veins, warmed by the balmy African sun. She was really in love at last. That was what she told herself. She had married Captain Weiss to escape from the dreary boarding-house and the commonplace persons her grandmother catered for. She had tolerated him because he gave her social position, and she had accepted boredom because she wished to be with her children. But now she was in love, and Felix Roques, whose features were regular without making him startlingly handsome, fell under the spell of the fateful eyes, and was never the same man again. The lovers had many secret meetings, and even when they met at parties could not conceal their affection. Friends warned Weiss; but he only laughed at them. Was not his wife the most religious woman in Oran? Had he not the evidence of his own senses that she was devoted to him and to their little boy and girl? "You are talking nonsense, my friend," he would answer calmly, and go about his duties, and once, to show his confidence in his wife, asked Felix Roques to take her to an evening party because business would detain him at his office. The time came, however, when Madame Weiss and Felix Roques decided that it was impossible for either of them to be content with simple dalliance. The hypnotized engineer declared that Jeanne must give herself completely to him. The suggestion was met with a pleased laugh. Jeanne liked a strong, determined lover, and not a milksop of a husband who let her have her own way in everything.53 I will give her own description of this scene with her lover. It reveals the temperament of the woman in a remarkable way. "I loved Monsieur Roques as the master of my thoughts, of my intelligence, of my body, of every fibre of my being, as a master whom I worshipped, and in whose presence I myself ceased to exist," she wrote. "When he asked me for the first time to appoint him an assignation we were walking with some other people. Instead of saying yes or no I took out a coin and said to him, 'I don't wish to take on myself the responsibility of a decision; you know that if once we begin to love it will be no light thing for me. I shall lead you far, perhaps farther than you think. If it comes down heads it shall be yes; if tails, no.' He looked very astonished; he blushed very deeply and said, 'So be it.' I spun the coin; it came down heads, and I was his." The astounding nature of this female criminal is proved by the fact that to celebrate her downfall she had a ring engraved with the date, November 13, 1889! Once she was committed to him her love became a mania. She wrote to him daily, and at night, when she had superintended the putting to bed of her children, she would sit down beside their cot and scribble pages of ecstatic praise of the young engineer. Some of those letters have been preserved, and I will give one or two specimens. "Dearest," she wrote a fortnight after she had betrayed her husband, "you do not know how I hold to life now. Does it not promise to me in the future days of radiant happiness, intimacy, affection growing daily stronger, with you, my beloved, you to whom I am proud to belong, you for whom I am capable of any sacrifice, any act of devotion? How I love you, Felix! Take all the kisses I can give you and many more. I embrace you with all the strength of my being.—Your wife, Jeanne." 54 Several months passed, and everybody in the district except Weiss knew of the intimacy between his wife and Roques. The infatuated man refused to believe a word against her, and his wife rewarded him by eventually coming to the conclusion that he was in her way, and that she must "remove" him in order to attain to the fullest happiness with Felix Roques. The guilty couple often discussed the possibility of murdering Weiss without having to pay the penalty. Like everybody else they had been fascinated by the lurid English drama known as "The Maybrick Case." They had read full details of the "removing" of James Maybrick by arsenic, and the very complete French reports of the sensational Liverpool trial introduced Jeanne Weiss to many of the mysteries of arsenical poisoning. She knew that there were ways of obtaining poison without having to name that dread word, and when the fatal step was resolved on she voted for Fowler's solution as the medium. A remarkable correspondence led up to the opening act of the drama. She sent Roques a letter, in which she said, "I am beset with sad and depressing thoughts. What I am about to do is very ugly." Later she wrote, "I prefer Fowler's solution to begin with. It is agreed, Felix. You shall be obeyed. Have I ever hesitated before anything except the desertion of my children? Crimes against the law don't trouble me at all. It is only crimes against Nature that revolt me. I am a worshipper of Nature." Another remarkable reference to the forthcoming attempt on her husband's life must be quoted, "I have been playing the Danse Macabre as a duet. My nerves must be affected, for it produced a gloomy effect upon me. I thought of death and of those who are about to die. Can it be that this feeling will return to me? But it is so sweet to think that I am working for our nest." 55 The last letter she penned before the actual poisoning began was an outburst of love and hysteria. "Oh, Felix, love me, for the hideousness of my task glares at me. I want to close my heart and my soul and my eyes. I want to banish the recollection of what he has done for me, for I worship you. I feel such a currency of complete intimacy between you and me that words seem unnecessary. We read each other's thoughts as in an open book. To arrest this current would be to arrest my life. I may shudder at what I am doing after it is done, but go back I cannot. Comfort and sustain me; help me to get over the inevitable moments of depression, bind me under your yoke. Make me drunk with your caresses, for therein lies your own power. I will be yours, whatever happens. So long as you give me your orders I will carry them out. But it seems to me I am doing wrong. I love you terribly." Weiss became ill in October, 1890, mysteriously ill, for the local doctor was greatly puzzled. The patient's young wife—she was only twenty-two—nursed him with apparent devotion. She would allow no one else to give him his food, and, of course, her reason for this was the fact that no one else could be relied upon to mix arsenic with it! When friends of the family called Jeanne's distress touched their hearts. She was implored not to risk a breakdown herself by overdoing the day and night nursing of her ailing husband, and they advised her to employ professional help. With a wan smile Jeanne announced her determination to nurse him tenderly herself, and sacrifice her own life if necessary for him. There had been adverse rumours concerning Jeanne Weiss in Oran and the neighbourhood, but in the face of this unexampled devotion to her husband they seemed to be the inventions of unscrupulous enemies. 56 The doctor grew more puzzled. Just when his patient seemed to be improving he would have a relapse, and there was a curious ill-luck about the ministrations of Madame Weiss. He did not see that Jeanne was only acting the part of the distressed and anxious wife. It was her pale face and tearful manner that kept his eyes closed to the truth. It happened, however, that Weiss had a secretary, Guerry, whose wife was a friend of Mademoiselle Castaing, the postmistress at Ain-Fezza, a lady whose bump of curiosity was abnormally developed, for she was in the habit of passing her time by opening the letters that came through her office, and reading the contents. Mademoiselle, in fact, knew more about the intrigue between Madame Weiss and Felix Roques than anyone else, and it was only by exercising the rarest self-control that she refrained from publishing far and wide the news that Roques had gone to Spain to be out of the way when Weiss died, and that Madame Weiss was to join him later in Madrid with her children. She knew also that months before Jeanne had refused to elope with Roques, because that would have meant parting from her children, the custody of whom would be given to her deserted husband by the Court. It was because she wished to keep her children that she decided to murder her husband instead of simply leaving him. Guerry, the secretary, was devoted to his employer. When Weiss became worse he reported the fact to Madame Guerry, and that lady sniffed meaningly and finally blurted out the gossip she had heard from the postmistress. Instantly the secretary's suspicions were aroused. He felt certain that Jeanne was poisoning her husband, and when on October 9 his wife hinted that Madame Weiss had posted an important letter addressed to Felix Roques at Madrid, and that the letter was still57 lying in Mademoiselle Castaing's post office, he promptly went down to see the lady whose curiosity was the direct means of saving a wronged man's life. It was, of course, against the regulations for the postmistress to discuss her duties with outsiders, and Guerry, unwilling to put her in an embarrassing position, cut the Gordian knot by stealing Madame Weiss's letter. When he got home he read it, and a more remarkable document was never penned. "You may as well know what a fearful time I am going through at this moment—in what a nightmare I live," Jeanne wrote. "Monsieur has been in bed four days, and the best half of my stock is used up. He fights it—fights it by his sheer vitality and instinct of self-preservation, so that he seems to absorb emetics and never drains a cup or a glass to its dregs. The doctor, who came yesterday, could find no disease. 'He's a madman, a hypochondriac,' he said. 'Since he seems to want to be sick, give him some ipecacuanha, and don't worry. There's nothing seriously the matter with him.' "The constant sickness obliges me to administer the remedy in very small doses. I can't go beyond twenty drops without bringing on vomiting. Yesterday from five in the morning until four in the afternoon I have done nothing but empty basins, clean sheets, wash his face, and hold him down in the bed during his paroxysms of sickness. At night when I have got away for a moment I have put my head on Mademoiselle Castaing's shoulder and sobbed like a child. I am afraid, afraid that I haven't got enough of the remedy left, and that I shan't be able to bring it off. Couldn't you send me some by parcel post to the railway station of Ain-Fezza? Can't you send four or five pairs of children's socks with the bottle? I'll take care to get rid of the wrapper. Hide the bottle carefully. "I'm getting thinner every day. I don't look well,58 and I am afraid when I see you I shan't please you. Did you get the photograph? "Forgive my handwriting, but I am horribly nervous. I adore you." The secretary handed the letter to the Public Prosecutor at Oran, and immediately Jeanne Weiss was arrested. The police were only just in time. Another day's delay and Weiss must have died, for the doctors had to work desperately before they could report that he was mending. When she was put in prison Jeanne tried to commit suicide, but a strong emetic preserved her life. Then followed a genuine illness, and for six months she was in the prison infirmary. She had been allowed to take her infant with her, but it sickened in goal and died, greatly to her distress, for although Jeanne could plot to receive arsenic with which to poison her husband, and could ask her lover to hide the bottle in children's socks, she was devoted to her babies. A curious contradiction, yet it was because of this that, instead of deserting Weiss, she chose rather to poison him. A perusal of Madame Weiss's papers left no doubt in the minds of the authorities that Felix Roques was her guilty accomplice, and the services of the Spanish police were utilized to effect his arrest in Madrid. Roques, however, had no intention of facing the music, and he contrived to smuggle a revolver into the Spanish goal, and with it he blew out his brains. The young Russian woman was left, therefore, to answer alone the serious charge of having attempted to murder her husband. The trial did not take place until the last week in May, 1891, when Jeanne Weiss was just twenty-three. She had, indeed, lived her life. In experience and intrigue she was an old woman, and it was hard to credit the story of her career as laid before judge and jury by the prosecutor. During her incarceration she had composed a sort of autobiography in which she attempted59 to put all the responsibility on Felix Roques, and when tired of that she persuaded herself that her husband had forgiven her, and that he would save her from punishment by giving evidence on her behalf. It was sheer invention, but it enabled her to enter the Court without a tremor, and feel hopeful of an acquittal. The trial was conducted with all the emotion of which a French Court can be capable, and had it not been for the proofs in the prisoner's own handwriting her youth and her "fatal eyes" might have saved her from conviction. Jeanne's chief hope was that the sight of her distress might reawaken the love her husband first bore for her, the love that had once caused him to quarrel with his own mother. But Weiss had been sickened to the soul by the realization of her treachery. He could not look upon her without shuddering with horror, and from the moment he had been convinced that she had tried to murder him he declined to give her his name. Henceforth she was Jeanne Daniloff, and not Madame Weiss, and he would not permit anyone to speak of her as his wife. Jeanne, who had decided to commit suicide if she was convicted, came into Court with a handkerchief which she constantly pressed against her face. No one knew that in the corner of it was a piece of cigarette paper which contained a dose of strychnine. This was to be her last resource if the verdict of the jury went against her. The critical moment came when Weiss stepped into the witness-box. Now that Felix Roques was dead Weiss was the only person who could tell the inner history of the intrigue. Jeanne hoped that he would suppress everything likely to damage her, and all the time he was being questioned she kept her eyes on him. But it was too late. Weiss was an older and a wiser, if sadder man now. Jeanne's eyes were no longer capable of hypnotizing him, and he simply told the60 truth. When he was given permission to leave the box he turned abruptly towards the jury and addressed them. "I desire, gentlemen," he said, "to make the following declaration: I speak that I may reply to certain calumnies that have appeared in the press. I have never forgiven Jeanne Daniloff. I do not, and I never will, forgive her. Henceforth she is nothing to me. Whatever her fate, I stay near my children. I only wish never to hear her name again." That statement sealed the doom of the accused. She uttered a gasp of terror, and would have fallen had not the wardress clutched her, and although the trial continued for several hours longer she scarcely understood what was happening. It was at four o'clock in the morning when the jury returned a verdict of guilty, "with extenuating circumstances," and but for the latter the convict would have been sentenced to death. The fatal eyes had, in fact, saved her; but Jeanne Weiss had no desire for life. To her, death was far more preferable than existence within prison walls, and when the judge's sentence was still ringing in her ears she bit her handkerchief as though trying to steady her nerves, though in reality she was swallowing the dose of strychnine she had concealed in the hem. A request to the wardress for a glass of water was instantly complied with, and Jeanne then washed the fatal poison down. A few moments later she was shrieking in agony. They carried her into an adjoining room, and a doctor administered an emetic, but already the deadly dose was accomplishing its task. Jeanne Weiss was dying, and those who had assisted to bring her to justice stood around her as she passed into another world. The manner of her going was in keeping with her character. Wild, turbulent, passionate, fierce and unscrupulous, Jeanne Daniloff was a revolutionary, one61 who rebelled against the laws of mankind. She took her own life gladly, and her last words were references to her children and to the man for whom she had sacrificed so much. She appeared anxious to spare her children the disgrace of having a convict for a mother, but it was really her husband's repudiation and the knowledge of her lover's death that had inspired her to revise the sentence of the Court and execute herself. <hr /> 63 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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