Friday, 15 April 1881

An article has appeared in Gil Blas¹ about Berthe — everything is there except the names, which even the least perceptive can guess. The story with Blanc, the cheque for a hundred thousand francs that Robert cashed, keeping ten thousand for himself. All the shameful doings and the things I did not want to believe when the young Karageorgevitchs told them. But this newspaper article is nothing compared to the rest — tradespeople down to the little dressmaker say openly, shamelessly, that she has become a kept woman. She took supper, drove out and went to the theatre with Laure Hermann and la Peeger this past winter in Nice.

However monstrous it may seem, it comes from so many quarters that one is forced to believe it. And to crown everything, she has left her mother’s apartment and installed herself at 4 rue Le Pelletier.

It is dreadful, but everything conspired as if on purpose. First Berthe’s extravagant nature, and then above all Robert. He has brought it all about — and before marrying her he was perhaps already thinking of trafficking in her. I saw through that vile creature from the very first.