The arrogance of wealth - no justice in a USA court

Aspiring singer Blanche Chesebrough had talent and beauty, but no money, so marriage to handsome Roland Molineux might have solved her problems. Son of a politically powerful New York family, Roland enjoyed a wealthy bachelor's life: rooming at an exclusive club, yachting in Bar Harbour, partying with America's rich and famous. But Blanche was falling in love with Roland's best friend. And the stage was set for murder.

Blanche Chesebrough had dated Molineux at several Knickerbocker Club functions where he introduced her to Henry Barnet, a successful New York City stock broker and member of the Knickerbocker Club. Barnet, instantly infatuated with the beautiful young woman, asked her out. She accepted, and when she did, Henry Barnet went from Molineux’s friend to his bitter rival.

In Oct 1898, Molineux asked Blanche to marry him. She said no because she was in love with Henry Barnet. About a month later, Henry Barnet took ill and suddenly died. The official cause of death: cardiac asthenia induced by diptheric poisoning. Eight days after Barnet’s death, Molineux again proposed to Blanche. This time she said yes. They were married in November 1898.

Actually TWO people died mysteriously and in excruciating pain: 1. Roland's rival Henry Barn­et, as noted, and 2.  Mrs Katherine Adams, the landlady/aunt of another man Roland hated, Henry Cornish. Harry Cor­nish, a director of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, bare­ly survived cyanide poisoning himself.

The handsome, young, wealthy and athletic

Roland Molineux 

35-year-old Harry Cornish was athletics director of Manhattan’s posh Knickerbocker Athletic Club, an "uncouth, incompetent man" loathed by Molineux. On the day before Christmas 1898, Cornish received via the post office a blue tiffany pasteboard box containing a silver toothpick holder enclosed around a small, blue bottle of seltzer.

Harry Cornish lived as a tenant in a NY flat that was owned and occupied by his landlady/aunt Mrs Katherine Adams. After Christmas Mrs Adams awoke with a severe headache. To alleviate her headache, Cornish retrieved the remedy he had received anonymously in the mail just two days earlier. Mrs Adams doubled up in pain and collapsed; a few minutes later she was dead. The next day, Harry Cornish reported his land­lady’s violent death to the New York City District Attorney’s office.

Mrs Adams’ autopsy revealed traces of cyanide of potassium in her throat and stomach. Toxicologist Dr Rudolph Witt­haus had been a professor of chemistry and physiology at New York University for decades, and had testified in dozens of criminal courtrooms. When the press learned of Mrs Adams’ mysterious death, the case be­came headline news across the country. The secretary of the Knick­er­bocker Athletic Club thought he recognised the parcel’s hand­writing as belonging to a former member of the club, Roland Molineux, an elite athlete.

Detectives switched their attention to Roland Molineux. Roland’s father was wealthy, very well connected in the army and the Republican party, and was the president of a huge dye making company. Roland had followed his father into the dye business by studying chemistry, and then working as director of a dry colour factory in New Jersey. Roland hated to work, but mostly he loathed Henry Cornish.

Detective Carey believed that Roland Molineux, in an attempt to kill Henry Cornish, had accidentally poisoned Katherine Adams. The detective noted the following:
Mol­ineux hated Cornish (motive);
Molineux had training in chemistry (means);
Dr Witthaus had found that Mrs Adams had been killed by cyanide of mercury, used in the blending of dry colours in the dye factory where Molineux had been employed (means); and
the secretary of the Knickerbocker Club identified Molineux’s handwriting as being on the fatal package (opportunity).

When detectives learned of Henry Barnet's death, and of Barnet’s connection to Molineux’s wife Blanche Chesebrough, they became VERY interested in Molineux indeed! The links were powerful. The powder next to Barnet’s bed had been laced with cyanide of mercury, the same poison that would later kill Kath­erine Adams. The press ran with the story, linking Barnet’s death to the Katherine Adams case. The intended victims in both cases, Cornish and Barnet, had both been enemies of the same man, Roland Molineux!

Knickerbocker Club in NY where Roland Molineux, Harry Cornish, Henry Barnet and Blanche Chesebrough met each other, played sport, socialised, proposed marriage and fell into bitter rivalries. 

Detective Carey called in heaps of qualified handwriting experts to examine the evidence, to prove that Roland Molineux had written the address on the Seltzer package and two offensive letters.

The coroner’s inquest into Katherine Adams’ death began in Feb 1898 and lasted three weeks. The coroner’s jury ordered that Rol­and Molineux be tried for murder ONLY in Adams’ death. He was was NOT charged with killing Henry Barnet.

In Nov 1898, with national reporters in the courtroom, the Molineux trial started, focusing for weeks on the hand­writing evidence. In the meantime Molineux was beaut­ifully dressed and appeared to be disinterested in trivial matters... like the court case. In Feb 1900, after three months and a cost to the state of $200,000, the longest and most expensive trial in USA history till then, the jury found Roland Molineux guilty of murder in Katherine Adams’ death.

Molineux’s lawyer Mr Battle immediately filed an appeal for a new trial. In 1902, after serving two years in Sing Sing gaol, Molineux was granted a new trial. In the second trial, presided over by a dif­ferent judge, most of the questioned document evidence was excluded.

This time the defence decided to put Molineux on the stand. Beautifully groomed, Molineux denied any connection to the poisoned Seltzer or renting the mail boxes. In Nov 1902, after a very short process, the jury found him not guilty. But Molineux’s life fell apart. The gorgeous Blanche Chese­brough Molineux divorced him. Then in 1913, Molineux succumbed to the ravages of cerebral syphilis infection and was committed to a New York state mental hospital. Four years later, in 19l7, while still a raving maniac, he died at 51.

In 2014 the case might be forgotten. But Roland Molineux, whose sordid secrets exploded in the scandal of the century, had participated in a stun­ning courtroom drama where the arrogance of wealth could/did set a killer free!

Jane Pejsa's book, The Molineux Affair

1983

My data about The Molineux Affair comes from 3 sources:

- Jim Fisher's Document Examination, 

- Jane Pejsa's book, The Molineux Affair  and

- “Murder by Mail in Gilded Age New York”, written by William Grimes in the New York Times 24th Oct 2007.

sculpture - the Divine Sarah Bernhardt

There was a great to know about the French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923). Consider her:

1. rather tragic childhood with an unknown father and her half absent mother
2. being sent to a Catholic school and converting from Judaism to to Catholicism
3. connection to Duc de Morny and Alexandre Dumas, and growing passion for the stage
4. training at the National Cons­ervatory of Music
5. travel around the world with her troupe

6. love affairs, the men she wanted to marry and the men she did marry
7. diverse roles as an actress, tragedienne and entrepreneur
8. art nouveau posters
9. use of modern technology including photog­raphy, mechanised printing procedures and then the intro­duction of colour etc etc

But something I knew nothing about was the Divine Sarah’s skills as a sculptor and painter. The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Wash­ing­­ton DC noted that while acting, 25 year old Bernhardt began studying sculpture in 1869 with Mathieu Meusnier and Emilio Franchesci, and became passionately devoted to the art. 

By 1874 she was exhibiting her work at the very prestigious Paris Salon, a pleasure that she continued to fulfil for 12 years. Exhib­itions of the art­ist’s sculpture were held in London, New York and Philadelphia. Bernhardt later partic­ip­at­ed in the World’s Columbia Expos­ition in Chicago in 1893 and at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.

Sarah Bernhardt, 

After the Storm c1876
76 cm high
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC

After the Storm showed a heartbroken Breton peasant woman cradling the body of her dead grandson who had been caught in a fisherman’s nets. Sarah Bernhardt had seen this woman on the seashore and was moved by her tragic story. The artist studied anatomy, specifically to convey the intensity of the subject. Her ability to render textures from smooth skin to rough nets added to the naturalism of the piece. Had Bernhardt studied Michelangelo's Pieta where the Virgin Mary supported the dead Christ on her lap?

Four years later Bernhardt sculpted a less classical, more fantasy-based bronze inkwell. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston noted that the mysterious Self-Portrait of the Artist as a Sphinx was perhaps a metaphor for her ability to transform herself, on stage and in life. The combination of the body of a griffon, bat wings and a fish tail seemed to be inspired by contemporary Art Nouveau ornament­ation. Note the Tragic and Comic masks as epaulettes on the sphinx’s should­ers, presumably depicting the model’s profession as actress. In any case, Bernhardt was at that stage rehearsing for Le Sphinx, a melo­drama by Feuillet. 

Sarah Bernhardt

Self portrait as a sphinx
bronze ink well 1880
32 cm high
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Borrowers and Lenders Journal agreed about the Bernhardt’s changing priorities. She became so caught up in the creation of sculptures that she was tempted to give up her stage career. In 1873, unhappy about her work at the Comédie Française and physically unwell, she decided to take a studio and devote herself to sculpture. As she explains in her memoirs: "As I was not able to use my intelligence and my energy in creating rôles at the theatre as I wished, I gave myself up to another art and began working at sculpture with frantic enthusiasm".

Clearly she recovered from her grim mood. When the Comédie Française appeared in London in 1879, the exhibition at the William Russell Galleries on Piccadilly showed 5 of Bernhardt's sculptures. The ex­hib­ition was popular, and the art critic for The Times wrote a satisfyingly positive review. Among those who attended the Lon­don exhibition were the Prince and Princess of Wales, Sir Fred­er­ick Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, and William Gladstone who was prime minister, on and off.

Bernhardt excelled at modelling, and the majority of her sculptures were portrait busts, though she also made smaller objets de vertu. Indeed Bernhardt must have been very busy sculpting – the sphinx self portrait was one of six complex pieces she exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Fifty of her artworks have been documented but apparently only 40 can be located today. Where are the others; shut away in private collect­ions?

What does not surprise me is that, since Bernhardt was passionate about all forms of the visual art, she took the time to paint or supervise sets, design dresses and direct her own theatre company for her productions - non acting roles. We have many early 20th century examples of people in theatre companies hopping from one of the visual arts to another. The Ballets Russes was particularly keen to encourage the collaboration of modern artists like Leon Bakst, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse in the design of sets, costumes and posters.

Paris and Baron Haussmann: what happened to the city's gorgeous arcades?

I love Paris’ gorgeous shopping arcades, built in the late 18th century. But I couldn’t understand why so few survived.

Here is an article written by Spud Hilton and published in the San Francisco Chronicle. Then I will come back to my theory about Baron Haussmann and the modernisation of Paris.

Hilton wrote that the idea of arcades in Paris was sound. City planners in the late C18th developed covered pedestrian arcades for shopping as an escape from foul weather, an alternative to foul streets that at the time had too many horses, too few footpaths and too much sewage in a city with non-functioning sanitation. Of the 150-200 arcades, about 20 remain today. They fell out of favour, especially after the city's move toward grand boulevards later in century, and most were demolished or reused.

The arcades also are lesser known in part because most are in the portions of Paris' 2nd, 9th and 10th arrondissements that hold few other attractions for tourists. So few tourists see Galerie Vivienne, built in 1823, which is among the most-refined and best-preserved arcades. Note the rows of faux-marble columns, the fashionable storefronts, sculptures of goddesses and the elegant glass canopy. Note the floor with its wall-to-wall neoclassical mosaic designed by Italian artist Giandomenico Facchina in the mid-1800s. Visit Librairie Jousseaume, an antique bookstore that opened to the public about the same time as the arcade itself.

Cairo Arcade, Paris

opened 1798 and remains open today

The similarly upscale Galerie Colbert runs a parallel L-shaped course next to Galerie Vivienne, but is home to exhibitions, university ann­exes and a back door to restaurant Le Grand Colbert, a chi-chi brasserie.

After walking from the Latin Quarter and crisscrossing the 2nd Arr­on­dissement untold times, Hilton welcomed the variety of cuisine and the opportunity to relax and Parisian-watch in Passage des Panoramas. First built in 1799, Passage des Panoramas is the oldest remaining arcade, as well as the first building in Paris equipped for gas lighting. It rests on the site of the former Hotel de Montmorency Luxembourg, and was named for two enormous panoramas inside rotundas that were torn down in 1831.

The arcade is the poster child for the romance of early shopping arcades, something that French author Emile Zola used repeatedly in the short story Nana, about a young Paris prostitute in 1867 who becomes a stage performer. Zola wrote "She adored the Passage des Panoramas. The tinsel of the Article de Paris, the false jewellery, the gilded zinc, the cardboard made to look like leather, had been the passion of her early youth. It remained, and when she passed the shop-windows she could not tear herself away from them.”

By design, Passage Jouffroy and Passage Verdeau continue the same line as Panoramas. Stroll through Paris from the 2nd Arrond­issement to the 9th, and only step into the open to cross Blvd Montmartre and Rue de la Grange Bateliere. Built in 1846 based on the popularity of Panoramas, Jouffroy is mentioned in the 1852 Illustrated Guide to Paris listing of passages as "one of the most frequented in Paris. Inside is the front door to the Hotel Chopin. The hotel, with surprisingly inexpensive rooms that run from tiny to tinier, opened in 1846 as one of the first tenants.

Hilton continued to the far end of Jouffroy and across the street to Passage Verdeau, where the architecture and design are essentially the same, but the businesses seemed smaller.

Verdeau Arcade, Paris

opened in the early 19th century and remains open today

More so than any other covered arcade, Passage du Grand Cerf gives the impression of the height, design and grandeur of a European train station but without the width of even a single platform. Grand Cerf is the only covered arcade left constructed just of iron and glass (gilded in dark woods), reflecting the more industrial nature of the Saint-Denis district, which in the 1830s was filled with small fact­ories and workshops. It is also the tallest of the arcades, increas­ing the train station illusion. From Grand Cerf, Hilton exited onto Rue Saint-Denis, one of the oldest (Roman) streets in Paris.

**

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte became Pres­ident of the Republic in 1848 and Emperor Napoléon III of the Second French Empire in 1852. He wanted action!! Baron Haussmann was presented to the Emperor by the Minister of the Interior, with the recomm­end­ation that Haussmann was exactly the man needed to carry out the renewal of Paris. Napoleon III made Haussman Prefect of the Seine in June 1853, and quickly gave Haussman a huge project: to make Paris less medieval, heal­thier, less congested and much, much grander. The plan was to take the unplanned medieval lanes into modern boulevards, extending far beyond the limits of the old medieval city walls.

From 1852 on, Haus­s­mann rather ruthlessly dem­ol­ish­ed irreg­ularly shaped medieval roads, rep­l­ac­ing them with wide, tree-lined boulevards and elegant buildings. The long strip of land north of the Seine, marked at one end by the Arch de Triumphe and by the Louvre at the oth­er, was link­ed by a wid­ened Champs Elysees, Place de la Con­c­orde and Tuil­eries Gardens. In 1862, work started on one of the largest, most decorative opera-house of all. It seated 2000, had a huge st­age and a VERY de­corated interior. Sacre Coeur Basilica was built by nat­ional subscription in 1876. The massive white structure, with an en­ormous flight of steps up the side of the hill, looks vaguely Byzant­ine. The paintings are mosaics of the interior are also very el­abor­ate. On the edge of Haussmann’s new city, people were en­couraged to love and use the huge parks - Bois de Vincennes in the east and Bois de Boulogne in the west. Smal­ler green spaces throughout Paris meant buildings had to come down.

Paris

Note the 2nd, 9th and 10th arrondissements

By the end of Baron Haussmann’s redesigning of Paris in 1870, anything old and unplanned lay in rubble. Or was rebuilt in a more modern style. Late C18th arcades, which had been considered the height of modernity at the time they were built, had mostly disappeared 100 years later.

I would still like to know why the surviving arcades tend to be found in the 2nd, 9th and 10th arrondissements, NW of central Paris. Were these more working class suburbs, and therefore of lesser concern to the energetic Baron Haussmann? I doubt it. Grands Boulevards and Opéra 2nd-9th-10th arrondissements were clearly very popular cultural and recreational areas after the modernisation of Paris. On the boulevard Haussmann, close to the Opera House,  Le Printemps (opened 1865)  and  Les Galeries Lafayette (896) were, and are, the most delightful department stores of the French capital.  Café de la Paix, the Opéra, the Folies-Bergère and Olympia could not have been more famous.