Today, the cherry trees there must be in blossom.
His parents won’t be able to come. Not only is it too far, but, with the Krauts’ submarines ready to torpedo any innocent ships that pass, it would be too dangerous. Jean-Baptiste, his younger brother, will get leave to come. He and Cousin Paul will be Christian’s groomsmen. Major de Brisson and Thérèse will be my bridesmaids. Grandfather will walk me down the aisle.
You will be there in the church, Mary, full of grace, and you will support me with your love.
I would have loved a simple ceremony, but Father de La Martinière and Major de Brisson insisted, because of the symbol it will be: Christian will represent all of his comrades lost in combat and will wear the full uniform of the École Polytechnique, with the medals for the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d’Honneur. He was fitted for a mask in black taffeta, which hides the scars and reproduces the shape of his nose. That way he can go without the bandages and wear the cocked hat—I hope the red lock of hair will show from underneath. Cousin Paul, although he is still in full mourning, will wear the green uniform of the French Academy. This means I had to go and be fitted for a dress that is far more complicated than what I would have wanted. I cried when I saw myself in the dressmaker’s mirror. Is this really me? I feel more myself in my canvas blouse. At least the veil reminds me of my nurse’s uniform.
Mama is busy doing up the apartment on Rue d’Artois, where we will live.
He is different, too. His family isn’t from the same background as ours. But Cousin Paul says his career looks very promising, and his family is far away.
Besides, Papa would have been happy to know I’m marrying a young man with such a bright future, who is a good Catholic and a polytechnician.
One Polytechnician, Three Murders, Twenty-Two Articles
A POLYTECHNICIAN MURDERS HIS ENTIRE FAMILY
(Le Petit Parisien, June 25, 1917)
Yesterday in Le Chesnay (Seine-et-Oise), Roger Goldstein, former student of the École Polytechnique and lieutenant in the 6th Artillery Regiment, killed his father, his mother, his brother, and one of his aunts, who was a nurse at Hospital 209. The family was gathered around their Sunday lunch when the madman fired the mortal gunshots. Alerted by the racket, a female neighbor went to get the police, whom the murderer obeyed without any difficulties.
THE AMERICANS ARRIVE!
(L’Ouest-Éclair, June 30, 1917)
After General Pershing’s arrival in Paris on the 13th, last Tuesday saw the first American soldiers disembark at the port of Saint-Nazaire.
THE MURDERER HAD HIS SENSE KNOCKED OUT OF HIM!
(Le Petit Parisien, July 2, 1917)
We have been informed that Robert Gorenstein (and not Roger Goldstein, as we printed in error), the polytechnician and officer on leave who was arrested last week for the murder of his uncle, his aunt, and his brother (three and not four crimes as was written in haste in a previous article) was a victim of an artillery shell last January. Almost all the men in his battery were killed, and he himself hit his head.
In a horrible development, according to information gathered from neighbors, the three Gorenstein children were orphans and had been raised by their aunt and her husband.
At the time, military doctors considered him recovered, and he was sent back to the front. He is presently undergoing psychiatric exams.
DEATH OF A FLYING ACE
(Le Soir, September 15, 1917)
The aviator Georges Guynemer died on Tuesday in Poelkapelle (Belgium). He achieved more than eighty victories in the “Storks” fighter squadron.
A PLAGUE VANQUISHED
(Le Petit Parisien, October 2, 1917)
Typhoid fever has disappeared from the French front.
COUP D’ÉTAT IN RUSSIA
(L’Humanité, November 9, 1917)
The Maximalists are the rulers of Petrograd. Kerensky has been deposed. The fallen government no longer has the support of the Soviets.
Lenin has won the Soviets’ acclaim. The new government is calling for peace.
BOLSHEVIK NEGOTIATIONS
(Le Matin, December 15, 1917)
The Bolsheviks have started peace negotiations with the Krauts. If they reach an agreement, the liberated German troops will be free to come reinforce our attackers.
DERANGED POLYTECHNICIAN SHUT AWAY
(Le Petit Parisien, January 17, 1918)
The verdict in the Robert Gorenstein affair was announced yesterday. Readers may recall that he was arrested in June after murdering three members of his family. During the trial, the polytechnician, who had injured his head in battle at the Chemin des Dames, declared that he had wanted to eradicate the dead branches of his family. The psychiatrist deemed him irresponsible and as harmless as a little boy, now that he considered his task accomplished.
In view of this expertise, the court pronounced a sentence of life internment in a psychiatric ward.
PIERRE MEYER (interview, December 18, 2006). Marguerite never spoke about Gorenstein to anyone, I believe. Until 1945, when her daughter Bernadette left home. She went to get her notebooks from the bottom of the big wardrobe and gave them to Bernadette, asking her to read and save them. The newspaper clippings about the triple murder and the trial were slipped into the notebooks. She had stopped writing when she got married. She gave them to her daughter and died not long afterwards.
The article on typhoid was also among her papers. It appeared right around the time her sister died of typhus. She was eighteen. Marguerite named her first daughter, Thérèse, after her.
Bernadette was the fourth. Why she was the one Marguerite gave her diary to, I’m not sure I really ever knew.
THE G. CASE: A FIRST REPORT
BY J. MEYERBEER, PSYCHIATRIC DOCTOR, SAINT-MAURICE
(Gazette of the Association of Psychiatric Doctors of France, Vol. 28, 1920)
One may recall the bloody criminal story that the daily newspapers had a field day with in 1917–18, probably after being tired of publishing news from the front passed through the sieve of military censure. A multiple family murder, a matricidal (or almost) polytechnician—none other than a journalist would have more reason to celebrate. The goal of this article is to present the patient and his current state, two years after he was hospitalized.
HISTORY
Let us briefly recall the facts. On June 24, 1917, Robert G., then 22 years of age, killed his uncle and aunt, Monsieur and Madame H., and one of his sisters, Cécile G., during a family meal. More specifically, as he himself confessed and as the investigation confirmed, he started by shooting his youngest sister, then his aunt, and only killed his uncle when the latter interposed. Monsieur and Madame G. died in an accident when their son Robert was only two years old. Madame H. was his mother’s sister. She and her husband, who had no children, took