detailed captions and its 100 pages of footnotes and index that runs 76 pages. it's not a string of numbers. it's every subject in the book so it's meant to stand the test time. if you purchase it you're going to be going back to it or if you get it from the library you will be able to use it. thank you. [applause] ..

>> good afternoon. i am the regional director with barnes & noble and the penn state bookstores. the penn state bookstore in penn state welcome pastor today. pat will be discussing the most recent book, 'femme fatale" love, lies and the unknown life of mata hari. pat is the author of eight previous books including the man who found the missing link, which one of phi beta kappa prize for science in was the finalists for the los angeles times book award and named "the new york times" notable books for 1998. her numerous awards and honors include the 1996 prize for the wisdom of the-- rid with allen walker. she is also published to the heart of the nile, lady florence baker and the exploration of central africa. she is currently an adjunct professor at the pennsylvania

state university and lives in state college. pat, we welcome you. [applause] >> alright, what i am going to do is read you very sex groups from different points in her life. the first explanation i probably need to give you is that the woman who became mata hari, the stage name under which she danced and lived in the later part of her life was not born mata hari. she was born margaretha in northern holland and she changed her name, the way some people change their dues. she changed her name a lot of times during her life. so, as i go through readings, you know i am going to stop and signet you when you were hearing in name that is not the one you are used to. and i want to start with the prologue of the book to kind of

set the stage for this story about her life i am going to tell you. the most important thing to know about margaretha is that she loved men. the most crucial thing to know about her is that she did not love truth. when it was convenient she told the truth. when it was not, or when she found the truth tedious, she invented what might kindly be called alternative truths and the unkindly lies. for her, what was factually true never seen as essential as what should have been true. by the time she had transformed itself into a mata hari she was highly skilled at fashioning the world to her likening. she was a creation from beginning to and, a character in a play that she continuously rescript did. she changed her name as often as some women change here styles. only once in her life did she acknowledged this fact about herself and it was when she was

in prison and eminent danger of being convicted of espionage and sentenced to death. the severe conditions of her imprisonment, the catastrophic collapse of the world she had created and the brutal destruction of her identity had driven her very near madness. with painful and site, sharpened by teetering on the edge of the abyss she wrote to the man who was her captor, accuser and interrogator trying to explain. there is something which i wish you to take into consideration. it is that mata hari and madam geoffrey canada. today because of the war i am obliged to live under ensign name, but this woman is the unknown to the public. i consider myself to be mata hari. for 12 years i have lived under this name. i am known in all the countries and i have connections everywhere. that which is permitted to mata hari is certainly not permitted

to madam zelle. that that happens to mata hari, there have been switched do not happen to madam zelle. the people who address one do not address the other. this was probably the moment of her greatest self understanding. in as telling a for life i had steered as close to the truth as i am able but in her case the truth is and ever shifting and elusive wedge. now, what those of you who know of mata hari before exposure to this book may remember, is that she was known as two things. one is that she was an extremely famous dancer, and you see her over there in one of her costumes. from 1905 until her death in 1917, she was as famous a celebrity as someone like maryland monroe. she was recognized everywhere,

she was considered to be the most desirable in most beautiful woman in europe and i have put up a historic photographs of her here, simply to show that even out of costume she was a stunningly beautiful woman and an immensely charming woman. the other thing people know about her is that she was arrested, convicted and executed for espionage. she was accused of spying against the french for the germans, and now that all of the documents are in the public domain it is clear that the evidence against her was as transparent as the veils she is wearing in that photograph. the evidence against her was pathetic, so we need to consider why she was convicted. but first i would like to take you back and go through a little bit of her life. she learned from her father,

literally at her father's knee that the way to make the world pleasant and wonderful and golden was to please men. she was forefathers favorite child. he is spoiled her unabashedly. he encouraged her to be flamboyant and outstanding and one of the things that figure very prominently in her life was that, as you can see from these photographs, she was very dark for a dutch person. she was born in the north of pollen. she lived there, and stereotypically, and quite literally people in the north of hollen tend to be very fair skinned, very fair-haired, blue-eyed. she had what was called then swarthy or dark complexion, which is not unreasonably start by today's cosmopolitan standards but certainly was then and there. she had dark brown or black hair, dark eyes and so she was physically very striking.

even childhood one of her schoolmates called hurt and orchid in the field of dandelions. so, she was different from everybody else from the beginning and was talked to different late and was taught explicitly or implicitly that man had everything in the world and the way to obtain it was to charm them and she learned her lesson very well. she married very young, at 17, a career military soldier in the dutch east indies army, the dutch east indies is now indonesia. but, he was a captain. she loved men in uniform. she loved officers particularly. he was much older than her. he came from a very good family and she felt should be assured the life of luxury. in fact, she read a newspaper ad that he plays, looking for why

to take back to the indies with him. this turned out to be not quite is a good deal less it seemed. they became engaged '60s after meeting which gives new meaning to the phrase whirlwind romance and married shortly thereafter, knowing very little about each other in having a lot of false assumptions, but they both loved -- they both drank, gambled, dance and have a wonderful time and problems for several. he was certainly not faithful to her and started being unfaithful shortly after they married. certainly in her later life with him, she was not feasible to him and it is not clear when she started having affairs. he was greatly in debt, because of his gambling and drinking and high living, so she was not going to live the life she had anticipated. even though he was an officer. and he had.

it was in terrible at the time of so there was believed to be a care and although the evidence is extremely circumspect, it is likely that he believed he had been cheered by the time they married. he was not and he gave it to her. and, this led to a lot of hostility in the marriage, let us say. he perhaps felt that she had given it to him, when he thought he was smearing this young virginal bride. she quite reasonably felt he had given it to her. and, they were terrified for the health of their children. one of their children died in the east indies, almost certainly of treatment for syphilis. and of course the treatment would not have cured it, but it

also involves mercury compounds which are highly poisonous and the child was not even yet three years old. this took a marriage that was already deeply troubled, that went from romantic, high living to absolu to vicious anger and hostility and eventually after the child died, her husband began beating her. he was at all times pretty insulting and abusive to her, would not let her have money because he felt she spent it on frivolous things, which she undoubtedly did. she was a very frivolous woman in many ways. when they left the indies, they separated and eventually divorced, and she was then faced with the issue of how to support

herself. now there were not a lot of options available to a woman in the early 1900's. there were not a lot of professions open to women. one of them of course was prostitution. she feared away from that, sometimes by greater distances, sometimes by of lesser distances but eventually began writing in equestriennes circus which was a very popular event in paris that the time. she said by the way that she ran off to paris. she was asked why paris? why did she stay in the netherlands? she said, i thought all women who left their husbands ran off to paris. [laughter] it was as good a reason as any. the man who ran the circus eventually suggested to her that she might do better at dancing then writing, although she was a superb writer.

and she managed to reinvent herself as the original exotic, what was then known as oriental denser. she borrows costumes, costume ideas from the dance that she had seen in the andes. she certainly did not reproduce the dance's wholesale. but, she did borrow many of the costume effects, although as you can see from that photograph, she specialized in showing off her body. and the traditional japanese covered themselves a little more thoroughly show we say then this. but she did borrow much from them, and brilliantly, she cast her dances as sacred temple dances from the east, which proved to be very important.

her debut was march 13, 1905 and she performed at the museum of asian art,. and i will read you a bit about her first performance. he invited a carefully selected 600 of paris's motes chique and fashionable to attend the debut. there are ardis, riders, aristocrats, officers, ministers and bankers. hundreds of powerful men with their well-dressed wives or bejeweled mistresses on their arms, all crowding into the museum to see this extraordinary new dancer of whom everyone was speaking. the isoo had already seen her in a private performance or anxious to establish their credentials as among the first to have seen her. those who had not yet experienced one of her performance is very eager to know if she was as mesmerizing

and beautiful as gossip. she had transformed the dome library into a semblance of an indian temple with flowers and vines wrapped around stately columns that supported the dome. the room was dimly lit by dozens of candles that provided enough elimination for the audience to see a rare 11th century bronze dancing shiva. his four arms extended in sinuous postures with a circle of flowers surrounding his body like a bizarre halo. a hidden orchestra performed music with an asian flavor said to be inspired by melodies from india. he gave a brief introduction and then the performance began. mata hari into the spotlight wearing a custom of the type that would become her signature, and a leveraged jeweled headdresses. emmet till alec be the brock, said of links of klaus, that

were wrapped around her shoulders, torso and race. with others that hung to the floor. she wore large earrings, a necklace, bracelet of exotic design and are much that cluster around her upper arms. her feet were bare ander flem sigar lynn's did little to conceal her naked body. her dances were emotional, and utterly novel. the symbolism was obvious enough for the public to understand, subtle enough to support her claim that these range in sacred dances of the orient. above all she was captivating performer. between dances, she would give a little explanation in four languages. or possibly five. explaining what she was doing and in fact, keeping her from being arrested for indecent

exposure. my dance is a sacred, in which each movement is a word and his every word is underlined by music. the temple in which the dance can be vague or faithfully reproduced as here today, for i am the temple. altria temple dances are religious in nature and all explained in gestures of poses, the rules of the sacred text. one must always translate three stages, which correspond to the divine attributes of trauma and she the, the creation and destruction. by means of destruction toward creation through inclination that is what i am dancing, that is what my dance is about. this went over with the audience phenomenally successful. i am not going to read many, but i will read you part of one of the first reviews she got because we don't see reviews

like this the performances of any kind anymore. people were in transit, in love, overwound and of course there was always that safety that these were religious temple dances and if you thought they were dirty, that was in your mind. one of the reviews, mata hari does not perform only with their feet, her eyes, her arms, her mouth, her lips. mata hari dances with their muscles, with her entire body does surpassing ordinary methods. wearing a cast on her head like a peacock, the sharp sword in your phys, the krysta between your teeth she coils around her waist in a gleaming built, proser grantor hits transparent material marked with the emblem of devine burd. this time she penetrates alone into the sanctuary. she goes to the employer the go to of the stars to deliver an

unfaithful lover. she cries for vengeance, asks how to grasp the traitor, slowly, skillfully she poisons the two blades and watches like a spy, penetrate sir victim then the purple belt on rolls slowly imitating the flow of blood. the weapon trembles and tell the head of the priest is plunges into the heart of the lover, savagely she brandishes her victorious blade. that is a review. and she continued for years to be one of the most sought after, highly paid in europe. she danced in all of the capitals of europe, many of them several times over. she head parton obra that were suited to her kind of dances and personality. she commanded enormous fees and in addition to dancing as always she had gentleman friends.

even when one gentleman would set her up in a country house in france, with horses and stables and servants and beautiful furniture, that was not a guarantee of exclusive access. this was the era when men had mistresses that were flaunted. certainly rich men always had mistresses who were flaunted, and she was. men all over europe for more than delighted to spend what time with her they could. she was, for example, kept for a while by a german, too, when his family forced him to give her up through legal action, gave her a parting gift of what would now be $220,000. so, this was a lady who lived

high, and spent every time she ever got. at a later glover squandered most of for $220,000 gift from kiefer, but that was part of the game. there was always more money, there was always another gentleman. in 1914, she had been at the top of the theater's stage in europe for almost ten years. there were many other people who suddenly began doing oriental dances in imitation of her. she was skating of them. there was what was regarded as the battle of the tights in germany between-- i am sorry, in vienna between her, isidore duncan who did reminisce and dances of mata hari and mata hari was declared they hands down when there. in 1914 she was in berlin with

keeping company with various lovers and awaiting a stage engagement. there, she began to feel more acutely the change that was coming over europe, the golden era of art, science and culture in france that began around 1890 and lasted until the beginning of the first world war was an era of lavish spending and open luxury. in 1914, a darker more puritanical mood was sleeping-- sweeping across europe and the days were drawing to a close. when she told her old lover of for the upcoming engagement at the metropolitan, he remarked cryptically, you will be there before then and so will i. he was a military man. something great was happening that would transform the world in a process that could be anything but pleasant. in late july, shortly before the invasion of serbia by the

austrians mata hari was dining in a private room. of a fashionable restaurant with one of lovers, the chief of police. and, she talked of this evening later. we heard the noise and of great disturbance, the demonstration was certainly spontaneous and graybeal who had not had any warning took muniz cart to the place it was held for coista and enormous mob who was giving way to a frenetic demonstration in front of the emperor's palace and shouting, deutschland. germany, over all. several days later war was declared. at that time the police started treating foreigners like animals. several times i was stopped in the street and transported to the station because their root absolutely convinced i was russian. she was anxious to return to paris and her lovely house, left it in her positions bcts.

she was not a french citizen. she attempted to break a contract with the theater are during the war was an act of god. her-- sees her furs and her jewelry and refused to hand them over without payment. heard german agents hell muntader money and the bank froze her account. as she was a longtime resident of france and germany at a time when the war was with friends. on august 6 with hardly any money she boarded a train for switzerland but the german guards would not let your past the border without a passport certifying her natural duds citizenship especially if she made the mistake of telling them she was headed for france, germany's atomy. she was put off the train without her extensive luggage. she had returned to berlin to a change of clothes. she called grable but he could not risk being seen to help her. suspicion of foreigners and open hostility toward them is growing daily as patriotic fervor reach the jingoist frenzy.

friend less and short on cash mata hari felbab gunter gravis talent bhargava for many days said that she had charms a businessman who listen to retail of unfair treatment and worry. she would not have anything left after saddling her hotel bill she told him. he agreed to pay your fair back to amsterdam. he left berlin immediately but brought a ticket for her to use a few days later after she traveled to thank for it to obtain a dutch passport. and handwritten anca passport correctly gauged age as 38, which you may think is illegal for a dancer who dances without many clothes on. someone at some point probably mata hari yourself wrote over the 1-800-with a zero to produce a more flattering age of 30. the change was made without changing the date of birth so anyone could calculate her true age if they bothered. she was described as 5 feet

11 inches tall with a big nose, brown eyes and blond hair. a blonde mata hari is difficult to imagine. if she was bleached blond it was purely temporary. a remarkable anecdote suggest what was needed at the time apart leaving berlin was the attention of a skilled health dresser to help conceal her age. mata hari eventually took the train from berlin to lamster deanne. after descending from the train in amsterdam she unexpectedly site familiar face. with it was a former hairdresser from paris in uniform. he had made a good career in paris. astonished in delighted to see him she called out across the crowded platform, maurice, he must immediately do my hair. she asked him to come to the hotel victoria and added, and they did not even know you were an officer in your own land. he was actually belgium.

enista crain's that the attention she was drawn to him. weeks before he enlisted in the army to fight the germans. then as the germans invaded belgium in august of 1914 he had fled across the border into holland as a military refugee. he had been interned, which he found so distasteful that he decided to break out. he had stolen an officer's uniform and escaped and that he himself described as reckless youthfulness reasoning people in a truck countries would be less likely to question an officer then they would a simple enlisted man. his plan worked remarkably well until to his inexpressible stupefaction he was held by mata hari in amsterdam. >> asim officials were looking for him drawing attention to himself was the last thing he wanted to do. mata hari door attention wherever she went, whenever she did. he took her aside and explained his situation to her while she listened carefully.

when he wrote about his experiences many years later he expressed the opinion she had future connections to prevent a serious search being made for him and thus had saved his life. after settling at the hotel, mata hari may contact with a businessman who paid her train fares to amsterdam. when she met his wife, mata hari assured her that her husband's kind jester had not been based on sexual relationship. aspe by the curious why it why she attempted to seduce them, mata hari replied, because i had only one-- kaleb this everything else had been taken away from me and really, i did not feel clean enough. she was promiscuous but she had her inviolable standards. and i think that shows you a little bit about her sense of humor which was superb. she was perfectly capable of laughing at herself and her situation, and she was utterly and embarrassed about being in mistress of many men.

as the war went on, she had the fortune or perhaps misfortune to fall in love with the young russian officer. there was a small number of russians who volunteered to fight for france, and her lover was a captain of one of the commanding officers of this small group of russians. they were almost without exception sent into the worst fighting on the western front and took the brunt of it over and over and over. casualties were horrendous. and it was not even their country that was in danger, but she felt so deeply in love with him that she decided, after he went back to his base, that she had to go visit him in the way she settled upon doing this was to go to the till, which is a spot town, a resort town. the problem with this was, you

had to have special permit to go there because it was so close to the front. and she was a foreigner. and it was wartime. she did manage to get there, but at an interesting costs. talking about her relationship later, she referred to him as the only man i ever loved, and said, he had been gravely injured by the six succeeding gas, i completely lost the vision in his left eye and was in danger of going blind. one night he said to me, if this terrible thing comes to pass, what will you do? i will never leave you i responded to him and i will be to you always the same woman. would you marry me, i responded affirmatively and began to reflect. here is my life, well laid out. i said to myself i must ask him, and i will explain who he is,

for enough money that i never have to deceive with other men. i will let go-- and lythgoe and go to delton what the captain asked, referring in holland for a guy will go to paris and live in the apartment that i have rented. captain ledoux will pay me, i will marry my love for and be the happiest woman in the world. she was finally actually thinking of settling down. you are saying, who is this captain? this is where the spiders web truly begins. the captain was the head of the bureau, the cia at the time in france. when she went to apply for a permit to go to visit her wounded lover, she was routinely turned down and so she would simply go to another office and apply it at the other office. she was there used to getting her own life particularly when

gentleman were involved. she was finally it buys to go to an office that also housed the bureau of foreigners. , and when she, her number, they had a bleeding system, when she was called to go into the office they did not take her to the office. they took her to lead to's office, and he recruited her to spy for france. the first thing he said was that he would give her the permit to go to their if she would consider it. she agreed unlimited terms. but said, expressed reservations about embarking on espionage, which was then not glamorous, not well developed, and a very

dirty sort of occupation. he describes your situation, which comes back from fatale and she has again-- and she's been proposed to and realizes he is blind in one eye in may be blind in both eyes. he is quite likely to be crippled for life. she has an inkling that his aristocratic family are not going to welcome his marrying an older woman with a reputation such as hers. and ledeuox writes of her returning to him, and says, she had been the most docile and, six-- sick persons and it never even seen to notice the presence in her hotel of a special fla for the occasion nor the attentions of handsome aviators who had never flown. it was in this room that she found me when she returned to see me again as she had promised to days after she returned to paris. she wore the same costume butter beautiful face seemed to me more

pale and drawn. i may disagree from mark asking if the slightly rough treatment at the spa had not major to tired. it is not the treatment she responded. i am innovated and wish to see my lover again. you love him as much as that? he is perhaps the only lever of my life. then you must marry him. he wants nothing of me but myself. however he is from an aristocratic family and his father forbids this marriage. a side and a long silence. if only i had money. we shall see about that i thought. now i would like to know something. how much do you need? you could not pay so much, 1 million. and he is quite appalled at her asking for a million francs for an espionage mission that has not even then spelled out.

he asks her to penetrate german military headquarters and learns secrets and come back. but he provides her with no clear mission, with no money and no means of communicating with him. and you have to sort of stepped back from this and say well, okay espionage was not very well developed but this is a very strange task, and she has recognized everywhere. think about, this is maryland monroe, this is madonna, whoever you want to name who was known all over europe. she is supposed to seduce germans which would not be at all difficult for her, learn military secrets and sneak around, and maybe steal some documents and nobody is going to notice? everybody notices are everywhere she goes. it is absolutely its third. and yet, she agrees and he agrees, and she simply says,

when i come back with a great secret, i want my million. three days later, being a practical woman she realizes she has made calculations and she writes in a letter and sends it through the regular mail, asking him for money to refurbish her wardrobe since you really can't go seduce the german crown prince or the head of the army with an old war broke. i mean, how could a woman do this? he refuses. he reduces the money. the whole thing really does take on an absurd notion. she sets off to attempt to follow his directions. the ship she is taking stops in england on the play, as one of its ports, and she is arrested in england, being mistaken for another lady who was a dark haired dancer who was said to be

a german spy. and she is questions at scotland yard and beit mi5 for a number of days. what she does after attempting to clear up that know she is not this other woman and to show that her passport and her other documents, her credentials, she gives them a number of references with, they might check. one of helm is her lover and the netherlands. another of homan is in the intelligence service in france, another of cummins and the war department of france and one of the um is captain ledeuox so they telegraph captain ledeuox who says basically, the pre-translation never heard of the women, have no idea who she is. she is certainly not one of my agents. then he says, which is fascinating, she is a dutch

citizen. he says don't letter go to holland. send her back to spain, the previous stop. now, how somebody from france can tell the english government who has arrested her that they may not allow her to return to her country of nationality is again, one of those very, very bizarre twists year. that is what they do. she manages without much difficulty to become the lover of a german intelligence officer in spain, and discovers interesting information which she is then totally unable to communicate back to ledeuox and she sends them letters, again not coded to the open mail and he never answers and she wants her 1 million francs. eight dietz seriate so eventually she goes back to france, saying okay, here are your secrets, pay up.

hurt secrets are exceedingly they. the only one of the importance which truly is of importance is that the germans know the french have broken one of their codes. and so, they have stopped using this code in their communications but very shortly it becomes extremely important that this is known to be a broken code. she goes back and tries to meet with ledeuox, sits in his office. he will see her. the whole thing again is completely absurd. finally she catches up with him. she tells them this information and he says, that is not important and as for this other information you love got a submarine landing. where is it, how many men? she does not know this. actually there probably never was a submarine landing. this was information she was being given to take back to him.

but, what ledeuox does from the moment she comes back on to french soil is he assigns to beat cops to follow her. papas is where it becomes a farce. here are these to ordinary beat cups following around this woman dressed to the nines, going to the best hotels, the best restaurants, the boot makers, the best restaurants, the theater. they are following her pretty much 24/7. all in all they do this for six months. they listen in on phonecalls, they read her telegrams, they interview everyone from her manicurist to the waiter who served her dinner and they can find nothing on her. that suggest she is spying for germany, because ledeuox's

argument is now, he knew she was a german spies of he recruited her to spy for france to entrap her, which is a very convoluted kind of argument and they follow her for six months, and there is no evidence. they can find anything that she has passed. they cannot find anything she passed over german lover. she was sending him letters about their conversations and everything else. astonishingly, early in 1917, she is arrested in a very fine hotel in february at breakfast time, and they seize everything in her hotel and began a massive interrogation and investigation. not only do they have this six months of tailing her everywhere and finding out who she was with that every moment, with the exception of a few times when she sees somebody high in the french government for dinner in the evening and then somehow the

two slusser. i mean, it is very clear that they know perfectly well who she is with. she ms. lieutenent x and it is written as lieutenant x but they can't name him because he is too high up, and then we lost them. we just don't know where they wind, or the minister of war and somehow he picked her up and we just could not follow them. so, she is arrested. she is interrogated and she is quite deliberately thrown into the worst, nastiest prison in france. it is an old building back to the french revolution. it is unheated, it is full of rats and fuhrman, it is poorly lit. she has, if she is lucky that bowl of goldwater to bathe in

daily. she is thought allowed any of her clothing. she is not allowed any of her money. she is not allowed any of from madison's which he is still taking for cephalus which they know she has. and she is isolated. they do not notify her government, nobody thinks to send-- they think not to send a message to the dutch government saying by the way we have arrested one of your citizens for espionage. they will not allow her to communicate with anyone except her lawyer and they will not often let her communicate with her lawyer. early on she still thinks she is going to-- and she writes a letter that is absolutely fabulous, that i will read to you. what is so wonderful about this letter to my mind is that you have to think of this woman living under horrible

conditions, addressing this letter to her interrogator who is the man who controls for whole life. and she says, i must again ask for my provisional liberty from the military government of paris. i beg you, please help me to obtain a. you see neither my trunks are letters contain anything improper and never, never have i done the slightest thing like espionage against the. i suffer too much. until lamb freedive baggier for the following. one, makar terrier has the a cloak of white cloth decorated with black folks. i have 25 or 30 francs to pay for her. could you get this garment and pay her 50 francs? two, the chambermaid of the first floor of the palace hotel most diverse seed my lingerie back from the laundress. there are five or six francs to pay. would you please look for this? three would you ask the agents

to search my broom what they have done with my articles and gold earrings, the large rings found in the drawer of the right of my dressing table. for, madam denvignes there are 15 francs 50 paper go would you like to arrange all of this? i would be so grateful. there's something else close to my heart, that permission to see my fiancee. i have never, never done anything bad towards you. give me my freedom. now, you think, this is, this is ludicrous. he does it. he actually sends a police inspector to do these errants and pay her bills. now you get an idea, you begin to see how this woman arranged her whole life. men did everything for her. it even patently absurd things like this for her, crazy things, ridiculous things. they did it and they were happy

to do it, and what can i say? they went away at the. almost all of the men she was ever with went away happy. as time goes on, she really begins having in a rest break down in prison, and she is described as crying all the time, extremely nervous. she begins coughing and spitting up blood, which means she probably contracted tuberculosis from somebody. hers cephalus was not being well treated, although there wasn't much one could do. she writes at one point, just to give you a sense of where she is and what it was like, the horrible food and a lack of cleanliness, these are the calls of the blemishes on my body. that of course is the life. she is having syphillus legions. i grow more and more unhappy. i cannot stand this lead. i would rather hang myself from the bars some of wendell than to

live like this. at begich, please speak to the investigative magistrate and tell them they cannot degrade women, until she lives under the misery. where will it end? does he wish to kill me? messy kill me? or give me my liberty? when dey it will be too late and there will be nothing left to do. it is horrible, horrible. if he could see how i am forced to live here. hef did he on me i beseech you. and she really is losing it badly. now, i would like to just read you a little bit. i see i am taking much colunga than i thought i would but i hope you are spellbound, and read a little bit about the end of her life. the craddock men will occur in the darkness just before 5:00 a.m.. her they did interrogator was there along with the prison director, the prison doctor,

captain, the chief of military staff in paris and her dear attorney. the prison pasteur was waiting for them with the captain, the chief military recorder of the third council of war and it was the third council of four military tribunal that convicted her. her time had come. she may have been fuzzy headed from the chlorohydrate he's looking toward drinking water the night before. she quickly realize that he had known what would happen on this morning even if she had not. shia understood what the doctor and his sister astor to dance little for them the night before. there were two nuns who looked after her. they had wanted to see mata hari, the true mata hari, once before she died. she had shown them as best she could her long, wretched prison that had stolen most of her loveliness. the last appeals and a request

for pardons had failed. there was no other reason they would awaken her in the dark hours of that morning. she was to be shot at dawn. the nuns covered as she heard the dreadful news. shia perhaps already decided to die if she had lived with flair and courage. she had nothing left but pride and dignity. she would i in mata hari. the men accept forge-- left the room as she dressed her last performance. she wanted to look her best, but she had no extensive wardrobe to chu frishe frahm, only whitter captors allowed her. she asked permission to wear a corset. most accounts say she also donned the only decent clothes she had been allowed, the one she had worn to her trial, stockings, a blouse that showed off her beautiful shoals under a costume and factional ankle boots. a story from-- had it not been

suppressed by the center described her outfit as a very elegant one trend in fur. sister leonide shelter drez but soon their faces strained with tears and mata hari had to come for them. then she penned up her hair carefully, slowly as high an elegantly as possible. the grey hair she had once hidden were beginning to show badly. she would conceal the gray with her hat. she had no need for last minute confessions, and she was not a religious person. she had done nothing wrong. she had only loved men and let them love her. where was the harm in that? heard leshy wrote letters, one to our daughter and to gentleman friends. probably the one who she loved still and though one who kindly

and gravely came to court to testify on her behalf. she handed them over to the pastor but the letters were never seen again. heard gelles for taking their chances of posthumous protests. she made no will. she checked her hat, said h3 cornett hava pawner had an ankle that to an elegant gloves. she through a phys-ed cloak over her shoulders and stood erect to look in a mayor. hers ginn what is sallow and rankled. her carriage was still proud. it would have to do. with great dignity she asked the doctor to try to win better treatment for her, at this just your sister marie began sobbing like a child. do not cry, mata hari. imagine that i'm going on a long journey that i will return and we will find each other again.

they were words she might have spoken to a lover, but he had abandoned her in her troubles. now she had only herself to rely upon, the situation was familiar. she mader life and now she would make her own death. the site she would come away with the auction and she pleaded with the sister, uchitelle company him. she walked down the corridor holding sisters leonide hand. berzon rats scurried past in the hallway. their presence no longer made her shudder. she had become used to them over the months. she led once lived in the best hotels and finest houses like the clean did not flinch at the mere rats. at the door there were dozens of strangers, prison officials, journalists, onlookers jostling to catch sight of her. she wondered who they were. all of these people she whispered to sister leonide, as if they were best friends from the theater peeking out through

a gap in the curtain. what a success. whoever they were they were her audience. she played a role to perfection. she let herself be led to a black car with its window blinds drawn but she would not be hustle blore hurry. the five identical cars sped through the streets, losing the gawkers who tried to follow. the procession went to the muddy fields that were used for drill practiced by the calvary. it was an apps choice. she always favored military men. the oblique light of the coming don eliminated a saying. there was a firing squad of 12 from the fourth regiment and in their uniforms and a sergeant major from the 23rd dragoon in his navy blue uniform. she is this them kindly. they all looked ridiculously young and nervous.

in another time inflation would have charm them and flatter them, made them feel like men of the world, won them over. now she felt sorry for them. to be responsible for executing mata hari was going to be a burden to live with she suppose. there was the time to think of that. she had a performance to give any required all of for nerve and skill. she refused to be tied to the stakes of she stood lonely regal in a desolate field on her own. don had "broken and the light was still soft. when a senior officer offered a blindfold she declined. that is not necessary she said graciously. she wade kindly to the nuns who had done as much as they could to comfort her other kind said in a great gift. she blue a kiss to the priest, just-- and another to earlier. she knew he was still in love with her. she knew he would think of her for the rest of this bill life.

by the order of the third council of for the woman zelle has been condemned to death for espionage. his words hung in the misty air. mata hari awaited her faith like the magnificent heroine she was. they could take her life but they could not drop her of dignity. by go to the sergeant major said in admiration, this lady knows how to die. he lifted his saber and the men shoulder their rifles. then the sergeant major shouted, name. and then after a long pause, fire. this what did their duty. no one knew which rifle shots killed her. she was proud and silent as the bullets' stutts-- struck. she walk gracefully over to her body and administered the coup degrasse, firing one shot into our hedberg of the act was

absolu. mata hari was dead. they signed the execution of orders signifying it had been duly carried out. no when cantu clamour body. ver head listen to the institute of museum of paris for steady with those of other criminals. four days later, ledeuox was arrested as a double agent. and there you have it. if you would, thank you for being so patient. if you would like to buy a copy of the book there is a large pile over there and we asked you come this way and head out that way and i would be happy. do we have any questions? we have a microphone. over there. anyone? i have spellbound you all?

>> she was on trial or guilty of espionage? >> no, they covered it up until after she had been tried and executed, and then nearly every newspaper is close enough to identical that it is quite clear there was an official press release that they were to follow. and, there are other press reports that were suppressed, that were pulled because they did not follow closely enough. they gave out that she had been responsible for the death of 50,000 young frenchman, and had admitted it, both items of which are completely false, and in fact the charges on which she was convicted were very cunningly frame so one charge would be, she entered the entrenched war zone between this date and that date with the intention of collecting

information and passing into the enemy. now, the entrenched war zone was paris. all of paris was the entrenched war zone and she never denied she was in paris. she had a perfectly legal fees that to be in paris. so that they never had to prove the second part of the charge with the intention together and pass information because with all of these surveillance they did, they could not come up with anything she had ever done so that they never specified information sheep pass. there was never anything specific she was supposed to have done but in the summation by the prosecuting attorney, they claimed she had caused the death of 50,000 could fringe soldiers. and, that was apparently believed. >> the people who wanted some kind of a public, some kind of a public--

>> scapegoated? i think it did and i think i am very suspicious that in fact ledeuox was diverse that he was about to be uncovered so deliberately set her up to be the spy who could be convicted and blamed and executed in hopes that they wouldn't get on to what he was doing. when he was arrested, it was absolutely and completely suppressed, because nobody wanted to announce that the head of their secret service was a double agent. okay, thank you so much for your attention. [applause] >> pat shipman is an anthropology professor at penn state university. she is author several books including, to the heart of the nile, lady florence baker and the exploration of central africa. for more on femme f