"I long ago lost all illusion that I would be loved as I am. And now I just accept, with a clear conscience, flowers, gifts, flattery, money that feeds my ego and my false identity." How many experiences must you have swallowed, buried, slept in yourself to say something so sad - the words of Mata Hari, a woman who has gone through all kinds of turbulence in life. He lost a father, a mother, a child from an early age, for various reasons. She has to survive alone. But despite her short life, she is proof of how the legend far transcends the persona. Her name is a byword for femme fatale, elite companion, spy. Her story has inspired films, musicals, ballet productions, books. 250 are just the biographies about her.
From the very beginning it was obvious that Margaretha Seele's life would be extraordinary. Born in North Holland, she stood out from the rest of the kids: flamboyant, striking in appearance, brave, bright, with an affinity for learning languages. A classmate of hers compares her to an orchid among dandelions, noting the contrast in her dark exotic appearance with the fair skin and blond hair of most other Dutch children.
Margaretha was born on August 7, 1876 in Leeuwarden, and learned at an early age that she could get what she wanted by pleasing men, starting with her loving father, Adam Seele, a hatter. She was his favorite and he showered her with extravagant gifts. In 1889, however, Margaretha's father abandoned the family for another woman. Her mother Antje Seele died a few years later when Margaretha was a teenager.
Completely spoiled and quite sexual for her age, as her contemporaries described her, at the age of 14 she went to study to be a teacher. The 16-year-old is rumored to have been expelled for having an affair with the married director. He then moved to The Hague, a city full of military personnel returning from service in Indonesia.
At 18, bored and looking for some adventure, she answered a newspaper matrimonial ad posted by one such officer, Captain Rudolph McLeod. He wanted to meet and marry "a girl with a nice character". Marriage to such a man seemed like the perfect path to a better life. Margaretha knew that officers in India lived in large houses with many servants.
"I wanted to live like a butterfly in the sun," she said in a later interview.
They became engaged six days after first meeting and were married in July 1895. In 1899 MacLeod was promoted to garrison commander and the family left for the island of Java. A few years later, according to one version, their children were poisoned. Some say that from a soldier beaten by the father, others - from the governess. There is a version that the two children suffered from congenital syphilis. When their two-year-old son died in 1902, the couple returned to the Netherlands and separated. Although Margaretha initially won custody of her daughter, Louise Jeanne was raised by her father.
Eastern charms
The deep and fateful changes, travels and sorrows that happened to the young Dutch woman changed her so that she gave birth to her alter ego - an exotic dancer named Mata Hari - translated as "the eye of the day", or in other words "sunrise". He leaves for Paris. She is aware that she is neither an artist's model because of her small bust, nor an actress because of her accent. She makes up a biography that says her father is a Brahmin, a temple dancer. She herself develops a choreography of oriental dances. During her performance, she is wearing many veils, which she takes off one by one (she says that in dance every gesture is a word), leaving behind a beaded bra. At her first appearance in an Asian art museum in Paris, 600 rich people from the elite of the capital were invited.
Under any other circumstances, she could have been arrested for indecency, but Margareta Seele had thought her actions through very carefully. During each performance she carefully explained in French, Dutch, English, German and Malay that these were sacred temple dances from India:
"My dance is a sacred poem. One should know the three stages which correspond to the divine qualities of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva - creation, fertility, destruction".
With erotic means of expression, she told tales of lust, jealousy, passion and revenge. Mata Hari becomes the most desirable courtesan of Paris.
She was the mistress of aristocrats, diplomats, financiers, high-ranking military officers and wealthy businessmen who showered her with expensive outfits, jewels, horses, silver, furniture and luxurious quarters simply for the pleasure of being in her company. For years she danced to sold-out venues in almost all major European capitals. Witnesses say that her blue-black hair and flexible movements reminded her of a wild animal.
Secrets for sale
Between 1905 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Mata Hari divided her time between her stage appearances and her work as the mistress of some of the most powerful men in Europe. She charged new clients $7,500 a night for the high-end sexual services she offered, chroniclers say.
At the age of 39, he realized that it was time to step down from the stage, because the young competition was not to be underestimated.
During the war, many people fall into extreme poverty, she does not change her ostentatious lifestyle, which arouses indignation. Mata Hari says, "I have always lived for love and pleasure." She loved to bathe in milk and was so into sex that she sometimes stopped by the French brothels to relax. It is said that the Germans first recruited her as a spy, and then she became an undercover agent, promising the French to bring information about them as well. In his book, Mata Hari: The True Story, author Russell Warren Howe claims that when it came to military matters, she was little more than a gossip between officers on both sides of the front. The documents of the British intelligence, declassified in 1999, also show the same.
At first, the Germans offered her 20,000 francs to pass on the secrets of Francesette.
At the age of 40, Mata Hari fell in love with the 21-year-old Russian captain Vladimir de Masloff. He was sent to the front, where he was wounded and became blind in one eye. Determined to earn money to support him, Mata Hari accepts a lucrative assignment to spy for France from Georges Ladoux, an army captain who believes her courtesan contacts will benefit French intelligence.
From the beginning, the German superiors considered Mata Hari to be unreliable and too spendthrift. And when they find out that she is trying to play double games, they decide to hand her over to the French. For this purpose, the German intelligence sent a letter to the German diplomat in Madrid, where it is mentioned about the spy Mata Hari under the code name "H21". The Germans know that the enemy will open and decipher the letter. The goal is to send the French counterintelligence for green caviar: to push a secondary agent to him and thus cover up their important sources.
A scapegoat
Mata Hari was arrested in a luxury Paris hotel in February 1917. She was thrown into the prison of Saint Lazare in the French capital in a cell with rats. The trial against her lasted 5 months. During lengthy interrogations by Captain Pierre Bouchardon, a military prosecutor, she snaps: "I am a courtesan, I admit. But a spy - never."
Although the prosecution blamed her for the deaths of 50,000 French soldiers because she gave their army's weapons to the enemy, there was no conclusive evidence that she did so. Although she was not loyal to any country due to her immoral behavior, there is still no serious evidence that she passed on military information. There is talk that she is a scapegoat, that someone had to be drowned. And who better than an "immoral woman shamelessly seducing officers from both armies". On top of that, a foreigner.
She was shot on October 15, 1917 near Paris. She refuses a blindfold, blows an air kiss to her executioners, 12 shooters, and one of them later exclaims, "This lady knows how to This lady knows how to die." She collapsed, and a witness said she looked like a pile of skirts.
Her remains were donated to the Medical University of Paris.
Written for Dir.bg - Boryana Kolchagova
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