A revolver to hand, she followed him to dance halls and theatres. She hired a carriage and for hours staked out his apartment at 17 Rue Auber, a few steps from the newly completed Palais Gamier, home of the Paris Opera where Marie had once aspired to sing. Her despair was total. She could only wait, wait and watch. She was waiting for an opportunity to shoot. Around nine o’clock on the evening of 7 January, her chance came. Robert Gentien, accompanied by his new mistress Lucie Colas, a twenty-two-year old actress from the Palais-Royal, stepped out of the building. When Colas got into a carriage some way from the entrance, Marie hurled herself onto the street from her waiting vehicle and fired three shots at close range. After the first two shots, it was clear that Robert had been severely wounded in back and leg. The third bullet, fired as she was being stopped by passers-by, missed its target. To the police who were quickly on the scene Marie manifested no remorse. She regretted Robert wasn’t dead, she stated emphatically.
