Femme fatale, Exotic dancer, Courtesan, Spy; Mata Hari has been variously labeled all of these. There is some truth to all of them, left out are: Mother; Abused Wife; and Scapegoat. The zig-zagging heights and depths of her life provided an abundance of raw material for rumor, exaggeration, and finally, legend.
She was born, Margaretha Zelle, 7 August 1876, in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. She lived in a world of pampered affluence including exclusive schools and inclusion in the best society. Then it all came crashing down when her father went bankrupt in 1889. The family fell apart.
At age thirteen she went from privilege to poverty, overnight.
Her father packed her off to her godfather in Sneek where she studied to be a teacher of kindergarten. That came to an end when her godfather learned about the lascivious advances being made on her by the school’s headmaster. Did young Margaretha flirtatiously encourage the headmaster? Don’t know. It may have been the first time the future Mata Hari realized her power to influence men.
Following the headmaster peccadillo, She was sent to live with her uncle in The Hague. She lived uneventfully there until age eighteen when she answered an add in a Dutch paper. Captain Rudolf MacLeod of the Dutch Colonial Army, Dutch East indies, was looking for a wife.
Margaretha’s marriage to the Captain put her back in the money - and high society.
Sadly, her high-born handsome husband was also an alcoholic adulterer and wife-beater. She put up with it long enough to bear two children, Norman John and Louise Jeanne. In 1899 both children were struck with a mysterious illness. Norman John died that year. Louise Jeanne lingered in infirmity until the age of twenty-one.
Captain Macleod and Margaretha were officially divorced in 1906, though they had lived apart for most
of their eleven-year marriage. Long before the divorce Margaretha had moved in with another Officer of the Dutch Colonial Army, Van Rheedes.
Apparently this arrangement left her plenty of time free to immerse herself in the culture of Java. She studied folk customs, language, and dance, joining a local dance company.
She chose her stage name, Mata Hari, from her knowledge of the Malay language. Mata Hari means,
Sun, or literally, Eye of the Day.
The plain little Dutch girl, Margaretha, willfully transformed herself into the exotic intriguing and sinuously flamboyant oriental dancer - Mata Hari.
In 1903 the newly created Mata Hari sailed from Malang, Java to Paris, France.
She represented herself as a Javanese princess of priestly Hindu birth, trained since birth in the art of sacred Indian dance. By 1904, she was the talk of Parisian cafe society.
Who is this mysterious lithesome enchantress who dances so provocatively”? “Her thousand curves trembling in a thousand rhythms”. “Her feline grace, her blue-black hair, her projection of majestic tragedy”. . . and so on.
Less noted, but always noticed, was her nakedness
at the end of each dance.
She stood proudly, flimsy garments scattered at her feet, leaving nothing on her body but a few ornaments, her headdress, and her golden bejeweled breast plates.
Wild applause followed. Some of the applause was for the artistry of her dance, though others said Mata Hari’s dancing wasn’t as good as her contemporary, Isadora Duncan.
Some others said the difference between Mata Hari and Isadora Duncan was that Miss Duncan didn’t take off all her clothes.
Like Miss Duncan, Mata Hari danced her way across most of Europe, taking lovers in high places along the way. Her home base was the Musee Guimet which was owned by her multi-millionaire sugar daddy, Emile Etienne Guimet.
In between dancing and taking care of Emile, Mata Hari managed to have many sexual liaisons, with many influential politicians and military officers, from many countries. She did get around.
Her success in international relations led to her downfall.
Before the outbreak of WW1, Mata Hari’s multi love affairs were regarded as the stuff of entertaining gossip, harmless, amusing, no more. She was a free-spirited bohemian, an artist without boundaries.
Nothing to worry about.
That attitude begin to shift following French reversals during the course of the war.
“Why were we French losing? It couldn’t be a failure
of French strategy or valor. Perhaps we are being betrayed by a spy, a spy that had intimate relations with military planners in both France and Germany - a spy with all the opportunities of someone like Mata Hari”.
Mata Hari was arrested on the charge of espionage
13 February 1917. She was ordered to trial 24 July. The trial, complete with innuendo, moral outrage, and a notable lack of hard evidence smoldered fitfully for nearly nine months.
Her execution by firing squad was set for 15 October 1917.
Eyewitnesses say she was not bound. She refused
a blindfold, and she blew a kiss to her executioners.
The volley of shots dropped her to her knees.
She tottered for a few seconds, her expression, unchanged gazing directly ahead, then fell back, dead.
An officer approached her body and fired a single bullet into her head to make sure she was dead.
Mata Hari was far from innocent.
She wasn’t a spy.
Mata Hari
triumpantly
revealed