Helen Corinne Bergen

[1] She made elocution one of her principal studies, and appeared at several private concerts as Parthenia in Ingomar, the Barbarian.

[4] She was the Post's children's department editor and also wrote music and drama criticism, poetry, sketches, and stories.

In 1890, being in delicate health after her first social season at Saginaw, Michigan, Bergen's mother sent her daughter to Louisiana to regain her strength.

[9] It intended to focus on articles dealing with leading questions of the day, poetry, and reviews, but it appears that it never actually got off the ground.

[9] Bergen met the Viscount Arnoult George Langlois de Brunner in New York, where he was a confidential clerk in the Standard National Bank.

During the clandestine courtship, Bergen became quite ill, suffering severely from influenza, and the vicomte felt that his place was at the bedside of his fiancée.

The conflictions were aggravated by Bergen having been under contract for newspaper and magazine articles, but conscious that it was impossible to reveal the true state of affairs.

[3] On February 12, 1897, Bergen told her friends that it was her intention to convert to her husband's religion, to which she would devote all her own means and the fortune which would come to her at the death of her grandmother and great-uncle.

This was regarded at the time as an eccentricity or perhaps a deep interest in the cause from the fact that she believed her absent husband went to Cuba to join the insurgent army.

On December 21, with an escort, she visited several stores in Washington, D.C., and told her attendant that she would not be returning to St. Elizabeth's Asylum.

Taken to police headquarters, it was explained to her that she had been sent to St. Elizabeth's Asylum in a lawful manner and the only way she could earn her liberty was by proving her sanity.

[12] In November 1898, Bergen filed for divorce, alleging desertion and abandonment on the part of her husband, beginning May 25, 1896, and that she was unable to ascertain his whereabouts.