It was almost midnight on 10 July, 1923 when the sound of three gunshots echoed through London’s Savoy Hotel. It wasn’t long after, that Madame ‘Princess’ Marguerite Fahmy found herself on trial for the murder of her husband, Prince Ali Fahmy Bey. A thunderstorm broke over London that night, and even thunder couldn’t silence her wrathful shrieks. The night porter, who had heard commotion and tragedy, found her with a pistol in hand and a body at her feet. Born Marguerite Alibert to a humble Parisian family, Alibert’s roots did not bear aristocracy and wealth. Her father, Firmin Alibert, was a coach driver and her mother Marie Aurand, was a housekeeper. However, the meek French girl was of great beauty, and that beauty was her ticket away from the world she was raised in. Before her rise to esteemed classes, Alibert turned to sex work and became a member of the Paris demi-monde. In 1907, she fell in love with a wealthy wine merchant, Andre Meller, who was already married. An affair doomed to fail from the start, Alibert met Edward, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne…
