Mata Hari NSFWish After growing up in the Netherlands and an unsuccessful marriage in the Dutch East Indies, In 1903, Mata Hari, born Margaretha Zelle, moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider, posed as an artist's model and soon began to win fame as an exotic dancer. Promiscuous, flirtatious, and openly flaunting her body, Mata Hari captivated her audiences and was an overnight success from the debut of her act at the Musée Guimet on 13 March 1905. She became the long-time mistress of the millionaire Lyon industrialist Émile Étienne Guimet, who had founded the Musée. By 1915, she performed in the last show of her career. She had begun her career relatively late for a dancer and by this time she had become a successful courtesan, though she was known more for her sensuality and eroticism rather than for striking classical beauty. She had relationships with high-ranking military officers, politicians, and others in influential positions in many countries. Her relationships and liaisons with powerful men frequently took her across international borders. This was apparently the year she became a spy for the Germans against the French. During World War I, the Netherlands remained neutral. As a Dutch subject, Zelle was thus able to cross national borders freely. In January 1917, the German military attaché in Madrid transmitted radio messages to Berlin describing the helpful activities of a spy. French intelligence agents intercepted the messages and identified the spy as Mata Hari. She was then arrested in Paris, put on trial and executed at the age of 41.