THE STRANGE CASE OF MADAME LAFARGE
THE story of Madame Lafarge, who was tried in France for the murder of
her husband in 1840, is a strangely romantic one.
Marie Fortunée Cappelle was the daughter of a captain in the Imperial
Artillery. Her parents died in her childhood, and she was placed in
the care of an aunt, who, at the earliest opportunity, determined
to relieve herself of the burden of her support by negotiating a
marriage for her. While still a girl, through the instrumentality of
a matrimonial agent in Paris, an alliance was arranged between Marie
Cappelle and one Monsieur Charles Lafarge, who was a widower and an
ironmaster of Glandier.
The marriage, which was purely a commercial transaction, took place in
Paris on August 15, 1839, after which, Lafarge and his young wife set
out for his old and gloomy seigneurial mansion in Glandier.
From statements made afterwards, Madame Lafarge became disgusted with
her husband's brutality before the honeymoon was over. After they
reached their own house, however, they were reconciled, and there
seemed to be every possibility of their spending a happy wedded life
together.
Besides the newly married pair, there lived in the family mansion the
mother and sister of Lafarge, and his chief clerk, one Denis Barbier,
was a frequent visitor at the house, and had liberty to walk through
the place without restriction.
In a very short time Madame Lafarge discovered that both she and her
relatives had been deceived as to the position of her husband, and that
instead of being a man of considerable fortune, he was straitened for
means. On his representations she bestowed upon him all her fortune,
and even wrote letters at his dictation to some of her wealthy friends,
asking them to aid him to find money to develop a new method he
claimed to have discovered for smelting iron. With these letters of
introduction, Lafarge set out for Paris in December, 1839, to raise
money to start his new project.
While he was thus away, his wife had her portrait drawn by an artist
in Glandier, and determined to send it to her absent husband. She
therefore packed it in a box, with some cakes made by his mother,
together with an affectionate letter, and despatched them to Paris.
This box, which contained nothing but the five small cakes, the
portrait, and the letter, was packed and sealed by Madame Lafarge in
the presence of several witnesses.
When it reached Paris and was opened by Lafarge, it contained only _one
large cake_, after partaking of which he was suddenly taken ill, and
was eventually compelled to return home, where he arrived on January 5,
1840. His sickness continued and increased in severity, and nine days
afterwards he died.
Shortly after his death his mother and friends, who were well aware how
the widow disliked them and her husband also, who had made her life so
unhappy, at once imputed the cause of death to poison administered by
his wife in the cake she had sent to Paris, and Marie Cappelle Lafarge
was arrested on suspicion.
When the house of the deceased man was searched, certain diamonds were
found, which were supposed to have been stolen from the Vicomtesse de
Léotaud by Madame Lafarge before her marriage.
The unfortunate woman was therefore charged with the double crime of
theft and murder.
Though arrested in January, 1840, the trial of Madame Lafarge did not
commence till July 9 of the same year, and the charge of theft was
first proceeded with in her absence, and she was found guilty.
While this judgment was still under appeal, she was brought to trial on
the graver charge.
The evidence for the prosecution went to prove that the illness of
Lafarge commenced with the eating of the cake received from his home.
As already stated, when the box arrived in Paris the seals had been
broken, the five cakes had disappeared, and _a single cake "as large
as a plate"_ had been substituted for them. It was alleged by the
prosecution that this single cake had been prepared by Madame Lafarge,
and secretly placed in the box; but no evidence could be brought to
prove that she ever tampered with the box after it had been sealed.
Lafarge's clerk, Denis Barbier, made a clandestine visit to Paris after
the box had been despatched, and he was with Lafarge when it arrived
in Paris, yet no notice seems to have been taken of this suspicious
fact. It transpired, it was he who also first threw out hints on his
master's return that he was being poisoned by arsenic, and told a
brother employé that his master would be dead within ten days. There
was ample proof, however, that there was a considerable quantity of
arsenic in the house at Glandier. It was found that Madame Lafarge had
purchased some in December, stating she required it for destroying
rats; Denis also stated in evidence, that Madame had requested him to
procure her some arsenic. He bought some, but did not give it to her.
It was further stated that Madame Lafarge was seen to stir a white
powder into some chicken broth which had been prepared for her husband,
the remains of which, found in a bowl, were said by the analyst to
contain arsenic.
The medical men who conducted the post-mortem examination gave it as
their deliberate opinion that the deceased man had been poisoned by
arsenic, of which metal they professed to have found considerable
quantities. The friends of the accused then submitted the matter to
Orfila, the famous toxicologist, who, on giving his opinion of the
methods and manner in which the analysis had been carried out, said
that owing to the antiquated and doubtful methods of detection employed
by the medical men, it was probable they fancied they had found arsenic
where there was none. Thereupon the prosecution asked Orfila to
undertake a fresh analysis himself, which he consented to do, and, on
making a careful examination of the remains, stated he discovered just
a minute trace of arsenic.
This apparently sealed the doom of the accused woman, and served to
strengthen the bias of the jury. But now another actor appeared in the
drama in the person of Raspail, another famous French chemist, who
had watched the case from the beginning with interest. On hearing the
result of Orfila's examination, he had taken the trouble to trace the
zinc wire with which Orfila had experimented, to the shop where the
great toxicologist had procured the article, and he found on analysis
that the _zinc itself_ contained more arsenic than Orfila had detected
by his examination. Orfila had used Marsh's test, which is infallible
so long as the reagents used are free from arsenic themselves.
Raspail, having placed the result of his discovery of arsenic in
Orfila's reagent, at the service of the defence, was on his way to
Tulle, where the Assizes were being held, when an unfortunate accident
delayed his progress, and the unhappy Marie Cappelle Lafarge, after
a trial which lasted sixteen days, was found guilty meanwhile, and
condemned to imprisonment for life with hard labour, and exposure in
the pillory. Raspail, however, would not let the matter rest, and at
once set to work to save the condemned woman. He at length got Orfila
to fairly admit his error and join him in a professional report to the
authorities to that effect.
After being imprisoned for twelve years, in the end the sentence on
this unhappy woman was reduced to five years in the Montpellier house
of detention, after which the Government sent her to the Convent of
St. Rémy, from whence she was liberated in 1852, but only to end her
wretched life a few months afterwards.
There appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_ for 1842 a careful
examination of this interesting case from a legal point of view, in
which the writer states the strongest evidence indicated Denis and not
Madame Lafarge as the perpetrator of the crime. It was proved this man
lived by forgery, and assisted Lafarge in some very shady transactions
to cover the latter's insolvency. He was further known to harbour a
deadly hatred for Madame Lafarge. He was with his master in Paris when
he was seized with the sudden illness, and it transpired that out
of the 25,000 francs the ironmaster had succeeded in borrowing from
his wife's relatives, only 3,900 could be found when he returned to
Glandier. On his own statement he was in the possession of a quantity
of arsenic, and he was the first to direct suspicion against his
master's wife. Yet all these facts appear to have been overlooked in
the efforts of the prosecution to fasten the guilt on the unfortunate
woman. That Lafarge died from the effects of arsenical poisoning there
seems little doubt, but by whom it was administered has never been
conclusively proved, and the tragedy still remains among the unsolved
poisoning mysteries.