Marie Lafarge

Marie-Fortunée Lafarge (née Capelle; 15 January 1816 – 7 November 1852) was a French woman who was convicted of murdering her husband by arsenic poisoning in 1840.

Her case became notable because it was one of the early trials to be followed by the public through daily newspaper reports, and because she was the first person convicted largely on direct forensic toxicological evidence.

Nonetheless, questions about Lafarge's guilt divided French society to the extent that it is often compared to the better-known Dreyfus affair.

She is said to descend through her grandmother, Hermine, Baroness Collard, from a liaison between Stéphanie Félicité, comtesse de Genlis and Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans.

Her marriage dowry of 90,000 francs, while considerable, was not impressive considering her family's status, and Marie was left with feelings of inadequacy that fueled her pride and ambition.

This transaction produced just one candidate who fit the advice of her father that "no marriage contract should be made with a man whose only income is his salary as a subprefect."

In an effort to make it profitable, Charles turned part of the estate into a foundry, a venture that plunged him into debt and bankruptcy.

He engaged the same marriage broker who was hired to find a husband for Marie, advertising himself as a wealthy iron master with property worth more than 200,000 francs with an annual income of 30,000 from the foundry alone.

In her despondency, Marie locked herself in her room the first night and wrote a letter to her husband, imploring him to release her from their marriage, while threatening to take her life with arsenic.

While Charles was in Paris, Marie wrote to him passionate love letters and sent him her picture, as well as a Christmas cake in the spirit of the season.

When he returned to Le Glandier, having raised some money, he still felt ill. Marie put him to bed and fed him venison and truffles.

The family physician, Dr. Bardon, agreed with its cholera-like symptoms and was not suspicious when Marie asked him for a prescription for arsenic in order to kill the rats that disturbed her husband during the evening.

Marie treated him with various medicaments, especially gum arabic, which, according to her, always did her good, and which she always kept a ready supply of in her small malachite box, but to no avail.

On 12 January 1840, while the family gathered in the sickroom fearing the worst, Emma Pontier, who had such high regard for Marie, told her of Anna's suspicions.

Their fears were momentarily allayed, but the next day, white residue was found at the bottom of a glass of sugar water that Marie had administered to Charles.

Impressed by Marie, he listened with uncertainty to the family's accusations but took possession of the soup, the sugar water and the eggnog that Anna had put aside.

The test that Moran was referring to was actually invented in 1836 by a Scottish chemist named James Marsh, who worked at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich.

Frustrated at this turn of events, Marsh developed a glass apparatus that detected minute traces of arsenic and measured its quantity.

The sample is mixed with arsenic-free zinc and sulphuric acid, any arsenic present causing the production of arsine gas and hydrogen.

Any remaining doubts that may have lingered vanished when Emma Pontier turned over the small malachite box, and Dr. Lespinasse found that it contained arsenic.

A young French lawyer, Charles Lachaud, was appointed to her defense and was assisted by three others, Maîtres Théodore Bac (who later became mayor of Limoges during the 1848 Revolution), Paillet, and Desmont.

In the wake of the newspaper stories regarding the murder, the viscount was reminded of the theft and demanded a search for the jewels in Marie's room in Le Glandier.

By this time, the Lafarge affair had generated so much interest that the curious arrived from all over Europe to watch her murder trial, elevating it to a cause célèbre.

Thus, when Marie entered the assize court of Tulle for the first time on 3 September 1840, dressed in mourning and carrying a bottle of smelling salts in her hand, projecting the image of a woman unjustly accused, the spectators immediately were divided into pro- and anti-Marie factions.

As soon as the Brive doctors testified that arsenic was present in Lafarge's body, Paillet read the affidavit aloud, told the court about the Marsh test, and demanded that Orfila be called.

Therefore, in lieu of Orfila, two well-known apothecaries from Tulle, M. Dubois and his son, and a chemist from Limoges named Dupuytren, were assigned to conduct the tests.

By then, the prosecutor had read Orfila's book and knew that in some cases, the arsenic left the stomach but had spread to other parts of the body.

This time, when the chemists arrived, they declared that they tested positive for arsenic, with the eggnog containing enough "to poison ten persons".

The courtroom was stunned, especially Maître Paillet, as he listened to Orfila, his client and defense witness, explain the misleading results obtained by the local experts with the Marsh test.

As if to defend himself from these criticisms, in the following months after the trial, Orfila conducted well-attended public lectures, often in the presence of members of the Academy of Medicine of Paris, to explain his views on the Marsh test.