CH. VII.]

PRESENCE OF ARSENIC DECLARED.

337

66

M. Dupuytren continued, However, some of the experts believed that, while we were using Marsh's apparatus, they detected, for a moment or two, a slight odour of garlic... We unanimously conclude that there is no arsenic in any of the animal substances submitted to our examination."

This surely ought to have been sufficient. Here was a plain proof that there was no corpus delicti, and the prisoner was entitled to an immediate acquittal. We may imagine with what withering eloquence Erskine would have denounced the idea of a fresh attempt to discover traces of poison in a body, which had been so minutely and rigorously examined. But the advocategeneral called upon the court to require the attendance. of some eminent Parisian chemists, in order that there might be a fourth investigation: this request was complied with, and a telegraphic despatch was transmitted to Paris, ordering MM. Orfila, Bussi, and Ollivier (d'Angers) to come immediately to Tulle. In the meantime Mlle. Brun was examined, and she proved that she saw the prisoner shake some white powder into a cup of lait de poule, prepared for her husband, and stir it with her finger; and that, on being asked what it was, she answered, that it was some orange flower. The witness added, that seeing a little of the white powder on a chair, she put it on her tongue, and it produced a pricking sensation, which lasted for an hour.

When M. Orfila and his colleagues arrived, they received the portions of the body which had been already analysed, and immediately commenced their experiments. The result was, that, on their return to court, M. Orfila said, "I will demonstrate that there exists arsenic in the body of Lafarge; that the arsenic does not proceed from the reactives with which we have.

Q

operated, nor from the earth which surrounded the coffin; that the arsenic extracted by us is no part of that quantity of arsenic which exists naturally in the human body; and, in the last place, I will show that it is not impossible to explain the discrepancy of the results and opinions of the different operators." He declared, therefore, in the name of himself and his colleagues, that there was arsenic in the body of the deceased, though in the minutest quantity.1

The attorney-general summed up the evidence against the prisoner with more vehemence than he had displayed even in his opening speech; and then M. Paillet rose, and made a feeling and eloquent defence. His concluding words were, "At this last moment, gentlemen, I will only add one word, and it is this, that the condemnation of the innocent is, of all social evils, the most deplorable, because it is the most irreparable. All is doubt in this melancholy transaction, and doubt, in a criminal trial, suffices for the acquittal of the accused. How can we believe that this lady, the depths of whose heart we have sounded that this lady, who, at the end of the month of December, was conscious of the joys of maternity, could, on the third of January, poison her husband - the father of her child? No: gentlemen, it is impossible. Ah, while you accomplish the fatal mission which is confided to you, beware of adding to the mournful legends of that accursed house of Glandier!"

And here we should suppose that the duties of counsel

The late Sir Astley Cooper assured a friend of the author, that he had taken great pains to satisfy himself, after a careful consideration of the printed report of the trial, as to whether the existence of arsenic as an extraneous poison in the body was proved; and he had come to the conclusion that it was not. See note, post, p. 340.

CH. VII.]

VERDICT OF GUILTY.

339

were at an end; and that nothing remained but the charge of the president to the jury. But, as Sterne says in his Sentimental Journey, "they order this matter better in France;" and, to our utter amazement, up rises the attorney-general, and makes a fierce attack upon the character of the prisoner, accusing her of the robbery of the diamonds! He was followed by M. Bac, the junior counsel for Madame Lafarge, who, at considerable length, examined the facts connected with the story of the diamonds, and having read several letters to prove that Madame de Léotaud had kept up, after her marriage, a correspondence with her former lover, he asked the jury to infer that she had given the jewels to the prisoner to prevent the disclosure of her frailty. After this extraordinary episode, the president summed up the case, and left the following question to the jury: "Is Marie Fortunée Capelle, widow of Pouch Lafarge, guilty of having, in December and January last, caused the death of her husband by means of substances capable of occasioning death, and which, in fact, did occasion it?" At the end of an hour the jury returned into court and gave in the following written verdict.

"Yes; by a majority, the accused is Guilty.

"Yes; by a majority, there are extenuating circumstances in favour of the accused."

The judges then retired, and after remaining in deliberation for an hour, resumed their seats and pronounced their sentence, condemning the prisoner to the hulks for life, and to exposure on the pillory in the public square of Tulle.

Thus ended this famous trial; and the question may still be asked-Guilty or Not Guilty? In England there is little doubt that, upon the evidence, the verdict would have been Not Guilty in Scotland it is equally certain

that it would have been Not Proven. The amount of arsenic found in the body of the deceased was too infinitesimally small to admit of a safe conclusion that he had died from the effects of poison; especially when we consider, that if the evidence for the prosecution is relied upon, he must, for many days before his death, have swallowed a large quantity of arsenic: and when we recollect that arsenic enters into the texture of human bones, and that the body, when exhumed, was in a state of extreme decomposition, we see that the risk of an erroneous opinion on the part of the chemists was increased. It is important to bear in mind the fact that the soil of graveyards often contains a compound of arsenic, though generally in an insoluble form. In eight trials on four different soils, Orfila found that three of them were arsenical. He used about six pounds of earth in the experiment.1

But yet it is difficult, after a review of the whole case, to resist the conviction that the accused was really guilty. Her previous conduct, and her actions while her husband was laid on the bed of sickness, all seem to point to that conclusion, and our moral sense is by no

1 See Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence, p. 83. (Third edit.) " If the coffin be cracked or entirely destroyed, so that the earth has become intermixed with the remains, and that which surrounds the coffin yields traces of arsenic, it is evident that no reliance could be placed upon the inference that the arsenic existed in the dead body, unless the poison found in the remains was in extremely large proportion. . . . A difficulty of this kind, cannot, however, when proper precautions are taken, often present itself in practice." Ib. It is right to mention that in cases of rapid death from arsenic, even when no traces of the poison can be found in the stomach or contents of the viscera, it may always be discovered in the tissues. Ib. pp. 81, 82. It is remarkable that Mr. Taylor, in his extremely able work, although he cites several French cases, including that of the Duke de Praslin, does not allude to that of Madame Lafarge.

CH. VII.]

COMMENT ON THE TRIAL.

341

means shocked by the verdict of the jury. Of the mode in which the trial was conducted we can hardly speak too strongly in terms of reprobation. Almost every principle of the law of evidence, without reference to our own technical rules, was violated; and we hardly know which most to condemn, the indecent eagerness of the attorney-general for a conviction', the crossexamination of the prisoner herself, or the injustice of the court in permitting, contrary to the remonstrance of her counsel, the affair of the diamonds to be dragged into discussion. Upon the whole, the result is that, however much we may regret that the unbending strictness of the English law sometimes excludes testimony which, perhaps, ought to be admitted, and thereby facilitates the escape of guilt, a party who is accused in England of a crime of which he is innocent, may congratulate himself that his trial takes place here and not in France.

In such cases it is well to recollect and act upon the humane maxim of Demosthenes : — Νομίζων τῷ μὲν κατηγόρῳ περὶ τῶν τοιούτων προσήκειν ἐξελέγχειν μόνον, τῷ δὲ φεύγοντι καὶ παραιτεῖσθαι. — Contra Midiam.