Poison Romance and Poison Mysteries

ed in France for the murder of her husba

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 instrumentali

e in Paris on August 15, 1839, after which, Lafarge and his young

before the honeymoon was over. After they reached their own house, however, they were reconc

d sister of Lafarge, and his chief clerk, one Denis Barbier, was a frequent vis

s 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

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 conta

f which he was suddenly taken ill, and was eventually compelled to return home, where he arrived on

husband also, who had made her life so unhappy, at once imputed the cause of death to poison administe

nds were found, which were supposed to have been stolen from t

erefore charged with the dou

not commence till July 9 of the same year, and the charge of theft

under appeal, she was brought

th 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 qu

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 f

rom 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 articl

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,

ve years in the Montpellier house of detention, after which the Government sent her to the Convent of St

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 di