Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/444

Rh at once hastened to Paris, bearing with him a touching appeal from Marie Lafarge to Madame de Léautaud. The letter containing it ended as follows:—

The mission of M. Bac proved fruitless. Madame de Léautaud refused to concern herself in the matter.

Two indictments were preferred against the prisoner,—one charging her with the theft of the jewels, and the other with the murder of her husband. The first was tried at Brives, and her counsel made vigorous but ineffectual efforts to get the case postponed until the more serious charge of murder had been disposed of. When they found they could not succeed in this, they advised their client to make no defence, and she was found guilty and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. This judgment was however afterward, on the 3d of September, set aside by the Court of Tulle, on the ground that the proceedings were irregular.

On the 3d of September the trial of Madame Lafarge for the murder of her husband was commenced at Tulle. Intense interest was manifested in the case, and the court room was filled to overflowing.

The unfortunate affair of the diamonds, although utterly foreign to the case, was at the very opening of the trial made use of to prejudice the minds of the jury against the accused. The attorney-general opened the case in a speech which seemed to denote far too anxious a desire for a conviction. What shall we think of the following passionate apostrophe to the prisoner, when she was standing at the bar to answer a charge of murder? "Those diamonds," he exclaimed,—"those diamonds, Marie Cappelle; you have stolen them, I assert it! You have defamed Madame de Léautaud. Thus calumny stands by the side of theft. Calumny is also a kind of poisoning; although it kills not the body, yet it poisons the soul."

Can anything more unfair than this be imagined? The only object must have been to prejudice the minds of the jury against the prisoner, and induce them to believe that a woman who could pilfer trinkets would be likely to poison her husband.

A conflict of opinion arising among the medical men as to the presence of arsenic in the body of the deceased, by order of the court the body was exhumed, and such portions as were deemed necessary were taken away for analysis.

While the chemists were employed upon their loathsome task, several witnesses were examined, one of whom proved that rats infested the house at Glandier, and another that she saw Madame Lafarge put four small cakes into the box which she sent to her husband. This was an important piece of evidence in favor of the accused, for it went directly to contradict the assertion that she had substituted one large cake for those which had been prepared by her mother-in-law.

When the chemists returned into court a breathless silence prevailed, and M. Dupuytren read the report which they had prepared. And when he came to the words, "We introduced these precipitates into Marsh's apparatus, and, after making several experiments, we have not obtained a single atom of arsenic,' a burst of applause followed the announcement. 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 odor of garlic We unanimously conclude that there is no arsenic in any of the animal substances submitted to our examination."

This surely should have been sufficient. Here was a plain proof that there was no corpus delicti, and the prisoner was entitled to