On the 14th of January 1840, Charles Pouch-Lafarge expired at Le Glandier, in the department of Corrèze, after several days of violent illness. His repeated vomiting and the swift deterioration of his person had alarmed the household. Yet when suspicion shifted toward his wife, every commonplace object assumed another aspect: the powder bought for the rats, the broths prepared for the sufferer, and what had been seen—or believed to be seen—floating in a cup. That autumn, before the Court of Assizes at Tulle, Marie Lafarge was called upon to answer for murder by arsenic.
The Lafarges had wed the previous year. Charles directed an ironworks and sought to revive the enterprise; Marie discovered an isolated domain encumbered by debt. In December, she applied in writing for fifty-one grammes of arsenic to Eyssartier, an apothecary at Uzerches. On the 5th of January, four grammes were delivered to her upon a prescription from Dr. Bardou. Marie accounted for these purchases by the necessity of destroying the rats that overran the estate. At the bar, the prosecution linked these acquisitions to the nourishment administered to Charles; the defence reminded the court that an article procured for household utility did not, of itself, establish a design to poison.
On the 8th of January, according to Denis Barbier, formerly a clerk at the forge, Marie instructed him to bring back arsenic, black pudding, and sausages; he purchased the charcuterie, but not the poison. The following day, he repaired to Brive and bought twenty sous’ worth. On the 11th, a further note commanded him to bring more from Tulle, together with a mousetrap. Barbier explained that he feared displeasing his mistress and forfeiting his place. He stated also that he had dreaded lest the powder be employed to kill Charles, though he conceded that the remark warning that her husband had not twenty-four hours to live had merely been reported to him by Magneaux. Questioned upon the purchase itself, he added that he had never bought arsenic before and had no notion of what quantity twenty sous represented.
On the 12th of January, the apothecary Eyssartier received from Magneaux an eggnog upon which rested a white powder. He gathered a small portion upon the tip of a glass tube and cast it onto burning coals: the witness described a brownish vapour and an odour of garlic. Magneaux had already confided his suspicions to him, but Eyssartier declared he had no wish to accuse anyone upon so preliminary a reaction. He requested two hours, repeated the experiment, and then kept the entire vessel in his dispensary until the 18th of January. He affirmed that he had preserved it out of all reach before consigning it to the examining magistrate, and stated that he had subsequently obtained metallic arsenic by means of his reagents.
The trial did not turn solely upon these purchases. Charles had returned from Paris already indisposed; in his pleading, Maître Paillet recalled a letter written on the day of his arrival by his brother-in-law, who mentioned his malaise while remitting two thousand francs. In this the defence perceived proof that the malady had commenced before its symptoms could be ascribed to any ministrations at Le Glandier. The prosecution, on the contrary, set Charles’s return alongside the dishes served and the demands for poison. The jurors were required to resolve whether the pre-existing illness explained his demise, whether poison had supervened, and, if so, whether Marie had administered it.
On the 6th of September, despite a driving rain, the populace had filled the hall before the opening of the court. Their Lordships deliberated from seven o’clock until nine. Rather than adjourn the proceedings to another session, the Advocate General moved that the body of Charles be exhumed and his viscera examined; he proposed joining to the experts already engaged two apothecaries of Tulle who had taken no part in the earlier analyses. Paillet assented to the principle, provided the trial suffered no delay. The court enjoined the justice of the peace to attend the exhumation, verify the identity of the corpse, draw up the official report, and convey the matter under strict guard to Tulle. Marie remained composed at the reading of the decree; yet upon the resumption of the sitting, the Gazette des tribunaux described her as deathly pale and collapsed upon herself. The experts took the mail-coach for Le Glandier whilst the hearing continued.
Mathieu Orfila subsequently maintained that his analyses confirmed the absorption of arsenic. This conclusion fortified the indictment, though it could not of itself designate the hand that had proffered the poison. On the 18th of September, Paillet laid stress upon the minuteness of the traces and upon the strictures levelled against the Marsh apparatus; he raised also the possibility of contamination in a dwelling where arsenic had been openly handled. The Crown replied that the poison might well have been absorbed and thereafter voided through vomiting, perspiration, or the urinary tract. As the debate dragged on, a torrential downpour soaked the benches and the very garments of the jurors. The figures of the chemists thus descended into no abstract chamber: they were weighed amidst bodily exhaustion, disputed depositions, and the dread of an irrevocable verdict.
The fate of a certain cake was likewise argued as a material exhibit. Paillet contended that the substitution of cakes alleged by the prosecution was mere fable; the Crown leaned upon the declarations of Parant, Buffière, and Mademoiselle Brun to assert that it had indeed occurred. The jurors heard contradictory attestations regarding victuals, packets of powder, and the daily motions of the household. Another suspicion—the alleged theft of the diamonds—threatened to colour their minds without resolving the question of the arsenic.
On the 19th of September, Maître Bac returned to the affair of the diamonds in his rejoinder. That charge, he reminded the bench, pertained to another jurisdiction. He reproached the Crown with having thrust it back into the discussions after long suffering it to lie dormant, at the very moment when Marie, utterly spent, could no longer answer as she had done. For the defence, the prisoner’s reputation could not stand in lieu of proof touching the death of Charles.
At Tulle, the explanation of the rats foundered upon the apprehensions of the servants. Barbier had fetched charcuterie, then arsenic; Eyssartier had held the vessel for several days. These ordinary acts, cast back into the light of Charles’s final weeks, now bore heavily upon the fate of Marie.
On the 19th of September, the court condemned her to hard labour for life and to public exposure. On the 12th of December 1840, the Court of Cassation dismissed her appeal against the judgment of the Assizes. Marie maintained her innocence to the last. The verdict concluded the judicial course; the dissensions surrounding the specimens and their analysis continued to feed scientific controversy. At Le Glandier, purchases, broths, and the gossip of domestics had converted a private domestic affliction into a public trial for murder.