WEBVTT - The Arsenic Wife (Part 1) 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:05.080 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:15.840 and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. In the 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:21.200 early eighteen hundreds, the specter of arsenic poisoning was everywhere. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.480 Arsenic was scary, and for good reason. It was a 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:31.200 deadly poison that could odorlessly be dissolved into food or drink, 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:35.320 and it was something with a number of legitimate uses 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:40.720 like rat poison, agriculture, even some medical treatments, which meant 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:46.240 that arsenic was widely available in apothecaries. But something else 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:53.159 made arsenic uniquely frightening among the bourgeois salon class. Arsenic 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:57.640 was available from apothecaries, but it was only permitted to 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.760 be sold to quote, well known people, which meant it 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:07.800 wasn't being sold to quote indigence prostitutes, beggars, or visibly 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:13.800 destitute people end quote. Arsenic was being used for murder, then, 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:18.760 by the type of person that society didn't perceive to 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:23.000 be a murderer. It's little wonder that the poison was 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:28.280 sometimes referred to by the morbid little nickname inheritance powder. 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:33.520 Another thing that made arsenic terrifying was there was no 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.679 real way of testing for it, it killed someone with 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.120 vague symptoms that could be ascribed to a number of 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:46.440 fairly common diseases, and even as late as the eighteen thirties, 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:52.200 evidence that something contained arsenic could be as inexact as 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:57.280 whether it emitted a garlic like smell when burned. People 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:01.560 were getting away with murder, and what made it scary? 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:06.160 Those people getting away with murder could look like anyone, 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:11.120 the nice young man with wealthy parents, the pretty widow 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:15.240 who always said hello to you at the apothecary. That 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:20.520 was the problem that faced Scottish chemist James Marsh when 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.240 he was trying to identify arsenic in the case of 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.440 a man named John Bottle, who was accused of killing 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:34.279 his grandfather by stirring arsenic into his coffee. The procedure 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.880 Marsh was using to try to find arsenic in the 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:43.560 coffee and the grandfather's remains was using a hydrogen sulfide 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.880 to bubble through the material, and if the material contained arsenic, 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.920 it would produce yellow arsinius sulfide, which could be reduced 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:57.440 into a yellow precipitate. But the method was more reliable 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.280 with liquid than it was with organic man and though 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:05.360 Marsh was able to identify arsenic in the coffee that 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.920 Bottle's grandfather had drank. Marsh couldn't find arsenic in the 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:17.160 dead body's stomach, but even Marsh's coffee evidence was fairly insignificant. 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:22.520 In court, that yellow precipitate was inexact, and it decomposed 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:29.560 fairly quickly. The jury declared John Buddle innocent. It frustrated 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.760 James Marsh, and then it made him furious years later 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:38.640 when John Buddle confessed that he actually did kill his 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:43.520 grandfather with arsenic in his coffee, and so Marsh was 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:48.000 determined to make a better test, to find a way 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.760 so that arsenic poisoners could be held accountable to justice 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:59.600 with actual evidence. In eighteen thirty six, James Marsh created 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:04.160 the Marsh Test. I'm not a chemist, so forgive me 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.280 if I get any details wrong, but this is my 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:12.520 incredibly basic understanding of how the Marsh test works. If 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:17.640 arsenic is combined with hydrogen, it creates arsine gas, and 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.880 so a sample that possibly contains arsenic is combined with 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.800 zinc and sulfuric acid to make hydrogen, and then if 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.599 arsenic is present, the arsine gas is led through a 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:35.680 heated glass tube which then decomposes into shiny arsenic metal. 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.839 That arsenic metal is collected on a thin porcelain plate, 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:47.200 and even the tiniest trace of arsenic becomes visible. The 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:52.440 Marsh test was nothing short of a breakthrough. The Pharmaceutical 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:58.320 Journal wrote that arsenic poisoning, that quote most excurrable of crimes, 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.719 was happily banished from the world. Marsh was honored by 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.120 the Society of Arts with their award of the quote 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:12.000 large Gold Medal capital L, capital G, capital M, which 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.800 I'm sure is a lovely and incredibly high honor, but 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:19.679 does read to modern eyes as being awarded a large 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:24.720 gold star. In eighteen thirty seven, the Marsh Test was 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:29.000 translated into French and made its way onto the continent, 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.440 But it wouldn't be until eighteen forty and the notorious 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.320 case of a woman named Marie LeFarge where it would 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:41.520 be put to the well test in its most public 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:49.120 and famous application. Marie Lafarge was a glamorous woman with 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.640 raven hair who was raised in all of the right 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:57.080 social circles in Paris, and she was accused of slipping 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.919 arsenic into her husband's food. Her trial surely would have 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.600 been a public spectacle no matter what. But for the 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.720 first time in France, the Marsh test would be used 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:16.400 and used publicly to determine scientifically whether Marie's husband, Charles, 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.560 had had arsenic in his body when he died. Modern 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:26.760 forensic toxicology was being invented in real time. In eighteen 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:31.520 forty one, an English magazine wrote, we confess to having 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:35.599 been singularly interested in the trial of Madame LeFarge for 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:39.760 the murder of her husband as a romance of real life. 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:45.440 It strongly exemplified the adage that truth is stranger than fiction. 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:51.200 For certainly, no living dramatist could have invented such a plot, 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:56.240 or such characters, or such scenes as has occurred in 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:01.880 its progress. No extravagant German tale ever presented a wilder 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:07.280 mixture of the revolting, the horrible and the ludicrous. It 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:13.920 resembled one of our own terrific melodramas end quote. In short, 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:19.880 a perfect episode of noble blood. The Marsh Test offered 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:25.720 the public a shiny new thrill, the promise that justice 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:31.360 could be scientifically exact. But even today, with nearly two 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.800 centuries of scientific advancement since the trial of Madame LeFarge 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:41.000 court cases aren't simple matters of science, and finding the 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:45.120 truth in Marie Lefarge's guilt or her innocence was a 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:51.240 matter far more complicated than a chemical reaction. Chemistry might 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.400 be scientific, but plenty of other evidence is a matter 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.520 of who you choose to believe. Justice is sometimes a 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:04.040 matter of perspective, a matter of a story that someone 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:13.640 tells you, I'm Danish warts and this is noble blood. 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.440 Marie LeFarge was born into the privileges of upper class 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:23.760 nineteenth century French society. Her grandmother was a baroness and 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:28.520 an illegitimate daughter of Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleons. 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.800 Marie LeFarge had an aunt married to a Prussian diplomat, 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.240 and another married to the Secretary General of the Bank 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:40.440 of France. Her father was a military officer said to 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:44.120 be a favorite of Napoleon. All in all, Marie was 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:48.800 on the path to a perfectly respectable life, rubbing elbows 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.800 with the well healed and well connected. But then a 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.800 twist of fate, like the beginning of a tragic fairy tale. 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.360 Marie's father died in a hunting accident, and her mother 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.120 died a few years later when Marie was eighteen, which 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.920 led her to being sent off to live under the 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:12.120 supervision of one of her aunts. Though Marie went to 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:16.559 the right schools and socialized in the right circles, she 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.320 was all too aware that she was something of a 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:20.600 poor relation. 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:22.160 I have not. 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.200 She watched as one of her closest friends, a woman 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.920 also named Marie, married a viscount and became the Viscontesse 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:36.600 de lu Tout, while Marie LeFarge remained unmarried. Her dowry 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:41.440 was ninety thousand francs, which all things considered, was very respectable, 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:46.079 but was nothing compared to the heiresses in Marie's social circles, 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.840 especially because, as Marie remarked of herself, she was no 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:56.280 great beauty. She was considered average, with an average dowry 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.000 that made her feel downright mediocre compared to her friends. 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.839 Marie visited her friend, the Viscomtess, at her beautiful new 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:10.360 chateau and thought, how easy it must be. The Viscomtesse 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:14.280 had a drawer of diamond necklaces that she treated so 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.720 casually she wouldn't even notice if they went missing. Marie, 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.360 at age twenty three, was already aware that she was 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.920 becoming a burden to her family. Marie's uncle, eager to 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.400 make a match for her, came home one day and 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.600 announced that he had found her a husband, the son 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:33.719 of a postmaster. 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:35.719 Marie recoiled. 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.960 She knew it was a marriage of convenience, but the 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:43.520 job was just so common. Was that all her aunt 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:47.360 and uncle thought of her. In her memoir, Marie writes 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.839 a little heartbreakingly of the disillusionment in realizing her aunt 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:56.360 actually did not harbor the maternal feelings for her that 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.440 she had so hoped for the postmaster's son. May marriage 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.640 fell through, but soon enough Marie's uncle had another match, 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:09.640 the owner of an iron forge. This time, both Marie 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:14.240 and her aunt burst out laughing, where are you discovering 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:19.440 this mine of husbands? Marie asked her uncle jokingly. Her 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:23.600 uncle's face was stony. He had met the iron master 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:28.840 through a mutual friend, a rich merchant. Marie's uncle's reaction 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.680 told her everything she needed to know. Her options were limited. 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.880 The iron master's name was Charles Lafarge. He was twenty 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.640 eight years old. Marie was told that he owned one 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:46.360 of the finest estates in the region of Limoisson, a 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:50.480 grand manner known as Le Glandier, and that in addition 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.440 to the large income he brought in from his iron works, 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:57.400 he had two hundred thousand francs in land and capital. 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.920 For a marriage of convenience, Marie could do a lot worse, 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:06.120 and so it was arranged for Marie and Charles LeFarge 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:10.400 to meet at a private concert, where Marie's uncle would 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:16.440 introduce Charles as a friend in the interest of social decorum. 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:21.439 Charles didn't make a very good first impression, as Marie 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:27.120 wrote in her memoir Monsieur LeFarge was extremely ugly. His 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:32.240 form and features were the most business looking conceivable. He 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.280 spoke to me a good deal, but the noisy harmony 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:37.200 of the orchestra drowned. 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:37.920 Out his words. 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.439 But still he was wealthy, and they said that his house, 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.920 Laglandier was a lovely place to live, in a large 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:50.560 park with wonderful views. And so Marie and Charles were 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.880 married in a small ceremony, and Marie set off with 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.000 her new husband on a journey to return to his 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:02.079 home and to Marie's new life. It didn't take long 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.600 for any optimism Marie might have felt about her new 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:10.320 marriage to dissolve the journey back to Limissant would take 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.600 a few days by carriage, and they had stopped at 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.040 an inn for the night. Marie was taking a bath 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:21.520 when her husband knocked hard on her door. Wait ten minutes, 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:26.400 Marie shouted, and I'll be dressed. Charles replied, it is 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.080 precisely because you are undressed that I want to come in. 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:30.480 Now. 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:33.200 Do you take me for a fool or think I 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:37.160 am to be driven off forever by your damned Parisian modesty. 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.640 Marie was stunned, not by the marital act, which she 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:47.800 understood would take place eventually, but by the brutishness. 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:48.160 Of her new husband. 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:53.760 Now Marie's maid spoke up, Surely, monsieur will be polite 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:58.199 the first day, The maid said, open the door. Charles said, 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.920 or I will break it open. Marie refused, and, according 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:08.439 to her memoir, Charles responded with a storm of obscene 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.640 imprecations that I should shudder to write, before departing in 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.440 a furious mood without making good on that threat to 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:20.920 break the door down. But now Marie understood what sort 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.880 of man her husband was. He wasn't the gentleman she 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.360 had dreamed of. This was a rough man from the 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:33.840 country who resented her wealthy Parisian upbringing, and their marriage 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.160 was going to be a challenging one. The next morning, 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:43.920 Charles Lafarge greeted Marie more kindly, almost apologetically. He asked 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.560 how she was feeling, and, as Marie wrote, he embraced 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:52.200 me and became kind and attentive as before. Still Marie 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:56.800 couldn't shake her unpleasant feeling, the misery she sensed was 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.880 awaiting her in a marriage she was now trapped in. 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.680 I was unable to eat at dinner, she wrote, and 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.440 having taken a cup of tea, I spent an hour 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:10.200 in a balcony, feeling the horrors of the abyss yawning 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:14.240 at my feet, but dreading the thoughts of coolly measuring 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.880 its depth. Even Marie couldn't have predicted what would be 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:22.480 waiting for her at La Glandier when she finally arrived. 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.280 Perhaps the reason Charles had been so aggressive at the 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.200 inn was because he knew that if there was a 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.120 chance he was going to get to enjoy his wife, Carnalie, 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:36.720 it was going to be before they made it back 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.720 to his estate. When the couple finally made it back, 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:47.480 things would go from merely unpleasant to abysmal. That abyss 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.640 Marie imagined was no longer just at her feet, It 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:56.880 was about to swallow her whole. The town outside Laglandier 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:03.080 was squalid, small and miserable, with dirty, narrow streets populated 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:09.160 by suspicious and cruel faces. La Glandier itself was worse. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:14.600 Charles Lafarge was not a wealthy iron master with a 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:20.000 sizeable property and generous income. He was broke and heavily 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:25.040 in debt, and his estate was a crumbling ruin, dripping 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:29.800 with damp and mold walls, wheezing with the cold, and 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:34.960 squeaking with rats. And Marie was met upon their arrival 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.720 with a scene out of a Gothic horror novel, where 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.560 she was welcomed into the crumbling estate by her new 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.880 mother in law and sister in law, both of whom 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:52.520 viewed Charles's new bride with skepticism verging on derision. Who 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:57.680 was this young privileged Parisian society girl who deigned to 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:03.240 come out to their country home and judge them? Close 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.879 to tears, Marie made some excuse to retire to her 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.960 room with her maid, and she found that her bedroom 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:15.160 was threadbare, barely furnished. When she asked for an inkstand 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:17.800 so that she might write a letter, she was given 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:23.000 a broken sweetmeat jar with gray water swirling inside. She 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.920 had been tricked, deceived, and was now legally married and 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.760 stuck here for the rest of her life. In this 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:35.080 miserable place. Le Glandier was built on the ruins of 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.960 a former monastery, and Marie's mother in law would tell 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:41.920 Marie that once she had forgotten to make the sign 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.560 of the Cross in front of her daughter's cradle, and 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:49.000 the devil himself had overturned the baby's basinet and left 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:53.280 long blue scars the mark of his black nails on 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:57.120 the baby's neck. But Marie didn't need to be told 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.159 that this place was haunted. She coul it, and the 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.760 fact that you would need to spend a single night here, 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:10.359 let alone the rest of her life, was almost beyond comprehension. 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.239 The thought of writing to her friends in Paris, of 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:20.600 telling them about her terrible deception, was humiliation. And even 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.359 if she did write them, she was one hundred leagues 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:27.480 away from Paris, from help from people who cared about her. 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.760 Marie was all alone, the new lady of a house 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.760 that came with a collection of in laws who resented 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:39.240 her supposed city heirs, and with a brutish husband who 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:44.560 was getting impatient to consummate their marriage. Marie articulated her 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.800 despair in her memoir, saying, quote, the gray color of 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:53.960 the heavens darkening as night approached, added to the indignation 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.040 which filled me at the deceit. I suffered from the 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.760 greater and more repugnant fear of the nocturnal tete, a 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.719 tete which I dreaded so much and could no longer shun. 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.440 I have never known hatred, But when my heart is wounded, 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.879 I am powerless to master my indignation. At that moment, 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.679 I should have sickened. If Monsieur LeFarge had kissed my 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:25.360 hand in his arms, I should have perished, with her 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.520 maid guarding the door and using the broken jar as 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.920 an inkwell. Marie frantically wrote a note to her new husband, 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.040 begging him to release her from the marriage. Get two 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.840 horses ready, I will ride to Bordeaux and then take 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.440 the ship to Smyrna. I will leave you all my possessions. 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.800 May God turn them to your advantage. Let no one 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.240 know I have ever existed. I will take arsenic, I 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:55.160 have some spare me be the guardian angel of a 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.080 poor orphan girl, or if you choose, slay me and 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:04.760 say I have killed myself. To his credit, it seems 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:09.000 that Charles responded pretty well to the distraught young woman 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:14.200 dericading herself in her room and threatening suicide. He read 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.199 the note Marie shoved beneath the door without anger or defensiveness, 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.639 and when Marie was well enough to come out, he 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:26.359 kissed her hand and began weeping himself. He told Marie, 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:31.040 unfortunately he could not release her from the marriage, one 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:35.080 because he needed her dowry, and two because she actually 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.840 wasn't permitted to dispose of her own dowry without the 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:43.359 permission of her family. But wait a few days, he promised. 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.359 Please let me show you how much I adore you, 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.840 and in the meantime live here merely as my sister, 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.400 without sharing a bed until I can prove my love 0:20:55.520 --> 0:21:00.520 and make you happy. Charles apologized profusely for the state 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.000 of the house and assured Marie that he would do 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.679 everything in his power to begin to repair Le Glandier 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:13.040 until it became a place up to her standards. From 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.600 that point on, while I don't think Marie fell madly 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:21.000 in love with Charles, but things started to get much better. 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.600 The two seemed to get along. Marie began using her 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.280 money and her connections to help Charles get ahead in business. 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.520 She had some money that she invested in the Forge, 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.320 and she put Charles in touch with some of her 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.880 contacts who might be able to get him loans. And 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:43.280 though things remained frosty with Marie's mother in law, Marie 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.840 and Charles began to have a pretty decent marital relationship. 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.280 In a letter to a friend, Murray wrote, I have 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.040 accepted my position, although it is difficult. But with a 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.720 little strength of mind, with patience and my husband's love, 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.520 I may grow contended. Charles adores me, and I cannot 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:08.200 but be touched by the caresses lavished on me. Again, 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.520 it's worth remembering she is writing that in a letter 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.520 to a friend, her pride had already been wounded by 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:18.359 the fact that she was sent away to endure the 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:22.159 situation in the first place, and her letter might be 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:28.080 read as the nineteenth century equivalent of carefully curating photos 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:31.560 to post on Instagram so that your life looks more 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:36.200 enviable to your friends than it actually is, But according 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:39.120 to Marie and the way she writes in her memoir, 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:44.160 her relationship with Charles continued to develop from a genuine 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:48.360 friendship to a slowly blossoming romance, to the point that 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:51.720 in autumn, when Charles was taking a business trip to 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:56.040 Paris to try to make arrangements for loans, Marie thought 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.760 it would be romantic to send along a miniature. 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:00.480 Portrait of herself. 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:05.600 It's a pretty funny section in Marie's memoir. The portrait 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:09.320 comes back and Marie is horrified at how ugly it looks, 0:23:09.800 --> 0:23:13.159 and her mother in law and their housekeeper, Mademoiselle Braun, 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:18.480 do an incredibly passive, aggressive, classic mean girl move. What 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:22.240 a perfect like this? She really captured you. In the 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:27.359 memoir quote, Madame Lafarge, mother in law, was so enthusiastic 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:31.000 at the sight of my portrait, and Mademoiselle Brun regarded 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:34.560 it near and at distance with a smile of such 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:38.480 proud satisfaction that I believed, with a sigh, that my 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:42.160 vanity had deluded me, and that I was quite as 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:46.919 ugly as my picture. In the package to Paris, Marie 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:51.520 also included some small local chestnuts and some little cakes. 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:57.159 Baked by Charles's mother, quote whose reputation for pastry was colossal, 0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:00.800 and who was not accustomed to concede to anyone the 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:05.240 grand work of making side dishes. I imagine it's the 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:08.840 same type of situation as your mother in law being 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:12.040 famous for making pie. So it would be an insult 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:16.639 come Thanksgiving for anyone else to Deiane make dessert. And 0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:19.560 so the package with the portrait, the chestnuts and the 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:23.920 little cakes was tied with cording and sent to Paris, 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:28.040 along with the note Marie sent telling her husband that 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:30.880 it might be romantic if he ate a cake at 0:24:30.920 --> 0:24:33.960 midnight in Paris and she ate a cake at midnight 0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:36.920 in La Glandier, so that even though they were distant, 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:39.080 they would both be eating cake at. 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:39.960 The same time. 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:45.600 A sweet thought. Two days earlier, Marie had written to 0:24:45.760 --> 0:24:50.520 an apothecary, I am devoured by rats. I have tried 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:54.520 plaster and nux vomica to rid myself of them, but 0:24:54.640 --> 0:24:58.880 they do know good will you, and can you let 0:24:58.920 --> 0:25:02.960 me have a little You can rely upon my prudence, 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:05.760 It is to put in a closet where I keep 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:11.000 my linen. Charles received his care package in Paris, but 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:16.440 here is where some unverified sources spend a slightly different story. 0:25:17.240 --> 0:25:21.520 The problem with this particular podcast episode is that the 0:25:21.600 --> 0:25:26.520 Lfarge case had become such a media sensation that magazines 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:31.240 and newspapers wrote about it with a, let's say, tabloid 0:25:31.440 --> 0:25:36.040 esque sense of abandon and so sometimes we get contemporary 0:25:36.080 --> 0:25:41.600 sources making conflicting claims, and sometimes aspects of the case 0:25:41.640 --> 0:25:46.080 are adopted into the story, repeated over and over again 0:25:46.480 --> 0:25:50.760 without ever having been really verified, or at least verified 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:53.399 in a way that I can trace in the first place. 0:25:54.240 --> 0:25:57.960 And so one of those aspects of the story is 0:25:58.000 --> 0:26:02.040 that when Charles received his care package, it wasn't secured 0:26:02.119 --> 0:26:03.840 with cords the way it had. 0:26:03.760 --> 0:26:04.960 Been when it was sent off. 0:26:05.480 --> 0:26:08.960 It was tied with ropes, and there weren't a number 0:26:09.040 --> 0:26:13.760 of small cakes inside, but rather one large cake. Well, 0:26:13.960 --> 0:26:17.399 no matter, Charles thought. He cut himself a slice and 0:26:17.600 --> 0:26:22.000 went about his evening. It wasn't long though, before Charles 0:26:22.080 --> 0:26:27.159 became incredibly ill, too sick to leave his bed. A 0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:30.359 doctor saw him in Paris and said that based on 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:35.560 his symptoms, he was suffering from cholera. Eventually, in January 0:26:35.640 --> 0:26:39.240 of eighteen forty, Charles was well enough to come back 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:42.200 home to La Glandier, where he would be cared for 0:26:42.280 --> 0:26:47.120 by his mother, his sister, the housekeeper Mademoiselle Broun Marie, 0:26:47.480 --> 0:26:51.920 and a cousin named Emma. The family doctor was brought 0:26:52.000 --> 0:26:55.639 around at once, and he corroborated what the doctor in 0:26:55.720 --> 0:27:00.600 Paris had thought cholera. What Charles needed was bed rest, 0:27:01.119 --> 0:27:05.280 lots of good food, and good sleep. Marie was at 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:09.560 her husband's bedside every day, and he often complained about 0:27:09.600 --> 0:27:13.080 the scurrying of rats in the walls, in the floors, 0:27:13.200 --> 0:27:16.560 in the ceilings, making noise that made it hard for 0:27:16.640 --> 0:27:19.880 him to sleep. The bit of arsenic that she had 0:27:19.920 --> 0:27:24.320 bought the month prior hadn't worked, evidently, and the rats 0:27:24.320 --> 0:27:28.800 had expanded their territory, making their way into Marie's closet 0:27:29.160 --> 0:27:34.119 and chewing at her linen's. Marie asked her husband's clerk, 0:27:34.320 --> 0:27:37.639 a Monsieur Denis, to go to the apothecary with a 0:27:37.680 --> 0:27:41.720 note Marie wrote, and bring home rat traps and arsenic. 0:27:42.160 --> 0:27:45.280 Marie showed what Deni had brought back to her husband. 0:27:45.960 --> 0:27:48.360 Surely this amount of arsenic will take. 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:49.800 Care of the rats, she said. 0:27:50.280 --> 0:27:55.359 Charles agreed, but try as the women around Charles Lafarge did. 0:27:55.800 --> 0:28:01.240 The Ironmaster's condition did not improve. One morning, Mademoiselle Brun 0:28:01.840 --> 0:28:07.000 noticed Marie stirring something into Charles's chicken broth. Before Marie 0:28:07.040 --> 0:28:10.560 could feed it to Charles, Brun stole the bowl and 0:28:10.800 --> 0:28:14.879 secretly hid it until the doctor came by. See, Brun said, 0:28:15.240 --> 0:28:18.320 showing the chicken broth to the doctor, there were white 0:28:18.520 --> 0:28:23.720 flecks undissolved on the surface. Doesn't this look like arsenic? 0:28:24.440 --> 0:28:27.480 The doctor shrugged. He said it looked like a bit 0:28:27.520 --> 0:28:30.520 of sealing plaster had fallen into the bowl, and to 0:28:30.600 --> 0:28:33.200 be fair, that was the type of thing that happened 0:28:33.240 --> 0:28:38.520 at Le Glandier. But Brun's suspicions weren't abated, and neither 0:28:38.560 --> 0:28:41.920 were the suspicions of Marie's mother and sister in law. 0:28:42.520 --> 0:28:46.000 They were convinced it was arsenic, and they tried, in 0:28:46.040 --> 0:28:50.479 their unscientific ways to prove it. They boiled samples of 0:28:50.520 --> 0:28:54.040 the food over small flames and leaned in close to 0:28:54.080 --> 0:28:55.800