The sad story of Madame Lafarge would be incomplete without some account of another mysterious charge brought against her shortly after her arrest for murder. When her mother-in-law accused her of poisoning her husband, one of her old schoolmates declared that she had stolen her jewels. This second allegation raised the public interest to fever pitch. All France, from court to cottage, all classes, high and low, were concerned in this great cause célèbre, in which the supposed criminal, both thief and murderess, belonged to the best society, and was a young, engaging woman. The question of her guilt or innocence was keenly discussed. Each new fact or statement was taken as clear proof of one or the other, and each side found warm advocates in the public Press.
The charge of theft, although the lesser, took precedence of that of murder, and Madame Lafarge was tried by the Correctional Tribunal of Tulle before she appeared at the assizes to answer for her life. She was prosecuted by the Vicomte de Leautaud on behalf of his wife. The accusation was clear and precise. Madame de Leautaud’s diamonds had disappeared for more than a year; the Vicomte believed that Madame Lafarge, when Marie Capelle, had stolen them when on a visit to his house, the Château de Busagny, and he prayed the court to authorise a search to be made at Glandier, Madame Lafarge’s residence until her recent arrest.
When arraigned and interrogated, Marie at once admitted that the diamonds were in her possession. She readily indicated the place where they would be found at Glandier, and made no difficulty as to their restitution. But she long refused positively to explain how she had come by them, declaring it to be a secret she was bound in honour to keep inviolate. At last, under the urgent entreaties of her friends, she confided the secret to her two counsel, Maître Bac and Maître Lachaud (at that time on the threshold of his great and enduring renown), and sent them to Madame Leautaud beseeching her to allow a full revelation of the facts. The letters she then wrote her school friend have been preserved. The first was brief, and merely introduced Maître Bac as a noble and conscientious person, who had her full confidence, and on whom Madame de Leautaud might rely in discussing an affair that concerned them both so closely. The second was a pathetic appeal to tell the whole truth about the diamonds, and it is not easy to say on reading it whether it was inspired by extraordinary astuteness or by genuine emotion. It ran:
Marie,—May God never visit upon you the evil you have done me. Alas, I know you to be really good, but weak. You have told yourself that as I am likely to be convicted of an atrocious crime I may as well take the blame of one which is only infamous. I kept our secret. I left my honour in your hands, and you have not chosen to absolve me.
The time has arrived for doing me justice. Marie, for your conscience’ sake, for the sake of your past, save me!... Remember the facts; you cannot deny them. From the moment I knew you I was deep in your confidence, and I heard the story of that intrigue, begun at school and continued at Busagny by letters that passed through my hands.
You soon discovered that this handsome Spaniard had neither fortune nor family. You forbade him to love, although you had first sought his love, and then you entered into another love affair with M. de Leautaud.
...The man you flouted cried for vengeance.... The situation became intolerable, but money alone could end it. I came to Busagny, and it was arranged between us that you should entrust your diamonds to me, so that I might raise money on them, with which you could pay the price he demanded.
The letter proceeds in similar terms, and need not be reproduced at length. Marie Lafarge continues to implore her old friend to save her, reminding her that only thus can she save herself. Otherwise all the facts must come out.
Remember [and here we seem to get one glimpse of the cloven foot] I have all the proofs in my hands. Your letters to him and his to you, your letters to me.... Your letter, in which you tell me that he is singing in the chorus at the opera, and is of the stamp of man to extort blackmail.... There is one thing for you to do now. Acknowledge in writing under your own hand, dated June, that you consigned the diamonds to my care with authority to sell them if I thought it advisable. This will end the affair.