CHAPTER VII
THE STRANGE CASE OF MADAME LAFARGE
The story of Madame Lafarge, who was tried in France for the murder of her husband in 1840, is a strangely romantic one.
Marie Fortunée Cappelle was the daughter of a captain in the Imperial Artillery. Her parents died in her childhood, and she was placed in the care of an aunt, who, at 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 instrumentality of a matrimonial agent in Paris, an alliance was arranged between Marie Cappelle and one Monsieur Charles Lafarge, who was a widower and an ironmaster of Glandier.
The marriage, which was purely a commercial transaction, took place in Paris on August 15, 1839, after which, Lafarge and his young wife set out for his old and gloomy seigneurial mansion in Glandier.
From statements made afterwards, Madame Lafarge became disgusted with her husband's brutality before the honeymoon was over. After they reached their own house, however, they were reconciled, and there seemed to be every possibility of their spending a happy wedded life together.
Besides the newly married pair, there lived in the family mansion the mother and sister of Lafarge, and his chief clerk, one Denis Barbier, was a frequent visitor at the house, and had liberty to walk through the place without restriction.