By the indictment the Prisoner was charged with administering or causing to be administered to Emile L’Angelier,[102] arsenic or some other poison, in coffee, cocoa, or some other food or drink, on the 19th or 20th of February, and on the 22nd or 23rd of February last, with intent to murder, and on the 22nd or 23rd of March, whereby he died on the day last named, and was thus murdered by the Prisoner. To which the Prisoner pleaded “Not Guilty.”

THE HISTORY OF THE CASE.

Pierre Emile L’Angelier, a Frenchman by birth, had been employed in Scotland since the year 1843, when he was with a firm of nurserymen at Dundee. How long he stayed with them was not proved, but according to his own statement he was one of the National Guard in the Revolution in Paris in 1848. He was always a poor man, and in 1851, when again in Scotland, was in such straits that he was living at a tavern in Edinburgh on the charity of its proprietor. When there he was at times in very low spirits, crying at night, and speaking of committing suicide, getting out of bed and walking about the room weeping, and on one occasion on the point apparently of throwing himself out of the window of his room had he not been prevented by his companion. Some love affairs—one with an English lady, another with a lady in Fife—were the causes he assigned for his melancholy and depression. In a letter, probably of this date, he wrote, “I never was so unhappy in my life. I wish I had the courage to blow my brains out.” In 1852 he was in the employ of another nurseryman at Dundee, still harping on his disappointment in love, complaining bitterly of the last lady’s intended marriage with another—gloomy, moody, dull, and threatening to stab himself. Vain of his person, he was always talking of his success with ladies, and of what he should do if he was again jilted. On one occasion, when speaking of the use of arsenic for improving the coats of horses, and asked if he was not afraid of poisoning them, he said, “Oh, no: so far from doing that, he had taken it himself, without any bad effects.” From this employment he went to that of Messrs. Huggins and Co., of Glasgow, where he was looked upon as a steady, industrious clerk, “a well-behaved, well-principled, religious man.” Whilst with this firm he pressed a young friend to introduce him to Miss Smith; and thus sprang up the attachment which led to the catastrophe.

Miss Madeline Smith, to whom L’Angelier was introduced towards the end of 1854, was the daughter of an architect of position in Glasgow, and had lately returned from an English boarding-school. She was attractive in person, and just of the age to fall violently in love with such a plausible, goodlooking man as L’Angelier. As her parents naturally had little liking for a merchant’s clerk as their daughter’s husband, the love affair that arose at once after the introduction was carried on clandestinely by a voluminous correspondence, in which more than 200 letters passed from her to the deceased in the brief period of their attachment, and such stolen interviews in or out of her father’s house as could be arranged with the connivance of one of his servants. According to the theory of the prosecution, L’Angelier was an accomplished and deliberate seducer, who at last gained his purpose on the 6th of May, from which date Miss Smith’s letters to her lover speak plainly of matters of which even married persons would be reticent, and are couched in language suitable only to married persons. She was clearly in L’Angelier’s power, who wished to marry her, and made more than one arrangement for an elopement. Towards the end of 1856, however, her affection for him began to cool, and with reason. She had accepted the attentions of a Mr. Minnoch, with the full consent of her parents, and shortly after actually fixed the day for her marriage with him. The danger of her situation pressed upon her. L’Angelier, when he knew of this, was not the man to sit tamely under such a slight, or to let another person marry one of whom he knew so much to her discredit. She wrote him to return her letters, begged and prayed him to do so, and let the engagement drop, to which she never could get the sanction of her parents. He refused. He had heard a rumour of the Minnoch engagement, and he threatened to send the letters to her father. Still it was not revenge that he wanted; he wanted his wife. Her letters at this time give the most painful proofs of the state of mind into which she had fallen. “On her bended knees,” she wrote, begging “him not to expose her, for her mother’s sake,” and “the dread of her father’s anger.” “As you hope for mercy at the judgment day, do not inform on me; do not make me a public shame. There is no one I love. My love was all given to you. My heart is empty, cold. I am unloved. I am despised. I told you I had ceased to love. It is true.” Such was her letter, presumably of the 11th of February, 1857. At this time she was engaged to Minnoch, and the day of the marriage, if not actually fixed, had been talked about. She begged for an interview. In the postscript to this sad letter, she added: “I will take you within the door; the area gate will be open. I shall see you from my window, twelve o’clock. I will wait till one o’clock.” The exact date of this letter could not be proved, as it had been delivered and not posted. It was dated only Tuesday evening, twelve o’clock; and however ingenious was the argument of the Lord Advocate, it failed to satisfy the court that it produced an interview on the 11th which led to another on the 19th—the day on which, according to the Crown, she first administered the poison to her lover, from which arose the first of his illnesses, as described by Mrs. Jenkins, his landlady.

Previously to the trial, the following explanation of the connection with L’Angelier had been given by the prisoner, in her examination before the Sheriff Substitute of Lanarkshire on the 31st of March, “when,” he said, “she answered his questions without hesitation, and with great appearance of frankness and candour.”

DECLARATION OF THE PRISONER.

“I am a native of Glasgow, 21 years of age, and reside with my father at No. 7, Blythswood Square, Glasgow. For about two years I have been acquainted with P. Emile L’Angelier, who was in the employment of Huggins & Co., in Bothwell Street, and resided at 10, Franklin Place. He recently paid his addresses to me, and I have met him on a variety of occasions. I heard of his death on the afternoon of the 23rd of March from my mother. I had not seen him for about three weeks before his death, and the last time I saw him was on a night about half-past ten o’clock. On that occasion he tapped at my window, which is on the ground floor and fronts Main Street. I talked to him from the window, which is stanchioned outside, and I did not go out to him, nor did he come into me. This occasion, which, as already said, was the last, was about three weeks before his death, and was the last time I saw him. He was in the habit of writing notes to me, and I was in the habit of replying to them. The last note I wrote was on the Friday before his death, the 20th of March. (Identifies note and envelope.) In consequence of that note I expected him to visit me on Saturday the 21st, at my bedroom window, in the same way as before, but he did not come and sent no notice. There was no tapping at my window on the Saturday night, nor on the Sunday following. I went to bed on the Saturday night about eleven, and remained in bed until the usual time of getting up next morning, being eight or nine o’clock. In the course of my meetings with him, he and I had arranged to get married, and at one time we had proposed September last as the time and subsequently the present month of March. It was proposed we should reside in furnished lodgings, but we had not made any definite arrangement as to time or otherwise. He was very unwell, and had gone to the Bridge of Allan for his health, and he complained of sickness; but I have no idea what was the cause of it. I remember giving him some cocoa from my window one night, some time ago, but I cannot specify the time particularly. He took the cup in his hand and barely tasted it, and I gave him no bread with it. I was taking some cocoa myself at the time, and had prepared it myself. (Identifies note No. 2, which she wrote and sent to post.) As I had attributed his illness to want of food, I proposed, as stated in the note, to give him a loaf of bread, but I said that merely in a joke, and in point of fact I never gave him any bread.

I have bought arsenic on various occasions. The last I bought was a sixpenny-worth, in Currie’s, the apothecary’s shop in Sauchiehall Street. Prior to that I had bought other two quantities of arsenic for which I paid sixpence each—one of these in Currie’s, and the other in Murdoch’s, the apothecary’s shop in Sauchiehall Street. I used it all as a cosmetic, and applied it to my face, neck, and arms, diluted with water. The arsenic I got at Currie’s on Wednesday, 18th March, and used it all on one occasion, having put it all in the basin where I was to wash myself. I had been advised to this use of arsenic by a young lady of the name of Giubilei, the daughter of an actress, whom I had met at school at Clapton near London.[103] I had also seen it recommended in the newspapers. I did not wish any of my father’s family to know that I was using arsenic, and therefore never mentioned it to anyone, and I do not suppose that they or any of the servants noticed it in the basin. When I bought the arsenic at Murdoch’s, I am not sure whether I was asked or not what it was for; but I think I said for a gardener, to kill rats or destroy vermin about flowers, and I only said this because I did not wish them to know that I was going to use it as a cosmetic. I do not remember whether I was asked as to the use I was going to make of the arsenic on the other two occasions. I likely made the same statement about it as I had done at Murdoch’s; and on all three occasions, as required in the shops, I signed my name to a book in which the sales are entered. On the first occasion I was accompanied by Mary, a daughter of Dr. Buchanan, of Dumbarton. For several years past Mr. Minnoch, of the firm of W. Houldsworth & Co., has been coming a good deal about my father’s house; and about a month ago he made a proposal of marriage to me, and I gave him my hand in token of acceptance, but no time for the marriage has been fixed;[104] and my object in writing the note, No. 1, before mentioned, was to have a meeting with Mr. L’Angelier to tell him I was engaged to Mr. Minnoch.[105] (Identifies two notes and an envelope bearing the Glasgow post-mark of 23rd January, as written and sent by her to L’Angelier.) On the occasion that I gave L’Angelier the cocoa, I think that I used it must have been known to the servants and members of my father’s family, as the package containing the cocoa was lying on the mantelpiece in my room, but no one of the family used it, as they did not like it. The water that I used I got hot from the servants. On the night of the 18th, when I used the arsenic last, I was going to a dinner party at Mr. Minnoch’s house. I never administered, or caused to be administered, to Mr. L’Angelier arsenic or anything injurious. And this I declare to be truth.”

With this brief introduction, let us proceed to the details of his various illnesses, due, as the prosecution inferred, to arsenical poisoning.

THE SYMPTOMS.