It will be seen, then, how much on foot the case of the Veuve Lacoste was with that of the Veuve Boursier, twenty years before.
It is on the experience of cases such as these two that the technique of investigation into arsenical poison has been evolved. In the case of Veuve Boursier you find M. Orfila discovering oxide of arsenic where M. Barruel saw only grains of fat. Four years previous to the case of the Veuve Lacoste that same Orfila came into the trial of Mme Lafarge with the first use in medical jurisprudence of the Marsh test, and based on the experiment a cocksure opinion which had much to do with the condemnation of that unfortunate woman. In the Lacoste trial you find the Parisian experts giving an opinion of no greater value than that of Orfila's in the Lafarge case, but find also an element of doubt introduced by the country practitioner, with his common sense on the then moot question of the accumulation, the absorption, and elimination of the drug.
Nowadays we are quite certain that our experts in medical jurisprudence know all there is to know about arsenical poisoning. What are the chances, however, in spite of our apparently well-founded faith, that some bristle-headed local chemist with a fighting chin will not spring up at an arsenic-poisoning trial and, with new facts about the substance, blow to pieces the cocksure evidence of the leading expert in pathology? It may seem impossible that such a thing can ever happen again—a mistake regarding the action of arsenic on the human body. But when we discover it becoming a commonplace of science that one human may be poisoned by an everyday substance which thousands of his fellows eat with enjoyment as well as impunity—a substance, for instance, as everyday as porridge—who will dare say even now that the last word has been said and written of arsenic?
But that, as the late George Moore so doted on saying, is quelconque. M. Orfila, sure about the grocer of the Rue de la Paix, was defeated by M. Barruel. M. Orfila, sure about the death of Charles Lafarge, is declared by to-day's experts in criminal jurisprudence and pathology to have been talking through his hat. According to the present experts, says "Philip Curtin," Lafarge was not poisoned at all, but died a natural death. Because of M. Devergie it was for the Veuve Lacoste as much 'touch and go' as it was for the Veuve Boursier twenty years before. Well might Marie-Fortunee Lafarge, hearing in prison of the verdict in the Lacoste trial, say, "Ma condamnation a sauve Madame Lacoste!"
In all this there's a moral lesson somewhere, but I'm blessed if I can put my finger on it.
INDEX
Abbot, George, Archbishop of Canterbury
Alem-Rousseau, Maitre; on arsenic
Amos (Great Oyer of Poisoning)
Ansell, Mary
Aqua fortis—see Poisons
Armstrong, poisoner
Arsenic—see Poisons
Artois, Comte d'—see Charles X
Aumale, Duc d'
Bacon, Sir Francis
Balfour, Rev. James
Ballet, Auguste
Barruel, Dr.
Barry, Philip Beaufroy
Berry, Duchesse de
Bidard, Professor; evidence against Helene Jegado
Black, Mrs (Armagh)
Blandy, Mary
Bordeaux, Duc de
Bordot, Dr.
Borgia, Cesare
Borgia, Lucretia
Borgia, Rodrigo, Pope Alexander VI
Borrow, George
Boubee, Dr.
Boudin, Dr.
Bourbon, Louis-Henri-Joseph, Duc de, afterwards Prince de Conde
Bourbon, Louise-Marie-Therese-Mathilde d'Orleans, Duchesse de
Boursier, Veuve; case compared with Veuve Lacoste's
Bouton, Dr.
Briant, Abbe
Brock, Alan
Broe, M. de, Avocat-General
Brownrigg, Elizabeth
Bruce, Rev. Robert
Burke and Hare
Burning at the stake
Canteloup, Maitre
Cantharides—see Poisons
Carew, Edith Mary
Carr, Robert
Cassagnol, M., Procureur du Roi, Auch
Castaing, poisoner
Cecil, Robert, Lord Salisbury
Chabannes de la Palice, Marquise de
Charles X, King of France; flight from France
Cleopatra
Coke, Sir Edward, Lord Chief Justice
Conde, Louis-Henri-Joseph, Prince de—see Bourbon, Duc de Conde,
Louis-Joseph, Prince de
Cotton, Mary Ann
Couture, Maitre; speech in defence of Mme Boursier
Cream, Neill
"Curtin, Philip"
Dawes, James, made Baron de Flassans
Dawes, Sophie,
Devergie, M., chemist
Diamond powder—see Poisons
Diblanc, Marguerite
Dilnot, George
Donnoderie, M., Assize President, Auch
Dorange, Maitre; defence of Helene Jegado
Dubois, Dr, his account of the Prince de Conde's death
Dunnipace, Laird of—see Livingstone, John
Dyer, Amelia
"Egalite"—see Orleans, Louis-Philippe
Elwes, Sir Gervase
Enghien, Duc d'
Essex, Countess of—see Howard, Frances
Essex, Robert Devereux, third Earl of
Farnese, Julia
Feucheres, Adrien-Victor, Baron de; marriage with Sophie Dawes;
separation
Feucheres, Baronne de—see Dawes, Sophie
Flanagan, Mrs. poisoner
Flandin, M., chemist
Flassans, Baronde—see Dawes, James
Fly-papers, for arsenic
Forman, Dr
"Fowler's solution"
Franklin, apothecary
Gardy, Dr
Gendrin, Dr
Gibbon, Edward
Gowrie mystery
Gribble, Leonard R.
Gunness, Belle
Hardouin, M., Assize President, Seine
Harris, Miss
Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James VI and I
Higgins, Mrs, poisoner
Hogarth, William
Holroyd, Susannah, poisoner
Howard family
Howard, Frances, Countess of
Essex, Countess of Somerset; early marriage; attracted to Robert
Carr; begs Essex to agree to annul marriage; administers poison to
husband; annulment petition presented; nullity suit succeeds;
enmity to Overbury inexplicable; arrest and trial; death; portrait
Howard, Thomas, Earl of Suffolk
Jack the Ripper
Jael
James VI and I, cruelty and inclemency of; double dealing
of; share in Overbury's murder
Jegado, Helene
Jesse, Tennyson
Jones, Inigo
Judith
Kent, Edward Augustus, Duke of
Kincaid, John, Laird of Warriston
Kipling, Rudyard
Kostolo (the Boursier case)
Lacenaire, murderer and robber, his verses against King Louis-
Philippe
Lacoste, Henri
Lacoste, Veuve
Lacroix, Abbe Pelier de, his evidence re death of Prince de Conde
refused
Lafarge, Marie-Fortunee
Lambot, aide-de-camp to last Prince de Conde
Lapis costitus—see Poisons
Lavaillaut, Mme
Lecomte, valet to last Prince de Conde
Lesieur, chemist
Lidange, chemist
Linden, Mme van der
Livingstone, or Kincaid, Jean
Livingstone, John, of Dunipace
Locusta
Logan, Guy
Lombroso, Cesare
Loubel, apothecary
MACE, PERROTTE (Jegado victim)
"Maiden," the
Mainwaring, Sir Arthur
Malcolm, Sarah; portraits of
Malgutti, Professor, his evidence re arsenic in Jegado trial
Manoury, valet to last Prince de Conde
"Marsh technique," arsenic
Maybrick, Mrs, poisoner
Mayerne, Sir Theodore
Meilhan, Joseph
Mercury—see Poisons
Messalina
Moinet, Paul
Molas, Dr, arsenic theory
Monson, Sir Thomas
Montagu, Violette
Murdo, Janet
'Mute of malice,'
Northampton, Henry Howard, Earl of
Norwood, Mary
O'Donnell, Elliot
Orfila, Professor; change of opinions re arsenic; intervention in
Lafarge case
Orleans, Louis-Philippe, Duc d', (King of the French); bourgeois
traits of; elected King
Orleans, Louis-Philippe ("Egalite"), Duc d'
Orleans, Louise-Marie-Therese-Mathilde d'—see Bourbon, Louise-
Marie-Therese-Mathilde d'Orleans, Duchesse de
Overbury, Sir Thomas
Parry, Judge A. E.
Partra, Dr
Pasquier, M.
Paul III, Pope
Pearcy, Mrs, murderess
Pearson, Sarah
Pelouze, chemist
Perrin, Maitre Theo.
Phosphorus—see Poisons
Piddington, Rev. Mr.
Pinault, Dr. of Rennes
Pitcairn's trials
Pitois, Dr. his estimate of character of Helene Jegado
Poisons: aqua fortis; arsenic (from fly-papers),(white),(from a
vermicide); cantharides; diamond powder; great spiders; lapis
costitus; mercury (metallic),(corrosive sublimate); phosphorus;
porridge; "rosalgar"; strychnine
Poisons, reasons murderesses are inclined to use
Pons, chemist
Porridge, poisoning—see Poisons
Porta, Guglielmo della
Pritchard, Dr, poisoner
Rachel, MME
Rais, Gilles de
Rochester, Viscount—see Carr, Robert
Rohan, the Princes de, their lawsuit v. Sophie Dawes
"Rosalgar"—see Poisons
Roughead, William
Row, breaking on—see Wheel
Rully, Comtesse de
Rumigny, M. de, aide-de-camp to Louis-Philippe
Sabatini, Rafael
Saint-Louis, Liquor of—see
"Fowler's solution
Sarrazin, Rosalie (Jegado victim)
Sarzeau, Dr, his evidence re arsenic in Jegado case
Seddon, poisoner
Smith ("brides in the bath")
Somerset, Countess of—see Howard, Frances
Somerset, Earl of—see Carr, Robert
Spara, Hieronyma
Spiders, great—see Poisons
Strychnine—see Poisons
Suffolk, Countess of
Suffolk, Earl of—see Howard, Thomas
Tessier, Rose (Jegado victim)
Toffana, poisoner
Turner, Anne; as beauty specialist; her lover; relations with
Countess of Essex; a spy for Northampton (?); causes poisoned food
to be carried to Overbury in the Tower; arrest; trial; condemnation
and execution
Turner, Dr George
Vigoureux, La
Voisin, La
Wade, Sir Willlam
Wainewright, poisoner
Walpole, Horace
Warriston, Lady—see Livingstone, Jean
Webster, Kate
Weir, Robert
Weissmann-Bessarabo, Mme
Weissmann-Bessarabo, Paule Jacques
Weldon, Antony
Wheel,Breaking on the
Winchilsea, Earl of
Zwanziger, Anna