The Arsenic Wife (Part 1)

that arsenic was widely available in apothecaries. But something else made arsenic uniquely frightening among the bourgeois salon class. Arsenic was available from apothecaries, but it was only permitted to be sold to quote, well known people, which meant it wasn't being sold to quote indigence prostitutes, beggars, or visibly destitute people end quote. Arsenic was being used for murder, then, by the type of person that society didn't perceive to

be a murderer. It's little wonder that the poison was sometimes referred to by the morbid little nickname inheritance powder. Another thing that made arsenic terrifying was there was no real way of testing for it, it killed someone with vague symptoms that could be ascribed to a number of fairly common diseases, and even as late as the eighteen thirties, evidence that something contained arsenic could be as inexact as

whether it emitted a garlic like smell when burned. People were getting away with murder, and what made it scary? Those people getting away with murder could look like anyone, the nice young man with wealthy parents, the pretty widow who always said hello to you at the apothecary. That was the problem that faced Scottish chemist James Marsh when he was trying to identify arsenic in the case of a man named John Bottle, who was accused of killing

his grandfather by stirring arsenic into his coffee. The procedure Marsh was using to try to find arsenic in the coffee and the grandfather's remains was using a hydrogen sulfide to bubble through the material, and if the material contained arsenic, it would produce yellow arsinius sulfide, which could be reduced into a yellow precipitate. But the method was more reliable with liquid than it was with organic man and though Marsh was able to identify arsenic in the coffee that

Bottle's grandfather had drank. Marsh couldn't find arsenic in the dead body's stomach, but even Marsh's coffee evidence was fairly insignificant. In court, that yellow precipitate was inexact, and it decomposed

fairly quickly. The jury declared John Buddle innocent. It frustrated James Marsh, and then it made him furious years later when John Buddle confessed that he actually did kill his grandfather with arsenic in his coffee, and so Marsh was determined to make a better test, to find a way so that arsenic poisoners could be held accountable to justice with actual evidence. In eighteen thirty six, James Marsh created

the Marsh Test. I'm not a chemist, so forgive me if I get any details wrong, but this is my incredibly basic understanding of how the Marsh test works. If arsenic is combined with hydrogen, it creates arsine gas, and so a sample that possibly contains arsenic is combined with zinc and sulfuric acid to make hydrogen, and then if arsenic is present, the arsine gas is led through a heated glass tube which then decomposes into shiny arsenic metal.

That arsenic metal is collected on a thin porcelain plate, and even the tiniest trace of arsenic becomes visible. The Marsh test was nothing short of a breakthrough. The Pharmaceutical Journal wrote that arsenic poisoning, that quote most excurrable of crimes,

was happily banished from the world. Marsh was honored by the Society of Arts with their award of the quote large Gold Medal capital L, capital G, capital M, which I'm sure is a lovely and incredibly high honor, but does read to modern eyes as being awarded a large

gold star. In eighteen thirty seven, the Marsh Test was translated into French and made its way onto the continent, But it wouldn't be until eighteen forty and the notorious case of a woman named Marie LeFarge where it would be put to the well test in its most public and famous application. Marie Lafarge was a glamorous woman with raven hair who was raised in all of the right social circles in Paris, and she was accused of slipping arsenic into her husband's food. Her trial surely would have

been a public spectacle no matter what. But for the first time in France, the Marsh test would be used and used publicly to determine scientifically whether Marie's husband, Charles, had had arsenic in his body when he died. Modern forensic toxicology was being invented in real time. In eighteen forty one, an English magazine wrote, we confess to having been singularly interested in the trial of Madame LeFarge for the murder of her husband as a romance of real life.

It strongly exemplified the adage that truth is stranger than fiction. For certainly, no living dramatist could have invented such a plot, or such characters, or such scenes as has occurred in its progress. No extravagant German tale ever presented a wilder mixture of the revolting, the horrible and the ludicrous. It resembled one of our own terrific melodramas end quote. In short, a perfect episode of noble blood. The Marsh Test offered the public a shiny new thrill, the promise that justice

could be scientifically exact. But even today, with nearly two centuries of scientific advancement since the trial of Madame LeFarge court cases aren't simple matters of science, and finding the truth in Marie Lefarge's guilt or her innocence was a matter far more complicated than a chemical reaction. Chemistry might be scientific, but plenty of other evidence is a matter

of who you choose to believe. Justice is sometimes a matter of perspective, a matter of a story that someone tells you, I'm Danish warts and this is noble blood. Marie LeFarge was born into the privileges of upper class nineteenth century French society. Her grandmother was a baroness and an illegitimate daughter of Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleons. Marie LeFarge had an aunt married to a Prussian diplomat, and another married to the Secretary General of the Bank

of France. Her father was a military officer said to be a favorite of Napoleon. All in all, Marie was on the path to a perfectly respectable life, rubbing elbows with the well healed and well connected. But then a twist of fate, like the beginning of a tragic fairy tale. Marie's father died in a hunting accident, and her mother died a few years later when Marie was eighteen, which led her to being sent off to live under the

supervision of one of her aunts. Though Marie went to the right schools and socialized in the right circles, she was all too aware that she was something of a poor relation.

great beauty. She was considered average, with an average dowry that made her feel downright mediocre compared to her friends. Marie visited her friend, the Viscomtess, at her beautiful new chateau and thought, how easy it must be. The Viscomtesse had a drawer of diamond necklaces that she treated so casually she wouldn't even notice if they went missing. Marie, at age twenty three, was already aware that she was

becoming a burden to her family. Marie's uncle, eager to make a match for her, came home one day and announced that he had found her a husband, the son of a postmaster.

the owner of an iron forge. This time, both Marie and her aunt burst out laughing, where are you discovering this mine of husbands? Marie asked her uncle jokingly. Her uncle's face was stony. He had met the iron master through a mutual friend, a rich merchant. Marie's uncle's reaction told her everything she needed to know. Her options were limited. The iron master's name was Charles Lafarge. He was twenty

eight years old. Marie was told that he owned one of the finest estates in the region of Limoisson, a grand manner known as Le Glandier, and that in addition to the large income he brought in from his iron works, he had two hundred thousand francs in land and capital.

For a marriage of convenience, Marie could do a lot worse, and so it was arranged for Marie and Charles LeFarge to meet at a private concert, where Marie's uncle would introduce Charles as a friend in the interest of social decorum. Charles didn't make a very good first impression, as Marie wrote in her memoir Monsieur LeFarge was extremely ugly. His form and features were the most business looking conceivable. He spoke to me a good deal, but the noisy harmony of the orchestra drowned.

an inn for the night. Marie was taking a bath when her husband knocked hard on her door. Wait ten minutes, Marie shouted, and I'll be dressed. Charles replied, it is precisely because you are undressed that I want to come in.

had dreamed of. This was a rough man from the country who resented her wealthy Parisian upbringing, and their marriage was going to be a challenging one. The next morning, Charles Lafarge greeted Marie more kindly, almost apologetically. He asked how she was feeling, and, as Marie wrote, he embraced me and became kind and attentive as before. Still Marie couldn't shake her unpleasant feeling, the misery she sensed was awaiting her in a marriage she was now trapped in.

I was unable to eat at dinner, she wrote, and having taken a cup of tea, I spent an hour in a balcony, feeling the horrors of the abyss yawning at my feet, but dreading the thoughts of coolly measuring its depth. Even Marie couldn't have predicted what would be waiting for her at La Glandier when she finally arrived.

Perhaps the reason Charles had been so aggressive at the inn was because he knew that if there was a chance he was going to get to enjoy his wife, Carnalie, it was going to be before they made it back to his estate. When the couple finally made it back, things would go from merely unpleasant to abysmal. That abyss Marie imagined was no longer just at her feet, It was about to swallow her whole. The town outside Laglandier was squalid, small and miserable, with dirty, narrow streets populated

by suspicious and cruel faces. La Glandier itself was worse. Charles Lafarge was not a wealthy iron master with a sizeable property and generous income. He was broke and heavily in debt, and his estate was a crumbling ruin, dripping with damp and mold walls, wheezing with the cold, and squeaking with rats. And Marie was met upon their arrival with a scene out of a Gothic horror novel, where she was welcomed into the crumbling estate by her new mother in law and sister in law, both of whom

viewed Charles's new bride with skepticism verging on derision. Who was this young privileged Parisian society girl who deigned to come out to their country home and judge them? Close to tears, Marie made some excuse to retire to her room with her maid, and she found that her bedroom was threadbare, barely furnished. When she asked for an inkstand so that she might write a letter, she was given

a broken sweetmeat jar with gray water swirling inside. She had been tricked, deceived, and was now legally married and stuck here for the rest of her life. In this miserable place. Le Glandier was built on the ruins of a former monastery, and Marie's mother in law would tell Marie that once she had forgotten to make the sign of the Cross in front of her daughter's cradle, and the devil himself had overturned the baby's basinet and left long blue scars the mark of his black nails on

the baby's neck. But Marie didn't need to be told that this place was haunted. She coul it, and the fact that you would need to spend a single night here, let alone the rest of her life, was almost beyond comprehension. The thought of writing to her friends in Paris, of telling them about her terrible deception, was humiliation. And even if she did write them, she was one hundred leagues away from Paris, from help from people who cared about her.

Marie was all alone, the new lady of a house that came with a collection of in laws who resented her supposed city heirs, and with a brutish husband who was getting impatient to consummate their marriage. Marie articulated her despair in her memoir, saying, quote, the gray color of the heavens darkening as night approached, added to the indignation

which filled me at the deceit. I suffered from the greater and more repugnant fear of the nocturnal tete, a tete which I dreaded so much and could no longer shun. I have never known hatred, But when my heart is wounded, I am powerless to master my indignation. At that moment, I should have sickened. If Monsieur LeFarge had kissed my hand in his arms, I should have perished, with her maid guarding the door and using the broken jar as an inkwell. Marie frantically wrote a note to her new husband,

begging him to release her from the marriage. Get two horses ready, I will ride to Bordeaux and then take the ship to Smyrna. I will leave you all my possessions. May God turn them to your advantage. Let no one know I have ever existed. I will take arsenic, I have some spare me be the guardian angel of a poor orphan girl, or if you choose, slay me and say I have killed myself. To his credit, it seems that Charles responded pretty well to the distraught young woman

dericading herself in her room and threatening suicide. He read the note Marie shoved beneath the door without anger or defensiveness, and when Marie was well enough to come out, he kissed her hand and began weeping himself. He told Marie, unfortunately he could not release her from the marriage, one because he needed her dowry, and two because she actually wasn't permitted to dispose of her own dowry without the permission of her family. But wait a few days, he promised.

Please let me show you how much I adore you, and in the meantime live here merely as my sister, without sharing a bed until I can prove my love and make you happy. Charles apologized profusely for the state of the house and assured Marie that he would do everything in his power to begin to repair Le Glandier until it became a place up to her standards. From that point on, while I don't think Marie fell madly in love with Charles, but things started to get much better.

The two seemed to get along. Marie began using her money and her connections to help Charles get ahead in business. She had some money that she invested in the Forge, and she put Charles in touch with some of her contacts who might be able to get him loans. And though things remained frosty with Marie's mother in law, Marie and Charles began to have a pretty decent marital relationship. In a letter to a friend, Murray wrote, I have

accepted my position, although it is difficult. But with a little strength of mind, with patience and my husband's love, I may grow contended. Charles adores me, and I cannot

but be touched by the caresses lavished on me. Again, it's worth remembering she is writing that in a letter to a friend, her pride had already been wounded by the fact that she was sent away to endure the situation in the first place, and her letter might be read as the nineteenth century equivalent of carefully curating photos to post on Instagram so that your life looks more enviable to your friends than it actually is, But according to Marie and the way she writes in her memoir,

her relationship with Charles continued to develop from a genuine friendship to a slowly blossoming romance, to the point that in autumn, when Charles was taking a business trip to Paris to try to make arrangements for loans, Marie thought it would be romantic to send along a miniature.

a perfect like this? She really captured you. In the memoir quote, Madame Lafarge, mother in law, was so enthusiastic at the sight of my portrait, and Mademoiselle Brun regarded it near and at distance with a smile of such proud satisfaction that I believed, with a sigh, that my vanity had deluded me, and that I was quite as ugly as my picture. In the package to Paris, Marie also included some small local chestnuts and some little cakes.

Baked by Charles's mother, quote whose reputation for pastry was colossal, and who was not accustomed to concede to anyone the grand work of making side dishes. I imagine it's the same type of situation as your mother in law being famous for making pie. So it would be an insult

come Thanksgiving for anyone else to Deiane make dessert. And so the package with the portrait, the chestnuts and the little cakes was tied with cording and sent to Paris, along with the note Marie sent telling her husband that it might be romantic if he ate a cake at midnight in Paris and she ate a cake at midnight in La Glandier, so that even though they were distant, they would both be eating cake at.

The problem with this particular podcast episode is that the Lfarge case had become such a media sensation that magazines and newspapers wrote about it with a, let's say, tabloid esque sense of abandon and so sometimes we get contemporary sources making conflicting claims, and sometimes aspects of the case are adopted into the story, repeated over and over again without ever having been really verified, or at least verified in a way that I can trace in the first place.

And so one of those aspects of the story is that when Charles received his care package, it wasn't secured with cords the way it had.

his symptoms, he was suffering from cholera. Eventually, in January of eighteen forty, Charles was well enough to come back home to La Glandier, where he would be cared for by his mother, his sister, the housekeeper Mademoiselle Broun Marie, and a cousin named Emma. The family doctor was brought around at once, and he corroborated what the doctor in Paris had thought cholera. What Charles needed was bed rest,

lots of good food, and good sleep. Marie was at her husband's bedside every day, and he often complained about the scurrying of rats in the walls, in the floors, in the ceilings, making noise that made it hard for him to sleep. The bit of arsenic that she had bought the month prior hadn't worked, evidently, and the rats had expanded their territory, making their way into Marie's closet

and chewing at her linen's. Marie asked her husband's clerk, a Monsieur Denis, to go to the apothecary with a note Marie wrote, and bring home rat traps and arsenic. Marie showed what Deni had brought back to her husband. Surely this amount of arsenic will take.

The doctor shrugged. He said it looked like a bit of sealing plaster had fallen into the bowl, and to be fair, that was the type of thing that happened at Le Glandier. But Brun's suspicions weren't abated, and neither were the suspicions of Marie's mother and sister in law. They were convinced it was arsenic, and they tried, in their unscientific ways to prove it. They boiled samples of the food over small flames and leaned in close to see if they could smell garlic.

face and trembling voice. Marie, she said, they say you have poisoned him. They say you have killed Charles to wed another. Marie was aghast, at least according to her memoir, she was genuinely shocked by the accusation. Emma continued, they say you put arsenic into his chicken broth, that they saw white powder floating in his soup. Marie blinked. She had put something in his soup, gum arabic. She kept it in this small malachite box here.

set aside, convinced Marie had tampered with them. A gardener pointed out the various spots around the house that Marie had set up arsenic paste to poison the rats. Rats haven't touched it, he said, shrugging. Maybe she used the real arsenic for something else. The Justice of the Peace had his men searched the house. They took Marie's letters and her malekite box of powder that she claimed was gum Arabic. They questioned the servants, and that was how.

Under interrogation, one of the servants told the men that he had buried a stash of arsenic in the garden. Marie told him to the servant, said, the Justice of the Peace dug and just as the servant boy had said, there was a bag of arsenic hidden away, presumably so the magistrates wouldn't have been able to find it. The alleged murder of Charles LeFarge by his rich Parisian wife made the newspapers, and when the Vicomte de Leotteau read them,

he turned to his wife. Wasn't this the woman you were friends with, the woman we had visit our home. Come to think of it, wasn't it right after sure she visited that your diamonds went missing. The viscomtesse concurred, yes, that was her old friend, Marie, and yes her diamond had gone missing, but she hadn't thought to accuse her friend, even though, yes, her friend was poorer than they were

and did probably covet her diamonds. The Vicomte wrote to the Justice of the Peace and had him search Marie's room at La Glandier. Sure enough, there they were the exact diamond that had gone missing from the vicomtesse. So Marie LeFarge wasn't just a murderess, but a thief as well.

In the meantime, the local experts in Brieve attempted to analyze the food samples and Charles's stomach for arsenic They had never heard of the marsh test, but they knew the old fashioned method, and though there were a few minor snaphoos with the equipment, they identified the distinct yellow precipitate as it formed. They knew what that yellow precipitate meant, arsenic. A lot of arsenic in the chicken broth, and in

Marie's small box and in Charles LaFarge's digestive track. Crowds of people were already gathered outside the prison where Marie LeFarge would be kept before her trial. They jeered and shouted at her as she was escorted from her carriage and into the prison. Marie LeFarge stepped over the threshold and the door was bolted behind her with a loud, echoing thud. That's the end of part one of the

story of Marie LeFarge. Next week we'll get into her trial, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit about how the legacy of Murray LeFarge inspired literature. Earlier this summer, on August fourth, twenty twenty three, there was a final jeopardy question that stumped all three

very smart contestants. It was a really hard one, even in a category nineteenth century literature characters that I would have thought I would have nailed the question, or rather, the answer was this character from an eighteen fifty nine novel symbolizes the fates who, in mythology, spin the web of life, measure it and cut it off, give up. The correct response was who is Madame Defarge, the villainess

from Charles Dickens's Tale of Two Cities. In the book, Madame Defarge is an ardent supporter of the radical Jacobeans and the reign of terror during the French Revolution, And as the noblemen and women are going to their deaths at the guillotine, Madame Defarge is there placidly knitting. Hence

the web of life fates symbolism connection. But to me, the name Defarge seems an echo of another famous woman from the middle of the nineteenth century, Marie Lafarge, a woman who Charles Dickens certainly would have been very familiar with, A woman who became famous in tabloids and newspapers for the question of whether she was a murderous a woman who controlled life and death in her hands with the

flick of her wrist and the sprinkle of powder. The fictional Madame Defarge, I want to say, did absolutely take things a little far. But if you've read a Tale of Two Cities, I think you can agree that misguided and vengeful as she was, she did have a pretty good reason to want revenge in the first place. Come back next week for the conclusion of Madame Lefarge's episode. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and

Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima il Kaali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive

producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.