Chapter M: BIDARD. Helene, with her usual cleverness, is making the most of (2)

On the orders of the Juge d'instruction an autopsy was begun on the 18th of December. The body of Lacoste was exhumed, the internal organs were extracted, and these, with portions of the muscular tissue, were submitted to analysis by a doctor of Auch, M. Bouton, and two chemists of the same city, MM. Lidange and Pons, who at the same time examined samples of the soil in which the body had been interred. The finding was that the body of Lacoste contained some arsenical preparation.

The matter now appearing to be grave, additional scientific assurance was sought. Three of the most distinguished chemists in Paris were called into service for a further analysis. They were MM. Devergie, Pelouze, and Flandin. Their report ran in part:

The portion of the liver on which we have experimented proved to contain a notable quantity of arsenic, amounting to more than five milligrammes; the portions of the intestines and tissue examined also contained appreciable traces which, though in smaller proportion than contained by the liver, accord with the known features of arsenical poisoning. There is no appearance of the toxic element in the earth taken from the grave or in the material of the coffin.

As soon as Mme Lacoste was apprised of the findings of the autopsy she got into her carriage and was driven to Auch, where she visited a friend of her late husband and of herself. To him she announced her intention of surrendering herself to the Procureur du Roi. The friend strongly advised her against doing any such thing, advice which Mme Lacoste accepted with reluctance.

On the 5th of January a summons to appear was issued for Mme Lacoste. She was seen that day in Auch, walking the streets on the arm of a friend. She even went to the post-office, but the police agents failed to find her. She stopped the night in the town. Next day she was at Riguepeu. She was getting out of her carriage when a servant pointed out gendarmes coming up the hill with the Mayor. When those officials arrived Euphemie was well away. Search was made through the house and outbuildings, but without result. "Don't bother yourself looking any further, Monsieur le Maire," said one of the servants. "The mistress isn't far away, but she's in a place where I could hide a couple of oxen without you finding them."

From then on Mme Lacoste was hunted for everywhere. The roads to Tarbes, Toulouse, and Vic-Fezensac were patrolled by brigades of gendarmes day and night, but there was no sign of the fugitive. It was rumoured that she had got away to Spain, that she was cached in a barrel at Riguepeu, that she was in the fields disguised as a shepherd, that she had taken the veil.

In the meantime the process against her went forward. Evidence was to hand which seemed to inculpate with Mme Lacoste a poor and old schoolmaster of Riguepeu named Joseph Meilhan. The latter, arrested, stoutly denied not only his own part in the supposed crime, but also the guilt of Mme Lacoste. "Why doesn't she come forward?" he asked. "She knows perfectly well she has nothing to fear--no more than I have."

From the 'information' laid by the court of first instance at Auch a warrant was issued for the appearance of Mme Lacoste and Meilhan before the Assize of Gers. Mme Lacoste was apparently well instructed by her friends. She did not come into the open until the last possible moment. She gave herself up at the Auch prison on the 4th of July.

Her health seemed to have suffered little from the vicissitudes of her flight. It was noticed that her hair was short, a fact which seemed to point to her having disguised herself. But, it is said, she exhibited a serenity of mind which consorted ill with the idea of guilt. She faced an interrogation lasting three hours without faltering.

On the 10th of July she appeared before the Gers Assize Court, held at Auch. The President was M. Donnoderie. Counsel for the prosecution, as it were, was the Procureur du Roi, M. Cassagnol. Mme Lacoste was defended by Maitre Alem-Rousseau, leader of the bar of Auch.

The case aroused the liveliest interest, people flocking to the town from as far away as Paris itself--so much so that at 6.30 in the morning the one-time palace of the Archbishops of Auch, in the hall of which the court was held, was packed.

The accused were called. First to appear was Joseph Meilhan. He was a stout little old boy of sixty-six, rosy and bright-eyed, with short white hair and heavy black eyebrows. He was calm and smiling, completely master of himself.

Mme Lacoste then appeared on the arm of her advocate. She was dressed in full widow's weeds. A little creature, slender but not rounded of figure, she is described as more agreeable-looking than actually pretty.

After the accused had answered with their names and descriptions the acte d'accusation was read. It was a long document. It recalled the circumstances of the Lacoste marriage and of the death of the old man, with the autopsy and the finding of traces of arsenic. It spoke of the lowly household tasks that Mme Lacoste had performed with such goodwill from the beginning, and of the reward for her diligence which came to her by the making of a holograph will in which her husband made her his sole heir.

But the understanding between husband and wife did not last long, the acte went on. Lacoste ardently desired a son and heir, and his wife appeared to be barren. He confided his grief to an old friend, one Lespere. Lespere pointed out that Euphemie was not only Lacoste's wife, but his kinswoman as well. To this Lacoste replied that the fact did not content him. "I tell you on the quiet," he said to his friend, "I've made my arrangements. If SHE knew--she's capable of poisoning me to get herself a younger man." Lespere told him not to talk rubbish, in effect, but Lacoste was stubborn on his notion.

This was but a year after the marriage. It seemed that Lacoste had a melancholy presentiment of the fate which was to be his.

It was made out that Euphemie suffered from the avarice and jealousy of her old husband. She was given no money, was hardly allowed out of the house, and was not permitted even to go to Vespers alone. And then, said the accusation, she discovered that her husband wanted an heir. She had reason to fear that he would go about getting one by an illicit association.

In the middle of 1842 she overheard her husband bargaining with one of the domestics. The girl was asking for 100 pistoles (say, L85), while her husband did not want to give more than 600 francs (say, L24). "Euphemie Verges had no doubt," ran the accusation, "that this was the price of an adulterous contract, and she insisted on Marie Dupuys' being sent from the house. This was the cause of disagreement between the married pair, which did not conclude with the departure of the servant."

Later another servant, named Jacquette Larrieux, told Mme Lacoste in confidence that the master was trying to seduce her by the offer of a pension of 2000 francs or a lump sum of 20,000.

Euphemie Verges, said the accusation, thus thought herself exposed daily, by the infidelity of her husband, to the loss of all her hopes. Also, talking to a Mme Bordes about the two servants some days after Lacoste's death, she said, "I had a bad time with those two girls! If my husband had lived longer I might have had nothing, because he wanted a child that he could leave everything to."

The acte d'accusation enlarged on the situation, then went on to bring in Joseph Meilhan as Euphemie's accomplice. It made him out to be a bad old man indeed. He had seduced, it was said, a young girl named Lescure, who became enceinte, afterwards dying from an abortion which Meilhan was accused of having procured. It might be thought that the society of such a bad old man would have disgusted a young woman, but Euphemie Verges admitted him to intimacy. He was, it was said, the confidant for her domestic troubles, and it was further rumoured that he acted as intermediary in a secret correspondence that she kept up with a young man of Tarbes who had been courting her before her marriage. The counsels of such a man were not calculated to help Mme Lacoste in her quarrels with her unfaithful and unlovable husband.

Meanwhile M. Lacoste was letting new complaints be heard regarding his wife. Again Lespere was his confidant. His wife was bad and sulky. He was very inclined to undo what he had done for her. This was in March of 1843.

Towards the end of April he made a like complaint to another old friend, one Dupouy, who accused him of neglecting old friends through uxoriousness. Lacoste said he found little pleasure in his young wife. He was, on the contrary, a martyr. He was on the point of disinheriting her.

And so, with the usual amount of on dit and disait-on, the acte d'accusation came to the point of Lacoste at the Riguepeu fair. He set out in his usual health, but, several hours later, said to one Laffon, "I have the shivers, cramps in the stomach. After being made to drink by that ---- Meilhan I felt ill."

Departing from the fair alone, he met up with Jean Durieux, to whom he said, "That ---- of a Meilhan asked me to have a drink, and afterwards I had colic, and wanted to vomit."

Arrived home, Lacoste said to Pierre Cournet that he had been seized by a colic which made him ill all over, plaguing him, giving him a desire to vomit which he could not satisfy. Cournet noticed that Lacoste was as white as a sheet. He advised going to bed and taking hot water. Lacoste took the advice. During the night he was copiously sick. The old man was in bed in an alcove near the kitchen, but next night he was put into a room out of the way of noise.

Euphemie looked after her husband alone, preparing his drinks and admitting nobody to see him. She let three days pass without calling a doctor. Lacoste, it was true, had said he did not want a doctor, but, said the accusation, "there is no proof that he persisted in that wish."

On the fourth day she sent a summary of the illness to Dr Boubee, asking for written advice. On the fifth day a surgeon was called, M. Lasmolles, who was told that Lacoste had eaten a meal of onions, garlic stems, and beans. But the story of this meal was a lie, a premeditated lie. On the eve of the fair Mme Lacoste was already speaking of such a meal, saying that that sort of thing always made her husband ill.

According to the accusation, the considerable amount of poison found in the body established that the arsenic had been administered on several occasions, on the first by Meilhan and on the others by Mme Lacoste.

When Henri Lacoste had drawn his last breath his wife shed a few tears. But presently her grief gave place to other preoccupations. She herself looked out the sheet for wrapping the corpse, and thereafter she began to search in the desk for the will which made her her husband's sole heir.

Next day Meilhan, who had not once looked in on Lacoste during his illness, hastened to visit the widow. The widow invited him to dinner. The day after that he dined with her again, and they were seen walking together. Their intimacy seemed to grow daily. But the friendship of Mme Lacoste for Meilhan did not end there. Not very many days after the death of Lacoste Meilhan met the Mayor of Riguepeu, M. Sabazan, and conducted him in a mysterious manner into his schoolroom. Telling the Mayor that he knew him to be a man of discretion, he confided in him that the Veuve Lacoste intended giving him (Meilhan) a bill on one Castera. Did the Mayor know Castera to be all right? The Mayor replied that a bill on Castera was as good as gold itself. Meilhan said that Mme Lacoste had assured him this was but the beginning of what she meant to do for him.

Meilhan wrote to Castera, who called on him. The schoolmaster told Castera that in return for 2000 francs which she had borrowed from him Mme Lacoste had given him a note for 1772 francs, which was due from Castera to Henri Lacoste as part inheritance from a brother. Meilhan showed Castera the original note, which was to be renewed in Meilhan's favour. The accusation dwelt on the different versions regarding his possession of the note given by Meilhan to the Mayor and to Castera. Meilhan was demonstrably lying to conceal Mme Lacoste's liberality.

Some little time after this Meilhan invited the Mayor a second time into the schoolroom, and told him that Mme Lacoste meant to assure him of a life annuity of 400 francs, and had asked him to prepare the necessary document for her to sign. But there was another proposition. If Meilhan would return the note for 1772 francs owing by Castera she would make the annuity up to 500. What, asked Meilhan, would M. le Maire do in his place? The Mayor replied that in Meilhan's place he would keep the Castera note and be content with the 400 annuity. Then Meilhan asked the Mayor to draw up for him a specimen of the document necessary for creating the annuity. This M. Sabazan did at once, and gave the draft to Meilhan.

Some days later still Meilhan told M. Sabazan that Mme Lacoste did not wish to use the form of document suggested by the Mayor, but had written one herself. Meilhan showed the Mayor the widow's document, and begged him to read it to see if it was in proper form. Sabazan read the document. It created an annuity of 400 francs, payable yearly in the month of August. The Mayor did not know actually if the deed was in the writing of Mme Lacoste. He did not know her fist. But he could be certain that it was not in Meilhan's hand.

This deed was later shown by Meilhan to the cure of Riguepeu, who saw at least that the deed was not in Meilhan's writing. He noticed that it showed some mistakes, and that the signature of the Widow Lacoste began with the word "Euphemie."

In the month of August Meilhan was met coming out of Mme Lacoste's by the Mayor. Jingling money in his pocket, the schoolmaster told the Mayor he had just drawn the first payment of his annuity. Later Meilhan bragged to the cure of Basais that he was made for life. He took a handful of louis from his pocket, and told the priest that this was his daily allowance.

"Whence," demanded the acte d'accusation, "came all those riches, if they were not the price of his share in the crime?"

But the good offices of Mme Lacoste towards Meilhan did not end with the giving of money. In the month of August Meilhan was chased from his lodgings by his landlord, Lescure, on suspicion of having had intimate relations with the landlord's wife. The intervention of the Mayor was ineffective in bringing about a reconciliation between Meilhan and Lescure. Meilhan begged Mme Lacoste to intercede, and where the Mayor had failed she succeeded.

While Mme Lacoste was thus smothering Meilhan with kindnesses she was longing herself to make the most of the fortune which had come to her. From the first days of her widowhood she was constantly writing letters which Mme Lescure carried for her. Euphemie had already begun to talk of remarriage. Her choice was already made. "If I marry again," she said, a few days after the death of Lacoste, "I won't take anybody but M. Henri Berens, of Tarbes. He was my first love."

The accusation told of Euphemie's departure for Tarbes, where almost her first caller was this M. Henri Berens. The next day she gave up the lodgings rented by her late husband, to establish herself in rich apartments owned by one Fourcade, which she furnished sumptuously. The accusation dwelt on her purchase of horses and a carriage and on her luxurious way of living. It also brought forward some small incidents illustrative of her distaste for the memory of her late husband. It dealt with information supplied by her landlord which indicated that her conscience was troubled. Twice M. Fourcade found her trembling, as with fear. On his asking her what was the matter she replied, "I was thinking of my husband--if he saw me in a place furnished like this!"

(It need hardly be pointed out, considering the sour and avaricious ways of her late husband, that Euphemie need not have been conscience-stricken with his murder to have trembled over her lavish expenditure of his fortune. But the point is typical of the trivialities with which the acte d'accusation was padded out.)

The accusation claimed that a young man had several times been seen leaving Euphemie's apartments at midnight, and spoke of protests made by Mme Fourcade. Euphemie declared herself indifferent to public opinion.

Public opinion, however, beginning to rise against her, Euphemie had need to resort to lying in order to explain her husband's death. To some she repeated the story of the onion-garlic-and-beans meal, adding that, in spite of his indigestion, he had eaten gluttonously later in the day. To others she attributed his illness to two indigestible repasts made at the fair. To others again she said Lacoste had died of a hernia, forced out by his efforts to vomit. She was even accused of saying that the doctor had attributed the death to this cause. This, said the indictment, was a lie. Dr Lasmolles declared that he had questioned Lacoste about the supposed hernia, and that the old man denied having any such thing.

What had brought about Lacoste's fatal illness was the wine Meilhan had made him drink at Rigeupeu fair.

With the rise of suspicion against her and her accomplice, Mme Lacoste put up a brave front. She wrote to the Procureur du Roi, demanding an exhumation, with the belief, no doubt, that time would have effaced the poison. At the same time she sent the bailiff Labadie to Riguepeu, to find out the names of those who were traducing her, and to say that she intended to prosecute her calumniators with the utmost rigour of the law. This, said the accusation, was nothing but a move to frighten the witnesses against her into silence. Instead of making good her threats the Widow Lacoste disappeared.

On the arrest of Meilhan search of his lodgings resulted in the finding of the note on Castera for 1772 francs, and of a sum of 800 francs in gold and silver. But of the deed creating the annuity of 400 francs there was no trace.

Meilhan denied everything. In respect of the wine he was said to have given Lacoste he said he had passed the whole of the 16th of May in the company of a friend called Mothe, and that Mothe could therefore prove Meilhan had never had a drink with Lacoste. Mothe, however, declared he had left Meilhan that day at three o'clock in the afternoon, and it was just at this time that Meilhan had taken Lacoste into the auberge where he lived to give him the poisoned drink. It was between three and four that Lacoste first showed signs of being ill.

Asked to explain the note for 1772 francs, Meilhan said that, about two months after Lacoste's death, the widow complained of not having any ready money. She had the Castera note, and he offered to discount it for her. This was a palpable lie, said the accusation. It was only a few days after Lacoste's death that Meilhan spoke to the Mayor about the Castera note. Meilhan's statement was full of discrepancies. He told Castera that he held the note against 2000 francs previously lent to the widow. He now said that he had discounted the note on sight. But the fact was that since Meilhan had come to live in Riguepeu he had been without resources. He had stripped himself in order to establish his son in a pharmacy at Vic-Fezensac. His profession of schoolmaster scarcely brought him in enough for living expenses. How, then, could he possibly be in a position to lend Mme Lacoste 2000 francs? And how had he managed to collect the 800 odd francs that were found in his lodgings? The real explanation lay in the story he had twice given to the Mayor, M. Sabazan: he was in possession of the Castera note through the generosity of his accomplice.

Meilhan was in still greater difficulty to explain the document which had settled on him an annuity of 400 francs, and which had been seen in his hands. Denial was useless, since he had asked the Mayor to make a draft for him, and since he had shown that functionary the deed signed by Mme Lacoste. Here, word for word, is the explanation given by the rubicund Joseph:

"My son," he said, "kept asking me to contribute to the upkeep of one of his boys who is in the seminary of Vic-Fezensac. I consistently refused to do so, because I wanted to save what little I might against the time when I should be unable to work any longer. Six months ago my son wrote to the cure, begging him to speak to me. The cure, not wishing to do so, sent on the letter to the Mayor, who communicated with me. I replied that I did not wish to do anything, adding that I intended investing my savings in a life annuity. At the same time I begged M. Sabazan to make me a draft in the name of Mme Lacoste. She knew nothing about it. M. Sabazan sent me on the draft. It seemed to me well drawn up. I rewrote it, and showed it to M. Sabazan. At the foot of the deed I put the words 'Veuve Lacoste,' but I had been at pains to disguise my handwriting. I did all this with the intention of making my son believe, when my infirmities obliged me to retire to his household, that my income came from a life annuity some one had given me; and to hide from him where I had put my capital I wanted to persuade M. Sabazan that the deed actually existed, so that he could bear witness to the fact to my son." Here, said the accusation, Meilhan was trying to make out that it was on the occasion of a letter from his son that he had spoken to the Mayor of the annuity.

The cure of Riguepeu, however, while admitting that he had received such a letter from Meilhan's son, declared that this was long before the death of Henri Lacoste. The Mayor also said that he had spoken to Meilhan of his son's letter well before the time when the accused mentioned the annuity to him and asked for a draft of the assignment.

The accusation ridiculed Meilhan's explanation, dubbing it just another of the schoolmaster's lies. It brought forward a contradictory explanation given by Meilhan to one Thener, a surgeon, whom he knew to be in frequent contact with the son whom the document was intended to deceive. Meilhan informed Thener that he had fabricated the deed, and had shown it round, in order to inspire such confidence in him as would secure him refuge when he had to give up schoolmastering.

These contradictory and unbelievable explanations were the fruit of Meilhan's efforts to cover the fact that the annuity was the price paid him by the Widow Lacoste for his part in the murder of her husband. It was to be remembered that M. Sabazan, whose testimony was impeccable, had seen Meilhan come from the house of Mme Lacoste, and that Meilhan had jingled money, saying he had just drawn the first payment of his annuity.

The accusation, in sum, concentrated on the suspicious relationship between Meilhan and the Widow Lacoste. It was a long document, but something lacking in weight of proof--proof of the actual murder, that is, if not of circumstance.

V

The process in a French criminal court was--and still is--somewhat long-winded. The Procureur du Roi had to go over the accusation in detail, making the most of Mme Lacoste's intimacy with the ill-reputed old fellow. That parishioner, far from being made indignant by the animadversions of M. Cassagnol, listened to the recital of his misdeeds with a faint smile. He was perhaps a little astonished at some of the points made against him, but, it is said, contented himself with a gesture of denial to the jury, and listened generally as if with pleasure at hearing himself so well spoken of.

He was the first of the accused to be questioned.

It was brought out that he had been a soldier under the Republic, and then for a time had studied pharmacy. He had been a corn-merchant in a small way, and then had started schoolmaster.

Endeavour was made to get him to admit guilty knowledge of the death of the Lescure girl. He had never even heard of an abortion. The girl had a stomach-ache. This line failing, he was interrogated on the matter of being chased from his lodgings by the landlord-father, it would seem, of the aforementioned girl. (It may be noted that Meilhan lived on in the auberge after her death.) Meilhan had an innocent explanation of the incident. It was all a mistake on the part of Lescure. And he hadn't been chased out of the auberge. He had simply gone out with his coat slung about his shoulders. Mme Lacoste went with him to patch the matter up.

He had not given Lacoste a drink, hadn't even spoken with him, at the Riguepeu fair, but had passed the day with M. Mothe. Cournet had told him of Lacoste's having a headache, but had said nothing of vomitings. He had not seen Lacoste during the latter's illness, because Lacoste was seeing nobody.

This business of the annuity had got rather entangled, but he would explain. He had lodged 1772 francs with Mme Lacoste, and she had given him a bill on Castera. Whether he had given the money before or after getting the bill he could not be sure. He thought afterwards. He had forgotten the circumstances while in prison.

Meilhan stuck pretty firmly to his story that it was to deceive his son that he had fabricated the deed of annuity. He couldn't help it if the story sounded thin. It was the fact.

How had he contrived to save, as he said, 3000 francs? His yearly income during his six years at Riguepeu had been only 500 francs. The court had reason to be surprised.

"Ah! You're surprised!" exclaimed Meilhan, rather put out. But at Breuzeville, where he was before Riguepeu, he had bed and board free. In Riguepeu he had nothing off the spit for days on end. He spent only 130 francs a year, he said, giving details. And then he did a little trade in corn.

He had destroyed the annuity deed only because it was worthless. As for what he had said to the Mayor about drawing his first payment of the pension, he had done it because he was a bit conscience-stricken over fabricating the deed. He had been bragging--that was all.

The President, having already chidden Meilhan for being prolix in his answers, now scolded him for anticipating the questions. But the fact was that Meilhan was not to be pinned down.

The first questions put to Mme Lacoste were with regard to her marriage and her relations with her husband. She admitted, incidentally, having begun to receive a young man some six weeks after her husband's death, but she had not known him before marriage. Meilhan had carried no letters between them. She had married Lacoste of her own free will. Lacoste had not asked any attentions from her that were not ordinarily sought by a husband, and her care of him had been spontaneous. It was true he was jealous, but he had not formally forbidden her pleasures. She had renounced them, knowing he was easily upset. It was true that she had seldom gone out, but she had never wanted to. Lacoste was no more avaricious than most, and it was untrue that he had denied her any necessaries.

Taken to the events of the fair day, Tuesday, the 16th of May, Mme Lacoste maintained that her husband, on his return, complained only of a headache. He had gone to bed early, but he usually did. That night he slept in the same alcove as herself, but next night they separated. In spite of the contrary evidence of witnesses, of which the President reminded her, Mme Lacoste firmly maintained that it was not until the Wednesday-Thursday night that Lacoste started to vomit. It was not until that night that she began to attend to him. She had given him lemonade, washed him, and so on.

The President was saying that nobody had been allowed near him, and that a doctor was not called, when the accused broke in with a lively denial. Anybody who wanted to could see him, and a doctor was called. This was towards the last, the President pointed out. Mme Lacoste's advocate intervened here, saying that it was the husband who did not wish a doctor called, for reasons of his own. The President begged to be allowed to hear the accused's own answers. He pointed out that the ministrations of the accused had effected no betterment, but that the illness had rapidly got worse. The delay in calling a doctor seemed to lend a strange significance to the events.

Mme Lacoste answered in lively fashion, accenting her phrases with the use of her hands: "But, monsieur, you do not take into account that it was not until the night of Wednesday and the Thursday that my husband began to vomit, and that it was two days after that he--he succumbed."

The President said a way remained of fixing the dates and clearing up the point. He had a letter written by M. Lacoste to the doctor in which he himself explained the state of his illness. It was pointed out to him that the letter had been written by Mme Lacoste at her husband's dictation.

The letter was dated the 19th (Friday). It was directed to M. Boubee, doctor of medicine, in Vic-Fezensac. Perhaps it would be better to give it in the original language. It is something frank in detail:

Depuis quelque temps j'avais perdu l'appetit et m'endormais de suite quand j'etais assis. Mercredi il me vint un secours de nature par un vomissement extraordinaire. Ces vomissements m'ont dure pendant un jour et une nuit; je ne rendais que de la bile. La nuit passee, je n'en ai pas rendu; dans ce moment, j'en rends encore. Vous sentez combien ces efforts reiteres m'ont fatigue; ces grands efforts m'ont fait partir de la bile par en bas; je vous demanderai, monsieur, si vous ne trouveriez pas a propos que je prisse une medecine d'huile de ricin ou autre, celle que vous jugerez a propos. Je vous demanderai aussi si je pourrais prendre quelques bains. [signe]

LACOSTE PHILIBERT

Je rends beaucoup de vents par en bas. Pour la boisson, je ne bois que de l'eau chaude et de l'eau sucree. (Il n'y a pas eu de fievre encore.)

The Procureur du Roi maintained that this letter showed the invalid had already been taken with vomiting before it was considered necessary to call in a doctor. But Mme Lacoste's advocate pointed out that the letter was written by her, when she had overcome Lacoste's distaste for doctors.

The President made much of the fact that Mme Lacoste had undertaken even the lowliest of the attentions necessary in a sick-room, when other, more mercenary, hands could have been engaged in them. The accusation from this was that she did these things from a desire to destroy incriminating evidences. Mme Lacoste replied that she had done everything out of affection for her husband.

Asked by the court why she had not thought to give Dr Boubee any explanations of the illness, she replied that she knew her husband was always ill, but that he hid his maladies and was ashamed of them. He had, it appeared, hernias, tetters, and other maladies besides. It was easy for her to gather as much, in spite of the mystery Lacoste made of them; she had seen him rubbing his limbs at times with medicaments, and at others she had seen him taking medicines internally. He was always vexed when she found him at it. She did not know what doctor prescribed the medicaments, nor the pharmacist who supplied them. Her husband thought he knew more than the doctors, and usually dealt with quacks.

Mme Lacoste was questioned regarding her husband's will, and on his longing to have an heir of his own blood. She knew of the will, but did not hear any word of his desire to alter it until after his death. With regard to Lacoste's attempts to seduce the servants, she declared this was a vague affair, and she had found the first girl in question a place elsewhere.

Her letter to the Procureur du Roi demanding an exhumation and justice against her slanderers was read. Then a second one, in which she excused her absence, saying that she would give herself up for judgment at the right time, and begged him to add her letter to the papers of the process.

The President then returned to the question of her husband's attempts to seduce the servants. She denied that this was the cause of quarrels. There had been no quarrels. She did not know that her husband was complaining outside about her.

She denied all knowledge of the arsenic found in Lacoste's body, but suggested that it might have come from one or other of the medicines he took.

Questioned with regard to her intimacy with Meilhan, she declared that she knew nothing of his morals. She had intervened in the Lescure affair at the request of Mme Lescure, who came to deny the accusation made by Lescure. This woman had never acted as intermediary between herself and Meilhan. Meilhan had not been her confidant. She looked after her late husband's affairs herself. She had handed over the Castera note to Meilhan against his loan of 2000 francs, but she had never given him money as a present. Nor had she ever spoken to Meilhan of an annuity. But Meilhan, it was objected, had been showing a deed signed "Euphemie Lacoste." The accused quickly replied that she never signed herself "Euphemie," but as "Veuve Lacoste." Upon this the President called for several letters written by the accused. It was found that they were all signed "Veuve Lacoste."

The evidence of the Fourcades regarding her conduct in their house at Tarbes was biased, she said. She had refused to take up some people recommended by her landlady. The young man who had visited her never remained longer than after ten o'clock or half-past, and she saw nothing singular in that.

The examination-in-chief of Mme Lacoste ended with her firm declaration that she knew nothing of the poisoning of her husband, and that she had spoken the truth through all her interrogations. Some supplementary questions were answered by her to the effect that she knew, during her marriage, that her husband had at one time suffered from venereal disease; and that latterly there had been recrudescences of the affection, together with the hernia already mentioned, for which her husband took numerous medicaments.

Throughout this long examination Mme Lacoste showed complete self-possession, save that at times she exhibited a Gascon impatience in answering what she conceived to be stupid questions.

VI

The experts responsible for the analysis of Lacoste's remains were now called. All three of those gentlemen from Paris, MM. Pelouze, Devergie, and Flandin, agreed in their findings. Two vessels were exhibited, on which there glittered blobs of some metallic substance. This substance, the experts deposed, was arsenic obtained by the Marsh technique from the entrails and the muscular tissue from Lacoste's body. They could be sure that the substances used as reagents in the experiments were pure, and that the earth about the body was free from arsenic.

M. Devergie said that science did not admit the presence of arsenic as a normal thing in the human body. What was not made clear by the expert was whether the amount of arsenic found in the body of Lacoste was consistent with the drug's having been taken in small doses, or whether it had been given in one dose. Devergie's confrere Flandin later declared his conviction that the death of Lacoste was due to one dose of the poison, but, from a verbatim report, it appears that he did not give any reason for the opinion.

At this point Mme Lacoste was recalled, and repeated her statement that she had seen her husband rubbing himself with an ointment and drinking some white liquid on the return of a syphilitic affection.

Dr Lasmolles testified that Lacoste, though very close-mouthed, had told him of a skin affection that troubled him greatly. The deceased dosed himself, and did not obey the doctors' orders. It was only from a farmer that he understood Lacoste to have a hernia, and Lacoste himself did not admit it. The doctor did not believe the man poisoned. He had been impressed by the way Mme Lacoste looked after her husband, and the latter did not complain about anyone. M. Lasmolles had heard no mention from Lacoste of the glass of wine given him by Meilhan.

After M. Devergie had said that he had heard of arsenical remedies used externally for skin diseases, but never of any taken internally, M. Plandin expressed his opinion as before quoted.

The next witness was one Dupouy, of whom some mention has already been made. Five days before his death Lacoste told him that, annoyed with his wife, he definitely intended to disinherit her. Dupouy admitted, however, that shortly before this the deceased had spoken of taking a pleasure trip with Mme Lacoste.

Lespere then repeated his story of the complaints made to him by Lacoste of his wife's conduct, of his intention of altering his will, and of his belief that Euphemie was capable of poisoning him in order to get a younger man. It was plain that this witness, a friend of Lacoste's for forty-six years, was not ready to make any admissions in her favour. He swore that Lacoste had told him his wife did not know she was his sole heir. He was allowed to say that on the death of Lacoste he had immediately assumed that the poisoning feared by Lacoste had been brought about. He had heard nothing from Lacoste of secret maladies or secret remedies, but had been so deep in Lacoste's confidence that he felt sure his old friend would have mentioned them. He had heard of such things only at the beginning of the case.

The Procureur du Roi remarked here that reliance on the secret remedies was the 'system' of the defence.

That seemed to be the case. The 'system' of the prosecution, on the other hand, was to snatch at anything likely to appear as evidence against the two accused. The points mainly at issue were as follows:

(1) Did Meilhan have a chance of giving Lacoste a drink at the fair?

(2) Did Lacoste become violently sick immediately on his return from the fair?

(3) Did Lacoste suffer from the ailments attributed to him by his wife, and was he in the habit of dosing himself?

(4) Did Meilhan receive money from Mme Lacoste, and, particularly, did she propose to allow him the supposed annuity?

With regard to (1), several witnesses declared that Lacoste had complained to them of feeling ill after drinking with Meilhan, but none could speak of seeing the two men together. M. Mothe, the friend cited by Meilhan, less positive in his evidence in court than the acte d'accusation made him out to be, could not remember if it was on the 16th of May that he had spent the whole afternoon with Meilhan. It was so much his habit to be with Meilhan during the days of the fair that he had no distinct recollection of any of them. Another witness, having business with Lacoste, declared that on the day in question it was impossible for Meilhan to have been alone with Lacoste during the time that the latter was supposed to have taken the poisoned drink. Lescure, in whose auberge Lacoste was supposed to have had the drink, failed to remember such an incident. The evidence that Meilhan had given Lacoste the drink was all second-hand; that to the contrary was definite.

For the most part the evidence with regard to (2), that Lacoste became very ill immediately on his return from the fair, was hearsay. The servants belonging to the Lacoste household all maintained that the vomiting did not seize the old man until the night of Wednesday-Thursday. Indeed, two witnesses testified that the old man, in spite of his supposed headache, essayed to show them how well he could dance. This was on his return from the fair where he was supposed to have been given a poisoned drink at three o'clock. The evidence regarding the seclusion of Lacoste by his wife was contradictory, but the most direct of it maintained that it was the old man himself, if anyone, who wanted to be left alone. On this point arises the question of the delay in calling the doctor. Witness after witness testified to Lacoste's hatred of the medical faculty and to his preference for dosing himself. He declared his faith in a local vet.

On (3), the bulk of the evidence against Lacoste's having the suggested afflictions came simply from witnesses who had not heard of them. There was, on the contrary, quite a number of witnesses to declare that Lacoste did suffer from a skin disease, and that he was in the habit of using quack remedies, the stronger the better. It was also testified that Lacoste was in the habit of prescribing his remedies for other people. A witness declared that a woman to whom Lacoste had given medicine for an indisposition had become crippled, and still was crippled.

With regard to (4), the Mayor merely repeated the evidence given in his first statement, but the cure', who also saw the deed assigning an annuity to Meilhan, said that it was not in Mme Lacoste's writing, and that it was signed with the unusual "Euphemie." This last witness added that Mme Lacoste's reputation was irreproachable, and that her relations with her husband were happy.

Evidence from a business-man in Tarbes showed that Mme Lacoste's handling of her fortune was careful to a degree, her expenditure being well within her income. This witness also proved that the Fourcades' evidence of Euphemie's misbehaviour could have been dictated from spite. Fourcade had been found out in what looked like a swindle over money which he owed to the Lacoste estate.

The court then went more deeply into the medico-legal evidence. It were tedious to follow the course of this long argument. After a lengthy dissertation on the progress of an acute indigestion and the effects of a strangulated hernia M. Devergie said that, as the poison existed in the body, from the symptoms shown in the illness it could be assumed that death had resulted from arsenic. The duration of the illness was in accord with the amount of arsenic found.

M. Flandin agreed with this, but M. Pelouze abstained from expressing an opinion. He, however, rather gave the show away, by saying that if he was a doctor he would take care to forbid any arsenical preparations. "These preparations," he said moodily, "can introduce a melancholy obscurity into the investigations of criminal justice."

Some sense was brought into the discussion by Dr Molas, of Auch. He put forward the then accepted idea of the accumulation of arsenic taken in small doses, and the power of this accumulation, on the least accident, of determining death.

This was rather like chucking a monkey-wrench into the cerebration machinery of the Paris experts. They admitted that the absorption and elimination of arsenic varied with the individual, and generally handed the case over to the defence. M. Devergie was the only one who stuck out, but only partially even then. "I persist in believing," he said, "that M. Lacoste succumbed to poisoning by arsenic; but I use the word 'poisoning' only from the point of view of science: arsenic killed him."

VII

The speech of the Procureur du Roi was another resume of the acte d'accusation, with consideration of that part of the evidence which suited him best.

This was followed by the speech of Maitre Canteloup in defence of Meilhan. The speech was a good effort which demonstrated that, whatever rumour might accuse the schoolmaster of, there were plenty of people of standing who had found him upright and free from stain through a long life. It reproached the accusation with jugglery over dates and so forth in support of its case, and confidently predicted the acquittal of Meilhan.

Then followed the speech of Maitre Alem-Rousseau on behalf of the Veuve Lacoste. Among other things the advocate brought forward the fact that Euphemie was not so poorly born as the prosecution had made out, but that she had every chance of inheriting some 20,000 francs from her parents. It was notorious that when Henri Lacoste first broached the subject of marriage with Euphemie he was not so rich as he afterwards became, but, in fact, believed he had lost the inheritance from his brother Philibert, this last having made a will in favour of a young man of whom popular rumour made him the father. This was in 1839. The marriage was celebrated in May of 1841. Henri Lacoste, it is true, had hidden his intentions, but when news of the marriage reached the ears of brother Philibert that brother was so delighted that he destroyed the will which disinherited Henri. It was thus right to say that Euphemie became the benefactor of her husband. Where was the speculative marriage on the part of Euphemie that the prosecution talked about?

Maitre Alem-Rousseau made short work of the medico-legal evidence (he had little bother with the facts of the illness). Poison was found in the body. The question was, how had it got there? Was it quite certain that arsenic could not get into the human body save by ingestion, that it could not exist in the human body normally? The science of the day said no, he knew, but the science of yesterday had said yes. Who knew what the science of to-morrow would say?

The advocate made use of the evidence of a witness whose testimony I have failed to find in the accounts of the trial. This witness spoke of Lacoste's having asked, in Bordeaux, for a certain liquor of "Saint-Louis," a liquor which Mme Lacoste took to be an anisette. "No," said Lacoste, "women don't take it." Maitre Alem-Rousseau had tried to discover what this liquor of Saint-Louis was. During the trial he had come upon the fact that the arsenical preparation known as Fowler's solution had been administered for the first time in the hospital of Saint-Louis, in Paris. He showed an issue of the Hospital Gazette in which the advertisement could be read: "Solution de Fowler telle qu'on l'administre a SAINT-LOUIS!" The jury could make what they liked of that fact.

The advocate now produced documents to prove that the marriage of Euphemie with her grand-uncle had not been so much to her advantage, but had been--it must have been--a marriage of affection. At the time when the marriage was arranged, he proved, Lacoste had no more than 35,000 francs to his name. Euphemie had 15,000 francs on her marriage and the hope of 20,000 francs more. The pretence of the prosecution, that her contentment with the abject duties which she had to perform in the house was dictated by interest, fell to the ground with the preliminary assumption that she had married for her husband's money.

Maitre Alem, defending the widow's gayish conduct after her husband's death, declared it to be natural enough. It had been shown to be innocent. He trounced the Press for helping to exaggerate the rumours which envy of Mme Lacoste's good fortune had created. He asked the jury to acquit Mme Lacoste.

The Procureur du Roi had another say. It was again an attempt to destroy the 'system' of the defence, but by making a mystery of the fact that the Lacoste-Verges marriage had not taken place in a church he gave the wily Maitre Alem an opportunity for following him.

The summing-up of the President on the third day of the trial was, it is said, a model of clarity and impartiality. The jury returned on all the points put to them a verdict of "Not guilty" for both the accused.

VIII

Another verdict may now seem to have been hardly possible. The accusation was built up on the jealousy of neighbours, on chance circumstances, on testimonies founded on petty spite. But, combined with the medico-legal evidence, the weight of circumstance might easily have hoisted the accused in the balance.

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