Marie Cappelle, dame LAFARGE (1816-1852).

Lot 20
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Marie Cappelle, dame LAFARGE (1816-1852).
L. A. S. "Marie Cappelle". "In jail!" [Montpellier, 1843], 8 pages in-8°. Accused of having poisoned her husband, her trial had a great impact. A long letter commenting on the circumstances of her own conviction. Mrs. Lafarge was indignant about Josephine Mallet's book Les Femmes en prison (1843); she returned to the additional analyses requested from Dr. Orfila and to the indictment which emphasized the principle of equality before the law. Her admiration for the author's style and compassion did not prevent her from furiously writing "a cruel page on the favours obtained by great poisonous ladies and on equality before the law! - Equality before the law!... ...] The poor woman of the people, brought before the court, is asked to account for her actions, that is to say, for the facts within the reach of the men who will judge her! - To the great lady we ask for an account of her thoughts, of the beats of her heart, of the impulses of her soul, and this intimate life which belongs only to God, this life we have her judged by merchants, by industrialists who reduce everything to numbers, who see mysteries of infamy in all that they do not understand and who, for fear of being fooled, prefer the remorse of being executioners..." [...]. She continues her diatribe: "An autopsy report is drawn up, there is no arsenic, there are no lesions, from which the doctors conclude for the poor woman that there is no poisoning - for the great lady, that the symptoms are natural, that death is not natural. The chemistry is addressed - the first time the experiment fails the tube breaks - the result is null but the doctors, who want to be conscious and not be influenced by the position of the accused, unanimously declare that from a null result comes the evidence of poisoning. Other chemists [...] do not find poison!... But a famous trial cannot stop"... The exhumation takes place. The absence of arsenic returns a poor woman to her family, to honour and to life, but
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