She Stands Accused

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Josephine told her master that the soup was ready. He came at
her call, but did not eat the soup at once, being otherwise
occupied. The soup stood on the secretaire for about fifteen
minutes before Boursier started to eat it.

According to the accused, the accusation went on, after
Boursier's death the two doctors asked that they might be allowed
to perform an autopsy, since they were at a loss to explain the
sudden illness. This Mme Boursier refused, in spite of the
insistence of the doctors. She refused, she said, in the
interest of her children. She insisted, indeed, on a quick
burial, maintaining that, as her husband had been tres replet,
the body would rapidly putrefy, owing to the prevailing heat, and
that thus harm would be done to the delicate contents of the
epicerie.

Led by rumours of the bluish stains--almost certain indications
of a violent death--the authorities, said the accusation, ordered
an exhumation and autopsy. Arsenic was found in the body. It
was clear that Boursier, ignorant, as he was, of his wife's bad
conduct, had not killed himself. This was a point that the widow
had vainly attempted, during the process of instruction, to
maintain. She declared that one Clap, a friend of her late
husband, had come to her one day to say that a certain Charles, a
manservant, had remarked to him, ``Boursier poisoned himself
because he was tired of living.'' Called before the Juge
d'instruction, Henri Clap and Charles had concurred in denying
this.

The accusation maintained that the whole attitude of Mme Boursier
proved her a poisoner. As soon as her husband became sick she
had taken the dish containing the remains of the rice soup,
emptied it into a dirty vessel, and passed water through the
dish. Then she had ordered Blin to clean it, which the latter
did, scrubbing it out with sand and ashes.

Questioned about arsenic in the house, Mme Boursier said, to
begin with, that Boursier had never spoken to her about arsenic,
but later admitted that her husband had mentioned both arsenic
and mort aux rats to her.

Asked regarding the people who frequented the house she had
mentioned all the friends of Boursier, but neglected to speak of
Kostolo. Later she had said she never had been intimate with the
Greek. But Kostolo, `` barefaced enough for anything,'' had
openly declared the nature of his relations with her. Then Mme
Boursier, after maintaining that she had been no more than
interested in Kostolo, finding pleasure in his company, had been
constrained to confess that she had misconducted herself with the
Greek in the dead man's room. She had given Kostolo the run of
her purse, the accusation declared, though she denied the fact,
insisting that what she had given him had been against his note.
There was only one conclusion, however. Mme Boursier, knowing
the poverty of her paramour, had paid him as her cicisbeo,
squandering upon him her children's patrimony.

The accusation then dealt with the supposed project of marriage,
and declared that in it there was sufficient motive for the
crime. Kostolo was Mme Boursier's accomplice beyond any doubt.
He had acted as nurse to the invalid, administering drinks and
medicines to him. He had had full opportunity for poisoning the
grocer. Penniless, out of work, it would be a good thing for him
if Boursier was eliminated. He had been blatant in his visits to
Mme Boursier after the death of the husband.

Then followed the first questioning of the accused.

Mme Boursier said she had kept tryst with Kostolo in the
Champs-Elysees. She admitted having been to his lodgings once.
On the mention of the name of Mlle Riene, a mistress of
Kostolo's, she said that the woman was partly in their
confidence. She had gone with Mlle Riene twice to Kostolo's
rooms. Once, she admitted, she had paid a visit to Versailles
with Kostolo unknown to her husband.

Asked if her husband had had any enemies, Mme Boursier said she
knew of none.

The questioning of Kostolo drew from him the admission that he
had had a number of mistresses all at one time. He made no bones
about his relations with them, nor about his relations with Mme
Boursier. He was quite blatant about it, and seemed to enjoy the
show he was putting up. Having airily answered a question in a
way that left him without any reputation, he would sweep the
court with his eyes, preening himself like a peacock.

He was asked about a journey Boursier had proposed making. At
what time had Boursier intended making the trip?

``Before his death,'' Kostolo replied.

The answer was unintentionally funny, but the Greek took credit
for the amusement it created in court. He conceived himself
a humorist, and the fact coloured all his subsequent answers.

Kostolo said that he had called to see Boursier on the first day
of his illness at three in the afternoon. He himself had
insisted on helping to nurse the invalid. Mme Boursier had
brought water, and he had given it to the sick man.

After Boursier's death he had remarked on the blueness of the
fingernails. It was a condition he had seen before in his own
country, on the body of a prince who had died of poison, and the
symptoms of whose illness had been very like those in Boursier's.
He had then suspected that Boursier had died of poisoning.

The loud murmurs that arose in court upon his blunt confession of
having misconducted himself with Mme Boursier fifteen days after
her husband's death seemed to evoke nothing but surprise in
Kostolo. He was then asked if he had proposed marriage to Mme
Boursier after Boursier's death.

``What!'' he exclaimed, with a grin. ``Ask a woman with five
children to marry me--a woman I don't love?''

Upon this answer Kostolo was taken to task by the President of
the court. M. Hardouin pointed out that Kostolo lived with a
woman who kept and fed him, giving him money, but that at the
same time he was taking money from Mme Boursier as her lover,
protesting the while that he loved her. What could the Greek say
in justification of such conduct?

``Excuse me, please, everybody,'' Kostolo replied, unabashed.
``I don't know quite how to express myself, but surely what I
have done is quite the common thing? I had no means of living
but from what Mme Boursier gave me.''

The murmurs evoked by the reply Kostolo treated with lofty
disdain. He seemed to find his audience somewhat prudish.

To further questioning he answered that he had never proposed
marriage to the Veuve Boursier. Possibly something might have
been said in fun. He knew, of course, that the late Boursier had
made a lot of money.

The cook, Josephine Blin, was called. At one time she had been
suspect. Her version of the potage incidents, though generally
in agreement with that of the accused widow, differed from it in
two essential points. When she took Boursier's soup into the
dining-room, she said, Mme Boursier was in the comptoir, three or
four paces away from the desk on which she put the terrine. This
Mme Boursier denied. She said she had been in the same comptoir
as her husband. Josephine declared that Mme Boursier had ordered
her to clean the soup-dish out with sand, but her mistress
maintained she had bade the girl do no more than clean it. For
the rest, Josephine thought about fifteen minutes elapsed before
Boursier came to take the soup. During that time she had seen
Mme Boursier writing and making up accounts.

Toupie, the medical student, said he had nursed Boursier during
the previous year. Boursier was then suffering much in the same
way as he had appeared to suffer during his fatal illness. He
had heard Mme Boursier consulting with friends about an autopsy,
and her refusal had been on their advice.

The doctors called were far from agreeing on the value of the
experiments they had made. Orfila, afterwards to intervene in
the much more universally notorious case of Mme Lafarge, stuck to
his opinion of death by arsenic. If his evidence in the Lafarge
case is read it will be seen that in the twenty years that had
passed from the Boursier trial his notions regarding the proper
routine of analysis for arsenic in a supposedly poisoned body had
undergone quite a change. But by then the Marsh technique had
been evolved. Here, however, he based his opinion on experiments
properly described as ``very equivocal;'' and stuck to it. He
was supported by a colleague named Lesieur.

M. Gardy said he had observed that the greater part of the grains
about the ileum, noted on the 1st of August, had disappeared next
day. The analysis had been made with quantities too small. He
now doubted greatly if the substance taken to be arsenic oxide
would account for death.

M. Barruel declared that from the glareous matter removed from
the body only a grain of the supposed arsenic had been extracted,
and that with difficulty. He had put the substance on glowing
charcoal, but, in his opinion, the experiment was VERY EQUIVOCAL.
It was at first believed that there was a big amount of arsenic,
but he felt impelled to say that the substance noted was nothing
other than small clusters of fat. The witness now refused to
conclude, as he had concluded on the 1st of August, that enough
poison had been in the body to cause death.

It would almost seem that the medical evidence should have been
enough to destroy the case for the prosecution, but other
witnesses were called.

Bailli, at one time a clerk to Boursier, said he had helped his
patron to distribute arsenic and rat-poison in the shop cellars.
He was well aware that the whole of the poison had not been used,
but in the course of his interrogation he had failed to remember
where the residue of the poisons had been put. He now
recollected. The unused portion of the arsenic had been put in a
niche of a bottle-rack.

In view of evidence given by a subsequent witness Bailli's rather
sudden recovery of memory might have been thought odd if a friend
of his had not been able to corroborate his statement. The
friend was one Rousselot, another grocer. He testified that he
and Bailli had searched together. Bailli had then cudgelled that
dull ass, his brain, to some effect, for they had ultimately come
upon the residue of the arsenic bought by Boursier lying with the
remainder of the mort aux rats. Both the poisons had been placed
at the bottom of a bottle-rack, and a plank had been nailed over
them.

Rousselot, asked why he had not mentioned this fact before,
answered stupidly, ``I thought you knew it!''

The subsequent witness above referred to was an employee in the
Ministere du Roi, a man named Donzelle. In a stammering and
rather confused fashion he attempted to explain that the
vacillations of the witness Bailli had aroused his suspicions.
He said that Bailli, who at first had been vociferous in his
condemnation of the Widow Boursier, had later been rather more
vociferous in her defence. The witness (Donzelle) had it from a
third party that Mme Boursier's sister-in-law had corrupted other
witnesses with gifts of money. Bailli, for example, could have
been seen carrying bags of ecus under his arm, coming out of the
house of the advocate briefed to defend Mme Boursier.

Bailli, recalled, offered to prove that if he had been to Maitre
Couture's house he had come out of it in the same fashion as he
had gone in--that was, with a bag of bay salt under each arm.

Maitre Couture, highly indignant, rose to protest against the
insinuation of the witness Donzelle, but the President of the
court and the Avocat-General hastened to say that the eminent and
honourable advocate was at no need to justify himself. The
President sternly reprimanded Donzelle and sent him back to his
seat.

% III

The Avocat-General, M. de Broe, stated the case for the
prosecution. He made, as probably was his duty, as much as he
could of the arsenic said to have been found in the body (that
precipitated as yellow sulphur of arsenic), and of the adultery
of Mme Boursier with Kostolo. He dwelt on the cleaning of the
soup-dish, and pointed out that while the soup stood on the desk
Mme Boursier had been here and there near it, never out of arm's
reach. In regard to Kostolo, the Greek was a low scallywag, but
not culpable.

The prosecution, you observe, rested on the poison's being
administered in the soup.

In his speech for the defence the eloquent Maitre Couture began
by condemning the gossip and the popular rumour on which the case
had been begun. He denounced the action of the magistrates in
instituting proceedings as deplorably unconsidered and hasty.

Mme Boursier, he pointed out, had everything to lose through the
loss of her husband. Why should she murder a fine merchant like
Boursier for a doubtful quantity like Kostolo? He spoke of the
happy relationship that had existed between husband and wife,
and, in proof of their kindness for each other, told of a comedy
interlude which had taken place on the Sunday morning.

Boursier, he said, had to get up before his wife that morning,
rising at six o'clock. His rising did not wake his wife, and,
perhaps humorously resenting her lazy torpor, he found a piece of
charcoal and decorated her countenance with a black moustache.
It was true that Mme Boursier showed some petulance over her
husband's prank when she got down at eight o'clock, but her
ill-humour did not last long. Her husband caressed and petted
her, and before long the wife joined her merry-minded husband in
laughing over the joke against her. That, said Maitre Couture,
that mutual laughter and kindness, seemed a strange preliminary
to the supposed poisoning episode of two hours or so later.

The truth of the matter was that Boursier carried the germ of
death in his own body. What enemy had he made? What vengeance
had he incurred? Maitre Couture reminded the jury of Boursier's
poor physical condition, of his stoutness, of the shortness of
his neck. He brought forward Toupie's evidence of Boursier's
illness of the previous year, alike in symptoms and in the
sufferings of the invalid to that which proved fatal on Tuesday
the 30th of June. Then Maitre Couture proceeded to tear the
medical evidence to pieces, and returned to the point that Mme
Boursier had been sleeping so profoundly, so serenely, on the
morning of her supposed contemplated murder that the prank played
on her by her intended victim had not disturbed her.

The President's address then followed. The jury retired, and
returned with a verdict of ``Not guilty.''

On this M. Hardouin discharged the accused, improving the
occasion with a homily which, considering the ordeal that Mme
Boursier had had to endure through so many months, and that might
have been considered punishment enough, may be quoted merely as a
fine specimen of salting the wound:

``Veuve Boursier,'' said he, ``you are about to recover that
liberty which suspicions of the gravest nature have caused you to
lose. The jury declares you not guilty of the crime imputed to
you. It is to be hoped that you will find a like absolution in
the court of your own conscience. But do not ever forget that
the cause of your unhappiness and of the dishonour which, it may
be, covers your name was the disorder of your ways and the
violation of the most sacred obligations. It is to be hoped that
your conduct to come may efface the shame of your conduct in the
past, and that repentance may restore the honour you have lost.''

% IV

Now we come, as the gentleman with the crimson handkerchief coyly
showing between dress waistcoat and shirt might have said, waving
his pointer as the canvas of the diorama rumbled on its rollers,
to Riguepeu!

Some twenty years have elapsed since the Veuve Boursier stumbled
from the stand of the accused in the Assize Court of the Seine,
acquitted of the poisoning of her grocer husband, but convicted
of a moral flaw which may (or may not) have rather diminished
thereafter the turnover of the epicerie in the Rue de la Paix.
One hopes that her punishment finished with her acquittal, and
that the mood of the mob, as apt as a flying straw to veer for a
zephyr as for a whirlwind, swung to her favour from mere
revulsion on her escape from the scaffold. The one thing is as
likely as the other. Didn't the heavy man of the fit-up show,
eighteen months after his conviction for rape (the lapse of time
being occupied in paying the penalty), return as an actor to the
scene of his delinquency to find himself, not, as he expected,
pelted with dead cats and decaying vegetables, but cheered to the
echo? So may it have been with the Veuve Boursier.

Though in 1844, the year in which the poison trial at Auch was
opened, four years had passed since the conviction of Mme Lafarge
at Tulle, controversy on the latter case still was rife
throughout France. The two cases were linked, not only in the
minds of the lay public, but through close analogy in the idea of
lawyers and experts in medical jurisprudence. From her
prison cell Marie Lafarge watched the progress of the trial in
Gascony. And when its result was published one may be sure she
shed a tear or two.

But to Riguepeu . . .

You will not find it on anything but the biggest-scale maps. It
is an inconsiderable town a few miles from Vic-Fezensac, a town
not much bigger than itself and some twenty kilometres from Auch,
which is the capital of the department of Gers. You may take it
that Riguepeu lies in the heart of the Armagnac district.

Some little distance from Riguepeu itself, on the top of a rise,
stood the Chateau Philibert, a one-floored house with red tiles
and green shutters. Not much of a chateau, it was also called
locally La Maison de Madame. It belonged in 1843 to Henri
Lacoste, together with considerable land about it. It was
reckoned that Lacoste, with the land and other belongings, was
worth anything between 600,000 and 700,000 francs.

Henri had become rich late in life. The house and the domain had
been left him by his brother Philibert, and another brother's
death had also been of some benefit to him. Becoming rich, Henri
Lacoste thought it his duty to marry, and in 1839, though already
sixty-six years of age, picked on a girl young enough to have
been his granddaughter.

Euphemie Verges was, in fact, his grand-niece. She lived with
her parents at Mazeyrolles, a small village in the foothills of
the Pyrenees. Compared with Lacoste, the Verges were said to be
poor. Lacoste took it on himself to look after the girl's
education, having her sent at his charges to.a convent at Tarbes.
In 1841, on the 2nd of May, the marriage took place.

If this marriage of youth with crabbed age resulted in any
unhappiness the neighbours saw little of it. Though it was
rumoured that for her old and rich husband Euphemie had given up
a young man of her fancy in Tarbes, her conduct during the two
years she lived with Lacoste seemed to be irreproachable.
Lacoste was rather a nasty old fellow from all accounts. He was
niggardly, coarse, and a womanizer. Euphemie's position in the
house was little better than that of head domestic servant, but
in this her lot was the common one for wives of her station in
this part of France. She appeared to be contented enough with
it.

About two years after the marriage, on the 16th of May, 1843, to
be exact, after a trip with his wife to the fair at Riguepeu, old
Lacoste was taken suddenly ill, ultimately becoming violently
sick. Eight days later he died.

By a will which Henri had made two months after his marriage his
wife was his sole beneficiary, and this will was no sooner proved
than the widow betook herself to Tarbes, where she speedily began
to make full use of her fortune. Milliners and dressmakers were
called into service, and the widow blossomed forth as a lady of
fashion. She next set up her own carriage. If these proceedings
had not been enough to excite envy among her female neighbours
the frequent visits paid to her in her genteel apartments by a
young man did the trick. The young man came on the scene less
than two months after the death of the old man. It was said that
his visits to the widow were prolonged until midnight. Scandal
resulted, and out of the scandal rumour regarding the death of
Henri Lacoste. It began to be said that the old man had died of
poison.

It was in December, six months after the death of Lacoste, that
the rumours came to the ears of the magistrates. Nor was there
lack of anonymous letters. It was the Widow Lacoste herself,
however, who demanded an exhumation and autopsy on the body of her
late husband--this as a preliminary to suing her traducers. Note,
in passing, how her action matches that of Veuve Boursier.

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.

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