Report of the trial of Madeleine Smith : before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, June 30th to July 9th, 1857, for the alleged poisoning of Pierre Émile l'Angelier / by Alexander Forbes Irvine, advocate.

Smith, Madeleine, 1835-1928.

Date:: 1857

Credit: Report of the trial of Madeleine Smith : before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, June 30th to July 9th, 1857, for the alleged poisoning of Pierre Émile l'Angelier / by Alexander Forbes Irvine, advocate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$celerated the action of the poison; and it was, therefore certain that he arrived in Glasgow without arsenic, and that he left his lod2;incrs without it, after changing his coat. Alluding next to the evidence of M. Thuau, his Lordship said, that though it was obtained through an interpreter, he did not think, somehow or other, that they had got it satisfactorily. In going over the evidence of M. de Mean, the French Consul, in reference to that part of it in which he says— Sometime after L'ilngelier had spoken of his relations with Miss Smith, I told him I thought he should go to IVIr Smith and tell him that he was in love with his daughter, and that he wanted to marry her,—his Lordship observed, I don't think there is any proof at all that the. father was ever aware of his daughter's intimacy with L'An- gelier, although the mother may have known it; and, however pain- ful it might have been, I think it would have been a satisfactory thing to have got her father's statement, when, I have no doubt, it would have been seen that her connection was wholly unlaiown to him; for I cannot but think that he w^ould have taken stronger measm'es than the poor mother did, if he had known of it at all. L'Angelier, how- ever, told De Mean that ]\Iiss Smith had asked her father's consent several times, and he refused it. De Mean went to Mr Smith and told him of L'Angelier's death. Next day, after being in Huggins' office, and hearing certain rumours, he called on ^liss Smith, mentioned L'Angelier's death, and told her that it was said that he had come from the Bridge of Allan the day before his death in con- sequence of an invitation fi'om her. Miss Smith told him that she was not aware that L'Angelier had been at the Bridge of Allan, and denied that she had given him an appointment for Sunday. She said she wrote him on the Friday evenmg, giving liim an appoint- ment for the following day, Saturday. This, said his Lordship, was a curious thing, and contrary to the theory of the Dean of Faculty as to the letters, that the first letter was intended for a meeting on Friday m'ght, while she told the witness that she had given him an appointment for the Saturday. Mr Young—The appointment in the fiist letter, my Lord, was for Tliursday night; and it is the second letter that she was speaking of, as appointing the Saturday, and that squares exactly with the Dean's theory. The Loud Justice-Clerk, on reading the following statement of this witness— She told me that L'AngeHer had never entered into the house, meaning, as I understood, the house in Blythswood Square —remarked—Now, really, gentlemen, the statement of the Dean of Faculty tiiat this girl starts into a heroine at this moment is an exaggeration which I did not think to hear from my learned fnend. Why, if you 1)elicvc Christina llaggart, he did enter the house, and Avas a whole hour with her on one occasion, and this supposed in- stance of the indignant denial by an innocent girl is a false- hood. Whether, tlien, this is anything more tlian a mere denial T$