It is impossible at this length of time to settle a question so keenly debated by her contemporaries. The possibility of her having served for another’s crime hardly rests on any very strong basis, and the circumstances that led to her arraignment were very much against her. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that she was charged with a crime other than that of theft, and was convicted of it. In this again she may have suffered unjustly. A school friend, who had become the wife of the Vicomte de Leautaud, accused her of having stolen her diamonds, when on a visit at her house. Marie Lafarge freely admitted the diamonds were in her possession, and pointed out where they might be found at Glandier, but she refuted the accusation of theft, and declared that the Vicomtesse had entrusted the diamonds to her to be sold. Her former lover threatened blackmail, and Madame de Leautaud was driven to buy him off--this was Marie’s explanation, which Madame de Leautaud repelled by declaring that it was Marie Lafarge who was threatened, and that the diamonds were to be sacrificed to save her good name. In the end, the case was tried in open court, and Madame Lafarge was found guilty, although there were many contradictory facts. It was strange that the Vicomtesse so long refrained from complaining of the theft, and made so little of the loss. Marie, on the other hand, scarcely secreted the jewels, and was known to have a number of fine loose stones, for which she variously accounted--one story being that they were a gift, another that she had owned them from childhood. A sentence of two years’ imprisonment was passed upon Madame Lafarge, but it merged in the larger term, when she was convicted of having poisoned her husband.
The murder of the Duchesse de Choiseul-Praslin by the husband shocked all Europe, not only on account of the horrible details of the deed, but from the high rank of the parties concerned. The Duke held his head high as the representative of an ancient family, and his unhappy victim was one of the leaders of French fashionable society. She was the daughter of one of the first Napoleon’s famous generals, the Count Sebastian, and when in Paris they resided at the Sebastian Hotel in the Faubourg St. Honoré, in the Champs Elysées. In August, 1840, the family came from their country seat, the magnificent Chateau of Vaux, constructed by the famous Fouquet, Louis XIV’s finance minister, who fell into such irretrievable disgrace, and died after long years of close imprisonment.