Marie Lafarge

Marie-Fortunée Lafarge was a French woman who was convicted of murdering her husband by arsenic poisoning in 1840. Her case became notable because it was one of the early trials to be followed by the public through daily newspaper reports, and because she was the first person convicted largely on direct forensic toxicological evidence. Nonetheless, questions about Lafarge's guilt divided French society to the extent that it is often compared to the better-known Dreyfus affair.