Thread by @Iron_Spike

Hi, it's late (early??), I need a break from work, and you folks seemed to love my Lizzie Borden threads, soooo....

Let me tell you about another Victorian-era murder, by another woman.

Madeleine Smith was the eldest child of a prosperous and respected Glaswegian architect, James Smith. Born into privilege, she was raised in luxury & sent to an English finishing school to prepare her for marriage, learning needlepoint, deportment, manners, music, & The Classics.

Thoroughly educated, she returned home at age 17, where she was presented to society in the usual manner during "The Season," and the hunt for a suitable husband formally began, overseen by her father. She attended balls and soirees, and waited patiently to be matched.

A year later, at age 18, she was permitted unchaperoned outings for the first time. Accompanied by her sister Bessie, Maddie began taking regular walks along Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow's primary "promenading street," where people went to shop and be seen.

It was in Sauchiehall street that Maddie caught the eye of one Pierre Emile L'Angelier.

Emile-- he went by he middle name-- was from Jersey. Well-traveled, bilingual in English and French, and prone to intense, passionate romances, he often abandoned a city entirely when his affairs fizzled. Though trained as a seed dealer and nurseryman, he was working as a clerk.

Emile was also well-versed in the expectations of the upper crust, and knew that, although they had begun to exchange glances on the street, it wouldn't do approach a lady of means on the street as a stranger. He would need to be introduced.

And so, over the course of weeks, he befriended two male acquaintances of the Smiths, and took to walking with them along Sauchiehall. Eventually, in March of 1955, he was with these men when Maddie passed by, and he got his introduction.

This would not work in his favor later.

At the time of their meeting, Maddie was about 19, and Emile roughly 33. This wasn't scandalous by Victorian standards, tho; Most upper-class matches featured similar age gaps. Prospective grooms wanted young wives, & fathers of marriageable daughters wanted established suitors.

What WAS a problem was Emile's class. The son of a seed merchant and nurseryman-- in other words, a TRADESMAN-- was not an acceptable match for a wealthy architect's daughter. Maddie's father would never allow it.

And they both knew it.

But for several weeks in 1855, they still met for walks, with Emile bringing Maddie small gifts and the two having long chats. Bessie, Maddie's sister, would accompany them.

And it was likely Bessie who ratted Maddie out to their dad when shit started getting a little too real.

James was NOT pleased. He hadn't met this man, for one-- how can you, a proper young lady, walk with a man your father doesn't even know??-- and secondly...

A clerk?

Seriously, Maddie?

End it. NOW.

And so, prompted by dad, Maddie would write the first of SEVERAL "it's over" letters to Emile.

But it wasn't.

She was back at it within days. Maddie began picking up his letters directly from the post office, under an assumed name, and sending Emile letters via her housemaid.

They also began arranging secret meetings, sneaking out to gardens at night to meet up, or Emile, shockingly, being ALLOWED IN THE HOUSE when Maddie's four siblings were asleep or her parents were out.

Emile, as usual, DOVE IN to this latest romance, becoming almost obsessively passionate. He would wander the street outside Maddie's house in the evenings, hoping for a chance to see her or a note from her, via her maid.

By the way, this was all, in all likelihood, EXTREMELY EXCITING for Maddie.

Her life was sheltered and, outside the romance, dull, as were the lives of many women of her station. According to contemporary accounts, she was an avid consumer of that era's women's popular fiction.

These stories often featured-- did you guess?-- exciting illicit romances, rebellious young ladies, and dangerous, reckless love.

This, like Emile's past machinations to be introduced to Maddie, will come up again.

In 1855, James finds out Maddie has been defying him and maintaining correspondence with Emile. She again writes Emile an "it's over" letter. And again, days later, with Emile heartbroken & considering moving to Peru (!?), re-initiates contact.

She now signs her letters "Mimi."

By the end of the year, Emile is pushing hard for Maddie to openly defy her family and make their relationship public. Maddie resists, insisting they keep things secret... but still starts referring to Emile as "my darling husband." They set a wedding date for September of 1856.

It's quite possible that this looming wedding date influenced Maddie and Emile do the unthinkable. The unconscionable. The UNFORGIVABLE.

In the summer of 1856, during a secret nighttime meeting in the garden of her family's country house?

They had sex.

In their letters exchanged afterwards, Maddie complains briefly of pain, but espouses no regret. She considers the act an expression of their pure, dauntless love.

Emile's a fucking mess, tho.

Now, he declares, their marriage MUST happen. It's the only way to right this wrong.

Now, naturally, at this time? James Smith has still been taking his daughter to balls, still been looking to suitably match her. And he strikes gold in 1856 with prosperous cotton-and-cloth merchant William Minnoch.

Dad likes him, he's only in his 30s, and he REALLY digs Maddie.

William starts making frequent visits to the Smiths', sometime staying as a guest for days. James' desires are quite clear, and, since she's supposed to still be single, Maddie goes along with it.

Emile hears of this. He moves into a new apartment, down the street from Maddie.

Despite Maddie's letters assuring him she's just being polite and trying to appease her family, she seems pretty happy to be seen publicly with William, and pointedly avoids eye contact with Emile when they pass on the street.

Emile starts to panic.

At this point he still haunts the street she lives on, despite her family having moved residences, lurking by the window of her basement bedroom, hoping for more letters. And Maddie continues to write them, reassuring him... but postponing their wedding.

Emile haunts the street outside her home so much that, in the cold winter months, Maddie sometimes passes him cups of hot cocoa through the kitchen entrance.

Her basement bedroom allows her to make him these drinks, as well as continue to let him in the house from time to time.

Then... FINALLY... In January of 1857, Maddie writes one more "it's over" letter. She claims she wishes they could marry, but it can never be so.

In December, she was signing her letters "Mimi L'Angelier."

5 days after the January letter, her engagement to Minnoch is announced.

Emile goes N U C L E A R.

He tells Madeleine that he considers her his wife. He will not go away. He will not break off their romance.

And he will, if forced, show her father James their love letters. ALL OF THEM.

Shortly afterwards, sometime in February, the Smith family's pageboy is sent to the local chemist's to purchase a vial of prussic acid.

Look it up.

The chemist refuses to sell the dangerous substance to a child.

On February 11th, 13th and 19th, Emile and Maddie meet in secret, at the home of Maddie's family. Maddie seems interested in patching things up.

Twice after these meetings, Emile starts having "attacks," vomiting black bile.

On the 21st, Maddie's name and signature appears in a local apothecary's "poison book," the record the business is compelled by law to keep of those who buy dangerous substances.

She's purchased some arsenic.

Arsenic at the time was sold dyed, often with soot or powdered indigo, to give it dark color and prevent it from being mistaken for salt or sugar.

If added to food or beverages in a poisoning attempt, the food would have to be dark as well.

Y'know. Like hot cocoa.

Emile is sick again on the 22nd. It takes him a week to recover this time. His landlady is concerned, and comments on his appearance.

"I never expected to see you again, I was so ill," Emile replies. "I believe it was from a cup of chocolate I took from Miss Smith."

"It is a perfect fascination, my attraction to that girl. If she were to poison me, I would forgive her. Perhaps she might not be sorry to be rid of me."

Maddie buys more arsenic on the 6th of March.

Thinking twice, she buys STILL more on the 18th, and arranges to meet Emile in a plaintive, urgently-worded letter.

The letter will be found in his coat pocket when investigators later search his room at the boarding house.

The letter spurs the then-out-of-town Emile to walk EIGHT MILES back to Glasgow.

He returns to the rooming house, sometime after the meeting, at 2:30 AM, in agonizing pain.

He's dead in his bed by noon.

Investigators discover via post-mortem that he's been fed enough arsenic to kill 40 men.

The also discover nearly TWO HUNDRED letters from "Mimi" in Emile's room, including those begging him to break off their relationship, and not betray her to her father and real fiance.

(Only one letter FROM Emile TO Maddie is ever found, though; a rough draft of his post-sex guilt trip. Maddie clearly destroyed everything she ever received from Emile, likely shortly before or after her engagement to Minnoch.)

Maddie is arrested on the 31st of March, and charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder. Her trial began in June.

And much like another woman murderer I've talked about, her class, and gender, would play an enormous role in the outcome.

Maddie, it was argued, was a delicate, easily-influenced girl, with a head full of silly stories, taken brutal advantage of by a manipulative, sex-crazed, social-climbing blackmailer. Hadn't he gone to extraordinary lengths to meet her?

And he was F R E N C H, you know. Eeew.

Furthermore, he had a history of passionate romances that launched him into paroxysms of despair when they didn't work out. Whose to say he didn't kill himself?

Clearly, this awful, FOREIGN clerk had attempted to pluck Maddie's innocent bloom, then offed himself when rejected.

This was the defense Maddie's lawyers would run with.

The prosecution countered by calling Emile's landlady to relate his accusation of poisoning, and by reading excerpts of 60 of Maddie's SCREAMINGLY SCANDALOUS letters out loud in court.

Fiance William Minnoch, by the way, testified for the Crown.

After he leaves the courtroom, he and Maddie will never see one another again.

William will be married to someone else a year later.

But Maddie had GOOD lawyers.

Where was the proof she had met w/Emile after her arsenic purchases, they argued? She used the poison as a beauty aid, she learned that at finishing school.

Hadn't Emile threatened suicide before? His brother testified to his melancholy nature.

And most vitally, they brought in three shopkeepers who swore they had sold arsenic to a man who looked like Emile the night he was poisoned, and another who said he kept his supply of the poison in plain sight, where some could be stolen at any time.

The summation Maddie's lawyer closes the trial with on the 8th of July inspires courtroom spectators to burst into applause.

The jury deliberates for less than half an hour. Not Guilty on the 1st attempted murder count, and Not Proven on the 2nd attempted murder & murder count.

Yeah. "Not Proven."

It's a Scottish thing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven

Although Maddie's kinda-sorta-exonerated, the notoriety is too much for the Smith family. They leave Glasgow. Maddie's two sisters, possible due to the cloud that hangs over the family ever afterwards, never marry.

Maddie moves to London w/her brother, and starts going by Lena.

She fills her days with needlework and other hobbies, and eventually begins taking art classes taught by watercolorist George Wardle.

He's the business manager for William Morris. Perhaps you've heard of that guy?

Anyway.

George likes Lena.

George courts Lena.

Lena tells George of her... difficulties... in Glasgow.

George don't give a toss.

They're married in the summer of 1861.

Lena spends the following decades mothering the 2 children resulting from the union and hanging out on the bleeding edge of London's Avant-garde.

The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, George Bernard Shaw, the son-in-law of Karl Marx.

They think she's cool. They come to her parties.

And it's Lena Shaw, the former Maddie Smith, who's credited with doing away with tablecloths at dinner parties in favor of placemats, revealing the SCANDALOUS legs of the furniture.

Weird times, y'all.

The marriage falls apart after 28 years in 1889. Lena moves to the US in 1916 to escape war in Europe, and marries again, this time to a man in his 60s.

She's 80.

K, wow Lena.

She takes his surname, Sheehy, and outlives him, dying at 92.

You can find the incredibly understated headstone of Madeleine Hamilton Wardle “Lena” Smith Sheehy today in Mount Hope Cemetery, New York.

Don't blink, you'll miss it.

Emile is buried in Ramshorn Graveyard, Glasgow, in another man's plot, the marker belonging to someone named "Fleming."

As Maddie tried to erase any trace of him in life, the unforgiving Scottish weather has now erased most traces of his existence in death.

There was a movie about the case, "Madeleine," made in 1950. You can watch it here. player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/f…

Anyway, thanks for reading, folks!

When I'm not talking about murders on Twitter, I write, draw, and publish comics. Check out the whole @ironcircuscomix catalog on Amazon! amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no…