9th Feb 1857
Emile, I have this night received your note. Oh, it is kind of you to write to me. Emile, no one can know the intense agony of mind I have suffered last night and to day. Emile, my father’s wrath would kill me; you little know his temper. Emile, for the love you once had for me do not denounce me to my Papa. Emile if he should read my letters to you- he will put me from him, he will hate me as a guilty wretch. I loved you, and wrote to you in my first ardent love- it was with my deepest love I loved you. It was for your love I adored you. I put on paper what I should not. I was free, because I loved you with my heart […] If he or any other one saw those fond letters to you, what would not be said of me. On my bended knee I write you, and ask you as you hope for mercy at the Judgement (Day) do not inform on me- do not make me a public shame. Emile, my life as been one of bitter disappointment. You and you only can make the rest of my life peaceful. My own conscience will be a punishment that I shall carry to my grave. I have deceived the best of men. You may forgive me, but God never will- for God’s love forgive me- and betray me not-for the love you once had to me do not bring down my father’s wrath on me. [….] But oh, will you not keep my secret from the world? Oh, will you not, for Christ’s sake, denounce me? I shall be undone. I shall be ruined. […] I did love you, and it was my soul’s ambition to be your wife. I asked you to tell me my faults. You did so, and it made me cool towards you gradually. When you have found fault with me, I have cooled- it was not love for another, for there is no one I love. My love has all been given to you. My heart is empty, cold- I am unloved. I am despised. I told you I had ceased to love you – it was true. I did not love you as I did – but oh, till within the time of our coming to Town I loved you fondly. I longed to be your wife. I had fixed Feby. I longed for it. The time I could not leave my father’s house I grew discontented, then I ceased to love you- Oh, Emile, this is indeed the true statement. [..] I have suffered much for you. I lost much of my father’s confidence since that Sept. And my mother has never been the same to me. No, she has never given me the same kind look. For the sake of my mother- her who gave me life, spare me from shame. Oh, Emile, will you in God’s name hear my prayer. […] Oh, for God’s sake, for the love of heaven, hear me. I grow mad. I have been ill, all day. I have had what has given me a false spirit. I had to resort to what I should not have taken, but my brain is on fire. I feel as if death would indeed be sweet…. ….
Madeleine Smith, age 21, was writing to her secret lover Emile L’Angelier, a 32 year old Jersey-born clerk in a Glasgow office. The pair had been conducting an affair for nearly two years: they were unable to marry because of the disparity in wealth and position between L’Angelier and the Smith family. Madeleine had written over 200 letters to Emile, all of which he had kept. They were particularly unguarded in their declarations of devotion and in the frankness with which Madeleine wrote of her desires and – after the pair became lovers – her enjoyment of their sexual intimacy.
But as she confesses here, Madeleine had ceased to love Emile, and wished to extricate herself from the relationship. She was disingenuous in her assertion that she loved no-one else, for she had recently become engaged to a much more suitable man. Despite Madeleine’s pleading, L’Angelier refused to return her letters and even hinted that he would show them to her father. When he was found dead of arsenic poisoning, Madeleine was put on trial for his murder. Madeleine was right that public knowledge of the letters’ content would expose her to public shame. Her trial for his murder in 1857 became a world-wide cause celebre and the verdict of Not Proven, a uniquely Scottish verdict, has ensured that the case has continued to attract widespread interest. Madeleine lived a long and full life after the trial first carving out a life in Bohemian London before emigrating to the United States, where she continued to court controversy. She died in New York in 1928, aged 93, although her death certificate states that she was 65.
Prof Eleanor Gordon is a lecturer in Social History at the University of Glasgow. With Gwyneth Nair, she has recently published Murder and morality in Victorian Britain: The Story of Madeleine Smith (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009).
