There were many who believed in Marie's entire innocence to the very last. Her own maid elected to go with her to prison, and remained by her side for a year. A young girl, cousin of the deceased M. Lafarge, was equally devoted, and also accompanied her to Montpelier gaol. Her advocate, the eminent Maître Lachaud, steadfastly denied her guilt, and years later, when the unfortunate woman died, he regularly sent flowers for her grave. [Illustration: MADELEINE SMITH. (_From a Portrait taken in Court during her Trial._)] MADELEINE SMITH. The eldest daughter of a Glasgow architect, Madeleine Smith was a girl of great beauty, bright, attractive, and much courted. But from all her suitors she singled out a certain Jersey man, Pierre Émile l'Angelier, an _employé_ in the firm of Huggins, in Glasgow--a small, insignificant creature, altogether unworthy of her in looks or position. The acquaintance ripened, and Madeleine seems to have become devotedly attached to her lover, whom she often addressed as her "own darling husband." They kept up a clandestine correspondence, and had many stolen interviews at a friend's house. In the spring of 1856 Madeleine's parents discovered the intimacy, and peremptorily insisted that it should end forthwith. But the lovers continued to meet secretly, and Madeleine threw off all restraint, and was ready to elope with her lover. The time was indeed fixed, but she suddenly changed her mind. Then a rich Glasgow merchant, Mr. Minnock, saw Madeleine, and was greatly enamoured of her. Early in January, 1857, he offered her marriage, and she became engaged to him. It was necessary, now, to break with l'Angelier, and, mindful of the old adage to be off with the old love before she took on with the new, she wrote to him, begging him to return her letters and her portrait. L'Angelier positively refused to give them or her up. He had told many friends of his connection with Madeleine Smith, and some of them had now advised him to let her go. "No; I will never surrender the letters, nor, so long as I live, shall she marry another man." On the 9th of February he wrote her a letter, which must have been full of upbraiding, and probably of threats, but it has not been preserved. Madeleine must have been greatly terrified by it, too, for her reply was a frantic appeal for mercy, for a chivalrous silence as to their past relations which he was evidently incapable of preserving. She was in despair, entirely in the hands of this mean ruffian, who was determined not to spare her; she saw all hope of a good marriage fading away, and nothing but ignominious exposure before her.