After marrying the Russian aristocrat Wassily
Tarnowski (1872–1932) at the age of seventeen and giving birth to a son, Wassily (born 1895), and a daughter, Tatyana (1898–1994), she became romantically involved with several other men. She was also known to abuse narcotic drugs (
morphine). In 1907 in Venice, one of Tarnowska's lovers, Nicholas Naumov (also spelled Naumoff), killed another one of her lovers, Count Pavel Kamarovsky, allegedly upon her instigation. The Countess Tarnowska, as she was commonly called, was arrested that same year in
Vienna and transferred to
La Giudecca penitentiary in Venice, where the trial was to be held. The trial, locally called "the Russian affair" (
il caso russo), began on 14 March 1910 and ended on 20 May of the same year, with the conviction of both defendants. Maria Tarnowska was found guilty, but was sentenced to serve a relatively mild term of only eight years in prison, thanks to an ingenious defence (it was one of the first to include
Freudian analysis of the defendant's personality and motives) – and, possibly, due to the leniency of the presiding judge. She was transferred to the penitentiary at
Trani (southern Italy), and released in 1915. Accounts of Tarnowska's life after her release are sketchy at best. She is known to have emigrated to America shortly after her release, in the company of a U.S. diplomat, under the assumed name of "Nicole Roush". In 1916 she was living in
Buenos Aires with a new lover, the Frenchman Alfred de Villemer, and calling herself "Madame de Villemer". There are accounts of her running a store selling
silk and other finery. Alfred de Villemer died in 1940; Maria died on 23 January 1949. Her body was transported back to
Ukraine (then the
USSR), where she was laid to rest in her family tomb. == Post mortem ==