Note 126 — SECRET POISON.
William Johnston translation
This request was as follows:—“I humbly beg that those into whose hands this box may fall, will do me the favour to deliver it into the hands only of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who resides in the Rue Neuve Saint Paul, as everything it contains concerns her, and belongs to her alone; and as, besides, there is nothing in it that can be of use to any persons except her; and in case she shall be dead before me, to burn it, and everything it contains, without opening or altering anything; and in order that no one may plead ignorance, I swear by the God whom I adore, and by all that is most sacred, that I advance nothing but what is true. And if my intentions, just and reasonable as they are, be thwarted in this point, I charge their consciences with it, both in this world and the next, in order that I may unload mine, protesting that this is my last will. Done at Paris this 25th of May in the afternoon, 1672.
“De Sainte Croix.”