MARIE MADELEINE DE BRINVILLIERS

I. HER LIFE

IN the judicial annals of France there has never been a more striking or celebrated figure than the Marquise de Brinvilliers. The enormity of her crimes, the brilliance of her rank, the circumstances accompanying her trial and death,—the story of which, as told by her confessor, the abbé Pirot, is one of the masterpieces of French literature,—finally, the strange energy of her character, which after her execution caused her to be regarded as a saint by a portion of the population of Paris: all these things will for long years to come attract to her the attention of all who are interested in the history of the past.

Michelet devoted to the Marquise de Brinvilliers a study in the Revue des Deux Mondes. But his story is very inaccurate and leaves many gaps. From the historical point of view, the little novel of Dumas is much to be preferred. The beautiful criminal has also been dealt with by Pierre Clément in his Police of Paris under Louis XIV, and more recently by Maître Cornu, in his discourse at the reopening of the lecture-term of the advocates to the Court of Cassation. The writer of the following pages has been able to make use of some fresh documents.

In the trial of the Marquise de Brinvilliers there is much to interest the historian. It was the first of the terrible poison cases which caused such a sensation at the court of Louis XIV in the central years of his reign, and in which the greatest names in France were implicated; and Madame de Brinvilliers herself represents the most salient and most easily studied features of a type of woman which, as we shall see, repeated itself after her even on the steps of the throne.

Marie Madeleine—and not Marguerite—d’Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, was born on July 22, 1630. She was the eldest of the five children of Antoine Dreux d’Aubray, lord of Offémont and Villiers, councillor of state, maître des requêtes, civil lieutenant of the city, mayoralty, and viscounty of Paris, and lieutenant-general of the mines of France. Dreux d’Aubray was himself the son of a treasurer of France, originally from Soissons. Madeleine d’Aubray received a good education, in a literary point of view at any rate. The spelling of her letters is correct, a rare thing with the ladies of her time. Her handwriting is remarkable: bold, firm, like a man’s, and such as the observer would be disposed to ascribe to an earlier period. But her religious education was entirely neglected. At her interviews with her confessor on the eve of her death she displayed an utter ignorance of the most elementary maxims of religion,—those which people learn as children, and never during the whole course of their life forget.

Of moral principles she was absolutely destitute. From the age of five she was addicted to horrible vices. At seven she was only by courtesy a maiden. These are what Michelet calls ‘a young girl’s peccadilloes.’ As time went on, she yielded herself to her young brothers. On these points her own testimony renders mistake impossible. She will show herself to have been endowed with an ardent, affectionate nature, which gave her passions command of an amazing energy; but this energy acted only under the empire of her passions, for she was powerless to resist the impressions which penetrated and ere long dominated her. She was extremely sensitive to affronts, and particularly to those which touched her pride. She was one of those natures which under good guidance are capable of heroic deeds, but which are also capable of the greatest crimes when they are wholly abandoned to evil instincts.

In 1651, at the age of one-and-twenty, Marie Madeleine d’Aubray wedded a young officer of the Norman regiment, Antoine Gobelin de Brinvilliers, baron of Nourar, the son of a president of the audit office. He was a direct descendant of Gobelin, the founder of the celebrated manufacture. Mademoiselle d’Aubray brought her husband a dowry of 200,000 livres, and as he too was wealthy, the young couple enjoyed what was for that time a large fortune.

The young marchioness was charming—a pretty, sprightly woman, with large expressive eyes. She made a great impression by her frank, decided, and vivacious manner of speaking. She was of an amiable and cheerful temperament, and dreamed of nothing but pleasure. A priest endowed with great keenness of judgment, who studied the Marquise de Brinvilliers in terrible circumstances, has described her as follows:—

‘She was naturally intrepid and of a great courage. She appeared to have been born with inclinations towards good, with an air of complete indifference, with a keen and penetrating intellect, forming clear views of things, and expressing them in words few and fit but very precise; wonderfully ready in finding expedients for getting out of a difficulty, and quick to make up her mind upon the most embarrassing questions; frivolous, moreover, with no application, uneven and inconstant, becoming impatient if the same subject were often talked about.

‘Her soul had something naturally great—a composure in face of the most unexpected emergencies, a firmness that nothing could move, a resolution to await and even suffer death if need be.

‘She had thick and beautiful chestnut hair, with comely and well-rounded features—her eyes blue, tender, and of perfect beauty, her skin extraordinarily white, her nose well-shaped enough; nothing in her countenance was unpleasing.

‘Sweet as her face naturally appeared, when some vexatious idea crossed her imagination she showed it plainly by a grimace that might at first sight scare you; and from time to time I noticed contortions that bespoke disdain, indignation, and scorn.

‘She was of a very slight and dainty figure.’

To the Marquis de Brinvilliers luxury and large expenditure had become second nature; he loved gaming and pleasure generally; and his marriage was very far from banishing his joyous habits. In 1659 he formed a close intimacy with a certain Godin, known more often as Sainte-Croix, a captain of horse in the Tracy regiment, originally from Montauban, and said to be a by-blow of a noble Gascon family. Sainte-Croix was young and handsome; ‘endowed,’ says a memoir of the time, ‘with all the advantages of intelligence, and perhaps, too, with those qualities of heart under whose empire a woman rarely fails, in the long-run, to fall.’ In after days, Maître Vautier had to sketch the portrait of Sainte-Croix in the course of an address before the Parlement. ‘Sainte-Croix,’ he said, ‘was in poverty and distress, but he had a rare and singular genius. His countenance was prepossessing, and gave promise of intelligence. Such indeed he had, and of such sort as to give universal pleasure. He took his pleasure in the pleasure of others; he entered into a religious scheme as joyfully as he accepted the suggestion of a crime. Keenly sensitive to insult, he was susceptible to love, and in love jealous to madness, even of persons on whom public debauchery assumed rights that were not unknown to him. His extravagance was amazing, and supported by no occupation; for the rest, his soul was prostituted to every form of crime. He dabbled also in external piety, and it has been claimed that he wrote devotional books. He spoke divinely of the God in whom he did not believe, and favoured by this mask of piety, which he never removed save with his friends, he appeared to participate in good deeds while really immersed in crime.’ Though he was an officer and married, Sainte-Croix sometimes assumed the garb and the title of Abbé.

Sainte-Croix was a brilliant and gallant cavalier; and the Marquise de Brinvilliers, with her blue eyes and dainty figure, was the most charming creature in the world. ‘Lady Brinvilliers,’ observes Vautier the advocate, ‘did not make a mystery of her amour; she gloried in it in society, whence there resulted much éclat.’ She gloried in it also before her husband, who responded by boasting of his own love for other ladies; but as she ventured also to brag about it before her father, the civil lieutenant, a man of the old school, he, strong in the rights with which ancient customs endowed a father, obtained a lettre de cachet against his daughter’s lover. On March 19, 1663, Sainte-Croix was arrested ‘in the marquise’s own carriage as he sat by her side,’ and was thrown into the Bastille.

Various writers who have dealt with these facts depict Sainte-Croix as the prison companion of the famous Exili, from whom he learnt the secret of Italian poisons. Restored to liberty, Sainte-Croix is said to have handed the terrible prescriptions to his mistress and others, who in their turn spread them through France.

We find this opinion expressed in the documents of the time, among others in the speech delivered by Maître Nivelle before the Parlement, on behalf of Madame de Brinvilliers.

Exili, whose real name was Eggidi or Gilles, was an Italian gentleman attached to the service of Queen Christina of Sweden. It is true that he was confined in the Bastille at the same period as Sainte-Croix. He remained there from February 2 to June 27, 1663; Sainte-Croix was there from March 19 to May 2. A captain of police named Desgrez—who will play an important part in the sequel—met Exili on leaving prison with an order to conduct him to Calais and embark him for England; but, whether Exili gave him the slip on the way, or that he had no sooner reached England than he returned to France, we soon find the Italian again in Paris, and in the house of Sainte-Croix himself, with whom he stayed for six months. After all, it was not Exili who trained Sainte-Croix in the ‘art of poisons,’ to adopt the phrase of the time. Long before he entered the Bastille the young cavalry officer had acquired a knowledge of poisons which far exceeded that of Exili. He owed it to a celebrated Swiss chemist named Christophe Glaser, who had set up an establishment in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he had attained a considerable standing, after the publication in 1665 of a Treatise on Chemistry, which had a noteworthy success at the time, and was often reprinted and translated. Glaser was apothecary in ordinary to the king and Monsieur,[1] and demonstrator in chemistry to the Jardin des Plantes. He was, moreover, a scientist of real merit. Sulphate of potassium, which he discovered, long bore his name. Glaser was the principal, probably the only person who furnished Sainte-Croix and his mistress with poisons. In their correspondence the two lovers call the poisons which they used ‘Glaser’s recipe.’ These poisons, however, as we shall see, were very simple; in these days they would appear clumsy. Exili, who goes out of our story, remained connected with Queen Christina, and in 1681 made an excellent marriage when he wedded the Countess Ludovica Fantaguzzi, cousin of Duke Francis of Modena.

As soon as Sainte-Croix left the Bastille he renewed his relations with the Marquise de Brinvilliers. Her passion had only been heightened by the imprisonment of her lover. Wounded in her pride, she felt the birth within herself of an implacable and violent hatred of her father. Her dissipations, her gaming, her wild flings in her lover’s company (she paying expenses, after the fashion of that period), had embarrassed her fortune. ‘I accuse myself,’ she said in her confession, ‘of having given a great deal of my wealth to this man, and he ruined me.’ The desire of attaining possession of her paternal inheritance, and the yearning, growing day by day more imperious, for wreaking vengeance on her father for the affront put upon her, suggested to her a frightful crime. There might frequently have been seen, drawing up at the market-square of Saint-Germain, a carriage from which alighted a young officer and a fashionable lady. They went on foot to the Rue du Petit-Lion, in which Glaser the chemist lived. Arrived at his house, they sought a retired room. The neighbours, puzzled by these strange goings-on, spoke of false money. Soon this young lady might have been seen, under the edifying appearance of piety and religion, going into the hospitals; she bent over the beds of the patients with words of gentleness and affection; she carried them confections, wine, and biscuits; but the patients whom she approached inevitably succumbed, ere long, in horrible anguish. ‘Who would have dreamt,’ writes Nicolas de la Reynie, the lieutenant of police, ‘that a woman brought up in a respectable family, whose form and constitution were delicate and who in appearance was sweet-natured, would have made an amusement of going to the hospitals to poison the patients, for the purpose of observing the different effects of the poison she gave them?’ She poisoned her own servants, too, ‘to try experiments.’ ‘Françoise Roussel says that she has been in the service of Lady Brinvilliers. The latter one day gave her some preserved gooseberries to eat, on the point of a knife, and soon afterwards she felt ill; she gave her also a moist slice of ham, which she ate, and since then she has had severe abdominal pains, feeling as though her heart were being stabbed.’ The poor woman was ill for three years.

When the marquise had tested the strength of ‘Glaser’s recipe,’ and had noted the inability of the surgeons to discover traces of poison in the corpses, the poisoning of her father was resolved on.

As Whitsuntide drew on in the year 1666, Antoine Dreux d’Aubray, who had been suffering for some months from strange disorders, set out for his estates at Offémont, a few leagues from Compiègne. He asked his daughter to bring her children and spend a few weeks with him, and when she arrived he scolded her affectionately for having been so long in coming. On the day after her arrival his sickness was redoubled; ‘he had great vomitings, continuing with increasing violence till his death,’ which occurred at Paris, whither he had himself transported in order to secure the services of the best physicians, and whither his daughter had not failed to accompany him. Madeleine de Brinvilliers confessed afterwards that she had poisoned her father twenty-eight or thirty times with her own hands, and at other times by the hands of a lackey named Gascon, presented to her by Sainte-Croix. The poison was given both in water and in powder, and the process lasted eight months. ‘She could not manage it,’ she said. It is clear that the poison she employed was simply arsenic. When in the course of time the facts were known, all Europe clamoured with indignation at the thought of this woman heaping caresses on her dying father, and responding to his embraces by pouring poison into the medicines she handed him with her engaging smile. ‘The greatest crimes,’ said Madame de Sévigné, ‘are a mere trifle in comparison with being eight months poisoning her father and receiving all his caresses and tendernesses, to which she replied by doubling the dose. Medea was nothing to her.’

D’Aubray died at Paris on September 10, 1666, aged sixty-six years. The physicians who made an autopsy of the body attributed death to natural causes; but the rumour at once got abroad that he had died of poison. The elder brother of the marquise, whose name was the same as his father’s, succeeded him in the family estates and the office of civil lieutenant.

Delivered thus from a formidable censor, Madame de Brinvilliers no longer put any restraint on her debaucheries. She had several lovers at once, in addition to Sainte-Croix. By him she had ‘two children among her own'; she was the mistress of F. de Pouget, Marquis de Nadaillac, captain of light horse, and cousin of her husband. Another lover was a cousin of her own, by whom she had a child. Finally, she granted her favours to a mere youth, her children’s tutor, of whom there will be much more to say. In spite of this, she felt keenly irritated when Sainte-Croix appeared to be unfaithful to her; and when she learnt that her husband was keeping a woman named Dufay, in her rage she thought of stabbing her. ‘She had naturally a great delicacy of feeling,’ her confessor was to write of her, ‘and was highly sensitive on a point of honour and in regard to injuries.’

Her expenses and prodigalities redoubled, and it was not long before her share of her father’s wealth had melted away. At this point occurs an incident which bears witness at once to the distress into which she had fallen and to the savage energy of her character. In 1670, a property belonging to herself and her husband at Norat, was sold by order of the Court to satisfy their creditors; in her ungovernable fury the marquise attempted to set the place on fire.

The greater part of her father’s estate had come to her two brothers, one of whom had been appointed civil lieutenant, as we have seen; the other was councillor to the Court. Madame de Brinvilliers had already tried to procure the assassination of the elder by two hired bravoes on the road to Orleans—one of those audacious strokes which to the end of her days she never ceased to devise. She declared at this moment that her brother was ‘no good.’ Pressed by need of money, she ‘resolved on fresh poisonings so as not to lose the fruits of the first.’ Sainte-Croix was fully agreed as to the necessity of the proceedings; but before he set about carrying them into effect he got from his mistress two promissory notes, one for 25,000, the other for 30,000 livres.

In 1669, Madame de Brinvilliers succeeded in introducing a wretch named Jean Hamelin, commonly known as La Chaussée, into her brother the councillor’s household as a footman. The two brothers lived in the same house, and La Chaussée had every facility for giving poison to both. One day when he was waiting at table, the dose he put into the glass he was handing was so strong that the civil lieutenant rose up in great agitation, crying, ‘Ah, wretch, what have you given me? I think you want to poison me!’ And he bade his secretary taste the stuff. The latter took some on a spoon and declared that he detected a strong taste of vitriol. La Chaussée did not lose his head. ‘No doubt it is the glass Lacroix (the valet) used this morning,’ he said, ‘when he took medicine.’ And he hastily threw the contents of the glass into the fire.

The civil lieutenant went to his estate at Villequoy in Beauce, to spend Easter with his family. In 1670 Easter fell on April 6. His brother the councillor made one of the party, and took La Chaussée with him as his only attendant. While they stayed at Villequoy La Chaussée helped in the kitchen. One day a tart came to table, of which all who ate were very ill on the morrow, while the others remained quite well. On April 12 they returned to Paris, and the civil lieutenant had the appearance of a man who had suffered great pain.

The details of the poisoning are horrible. As D’Aubray did his best to restore his health, the poison did not take effect so quickly as usual; he was very difficult to kill. La Chaussée, assiduous in his attentions, gave his master poison at every possible opportunity. His body was so offensive during his illness that it was impossible to remain in the room with him; and he was so irritable that no one could approach him. Madame de Brinvilliers rarely showed herself, but sent her pious sister to take her place. Meanwhile La Chaussée was unremitting in his care; no one but him could change the bedclothes or the mattress. The unhappy man suffered unspeakable torture. La Chaussée could not help exclaiming: ‘This fellow holds out well! He’s giving us a good deal of trouble! I don’t know when he will give up the ghost!’

Madame de Brinvilliers was at Sains in Picardy. She told Briancourt, the tutor who had become her lover, that the poisoning of her brother the councillor was in progress. She explained to him that she wanted to set up ‘a good house'; that her eldest son, who was already nicknamed the President, would one day fill the post of civil lieutenant, and added that ‘there was still a good deal to be done.’ These sentiments were sincere. Madame de Brinvilliers endeavoured to bring up and establish her children—'who were her own flesh,’ as she said—in conformity with the brilliant dreams she nourished for the future of her ‘house.’ True, she began to poison her eldest daughter, but that was because she thought her a ninny. She was seized with regret, however, and made her drink milk as an antidote.

Such was one of her dominant preoccupations. To this must be added her longing to live with ‘honour,’ that is, with a brilliant household, with beautiful ornaments, keeping up a great style, and entertaining her lovers with magnificence. She longed for ‘the glory of the world,’ a phrase continually on her lips. It was for ‘honour’ that she poisoned so many people. Such was her own statement.

The martyrdom of her brother the civil lieutenant lasted three months. ‘He grew thin,’ declares his physician, ‘and emaciated; lost his appetite, often vomited, and had burning pains in the stomach.’ He died on June 17, 1670. The councillor died in the following September. In this case, Dr. Bachot, the civil lieutenant’s usual attendant, along with surgeons Duvaux and Dupré and the apothecary Gavart, declared after an autopsy that the deceased had been poisoned; but so little were the perpetrators of the crime suspected that La Chaussée drew a hundred crowns left him by his master as a reward for his faithful service.

We must follow the career of the marquise after the poisoning of her father and brothers, to understand to what depths her ill-regulated passion had thrown this woman, who belonged to the highest ranks of society by her name, her fortune, and the position of her family, and who was so charmingly endowed by Nature.

She was at the mercy of a lackey, who held her honour and her life in his miserable hands. ‘She used to receive him privately in her sitting-room, where she gave him money, saying, “He is a good fellow, and has done me great service”; and she caressed him.’ Visitors coming upon her unawares found the marquise ‘in great familiarity with La Chaussée,’ and ‘she made him hide behind her bed when the Sieur Cousté came to see her.’

Sainte-Croix was a more formidable accomplice. What must have been the agony of this proud and passionate woman when she understood little by little that this man, to whom she had sacrificed everything, had seen in her only an instrument of his own pleasure and fortune, and now profited by his mastery of her secrets to squeeze money out of her by the most vulgar methods of intimidation! Sainte-Croix had locked up in a small box, which was to become famous, the letters, thirty-four in number, sent him by the marchioness, the two promissory notes signed by her after the murder of her father and brothers, and several bottles of poison. ‘The said Lady Brinvilliers coaxed Sainte-Croix to give her his box, and wished him to give her her note for two or three thousand pistoles; otherwise she would have him poniarded.’ The woman speaks out in this last phrase. At other times, desperate, frantic with terror, she thought of poisoning herself. She implored Sainte-Croix to give her the box, and when she received no answer, sent him this touching note: ‘I have thought it best to put an end to my life, and I have therefore taken this evening what you gave me at so dear a price—the recipe of Glaser; by which you will see that I have willingly sacrificed my life to you; but I do not promise you, before I die, that I will not await you somewhere to bid you a last farewell.’ In the last line she becomes herself again; there you have the menace of the offended woman.

What scenes for a romancer to write! One day, by way of reply to these cries of blood, Sainte-Croix made her swallow poison. It was arsenic; but the pain she felt warned her immediately, and she absorbed great quantities of warm milk and so saved herself. She was ill from the effects for several months. She declared after the death of Sainte-Croix ‘that she had done what she could to get the box from him while he was alive, and if she had succeeded, she would afterwards have cut his throat.’

Like all criminals, Madame de Brinvilliers was dominated by the unconquerable impulse to lead the conversation continually to the subject of her crimes. She would talk about poisons to any one she met. Her servants found bottles of arsenic in her dressing-room. One day, when very merry—she had taken too much wine—she went up to her room carrying a sort of casket in her hand, and meeting one of her servants told her ‘that she had the wherewithal to wreak vengeance on her enemies, and that there were many inheritances in that box'—a terrible phrase which was repeated at her trial and became a catchword; poison was called afterwards ‘powder of inheritance.’ ‘When she came to her senses shortly afterwards the marquise told her servant that she did not know what she was saying when she spoke of inheritances, and that her troubles were sending her out of her mind.’ She fancied that she had also betrayed herself before her maid, Mademoiselle de Villeray, and it is possible that in 1673, to secure her silence, she poisoned her too.

Little by little she came to reveal her crimes in all their details to Briancourt. In the course of her conversations with him, she displayed no regret at the death of her brothers, whom she despised, but she often wept when speaking of her father. ‘On the morning after one of these confidences,’ said Briancourt before the judges, ‘the Marquise de Brinvilliers rushed into my room like a madwoman, and told me that she much mistrusted me, having confided to me matters of the utmost consequence, in which her life was involved. I told her that I would never speak of the things confided to me, but I begged her, with tears in my eyes, that if she was not satisfied with my conduct she would allow me to return to Paris. The lady replied: “No, no,—if you will only be discreet; I will make your fortune, and I am sure of your discretion.” About the same time the lady fetched Sainte-Croix back, and they held long conversations together. He showed me the greatest marks of friendliness, assuring me of his services, and begged me to watch over the little boy, of whom he was fond.’ We know by Madame de Brinvilliers’ own confession that this little boy was actually Sainte-Croix’ child.

This deposition of Briancourt constitutes one of the most curious documents in our possession. This man was well disposed and at heart upright, but lacked backbone. His terrible mistress ruled and awed him. Yet he had flashes of that boldness into which feeble natures are occasionally drawn. After having poisoned her father and brothers the marquise had still to get rid of her sister, Thérèse d’Aubray, and her sister-in-law, Marie Thérèse Mangot, widow of the civil lieutenant. That is what ‘remained to be done.’ ‘Seeing the imminent peril of Mademoiselle d’Aubray and even of Madame d’Aubray (though the widow’s danger was not so near as the younger lady’s), and because La Chaussée had not yet entered the house of Madame d’Aubray, and Madame de Brinvilliers said that she wished the widow’s business to be managed in two months or not at all, he (Briancourt) begged the marquise to take care what she was at, said that she had cruelly put her father and brothers to death and wished to do the same with her sister; that he had never come upon an example of such cruelty in all the annals of antiquity, and that she was the cruelest and wickedest woman that ever had been or would be; that he begged her to reflect on what she meant to do, and to remember how that wretch Sainte-Croix had ruined her and her family; that he saw no safety for her, but sooner or later she would perish; that he himself would never allow the murder of Mademoiselle d’Aubray, even though she had once written to Madame de Brinvilliers a letter in which she accused him of being a rogue and rake.’ It was unquestionably Briancourt’s attitude which saved the lives of Madame de Brinvilliers’ sister and sister-in-law; he had further warned Mademoiselle d’Aubray, through the marquise’s maid Mademoiselle de Villeray, to be on her guard. In her confession the marquise declared that if she had thought of poisoning her sister it was out of hatred, by way of revenge for remarks she had made to her about her conduct.

Briancourt had only succeeded in diverting the peril upon himself. Madame de Brinvilliers resolved to rid herself of a lover who responded to her confidences by playing the censor. The customary means, poison, was obviously the first to suggest itself. ‘Sainte-Croix,’ says Briancourt, ‘had introduced into the Brinvilliers household a porter related to La Chaussée, and a lackey named Bazile, who was extraordinarily assiduous in serving me with food and drink; but seeing these attentions and, further, some sign of roguery in this fellow, I handled him so roughly that Madame de Brinvilliers had to dismiss him.’

There followed a remarkably romantic scene, as Briancourt described it before the court.

‘Two or three days after Bazile’s departure, Lady Brinvilliers told me that she had a very handsome bed, and hangings embroidered to match; that it was a bed which Sainte-Croix had pawned and which she had redeemed. She had it put up in her large room, where there was a close and wainscoted chimney-piece, and told me that I must come that night and sleep in that bed, and that she would expect me at midnight, but that I must not come earlier, because she had to arrange with her cook. Instead of going down at midnight to a gallery which commanded the windows of the room, I came down at ten o’clock, and looking through the windows into the room, the curtains not being drawn, I saw the lady walking up and down and dismissing all her servants.’

We may remark in passing that this gallery still exists at the present day in the mansion inhabited by Madame de Brinvilliers in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Paul.[2]

‘About half-past eleven,’ continues Briancourt, ‘Lady Brinvilliers, having undressed and put on her dressing-gown, took a few turns in the room, holding a torch in her hand; then she went to the chimney-piece, which she opened. Sainte-Croix stepped out, dressed in rags, with a worn-out jerkin and an old hat, and kissed the lady, and for a quarter of an hour they talked together. Then Sainte-Croix went back into the chimney-piece, and the lady pushed its two folding-doors to, so as to shut him in, and then came to the door, in some agitation; my own agitation was no less. Should I enter, or should I go away? But the lady seeing my confusion said: “What is the matter? Don’t you want to come?” I saw much rage in her countenance, which was changed in an extraordinary degree. I went into the room, and the lady asked me if the bed was not very fine; I said that it was, and the lady rejoined, “Let us lie down then.” Then the marquise got into bed. I had placed the torch on a stand, and she said, “Undress yourself and put out the light very quickly.” I pretended to be undoing my shoes, desiring to know how far the lady’s cruelty would go, and she said, “What is the matter with you? You look very solemn.” Then I rose and, giving the bed a wide berth, said to the lady: “Ah, how cruel you are! What have I done that you want to have me murdered?” The lady sprang out of bed and flung herself upon me from behind; but freeing myself, I went straight to the chimney-piece. Sainte-Croix came out, and I said to him: “Ah, villain, you have come to stick a knife into me!” and as the torch was burning, Sainte-Croix made to flee, while Lady Brinvilliers rolled on the floor declaring that she would live no longer, but die; at the same time she sought her case of poisons, opened it, and was on the point of taking poison. I prevented her and said, “You wanted to get me poisoned by Bazile, and now you want to get me stabbed by Sainte-Croix.” The lady threw herself at my feet, declaring that such had not happened to me and would never happen, and that she would pay with her death for what she had just done—that she saw clearly that it was all up with her and that she could not survive such an occurrence. I told her that I would forgive her and forget all about what she had done, but that I was determined to go away in the morning, since they wanted to get rid of me, and I made the lady promise that she would not poison herself. I remained in the room until six o’clock in the morning with the lady, whom I compelled to go back to bed, I remaining on a sofa beside the bed near her.’

After this scene, Briancourt at once set about procuring pistols, deeming them necessary to his safety; then he went to ask the advice of Monsieur Bocager, a professor of the law school, who had introduced him to Madame de Brinvilliers.

From the first day he saw the terrible marchioness, Briancourt had advanced from surprise to surprise; but his greatest astonishment awaited him in the study of the law professor. The young man said to him, ‘Sir, I have a great secret to communicate to you; I think that you will give me good advice, and that you will tell the first president, whom you often see, what is going on, so that he may take the proper steps.’ The professor’s discomposure was evident in his features, and he leaned back uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Monsieur Bocager turned very pale, and said nothing, except that I must keep my secret and not speak about it to the curé of St. Paul or any one else. He assured me that he would see to everything, and that I ought not to leave the Brinvilliers’ house so soon, but wait some time, while he sought some new employment for me.’ Briancourt asked himself whether all that he heard and saw were real events in a real world. How far had this terrible woman been to seek her accomplices? How far had she pushed her crimes?

‘Two days afterwards,’ continues Briancourt, ‘the marquise told me that Monsieur Bocager was not so upright a man as I imagined, as I should see some day. And as I was passing down the street in the evening, just opposite St. Paul’s, two pistol-shots were fired at me, without my being able to tell whence they came, and one of them pierced my coat. Seeing that I was marked down, I went next day to Sainte-Croix’ house, carrying two pistols, having left a man at the street door to see that it remained open. I told Sainte-Croix that he was a villain and a scoundrel, that he would be broken on the wheel, and that he had caused the death of several people of quality. He declared that he had never caused anybody’s death, but that if I would go behind the Hôpital Général with pistols he would give me every kind of satisfaction; to which I replied that I was not a soldier, but that if I were attacked I should defend myself.’

Such was the strange existence of the poor bachelor in theology, tutor to the children of the Marquis de Brinvilliers. In his fear of poison he was continually swallowing some nostrum or other by way of antidote.

The marquis himself lived in equal terror. He knew what was going on, and took things philosophically. Here is a sketch of a dinner at his house. ‘The marchioness put Sainte-Croix on her right; the marquis was at the sideboard end of the table. The latter was very carefully served by a domestic specially attached to his person, to whom he always said: “Don’t change my glass, but rinse it every time you give me anything to drink.”’ When the evening was over, the marquis retired to his room; Sainte-Croix and the marchioness went to the lady’s room, and Briancourt went upstairs with the children. With the horrors of crime there were thus mingled scenes of burlesque.

Accommodating as her husband was, the marchioness began to poison him; then, struck with remorse, she called in to attend him one of the most famous physicians of the time, Dr. Brayer.

‘She wished to marry Sainte-Croix,’ writes Madame de Sévigné, ‘and with that intention often gave her husband poison. Sainte-Croix, not anxious to have so evil a woman as his wife, gave counter-poisons to the poor husband, with the result that, shuttlecocked about like this five or six times, now poisoned, now unpoisoned, he still remained alive.’ Brinvilliers emerged from this violent treatment with a weakness in the legs. Afterwards he always carried theriac about with him, that being regarded as an antidote; he took it from time to time, and gave doses to his people.

Briancourt, however, succeeded in escaping from the service of his formidable mistress, and, under the baleful impression of what he had seen in the world, he retired to Aubervilliers, where he lived in solitude, giving lessons in the establishment of the Fathers of the Oratory there. Seven or eight months had passed when the marchioness came to see him; then she sent from time to time to ask how he was doing. It was at Aubervilliers that one evening, on July 31, 1672, he received from his late mistress a very urgent note, begging him to go immediately to Picpus, where she had an important communication to make to him. There had just happened an event which was to entail incalculable consequences: on July 30 Sainte-Croix died in his mysterious dwelling in the cul-de-sac of the Place Maubert.

A widespread legend makes Sainte-Croix’ death the result of a chemical experiment; it is said that the glass mask with which he covered his face to protect it from the poisonous vapours had broken. But he really died a natural death after an illness of some months, in the course of which he was visited by several persons who have left their testimony in regard to the matter. In the legendary laboratory of the cul-de-sac there was found indeed a furnace of ‘digestion.’ Sainte-Croix ‘philosophised’ there, that is, worked at the philosopher’s stone, and more particularly at solidifying mercury, that eternal dream of the alchemists.

Madame de Brinvilliers soon learned of the death of her lover. Her first cry was, ‘The little box!’

II. HER TRIAL

Sainte-Croix died overwhelmed in debt. His things were all put under seal. The seals were raised on August 8, 1672, by Commissary Picard, assisted by a sergeant named Creuillebois, two notaries, the agent of the widow, and an agent of the creditors. The three first meetings had passed without incident when a Carmelite monk who was present handed to the commissary the key of the private room in which the furnace was kept. Entering, they saw on the table a rolled-up paper bearing the words, ‘My confession.’ The persons present decided without hesitation to keep the paper secret, and to burn it on the spot. They found, further, at the end of a shelf, a small box, oblong in shape and red in colour, from which hung a key. It contained some phials, some of which were filled with a clear liquid like water, others with a liquid of reddish colour; and in addition, there were the letters addressed by Madame de Brinvilliers to Sainte-Croix, the two promissory notes signed by the marchioness after the poisoning of her father and brothers, and a receipt and power of attorney relating to a sum of 10,000 livres lent by Pennautier, receiver-general of the clergy, to Monsieur and Madame de Brinvilliers through the agency of Sainte-Croix. These two last papers were in a sealed envelope on which was written: ‘Papers to be restored to the Sieur Pennautier, receiver-general of the clergy, as belonging to him; and I humbly beg those into whose hands they fall, to be good enough to return them to him at my death, they being of no consequence except to him alone.’

Sainte-Croix had addressed the little box, with its contents, to Madame de Brinvilliers in these terms: ‘I humbly beg those into whose hands this box falls to do me the favour to return it into the hands of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, who lives in Rue Neuve-Saint-Paul, since all that it contains concerns her and belongs to her alone, and moreover it is of no use to anybody in the world but herself; and in case she dies before I do, to burn it, and all that is in it, without opening it or meddling with it; and so that no one may pretend ignorance, I swear by the God I adore, and all that is most holy, that I state nothing but the truth. If perchance any one contravenes my intentions, just and reasonable as they are, I charge it in this world and the next upon his conscience, for discharge of my own, and declare that this is my last will. Made at Paris, afternoon, May 25, 1670. Signed: Sainte-Croix.’ Below were these words: ‘There is a single packet addressed to Monsieur Pennautier, which is to be given to him.’ The very energy of these formulæ impressed Commissary Picard. He sealed up the case and confided it to the care of two sergeants, Cluet and Creuillebois, so that the inventory might be made by the civil lieutenant in person. Sergeant Creuillebois took the box home.

It was Sainte-Croix’ widow who on August 8—that is, the day when the box was discovered—sent word to Madame de Brinvilliers at Picpus that things belonging to her were under seal. The marchioness instantly sent some one to find the box. As that was no longer in Sainte-Croix’ house, a servant was sent off to Commissary Picard to tell him that Madame de Brinvilliers desired to speak to him without delay. Picard answered that he was busy. The marchioness, however, herself hurried to Madame de Sainte-Croix, insisting on the box being given to her. It was nine o’clock at night. ‘She complained of its having been sealed up, offered money to obtain it, proposed to break the seals in order to take out what was inside, and to substitute something else.’ But the box had been taken away. ‘It’s very amusing,’ she said, ‘for Commissary Picard to carry off a box that belongs to me!’ She got some one to take her to Sergeant Cluet, whom she made come down, so that she might speak to him from her carriage. ‘The lady told him that Pennautier had come to her, and told her that he was anxious about the box, and would give fifty golden louis to have what was in it. She also said that all that was in the said box concerned Pennautier and herself, and that they had done everything in concert.’ We see here the first step in a manœuvre which Madame de Brinvilliers afterwards developed. Knowing that several of the papers in the box concerned Pennautier, she sought to link her cause with the financier’s, speculating on his high position and influence.

Cluet answered that he could do nothing without the commissary. Accordingly the marchioness hurried off to him at eleven o’clock at night. Picard sent down word that he could not receive her till the morning.

In the morning, August 9, the commissary received a visitor from a Châtelet[3] attorney named Delamarre, to whom the marchioness had intrusted her interests. He told the commissary that the little box was of great importance to Madame de Brinvilliers, begging him to send it back to her, and saying ‘that she would give him all she had in the world.’ ‘There came also a man in black’ (it was Briancourt) ‘who told him that the marchioness would give him anything he could wish for.’

Madame de Brinvilliers understood that the box was not to be given up, and made preparations for flight. ‘Delamarre, her attorney, repaired to Picpus at ten o’clock at night and carried off her principal furniture, which was even thrown hastily out of the windows.’ The marchioness, however, sent for Cluet and Creuillebois to come to Picpus. She changed the line of her defence, and told Creuillebois that ‘Sainte-Croix was clever enough to have forged the letters, but that she would find a way out, and had good friends.’ To Madame de Sainte-Croix, who also went to Picpus, she said that she had nothing to do with the box, that it could only contain trifles, that she had not seen Sainte-Croix for a long time, that these were forged letters, and that she had a complete justification. She went on, in order to spread it abroad that her interests were connected with those of Pennautier: ‘If it trickles on me, it will rain on Pennautier.’ She said to the wife of a Châtelet clerk named Fausset, who spoke to her of the rumours of poisoning that were already going about. ‘There is nothing in it: it will blow over; there is a man accused with me who will give four or six thousand livres to arrange matters,’ adding that ‘he was not of high rank, but was very rich.’

The seals placed on the box were raised by the civil lieutenant on August 11. Madame de Brinvilliers was represented by her attorney, who made the following declaration: ‘That if there was found a promise signed by Lady Brinvilliers for the sum of 30,000 livres, it was a document obtained from her by fraud, against which, in case the signature proved genuine, she intended to appeal, in order to have it declared null and void.’

The liquids and the powder contained in the chest were tested on animals, death being the result. Experts decided that they contained poison, but could not determine its nature. The general belief was that it was arsenic.

Madame de Brinvilliers and Pennautier were soon the engrossing topic of conversation in Paris. Fantastic rumours circulated about the poisons found in the box, of which Madame de Sévigné made herself the sedulous echo.

The marchioness hastened to pay a visit to Pennautier. He was not at home. His wife turned her out neck and crop. Pennautier responded by taking a step which did him honour: he went to Picpus to see Madame de Brinvilliers. Asked later, after his arrest, what was his motive in going to Picpus, he replied that, not believing Madame de Brinvilliers guilty of such a crime, he went to pay her his respects, as is usual on such occasions. Speaking of this step of his, his enemies wrote: ‘Actuated by a sentiment of courtesy, he neglected his most obvious interests, in which life, honour, and fortune were at stake; his excessive politeness made him forgetful of all his interests. What a rare and marvellous character! How free from thoughts of self!’ These lines, written with ironical intention, really express the truth. Not long before, Monsieur and Madame de Brinvilliers had done Pennautier a great service in a moment of difficulty by the loan of 30,000 livres; and he seized the opportunity to show that he had not forgotten their kindness.

P. L. Reich de Pennautier—Pennautier was the name of an estate in the neighbourhood of Carcassonne—though scarcely thirty-five years old, had already made an enormous fortune. His two appointments as receiver-general for the clergy and treasurer of the Languedoc Exchange brought him in hundreds of thousands of francs annually. He was one of the most active and intelligent of Colbert’s lieutenants. On such questions as the resuscitation of the French manufacture of fine cloth, the Languedoc canal, the purchase of Greek MSS. in the Levant, the draining of the fens of Aigues-Mortes, the name of Pennautier is linked with that of Colbert in enterprises of the utmost utility ‘From a petty cashier,’ says Saint-Simon, ‘Pennautier became treasurer of the clergy and treasurer of the States of Languedoc, and enormously rich. He was a tall and well-made man, with a gallant and dignified air, courteous and eminently obliging; he had plenty of intelligence, and had many connections in society.

On August 22 the civil lieutenant summoned Madame de Brinvilliers and Pennautier to appear at the examination of the documents found in the box. Pennautier was in the country; the marchioness was represented by her attorney, who repeated his protests. A third personage appeared on the scene, namely, La Chaussée. He fancied his audacity would save him, and from the first had opposed the sealing of the house, on the ground that he had deposited with the deceased, in whose service he had been for seven years, 200 pistoles and 100 silver crowns which should be, he said, behind the window of the study in a bag, with a note proving that the money belonged to him. He claimed also a number of papers, which he described. The knowledge that La Chaussée displayed of Sainte-Croix’ laboratory awakened suspicion. When Commissary Picard told the whilom valet that the confiscated box had just been opened, he stood petrified with confusion for a moment, then fled precipitately, leaving the commissary in open-eyed amazement. The same day he left Gaussin, a bath-proprietor whose service he had entered, and, concealing himself during the day, roamed about Paris at night-time till he was arrested on September 4 at six o’clock in the morning by a police officer named Thomas Regnier. La Chaussée was very crestfallen as he walked down the street.

From that moment the gravest suspicions were entertained against Madame de Brinvilliers, but there was a reluctance to arrest her because of her rank. Regnier repaired to Picpus and told her bluntly that he had found La Chaussée, and that he had learned a good many things from the commissary. The marchioness blushed. ‘What is it, madam? You say nothing?’ But the lady, changing the subject, asked him to escort her to mass. When they returned, she spoke to him again about the box. She seemed a prey to uneasiness. ‘But madam,’ said Regnier, ‘surely you are not mixed up in this business?’ ‘Why should I be?’ she replied. ‘That villain La Chaussée, when with Commissary Picard, must have said something against you, and would say it again if he was captured.’ ‘It would be well to take the villain to Picardy,’ said the marchioness. She said also that she had long been pressing Sainte-Croix to return the box, and that Pennautier was involved with herself in the matter. Regnier left Madame de Brinvilliers and went to find Briancourt at Vertus. He told him, to begin with, that he had arrested La Chaussée, and Briancourt exclaimed, ‘Then she is a lost woman!’ He went on to speak of the poison which she had often talked about, and said that she had several sorts of it in her house.

Meanwhile Madame Antoine d’Aubray, widow of the last civil lieutenant and sister-in-law of the marchioness, had learned what was going on—that her husband had actually died of poison as the doctors had suspected. Hastening to Paris, she presented a petition to the Châtelet on September 10, and was admitted a plaintiff in a civil action for damages against La Chaussée and Madame de Brinvilliers. The latter had just fled to England, with no other attendant than a kitchenmaid. All suspicions were at once confirmed. The action against La Chaussée heard before the Châtelet ended on February 23, 1673, in a decree sentencing the defendant to the preliminary torture, manentibus indiciis. If the wretched man gave proof of endurance under torture, it would be the salvation both of himself and of the marchioness. Madame d’Aubray made a passionate intervention. She appealed to the Parlement,[4] endeavouring to prove, in a fresh affidavit, that the charges had been fully sustained, and that it was not permissible to have recourse to a preliminary dubious in itself and one that might snatch the criminals from due punishment. The case was reopened at the Tournelle.[5] In spite of a skilful defence, La Chaussée was condemned to death on March 24, 1673. The sentence set forth that he was convicted of poisoning, and condemned to be broken alive on the wheel after being put to the ‘question ordinary and extraordinary,’ and that Madame de Brinvilliers was to be beheaded for contempt of court.

When submitted to torture, La Chaussée displayed uncommon courage and denied everything. The mode of torture adopted was that of the boot. The legs of the condemned man were placed between boards, which were driven by degrees closer together by the introduction of eight wedges in succession, the legs being thus horribly mangled. Released from the machine, he was carried on a mattress to a corner of the fireplace, and refreshed with brandy. In anticipation of instant death, La Chaussée voluntarily confessed his crimes, including the poisoning of Villequoy’s tart, and then spoke of the iniquities of Madame de Brinvilliers. ‘What accuser,’ says La Reynie, ‘would have been listened to for a moment if God had not permitted the capture of this valet, whom the first judges could not condemn for want of proof, but whom the Parlement condemned on conjectures and strong presumptions; and if God had not touched the heart of this wretch, who, after having suffered torture in absolute silence, confessed his crimes a moment before being executed?’ La Chaussée was broken on the wheel the same day.

Taking refuge in London, the marchioness led a wretched existence, in distress which she found insupportable, and a prey to incessant fears.

Louis XIV had from the first taken a very strong personal interest in this case. It was his sincere desire that the investigation should be made as complete and luminous as possible, and he was determined to follow up and strike at all the accomplices, however high they were placed. The Secretaries of State had not awaited the declarations made by La Chaussée on May 24, 1673, before requesting the English Government to extradite the accused woman. In November and December 1672 several letters were exchanged between Colbert and his brother the Marquis de Croissy, then French ambassador at the court of Charles II. The king of England consented to the extradition, but declared that he could not allow the arrest to be made by English officers; that would have to be undertaken by France. Croissy was highly embarrassed. The embassy was not provided with tools for such jobs. Colbert insisted, and at length the ambassador was on the point of winning Charles’s consent to the employment of English police, when Madame de Brinvilliers, taking fright, quitted England for the Netherlands.

Meanwhile her husband, this amazing Marquis de Brinvilliers, had quietly taken up his abode, with his children and domestics, in the chateau of Offémont, belonging to the estate of his father-in-law and two brothers-in-law whom his wife had poisoned. He had taken possession of the surrounding domain, and actually it was not till two lettres de cachet had been signed by Louis XIV, bearing date February 22 and March 31, 1674, ordering him to leave the chateau and never approach within three leagues of it, that he decided to allow the widow of the civil lieutenant to enter upon the enjoyment of her own property.

We have very little information on the life of the marchioness between her departure from London and her arrest on March 25, 1676, at Liége in a convent where she had taken shelter. She had gone from London to the Netherlands, then into Picardy, the country conquered by King Louis, thence to Cambrai and Valenciennes, where she entered a convent, but was obliged to leave it on account of the war. From Valenciennes she fled to Antwerp, then to Liége. She had nothing to support her but an annuity of 500 livres, which fell to 250 on the death of her sister; she was sometimes ‘reduced to borrowing a crown.’ While at Cambrai, she appears to have sent asking her husband to join her there; his answer was, ‘She would poison me like the rest.’

It came to the ears of Louvois that Madame de Brinvilliers was in hiding at Liége. He at once despatched Desgrez, the captain of police, a man of tried ability. Desgrez was instructed to make all speed, for the French troops then in possession of Liége were on the point of handing over the town to the Spaniards. Michelet and the majority of historians have woven the arrest of the marchioness into a romance. Desgrez, a handsome fellow, disguises himself as a courtly abbé, and wins a warm welcome from the lady, always eager for gallant adventures: at the rendezvous, the lover appears as a police officer, accompanied by a number of archers. As a matter of fact, the arrest was managed in the simplest manner, ‘on the last day,’ writes La Reynie, ‘that the king’s authority was recognised in the town of Liége.’ It was not even Desgrez who carried it through, but a French political agent in the Netherlands, a former clerk of Fouquet’s named Bruant, otherwise Descarrières. ‘The burgomasters,’ wrote the latter to Louvois on March 25, ‘have behaved so well that they confided to me their master-key to go and arrest this lady, without wanting to know why it was to be done.’ Next day, March 26, Descarrières wrote again to Louvois: ‘I arranged that the detective (Desgrez) should be present as privy to the capture'; he informed him also that a small box was seized on the lady’s person, at which ‘she appeared much agitated, and at first told mayor Goffin that her confession was in the casket,’ begging him to have it restored to her. Descarrières sealed the box with his own seal and that of Desgrez.

La Reynie says upon this subject: ‘It was God who ordained that this wretched woman, who fled from kingdom to kingdom, should be careful to write and carry with her the proofs necessary to her condemnation.’ This confession, in which the marchioness recalls in a few pages all the crimes of her life, was published by Armand Fouquier; but its flavour is so strong that the editor was not able to reproduce the original text, but had to translate the principal passages into Latin.

From Liége the marchioness was led under guard to Maestricht, where she arrived on March 29; she was there locked up, and rigorously watched in the town hall. Immediately after her arrest, the prisoner tried to commit suicide by swallowing the fragments of a glass which she had broken between her teeth. She swallowed pins, too, but did not succeed in killing herself. Resne, one of the sentries, vigorously abused her: ‘You are a wicked woman! After having dyed your hands in the blood of your family, you want to do away with yourself!’ She answered, ‘If I did so, it was under evil counsel.’ On another occasion Desgrez was informed that the lady had endeavoured to commit suicide in a far more horrible fashion. ‘Ah, you wretch!’ he cried. ‘I see that you want to do for yourself, and that you did poison your brothers!’ She replied: ‘If I had only had good advice! We often have our evil moments.’ The archers who guarded her during her journey from Liége to Paris gave the judges a description of this third attempt at suicide which it is impossible to reproduce. The following is a note from Emmanuel de Coulanges, forwarded by Madame de Sévigné to Madame de Grignan: ‘She stuck a stick into herself; guess where: it was not in her eye, nor her mouth, nor her ear, nor her nose, nor was she absolutely brutal.’

During the journey Madame de Brinvilliers was escorted by the Marshal d’Estrades in person as far as Huy, and from Huy to Rocroi by the troops of Monsieur de Montal. The prisoner’s character displayed itself in all its untamed energy. Locked up at Maestricht, she suggested to Antoine Barbier, an archer of the guard who had won her confidence, to make a gag and a rope-ladder: the gag was for Desgrez and the rope-ladder for her own escape. She promised Barbier a thousand pistoles. At other times she urged him to help her throttle Desgrez, kill the valet de chambre, detach the two leading horses from the coach, take the documents, the casket with her confession, and another important paper, and burn them all, for which purpose he was to carry a lighted match.

She wrote to former servants who remained faithful to her, and actually succeeded in getting letters delivered to them, for they endeavoured to rescue her, and tried to bribe her guardians.

She persisted in the plan she had devised in regard to the accusation under which Pennautier lay. She asked Barbier for ink to write to him; he gave her some, and feigned to have despatched the letter. And when he asked her if Pennautier was one of her friends, ‘Yes, yes,’ she replied, ‘and he is as much interested in my safety as I am myself.’ Another time she said: ‘He must be much more frightened than I am. I have been questioned about him, but I have said nothing, and have too much feeling to charge him: half of the aristocracy are involved too, and I should ruin them all if I spoke.’ This she repeated several times.

At Mézières the marchioness met Denis de Palluau, a Parlement counsellor, whom the court had deputed to put her through a first interrogation. Corbinelli, the friend of Madame de Sévigné, wrote to Madame de Grignan: ‘The king has required the Parlement to depute Palluau, counsellor in the High Court, to go to Rocroi, where he is to interrogate the Brinvilliers, because they don’t wish to wait till she arrives here, where the whole bar is connected with the poor criminal.’

The first examination to which Palluau subjected the marchioness is dated Mézières, April 17, 1676. The prisoner took refuge in systematic denials.

‘Questioned on the first article of her confession, as to the house she set on fire, she said she had not done so, and that when she had written such things she was out of her mind.

‘Questioned on the six remaining articles of her confession, she said she did not know what that was, and remembered nothing about it.

‘Asked if she had not poisoned her father and brothers, she said she knew nothing about it.

‘Asked if it was not La Chaussée who had poisoned her brothers, she said she knew nothing of all that.

‘Eight letters were shown her, and she was enjoined to disclose to whom she had written them; she said she did not remember.

‘Asked why she wrote to Théria to secure the box, she said she did not know what that was.

‘Asked why, in writing to Théria, she said she was lost if he did not get the box and win his case, she said she did not remember.’

The marchioness was lodged in the Conciergerie on the day of her arrival in Paris, namely, April 26. She was left under the guard of the archer Barbier, to whom she continued to intrust letters, which he said he carried to their addresses, but which he really handed to the judges.

On April 29 she wrote to Pennautier:—

‘I hear from my friend that you are intending to help me in this business, and you may be sure that this will be to me an additional obligation to all your kindnesses. Wherefore, sir, if you really mean this, you must please not lose any time, and not be seen with the people who will go to find out from you in what way you wish to manage things. I think it would be much to the purpose if you did not show yourself too much, but your friends must know where you are, for the counsellor severely examined me about you at Mézières.’

There follows a recommendation to buy the silence of the ‘Bernardins widow,’ that is, the widow of Sainte-Croix, who lodged in the Rue des Bernardins.

Madame de Brinvilliers disclosed by and by the motives of her conduct in regard to Pennautier. ‘I do not know at all,’ she said on the night before her death, ‘that Monsieur Pennautier ever had any communication with Sainte-Croix about the poisons, and I could not accuse him without betraying my conscience. But as a note concerning him was found in the box, and as I saw him many times with Sainte-Croix, I thought that their friendship had progressed so far as to have dealings in poisons, and in this suspicion I ventured to write to him as though I knew it was so, running no risk of injuring my own case thereby, and inwardly arguing thus: if there was any connection between them in regard to the poisons, Monsieur Pennautier will believe that I must know the secret, considering the step I am taking, and that will induce him to exert himself on my behalf as much as on his own, for fear lest I accuse him; and if he is innocent, my letter is waste labour. I risk nothing but the indignation of a person who would be careful not to stand up for me, nor to render me any service if I had written him nothing.’

The letters of the prisoner increased the suspicions against Pennautier to such an extent that a decree was issued for the arrest of the unlucky functionary, and he was shut up in the Conciergerie in the same room that Ravaillac[6] had occupied.

Marie Vosser, widow of Hannyvel de Saint-Laurent, Pennautier’s predecessor in the office of receiver for the clergy, was striving to arouse public opinion against Pennautier. She accused him of having poisoned her husband on May 2, 1669, in order to succeed him in an office of considerable emolument. She overwhelmed him with affidavits drawn up by Vautier, one of the best advocates in Paris. These damaging documents were in everybody’s hands.

The rapidly acquired wealth of Pennautier, far from protecting him in the opinion of the public, had raised up a thousand enemies who diligently spread false reports about him. The people regarded his influence and wealth with amazement, the nobility with envy. On the other hand, Pennautier, like Fouquet, found some faithful friends, a circumstance which does honour to the time. ‘It is wonderful,’ says Saint-Simon, ‘how many of the most notable men are working on his behalf.’ This generosity of sentiment was the more admirable in that the recollection of the disgrace which overwhelmed Fouquet’s friends was present to every mind. The Cardinal de Bonsy, the Duke de Verneuil, the Archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon, and Colbert were among the most active. The judges, who were suspected by Louis XIV himself of having been corrupted, gave proof of an admirable independence.

Pennautier was writing a letter to one of his cousins in his office on June 15, 1676, when the police made a sudden raid upon his room. What he had written was as follows:—'I think that, for our friend, a stay of a month in the country will suffice....’ Startled by this sudden interruption, Pennautier nervously put this note in his mouth as though to swallow it. This fact remained in the sequel the sole charge which the prosecutor could bring against him, after Madame de Brinvilliers had entirely exculpated him. His declarations under examination were of convincing frankness; moreover, in a statement printed in answer to the pamphlets of Sainte-Croix’ widow, he established incontestably the falsity of some points on which his adversaries were endeavouring to base their accusations. These latter found themselves reduced to maintaining that the official reports drawn up at the time when the seals had been broken at Sainte-Croix’ place had been falsified.

‘I am accused of having poisoned Saint-Laurent,’ added Pennautier; ‘but has it been so much as proved that he died of poison? It is at least singular to declare me guilty of a crime that was never committed, for the reports of the doctors, as well as the circumstances under which he died, prove that his death was natural.’

The close of Pennautier’s reply was crushing for his accuser. He pointed out that Madame de Saint-Laurent had waited six years before bringing her case into court. How was that silence explained? Saint-Laurent being dead, Pennautier was appointed to his office of receiver-general for the clergy. ‘Saint-Laurent’s wife gave him her nomination on June 12, 1669; the same day they drew up a sort of contract together, by which the lady reserved half the emoluments of the office, and Pennautier gave 2000 pistoles to the Sieur de Mannevillette, who claimed from the lady the right to return to this office, in accordance with the deed of defeasance given him by Saint-Laurent when the Sieur de Mannevillette resigned that office in his favour on March 17, 1669. The dame de Saint-Laurent quietly enjoyed this moiety of the emoluments of the office until the last day of December 1675, when the agreement terminated; and if Pennautier had been willing to renew the agreement with her, when the general assembly of the clergy did him the honour to elect him receiver-general for ten years, which will end on the last day of December 1685, those who know the dame de Saint-Laurent are convinced that she would never have accused Pennautier of poisoning the Sieur de Saint-Laurent her husband.’

We have dwelt at some length on this incident because of the important part played by Pennautier in the restoration of commerce and industry in France under the direction of Colbert.

Nothing was talked about in Paris but Madame de Brinvilliers and Pennautier—'a grave injustice to the war,’ as Madame de Sévigné said.

Through the privilege of nobility, Madame de Brinvilliers was brought before the highest judicial tribunal in the kingdom—the High Court and the Tournelle in conjunction. She requested a counsel to assist her in her defence, but the request was refused, at least provisionally.

The court was presided over by the first president, Lamoignon. Between April 29 and July 16, 1676, the case occupied twenty-two sittings. The marchioness displayed an energy and force of will which was a constant subject of astonishment to her judges. She denied everything obstinately, and contradicted her accusers in a hard and haughty voice, but never failed in the respect due to the judges—a respect in which pride and nobility mingled, and which made the audience feel that she considered herself at least the equal of the men judging her.

When they came to read the account of the examination at Mézières on April 17, there occurred a scene which was not unexpected. The following is an extract from the official report of the proceedings:—

‘At the reading of these interrogatories, the first president wished to intervene and postpone it until after the confession had been read. This raised a difficulty, and a discussion ensued as to whether it was allowable to question the lady on these particular crimes, such as sodomy and incest, which being on this occasion only a matter of confession, it seemed that they should be kept a great secret; some were for, others against.

‘Monsieur de Palluau said that, having consulted the law-doctors, he had been told that, a confession having been found en route, it ought to have been burnt under penalty, as some believed, of mortal sin.

‘Other doctors held that the said Palluau, in his capacity as judge, had had no choice but to give a description of the confession, and to interrogate her on the aforesaid paper beginning, I accuse myself, my father, etc.

‘The first president held that the question was extremely uncertain, yet he thought the papers ought to be read.

‘The President de Mesmes held that this sort of confession had been utilised in Christian countries, and quoted the epistle of St. Leo, showing that the judges had made use of them.

‘Nivelle, advocate, urged the contrary opinion.

‘The first president answered that the epistle of St. Leo was utterly opposed to the contention of Monsieur de Mesmes, and that there was nothing for it but to resume the reading.

‘The question having been argued, the reading was continued.

‘Asked if she had not made her confession, and to whom she ought to confess, she answered that she had had no intention whatever of making a confession, and knew no priests or monks to whom she ought to confess.

‘Monsieur Roujault reported in the afternoon that he had put the question to Monsieur Benjamin, an ecclesiastical judge, to Monsieur du Saussoy and other casuists, and to Monsieur de Lestocq, doctor and professor in theology, who all agreed that this paper should be seen, and Madame de Brinvilliers questioned on it; that the secrecy of the confessional could only be between the confessor and the penitent, and a paper having been found purporting to be a confession, it might be read by the judges.’

On July 13, 1676, a terrible deposition was heard—that of Briancourt, who related in detail his mistress’s life. He spoke in a voice broken by emotion. The marchioness contradicted him with the same cold, haughty impassivity. ‘Her spirit quite overawes us,’ said President Lamoignon. ‘We worked yesterday at her case till eight o’clock in the evening; she was confronted with Briancourt for thirteen hours, and to-day another five, and she has gone through both ordeals with surprising courage. No one could have more respect for the judges, nor more scorn for the witness confronting her: she taunted him with being a besotted lackey, bundled out of the house for his disorderly conduct, and one whose testimony should not be received against her.’ But she was lost. The marchioness saw looming before her the spectacle of her ignominious punishment—the public penance on her knees before the porch of Notre Dame, clad only in her shift, torch in hand; she saw the instruments of torture, the thought of which might make the boldest shudder, then the scaffold, the stake, the ‘tomb of fire’ whence the hand of the executioner would scatter her ashes, under the gaze of the mob. The judges themselves, who were about to condemn her, felt a tightening at the heart. And when Briancourt, at the close of his deposition, his eyes streaming with tears, his voice choked with sobs, said: ‘I warned you many a time, madam, about your disorders and your cruelty, and that your crimes would ruin you,’ the marchioness replied—a wonderful reply in its pride and self-control—'You are chicken-hearted, you are crying!’ Could one find such a saying in Roman history, or in Corneille? We prefer the bare cold version of the official minute to the version reported by President Lamoignon to the abbé Pirot: ‘She insulted Briancourt about the tears he shed at the remembrance of the death of her brothers, when he declared that she had made him her confidant in regard to their poisoning, and told him that he was a villain to weep before all these gentlemen—that it resulted from a mean spirit. All this was said with great coolness, and without any appearance of changing countenance during the five hours we all watched her to-day.’

Advocate Nivelle, on whom fell the heavy task of presenting the defence of the accused lady, acquitted himself of it with remarkable success. His defence was still renowned in the eighteenth century. It was broad in style, and some of his phrases were of great beauty.

‘The enormity of the crimes,’ he said, ‘and the rank of the person accused require proofs of the most convincing clearness, written, so to speak, with rays of sunlight.’ He went on to ask if the proofs adduced against Madame de Brinvilliers were of this quality. He succeeded in throwing doubt on the sincerity of several of the more weighty depositions—that of Sergeant Cluet, for instance, who was devoted body and soul, he said, to the opposite party; to the widow d’Aubray, who sustained her part of plaintiff with the extremest animosity. The deposition of Edme Briscien, he maintained, should be entirely rejected, for the witness was not confronted with the marchioness, and on that point the rules of procedure were absolute. He very cleverly took advantage of some inconsistencies in La Chaussée’s declaration after torture. The argument based on Sainte-Croix’ famous box seemed to him to have as little weight. Indeed, the note of May 25, 1670, in which Sainte-Croix declared that the contents of the box belonged to the marchioness, was undoubtedly anterior to the introduction of poison bottles into the box; it applied only to the lady’s letters to Sainte-Croix, in which there was no question of poison. Coming at last to the written confession seized at Liége, Nivelle strongly protested against the inferential proof of guilt which the judges drew from it. ‘The last proof,’ he said, ‘relates to a paper found among those of the marchioness, in which she had written a religious confession. It is astounding that the accusers desired the judges to read this paper, for it was of a nature which laws human and divine hold sacred and inviolable under the seal of secrecy and silence demanded by the rules of one of the most august of mysteries, as I will prove by invincible arguments.’ These arguments were exhausted in a minute study of the writings of the Church fathers and of ecclesiastical history, from which the advocate produced numerous examples and excerpts likely to imbue the judges with the profoundest respect for the secrecy of confession, under whatever form it might present itself.

Finally, Nivelle set himself to win a little sympathy, or at any rate pity, for his client. He depicted this woman as a frail thing, of noble birth, beautiful and sensitive by nature, a butt for several months past to calumnies prompted by hate, to the rough treatment and insults of archers, drunken soldiers, and coarse jailors; she had also been deprived of spiritual consolation, and even on Whitsunday had been refused permission to hear mass. Undoubtedly Nivelle largely contributed to that revulsion of feeling in favour of the marchioness which was so strongly marked during the last days.

The advocate concluded his address with a powerful appeal to the prosecutrix: ‘The accuser ought not to press hardly against the lady, because she has already received satisfaction for the death of her husband in the exemplary punishment of that wretched criminal (La Chaussée) who slew him; she should rather wish that the family to which she is allied should not be sullied with an eternal disgrace, and that she should not incur the reproach of being wanting in natural feeling for her nephews, whom she ought to consider as her own children. The death of the late Messieurs d’Aubray has been publicly avenged, and if they could now tell us what they feel, they would doubtless show that the affection they always bore to their sister was a sign that they recognised how incapable she was of so unnatural a crime; they would themselves plead for their own blood, and be far indeed from sacrificing their relatives and exposing them to infamous punishment; they would prove that their highest satisfaction is to preserve their honour in preserving her life, and that otherwise it would be to punish themselves rather than to avenge them. But if they find their consolation in the acquittal of Lady Brinvilliers; if her children—who would suffer punishment as if they were guilty, and to whom life would become a torture and death a consolation—find in it the preservation of the honour of a family so notable as that from which their mother is sprung—these wise magistrates who are to judge her will also have more glory in giving to the public a famous example of their justice, their piety, and their sovereign equity, by declaring her innocent.’

On July 15, 1676, Madame de Brinvilliers appeared for the last time before her judges for her final cross-examination, and in the course of this long ordeal, in which for three hours her whole life was remorselessly dissected, she did not flag for a moment. She denied everything; she did not know what poison and antidote meant; her pretended confession was sheer madness. ‘She did not appear affected by what the first president said, though, after he had done his part as judge, he assumed the tone of a merciful friend, and addressed to her words most admirably calculated to move her, and bring her to feel in some degree the lamentable state in which she was. The first president,’ we read in a summary report of the trial, ‘dwelt upon the dreadful illness of her father, on the perilous state she was in, and told her that she was engaged in perhaps the last act of her life; he invited her seriously to reflect on her evil conduct, which had drawn upon her the reproaches of her family, and even of those who had lived in sin with her. The President de Novion reminded her that her brother the civil lieutenant had suspected other persons, and that this suspicion had embittered his last moments. The first president told her also’ (and this is one of the most curious features of the trial for the study of the moral ideas of the period), ‘that the greatest of all her crimes, horrible as they were, was, not the poisoning of her father and brothers, but her attempt to poison herself. She was kept for another half hour, but would say nothing, merely showing signs of a little distress at heart.’

‘The first president wept bitterly,’ writes the abbé Pirot, ‘and all the judges shed tears.’ She alone kept her head proudly erect, and preserved undimmed the stony clearness of her blue eyes.

Taine has given in one line a marvellous definition of the character of Racine’s heroines and the art of the poet himself: ‘We imagine the tears which never appear in their beautiful eyes.’ The sequel of our story will indicate, even more than the preceding pages, that Madame de Brinvilliers in some points resembled some of Racine’s heroines, and will help to show with what exactitude the incomparable poet reproduced the models presented him by the society of his time.

In closing this memorable scene on July 15, President Lamoignon told the prisoner that, out of charity and on the plea of her sister the Carmelite nun, a person of the greatest merit and the highest virtue was being sent to her to console her and to exhort her to think of her soul’s salvation. We are about to see coming upon the stage one of the most interesting figures in the drama, the sympathetic abbé, Edme Pirot.

III. HER DEATH

Edme Pirot was a professor of theology at the Sorbonne. Born at Auxerre on August 12, 1631, he was of the same age as the Marchioness of Brinvilliers. His discussions with Leibnitz had made his name famous throughout Europe. His was an ardent and sensitive soul: his heart was torn when he came in contact with the griefs of others. ‘The delicacy of my temperament was so great,’ he said, ‘that I could never bear the sight of blood, not even my own, and at one time I had turned quite faint at the sight of a wound being dressed, and never since ventured to come within sight of a similar operation.’ He had an acute and subtle intellect, endowed with a remarkable faculty for psychological insight.

President Lamoignon, in appointing the abbé Pirot to attend Madame de Brinvilliers, had given a fresh proof of his knowledge of men. He knew that the gentle and soul-stirring words of the priest would act on the heart of the prisoner, and perhaps obtain what all the machinery of justice had not succeeded in achieving—the revelation of her accomplices, the composition of her poisons and the proper antidotes to employ. ‘It is for the public interest,’ said Lamoignon to the abbé Pirot, ‘that her crimes should die with her, and that she should acquaint us with all the consequences her poison might have, so far as she knows them; without which we should be unable to counteract them, and her poisons would survive her.’ Further, it was his earnest desire to find in Pirot a priest whose exhortations would, at the hour of death, touch this rebellious soul and set it on the narrow road to salvation.

The good abbé has described the last day of Madame de Brinvilliers minute by minute. His story fills two volumes, one of the most extraordinary monuments literature can show. It is written with no regard for artistic effect: the conversations are reported at length, with repetitions and interminably wearisome details; but the clear, exact, and flowing style, the just and restrained expression of the keenest passions, continually remind us of the tragedies of Racine. Phédre and the abbé Pirot’s story were composed in the same year; if the priest had given any thought to the public as he wrote, and had paid some attention to his style and to the avoidance of repetitions and prolixity, posterity unquestionably might well have signed both works with the same name.

Michelet has strikingly described the appearance of the priest in the tower of the Conciergerie:—

‘Quaking with terror, Pirot was ushered into the Conciergerie, and taken to the top of the Montgommery tower; there he entered a room in which there were four persons—two warders, a wardress, and, farthest away from him, the monster.

‘The monster was quite a little woman, dainty, with very soft blue eyes, marvellously beautiful. As soon as she saw Pirot, she prettily thanked a priest who up to then had attended her, and expressed with easy grace her absolute confidence in the learned abbé. He saw at once how much she was loved by those who lived with her. When she spoke of her death, the two men and the woman burst into tears. She seemed to love them too, and was kind and gentle with them, not proud at all; she made them eat at her table.

‘“To be sure, sir,” she said to Pirot, “you are the priest that the first president has sent to console me; it is with you that I am to pass the little that remains of life: and I have long been impatient to see you.”

‘“I come, madam,” answered Pirot, “to render you in spiritual matters what service I can. I could wish it were in any other matter than this.”

‘“Sir,” she rejoined, “we must submit to everything.”’

And at that moment, turning towards an Oratorian named Father de Chevigny, she said: ‘Father, I am obliged to you for bringing this gentleman, and for all the other visits you have been good enough to pay me; pray God for me, I beseech you: henceforth I shall speak to scarcely any one but the father here. I have matters to discuss with him that are spoken of in secret. Farewell.’

The Oratorian retired.

Madame de Brinvilliers seems to have been won at the outset by the affectionate expression of her confessor, and by his sincere and sympathetic words. Judgment had not yet been pronounced. ‘My death is certain,’ she said; ‘I must not delude myself with hope. I have to tell you the story of all my life.’ But the conversation drifted away to what was being said of her in society. ‘I can imagine pretty well that they are talking a good deal about me, and that I have been for some time a byword among the people.’ And her eyes flashed.

Pirot tried to show her that, assuming she was guilty, her duty was to disclose all her accomplices, to reveal the composition of her poisons and the means of counteracting them. She interrupted him: ‘Sir, are there not some sins that are unpardonable in this world, either from their gravity or their number? Are there not some so atrocious or so numerous that the Church cannot remit them?’ ‘Believe, madam, that there are no sins irremissible in this life,’ answered the priest, and he enlarged on this theme with force and warmth and an infectious faith. Conviction by degrees took possession of the prisoner’s soul, and with it there dawned a gleam of regeneration, hope in a future life serene and happy—glorious, as the abbé said—and with the thought her heart was changed. ‘“Sir,” she answered me, “I am convinced of all you tell me. I believe that God can pardon all sins; I believe that He has often exercised this power; but all my trouble now is to know whether He will apply His power to one so wretched as I.” I told her that she must hope that God would take pity on her in His infinite mercy. She began to describe in general terms the whole of her life, and from that moment I saw that her heart was touched, and she burst into tears beholding her wretchedness.’ By the contagion of his sympathetic kindness, and by the light of redemption, Pirot had in a few hours melted this heart of brass like wax.

‘After she had given me an outline of her life, knowing that I had not yet said mass, she intimated spontaneously that it was time to say it, and that I might go down to the chapel for that purpose. She begged me say it to our Lady on her behalf, so as to obtain the pardon of which she stood in need, and asked me to come up again as soon as the sacrifice had been completed, saying that she would be present in spirit, since she was not permitted to attend in person, and that she thought of telling me in detail on my return that which she had so far told me only in general terms.

‘After my mass,’ continues Pirot, ‘as I was taking a sip of wine in the jailer’s room before returning to the tower, I learned from Monsieur de Sency, librarian to the Palais, that Madame de Brinvilliers was condemned. I went upstairs and found the marchioness awaiting me in great serenity.

‘“It is only by dying by the hand of the executioner,” she said, “that I can win salvation. If I had died at Liége before my arrest, where should I be now? And if I had not been taken, what would my end have been? I will confess my crime to the judges to whom I have denied it hitherto. I fancied I could conceal it, flattering myself that without my confession there would have been nothing to convict me, and that I was not bound to accuse myself. To-morrow, at my last examination, I mean to repair the ill that I have done at the others.

‘“I beg you, sir,” she went on suddenly, “to make my excuses to the first president. You will please see him on my behalf after my death, and will tell him that I ask his pardon, and that of all the judges, for the effrontery they have seen in me; that I believed it would serve my defence, and that I never believed there would be proof enough to condemn me without my avowal; that I now see things in a different light, and that I was touched yesterday by what he said to me, and that I put violent constraint on myself to prevent my features from showing what I felt. Ask him to forgive me for the offence I gave to the whole bench assembled to judge me, and to beg the other judges to pardon me.”

‘It was thus,’ Pirot continues, ‘that she went on relating to me the whole matter until half-past one, when a servant came and brought the cloth for dinner. She took nothing but two fresh eggs and a little soup, and talked to me, while I was eating, about indifferent things, with very great freedom of mind and a tranquillity which surprised me, as if she were entertaining me at dinner in a country house. She invited to the table the two men and the women who were her usual guard. “Sir,” she said to me, after she had told them to sit down, “you will not mind our dispensing with ceremony for you? They are accustomed to eat with me to keep me company, and we shall do so to-day if you do not object. This,” she said to them, “is the last meal I shall take with you.” And turning towards the woman who was beside her, she said: “Madam, my poor Du Rus, you will soon be quit of me; I have long been a trouble to you, but it will soon be over. To-morrow you will be able to go to Dranet. You will have time enough for that. In seven or eight hours you will have me no longer to bother you, for I do not think you have the heart to see my end.”

‘She said all this with a coolness and serenity which indicated rather a natural equality of mind than an affected pride. And as these people from time to time burst into tears and withdrew to conceal them from her, she, noticing it, threw me a glance of pity, though she shed no tears, as though sorry for their grief, almost as a mother might do on her deathbed, when, seeing around her her weeping servants, she looks at the confessor kneeling near her and marks the sorrow their affection gives him.

‘From time to time she urged me to eat, and scolded the jailer for putting cabbage in the soup. She asked me with much politeness to allow her to drink my health. I thought that I might do her some pleasure in drinking to hers, and it was not difficult to show her this little attention. She asked me to excuse her for not serving me, careful not to say that she had no knife for that purpose, so as not to give the slightest shadow of complaint.

‘“Sir,” she said to me at the end of the meal, “it is fast-day to-morrow, and though it will be a very tiring day for me”—she was to undergo torture and then be beheaded—“I have no intention of eating meat.” “Madam,” I replied, “if you need a meat soup to sustain you, there will be no occasion to stand on scruples; it will not be out of fastidiousness, but from pure necessity, and the law of the Church is not rigorous in such a case.” “Sir,” she replied, “I would not be particular if I needed it and you ordered it; but I am sure it will not be necessary. All I require is a little soup this evening at supper-time, and again at eleven o’clock; to-day they will make it a little stronger than usual, and with that, and a couple of eggs I can take at the torture, I shall get through to-morrow.”