Princes and Poisoners: Studies of the Court of Louis XIV

never been a more striking or celebrated

rot, 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

ttle 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 Ma?tre Corn

on 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 r

f 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 o

timony 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

of Nourar, the son of a president of the audit office. He was a direct descendant of Gobelin, the founder of the celebrated manufacture. Mademoisell

ded, and vivacious manner of speaking. She was of an amiable and cheerful temperament, and dreamed of nothing but pleasure. A priest end

tellect, 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 t

the most unexpected emergencies, a firmness that nothing coul

ures-her eyes blue, tender, and of perfect beauty, her skin extraordinarily w

tion she showed it plainly by a grimace that might at first sight scare you; and fr

ery slight and

the long-run, to fall.' In after days, Ma?tre 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

ried 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 scho

xili, from whom he learnt the secret of Italian poisons. Restored to liberty, Sainte-Croix is said to have

e, among others in the speech delivered by Ma?tre Nivelle

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 Monsie

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

nd had noted the inability of the surgeons to discover traces of

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 employe

buted death to natural causes; but the rumour at once got abroad that he had died of poison. The elder brother of the ma

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

ich 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 an

er 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

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 l

, 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

ody 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 unremit

eady 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,'

sehold, with beautiful ornaments, keeping up a great style, and entertaining her lovers with magnificence. She longed for 'the glor

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 aft

o what depths her ill-regulated passion had thrown this woman, who belonged to the highest ranks of socie

om, 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 una

umber, 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

rned 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 de

g 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

man, 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

nd 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 s

son, 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 extraord

omantic scene, as Briancourt

om, 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

sts at the present day in the mansion inhabited by M

t 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

necessary to his safety; then he went to ask the advice of Monsieur Bocager,

om 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 t

y 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

to the children of the Marquis de Brinvilliers. In his fear of poison

ard 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 ev

ison him; then, struck with remorse, she called in to attend

r-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 vio

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, beggi

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

ed of the death of her lover. Her