The Complete Celebrated Crimes
by
Alexander Dumas, Pere
Part 30 out of 33
A week after the execution of Pizzo everyone had received his reward:
Trenta Capelli was made a colonel, General Nunziante a marquis, and
Luidgi died from the effects of poison.
CELEBRATED CRIMES VOLUME 8 (of 8), Part 1
by ALEXANDER DUMAS, PERE
THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS
Towards the end of the year 1665, on a fine autumn evening, there was
a considerable crowd assembled on the Pont-Neuf where it makes a turn
down to the rue Dauphine. The object of this crowd and the centre of
attraction was a closely shut, carriage. A police official was
trying to force open the door, and two out of the four sergeants who
were with him were holding the horses back and the other two stopping
the driver, who paid no attention to their commands, but only
endeavoured to urge his horses to a gallop. The struggle had been
going on same time, when suddenly one of the doors violentiy pushed
open, and a young officer in the uniform of a cavalry captain jumped
down, shutting the door as he did so though not too quickly for the
nearest spectators to perceive a woman sitting at the back of the
carriage. She was wrapped in cloak and veil, and judging by the
precautions she, had taken to hide her face from every eye, she must
have had her reasons for avoiding recognition.
"Sir," said the young man, addressing the officer with a haughty air,
"I presume, till I find myself mistaken, that your business is with
me alone; so I will ask you to inform me what powers you may have for
thus stopping my coach; also, since I have alighted, I desire you to
give your men orders to let the vehicle go on."
"First of all," replied the man, by no means intimidated by these
lordly airs, but signing to his men that they must not release the
coach or the horses, "be so good as to answer my questions."
"I am attending," said the young man, controlling his agitation by a
visible effort.
"Are you the Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte-Croix?"
"I am he."
"Captain of the Tracy, regiment?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then I arrest you in the king's name."
"What powers have you?"
"This warrant."
Sainte-Croix cast a rapid glance at the paper, and instantly
recognised the signature of the minister of police: he then
apparently confined his attention to the woman who was still in the
carriage; then he returned to his first question.
"This is all very well, sir," he said to the officer, "but this
warrant contains no other name than mine, and so you have no right to
expose thus to the public gaze the lady with whom I was travelling
when you arrested me. I must beg of you to order your assistants to
allow this carriage to drive on; then take me where you please, for I
am ready to go with you."
To the officer this request seemed a just one: he signed to his men
to let the driver and the horses go on; and, they, who had waited
only for this, lost no time in breaking through the crowd, which
melted away before them; thus the woman escaped for whose safety the
prisoner seemed so much concerned.
Sainte-Croix kept his promise and offered no resistance; for some
moments he followed the officer, surrounded by a crowd which seemed
to have transferred all its curiosity to his account; then, at the
corner of the Quai de d'Horloge, a man called up a carriage that had
not been observed before, and Sainte-Croix took his place with the
same haughty and disdainful air that he had shown throughout the
scene we have just described. The officer sat beside him, two of his
men got up behind, and the other two, obeying no doubt their master's
orders, retired with a parting direction to the driver,
"The Bastille!"
Our readers will now permit us to make them more fully acquainted
with the man who is to take the first place in the story. The origin
of Gaudin de Sainte-Croix was not known: according to one tale, he
was the natural son of a great lord; another account declared that he
was the offspring of poor people, but that, disgusted with his
obscure birth, he preferred a splendid disgrace, and therefore chose
to pass for what he was not. The only certainty is that he was born
at Montauban, and in actual rank and position he was captain of the
Tracy regiment. At the time when this narrative opens, towards the
end of 1665, Sainte-Croix was about twenty-eight or thirty, a fine
young man of cheerful and lively appearance, a merry comrade at a
banquet, and an excellent captain: he took his pleasure with other
men, and was so impressionable a character that he enjoyed a virtuous
project as well as any plan for a debauch; in love he was most
susceptible, and jealous to the point of madness even about a
courtesan, had she once taken his fancy; his prodigality was
princely, although he had no income; further, he was most sensitive
to slights, as all men are who, because they are placed in an
equivocal position, fancy that everyone who makes any reference to
their origin is offering an intentional insult.
We must now see by what a chain of circumstances he had arrived at
his present position. About the year 1660, Sainte-Croix, while in
the army, had made the acquaintance of the Marquis de Brinvilliers,
maitre-de-camp of the Normandy regiment.
Their age was much the same, and so was their manner of life: their
virtues and their vices were similar, and thus it happened that a
mere acquaintance grew into a friendship, and on his return from the
field the marquis introduced Sainte-Croix to his wife, and he became
an intimate of the house. The usual results followed. Madame de
Brinvilliers was then scarcely eight-and-twenty: she had married the
marquis in 1651-that is, nine years before. He enjoyed an income of
30,000 livres, to which she added her dowry of 200,000 livres,
exclusive of her expectations in the future. Her name was Marie-
Madeleine; she had a sister and two brothers: her father, M. de Dreux
d'Aubray; was civil lieutenant at the Chatelet de Paris. At the age
of twenty-eight the marquise was at the height of her beauty: her
figure was small but perfectly proportioned; her rounded face was
charmingly pretty; her features, so regular that no emotion seemed to
alter their beauty, suggested the lines of a statue miraculously
endowed with life: it was easy enough to mistake for the repose of a
happy conscience the cold, cruel calm which served as a mask to cover
remorse.
Sainte-Croix and the marquise loved at first sight, and she was soon
his mistress. The marquis, perhaps endowed with the conjugal
philosophy which alone pleased the taste of the period, perhaps too
much occupied with his own pleasure to see what was going on before
his eyes, offered no jealous obstacle to the intimacy, and continued
his foolish extravagances long after they had impaired his fortunes:
his affairs became so entangled that the marquise, who cared for him
no longer, and desired a fuller liberty for the indulgence of her new
passion, demanded and obtained a separation. She then left her
husband's house, and henceforth abandoning all discretion, appeared
everywhere in public with Sainte-Croix. This behaviour, authorised
as it was by the example of the highest nobility, made no impression
upon the. Marquis of Brinvilliers, who merrily pursued the road to
ruin, without worrying about his wife's behaviour. Not so M. de
Dreux d'Aubray: he had the scrupulosity of a legal dignitary. He was
scandalised at his daughter's conduct, and feared a stain upon his
own fair name: he procured a warrant for the arrest of Sainte-Croix
wheresoever the bearer might chance to encounter him. We have seen
how it was put in execution when Sainte-Croix was driving in the
carriage of the marquise, whom our readers will doubtless have
recognised as the woman who concealed herself so carefully.
From one's knowledge of the character of Sainte-Croix, it is easy to
imagine that he had to use great self-control to govern the anger he
felt at being arrested in the middle of the street; thus, although
during the whole drive he uttered not a single word, it was plain to
see that a terrible storm was gathering, soon to break. But he
preserved the same impossibility both at the opening and shutting of
the fatal gates, which, like the gates of hell, had so often bidden
those who entered abandon all hope on their threshold, and again when
he replied to the formal questions put to him by the governor. His
voice was calm, and when they gave him they prison register he signed
it with a steady hand. At once a gaoler, taking his orders from the
governor, bade him follow: after traversing various corridors, cold
and damp, where the daylight might sometimes enter but fresh air
never, he opened a door, and Sainte-Croix had no sooner entered than
he heard it locked behind him.
At the grating of the lock he turned. The gaoler had left him with
no light but the rays of the moon, which, shining through a barred
window some eight or ten feet from the ground, shed a gleam upon a
miserable truckle-bed and left the rest of the room in deep
obscurity. The prisoner stood still for a moment and listened; then,
when he had heard the steps die away in the distance and knew himself
to be alone at last, he fell upon the bed with a cry more like the
roaring of a wild beast than any human sound: he cursed his fellow-
man who had snatched him from his joyous life to plunge him into a
dungeon; he cursed his God who had let this happen; he cried aloud to
whatever powers might be that could grant him revenge and liberty.
Just at that moment, as though summoned by these words from the
bowels of the earth, a man slowly stepped into the circle of blue
light that fell from the window-a man thin and pale, a man with long
hair, in a black doublet, who approached the foot of the bed where
Sainte-Croix lay. Brave as he was, this apparition so fully answered
to his prayers (and at the period the power of incantation and magic
was still believed in) that he felt no doubt that the arch-enemy of
the human race, who is continually at hand, had heard him and had now
come in answer to his prayers. He sat up on the bed, feeling
mechanically at the place where the handle of his sword would have
been but two hours since, feeling his hair stand on end, and a cold
sweat began to stream down his face as the strange fantastic being
step by step approached him. At length the apparition paused, the
prisoner and he stood face to face for a moment, their eyes riveted;
then the mysterious stranger spoke in gloomy tones.
"Young man," said he, "you have prayed to the devil for vengeance on
the men who have taken you, for help against the God who has
abandoned you. I have the means, and I am here to proffer it. Have
you the courage to accept?"
"First of all," asked Sainte-Croix; "who are you?"
"Why seek you to know who I am," replied the unknown, "at the very
moment when I come at your call, and bring what you desire?"
"All the same," said Sainte-Croix, still attributing what he heard to
a supernatural being, "when one makes a compact of this kind, one
prefers to know with whom one is treating."
"Well, since you must know," said the stranger, "I am the Italian
Exili."
Sainte-Croix shuddered anew, passing from a supernatural vision to a
horrible reality. The name he had just heard had a terrible
notoriety at the time, not only in France but in Italy as well.
Exili had been driven out of Rome, charged with many poisonings,
which, however, could not be satisfactorily brought home to him. He
had gone to Paris, and there, as in his native country, he had drawn
the eyes of the authorities upon himself; but neither in Paris nor in
Rome was he, the pupil of Rene and of Trophana, convicted of guilt.
All the same, though proof was wanting, his enormities were so well
accredited that there was no scruple as to having him arrested. A
warrant was out against him: Exili was taken up, and was lodged in
the Bastille. He had been there about six months when Sainte-Croix
was brought to the same place. The prisoners were numerous just
then, so the governor had his new guest put up in the same room as
the old one, mating Exili and Sainte-Croix, not knowing that they
were a pair of demons. Our readers now understand the rest. Sainte-
Croix was put into an unlighted room by the gaoler, and in the dark
had failed to see his companion: he had abandoned himself to his
rage, his imprecations had revealed his state of mind to Exili, who
at once seized the occasion for gaining a devoted and powerful
disciple, who once out of prison might open the doors for him,
perhaps, or at least avenge his fate should he be incarcerated for
life.
The repugnance felt by Sainte-Croix for his fellow-prisoner did not
last long, and the clever master found his pupil apt. Sainte-Croix,
a strange mixture of qualities good and evil, had reached the supreme
crisis of his life, when the powers of darkness or of light were to
prevail. Maybe, if he had met some angelic soul at this point, he
would have been led to God; he encountered a demon, who conducted him
to Satan.
Exili was no vulgar poisoner: he was a great artist in poisons,
comparable with the Medici or the Borgias. For him murder was a fine
art, and he had reduced it to fixed and rigid rules: he had arrived
at a point when he was guided not by his personal interest but by a
taste for experiment. God has reserved the act of creation for
Himself, but has suffered destruction to be within the scope of man:
man therefore supposes that in destroying life he is God's equal.
Such was the nature of Exili's pride: he was the dark, pale alchemist
of death: others might seek the mighty secret of life, but he had
found the secret of destruction.
For a time Sainte-Croix hesitated: at last he yielded to the taunts
of his companion, who accused Frenchmen of showing too much honour in
their crimes, of allowing themselves to be involved in the ruin of
their enemies, whereas they might easily survive them and triumph
over their destruction. In opposition to this French gallantry,
which often involves the murderer in a death more cruel than that he
has given, he pointed to the Florentine traitor with his amiable
smile and his deadly poison. He indicated certain powders and
potions, some of them of dull action, wearing out the victim so
slowly that he dies after long suffering; others violent and so
quick, that they kill like a flash of lightning, leaving not even
time for a single cry. Little by little Sainte-Croix became
interested in the ghastly science that puts the lives of all men in
the hand of one. He joined in Exili's experiments; then he grew
clever enough to make them for himself; and when, at the year's end,
he left the Bastille, the pupil was almost as accomplished as his
master.
Sainte-Croix returned into that society which had banished him,
fortified by a fatal secret by whose aid he could repay all the evil
he had received. Soon afterwards Exili was set free--how it happened
is not known--and sought out Sainte-Croix, who let him a room in the
name of his steward, Martin de Breuille, a room situated in the
blind, alley off the Place Maubert, owned by a woman called Brunet.
It is not known whether Sainte-Croix had an opportunity of seeing the
Marquise de Brinvilliers during his sojourn in the Bastille, but it
is certain that as soon as he was a free man the lovers were more
attached than ever. They had learned by experience, however, of what
they had to fear; so they resolved that they would at once make trial
of Sainte-Croix's newly acquired knowledge, and M. d'Aubray was
selected by his daughter for the first victim. At one blow she would
free herself from the inconvenience of his rigid censorship, and by
inheriting his goods would repair her own fortune, which had been
almost dissipated by her husband. But in trying such a bold stroke
one must be very sure of results, so the marquise decided to
experiment beforehand on another person. Accordingly, when one day
after luncheon her maid, Francoise Roussel, came into her room, she
gave her a slice of mutton and some preserved gooseberries for her
own meal. The girl unsuspiciously ate what her mistress gave her,
but almost at once felt ill, saying she had severe pain in the
stomach, and a sensation as though her heart were being pricked with
pins. But she did not die, and the marquise perceived that the
poison needed to be made stronger, and returned it to Sainte-Croix,
who brought her some more in a few days' time.
The moment had come for action. M. d'Aubray, tired with business,
was to spend a holiday at his castle called Offemont. The marquise
offered to go with him. M. d'Aubray, who supposed her relations with
Sainte-Croix to be quite broken off, joyfully accepted. Offemont was
exactly the place for a crime of this nature. In the middle of the
forest of Aigue, three or four miles from Compiegne, it would be
impossible to get efficient help before the rapid action of the
poison had made it useless.
M. d'Aubray started with his daughter and one servant only. Never
had the marquise been so devoted to her father, so especially
attentive, as she was during this journey. And M. d'Aubray, like
Christ--who though He had no children had a father's heart--loved his
repentant daughter more than if she had never strayed. And then the
marquise profited by the terrible calm look which we have already
noticed in her face: always with her father, sleeping in a room
adjoining his, eating with him, caring for his comfort in every way,
thoughtful and affectionate, allowing no other person to do anything
for him, she had to present a smiling face, in which the most
suspicious eye could detect nothing but filial tenderness, though the
vilest projects were in her heart. With this mask she one evening
offered him some soup that was poisoned. He took it; with her eyes
she saw him put it to his lips, watched him drink it down, and with a
brazen countenance she gave no outward sign of that terrible anxiety
that must have been pressing on her heart. When he had drunk it all,
and she had taken with steady hands the cup and its saucer, she went
back to her own room, waited and listened....
The effect was rapid. The marquise heard her father moan; then she
heard groans. At last, unable to endure his sufferings, he called
out to his daughter. The marquise went to him. But now her face
showed signs of the liveliest anxiety, and it was for M. d'Aubray to
try to reassure her about himself! He thought it was only a trifling
indisposition, and was not willing that a doctor should be disturbed.
But then he was seized by a frightful vomiting, followed by such
unendurable pain that he yielded to his daughter's entreaty that she
should send for help. A doctor arrived at about eight o'clock in the
morning, but by that time all that could have helped a scientific
inquiry had been disposed of: the doctor saw nothing, in M. d'Aubray's
story but what might be accounted for by indigestion; so he dosed
him, and went back to Compiegne.
All that day the marquise never left the sick man. At night she had
a bed made up in his room, declaring that no one else must sit up
with him; thus she, was able to watch the progress of the malady and
see with her own eyes the conflict between death and life in the body
of her father. The next day the doctor came again: M. d'Aubray was
worse; the nausea had ceased, but the pains in the stomach were now
more acute; a strange fire seemed to burn his vitals; and a treatment
was ordered which necessitated his return to Paris. He was soon so
weak that he thought it might be best to go only so far as Compiegne,
but the marquise was so insistent as to the necessity for further and
better advice than anything he could get away from home, that M.
d'Aubray decided to go. He made the journey in his own carriage,
leaning upon his daughter's shoulder; the behaviour of the marquise
was always the same: at last M. d'Aubray reached Paris. All had
taken place as the marquise desired; for the scene was now changed:
the doctor who had witnessed the symptoms would not be present at the
death; no one could discover the cause by studying the progress of
the disorder; the thread of investigation was snapped in two, and the
two ends were now too distant to be joined again. In spite, of every
possible attention, M. d'Aubray grew continually worse; the marquise
was faithful to her mission, and never left him for an hour. At
list, after four days of agony, he died in his daughter's arms,
blessing the woman who was his murderess. Her grief then broke forth
uncontrolled. Her sobs and tears were so vehement that her brothers'
grief seemed cold beside hers. Nobody suspected a crime, so no
autopsy was held; the tomb was closed, and not the slightest
suspicion had approached her.
But the marquise had only gained half her purpose. She had now more
freedom for her love affairs, but her father's dispositions were not
so favourable as she expected: the greater part of his property,
together with his business, passed to the elder brother and to the
second brother, who was Parliamentary councillor; the position of,
the marquise was very little improved in point of fortune.
Sainte-Croix was leading a fine and joyous life. Although nobody
supposed him to be wealthy, he had a steward called Martin, three
lackeys called George, Lapierre, and Lachaussee, and besides his
coach and other carriages he kept ordinary bearers for excursions at
night. As he was young and good-looking, nobody troubled about where
all these luxuries came from. It was quite the custom in those days
that a well-set-up young gentleman should want for nothing, and
Sainte-Croix was commonly said to have found the philosopher's stone.
In his life in the world he had formed friendships with various
persons, some noble, some rich: among the latter was a man named
Reich de Penautier, receiver-general of the clergy and treasurer of
the States of Languedoc, a millionaire, and one of those men who are
always successful, and who seem able by the help of their money to
arrange matters that would appear to be in the province of God alone.
This Penautier was connected in business with a man called d'Alibert,
his first clerk, who died all of a sudden of apoplexy. The attack
was known to Penautier sooner than to his own family: then the papers
about the conditions of partnership disappeared, no one knew how, and
d'Alibert's wife and child were ruined. D'Alibert's brother-in-law,
who was Sieur de la Magdelaine, felt certain vague suspicions
concerning this death, and wished to get to the bottom of it; he
accordingly began investigations, which were suddenly brought to an
end by his death.
In one way alone Fortune seemed to have abandoned her favourite:
Maitre Penautier had a great desire to succeed the Sieur of
Mennevillette, who was receiver of the clergy, and this office was
worth nearly 60,000 livres. Penautier knew that Mennevillette was
retiring in favour of his chief clerk, Messire Pierre Hannyvel, Sieur
de Saint-Laurent, and he had taken all the necessary, steps for
buying the place over his head: the Sieur de Saint-Laurent, with the
full support of the clergy, obtained the reversion for nothing--a
thing that never happened before. Penautier then offered him 40,000
crowns to go halves, but Saint-Laurent refused. Their relations,
however, were not broken off, and they continued to meet. Penautier
was considered such a lucky fellow that it was generally expected he
would somehow or other get some day the post he coveted so highly.
People who had no faith in the mysteries of alchemy declared that
Sainte-Croix and Penautier did business together.
Now, when the period for mourning was over, the relations of the
marquise and Sainte-Croix were as open and public as before: the two
brothers d'Aubray expostulated with her by the medium of an older
sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived
that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision
of her to her brothers. Thus her first crime had been all but in
vain: she had wanted to get rid of her father's rebukes and to gain
his fortune; as a fact the fortune was diminished by reason of her
elder brothers, and she had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while
the rebukes were renewed from the mouths of her brothers, one of
whom, being civil lieutenant, had the power to separate her again
from her lover. This must be prevented. Lachaussee left the service
of Sainte-Croix, and by a contrivance of the marquise was installed
three months later as servant of the elder brother, who lived with
the civil lieutenant. The poison to be used on this occasion was not
so swift as the one taken by M. d'Aubray so violent a death happening
so soon in the same family might arouse suspicion. Experiments were
tried once more, not on animals--for their different organisation
might put the poisoner's science in the wrong--but as before upon
human subjects; as before, a 'corpus vili' was taken. The marquise
had the reputation of a pious and charitable lady; seldom did she
fail to relieve the poor who appealed: more than this, she took part
in the work of those devoted women who are pledged to the service of
the sick, and she walked the hospitals and presented wine and other
medicaments. No one was surprised when she appeared in her ordinary
way at l'Hotel-Dieu. This time she brought biscuits and cakes for
the convalescent patients, her gifts being, as usual, gratefully
received. A month later she paid another visit, and inquired after
certain patients in whom she was particularly interested: since the
last time she came they had suffered a relapse--the malady had
changed in nature, and had shown graver symptoms. It was a kind of
deadly fatigue, killing them by a slows strange decay. She asked
questions of the doctors but could learn nothing: this malady was
unknown to them, and defied all the resources of their art.
A fortnight later she returned. Some of the sick people were dead,
others still alive, but desperately ill; living skeletons, all that
seemed left of them was sight, speech, and breath. At the end of two
months they were all dead, and the physicians had been as much at a
loss over the post-mortems as over the treatment of the dying.
Experiments of this kind were reassuring; so Lachaussee had orders to
carry out his instructions. One day the civil lieutenant rang his
bell, and Lachaussee, who served the councillor, as we said before,
came up for orders. He found the lieutenant at work with his
secretary, Couste what he wanted was a glass of wine and water. In a
moment Lachaussee brought it in. The lieutenant put the glass to his
lips, but at the first sip pushed it away, crying, "What have you
brought, you wretch? I believe you want to poison me." Then handing
the glass to his secretary, he added, "Look at it, Couste: what is
this stuff?" The secretary put a few drops into a coffee-spoon,
lifting it to his nose and then to his mouth: the drink had the smell
and taste of vitriol. Meanwhile Lachaussee went up to the secretary
and told him he knew what it must be: one of the councillor's valets
had taken a dose of medicine that morning, and without noticing he
must have brought the very glass his companion had used. Saying
this, he took the glass from the secretary's hand, put it to his
lips, pretending to taste it himself, and then said he had no doubt
it was so, for he recognised the smell. He then threw the wine into
the fireplace.
As the lieutenant had not drunk enough to be upset by it, he soon
forgot this incident and the suspicions that had been aroused at the
moment in his mind. Sainte-Croix and the marquise perceived that
they had made a false step, and at the risk of involving several
people in their plan for vengeance, they decided on the employment of
other means. Three months passed without any favourable occasion
presenting itself; at last, on one of the early days of April 1670,
the lieutenant took his brother to his country place, Villequoy, in
Beauce, to spend the Easter vacation. Lachaussee was with his
master, and received his instructions at the moment of departure.
The day after they arrived in the country there was a pigeon-pie for
dinner: seven persons who had eaten it felt indisposed after the
meal, and the three who had not taken it were perfectly well. Those
on whom the poisonous substance had chiefly acted were the
lieutenant, the councillor, and the commandant of the watch. He may
have eaten more, or possibly the poison he had tasted on the former
occasion helped, but at any rate the lieutenant was the first to be
attacked with vomiting two hours later, the councillor showed the
same symptoms; the commandant and the others were a prey for several
hours to frightful internal pains; but from the beginning their
condition was not nearly so grave as that of the two brothers. This
time again, as usual, the help of doctors was useless. On the 12th
of April, five days after they had been poisoned, the lieutenant and
his brother returned to Paris so changed that anyone would have
thought they had both suffered a long and cruel illness. Madame de
Brinvilliers was in the country at the time, and did not come back
during the whole time that her brothers were ill. From the very
first consultation in the lieutenant's case the doctors entertained
no hope. The symptoms were the same as those to which his father had
succumbed, and they supposed it was an unknown disease in the family.
They gave up all hope of recovery. Indeed, his state grew worse and
worse; he felt an unconquerable aversion for every kind of food, and
the vomiting was incessant. The last three days of his life he
complained that a fire was burning in his breast, and the flames that
burned within seemed to blaze forth at his eyes, the only part of his
body that appeared to live, so like a corpse was all the rest of him.
On the 17th of June 1670 he died: the poison had taken seventy-two
days to complete its work. Suspicion began to dawn: the lieutenant's
body was opened, and a formal report was drawn up. The operation was
performed in the presence of the surgeons Dupre and Durant, and
Gavart, the apothecary, by M. Bachot, the brothers' private
physician. They found the stomach and duodenum to be black and
falling to pieces, the liver burnt and gangrened. They said that
this state of things must have been produced by poison, but as the
presence of certain bodily humours sometimes produces similar
appearances, they durst not declare that the lieutenant's death could
not have come about by natural causes, and he was buried without
further inquiry.
It was as his private physician that Dr. Bachot had asked for the
autopsy of his patient's brother. For the younger brother seemed to
have been attacked by the same complaint, and the doctor hoped to
find from the death of the one some means for preserving the life of
the other. The councillor was in a violent fever, agitated
unceasingly both in body and mind: he could not bear any position of
any kind for more than a few minutes at a time. Bed was a place of
torture; but if he got up, he cried for it again, at least for a
change of suffering. At the end of three months he died. His
stomach, duodenum, and liver were all in the same corrupt state as
his brother's, and more than that, the surface of his body was burnt
away. This, said the doctors; was no dubious sign of poisoning;
although, they added, it sometimes happened that a 'cacochyme'
produced the same effect. Lachaussee was so far from being
suspected, that the councillor, in recognition of the care he had
bestowed on him in his last illness, left him in his will a legacy of
a hundred crowns; moreover, he received a thousand francs from
Sainte-Croix and the marquise.
So great a disaster in one family, however, was not only sad but
alarming. Death knows no hatred: death is deaf and blind, nothing
more, and astonishment was felt at this ruthless destruction of all
who bore one name. Still nobody suspected the true culprits, search
was fruitless, inquiries led nowhere: the marquise put on mourning
for her brothers, Sainte-Croix continued in his path of folly, and
all things went on as before. Meanwhile Sainte-Croix had made the
acquaintance of the Sieur de Saint Laurent, the same man from whom
Penautier had asked for a post without success, and had made friends
with him. Penautier had meanwhile become the heir of his father-in-
law, the Sieur Lesecq, whose death had most unexpectedly occurred; he
had thereby gained a second post in Languedoc and an immense
property: still, he coveted the place of receiver of the clergy.
Chance now once more helped him: a few days after taking over from
Sainte-Croix a man-servant named George, M. de Saint-Laurent fell
sick, and his illness showed symptoms similar to those observed in
the case of the d'Aubrays, father and sons; but it was more rapid,
lasting only twenty-four hours. Like them, M. de Saint-Laurent died
a prey to frightful tortures. The same day an officer from the
sovereign's court came to see him, heard every detail connected with
his friend's death, and when told of the symptoms said before the
servants to Sainfray the notary that it would be necessary to examine
the body. An hour later George disappeared, saying nothing to
anybody, and not even asking for his wages. Suspicions were excited;
but again they remained vague. The autopsy showed a state of things
not precisely to be called peculiar to poisoning cases the
intestines, which the fatal poison had not had time to burn as in the
case of the d'Aubrays, were marked with reddish spots like flea-
bites. In June Penautier obtained the post that had been held by the
Sieur de Saint-Laurent.
But the widow had certain suspicions which were changed into
something like certainty by George's flight. A particular
circumstance aided and almost confirmed her doubts. An abbe who was
a friend of her husband, and knew all about the disappearance of
George, met him some days afterwards in the rue des Masons, near the
Sorbonne. They were both on the same side, and a hay-cart coming
along the street was causing a block. George raised his head and saw
the abbe, knew him as a friend of his late master, stooped under the
cart and crawled to the other side, thus at the risk of being crushed
escaping from the eyes of a man whose appearance recalled his crime
and inspired him with fear of punishment. Madame de Saint-Laurent
preferred a charge against George, but though he was sought for
everywhere, he could never be found. Still the report of these
strange deaths, so sudden and so incomprehensible, was bruited about
Paris, and people began to feel frightened. Sainte-Croix, always in
the gay world, encountered the talk in drawing-rooms, and began to
feel a little uneasy. True, no suspicion pointed as yet in his
direction; but it was as well to take precautions, and Sainte-Croix
began to consider how he could be freed from anxiety. There was a
post in the king's service soon to be vacant, which would cost
100,000 crowns; and although Sainte-Croix had no apparent means, it
was rumoured that he was about to purchase it. He first addressed
himself to Belleguise to treat about this affair with Penautier.
There was some difficulty, however, to be encountered in this
quarter. The sum was a large one, and Penautier no longer required
help; he had already come into all the inheritance he looked for, and
so he tried to throw cold water on the project.
Sainte-Croix thus wrote to Belleguise:
"DEAR FRIEND,--Is it possible that you need any more talking to about
the matter you know of, so important as it is, and, maybe, able to
give us peace and quiet for the rest of our days! I really think the
devil must be in it, or else you simply will not be sensible: do show
your common sense, my good man, and look at it from all points of
view; take it at its very worst, and you still ought to feel bound to
serve me, seeing how I have made everything all right for you: all
our interests are together in this matter. Do help me, I beg of you;
you may feel sure I shall be deeply grateful, and you will never
before have acted so agreeably both for me and for yourself. You
know quite enough about it, for I have not spoken so openly even to
my own brother as I have to you. If you can come this afternoon,
I shall be either at the house or quite near at hand, you know where
I mean, or I will expect you tomorrow morning, or I will come and
find you, according to what you reply.--Always yours with all my
heart."
The house meant by Sainte-Croix was in the rue des Bernardins, and
the place near at hand where he was to wait for Belleguise was the
room he leased from the widow Brunet, in the blind alley out of the
Place Maubert. It was in this room and at the apothecary Glazer's
that Sainte-Croix made his experiments; but in accordance with
poetical justice, the manipulation of the poisons proved fatal to the
workers themselves. The apothecary fell ill and died; Martin was
attacked by fearful sickness, which brought, him to death's door.
Sainte-Croix was unwell, and could not even go out, though he did not
know what was the matter. He had a furnace brought round to his
house from Glazer's, and ill as he was, went on with the experiments.
Sainte-Croix was then seeking to make a poison so subtle that the
very effluvia might be fatal. He had heard of the poisoned napkin
given to the young dauphin, elder brother of Charles VII, to wipe his
hands on during a game of tennis, and knew that the contact had
caused his death; and the still discussed tradition had informed him
of the gloves of Jeanne d'Albret; the secret was lost, but Sainte-
Croix hoped to recover it. And then there happened one of those
strange accidents which seem to be not the hand of chance but a
punishment from Heaven. At the very moment when Sainte-Croix was
bending over his furnace, watching the fatal preparation as it became
hotter and hotter, the glass mask which he wore over his face as a
protection from any poisonous exhalations that might rise up from the
mixture, suddenly dropped off, and Sainte-Croix dropped to the ground
as though felled by a lightning stroke. At supper-time, his wife
finding that he did not come out from his closet where he was shut
in, knocked at the door, and received no answer; knowing that her
husband was wont to busy himself with dark and mysterious matters,
she feared some disaster had occurred. She called her servants, who
broke in the door. Then she found Sainte-Croix stretched out beside
the furnace, the broken glass lying by his side. It was impossible
to deceive the public as to the circumstances of this strange and
sudden death: the servants had seen the corpse, and they talked. The
commissary Picard was ordered to affix the seals, and all the widow
could do was to remove the furnace and the fragments of the glass
mask.
The noise of the event soon spread all over Paris. Sainte-Croix was
extremely well known, and the, news that he was about to purchase a
post in the court had made him known even more widely. Lachaussee
was one of the first to learn of his master's death; and hearing that
a seal had been set upon his room, he hastened to put in an objection
in these terms:
"Objection of Lachaussee, who asserts that for seven years he was in
the service of the deceased; that he had given into his charge, two
years earlier, 100 pistoles and 200 white crowns, which should be
found in a cloth bag under the closet window, and in the same a paper
stating that the said sum belonged to him, together with the transfer
of 300 livres owed to him by the late M. d'Aubray, councillor; the
said transfer made by him at Laserre, together with three receipts
from his master of apprenticeship, 100 livres each: these moneys and
papers he claims."
To Lachaussee the reply was given that he must wait till the day when
the seals were broken, and then if all was as he said, his property
would be returned.
But Lachaussee was not the only person who was agitated about the
death of Sainte-Croix. The, marquise, who was familiar with all the
secrets of this fatal closet, had hurried to the commissary as 2496
soon as she heard of the event, and although it was ten o'clock at
night had demanded to speak with him. But he had replied by his head
clerk, Pierre Frater, that he was in bed; the marquise insisted,
begging them to rouse him up, for she wanted a box that she could not
allow to have opened. The clerk then went up to the Sieur Picard's
bedroom, but came back saying that what the marquise demanded was for
the time being an impossibility, for the commissary was asleep. She
saw that it was idle to insist, and went away, saying that she should
send a man the next morning to fetch the box. In the morning the man
came, offering fifty Louis to the commissary on behalf of the
marquise, if he would give her the box. But he replied that the box
was in the sealed room, that it would have to be opened, and that if
the objects claimed by the marquise were really hers, they would be
safely handed over to her. This reply struck the marquise like a
thunderbolt. There was no time to be lost: hastily she removed from
the rue Neuve-Saint-Paul, where her town house was, to Picpus, her
country place. Thence she posted the same evening to Liege, arriving
the next morning, and retired to a convent.
The seals had been set on the 31st of July 1672, and they were taken
off on the 8th of August following. Just as they set to work a
lawyer charged with full powers of acting for the marquise, appeared
and put in the following statement: "Alexandre Delamarre, lawyer
acting for the Marquise de Brinvilliers, has come forward, and
declares that if in the box claimed by his client there is found a
promise signed by her for the sum of 30,000 livres, it is a paper
taken from her by fraud, against which, in case of her signature
being verified, she intends to lodge an appeal for nullification."
This formality over, they proceeded to open Sainte-Croix's closet:
the key was handed to the commissary Picard by a Carmelite called
Friar Victorin. The commissary opened the door, and entered with the
parties interested, the officers, and the widow, and they began by
setting aside the loose papers, with a view to taking them in order,
one at a time. While they were thus busy, a small roll fell down, on
which these two words were written: "My Confession." All present,
having no reason to suppose Sainte-Croix a bad man, decided that this
paper ought not to be read. The deputy for the attorney general on
being consulted was of this opinion, and the confession of Sainte-
Croix was burnt. This act of conscience performed, they proceeded to
make an inventory. One of the first objects that attracted the
attention of the officers was the box claimed by Madame de
Brinvilliers. Her insistence had provoked curiosity, so they began
with it. Everybody went near to see what was in it, and it was
opened.
We shall let the report speak: in such cases nothing is so effective
or so terrible as the official statement.
"In the closet of Sainte-Croix was found a small box one foot square,
on the top of which lay a half-sheet of paper entitled 'My Will,'
written on one side and containing these words: 'I humbly entreat any
into whose hands this chest may fall to do me the kindness of putting
it into the hands of Madame the Marquise de Brinvilliers, resident in
the rue Neuve-Saint-Paul, seeing that all the contents concern and
belong to her alone, and are of no use to any person in the world
apart from herself: in case of her being already dead before me, the
box and all its contents should be burnt without opening or
disturbing anything. And lest anyone should plead ignorance of the
contents, I swear by the God I worship and by all that is most sacred
that no untruth is here asserted. If anyone should contravene my
wishes that are just and reasonable in this matter, I charge their
conscience therewith in discharging my own in this world and the
next, protesting that such is my last wish.
"'Given at Paris, the 25th of May after noon, 1672. Signed by
Sainte-Croix,'
"And below were written these words: 'There is one packet only
addressed to M. Penautier which should be delivered.'"
It may be easily understood that a disclosure of this kind only
increased the interest of the scene; there was a murmur of curiosity,
and when silence again reigned, the official continued in these
words:
"A packet has been found sealed in eight different places with eight
different seals. On this is written: 'Papers to be burnt in case of
my death, of no consequence to anyone. I humbly beg those into whose
hands they may fall to burn them. I give this as a charge upon their
conscience; all without opening the packet.' In this packet we find
two parcels of sublimate.
"Item, another packet sealed with six different seals, on which is a
similar inscription, in which is found more sublimate, half a pound
in weight.
"Item, another packet sealed with six different seals, on which is a
similar inscription, in which are found three parcels, one containing
half an ounce of sublimate, the second 2 1/4 ozs. of Roman vitriol,
and the third some calcined prepared vitriol. In the box was found a
large square phial, one pint in capacity, full of a clear liquid,
which was looked at by M. Moreau, the doctor; he, however, could not
tell its nature until it was tested.
"Item, another phial, with half a pint of clear liquid with a white
sediment, about which Moreau said the same thing as before.
"Item, a small earthenware pot containing two or three lumps of
prepared opium.
"Item, a folded paper containing two drachms of corrosive sublimate
powdered.
"Next, a little box containing a sort of stone known as infernal
stone.
"Next, a paper containing one ounce of opium.
"Next, a piece of pure antimony weighing three ounces.
"Next, a packet of powder on which was written: 'To check the flow of
blood.' Moreau said that it was quince flower and quince buds dried.
"Item, a pack sealed with six seals, on which was written, 'Papers to
be burnt in case of death.' In this twenty-four letters were found,
said to have been written by the Marquise de Brinvilliers.
"Item, another packet sealed with six seals, on which a similar
inscription was written. In this were twenty-seven pieces of paper
on each of which was written: 'Sundry curious secrets.'
"Item, another packet with six more seals, on which a similar
inscription was written. In this were found seventy-five livres,
addressed to different persons. Besides all these, in the box there
were two bonds, one from the marquise for 30,000, and one from
Penautier for 10,000 francs, their dates corresponding to the time of
the deaths of M. d'Aubray and the Sieur de St. Laurent."
The difference in the amount shows that Sainte-Croix had a tariff,
and that parricide was more expensive than simple assassination.
Thus in his death did Sainte-Croix bequeath the poisons to his
mistress and his friend; not content with his own crimes in the past,
he wished to be their accomplice in the future.
The first business of the officials was to submit the different
substances to analysis, and to experiment with them on animals.
The report follows of Guy Simon, an apothecary, who was charged to
undertake the analysis and the experiments:
"This artificial poison reveals its nature on examination. It is so
disguised that one fails to recognise it, so subtle that it deceives
the scientific, so elusive that it escapes the doctor's eye:
experiments seem to be at fault with this poison, rules useless,
aphorisms ridiculous. The surest experiments are made by the use of
the elements or upon animals. In water, ordinary poison falls by its
own weight. The water is superior, the poison obeys, falls
downwards, and takes the lower place.
"The trial by fire is no less certain: the fire evaporates and
disperses all that is innocent and pure, leaving only acrid and sour
matter which resists its influence. The effect produced by poisons
on animals is still more plain to see: its malignity extends to every
part that it reaches, and all that it touches is vitiated; it burns
and scorches all the inner parts with a strange, irresistible fire.
"The poison employed by Sainte-Croix has been tried in all the ways,
and can defy every experiment. This poison floats in water, it is
the superior, and the water obeys it; it escapes in the trial by
fire, leaving behind only innocent deposits; in animals it is so
skilfully concealed that no one could detect it; all parts of the
animal remain healthy and active; even while it is spreading the
cause of death, this artificial poison leaves behind the marks and
appearance of life. Every sort of experiment has been tried. The
first was to pour out several drops of the liquid found into oil of
tartar and sea water, and nothing was precipitated into the vessels
used; the second was to pour the same liquid into a sanded vessel,
and at the bottom there was found nothing acrid or acid to the
tongue, scarcely any stains; the third experiment was tried upon an
Indian fowl, a pigeon, a dog, and some other animals, which died soon
after. When they were opened, however, nothing was found but a
little coagulated blood in the ventricle of the heart. Another
experiment was giving a white powder to a cat, in a morsel of mutton.
The cat vomited for half an hour, and was found dead the next day,
but when opened no part of it was found to be affected by the poison.
A second trial of the same poison was made upon a pigeon, which soon
died. When opened, nothing peculiar was found except a little
reddish water in the stomach."
These experiments proved that Sainte-Croix was a learned chemist, and
suggested the idea that he did not employ his art for nothing;
everybody recalled the sudden, unexpected deaths that had occurred,
and the bonds from the marquise and from Penautier looked like blood-
money. As one of these two was absent, and the other so powerful and
rich that they dared not arrest him without proofs, attention was now
paid to the objection put in by Lachaussee.
It was said in the objection that Lachaussee had spent seven years in
the service of Sainte-Croix, so he could not have considered the time
he had passed with the d'Aubrays as an interruption to this service.
The bag containing the thousand pistoles and the three bonds for a
hundred livres had been found in the place indicated; thus Lachaussee
had a thorough knowledge of this closet: if he knew the closet, he
would know about the box; if he knew about the box, he could not be
an innocent man. This was enough to induce Madame Mangot de
Villarceaux, the lieutenant's widow, to lodge an accusation against
him, and in consequence a writ was issued against Lachaussee, and he
was arrested.
When this happened, poison was found upon him. The trial came on
before the Chatelet. Lachaussee denied his guilt obstinately. The
judges thinking they had no sufficient proof, ordered the preparatory
question to be applied. Mme. Mangot appealed from a judgment which
would probably save the culprit if he had the strength to resist the
torture and own to nothing;
[Note: There were two kinds of question, one before and one after the
sentence was passed. In the first, an accused person would endure
frightful torture in the hope of saving his life, and so would often
confess nothing. In the second, there was no hope, and therefore it
was not worth while to suffer additional pains.]
so, in virtue of this appeal, a judgment, on March 4th, 1673,
declared that Jean Amelin Lachaussee was convicted of having poisoned
the lieutenant and the councillor; for which he was to be broken
alive on the wheel, having been first subjected to the question both
ordinary and extraordinary, with a view to the discovery of his
accomplices. At the same time Madame de Brinvilliers was condemned
in default of appearance to have her head cut off.
Lachaussee suffered the torture of the boot. This was having each
leg fastened between two planks and drawn together in an iron ring,
after which wedges were driven in between the middle planks; the
ordinary question was with four wedges, the extraordinary with eight.
At the third wedge Lachaussee said he was ready to speak; so the
question was stopped, and he was carried into the choir of the chapel
stretched on a mattress, where, in a weak voice--for he could hardly
speak--he begged for half an hour to recover himself. We give a
verbatim extract from the report of the question and the execution of
the death-sentence:
"Lachaussee, released from the question and laid on the mattress, the
official reporter retired. Half an hour later Lachaussee begged that
he might return, and said that he was guilty; that Sainte-Croix told
him that Madame de Brinvilliers had given him the poison to
administer to her brothers; that he had done it in water and soup,
had put the reddish water in the lieutenant's glass in Paris, and the
clear water in the pie at Villequoy; that Sainte-Croix had promised
to keep him always, and to make him a gift of 100 pistolets; that he
gave him an account of the effect of the poisons, and that Sainte-
Croix had given him some of the waters several times. Sainte-Croix
told him that the marquise knew nothing of his other poisonings, but
Lachaussee thought she did know, because she had often spoken to him
about his poisons; that she wanted to compel him to go away, offering
him money if he would go; that she had asked him for the box and its
contents; that if Sainte-Croix had been able to put anyone into the
service of Madame d'Aubray, the lieutenant's widow, he would possibly
have had her poisoned also; for he had a fancy for her daughter."
This declaration, which left no room for doubt, led to the judgment
that came next, thus described in the Parliamentary register: "Report
of the question and execution on the 24th of March 1673, containing
the declarations and confessions of Jean Amelin Lachaussee; the court
has ordered that the persons mentioned, Belleguise, Martin, Poitevin,
Olivier, Veron pere, the wife of Quesdon the wigmaker, be summoned to
appear before the court to be interrogated and heard concerning
matters arising from the present inquiry, and orders that the decree
of arrest against Lapierre and summons against Penautier decreed by
the criminal lieutenant shall be carried out. In Parliament, 27th
March 1673." In virtue of this judgment, Penautier, Martin, and
Belleguise were interrogated on the 2lst, 22nd, and 24th of April.
On the 26th of July, Penautier was discharged; fuller information was
desired concerning Belleguise, and the arrest of Martin was ordered.
On the 24th of March, Lachaussee had been broken on the wheel. As to
Exili, the beginner of it all, he had disappeared like Mephistopheles
after Faust's end, and nothing was heard of him. Towards the end of
the year Martin was released for want of sufficient evidence. But
the Marquise de Brinvilliers remained at Liege, and although she was
shut up in a convent she had by no means abandoned one, at any rate,
of the most worldly pleasures. She had soon found consolation for
the death of Sainte-Croix, whom, all the same, she had loved so much
as to be willing to kill herself for his sake. But she had adopted a
new lover, Theria by name. About this man it has been impossible to
get any information, except that his name was several times mentioned
during the trial. Thus, all the accusations had, one by one, fallen
upon her, and it was resolved to seek her out in the retreat where
she was supposed to be safe. The mission was difficult and very
delicate. Desgrais, one of the cleverest of the officials, offered
to undertake it. He was a handsome man, thirty-six years old or
thereabouts: nothing in his looks betrayed his connection with the
police; he wore any kind of dress with equal ease and grace, and was
familiar with every grade in the social scale, disguising himself as
a wretched tramp or a noble lord. He was just the right man, so his
offer was accepted.
He started accordingly for Liege, escorted by several archers, and,
fortified by a letter from the king addressed to the Sixty of that
town, wherein Louis xiv demanded the guilty woman to be given up for
punishment. After examining the letter, which Desgrais had taken
pains to procure, the council authorised the extradition of the
marquise.
This was much, but it was not all. The marquise, as we know, had
taken refuge in a convent, where Desgrais dared not arrest her by
force, for two reasons: first, because she might get information
beforehand, and hide herself in one of the cloister retreats whose
secret is known only to the superior; secondly, because Liege was so
religious a town that the event would produce a great sensation: the
act might be looked upon as a sacrilege, and might bring about a
popular rising, during which the marquise might possibly contrive to
escape. So Desgrais paid a visit to his wardrobe, and feeling that
an abbe's dress would best free him from suspicion, he appeared at
the doors of the convent in the guise of a fellow-countryman just
returned from Rome, unwilling to pass through Liege without
presenting his compliments to the lovely and unfortunate marquise.
Desgrais had just the manner of the younger son of a great house: he
was as flattering as a courtier, as enterprising as a musketeer. In
this first visit he made himself attractive by his wit and his
audacity, so much so that more easily than he had dared to hope, he
got leave to pay a second call. The second visit was not long
delayed: Desgrais presented himself the very next day. Such
eagerness was flattering to the marquise, so Desgrais was received
even better than the night before. She, a woman of rank and fashion,
for more than a year had been robbed of all intercourse with people
of a certain set, so with Desgrais the marquise resumed her Parisian
manner. Unhappily the charming abbe was to leave Liege in a few
days; and on that account he became all the more pressing, and a
third visit, to take place next day, was formally arranged. Desgrais
was punctual: the marquise was impatiently waiting him; but by a
conjunction of circumstances that Desgrais had no doubt arranged
beforehand, the amorous meeting was disturbed two or three times just
as they were getting more intimate and least wanting to be observed.
Desgrais complained of these tiresome checks; besides, the marquise
and he too would be compromised: he owed concealment to his cloth: He
begged her to grant him a rendezvous outside the town, in some
deserted walk, where there would be no fear of their being recognised
or followed: the marquise hesitated no longer than would serve to put
a price on the favour she was granting, and the rendezvous was fixed
for the same evening.
The evening came: both waited with the same impatience, but with very
different hopes. The marquise found Desgrais at the appointed spot:
he gave her his arm then holding her hand in his own, he gave a sign,
the archers appeared, the lover threw off his mask, Desgrais was
confessed, and the marquise was his prisoner. Desgrais left her in
the hands of his men, and hastily made his way to the convent. Then,
and not before, he produced his order from the Sixty, by means of
which he opened the marquise's room. Under her bed he found a box,
which he seized and sealed; then he went back to her, and gave the
order to start.
When the marquise saw the box in the hands of Desgrais, she at first
appeared stunned; quickly recovering, she claimed a paper inside it
which contained her confession. Desgrais refused, and as he turned
round for the carriage to come forward, she tried to choke herself by
swallowing a pin. One of the archers, called Claude, Rolla,
perceiving her intention, contrived to get the pin out of her mouth.
After this, Desgrais commanded that she should be doubly watched.
They stopped for supper. An archer called Antoine Barbier was
present at the meal, and watched so that no knife or fork should be
put on the table, or any instrument with which she could wound or
kill herself. The marquise, as she put her glass to her mouth as
though to drink, broke a little bit off with her teeth; but the
archer saw it in time, and forced her to put it out on her plate.
Then she promised him, if he would save her, that she would make his
fortune. He asked what he would have to do for that. She proposed
that he should cut Desgrais' throat; but he refused, saying that he
was at her service in any other way. So she asked him for pen and
paper, and wrote this letter:
"DEAR THERIA,--I am in the hands of Desgrais, who is taking me by
road from Liege to Paris. Come quickly and save me."
Antoine Barbier took the letter, promising to deliver it at the right
address; but he gave it to Desgrais instead. The next day, finding
that this letter had not been pressing enough, she wrote him another,
saying that the escort was only eight men, who could be easily
overcome by four or five determined assailants, and she counted on
him to strike this bald stroke. But, uneasy when she got no answer
and no result from her letters, she despatched a third missive to
Theria. In this she implored him by his own salvation, if he were
not strong enough to attack her escort and save her, at least to kill
two of the four horses by which she was conveyed, and to profit by
the moment of confusion to seize the chest and throw it into the
fire; otherwise, she declared, she was lost. Though Theria received
none of these letters, which were one by one handed over by Barbier
to Desgrais, he all the same did go to Maestricht, where the marquise
was to pass, of his own accord. There he tried to bribe the archers,
offering much as 10,000 livres, but they were incorruptible. At
Rocroy the cortege met M. Palluau, the councillor, whom the
Parliament had sent after the prisoner, that he might put questions
to her at a time when she least expected them, and so would not have
prepared her answers. Desgrais told him all that had passed, and
specially called his attention to the famous box, the object of so
much anxiety and so many eager instructions. M. de Palluau opened
it, and found among other things a paper headed "My Confession."
This confession was a proof that the guilty feel great need of
discovering their crimes either to mankind or to a merciful God.
Sainte-Croix, we know, had made a confession that was burnt, and here
was the marquise equally imprudent. The confession contained seven
articles, and began thus, "I confess to God, and to you, my father,"
and was a complete avowal, of all the crimes she had committed.
In the first article she accused herself of incendiarism;
In the second, of having ceased to be a virgin at seven years of age;
In the third of having poisoned her father;
In the fourth, of having poisoned her two brothers;
In the fifth, that she had tried to poison her sister, a Carmelite
nun.
The two other articles were concerned with the description of strange
and unnatural sins. In this woman there was something of Locusta and
something of Messalina as well: antiquity could go no further.
M. de Palluau, fortified by his knowledge of this important document,
began his examination forthwith. We give it verbatim, rejoicing that
we may substitute an official report for our own narrative.
Asked why she fled to Liege, she replied that she left France on
account of some business with her sister-in-law.
Asked if she had any knowledge of the papers found in the box, she
replied that in the box there were several family papers, and among
them a general confession which she desired to make; when she wrote
it, however, her mind was disordered; she knew not what she had said
or done, being distraught at the time, in a foreign country, deserted
by her relatives, forced to borrow every penny.
Asked as to the first article, what house it was she had burnt, she
replied that she had not burnt anything, but when she wrote that she
was out of her senses.
Asked about the six other articles she replied that she had no
recollection of them.
Asked if she had not poisoned her father and brothers, she replied
that she knew nothing at all about it.
Asked if it were not Lachaussee who poisoned her brothers, she
replied that she knew nothing about it.
Asked if she did not know that her sister could not live long, having
been poisoned, she said that she expected her sister to die, because
she suffered in the same way as her brothers; that she had lost all
memory of the time when she wrote this confession; admitted that she
left France by the advice of her relations.
Asked why her relations had advised her thus, she replied that it was
in connection with her brothers' affairs; admitted seeing Sainte-
Croix since his release from the Bastille.
Asked if Sainte-Croix had not persuaded her to get rid of her father,
she replied that she could not remember; neither did she remember if
Sainte-Croix had given her powders or other drugs, nor if Sainte-
Croix had told her he knew how to make her rich.
Eight letters having been produced, asked to whom she had written
them, she replied that she did not remember.
Asked why she had promised to pay 30,000 livres to Sainte-Croix, she
replied that she intended to entrust this sum to his care, so that
she might make use of it when she wanted it, believing him to be her
friend; she had not wished this to be known, by reason of her
creditors; that she had an acknowledgment from Sainte-Croix, but had
lost it in her travels; that her husband knew nothing about it.
Asked if the promise was made before or after the death of her
brothers, she replied that she could not remember, and it made no
difference.
Asked if she knew an apothecary called Glazer, she replied that she
had consulted him three times about inflammation.
Asked why she wrote to Theria to get hold of the box, she replied
that she did not understand.
Asked why, in writing to Theria, she had said she was lost unless he
got hold of the box, she replied that she could not remember.
Asked if she had seen during the journey with her father the first
symptoms of his malady, she replied that she had not noticed that her
father was ill on the journey, either going or coming back in 1666.
Asked if she had not done business with Penautier, she replied that
Penautier owed her 30,000 livres.
Asked how this was, she replied that she and her husband had lent
Penautier 10,000 crowns, that he had paid it back, and since then
they had had no dealings with him.
The marquise took refuge, we see, in a complete system of denial:
arrived in Paris, and confined in the Conciergerie, she did the same;
but soon other terrible charges were added, which still further
overwhelmed her.
The sergeant Cluet deposed: that, observing a lackey to M. d'Aubray,
the councillor, to be the man Lachaussee, whom he had seen in the
service of Sainte-Croix, he said to the marquise that if her brother
knew that Lachaussee had been with Sainte-Croix he would not like it,
but that Madame de Brinvilliers exclaimed, "Dear me, don't tell my
brothers; they would give him a thrashing, no doubt, and he may just
as well get his wages as any body else." He said nothing to the
d'Aubrays, though he saw Lachaussee paying daily visits to Sainte-
Croix and to the marquise, who was worrying Sainte-Croix to let her
have her box, and wanted her bill for two or three thousand pistoles.
Other wise she would have had him assassinated. She often said that
she was very anxious that no one should see the contents of the box;
that it was a very important matter, but only concerned herself.
After the box was opened, the witness added, he had told the
marquise, that the commissary Picard said to Lachaussee that there
were strange things in it; but the lady blushed, and changed the
subject. He asked her if she were not an accomplice. She said,
"What! I?" but then muttered to herself: "Lachaussee ought to be
sent off to Picardy." The witness repeated that she had been after
Sainte-Croix along time about the box, and if she had got it she
would have had his throat cut. The witness further said that when he
told Briancourt that Lachaussee was taken and would doubtless confess
all, Briancourt, speaking of the marquise, remarked, "She is a lost
woman." That d'Aubray's daughter had called Briancourt a rogue, but
Briancourt had replied that she little knew what obligations she was
under to him; that they had wanted to poison both her and the
lieutenant's widow, and he alone had hindered it. He had heard from
Briancourt that the marquise had often said that there are means to
get rid of people one dislikes, and they can easily be put an end to
in a bowl of soup.
The girl Edme Huet, a woman of Brescia, deposed that Sainte-Croix
went to see the marquise every day, and that in a box belonging to
that lady she had seen two little packets containing sublimate in
powder and in paste: she recognised these, because she was an
apothecary's daughter. She added that one day Madame de
Brinvilliers, after a dinner party, in a merry mood, said, showing
her a little box, "Here is vengeance on one's enemies: this box is
small, but holds plenty of successsions!" That she gave back the box
into her hands, but soon changing from her sprightly mood, she cried,
"Good heavens, what have I said? Tell nobody." That Lambert, clerk
at the palace, told her he had brought the packets to Madame from
Sainte-Croix; that Lachaussee often went to see her; and that she
herself, not being paid ten pistoles which the marquise owed her,
went to complain to Sainte-Croix, threatening to tell the lieutenant
what she had seen; and accordingly the ten pistoles were paid;
further, that the marquise and Sainte-Croix always kept poison about
them, to make use of, in case of being arrested.
Laurent Perrette, living with Glazer, said that he had often seen a
lady call on his mistress with Sainte-Croix; that the footman told
him she was the Marquise de Brinvilliers; that he would wager his
head on it that they came to Glazer's to make poison; that when they
came they used to leave their carriage at the Foire Saint-Germain.
Marie de Villeray, maid to the marquise, deposed that after the death
of M. d'Aubray the councillor, Lachaussee came to see the lady and
spoke with her in private; that Briancourt said she had caused the
death of a worthy men; that Briancourt every day took some electuary
for fear of being poisoned, and it was no doubt due to this
precaution that he was still alive; but he feared he would be
stabbed, because she had told him the secret about the poisoning;
that d'Aubray's daughter had to be warned; and that there was a
similar design against the tutor of M. de Brinvillier's children.
Marie de Villeray added that two days after the death of the
councillor, when Lachaussee was in Madame's bedroom, Couste, the late
lieutenant's secretary, was announced, and Lachaussee had to be
hidden in the alcove by the bed. Lachaussee brought the marquise a
letter from Sainte-Croix.
Francois Desgrais, officer, deposed that when he was given the king's
orders he arrested the marquise at Liege; that he found under her bed
a box which he sealed; that the lady had demanded a paper which was
in it, containing her confession, but he refused it; that on the road
to Paris the marquise had told him that she believed it was Glazer
who made the poisons for Sainte-Croix; that Sainte-Croix, who had
made a rendezvous with her one day at the cross Saint-Honore, there
showed her four little bottles, saying, "See what Glazer has sent
me." She asked him for one, but Sainte-Croix said he would rather
die than give it up. He added that the archer Antoine Barbier had
given him three letters written by the marquise to Theria; that in
the first she had told him to come at once and snatch her from the
hands of the soldiers; that in the second she said that the escort
was only composed of eight persons, who could he worsted by five men;
that in the third she said that if he could not save her from the men
who were taking her away, he should at least approach the commissary,
and killing his valet's horse and two other horses in his carriage,
then take the box, and burn it; otherwise she was lost.
Laviolette, an archer, deposed that on the evening of the arrest.
the marquise had a long pin and tried to put it in her mouth; that he
stopped her, and told her that she was very wicked; that he perceived
that people said the truth and that she had poisoned all her family;
to which she replied, that if she had, it was only through following
bad advice, and that one could not always be good.
Antoine Barbier, an archer, said that the marquise at table took up a
glass as though to drink, and tried to swallow a piece of it; that he
prevented this, and she promised to make his fortune if only he would
save her; that she wrote several letters to Theria; that during the
whole journey she tried all she could to swallow pins, bits of glass,
and earth; that she had proposed that he should cut Desgrais' throat,
and kill the commissary's valet; that she had bidden him get the box
and burn it, and bring a lighted torch to burn everything; that she
had written to Penautier from the Conciergerie; that she gave him,
the letter, and he pretended to deliver it.
Finally, Francoise Roussel deposed that she had been in the service
of the marquise, and the lady had one day given her some preserved
gooseberries; that she had eaten some on the point of her knife, and
at once felt ill. She also gave her a slice of mutton, rather wet,
which she ate, afterwards suffering great pain in the stomach,
feeling as though she had been pricked in the heart, and for three
years had felt the same, believing herself poisoned.
It was difficult to continue a system of absolute denial in face of
proofs like these. The marquise persisted, all the same, that she
was in no way guilty; and Maitre Nivelle, one of the best lawyers of
the period, consented to defend her cause.
He combated one charge after another, in a remarkably clever way,
owning to the adulterous connection of the marquise with Sainte-
Croix, but denying her participation in the murders of the d'Aubrays,
father and sons: these he ascribed entirely to the vengeance desired
by Sainte-Croix. As to the confession, the strongest and, he
maintained, the only evidence against Madame de Brinvilliers, he
attacked its validity by bringing forward certain similar cases,
where the evidence supplied by the accused against themselves had not
been admitted by reason of the legal action: 'Non auditur perire
volens'. He cited three instances, and as they are themselves
interesting, we copy them verbatim from his notes.
FIRST CASE
Dominicus Soto, a very famous canonist and theologian, confessor to
Charles V, present at the first meetings of the Council of Trent
under Paul III, propounds a question about a man who had lost a paper
on which he had written down his sins. It happened that this paper
fell into the hands of an ecclesiastical judge, who wished to put in
information against the writer on the strength of this document. Now
this judge was justly punished by his superior, because confession is
so sacred that even that which is destined to constitute the
confession should be wrapped in eternal silence. In accordance with
this precedent, the following judgment, reported in the 'Traite des
Confesseurs', was given by Roderic Acugno. A Catalonian, native of
Barcelona, who was condemned to death for homicide and owned his
guilt, refused to confess when the hour of punishment arrived.
However strongly pressed, he resisted, and so violently, giving no
reason, that all were persuaded that his mind was unhinged by the
fear of death. Saint-Thomas of Villeneuve, Archbishop of Valencia,
heard of his obstinacy. Valencia was the place where his sentence
was given. The worthy prelate was so charitable as to try to
persuade the criminal to make his confession, so as not to lose his
soul as well as his body. Great was his surprise, when he asked the
reason of the refusal, to hear the doomed man declare that he hated
confessors, because he had been condemned through the treachery of
his own priest, who was the only person who knew about the murder.
In confession he had admitted his crime and said where the body was
buried, and all about it; his confessor had revealed it all, and he
could not deny it, and so he had been condemned. He had only just
learned, what he did not know at the time he confessed, that his
confessor was the brother of the man he had killed, and that the
desire for vengeance had prompted the bad priest to betray his
confession. Saint-Thomas, hearing this, thought that this incident
was of more importance than the trial, which concerned the life of
only one person, whereas the honour of religion was at stake, with
consequences infinitely more important. He felt he must verify this
statement, and summoned the confessor. When he had admitted the
breach of faith, the judges were obliged to revoke their sentence and
pardon the criminal, much to the gratification of the public mind.
The confessor was adjudged a very severe penance, which Saint-Thomas
modified because of his prompt avowal of his fault, and still more
because he had given an opportunity for the public exhibition of that
reverence which judges themselves are bound to pay to confessions.
SECOND CASE
In 1579 an innkeeper at Toulouse killed with his own hand, unknown to
the inmates of his house, a stranger who had come to lodge with him,
and buried him secretly in the cellar. The wretch then suffered from
remorse, and confessed the crime with all its circumstances, telling
his confessor where the body was buried. The relations of the dead
man, after making all possible search to get news of him, at last
proclaimed through the town a large reward to be given to anyone who
would discover what had happened to him. The confessor, tempted by
this bait, secretly gave word that they had only to search in the
innkeeper's cellar and they would find the corpse. And they found it
in the place indicated. The innkeeper was thrown into prison, was
tortured, and confessed his crime. But afterwards he always
maintained that his confessor was the only person who could have
betrayed him. Then the Parliament, indignant with such means of
finding out the truth, declared him innocent, failing other proof
than what came through his confessor. The confessor was himself
condemned to be hanged, and his body was burnt. So fully did the
tribunal in its wisdom recognise the importance of securing the
sanctity of a sacrament that is indispensable to salvation.
THIRD CASE
An Armenian woman had inspired a violent passion in a young Turkish
gentleman, but her prudence was long an obstacle to her lover's
desires. At last he went beyond all bounds, and threatened to kill
both her and her husband if she refused to gratify him. Frightened
by this threat, which she knew too well he would carry out, she
feigned consent, and gave the Turk a rendezvous at her house at an
hour when she said her husband would be absent; but by arrangement
the husband arrived, and although the Turk was armed with a sabre and
a pair of pistols, it so befell that they were fortunate enough to
kill their enemy, whom they buried under their dwelling unknown to
all the world. But some days after the event they went to confess to
a priest of their nation, and revealed every detail of the tragic
story. This unworthy minister of the Lord supposed that in a
Mahommedan country, where the laws of the priesthood and the
functions of a confessor are either unknown or disapproved, no
examination would be made into the source of his information, and
that his evidence would have the same weight as any other accuser's.
So he resolved to make a profit and gratify his own avarice. Several
times he visited the husband and wife, always borrowing considerable
sums, and threatening to reveal their crime if they refused him. The
first few times the poor creatures gave in to his exactions; but the
moment came at last when, robbed of all their fortune, they were
obliged to refuse the sum he demanded. Faithful to his threat, the
priest, with a view to more reward, at once denounced them to the
dead man's father. He, who had adored his son, went to the vizier,
told him he had identified the murderers through their confessor, and
asked for justice. But this denunciation had by no means the desired
effect. The vizier, on the contrary, felt deep pity for the wretched
Armenians, and indignation against the priest who had betrayed them.
He put the accuser into a room which adjoined the court, and sent for
the Armenian bishop to ask what confession really was, and what
punishment was deserved by a priest who betrayed it, and what was the
fate of those whose crimes were made known in this fashion. The
bishop replied that the secrets of confession are inviolable, that
Christians burn the priest who reveals them, and absolve those whom
he accuses, because the avowal made by the guilty to the priest is
proscribed by the Christian religion, on pain of eternal damnation.
The vizier, satisfied with the answer, took the bishop into another
room, and summoned the accused to declare all the circumstances: the
poor wretches, half dead, fell at the vizier's feet. The woman
spoke, explaining that the necessity of defending life and honour had
driven them to take up arms to kill their enemy. She added that God
alone had witnessed their crime, and it would still be unknown had
not the law of the same God compelled them to confide it to the ear
of one of His ministers for their forgiveness. Now the priest's
insatiable avarice had ruined them first and then denounced them.
The vizier made them go into a third room, and ordered the
treacherous priest to be confronted with the bishop, making him again
rehearse the penalties incurred by those who betray confessions.
Then, applying this to the guilty priest, he condemned him to be
burnt alive in a public place;--in anticipation, said he, of burning
in hell, where he would assuredly receive the punishment of his
infidelity and crimes. The sentence was executed without delay.
In spite of the effect which the advocate intended to produce by
these three cases, either the judges rejected them, or perhaps they
thought the other evidence without the confession was enough, and it
was soon clear to everyone, by the way the trial went forward, that
the marquise would be condemned. Indeed, before sentence was
pronounced, on the morning of July 16th, 1676, she saw M. Pirot,
doctor of the Sorbonne, come into her prison, sent by the chief
president. This worthy magistrate, foreseeing the issue, and feeling
that one so guilty should not be left till the last moment, had sent
the good priest. The latter, although he had objected that the
Conciergerie had its own two chaplains, and added that he was too
feeble to undertake such a task, being unable even to see another man
bled without feeling ill, accepted the painful mission, the president
having so strongly urged it, on the ground that in this case he
needed a man who could be entirely trusted. The president, in fact,
declared that, accustomed as he was to dealing with criminals, the
strength of the marquise amazed him. The day before he summoned M.
Pirot, he had worked at the trial from morning to night, and for
thirteen hours the accused had been confronted with Briancourt, one
of the chief witnesses against her. On that very day, there had
been five hours more, and she had borne it all, showing as much
respect towards her judges as haughtiness towards the witness,
reproaching him as a miserable valet, given to drink, and protesting
that as he had been dismissed for his misdemeanours, his testimony
against her ought to go for nothing. So the chief president felt no
hope of breaking her inflexible spirit, except by the agency of a
minister of religion; for it was not enough to put her to death, the
poisons must perish with her, or else society would gain nothing.
The doctor Pirot came to the marquise with a letter from her sister,
who, as we know, was a nun bearing the name of Sister Marie at the
convent Saint-Jacques. Her letter exhorted the marquise, in the most
touching and affectionate terms, to place her confidence in the good
priest, and look upon him not only as a helper but as a friend.
When M. Pirot came before the marquise, she had just left the dock,
where she had been for three hours without confessing anything, or
seeming in the least touched by what the president said, though he,
after acting the part of judge, addressed her simply as a Christian,
and showing her what her deplorable position was, appearing now for
the last time before men, and destined so soon to appear before God,
spoke to her such moving words that he broke down himself, and the
oldest and most obdurate judges present wept when they heard him.
When the marquise perceived the doctor, suspecting that her trial was
leading her to death, she approached him, saying:
"You have come, sir, because----"
But Father Chavigny, who was with M. Pirot; interrupted her, saying:
"Madame, we will begin with a prayer."
They all fell on their knees invoking the Holy Spirit; then the
marquise asked them to add a prayer to the Virgin, and, this prayer
finished, she went up to the doctor, and, beginning afresh, said:
"Sir, no doubt the president has sent you to give me consolation:
with you I am to pass the little life I have left. I have long been
eager to see you."
"Madame," the doctor replied, "I come to render you any spiritual
office that I can; I only wish it were on another occasion."
"We must have resolution, sir," said she, smiling, "for all things."
Then turning to Father Chavigny, she said:
"My father, I am very grateful to you for bringing the doctor here,
and for all the other visits you have been willing to pay me. Pray
to God for me, I entreat you; henceforth I shall speak with no one
but the doctor, for with him I must speak of things that can only be
discussed tete-a-tete. Farewell, then, my father; God will reward
you for the attention you have been willing to bestow upon me."
With these words the father retired, leaving the marquise alone with
the doctor and the two men and one woman always in attendance on her.
They were in a large room in the Montgomery tower extending,
throughout its whole length. There was at the end of the room a bed
with grey curtains for the lady, and a folding-bed for the custodian.
It is said to have been the same room where the poet Theophile was
once shut up, and near the door there were still verses in his well-
known style written by his hand.
As soon as the two men and the woman saw for what the doctor had
come, they retired to the end of the room, leaving the marquise free
to ask for and receive the consolations brought her by the man of
God. Then the two sat at a table side by side. The marquise thought
she was already condemned, and began to speak on that assumption; but
the doctor told her that sentence was not yet given, and he did not
know precisely when it would be, still less what it would be; but at
these words the marquise interrupted him.
"Sir," she said, "I am not troubled about the future. If my sentence
is not given yet, it soon will be. I expect the news this morning,
and I know it will be death: the only grace I look for from the
president is a delay between the sentence and its execution; for if I
were executed to-day I should have very little time to prepare, and I
feel I have need for more."
The doctor did not expect such words, so he was overjoyed to learn
what she felt. In addition to what the president had said, he had
heard from Father Chavigny that he had told her the Sunday before
that it was very unlikely she would escape death, and indeed, so far
as one could judge by reports in the town, it was a foregone
conclusion. When he said so, at first she had appeared stunned, and
said with an air of great terror, "Father, must I die?" And when he
tried to speak words of consolation, she had risen and shaken her
head, proudly replying--
"No, no, father; there is no need to encourage me. I will play my
part, and that at once: I shall know how to die like a woman of
spirit."
Then the father had told her that we cannot prepare for death so
quickly and so easily; and that we have to be in readiness for a long
time, not to be taken by surprise; and she had replied that she
needed but a quarter of an hour to confess in, and one moment to die.
So the doctor was very glad to find that between Sunday and Thursday
her feelings had changed so much.
"Yes," said she, "the more I reflect the more I feel that one day
would not be enough to prepare myself for God's tribunal, to be
judged by Him after men have judged me."
"Madame," replied the doctor, "I do not know what or when your
sentence will be; but should it be death, and given to-day, I may
venture to promise you that it will not be carried out before to-
morrow. But although death is as yet uncertain, I think it well that
you should be prepared for any event."
"Oh, my death is quite certain," said she, "and I must not give way
to useless hopes. I must repose in you the great secrets of my whole
life; but, father, before this opening of my heart, let me hear from
your lips the opinion you have formed of me, and what you think in my
present state I ought to do."
"You perceive my plan," said the doctor, "and you anticipate what I
was about to say. Before entering into the secrets of your
conscience, before opening the discussion of your affairs with God, I
am ready, madame, to give you certain definite rules. I do not yet
know whether you are guilty at all, and I suspend my judgment as to
all the crimes you are accused of, since of them I can learn nothing
except through your confession. Thus it is my duty still to doubt
your guilt. But I cannot be ignorant of what you are accused of:
this is a public matter, and has reached my ears; for, as you may
imagine, madame, your affairs have made a great stir, and there are
few people who know nothing about them."
"Yes," she said, smiling, "I know there has been a great deal of
talk, and I am in every man's mouth."
"Then," replied the doctor, "the crime you are accused of is
poisoning. If you are guilty, as is believed, you cannot hope that
God will pardon you unless you make known to your judges what the
poison is, what is its composition and what its antidote, also the
names of your accomplices. Madame, we must lay hands on all these
evil-doers without exception; for if you spared them, they would be
able to make use of your poison, and you would then be guilty of all
the murders committed by them after your death, because you did not
give them over to the judges during your life; thus one might say you
survive yourself, for your crime survives you. You know, madame,
that a sin in the moment of death is never pardoned, and that to get
remission for your crimes, if crimes you have, they must die when you
die: for if you slay them not, be very sure they will slay you."
"Yes, I am sure of that," replied the marquise, after a moment of
silent thought; "and though I will not admit that I am guilty, I
promise, if I am guilty, to weigh your words. But one question, sir,
and pray take heed that an answer is necessary. Is there not crime
in this world that is beyond pardon? Are not some people guilty of
sins so terrible and so numerous that the Church dares not pardon
them, and if God, in His justice, takes account of them, He cannot
for all His mercy pardon them? See, I begin with this question,
because, if I am to have no hope, it is needless for me to confess."
"I wish to think, madame," replied the doctor, in spite of himself
half frightened at the marquise, "that this your first question is
only put by way of a general thesis, and has nothing to do with your
own state. I shall answer the question without any personal
application. No, madame, in this life there are no unpardonable
sinners, terrible and numerous howsoever their sins may be. This is
an article of faith, and without holding it you could not die a good
Catholic. Some doctors, it is true, have before now maintained the
contrary, but they have been condemned as heretics. Only despair and
final impenitence are unpardonable, and they are not sins of our life
but in our death."
"Sir," replied the marquise, "God has given me grace to be convinced
by what you say, and I believe He will pardon all sins--that He has
often exercised this power. Now all my trouble is that He may not
deign to grant all His goodness to one so wretched as I am, a
creature so unworthy of the favours already bestowed on her."
The doctor reassured her as best he could, and began to examine her
attentively as they conversed together. "She was," he said, "a woman
naturally courageous and fearless; naturally gentle and good; not
easily excited; clever and penetrating, seeing things very clearly in
her mind, and expressing herself well and in few but careful words;
easily finding a way out of a difficulty, and choosing her line of
conduct in the most embarrassing circumstances; light-minded and
fickle; unstable, paying no attention if the same thing were said
several times over. For this reason," continued the doctor, "I was
obliged to alter what I had to say from time to time, keeping her but
a short time to one subject, to which, however, I would return later,
giving the matter a new appearance and disguising it a little. She
spoke little and well, with no sign of learning and no affectation,
always, mistress of herself, always composed and saying just what she
intended to say. No one would have supposed from her face or from
her conversation that she was so wicked as she must have been,
judging by her public avowal of the parricide. It is surprising,
therefore--and one must bow down before the judgment of God when He
leaves mankind to himself--that a mind evidently of some grandeur,
professing fearlessness in the most untoward and unexpected events,
an immovable firmness and a resolution to await and to endure death
if so it must be, should yet be so criminal as she was proved to be
by the parricide to which she confessed before her judges. She had
nothing in her face that would indicate such evil. She had very
abundant chestnut hair, a rounded, well-shaped face, blue eyes very
pretty and gentle, extraordinarily white skin, good nose, and no
disagreeable feature. Still, there was nothing unusually attractive
in the face: already she was a little wrinkled, and looked older than
her age. Something made me ask at our first interview how old she
was. 'Monsieur,' she said, 'if I were to live till Sainte-
Madeleine's day I should be forty-six. On her day I came into the
world, and I bear her name. I was christened Marie-Madeleine. But
near to the day as we now are, I shall not live so long: I must end
to-day, or at latest to-morrow, and it will be a favour to give me
the one day. For this kindness I rely on your word.' Anyone would
have thought she was quite forty-eight. Though her face as a rule
looked so gentle, whenever an unhappy thought crossed her mind she
showed it by a contortion that frightened one at first, and from time
to time I saw her face twitching with anger, scorn, or ill-will.
I forgot to say that she was very little and thin. Such is, roughly
given, a description of her body and mind, which I very soon came to
know, taking pains from the first to observe her, so as to lose no
time in acting on what I discovered."
As she was giving a first brief sketch of her life to her confessor,
the marquise remembered that he had not yet said mass, and reminded
him herself that it was time to do so, pointing out to him the chapel
of the Conciergerie. She begged him to say a mass for her and in
honour of Our Lady, so that she might gain the intercession of the
Virgin at the throne of God. The Virgin she had always taken for her
patron saint, and in the midst of her crimes and disorderly life had
never ceased in her peculiar devotion. As she could not go with the
priest, she promised to be with him at least in the spirit. He left
her at half-past ten in the morning, and after four hours spent alone
together, she had been induced by his piety and gentleness to make
confessions that could not be wrung from her by the threats of the
judges or the fear of the question. The holy and devout priest said
his mass, praying the Lord's help for confessor and penitent alike.
After mass, as he returned, he learned from a librarian called Seney,
at the porter's lodge, as he was taking a glass of wine, that
judgment had been given, and that Madame de Brinvilliers was to have
her hand cut off. This severity--as a fact, there was a mitigation
of the sentence--made him feel yet more interest in his penitent, and
he hastened back to her side.
As soon as she saw the door open, she advanced calmly towards him,
and asked if he had truly prayed for her; and when he assured her of
this, she said, "Father, shall I have the consolation of receiving
the viaticum before I die?"
"Madame," replied the doctor, "if you are condemned to death, you
must die without that sacrament, and I should be deceiving you if I
let you hope for it. We have heard of the death of the constable of
Saint-Paul without his obtaining this grace, in spite of all his
entreaties. He was executed in sight of the towers of Notre-Dame.
He offered his own prayer, as you may offer yours, if you suffer the
same fate. But that is all: God, in His goodness, allows it to
suffice."
"But," replied the marquise, "I believe M. de Cinq-Mars and M. de
Thou communicated before their death."
"I think not, madame," said the doctor; "for it is not so said in
the pages of Montresor or any other book that describes their
execution."
"But M. de Montmorency?" said she.
"But M. de Marillac?" replied the doctor.
In truth, if the favour had been granted to the first, it had been
refused to the second, and the marquise was specially struck thereby,
for M. de Marillac was of her own family, and she was very proud of
the connection. No doubt she was unaware that M. de Rohan had
received the sacrament at the midnight mass said for the salvation of
his soul by Father Bourdaloue, for she said nothing about it, and
hearing the doctor's answer, only sighed.
"Besides," he continued, "in recalling examples of the kind, madame,
you must not build upon them, please: they are extraordinary cases,
not the rule. You must expect no privilege; in your case the
ordinary laws will be carried out, and your fate will not differ from
the fate of other condemned persons. How would it have been had you
lived and died before the reign of Charles VI? Up to the reign of
this prince, the guilty died without confession, and it was only by
this king's orders that there was a relaxation of this severity.
Besides, communion is not absolutely necessary to salvation, and one
may communicate spiritually in reading the word, which is like the
body; in uniting oneself with the Church, which is the mystical
substance of Christ; and in suffering for Him and with Him, this last
communion of agony that is your portion, madame, and is the most
perfect communion of all. If you heartily detest your crime and love
God with all your soul, if you have faith and charity, your death is
a martyrdom and a new baptism."
"Alas, my God," replied the marquise, "after what you tell me, now
that I know the executioner's hand was necessary to my salvation,
what should I have become had I died at Liege? Where should I have
been now? And even if I had not been taken, and had lived another
twenty years away from France, what would my death have been, since
it needed the scaffold for my purification? Now I see all my wrong-
doings, and the worst of all is the last--I mean my effrontery before
the judges. But all is not yet lost, God be thanked; and as I have
one last examination to go through, I desire to make a complete
confession about my whole life. You, Sir, I entreat specially to ask
pardon on my behalf of the first president; yesterday, when I was in
the dock, he spoke very touching words to me, and I was deeply moved;
but I would not show it, thinking that if I made no avowal the
evidence would not be sufficiently strong to convict me. But it has
happened otherwise, and I must have scandalised my judges by such an
exhibition of hardihood. Now I recognise my fault, and will repair
it. Furthermore, sir, far from feeling angry with the president for
the judgment he to-day passes against me, far from complaining of the
prosecutor who has demanded it, I thank them both most humbly, for my
salvation depends upon it."
The doctor was about to answer, encouraging her, when the door
opened: it was dinner coming in, for it was now half-past one. The
marquise paused and watched what was brought in, as though she were
playing hostess in her own country house. She made the woman and the
two men who watched her sit down to the table, and turning to the
doctor, said, "Sir, you will not wish me to stand on ceremony with
you; these good people always dine with me to keep me company, and if
you approve, we will do the same to-day. This is the last meal," she
added, addressing them, "that I shall take with you." Then turning
to the woman, "Poor Madame du Rus," said she, "I have been a trouble
to you for a long time; but have a little patience, and you will soon
be rid of me. To-morrow you can go to Dravet; you will have time,
for in seven or eight hours from now there will be nothing more to do
for me, and I shall be in the gentleman's hands; you will not be
allowed near me. After then, you can go away for good; for I don't
suppose you will have the heart to see me executed." All this she
said quite calmly, but not with pride. From time to time her people
tried to hide their tears, and she made a sign of pitying them.
Seeing that the dinner was on the table and nobody eating, she
invited the doctor to take some soup, asking him to excuse the
cabbage in it, which made it a common soup and unworthy of his
acceptance. She herself took some soup and two eggs, begging her
fellow-guests to excuse her for not serving them, pointing out that
no knife or fork had been set in her place.
When the meal was almost half finished, she begged the doctor to let
her drink his health. He replied by drinking hers, and she seemed to
be quite charmed by, his condescension. "To-morrow is a fast day,"
said she, setting down her glass, "and although it will be a day of
great fatigue for me, as I shall have to undergo the question as well
as death, I intend to obey the orders of the Church and keep my
fast."
"Madame," replied the doctor, "if you needed soup to keep you up, you
would not have to feel any scruple, for it will be no self-
indulgence, but a necessity, and the Church does not exact fasting in
such a case."
"Sir," replied the marquise, "I will make no difficulty about it, if
it is necessary and if you order it; but it will not be needed, I
think: if I have some soup this evening for supper, and some more
made stronger than usual a little before midnight, it will be enough
to last me through to-morrow, if I have two fresh eggs to take after
the question."
"In truth," says the priest in the account we give here, "I was
alarmed by this calm behaviour. I trembled when I heard her give
orders to the concierge that the soup was to be made stronger than
usual and that she was to have two cups before midnight. When dinner
was over, she was given pen and ink, which she had already asked for,
and told me that she had a letter to write before I took up my pen to
put down what she wanted to dictate." The letter, she explained,
which was difficult to write, was to her husband. She would feel
easier when it was written. For her husband she expressed so much
affection, that the doctor, knowing what had passed, felt much
surprised, and wishing to try her, said that the affection was not
reciprocated, as her husband had abandoned her the whole time of the
trial. The marquise interrupted him:
"My father, we must not judge things too quickly or merely by
appearances. M. de Brinvilliers has always concerned himself with
me, and has only failed in doing what it was impossible to do. Our
interchange of letters never ceased while I was out of the kingdom;
do not doubt but that he would have come to Paris as soon as he knew
I was in prison, had the state of his affairs allowed him to come
safely. But you must know that he is deeply in debt, and could not
appear in Paris without being arrested. Do not suppose that he is
without feeling for me."
She then began to write, and when her letter was finished she handed
it to the doctor, saying, "You, sir, are the lord and master of all
my sentiments from now till I die; read this letter, and if you find
anything that should be altered, tell me."
This was the letter--
"When I am on the point of yielding up my soul to God, I wish to
assure you of my affection for you, which I shall feel until the last
moment of my life. I ask your pardon for all that I have done
contrary to my duty. I am dying a shameful death, the work of my
enemies: I pardon them with all my heart, and I pray you to do the
same. I also beg you to forgive me for any ignominy that may attach
to you herefrom; but consider that we are only here for a time, and
that you may soon be forced to render an account to God of all your
actions, and even your idle words, just as I must do now. Be mindful
of your worldly affairs, and of our children, and give them a good
example; consult Madame Marillac and Madame Couste. Let as many
prayers as possible be said for me, and believe that in my death I am
still ever yours, D'AUBRAY."
The doctor read this letter carefully; then he told her that one of
her phrases was not right--the one about her enemies. "For you have
no other enemies," said he, "than your own crimes. Those whom you
call your enemies are those who love the memory of your father and
brothers, whom you ought to have loved more than they do."
"But those who have sought my death," she replied, "are my enemies,
are they not, and is it not a Christian act to forgive them?"
"Madame," said the doctor, "they are not your enemies, but you are
the enemy of the human race: nobody can think without, horror of your
crimes."
"And so, my father," she replied, "I feel no resentment towards them,
and I desire to meet in Paradise those who have been chiefly
instrumental in taking me and bringing me here."
"Madame," said the doctor, "what mean you by this? Such words are
used by some when they desire people's death. Explain, I beg, what
you mean."
"Heaven forbid," cried the marquise, "that you should understand me
thus! Nay, may God grant them long prosperity in this world and
infinite glory in the next! Dictate a new letter, and I will write
just what you please."
When a fresh letter had been written, the marquise would attend to
nothing but her confession, and begged the doctor to take the pen for
her. "I have done so many wrong thing's," she said, "that if I only
gave you a verbal confession, I should never be sure I had given a
complete account."
Then they both knelt down to implore the grace of the Holy Spirit.
They said a 'Veni Creator' and a 'Salve Regina', and the doctor then
rose and seated himself at a table, while the marquise, still on her
knees, began a Confiteor and made her whole confession. At nine
o'clock, Father Chavigny, who had brought Doctor Pirot in the
morning, came in again. The marquise seemed annoyed, but still put a
good face upon it. "My father," said she, "I did not expect to see
you so late; pray leave me a few minutes longer with the doctor." He
retired. "Why has he come?" asked the marquise.
"It is better for you not to be alone," said the doctor.
"Then do you mean to leave me?" cried the marquise, apparently
terrified.
"Madame, I will do as you wish," he answered; "but you would be
acting kindly if you could spare me for a few hours. I might go
home, and Father Chavigny would stay with you."
"Ah!" she cried, wringing her hands, "you promised you would not
leave me till I am dead, and now you go away. Remember, I never saw
you before this morning, but since then you have become more to me
than any of my oldest friends."
"Madame," said the good doctor, "I will do all I can to please you.
If I ask for a little rest, it is in order that I may resume my place
with more vigour to-morrow, and render you better service than I
otherwise could. If I take no rest, all I say or do must suffer.
You count on the execution for tomorrow; I do not know if you are
right; but if so, to-morrow will be your great and decisive day, and
we shall both need all the strength we have. We have already been
working for thirteen or fourteen hours for the good of your
salvation; I am not a strong man, and I think you should realise,
madame, that if you do not let me rest a little, I may not be able to
stay with you to the end."
"Sir," said the marquise, "you have closed my mouth. To-morrow is
for me a far more important day than to-day, and I have been wrong:
of course you must rest to-night. Let us just finish this one thing,
and read over what we have written."
It was done, and the doctor would have retired; but the supper came
in, and the marquise would not let him go without taking something.
She told the concierge to get a carriage and charge it to her. She
took a cup of soup and two eggs, and a minute later the concierge
came back to say the carriage was at the door. Then the marquise
bade the doctor good-night, making him promise to pray for her and to
be at the Conciergerie by six o'clock the next morning. This he
promised her.
The day following, as he went into the tower, he found Father
Chavigny, who had taken his place with the marquise, kneeling and
praying with her. The priest was weeping, but she was calm, and
received the doctor in just the same way as she had let him go. When
Father Chavigny saw him, he retired. The marquise begged Chavigny to
pray for her, and wanted to make him promise to return, but that he
would not do. She then turned to the doctor, saying, "Sir, you are
punctual, and I cannot complain that you have broken your promise;
but oh, how the time has dragged, and how long it has seemed before
the clock struck six!"
"I am here, madame," said the doctor; "but first of all, how have you
spent the night?"
"I have written three letters," said the marquise, "and, short as
they were, they took a long time to write: one was to my sister, one
to Madame de Marillac, and the third to M. Couste. I should have
liked to show them to you, but Father Chavigny offered to take charge
of them, and as he had approved of them, I could not venture to
suggest any doubts. After the letters were written, we had some
conversation and prayer; but when the father took up his breviary and
I my rosary with the same intention, I felt so weary that I asked if
I might lie on my bed; he said I might, and I had two good hours'
sleep without dreams or any sort of uneasiness; when I woke we prayed
together, and had just finished when you came back."
"Well, madame," said the doctor, "if you will, we can pray again;
kneel down, and let us say the 'Veni Sancte Spiritus'."
She obeyed, and said the prayer with much unction and piety. The
prayer finished, M. Pirot was about to take up the pen to go on with
the confession, when she said, "Pray let me submit to you one
question which is troubling me. Yesterday you gave me great hope of
the mercy of God; but I cannot presume to hope I shall be saved
without spending a long time in purgatory; my crime is far too
atrocious to be pardoned on any other conditions; and when I have
attained to a love of God far greater than I can feel here, I should
not expect to be saved before my stains have been purified by fire,
without suffering the penalty that my sins have deserved. But I have
been told that the flames of purgatory where souls are burned for a
time are just the same as the flames of hell where those who are
damned burn through all eternity tell me, then, how can a soul
awaking in purgatory at the moment of separation from this body be
sure that she is not really in hell? how can she know that the flames
that burn her and consume not will some day cease? For the torment
she suffers is like that of the damned, and the flames wherewith she
is burned are even as the flames of hell. This I would fain know,
that at this awful moment I may feel no doubt, that I may know for
certain whether I dare hope or must despair."
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