HISTORIC POISON CASES IN FRANCE
In the latter part of the sixteenth century the mania for criminal
poisoning spread from Italy to France. The practice increased with great
rapidity, and poisons appear to have been commonly employed by those of
the highest to the lowest classes of society, to get rid of enemies and
undesirable persons. It is stated that the Prior of Cluny and his valet
Saint-Barthélemy, with grim humour, even poisoned their physicians in
order to avoid paying them. It may be said of the many stories of poison
mysteries in France that have come down to us from the seventeenth
century, that though their truth may be doubtful they are not without
romantic interest.
Jeanne d’Albret, mother of Henry IV, who died of a fever after four
days’ illness, was generally believed to have met her death by wearing
poisoned gloves. So great was the credibility of the stories spread
abroad after the sudden death of many distinguished persons, that in
this case it was believed that the gloves were placed in a box with a
double bottom, beneath which was placed a mixture of opium, belladonna,
hyoscyamus, and other poisons. These were supposed not only to have
impregnated the gloves but to have been administered to the victim while
asleep, the box being exposed under her nostrils.
Francis II, the first husband of Mary Queen of Scots, who died in 1560,
was supposed to have succumbed to poison, and Beaucaire de Péguillon
goes so far as to charge Ambroise Paré, the great military surgeon, with
having been the cause of the crime. As a matter of fact, it was proved
from an investigation by Courladon a few years ago, that Francis, who
was born with an obstruction of the nose and mouth, probably due to
adenoids, died from chronic suppurative otitis.
The Duc d’Albe asserts that Mary Stuart was the cause of his death, but
John Knox was nearer the mark when he wrote on hearing of it: “The
potent hand of God from above sent unto us a wonderful and most joyful
deliverance; for unhappy Francis, husband to our Sovereign, suddenly
perisheth of a rotten ear ... that deaf ear that never would hear the
truth of God.”
A curious method of introducing poison is recorded in the story of the
Cardinal of Lorraine, uncle of Mary Queen of Scots, who is said to have
died after touching poisoned gold coins. As a matter of fact, there is
evidence to show that his death was due to pleurisy caused by a cold
caught in walking barefooted at the head of a procession at Avignon.
Catherine de’ Medici was credited with having poisoned her three sons,
Charles IX, the Duc d’Anjou and Francis II, but the story has apparently
no foundation.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century a romantic case connected with
poison, which caused great consternation in Paris, was that of the death
of Gabrielle d’Astrées. The divorce proceedings between Henry IV and
Marguerite de Valois were almost complete, when all preparations for the
marriage of the King to Madame d’Astrées were brought to a sudden end in
Holy Week, 1599, by her mysterious death. A post-mortem examination made
by the doctors threw no light on the cause of death, and hints began to
be spread abroad that she had been secretly poisoned by the Grand Duke
of Tuscany. According to the story, she had arrived in Paris on Tuesday,
April 6, and on the following Thursday, while in the Church of
Saint-Antoine, she was taken ill with headache and vertigo and had to
leave before the end of the service. Severe convulsive attacks followed,
which increased in violence and frequency, until she lost consciousness
and died during the night of April 10. The cause of her death remains a
mystery.
The seventeenth century saw a still greater increase in the mysterious
deaths in France attributed to poison. On June 30, 1670, Henrietta Anne
of England, Duchess of Orléans and sister of King Charles II, died
suddenly in Paris. It appears that after drinking a glass of cold water
in her apartment at St. Cloud, she was said to have been seized with a
fit of shivering, followed by acute fever, which caused her great
agonies. Consternation was caused when she declared to her ladies that
she had been poisoned, and physicians were sent for in hot haste. On
their arrival they were struck with her livid appearance, and,
acknowledging their helplessness in giving her relief, advised her to
receive the Last Sacraments of the Church without delay. The Duchess, on
hearing of this, desired that Bossuet, who had attended her mother the
Queen-Dowager of England, should be called in, and three couriers were
immediately dispatched to bring him. Before he arrived at St. Cloud
between eleven and twelve at night, she had received the Sacrament from
the hands of the Abbé Feuillet, who appears to have treated her with
considerable harshness. Between her shrieks caused by the violent pain,
he told her that her sins were not punished as they deserved. On the
arrival of Bossuet, the Duchess entreated him to promise not to leave
until she breathed her last; he fell on his knees by her bedside,
holding a crucifix in his hand, and with tremulous voice invited her to
join him in devotion. She remembered that the crucifix which he held in
his hands towards her was the same which he had given to her mother the
Queen-Dowager, to hold in her agony. She took it in her hand and held it
in hers till she breathed her last. Before she died she spoke to Madame
de Lafayette in English, expressing her gratitude for the assistance she
had received from Bossuet, and requested that an old emerald ring set
with diamonds of great value might be presented to him. The Duchess died
at three o’clock in the morning, and the news being conveyed to the
King, he sent for Bossuet and gave him the emerald ring, placing it on
his finger, and desiring him to wear it for the rest of his life.
We owe this description to Butler, who edited the life of Bossuet. The
Duchess undoubtedly believed herself to have been poisoned, and the same
belief appears to have been held by the English ambassador, the Court
and the people of the city of Paris. It is even said that one of her
household gave the name of her poisoner to Voltaire, and the medium was
stated to be diamond dust strewn on strawberries with sugar. Another
rumour was that she died in consequence of drinking a glass of succory
water which had been poisoned, but according to Voltaire she died a
natural death. This is most probable, as she had suffered from a chronic
disease of the liver for some time; diamond dust, it may be said, is
without any poisonous properties, and could only act as a mechanical
irritant in the stomach.
About this time a German apothecary and alchemist named Glaser settled
in Paris and, together with Exali and another Italian, began work in a
laboratory they started, reputedly with the object of searching for the
philosophers’ stone. Having come to the end of their resources in a very
short time in the pursuit of this chimera, they commenced the secret
sale of poisons. Through the confessional their nefarious trade became
known to the Grand Penitentiary of Paris. This dignitary gave
information to the Government, and the two suspected chemists were
promptly sent to the Bastille, where one of them died. Exali, however,
while still in prison, managed to carry on his business and found ready
purchasers for his secrets. Catherine de’ Medici was said to have been
instrumental in introducing the Italian methods into France, and deaths
in Paris attributed to poisons now increased to an alarming extent.
Florentine perfumers were supposed to have been adepts in mixing the
poisons with sweetmeats and articles of food.
From the highest to the lowest all seem to have had the dread of meeting
death in this way, and it is said that Henry IV, when a guest at the
Louvre, ate only eggs which he cooked himself and drank only water which
he drew from the Seine.
In 1682 it was thought necessary to devise some more drastic method of
dealing with the secret sale of poisons, and a decree was issued by
Louis XIV, forbidding apothecaries to sell arsenic, sublimate, or any
drug reputed to be a poison except to persons known to them. It further
required, that the purchaser should sign a register declaring the
purpose for which he was buying the poison. A similar condition had been
imposed by the local authorities in Montpellier about twenty years
previously, but Louis applied it to the whole country.
The priests of Notre-Dame at length became appalled at the number of
self-accusations of murder by poison made to them in the confessional,
and conveyed an intimation of the fact without names to Colbert and
Louvois, then Ministers of State. The authorities were placed on the
alert, and by means of a clue obtained from an intercepted letter, they
arrested the Chevalier de Vanens and the Count de Bachimont, who were
found to be secret purveyors of poisons. On private examination, they
implicated a large number of persons, insomuch that a judicial
commission was appointed by Louis XIV, by which strict justice was done,
without distinction of person, condition or sex. It sat for three years
and was known as the Chambre Ardente, or Chamber of Poisons, and was
established at the Arsenal near the Bastille.
The stir and mystery made by the examinations of this Court apparently
drew more attention to the study of poisons than before, and many began
to learn how to employ them, with the object of succeeding to heritages
or of ridding themselves of persons they disliked.
Among those arrested and brought before the Court were members of some
of the noblest families of France, together with magistrates, priests
and a number of women, who had practised as witches, fortune-tellers,
_sages-femmes_ and poisoners. Confessions which were extracted from
these people by torture showed that systematic poisoning had for some
time been carried out by the ladies of the court of the _Grand
Monarque_. One of the dealers in poisons, named La Voisin, is said to
have amassed in a few years a sum of money equivalent to £20,000.
Another is said to have earned £1,600 a year, which is hardly to be
wondered at, when it was revealed that Madame de Montespan had paid
fifty crowns for a love-philtre, and another lady one hundred louis d’or
for a powder to administer to her husband. La Voisin and her accomplices
were eventually condemned and burned at the stake, which seemed to check
for a time the series of terrible crimes which spread through France
during the eighteenth century.
Shortly before this the whole of the country had been aroused by the
remarkable case of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, who confessed to having
poisoned her father, two brothers and a sister, together with a number
of people whose existence she found inconvenient, or who simply bored
her. Apparently when she had no serious business on hand, she practised
her art on the patients in the hospitals which she visited under the
pretence of charity. This woman, who stands in history as the most
infamous of all poisoners of whom we have record, was named Marie
Madeleine D’Aubray, the daughter of a magistrate named Dreux D’Aubray.
She was born on July 22, 1630, and was the eldest of five children, all
of whom came to occupy positions of importance. She received a better
education than most women of her time, but her religious instruction
appears to have been wholly neglected. According to the priest who
ministered to her before she paid the penalty of her crimes, she was
destitute of even a rudimentary knowledge of religion, and she appeared
to have had no moral training whatever. Of a passionate temperament and
extraordinary energy in anything that might serve for the gratification
of her desires, she had a most complex nature, which was at once
sensitive to anything that touched her vanity or self-love.
In 1651, at the age of twenty-one, she married Antoine Gobelin, the
Marquis de Brinvilliers, a lineal descendant of the founder of the
famous tapestry manufactory. He is said to have had an income of 30,000
livres a year, and his wife brought him another 200,000 as a dowry.
The marquise at that time is said to have been a particularly beautiful
woman, and both she and her husband began their married life with every
prospect of happiness. In 1659 they made the acquaintance of a Captain
Sainte-Croix, a young man of good family and who was an officer in a
cavalry regiment. He became a constant visitor to the house, and so
ingratiated himself with both the marquise and her husband that he
eventually took up his residence with them.
At the time that Sainte-Croix came to live with the Brinvilliers there
were several children in the house under the care of a tutor, named
Briancourt, who also was said to be one of the many lovers of the
marquise. The marquis himself seems to have developed a distrust of his
wife, and was ever on the watch; whether he had gleaned some knowledge
of her enthusiasm in the study of poisons or not, it is difficult to
say, but it is stated that at dinner he always took care that
Sainte-Croix sat on the lady’s right, while he occupied a place near the
sideboard. He was waited on by a servant particularly attached to his
person, whom he instructed never to change his glass, and to rinse it
out whenever he served him with wine.
Although suspicious that his wife was making attempts to poison him—and
there is little doubt she was attempting to do so—the marquis was not
without medical care. She would occasionally call in a Dr. Brayer, one
of the most famous physicians in Paris of the day. According to Madame
de Sévigné, Brinvilliers owed his life on these occasions not so much to
his wife as to the fear of her lover, who did not relish the idea of
marrying her. She states that “while the marquise gave her husband
poison Sainte-Croix gave him antidotes, so that after being tossed like
a ball from one to the other in this way five or six times, now
poisoned, now restored, he remained alive.”
As a result of these experiences the marquis suffered from chronic
weakness in the lungs. He always carried about with him a box of the
theriaca or treacle of Andromachus, which was supposed to be a powerful
antidote against poison. This he not only took frequently himself, but
also gave it to his servants.
Sainte-Croix soon became notorious as the lover of the marquise, and her
father, on hearing of this, obtained a _lettre de cachet_ and had him
arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille. Now it so happened that the two
Italians, Exali and his confrère, were confined in the Bastille at the
same time under the charge of secret dealing in poisons. As already
stated, they had professed to be working in Paris in conjunction with
Glaser, a German apothecary. Another account states that there is every
reason to believe that long before Sainte-Croix was committed to the
Bastille, he had studied the art of poisoning from this Christopher
Glaser, who was Apothecary in Ordinary to the King, and author of a
treatise on chemistry which had some reputation. Glaser now not only
instructed Sainte-Croix but supplied him with poisons which he passed on
to the marquise. On the death of the marquis, whose property had
practically all vanished owing to the extravagance and dissipation of
his wife, Sainte-Croix, who had by that time been released from prison,
renewed his intrigue with the marquise, who, eager for revenge on her
father for having him imprisoned, and probably impatient to gain
possession of the money she would inherit at his death, conceived the
idea of using poison for the purpose of destroying his life.
One historian states that after Sainte-Croix had acquired his knowledge
of poisons from Glaser, he confided it to the marquise, while others say
that she got into direct touch with Glaser, who gave her the necessary
poison which she had made up her mind to test for herself by experiment.
This she did with great cunning, assuming the character of one of the
Sisters of Charity, who visited the hospitals to relieve the sick and
suffering and bring them cakes, wine and other luxuries. The recipients
of her gifts generally soon died in great suffering, but the
significance of this apparently passed unnoticed until some time
afterwards. She also found subjects for her experiments among her
servants, one of whom, Roussel, gave evidence at her trial at a later
date and declared that her mistress had one day given her some
gooseberry jam on the point of a knife and that it made her ill. She
also affirmed that the marquise had given her some ham “which gave her
great pain, and she felt as if she had been pricked in the heart, after
which she was ill for three years.”
When the marquise had satisfied herself that her method of
administration was not likely to be easily discovered, she turned her
attention to its use for her own purposes, and her first victim was her
father. Apparently she administered poison to him in repeated doses, and
it was not until eight months had passed that D’Aubray died in great
agony. After his death she lived still more riotously and with the
greatest extravagance, contracting very heavy debts until she ran
through all the money she had obtained.
It is stated at this time that the marquise developed “a demoniac temper
and inhuman cunning, such as perhaps no mortal ever exhibited.”
She next began to plot to get rid of her two brothers, with the result
that one of them died after three months of great suffering, and the
other a few months later. She then tried to poison her sister in the
same manner, but suspicion being aroused, she gave up the attempt. On
the death of her second brother, the medical attendants insisted on
examining the body after death, and declared that he had been poisoned;
so little, however, was his sister suspected, that the actual murderer,
a servant named La Chaussée whom the marquise bribed and introduced into
her brother’s house for the purpose of administering the poison, had a
legacy left to him by his victim for his _devoted services_. At length
suspicion appears to have fallen on the marquise and Sainte-Croix, owing
to an accident which happened to him after his reimprisonment. It is
stated that when engaged in preparing his poisons he was accustomed to
wear a mask, presumably to prevent him inhaling the fumes of the
chemicals which he was using. While thus engaged, he was found one day
in a state of unconsciousness in his cell and never recovered. The
authorities, on examining his effects, came across a small box to which
a paper was attached which contained a request that after his death it
should be delivered to the “Marquise de Brinvilliers who resides at the
rue Neuve Saint Paul.” The paper was signed and dated by Sainte-Croix,
May 25, 1672, and on the box being opened it was found to contain a
number of poisons of different kinds with labels attached. It is also
said that he kept in this box a number of compromising letters which he
had received from her, together with bonds for large sums which she had
given him as hush-money in the matter of her brother’s murder.
According to another account, as no relations of his were known, the
authorities proceeded to put seals upon his property. When the inventory
was taken a casket was found, which was opened, and the first article
discovered in it was a written document, which ran thus:—
“I humbly entreat those into whose hands this casket shall fall to do me
the favour to place it in the very hands of Madame de Brinvilliers, who
resides in the Rue Neuve Saint Paul, the contents appertaining to her
and to her only, and being moreover of no use to any one else in the
world. In the event of her death taking place before mine, it is my
desire that the casket and all its contents be burned, unopened and
undisturbed; and that none may plead ignorance, I swear by God whom I
adore, and by everything that is most sacred, that nothing is here said
save what is most true; and if, by any chance, my request be
contravened, just and proper as they are in this point, I charge such
contravention upon their conscience, both in this world and in the next,
in discharge of mine own conscience. And this I say and sign as my last
will.
“Signed, DE SAINTE-CROIX.
“Done at Paris, this afternoon of the 25th day of May, 1672.”
Underneath were added the following words:—
“There is one single packet, addressed to M. Penautier, which must be
restored to him.”
“Precautions too elaborate frequently produce an effect the opposite of
that intended,” says the historian. “If in this casket, which was
securely locked up, there had been the mere words, ‘This casket belongs
to Madame de Brinvilliers,’ it is probable that it would have been
forwarded to her unopened, but the very style of the injunction was
calculated to arouse suspicion. The casket was opened, and an inventory
made of its contents, and the following is the description of this
deposit which was so solemnly placed under the safeguard of God and of
all things sacred”:—
1. A packet, sealed with eight seals of various armorial bearings, and
endorsed: “Papers to be burned in the case of my death, they being of no
value to any one. I most humbly entreat that they be burned by
whomsoever may find them. I even charge it upon their conscience to do
this, and to do it without opening the packet.” In this packet was
enclosed another, which contained sublimate.
2. Another packet, secured by six seals of various armorial bearings,
similarly endorsed, and enclosing another packet, consisting of a pound
and a half of sublimate.
3. Another packet, secured by six seals of different armorial bearings,
in which were three other packets, one containing half an ounce of
sublimate, a second containing two ounces of Roman vitriol, and the
third calcined and prepared vitriol.
4. A large square phial full of a clear light liquid, the quality of
which could not at the moment be ascertained.
5. Another phial of light-coloured liquid, at the bottom of which was a
whitish sediment.
6. A small earthenware jar, in which was a quantity of prepared opium.
7. A folded paper, in which were two drachms of corrosive sublimate, in
powder.
8. A small box containing “Infernal Stone.”
9. A paper containing an ounce of opium.
10. A piece of regulus of antimony, weighing three ounces.
11. A packet of powder marked....
12. A packet secured by six seals, superscribed like those already
described. This packet contained twenty-seven pieces of paper, on each
of which were the words, “several curious secrets.”
The first care of the civil authorities was directed to a careful
examination of these substances, to have them analysed, and to
experiment with them upon animals.
The result of that examination and those experiments was very curious,
and the following is the report which was made by the chemists and men
of science to whom the examination was entrusted.
“This artful poison” [it runs] “defies the researches attempted to be
made into its nature; it is so disguised that it cannot be detected—so
subtle that it defies all the science and ability of the doctors. Upon
this poison all experiments blunder, all rules are false, and all
aphorisms absurd.
“The most certain and usual experiments are made by means of the
elements, or upon the bodies of animals. In water the weight of the
poison precipitates; it is the superior must needs be precipitated. No
less sure is the action of fire; it evaporates, it dissipates, it
consumes all that is innocent and all that is impure, with the exception
of a sharp and acrid substance which alone can resist its effects. Upon
animals the effect of poison is even more obvious; it carries malignity
into every part which it touches, vitiating, burning, and withering up
the whole internal economy as with a strange fire.
“The poison of Sainte-Croix has been subjected to all trials; it defies
all the skill and science of the doctors, and mocks and baffles all
experiments. This poison swims in water instead of sinking, and it
escapes from the test of fire, leaving behind only a mild and innocent
substance. In animals it so completely hides itself that it cannot be
detected; all the parts of the poisoned animal remain living and sound
even while it is shedding death all around it.
“All sorts of experiments have been tried upon this poison. In the first
instance some drops of a liquor contained in one of the phials were
poured into oil of tartar and water. No precipitate was formed in the
vessel.
“In the second experiment some of the same liquid was poured into a
sanded vessel, the sand retained no acridly tasting substance. The third
experiment was made upon a turkey hen, a pigeon, and a dog; they died in
a brief space, and on their being opened on the following day, only some
coagulated blood was found in the ventricles of the heart.
“Another experiment was made with some white powder, which was given,
with some mutton, to a cat. The cat vomited for half an hour, and on the
following day was found dead; it was opened, and no interior part showed
marks of the action of the poison. A second trial of the same poison was
made upon a pigeon, which died in a short time. When opened the bird had
only some red liquid in its stomach.”
“Such,” according to the historian, “was the dying present of
Sainte-Croix to his mistress. His past crimes being insufficient to
gratify his malignity, he was fain to be the accomplice of future
crime.”
According to Dr. Nass, Sainte-Croix died a natural death after an
illness of several months. To continue the story, when the marquise
heard of his death and the discovery of the box, she at once made every
effort to obtain it by bribing the officials, but failing in this she
fled to England, and after much negotiation between Louis XIV and
Charles II as to her extradition, she escaped to Holland, where she took
refuge in various convents, until at last she was arrested at Liège. She
attempted to commit suicide by swallowing fragments of broken glass and
pins, and other methods, which are described by Madame de Sévigné.
A romantic story is told of her arrest, which was made by an officer
called Des Grais, who was sent from Paris to apprehend her. Finding he
was unable to remove her forcibly from the convent, he disguised himself
in the dress of an abbé and so found access and the means of making her
acquaintance. Assuming the character of a lover he induced her in this
way to accompany him on a pleasure excursion, but once outside the
building he arrested her and conveyed her to Paris.
[Illustration:
MARGUERITE D’AUBRAY, MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS.
(_By Lebrun._)
Drawn from life at the time of her being taken to execution.
]
After the marquise had fled, La Chaussée, the servant whom she used as
her tool, fell under suspicion, was arrested, brought to trial, and,
after confessing to being the instrument of several murders, was broken
alive on the wheel in 1673. The discovery of these terrible crimes
attributed to Brinvilliers, and the revelations made in documents which
had come into the possession of the authorities amounting to a
confession of her numerous murders, caused a great sensation, not only
in Paris but throughout the whole of France.
The scene at her trial was intensely dramatic, and even the judges were
greatly moved. The marquise herself kept up a bold front and showed the
greatest resolution, in spite of the evidence stoutly denying all the
charges brought against her. She was confronted with her former lover
Briancourt, the tutor, to whom it is said she confided all the secrets
of her crimes. The evidence was for the most part unquestioned, and she
was found guilty and sentenced on July 16, 1676. It is recorded as
follows:—
“The Court has declared and declares the said D’Aubray de Brinvilliers
duly attainted and convicted of having procured the poisoning of M.
Dreux D’Aubray, her father, and the said Messrs. D’Aubray, Civil
Lieutenant and Councillor in the said Court, her two brothers, and
attempted the life of the late Teresa D’Aubray, her sister, and by way
of reparation has condemned and condemns the said D’Aubray de
Brinvilliers to make public apology in front of the principal door of
the Church of Paris, whither she will be taken in a cart, with bare feet
and a rope round her neck, holding in her hands a lighted torch of two
pounds weight, and there on her knees to say and declare that wickedly,
and in order to possess their goods, she procured the poisoning of her
father and her two brothers, and attempted the life of her deceased
sister, of which she repents and asks pardon of God, the King, and the
law: this done, taken and conveyed in the same cart to the Place de
Grève of this city, to have her head cut off there on a scaffold to be
erected for the purpose in the said place; her body burnt, and the ashes
thrown to the winds. She is first to be put to the question, ordinary
and extraordinary, in order to obtain a disclosure of her accomplices.”
She heard the sentence with courage, and during the time previous to its
being carried out was visited by a Jesuit priest named Pirot, who was a
doctor of the Sorbonne and a man of great intelligence. It was his hope
to induce her to reveal the names of her accomplices, the compositions
of the poisons she used and the antidotes that would nullify their
effects. She accepted his ministrations with graceful courtesy and is
said to have convinced him of her penitence and made a full confession
of the crimes she had committed. According to her account, the only
poisonous substances she ever used were arsenic, vitriol and toad venom.
At first she said, “I do not know exactly what they were,” but shortly
before her death she remarked, “I should like to know the composition of
the poisons which I used and which were used at my direction, but all I
know about them is that there was toad’s venom and that there were some
that consisted of rarefied arsenic.”
It is quite possible that she may not have known of the composition of
some of them, as they were probably originally compounded by Glaser, who
was a skilled chemist and well versed in the science of his time.
The only antidote she stated that she knew was milk, and her only
accomplices Sainte-Croix and certain lackeys.
On July 16, 1676, when she was taken to the scene of execution, an
enormous crowd had assembled. “Never,” says Madame de Sévigné, “had any
seen such a crowd, or Paris so excited or so interested.” The marquise
drew herself to her feet in the cart with her eyes flashing and cried
out in a loud voice charged with contempt, “You have come to see a fine
spectacle.”
Such is the tragic story of Marie Madeleine de Brinvilliers. She is
described by contemporary writers as with the face that one might
expect, “degraded by excesses, and distorted by evil passions, but with
features extremely regular, with a rounded face that was full and
beautiful and a certain look which seemed to breathe goodness.”
A great deal has been written in France about her supposed knowledge of
poisons, and her great skill in using them for criminal purposes; in
reality, she was but a murderess of the common type, in whom sensuality,
cunning and vice were combined.
The execution of the Marquise de Brinvilliers did not, however, put a
stop to the extraordinary wave of criminal poisoning that passed over
France towards the end of the seventeenth century. During the reign of
the _Grand Monarque_, brilliant and glittering though it was, the vices
of avarice and jealousy led many to unscrupulous practices and crime. In
this state of society it was little to be wondered at that Paris swarmed
with fortune-tellers, astrologers, sorcerers and others of their kind
who made enormous sums of money out of their dupes. Many of these
combined the sale of poisons with actual practice, and claimed to be
able to accomplish almost any crime, from the removal of an inconvenient
husband to anyone who stood in the way to an inheritance.
The papers of one of these Italian adventurers, named Primi Visconti,
were discovered and translated a few years ago, and throw some light on
the methods of these parasites of society. Visconti, who had obtained
entry to the French court by his professed skill in palmistry and
chiromancy and had become somewhat popular with the courtiers, relates
that it had come to the King’s knowledge that the infamous Sainte-Croix
had sought to obtain the position of _maître d’hôtel_ in the palace of
Versailles, and had been recommended to the position by a wealthy and
avaricious person named Penaultier, Receiver-General of the Clergy, who
was also suspected of being concerned in the recent crimes.
About 1677 the Ministers of the State awoke to the fact that it was time
something was done to put a stop to these practices. Colbert and Louvois
issued instructions to the police to keep a sharp look-out for cases of
poisoning. An official record states that some years before 1677 and up
to the end of 1678 the judges and magistrates of the city of Paris and
its neighbourhood, as well as the Secretary of State, had noticed that
of the number of criminals and malefactors whom they had caused to be
arrested for ordinary offences, the greater number were charged by
declarations, death-bed depositions or information given to the
Government “with complicity in, or knowledge of different poisonings
carried out on different persons of all sorts and conditions, who had in
consequence died.”
The _Chambre de Poisons_ or _Chambre Ardente_ previously referred to,
sat in all 210 times until July 21, 1682, and during that period dealt
with charges against 442 persons, and ordered the arrest of 367; 218
were kept prisoners, 36 were executed, 2 died in prison, 5 were sent to
the gallows, and 23 were banished.
In spite of this it is said that the worst criminals escaped, owing to
influence that they brought to bear in their favour. “The chief
culprits,” says Ravaisson, “belonged to the nobility or the law, and
almost all of them had amongst the members of the court friends, clients
or relatives.” The King had set a bad example by allowing some
individuals who were compromised to go free. The judges had not the
courage to be more severe, and the weight of the condemnations fell
almost entirely on the miserable creatures who sold the poisons and not
on those who bought and used them.
An example of the class alluded to were two women called La Vigoureux
and La Voisin and a priest named Le Sage who were first arrested and
then tried for carrying on a trade in poisons. They made themselves out
to be practitioners in necromancy, claiming to raise the spirits of the
departed for those who wished and to supply love-philtres to those who
desired them. Their rooms were constantly visited by people of position
and others, many probably out of curiosity, as has been the case with
fashionable fortune-tellers of a later date. La Voisin, however, kept a
list of her clients, and on her arrest, when this was discovered, they
were also arrested and brought to private trial before the Chambre. The
list contained such names as the two nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, the
Duchesse de Bouillon and the Comtesse de Soissons.
At the trial of the Duchess nothing could be proved beyond her statement
that she had resorted to Le Sage to consult him as a fortune-teller. He
also claimed to be able to show her even the Devil himself. La Reiné,
one of the judges of the court, was indiscreet enough to ask the Duchess
if this had taken place and if she had ever seen the Devil? The lady
quickly replied that she saw him at that very moment, that he was
extremely ugly and very hideous, and appeared to her in the guise of her
questioner.
The charge brought against the Comtesse de Soissons and the Marshal de
Luxembourg was more serious. The three criminals claimed to know the
secret of a particularly poisonous powder which they prepared, and to
which they gave the name of the _poudre de succession_, so called from
the real or supposed frequency with which it had been used to hasten or
change the succession in the families of the rich. The names of those
who obtained possession of it had been reported to the Government. It is
said that the King intimated to the countess that if she was guilty she
had better escape by flight. Although she declared her innocence, she
said she could not endure the scandal of a public trial and fled to
Brussels, where she died in 1708.
With respect to the marshal, his explanation of his connection with the
infamous trio was that he had consulted them in order to recover some
lost papers of value. He had done this through the medium of a man named
Bonard; Le Sage swore, however, that the marshal had applied to him to
poison a woman who had possession of the papers and refused to give them
up. His accomplices testified that they had accordingly poisoned her and
disposed of the body into the river at the instigation of the marshal.
The marshal was imprisoned and placed in a dungeon six and a half feet
long, where he fell sick and remained five weeks before being brought to
trial. The trial of the marshal was prolonged fourteen months, when he
was finally released without being condemned or acquitted. La Voisin, La
Vigoureux, together with Le Sage, the priest, were eventually convicted
and burned alive in Paris.
The _Chambre Ardente_ came to an end after being criticized as a
political tribunal which did little to effect the purpose for which it
was designed.
According to later writers, the famous _poudre de succession_, consisted
of arsenic, sometimes mixed with vegetable poisons such as aconite,
belladonna and opium.
Among the substances believed to be deadly was powdered diamond, for
which powdered glass was probably substituted. Another writer states
that _poudre de succession_ appears to have been composed of sugar of
lead. Nail-parings and powdered lobster claws were used for a similar
purpose. Vegetable poisons—opium, hemlock, belladonna, euphorbium, and
many other poisonous plants—are also mentioned, and one enterprising
Frenchwoman, who had been to the West Indies, appears to have had the
idea of importing curare taken from poisoned arrows.
There seems little doubt that in the eighteenth century, when the
practice became almost a cult, poison was sometimes secretly
administered by means of a clyster, the use of which was so common at
the time. Arsenic, corrosive sublimate, cantharides and opium are said
to have been given in this way.
Louis XVIII of France is said to have narrowly escaped death by poison
in 1804. At that time he was living under the name of the Comte de Lille
near Warsaw, and had in his household a servant named Coulon, a French
adventurer, who had been a prisoner of war at Portsmouth and arrived in
the Polish city in 1803. He declared that he was approached in July,
1804, by two emissaries “charged to poison Louis XVIII, his wife, and
also the Duke and Duchess d’Angoulême,” who were living with the royal
couple. The emissaries offered him four hundred louis d’or if he would
place in the soup served to the King and his family some hollow carrots
filled with poison. A postchaise would await Coulon to carry him at once
to France, where the regicide would be asked no questions so long as his
victim was a Bourbon. Coulon accepted the carrots, but denounced the
couple. Part of Poland was then subject to Prussia, and the Prussian
police appear to have been singularly averse to taking action in the
matter, and allowed the two emissaries to escape. This circumstance,
coupled with the fact that Napoleon was all-powerful at the period, and
the supposition that the man who ordered the Duc d’Enghien to be shot
was capable of compassing the death of other Bourbons, gave rise to the
suspicion that the plot was really set on foot by Napoleon’s police.
Louis XVIII requested that Coulon might be arrested and the carrots
officially analysed, but the Prussian authorities refused to act.
“Seeing that it was impossible to rely either upon the law or the
Prussian police,” the narrator continues, “d’Avray went with Dr.
Lefèvre, the King’s physician, to call upon Dr. Gazatkiewick, one of the
most celebrated practitioners of Warsaw. Here, in the presence of a
second physician, Dr. Bagenzorve, and of M. Guidal, a local pharmacist,
the seals placed by the Archbishop on Coulon’s packet were broken. The
three carrots therein contained were opened and found to be filled with
a sort of paste formed of three arsenics, yellow, white and red.”
A report was drawn up and handed to M. de Tilly, head of the city
police, but he declined to take any notice, saying the affair was
outside his province.
The question of the various poisons used during this period in France
for criminal purposes has been ably discussed by Dr. Lucien Nass, who
has had access to the documents relating to the various important trials
that took place. He says, that according to police inventories of
articles found in the domiciliary visits made by them in the course of
their inquiries into these poisoning cases, many substances were
employed. If one failed another was tried. The method of administration
was varied with considerable ingenuity, and arsenic, opium, cantharides
and lead acetate were the substances mostly employed.