MAÎTRE GLAZER, THE APOTHECARY, AND HIS MAN, PANURGE, DISCOURSE WITH
THE PEOPLE ON POISONS--THE VISIT OF THE MARCHIONESS
There was plenty to occupy the gossips the morning after the events
of the preceding chapters, in the good city of Paris. The capture of
Exili, with all the additions and exaggerations that word of mouth
could promulgate, formed the only topic of conversation; nothing else
was canvassed by the little knots of idlers who collected at the
corners of the Pont Neuf and on the quays.
There were few newspapers then to spread their simultaneous
intelligence over the city. The first important journal, established
under the auspices of Colbert, as yet appealed to a very limited
number of the citizens beyond the scientific, and those interested in
manufacturing and commercial improvements. There was a weekly paper,
to be sure, from which the eager populace might have gained some news,
had the occurrences come within the range of its time of publication;
and the subject would have been dilated upon with especial care, for
its originator was a physician. Le Docteur Renaudot had found, as the
medical men of the present day are aware, that a knowledge of the
current events of the time was thought as much of in a physician, by
his patients, as a knowledge of his profession; and so he cultivated
its acquisition to his great profit. But when a healthy season came,
and he had less to do and talk about, it struck him that some
advantage might accrue from distributing his news generally, in a
printed form. He did so; the plan succeeded; and to this circumstance
is the origin of the French press to be traced.
But all news connected with assaults and offences found a loquacious
Mercury in every member of the Garde Bourgeois. Not one who had
assisted, on the antecedent evening, at the capture of Exili omitted
to take all the credit to himself, as he babbled to a crowd of gasping
auditors from his shop-window. Maître Picard, who had arrived,
boiling over with indignation, at the office of the Prévôt in the
Châtelet, found even his complaint against the scholars overlooked,
in the more important excitement. The exposition of the horrible
means, so long suspected, by which the Italian gained his living, and
the strange death of the _chevalier du guet_ by the poisoned
atmosphere of the chamber, absorbed all other attention.
And well indeed it might. The frightful effects of the ‘Acquetta di
Napoli,’ to which rumour had assigned the power of causing death at
any determinate period, after weeks, months, or even years of atrophy
and wasting agony,--this terrible fluid, tasteless, inodorous,
colourless,--so facile in its administration, and so impossible to be
detected, had been for half a century the dread of southern Europe.
Once administered, there was no hope for the sufferer, except in a few
antidotes, the secret of which appeared to rest with the poisoners
alone. A certain indescribable change crept on; a nameless feeling of
indisposition, as the powers of life gradually sank beneath the
influence of its venom, but one that offered no clue whereby the most
perceptive physician could ascertain the seat of evil or the principal
organ affected. Then came anxiety and weariness; the spirits broke
down, hope departed, and a constant gnawing pain, that appeared to run
in liquid torment through all the arteries of the body, passing even
by the capillaries, to bring fresh pain and poisoned vital fluid to
the heart, left the helpless victim without ease or slumber; and as
time advanced, in misery and anguish that evaded every remedy, so did
the poison fasten itself deeper and deadlier on the system, until the
last stage of its effects arrived, and life departed in a manner too
horrible to describe.
Respecting this fearful scourge little technical information that is
left can be relied upon. It appears to have been a preparation of
arsenic; and, if this be true, the ignorance of the age might have
allowed the deadly metal to pass undetected by analysis; but, as we
have before stated, toxicology is now more certain in its researches
after hidden poison, and in this deadly drug especially. The merest
trace of it, in whatever form it may be administered, even when to the
eye of the vulgar affording no more attributes than pure water for
analysis, can be reduced to its mineral state. The grave itself
refuses to conceal the crime; and the poison has the remarkable
property of embalming the body, as it were, and by its antiseptic
virtue giving back the vital organs to the light of day, should
exhumation be required, in such a state as to place all matter of
detecting its presence beyond the slightest doubt, even in the
quantity of the most minute atom.
It was about the shop of Maître Glazer, the apothecary, in the Place
Maubert, at the river boundary of the Quartier Latin, that the
principal collection of gossipers clustered all day long. He had
acquired some renown in Paris for compounding and vending antidotes to
the dreaded poisons: and it was reported that his unhappy assistant,
Panurge, as he was nicknamed by the acquaintances of the
apothecary--albeit his real name was Martin--was the subject of all
his experiments. Panurge was a tall, spare creature, whose skeleton
appeared to be composed of nothing but large joints, and chiefly
resembled his predecessor of the same name in being a wonderful coward
as well as boaster; and herein he closely assimilated in his nature to
the Gascon scholar, Blacquart. And when the latter sometimes
accompanied his master’s son, Philippe Glazer, to the house, these two
would outlie one another in a marvellous manner, until they had
well-nigh quarrelled and fought, but for very cowardice.
On the evening subsequent to the events of the last chapter, Maître
Glazer was holding forth to a crowd of anxious auditors, even until
after dark; whilst his man was busied in distilling some water of rare
merit in all diseases. His shop had never held a larger meeting. It
was known by the sign ‘_Au Basilisk_,’ and had the ‘effigies’ of that
fabulous serpent painted over the door, done from the book of Ambrose
Paré, which formed his entire medical library.
‘Look you, Maître Glazer,’ said a bystander; ‘though Exili be taken,
we are none of us yet sure of our lives. For are there not devil’s
drinks of Italy that will kill at any certain and definite time?’
‘Theophrastus thus answers that question,’ replied Glazer, giving his
authority first, that his statement might have more weight. ‘Of
poisons some more speedily perform their parts, others more slowly;
yet you may find no such as will kill in set limits of time. And when
one hath lingered long, then hath he been fed little by little, and so
tenderly nursed, as it were, into his grave.’
‘I have felt ill long,’ said a portly bourgeois. ‘Pray heaven I am not
fed with poison in such manner! How may I avoid it?’
‘By ceasing to eat, Michel,’ replied Maître Glazer. ‘Yet there are
other methods of killing, which no man may combat but with antidotes
on their effects being known. Pope Clement, the seventh of that name,
and uncle to the mother of one of our kings, was poisoned by the fume
of a medicated torch carried before him, and died thereof; and
Mathiolus tells us that there were two mountebanks in the market-place
of Sienna, the one of which, but smelling to a poisoned gillyflower
given him by the other, presently fell down dead.’
‘And a certain man not long ago,’ said Panurge, ‘when he had put his
nose and smelled a little unto a pomander which was secretly poisoned,
did presently swell so that he almost filled the room, and would have
died, but I gave him an antidote. Then he shrunk rapidly, and went on
his way healed.’
There was an expression of disbelief amongst the crowd, and a young
artisan laughed aloud derisively; at which Panurge inquired bravely
‘Who it was?’
But when the artisan said it was himself, the ire of Panurge relaxed;
and he said, if it had been any one else he should have taken up the
affront warmly. And then, on a reproving sign from Maître Glazer, he
continued his work.
The evening soon warned the last of the talkers home, after Maître
Glazer had held forth for some time longer on his favourite theme.
When the latest idler had departed, Panurge closed the shop, and they
retired into the small apartment behind for supper.
The shop was at the corner of the _porte-cochère_ leading to the
court-yard, and one window looked upon the passage, so that everybody
who passed to the other apartments of the house could be seen. The
meal was soon arranged by the concierge of the establishment--for
Maître Glazer was a widower--and he sat down with his assistant to
enjoy it.
‘Has my boy come back?’ asked the apothecary, as they took their
places.
‘I have not seen him,’ replied Panurge. ‘His neighbour Theria, the
Brabantian, is at home though, for there is a light in his window high
up.’
‘They are great friends of Philippe’s,’ said Maître Glazer; ‘both
Theria and his wife--a modest, well-favoured body.’
‘Mère Jobert says it is not his wife,’ replied the assistant; ‘but
merely a grisette of the city. Oh, the corrupt state of Paris!’
‘She is outwardly well-behaved, and of mild manners,’ returned the
apothecary; ‘and we wish to know no further. There is more vice at
court than in that _mansarde_, which is approved of by the world.’
‘Theria does not like her to see much of me,’ said Panurge,
conceitedly smoothing three or four hairs that straggled about his
chin, where his beard ought to have been.
‘Why not--for fear you should frighten her?’
‘Frighten her! by the mass, it is far otherwise,’ answered the
assistant. ‘There are not many gallants in Paris who have been so
favoured as myself, or can show such a leg.’
He stretched out the bony limb, and was gazing at it in admiration
when the attention of the apothecary was drawn off from some sharp
reply he was about to make to Panurge’s vanity, by a hurried tap at
the door--a side one leading into the court. The rhapsodies of Panurge
were stopped short, and he rose to let in the supposed patient--for
there was small chance of its being any one else at that hour.
As he opened the door, a female entered hurriedly, and threw off a
common cloak--one such as those worn in winter by the sisters of the
hospitals. She was a young and handsome woman, in reality about thirty
years of age, but her countenance bore an expression of girlish
simplicity and freshness which rather belonged to nineteen. Her eyes
were blue and lustrous; her hair, dark chestnut, arranged in curls,
according to the fashion of the period, on each side of her white
expansive forehead; and her parted lips, as she breathed rapidly from
hurry or agitation, disclosed a row of teeth singularly perfect and
beautiful. One might have looked long amidst the fair dames of Paris
to have found features similarly soft and confiding in their aspect;
the nose, which was _retroussé_, alone giving an expression--but a
very slight one--of coquetry. Her figure was under the middle size,
delicate and perfect in its contour; and, but for the mantle which she
had worn over her other handsome apparel, a spectator would have
wondered at seeing one so gentle in the streets of Paris by herself
after dark, and during one of the most licentious epochs of French
history. As Maître Glazer recognised his visitor, he rose and saluted
her respectfully, with a reverence due to her rank; for it was
Marie-Marguerite d’Aubray, Marchioness of Brinvilliers.
‘I am paying you a late visit to-night, Maître Glazer,’ she said
laughingly; ‘it is lucky your assistant is here, or we might furnish
scandal for our good city of Paris.’
‘Your reputation would be safe with so old a man as myself, madame,’
replied the apothecary; ‘even with your most bitter enemy. Is M. the
Marquis well?’
‘Quite well, Maître Glazer, I thank you. As to my enemy, I hope I
cannot reckon even one.’
‘Report is never idle now, madame; but you have little to dread; few
have your enviable name.’
The Marchioness fixed her bright eyes on Glazer as she bowed in reply
to the old man’s speech, allowing a smile of great sweetness to play
over her fair face.
‘Is your son Philippe at home?’ she continued. ‘I wished to inquire
after some of our charges at the Hôtel Dieu.’
‘I was asking but just now. There is a light with his friend Theria.’
‘I will go over to his _étage_ and see,’ replied the lady. ‘We are
old friends, you know; he will not mind my intrusion.’
She gathered the cloak once more around her, and then, with another
silvery laugh, nodded kindly to Glazer and Panurge, and tripped across
the court, leaving the apothecary and his assistant to finish their
meal.
‘An excellent lady,’ said Glazer, as she left; ‘good and charitable.
Would we had many more in Paris like her! And she has hard work, too,
at the hospitals at present, as Philippe tells me; some evil demon
seems to breathe a lingering sickness into her patients’ frames the
minute she takes them under her devoted care.’
Panurge spoke but little, contenting himself with gradually clearing
everything digestible that was upon the table; and at last the heavy
curfew betokened to Maître Glazer that his usual hour of retiring for
the night had arrived. The old man, preceded by his assistant with a
lamp, made a careful survey of his establishment, putting out the
remnant of fire in his laboratory, and Panurge prepared his couch,
which was a species of berth under the counter. From their occupation
they were both startled by a second knocking at the door, hurried and
violent; and, on challenging the new-comer, a voice without inquired,
‘if Philippe had come in?’
‘My son seems in request to-night,’ said Glazer. ‘That should be the
Chevalier de Sainte-Croix’s voice.’
‘You are right, Maître,’ cried Gaudin without, for it was he. ‘Do not
disturb yourself. Shall I find your son in his apartment?’
‘I cannot say, monsieur. Madame de Brinvilliers asked the same
question but a few minutes since.’
‘She is here, then?’ asked Sainte-Croix with an eagerness that
betokened the Marchioness was chiefly concerned in his visit.
‘She crossed the court just now, and has scarcely had time to return.’
‘Enough, Maître Glazer,’ replied Sainte-Croix. ‘I am sorry to have
disturbed you. Good-night!’
Without waiting for a return of the salutation, Gaudin left the door
and hurried along the archway towards the staircase, evidently
impelled by no ordinary excitement. He had called that evening upon
Madame de Brinvilliers, at her hotel in the Rue des Cordeliers, to
seek an interview with her upon the subject of her acquaintance made
with Theria at the Jacobins, which since last evening had been
rankling in his heart. For some of the busy tongues of Paris had long
whispered of a liaison that passed the bounds of friendship, between
Gaudin and the Marchioness; nor were the reports unfounded.
Sainte-Croix was madly, deeply devoted to her; but jealous at the same
time, to a point which rendered every word or look that she bestowed
upon another a source of raging torture to his mind. He found the
Marchioness had left word with her _femme de chambre_ that she had
gone to see Philippe Glazer respecting her hospital patients, whom she
was accustomed to serve as a _sainte fille_; and, knowing that Theria
occupied the same flat with the young student, his suspicions were
immediately aroused. She had, beyond doubt, made an appointment with
him.
With his brain on fire he left the hotel; and rapidly threading the
dark and wretched streets that led to the Place Maubert, rather by
instinct than the slightest attention to the localities, he reached
the _porte-cochère_ by the side of Glazer’s shop. Here he gained the
information just alluded to, and immediately proceeded to the floor on
which the rooms of the scholars were placed, flying up the stairs
three and four at a time, until he came to the landing. There was no
light in Glazer’s chamber; he listened, and all was quiet; he was
evidently not within. But from Theria’s he thought he heard the murmur
of voices proceeding, mingled now and then with light laughter which
he recognised; whose sound made his blood boil again. He seized the
handle of the _sonnette_ and pulled it violently. In less than half a
minute, during which time he was chafing up and down the landing like
an infuriated animal, the summons was answered. A small window in the
wall was opened, and a female face appeared at it--that of a young and
tolerably good-looking woman, apparently belonging to the class of
grisettes.
‘Is Camille within?’ asked Sainte-Croix, with an assumption of
intimacy with Theria.
An answer was given in the negative.
‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers is here, I believe?’ continued
Gaudin. And, without waiting for a reply, he added, ‘Will you tell her
she is wanted on most pressing business?’
The woman retired and closed the window. Immediately afterwards he
heard footsteps approaching; the outer door opened, and Madame de
Brinvilliers appeared.
A stifled scream of fear and surprise, yet sufficiently intense to
show her emotion at the presence of Gaudin, broke from her lips as she
recognised him. But, directly, she recovered her impassibility of
features--that wonderful calmness and innocent expression which
afterwards was so severely put to the proof without being shaken--and
asked, with apparent unconcern--
‘Well, monsieur, what do you want with me?’
‘Marie!’ exclaimed Gaudin; ‘let me ask your business _here_, at this
hour, unattended, and in the apartment of a scholar of the Hôtel
Dieu?’
‘You are mad, Sainte-Croix,’ said the Marchioness; ‘am I to be
accountable to you for all my actions? M. Theria is not here, and I
came to see his wife on my own affairs.’
‘Liar!’ cried Gaudin, as he quivered with jealous rage, seizing the
arm of the Marchioness with a clutch of iron. ‘Theria is within, and
you came to meet him only. You know that woman is not his wife; though
many there be less constant. You would wean his love from her, and
make him cast her upon the world, that you might be installed as his
paramour. You see, I know all--in another moment she also shall be
acquainted with everything.’
Sainte-Croix had spoken much of this upon mere chance, but it proved
to be correct. In an instant the accustomed firmness of the
Marchioness deserted her, and she fell upon her knees at his feet, on
the cold, damp floor of the landing.
‘In the name of mercy, leave this house, Gaudin!’ she exclaimed
hurriedly. ‘I have been very, very wrong. I confess I ought to have
been more candid. But leave this house--on my bended knees I implore
it. I will explain everything.’
‘I shall not stir, Marie,’ replied Sainte-Croix; and through all his
excitement a sarcastic smile played upon his lip as he saw the
trembling woman at his feet. ‘The tumult of this interview will reach
your new favourite’s ears; possibly the police of to-morrow will
exhibit strange prisoners.’
In an agony of terror the Marchioness clung to Sainte-Croix and again
besought him to depart. But Gaudin saw, as she quailed before his
determined aspect, that he had gained a temporary triumph over her
haughty disposition; and he enjoyed her distress in proportion as it
increased.
‘Gaudin!’ she cried; ‘pray, pray quit this place. I will do
[image: img_05.jpg
caption: Sainte-Croix Upbraiding the Marchioness]
all that you may in future wish, so that you will but go away. I will
be your abject slave; you shall spurn me, trample on me, crush me, if
you choose; only leave the house.’
‘I am waiting for an interview with M. Theria,’ Sainte-Croix replied
coldly.
‘You will not depart!’ exclaimed the Marchioness, suddenly altering
her tone, and springing up from her position of supplication. ‘Then
but one resource is left.’
‘Where are you about to go?’ asked Sainte-Croix, as she advanced
towards the top of the flight of stairs.
‘Hinder me not,’ returned Marie. ‘To the river!’
The Seine flowed but a few steps from the corner of the Place Maubert,
and Sainte-Croix doubted not but that, in her desperation of fear and
excitement, she would not hesitate to precipitate herself into it from
the quay--at that time unguarded by wall or barrier of any kind. He
seized her wrist as she was about to descend, and exclaimed
hurriedly--
‘Wherever you go, Marie, I go too; even to perdition!’
They flew down the winding stairs, scarcely knowing how they
progressed, Sainte-Croix still keeping hold of his companion. In an
instant they were at the bottom of the flight, and Gaudin’s hand was
glowing like a live coal from the rapid friction of the balusters as
they descended; but, frenzied and insensible to the pain, he saw or
thought of nothing except the pale and terrified creature in his
grasp. As they reached the end of their headlong and impetuous course,
Marie could no longer bear up against the whirl of tumultuous passions
that agitated her. The struggle had been too intense; her nerves gave
way, and she sank, apparently lifeless, on the ground.
The interview between Sainte-Croix and Madame de Brinvilliers, hurried
as it had been, was too violent for the sound of their altercation not
to reach Theria’s chambers, and the frenzied pair had scarcely reached
the bottom of the stairs, when the student was following them,
accompanied by the terrified grisette, who was bearing a light. He
found Gaudin endeavouring to raise the fainting Marchioness. She had
struck her face, in falling, against a projecting portion of the
staircase, and was bleeding therefrom; a circumstance which, in the
hurry of the instant, Theria attributed to Sainte-Croix. A few hot and
hurried words passed on either side, and the next instant their swords
were drawn and crossed.
Sainte-Croix, it need scarcely be observed, was a practised swordsman.
But he nearly found his match in Camille Theria. The students were at
that time most expert in fencing; and Gaudin was somewhat hardly
driven by the assaults of his antagonist, who, with more enthusiasm
than science, pressed on him, following thrust after thrust so
rapidly, that Sainte-Croix was compelled to act on the defensive alone
for some seconds. At length the cool calculation of the soldier,
unnerved though he had been by the events of the last few minutes,
prevailed over the impetuous assaults of his adversary. He allowed
Theria to spend his energy in a series of heated attacks, which he put
aside with practised skill; until, watching his moment, he made a
lunge and thrust his rapier completely through the fleshy part of the
sword-arm of the student, whose weapon fell to the ground.
‘I have it!’ cried Camille, as he reeled back against the pillar of
the staircase; and stretching out his left hand he caught hold of the
hilt of Gaudin’s sword, preventing him from drawing it back again,
until, with singular nerve, he allowed the bright blade to be
retracted through his quivering muscle.
‘A peace, monsieur; I have it!’ he continued, smiling as he watched
the trickling dark stream that followed its withdrawal. ‘But you have
not crippled me beyond to-night. Glazer will tell you that the veins
will soon close. Had it been a leaping artery, the case would have
been different. Clemence, tie my arm round with your handkerchief.’
The grisette, who had been frightened to death during the contest, was
now supporting the still senseless Marchioness. Gaudin knelt down and
relieved her of her charge, and she immediately bound up Theria’s
wound as he had requested, and then, at his command, went back to the
chambers upstairs; she evidently lived in complete submission to what
he chose to order.
‘So!’ said Camille, ‘that is past. We have met again in an odd
fashion, Captain de Sainte-Croix.’
As he was speaking, Marie opened her eyes and looked around. But, the
instant she saw the two rivals she shuddered convulsively, and again
relapsed into insensibility.
‘She is a clever actress,’ continued Camille, smiling; ‘they will tell
you so at Versailles.’
‘We have each been duped,’ answered Gaudin, somewhat struck at the
cool manner in which Theria appeared to take everything; ‘she has been
playing a deep, double game with us.’
‘She will play one no longer as far as I am concerned. You are welcome
to all her affections, and I shall rank you as one of my best friends
for your visit this evening.’
‘Let me ask one thing,’ said Gaudin. ‘For her sake this rencontre must
be kept between ourselves.’
‘You have my honour that it shall,’ answered Theria, ‘if you think
such an article good security.’
But, whatever might have been their intentions, they were not
permitted to preserve the secrecy. For Glazer’s man, Panurge, hearing
the struggle in the court, had thought it by far the best plan to call
in the guard instead of going himself to see what it was; and opening
the window of the shop, looking on to the street, had bawled so
lustily that a detachment of the Guet Royal was soon summoned, and by
his directions now entered the court-yard, upon the assurance that a
woman was being murdered.
They advanced at once to the foot of the staircase, where Theria,
Gaudin, and Marie were stationed; their bright cressets shedding a
vivid light over every part of the interior. Some young men, who had
come up with the guard, as they were returning from their orgies,
pressed forward with curiosity to ascertain the cause of the tumult.
But from one of them a fearful cry of surprise was heard as he
recognised the persons before him. Sainte-Croix raised his eyes, and
found that he was standing face to face with Antoine, Marquis of
Brinvilliers!