"THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS," BY ALBERT SMITH.
"December 20, 1844.
"MY DEAR SIR,
"Here we are at the 20th of the month, and I have only four pages of
Smith's new story--no incident. Really, it is too much to expect that I
can throw myself at a moment's notice into the seventeenth century, with
all its difficulties of costume, etc., etc. What am I to do? There is a
great want of system somewhere. I received a note from Mr. Marsh last
night, stating for the first time that there would be _two_
illustrations to 'The Marchioness of Brinvilliers,' and also urging me
to be very early with the plates, it being Christmas and all that! But,
as I said before, I have not the matter to illustrate. _What am I to
do?_ Added to all this, I must be engaged one day in the early part of
next week on the melancholy occasion of the funeral of a poor little
sister of mine. Pray, my dear sir, do what you can to expedite matters,
and
"Believe me,
"Yours faithfully,
"JOHN LEECH.
"---- MORGAN, ESQ."
The above is one of the many letters that might be quoted to show the
aggravating delays and difficulties under which so much of Leech's work
was produced. I take Mr. Morgan to have been one of the officials of Mr.
Richard Bentley's establishment, whose patience must have been sorely
tried again and again by the pranks of that _genus irritabile_, the
writer. Judging from the humorous character of Albert Smith's "Ledbury"
and other works, one is hardly prepared for the horrors that make us
shudder over the pages of "The Marchioness of Brinvilliers"--horrors in
which the writer seems to revel with a zest as keen as that he takes in
the fun and frolic of Ledbury.
The "shilling shocker" of the present day is a mild production indeed,
in comparison with the history of the poisoner and adulteress,
Brinvilliers, in which "on horror's head horrors accumulate." The
authors of the modern productions are, for the most part, inventors of
the blood-and-murder scenes that adorn their books. Not so Mr. Albert
Smith, whose pages describe but too truly the career of the most
notorious of the many criminals that flourished in the most profligate
period of French history. Louis XIV. set an example in debauchery to his
subjects which the highest of them eagerly followed; but the most
fearful factor of this terrible time was poison, by which the possessors
of estates who "lagged superfluous on the scene" were made to give place
to greedy heirs; husbands, inconveniently in the way, were put out of it
by their wives, whose affections had been disposed of elsewhere; state
officers, whose positions were desired by aspirants unwilling to wait
for them, were struck by sudden and mysterious illness, speedily
followed by death, for which the faculty of the time could in no way
account.
Marie, Marchioness of Brinvilliers, lived with her husband in the Rue
des Cordeliers in Paris. The Marquis was a man of easy morals, and the
Marchioness was a woman of still easier morals, for she had many lovers;
she also amused her leisure hours by the study of the nature and
properties of a great variety of deadly poisons; thinking, no doubt, as
she was of a jealous disposition, that the time might arrive when her
knowledge would be useful in depriving her lover of the temptation which
had led him to forget his duty to her. The Marchioness was a very
beautiful woman; she had eyes of a tender blue; her complexion was of
dazzling whiteness, with cheeks of a delicate carnation; her expression
was angelic, and she wore her hair of pale gold in bushy ringlets, in
obedience to the fashion of the time. We first become acquainted with
the Marchioness under painful circumstances, for she made--and kept--an
appointment with one lover without being sufficiently careful to
disguise her doings from another. That other was the Chevalier Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix, who proceeded to the lodgings of his rival, M. Camille
Theria.
"'The Marchioness of Brinvilliers is here, I believe,' said Gaudin to
the grisette at the door. 'Will you tell her she is wanted on pressing
business?'
"The Marchioness appeared. A stifled scream of fear and surprise, yet
sufficiently intense to show her emotion at the sight of Gaudin, broke
from her lips as she recognised him. But she immediately recovered her
impassibility of features--that wonderful calmness and innocent
expression which afterwards was so severely put to the proof without
being shaken--and she asked, with apparent unconcern:
"'Well, monsieur, what do you want with me?'
"'Marie!' exclaimed Gaudin, 'let me ask your business here at this hour'
(it was rather late) 'unattended, and in the apartment of a scholar of
the Hotel 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."
The lady had not told the truth, for M. Theria had no wife, and he was
so near by that he heard the angry voice of M. Sainte-Croix, who so
convinced the Marchioness of her perfidy that "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 this powerful etching nothing could surpass the beauty of the face
and figure of the Marchioness; she exactly realizes our ideal. But the
Chevalier, though full of passion, is, to my mind, verging on the
theatrical.
Finding that her entreaties to the Chevalier to "go away" have no
effect, she threatens suicide.
"There is but one resource left," she says, as she "springs up from her
position of supplication."
"Where are you going?" asked Sainte-Croix, as she rushed to the top of
the flight of stairs.
"Hinder me not!" returned Marie. "To the river!"
But before she could reach the river--to which she would no doubt have
given a very wide berth--she fainted, or pretended to faint, in the
courtyard at the bottom of the staircase. Here the pair were overtaken
by M. Theria.
"A few hot and hurried words passed on either side, and the next instant
their swords were drawn and crossed. The fight was short, and ended in
Sainte-Croix thrusting 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. 'A peace, monsieur! I have it!' he
continued, smiling, as he felt that his wound, though slight, was too
serious to have been received in so unworthy a cause.
"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.
"'We have each been duped,' answered Gaudin.
"'She will play me no longer. As far as I am concerned,' said Theria,
'you are welcome to all her affections, and I shall reckon you as one of
my best friends for your visit this evening.'"
The visit was destined to have an unexpected end, however, for the
attention of the Guet Royal, or night-guard, had been called to the
clashing of swords.
"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 himself face to face with Antoine, Marquis of Brinvilliers!"
The late combatants threw dust in the eyes of the lady's husband
cleverly enough by pretending that Sainte-Croix had rescued her from the
unwelcome attentions of Theria, who had mistaken her in the uncertain
light for a lady with whom he had an appointment. The cloak which the
Marchioness wore, together with the darkness of the night, had prevented
his discovering that she was not the person he expected until her cries
had brought in Sainte-Croix, who was passing, as he said himself, "to
his lodgings in the Rue des Bernardins."
The lady went home with her husband, and Sainte-Croix retired to his
lodgings, there to meditate on the perfidy of his mistress. The
Chevalier de Sainte-Croix was even more learned in poisons, and less
scrupulous in the use of them, than his mistress; and in his first gusts
of passion, on discovering her treachery, he was inclined--in the hate
of her that took temporary possession of him--to subject her to their
effect; but reflection produced demoniacal results. She should be spared
to kill those who ought to be near and dear to her!
"'I will be her bane--her curse!' he exclaimed. 'I will be her bad
angel!... And I will triumph over that besotted fool, her husband,' etc.
"He opened a small, iron-clamped box, and brought from it a small
packet, carefully sealed, and a phial of clear, colourless fluid.
"'I have it! It is here--the source, not of life, but of death!'
"Almost as he speaks, he is summoned by the _femme de chambre_ of the
Marchioness to an interview at her residence at her father's house, the
Hotel d'Aubray. The Chevalier found the enchantress in studied disarray.
She might have been made up after one of Guido's Magdalens," says the
author, "so beautiful were her rounded shoulders, so dishevelled her
light hair," etc.
The lovers were speedily reconciled, but the lady had an important
communication to make--no less than the discovery of their intimacy by
her husband, whom she felt sure had revealed the fact to her father, M.
d'Aubray. A long pause, broken by Sainte-Croix:
"'Marie,' he said, 'they must die, or our happiness is impossible.'"
The Marchioness was not yet hardened enough to receive this announcement
with equanimity; and the lovers were still discussing the _pros_ and
_cons_ of it, when they were surprised by Monsieur d'Aubray, who,
entering by a secret door, "stood looking on the scene before him." Any
doubts of guilty intimacy, if he had any, were dispelled; and, after
ordering his daughter to her chamber, he turned to Sainte-Croix, and
said:
"'Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, I will provide you with a lodging where you
will run no risk of compromising the honour of a noble family.'"
And so saying, he produced a _lettre de cachet_, armed with which the
exempts, who were waiting for him, speedily deposited M. de Sainte-Croix
at the Bastille. The Marchioness, separated from her children and her
husband, was exiled to Offremont, a family place some distance from
Paris. Here she lived with her father, who so entirely believed in her
repentance and determination to lead a new life that he proposed a
speedy return to Paris.
"'I have no wish to go, _mon pere_,' replied the hypocrite; 'I would
sooner remain here with you--for ever!'"
After much talk and reiterated professions of sorrow for the past, the
Marchioness says, in reply to her father's order that "she shall never
speak to Sainte-Croix--who had been released from the Bastille--or
recognise him again:
"'You shall be obeyed, monsieur--too willingly.'"
The words had not long left her lips when she placed a lamp in the
window of the room, to guide her lover to a prearranged assignation.
The awful interview that followed is described in Mr. Smith's book.
The greater villain ran the risk of interruption in his lengthened
arguments in favour of parricide; but hearing approaching footsteps,
Sainte-Croix hurried away.
[Illustration]
M. d'Aubray had gone to bed. A servant suggested the night-drink.
"'I will give it to him myself, Jervais,' said the Marchioness."
Taking a jug from the man, she poured the contents into an old cup of
thin silver; then, "with a hurried glance round the room, she broke the
seals of the packet Sainte-Croix had left in her hands, and shook a few
grains of its contents into the beverage. No change was visible; a few
bubbles rose and broke upon the surface, but this was all."
Sleep had surprised M. d'Aubray. His daughter touched him lightly, and
he "awoke with the exclamation of surprise attendant upon being suddenly
disturbed from sleep.
"'I have brought your wine, _mon pere_,' said the murderess.
"'Thanks, thanks, my good girl,' said the old man, as he raised himself
up in bed, and took the cup from the Marchioness. He drank off the
contents, and then, once more bestowing a benediction upon his daughter,
turned again to his pillow."
Let those who desire to see how beauty can be retained, though
disfigured by devilish passion, study the face of the Marchioness in
this drawing. For skilful arrangement of light and shade, and of the
objects that go to make up the _mise en scene_, and for natural action
in the figures; this drawing takes the lead of all the admirable
illustrations in the "Marchioness of Brinvilliers."