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PRINCES AND POISONERS
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR_
LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE. BY FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO. With an Introduction
by VICTORIEN SARDOU. Translated by GEORGE MAIDMENT. 1899. Crown 8vo.
Cloth, 6_s._
CONTENTS.--I. The Archives; II. History of the Bastille; III. Life in
the Bastille; IV. The Man in the Iron Mask; V. Men of Letters in the
Bastille; VI. Latude; VII. The Fourteenth of July.
LONDON: DOWNEY AND CO., LIMITED.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF GABRIEL NICOLAS DE LA REYNIE
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL OF POLICE
(_Engraved by Van Schuppen, after the painting by Mignard_)]
Princes and Poisoners
STUDIES OF THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV
BY
FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO
TRANSLATED BY
GEORGE MAIDMENT
[Illustration: colphon]
LONDON
_DUCKWORTH and CO._
3 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
1901
_Second Impression, May 1901_
_All rights reserved._
PREFATORY NOTE
Twelve months ago I had the honour of introducing M. Frantz
Funck-Brentano to the English public by my translation of his _Légendes
et Archives de la Bastille_, and in my preface to that book I gave a
rapid sketch of his career which need not be repeated. If history is to
be continually reconstructed, or rather, perhaps, to undergo a process
of destructive distillation, there is no one more competent than M.
Funck-Brentano to perform the feat. We lose our illusions with our
teeth; the fables that charmed our childhood dissolve in the modern
historian's test-tube, and the mysteries that fascinated our forebears
become clear with a few drops of his critical acid.
In his former book, M. Funck-Brentano solved once for all the mystery
of the Man in the Iron Mask, showed up the impostor Latude in his true
colours, and gave us surprising information about the latter days of the
Bastille. In the present volume, the fruit of several years' research
among the archives at the Arsenal Library, he conclusively dispels the
cloud of suspicion that has hung over the sudden death of Charles I's
winsome and ill-fated daughter Henrietta; gives us for the first time
the authentic history of that beautiful poisoner Madame de Brinvilliers;
suggests a very plausible explanation of Racine's hitherto inexplicable
retirement from dramatic writing; and throws a strange light upon the
private history of Madame de Montespan and other fair ladies of Louis
XIV's Court. If it be objected that some of the details of the 'black
mass' and kindred abominations are too gruesome for print, it may be
urged in reply that these details are related with the cold impartial
pen of a serious historian, not coloured or heightened with a view to
melodramatic effect. 'Truth's a dog that must to kennel,' says Lear's
Fool; Louis the Magnificent tried to stifle the damning evidence against
his jealous, passionate mistress; when Time and patient research among
long-forgotten papers have combined to bring the truth to light, it
would ill become us to blame a scholar like M. Funck-Brentano for not
joining the monarch's conspiracy of silence.
G. M.
_November 1900._
CONTENTS
PAGE
MARIE MADELEINE DE BRINVILLIERS--
I. HER LIFE, 1
II. HER TRIAL, 36
III. HER DEATH, 76
THE POISON DRAMA AT THE COURT OF
LOUIS XIV--
I. THE SORCERESSES--
The Dinner of La Vigoreux, 117
Sorcery in the Seventeenth Century, 121
The Practices of the Witches, 128
The Alchemists, 133
La Voisin, 144
The Magician Lesage, 159
The 'Chambre Ardente,' 163
Louis XIV and the Poison Affair, 180
II. MADAME DE MONTESPAN, 187
III. A MAGISTRATE--GABRIEL NICOLAS DE LA REYNIE, 265
THE DEATH OF 'MADAME,' 313
RACINE AND THE POISON AFFAIR, 346
'LA DEVINERESSE,' 361
INDEX, 375
ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT OF GABRIEL NICOLAS DE LA
REYNIE, LIEUTENANT-GENERAL OF POLICE.
Engraved by Van Schuppen, after the picture by
Mignard, _Frontispiece_
PORTRAIT OF MADAME DE BRINVILLIERS,
after the sketch by Charles Lebrun, _facing page 112_
MARIE MADELEINE DE BRINVILLIERS
I. HER LIFE
In the judicial annals of France there has never been a more striking or
celebrated figure than the Marquise de Brinvilliers. The enormity of her
crimes, the brilliance of her rank, the circumstances accompanying her
trial and death,--the story of which, as told by her confessor, the abbé
Pirot, is one of the masterpieces of French literature,--finally, the
strange energy of her character, which after her execution caused her to
be regarded as a saint by a portion of the population of Paris: all
these things will for long years to come attract to her the attention of
all who are interested in the history of the past.
Michelet devoted to the Marquise de Brinvilliers a study in the _Revue
des Deux Mondes_. But his story is very inaccurate and leaves many
gaps. From the historical point of view, the little novel of Dumas is
much to be preferred. The beautiful criminal has also been dealt with by
Pierre Clément in his _Police of Paris under Louis XIV_, and more
recently by Maître Cornu, in his discourse at the reopening of the
lecture-term of the advocates to the Court of Cassation. The writer of
the following pages has been able to make use of some fresh documents.
In the trial of the Marquise de Brinvilliers there is much to interest
the historian. It was the first of the terrible poison cases which
caused such a sensation at the court of Louis XIV in the central years
of his reign, and in which the greatest names in France were implicated;
and Madame de Brinvilliers herself represents the most salient and most
easily studied features of a type of woman which, as we shall see,
repeated itself after her even on the steps of the throne.
* * * * *
Marie Madeleine--and not Marguerite--d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers,
was born on July 22, 1630. She was the eldest of the five children of
Antoine Dreux d'Aubray, lord of Offémont and Villiers, councillor of
state, _maître des requêtes_, civil lieutenant of the city, mayoralty,
and viscounty of Paris, and lieutenant-general of the mines of France.
Dreux d'Aubray was himself the son of a treasurer of France, originally
from Soissons. Madeleine d'Aubray received a good education, in a
literary point of view at any rate. The spelling of her letters is
correct, a rare thing with the ladies of her time. Her handwriting is
remarkable: bold, firm, like a man's, and such as the observer would be
disposed to ascribe to an earlier period. But her religious education
was entirely neglected. At her interviews with her confessor on the eve
of her death she displayed an utter ignorance of the most elementary
maxims of religion,--those which people learn as children, and never
during the whole course of their life forget.
Of moral principles she was absolutely destitute. From the age of five
she was addicted to horrible vices. At seven she was only by courtesy a
maiden. These are what Michelet calls 'a young girl's peccadilloes.' As
time went on, she yielded herself to her young brothers. On these points
her own testimony renders mistake impossible. She will show herself to
have been endowed with an ardent, affectionate nature, which gave her
passions command of an amazing energy; but this energy acted only under
the empire of her passions, for she was powerless to resist the
impressions which penetrated and ere long dominated her. She was
extremely sensitive to affronts, and particularly to those which touched
her pride. She was one of those natures which under good guidance are
capable of heroic deeds, but which are also capable of the greatest
crimes when they are wholly abandoned to evil instincts.
In 1651, at the age of one-and-twenty, Marie Madeleine d'Aubray wedded a
young officer of the Norman regiment, Antoine Gobelin de Brinvilliers,
baron of Nourar, the son of a president of the audit office. He was a
direct descendant of Gobelin, the founder of the celebrated manufacture.
Mademoiselle d'Aubray brought her husband a dowry of 200,000 livres, and
as he too was wealthy, the young couple enjoyed what was for that time
a large fortune.
The young marchioness was charming--a pretty, sprightly woman, with
large expressive eyes. She made a great impression by her frank,
decided, and vivacious manner of speaking. She was of an amiable and
cheerful temperament, and dreamed of nothing but pleasure. A priest
endowed with great keenness of judgment, who studied the Marquise de
Brinvilliers in terrible circumstances, has described her as follows:--
'She was naturally intrepid and of a great courage. She appeared to have
been born with inclinations towards good, with an air of complete
indifference, with a keen and penetrating intellect, forming clear views
of things, and expressing them in words few and fit but very precise;
wonderfully ready in finding expedients for getting out of a difficulty,
and quick to make up her mind upon the most embarrassing questions;
frivolous, moreover, with no application, uneven and inconstant,
becoming impatient if the same subject were often talked about.
'Her soul had something naturally great--a composure in face of the most
unexpected emergencies, a firmness that nothing could move, a resolution
to await and even suffer death if need be.
'She had thick and beautiful chestnut hair, with comely and well-rounded
features--her eyes blue, tender, and of perfect beauty, her skin
extraordinarily white, her nose well-shaped enough; nothing in her
countenance was unpleasing.
'Sweet as her face naturally appeared, when some vexatious idea crossed
her imagination she showed it plainly by a grimace that might at first
sight scare you; and from time to time I noticed contortions that
bespoke disdain, indignation, and scorn.
'She was of a very slight and dainty figure.'
To the Marquis de Brinvilliers luxury and large expenditure had become
second nature; he loved gaming and pleasure generally; and his marriage
was very far from banishing his joyous habits. In 1659 he formed a close
intimacy with a certain Godin, known more often as Sainte-Croix, a
captain of horse in the Tracy regiment, originally from Montauban, and
said to be a by-blow of a noble Gascon family. Sainte-Croix was young
and handsome; 'endowed,' says a memoir of the time, 'with all the
advantages of intelligence, and perhaps, too, with those qualities of
heart under whose empire a woman rarely fails, in the long-run, to
fall.' In after days, Maître Vautier had to sketch the portrait of
Sainte-Croix in the course of an address before the Parlement.
'Sainte-Croix,' he said, 'was in poverty and distress, but he had a rare
and singular genius. His countenance was prepossessing, and gave promise
of intelligence. Such indeed he had, and of such sort as to give
universal pleasure. He took his pleasure in the pleasure of others; he
entered into a religious scheme as joyfully as he accepted the
suggestion of a crime. Keenly sensitive to insult, he was susceptible to
love, and in love jealous to madness, even of persons on whom public
debauchery assumed rights that were not unknown to him. His extravagance
was amazing, and supported by no occupation; for the rest, his soul was
prostituted to every form of crime. He dabbled also in external piety,
and it has been claimed that he wrote devotional books. He spoke
divinely of the God in whom he did not believe, and favoured by this
mask of piety, which he never removed save with his friends, he appeared
to participate in good deeds while really immersed in crime.' Though he
was an officer and married, Sainte-Croix sometimes assumed the garb and
the title of Abbé.
Sainte-Croix was a brilliant and gallant cavalier; and the Marquise de
Brinvilliers, with her blue eyes and dainty figure, was the most
charming creature in the world. 'Lady Brinvilliers,' observes Vautier
the advocate, 'did not make a mystery of her amour; she gloried in it in
society, whence there resulted much _éclat_.' She gloried in it also
before her husband, who responded by boasting of his own love for other
ladies; but as she ventured also to brag about it before her father, the
civil lieutenant, a man of the old school, he, strong in the rights with
which ancient customs endowed a father, obtained a _lettre de cachet_
against his daughter's lover. On March 19, 1663, Sainte-Croix was
arrested 'in the marquise's own carriage as he sat by her side,' and
was thrown into the Bastille.
Various writers who have dealt with these facts depict Sainte-Croix as
the prison companion of the famous Exili, from whom he learnt the secret
of Italian poisons. Restored to liberty, Sainte-Croix is said to have
handed the terrible prescriptions to his mistress and others, who in
their turn spread them through France.
We find this opinion expressed in the documents of the time, among
others in the speech delivered by Maître Nivelle before the Parlement,
on behalf of Madame de Brinvilliers.
Exili, whose real name was Eggidi or Gilles, was an Italian gentleman
attached to the service of Queen Christina of Sweden. It is true that he
was confined in the Bastille at the same period as Sainte-Croix. He
remained there from February 2 to June 27, 1663; Sainte-Croix was there
from March 19 to May 2. A captain of police named Desgrez--who will play
an important part in the sequel--met Exili on leaving prison with an
order to conduct him to Calais and embark him for England; but, whether
Exili gave him the slip on the way, or that he had no sooner reached
England than he returned to France, we soon find the Italian again in
Paris, and in the house of Sainte-Croix himself, with whom he stayed for
six months. After all, it was not Exili who trained Sainte-Croix in the
'art of poisons,' to adopt the phrase of the time. Long before he
entered the Bastille the young cavalry officer had acquired a knowledge
of poisons which far exceeded that of Exili. He owed it to a celebrated
Swiss chemist named Christophe Glaser, who had set up an establishment
in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he had attained a considerable
standing, after the publication in 1665 of a _Treatise on Chemistry_,
which had a noteworthy success at the time, and was often reprinted and
translated. Glaser was apothecary in ordinary to the king and
Monsieur,[1] and demonstrator in chemistry to the Jardin des Plantes. He
was, moreover, a scientist of real merit. Sulphate of potassium, which
he discovered, long bore his name. Glaser was the principal, probably
the only person who furnished Sainte-Croix and his mistress with
poisons. In their correspondence the two lovers call the poisons which
they used 'Glaser's recipe.' These poisons, however, as we shall see,
were very simple; in these days they would appear clumsy. Exili, who
goes out of our story, remained connected with Queen Christina, and in
1681 made an excellent marriage when he wedded the Countess Ludovica
Fantaguzzi, cousin of Duke Francis of Modena.
* * * * *
As soon as Sainte-Croix left the Bastille he renewed his relations with
the Marquise de Brinvilliers. Her passion had only been heightened by
the imprisonment of her lover. Wounded in her pride, she felt the birth
within herself of an implacable and violent hatred of her father. Her
dissipations, her gaming, her wild flings in her lover's company (she
paying expenses, after the fashion of that period), had embarrassed her
fortune. 'I accuse myself,' she said in her confession, 'of having given
a great deal of my wealth to this man, and he ruined me.' The desire of
attaining possession of her paternal inheritance, and the yearning,
growing day by day more imperious, for wreaking vengeance on her father
for the affront put upon her, suggested to her a frightful crime. There
might frequently have been seen, drawing up at the market-square of
Saint-Germain, a carriage from which alighted a young officer and a
fashionable lady. They went on foot to the Rue du Petit-Lion, in which
Glaser the chemist lived. Arrived at his house, they sought a retired
room. The neighbours, puzzled by these strange goings-on, spoke of false
money. Soon this young lady might have been seen, under the edifying
appearance of piety and religion, going into the hospitals; she bent
over the beds of the patients with words of gentleness and affection;
she carried them confections, wine, and biscuits; but the patients whom
she approached inevitably succumbed, ere long, in horrible anguish. 'Who
would have dreamt,' writes Nicolas de la Reynie, the lieutenant of
police, 'that a woman brought up in a respectable family, whose form and
constitution were delicate and who in appearance was sweet-natured,
would have made an amusement of going to the hospitals to poison the
patients, for the purpose of observing the different effects of the
poison she gave them?' She poisoned her own servants, too, 'to try
experiments.' 'Françoise Roussel says that she has been in the service
of Lady Brinvilliers. The latter one day gave her some preserved
gooseberries to eat, on the point of a knife, and soon afterwards she
felt ill; she gave her also a moist slice of ham, which she ate, and
since then she has had severe abdominal pains, feeling as though her
heart were being stabbed.' The poor woman was ill for three years.
When the marquise had tested the strength of 'Glaser's recipe,' and had
noted the inability of the surgeons to discover traces of poison in the
corpses, the poisoning of her father was resolved on.
As Whitsuntide drew on in the year 1666, Antoine Dreux d'Aubray, who had
been suffering for some months from strange disorders, set out for his
estates at Offémont, a few leagues from Compiègne. He asked his daughter
to bring her children and spend a few weeks with him, and when she
arrived he scolded her affectionately for having been so long in
coming. On the day after her arrival his sickness was redoubled; 'he had
great vomitings, continuing with increasing violence till his death,'
which occurred at Paris, whither he had himself transported in order to
secure the services of the best physicians, and whither his daughter had
not failed to accompany him. Madeleine de Brinvilliers confessed
afterwards that she had poisoned her father twenty-eight or thirty times
with her own hands, and at other times by the hands of a lackey named
Gascon, presented to her by Sainte-Croix. The poison was given both in
water and in powder, and the process lasted eight months. 'She could not
manage it,' she said. It is clear that the poison she employed was
simply arsenic. When in the course of time the facts were known, all
Europe clamoured with indignation at the thought of this woman heaping
caresses on her dying father, and responding to his embraces by pouring
poison into the medicines she handed him with her engaging smile. 'The
greatest crimes,' said Madame de Sévigné, 'are a mere trifle in
comparison with being eight months poisoning her father and receiving
all his caresses and tendernesses, to which she replied by doubling the
dose. Medea was nothing to her.'
D'Aubray died at Paris on September 10, 1666, aged sixty-six years. The
physicians who made an autopsy of the body attributed death to natural
causes; but the rumour at once got abroad that he had died of poison.
The elder brother of the marquise, whose name was the same as his
father's, succeeded him in the family estates and the office of civil
lieutenant.
Delivered thus from a formidable censor, Madame de Brinvilliers no
longer put any restraint on her debaucheries. She had several lovers at
once, in addition to Sainte-Croix. By him she had 'two children among
her own'; she was the mistress of F. de Pouget, Marquis de Nadaillac,
captain of light horse, and cousin of her husband. Another lover was a
cousin of her own, by whom she had a child. Finally, she granted her
favours to a mere youth, her children's tutor, of whom there will be
much more to say. In spite of this, she felt keenly irritated when
Sainte-Croix appeared to be unfaithful to her; and when she learnt that
her husband was keeping a woman named Dufay, in her rage she thought of
stabbing her. 'She had naturally a great delicacy of feeling,' her
confessor was to write of her, 'and was highly sensitive on a point of
honour and in regard to injuries.'
Her expenses and prodigalities redoubled, and it was not long before her
share of her father's wealth had melted away. At this point occurs an
incident which bears witness at once to the distress into which she had
fallen and to the savage energy of her character. In 1670, a property
belonging to herself and her husband at Norat, was sold by order of the
Court to satisfy their creditors; in her ungovernable fury the marquise
attempted to set the place on fire.
The greater part of her father's estate had come to her two brothers,
one of whom had been appointed civil lieutenant, as we have seen; the
other was councillor to the Court. Madame de Brinvilliers had already
tried to procure the assassination of the elder by two hired bravoes on
the road to Orleans--one of those audacious strokes which to the end of
her days she never ceased to devise. She declared at this moment that
her brother was 'no good.' Pressed by need of money, she 'resolved on
fresh poisonings so as not to lose the fruits of the first.'
Sainte-Croix was fully agreed as to the necessity of the proceedings;
but before he set about carrying them into effect he got from his
mistress two promissory notes, one for 25,000, the other for 30,000
livres.
In 1669, Madame de Brinvilliers succeeded in introducing a wretch named
Jean Hamelin, commonly known as La Chaussée, into her brother the
councillor's household as a footman. The two brothers lived in the same
house, and La Chaussée had every facility for giving poison to both. One
day when he was waiting at table, the dose he put into the glass he was
handing was so strong that the civil lieutenant rose up in great
agitation, crying, 'Ah, wretch, what have you given me? I think you want
to poison me!' And he bade his secretary taste the stuff. The latter
took some on a spoon and declared that he detected a strong taste of
vitriol. La Chaussée did not lose his head. 'No doubt it is the glass
Lacroix (the valet) used this morning,' he said, 'when he took
medicine.' And he hastily threw the contents of the glass into the fire.
The civil lieutenant went to his estate at Villequoy in Beauce, to spend
Easter with his family. In 1670 Easter fell on April 6. His brother the
councillor made one of the party, and took La Chaussée with him as his
only attendant. While they stayed at Villequoy La Chaussée helped in the
kitchen. One day a tart came to table, of which all who ate were very
ill on the morrow, while the others remained quite well. On April 12
they returned to Paris, and the civil lieutenant had the appearance of a
man who had suffered great pain.
The details of the poisoning are horrible. As D'Aubray did his best to
restore his health, the poison did not take effect so quickly as usual;
he was very difficult to kill. La Chaussée, assiduous in his attentions,
gave his master poison at every possible opportunity. His body was so
offensive during his illness that it was impossible to remain in the
room with him; and he was so irritable that no one could approach him.
Madame de Brinvilliers rarely showed herself, but sent her pious sister
to take her place. Meanwhile La Chaussée was unremitting in his care; no
one but him could change the bedclothes or the mattress. The unhappy man
suffered unspeakable torture. La Chaussée could not help exclaiming:
'This fellow holds out well! He's giving us a good deal of trouble! I
don't know when he will give up the ghost!'
Madame de Brinvilliers was at Sains in Picardy. She told Briancourt, the
tutor who had become her lover, that the poisoning of her brother the
councillor was in progress. She explained to him that she wanted to set
up 'a good house'; that her eldest son, who was already nicknamed the
President, would one day fill the post of civil lieutenant, and added
that 'there was still a good deal to be done.' These sentiments were
sincere. Madame de Brinvilliers endeavoured to bring up and establish
her children--'who were her own flesh,' as she said--in conformity with
the brilliant dreams she nourished for the future of her 'house.' True,
she began to poison her eldest daughter, but that was because she
thought her a ninny. She was seized with regret, however, and made her
drink milk as an antidote.
Such was one of her dominant preoccupations. To this must be added her
longing to live with 'honour,' that is, with a brilliant household, with
beautiful ornaments, keeping up a great style, and entertaining her
lovers with magnificence. She longed for 'the glory of the world,' a
phrase continually on her lips. It was for 'honour' that she poisoned so
many people. Such was her own statement.
The martyrdom of her brother the civil lieutenant lasted three months.
'He grew thin,' declares his physician, 'and emaciated; lost his
appetite, often vomited, and had burning pains in the stomach.' He died
on June 17, 1670. The councillor died in the following September. In
this case, Dr. Bachot, the civil lieutenant's usual attendant, along
with surgeons Duvaux and Dupré and the apothecary Gavart, declared
after an autopsy that the deceased had been poisoned; but so little were
the perpetrators of the crime suspected that La Chaussée drew a hundred
crowns left him by his master as a reward for his faithful service.
* * * * *
We must follow the career of the marquise after the poisoning of her
father and brothers, to understand to what depths her ill-regulated
passion had thrown this woman, who belonged to the highest ranks of
society by her name, her fortune, and the position of her family, and
who was so charmingly endowed by Nature.
She was at the mercy of a lackey, who held her honour and her life in
his miserable hands. 'She used to receive him privately in her
sitting-room, where she gave him money, saying, "He is a good fellow,
and has done me great service"; and she caressed him.' Visitors coming
upon her unawares found the marquise 'in great familiarity with La
Chaussée,' and 'she made him hide behind her bed when the Sieur Cousté
came to see her.'
Sainte-Croix was a more formidable accomplice. What must have been the
agony of this proud and passionate woman when she understood little by
little that this man, to whom she had sacrificed everything, had seen in
her only an instrument of his own pleasure and fortune, and now profited
by his mastery of her secrets to squeeze money out of her by the most
vulgar methods of intimidation! Sainte-Croix had locked up in a small
box, which was to become famous, the letters, thirty-four in number,
sent him by the marchioness, the two promissory notes signed by her
after the murder of her father and brothers, and several bottles of
poison. 'The said Lady Brinvilliers coaxed Sainte-Croix to give her his
box, and wished him to give her her note for two or three thousand
pistoles; otherwise she would have him poniarded.' The woman speaks out
in this last phrase. At other times, desperate, frantic with terror, she
thought of poisoning herself. She implored Sainte-Croix to give her the
box, and when she received no answer, sent him this touching note: 'I
have thought it best to put an end to my life, and I have therefore
taken this evening what you gave me at so dear a price--the recipe of
Glaser; by which you will see that I have willingly sacrificed my life
to you; but I do not promise you, before I die, that I will not await
you somewhere to bid you a last farewell.' In the last line she becomes
herself again; there you have the menace of the offended woman.
What scenes for a romancer to write! One day, by way of reply to these
cries of blood, Sainte-Croix made her swallow poison. It was arsenic;
but the pain she felt warned her immediately, and she absorbed great
quantities of warm milk and so saved herself. She was ill from the
effects for several months. She declared after the death of Sainte-Croix
'that she had done what she could to get the box from him while he was
alive, and if she had succeeded, she would afterwards have cut his
throat.'
Like all criminals, Madame de Brinvilliers was dominated by the
unconquerable impulse to lead the conversation continually to the
subject of her crimes. She would talk about poisons to any one she met.
Her servants found bottles of arsenic in her dressing-room. One day,
when very merry--she had taken too much wine--she went up to her room
carrying a sort of casket in her hand, and meeting one of her servants
told her 'that she had the wherewithal to wreak vengeance on her
enemies, and that there were many inheritances in that box'--a terrible
phrase which was repeated at her trial and became a catchword; poison
was called afterwards 'powder of inheritance.' 'When she came to her
senses shortly afterwards the marquise told her servant that she did not
know what she was saying when she spoke of inheritances, and that her
troubles were sending her out of her mind.' She fancied that she had
also betrayed herself before her maid, Mademoiselle de Villeray, and it
is possible that in 1673, to secure her silence, she poisoned her too.
Little by little she came to reveal her crimes in all their details to
Briancourt. In the course of her conversations with him, she displayed
no regret at the death of her brothers, whom she despised, but she often
wept when speaking of her father. 'On the morning after one of these
confidences,' said Briancourt before the judges, 'the Marquise de
Brinvilliers rushed into my room like a madwoman, and told me that she
much mistrusted me, having confided to me matters of the utmost
consequence, in which her life was involved. I told her that I would
never speak of the things confided to me, but I begged her, with tears
in my eyes, that if she was not satisfied with my conduct she would
allow me to return to Paris. The lady replied: "No, no,--if you will
only be discreet; I will make your fortune, and I am sure of your
discretion." About the same time the lady fetched Sainte-Croix back, and
they held long conversations together. He showed me the greatest marks
of friendliness, assuring me of his services, and begged me to watch
over the little boy, of whom he was fond.' We know by Madame de
Brinvilliers' own confession that this little boy was actually
Sainte-Croix' child.
This deposition of Briancourt constitutes one of the most curious
documents in our possession. This man was well disposed and at heart
upright, but lacked backbone. His terrible mistress ruled and awed him.
Yet he had flashes of that boldness into which feeble natures are
occasionally drawn. After having poisoned her father and brothers the
marquise had still to get rid of her sister, Thérèse d'Aubray, and her
sister-in-law, Marie Thérèse Mangot, widow of the civil lieutenant. That
is what 'remained to be done.' 'Seeing the imminent peril of
Mademoiselle d'Aubray and even of Madame d'Aubray (though the widow's
danger was not so near as the younger lady's), and because La Chaussée
had not yet entered the house of Madame d'Aubray, and Madame de
Brinvilliers said that she wished the widow's business to be managed in
two months or not at all, he (Briancourt) begged the marquise to take
care what she was at, said that she had cruelly put her father and
brothers to death and wished to do the same with her sister; that he had
never come upon an example of such cruelty in all the annals of
antiquity, and that she was the cruelest and wickedest woman that ever
had been or would be; that he begged her to reflect on what she meant to
do, and to remember how that wretch Sainte-Croix had ruined her and her
family; that he saw no safety for her, but sooner or later she would
perish; that he himself would never allow the murder of Mademoiselle
d'Aubray, even though she had once written to Madame de Brinvilliers a
letter in which she accused him of being a rogue and rake.' It was
unquestionably Briancourt's attitude which saved the lives of Madame de
Brinvilliers' sister and sister-in-law; he had further warned
Mademoiselle d'Aubray, through the marquise's maid Mademoiselle de
Villeray, to be on her guard. In her confession the marquise declared
that if she had thought of poisoning her sister it was out of hatred, by
way of revenge for remarks she had made to her about her conduct.
Briancourt had only succeeded in diverting the peril upon himself.
Madame de Brinvilliers resolved to rid herself of a lover who responded
to her confidences by playing the censor. The customary means, poison,
was obviously the first to suggest itself. 'Sainte-Croix,' says
Briancourt, 'had introduced into the Brinvilliers household a porter
related to La Chaussée, and a lackey named Bazile, who was
extraordinarily assiduous in serving me with food and drink; but seeing
these attentions and, further, some sign of roguery in this fellow, I
handled him so roughly that Madame de Brinvilliers had to dismiss him.'
There followed a remarkably romantic scene, as Briancourt described it
before the court.
'Two or three days after Bazile's departure, Lady Brinvilliers told me
that she had a very handsome bed, and hangings embroidered to match;
that it was a bed which Sainte-Croix had pawned and which she had
redeemed. She had it put up in her large room, where there was a close
and wainscoted chimney-piece, and told me that I must come that night
and sleep in that bed, and that she would expect me at midnight, but
that I must not come earlier, because she had to arrange with her cook.
Instead of going down at midnight to a gallery which commanded the
windows of the room, I came down at ten o'clock, and looking through the
windows into the room, the curtains not being drawn, I saw the lady
walking up and down and dismissing all her servants.'
We may remark in passing that this gallery still exists at the present
day in the mansion inhabited by Madame de Brinvilliers in the Rue
Neuve-Saint-Paul.[2]
'About half-past eleven,' continues Briancourt, 'Lady Brinvilliers,
having undressed and put on her dressing-gown, took a few turns in the
room, holding a torch in her hand; then she went to the chimney-piece,
which she opened. Sainte-Croix stepped out, dressed in rags, with a
worn-out jerkin and an old hat, and kissed the lady, and for a quarter
of an hour they talked together. Then Sainte-Croix went back into the
chimney-piece, and the lady pushed its two folding-doors to, so as to
shut him in, and then came to the door, in some agitation; my own
agitation was no less. Should I enter, or should I go away? But the lady
seeing my confusion said: "What is the matter? Don't you want to come?"
I saw much rage in her countenance, which was changed in an
extraordinary degree. I went into the room, and the lady asked me if the
bed was not very fine; I said that it was, and the lady rejoined, "Let
us lie down then." Then the marquise got into bed. I had placed the
torch on a stand, and she said, "Undress yourself and put out the light
very quickly." I pretended to be undoing my shoes, desiring to know how
far the lady's cruelty would go, and she said, "What is the matter with
you? You look very solemn." Then I rose and, giving the bed a wide
berth, said to the lady: "Ah, how cruel you are! What have I done that
you want to have me murdered?" The lady sprang out of bed and flung
herself upon me from behind; but freeing myself, I went straight to the
chimney-piece. Sainte-Croix came out, and I said to him: "Ah, villain,
you have come to stick a knife into me!" and as the torch was burning,
Sainte-Croix made to flee, while Lady Brinvilliers rolled on the floor
declaring that she would live no longer, but die; at the same time she
sought her case of poisons, opened it, and was on the point of taking
poison. I prevented her and said, "You wanted to get me poisoned by
Bazile, and now you want to get me stabbed by Sainte-Croix." The lady
threw herself at my feet, declaring that such had not happened to me and
would never happen, and that she would pay with her death for what she
had just done--that she saw clearly that it was all up with her and that
she could not survive such an occurrence. I told her that I would
forgive her and forget all about what she had done, but that I was
determined to go away in the morning, since they wanted to get rid of
me, and I made the lady promise that she would not poison herself. I
remained in the room until six o'clock in the morning with the lady,
whom I compelled to go back to bed, I remaining on a sofa beside the bed
near her.'
After this scene, Briancourt at once set about procuring pistols,
deeming them necessary to his safety; then he went to ask the advice of
Monsieur Bocager, a professor of the law school, who had introduced him
to Madame de Brinvilliers.
From the first day he saw the terrible marchioness, Briancourt had
advanced from surprise to surprise; but his greatest astonishment
awaited him in the study of the law professor. The young man said to
him, 'Sir, I have a great secret to communicate to you; I think that you
will give me good advice, and that you will tell the first president,
whom you often see, what is going on, so that he may take the proper
steps.' The professor's discomposure was evident in his features, and he
leaned back uncomfortably in his chair. 'Monsieur Bocager turned very
pale, and said nothing, except that I must keep my secret and not speak
about it to the curé of St. Paul or any one else. He assured me that he
would see to everything, and that I ought not to leave the Brinvilliers'
house so soon, but wait some time, while he sought some new employment
for me.' Briancourt asked himself whether all that he heard and saw were
real events in a real world. How far had this terrible woman been to
seek her accomplices? How far had she pushed her crimes?
'Two days afterwards,' continues Briancourt, 'the marquise told me that
Monsieur Bocager was not so upright a man as I imagined, as I should see
some day. And as I was passing down the street in the evening, just
opposite St. Paul's, two pistol-shots were fired at me, without my being
able to tell whence they came, and one of them pierced my coat. Seeing
that I was marked down, I went next day to Sainte-Croix' house, carrying
two pistols, having left a man at the street door to see that it
remained open. I told Sainte-Croix that he was a villain and a
scoundrel, that he would be broken on the wheel, and that he had caused
the death of several people of quality. He declared that he had never
caused anybody's death, but that if I would go behind the Hôpital
Général with pistols he would give me every kind of satisfaction; to
which I replied that I was not a soldier, but that if I were attacked I
should defend myself.'
Such was the strange existence of the poor bachelor in theology, tutor
to the children of the Marquis de Brinvilliers. In his fear of poison he
was continually swallowing some nostrum or other by way of antidote.
The marquis himself lived in equal terror. He knew what was going on,
and took things philosophically. Here is a sketch of a dinner at his
house. 'The marchioness put Sainte-Croix on her right; the marquis was
at the sideboard end of the table. The latter was very carefully served
by a domestic specially attached to his person, to whom he always said:
"Don't change my glass, but rinse it every time you give me anything to
drink."' When the evening was over, the marquis retired to his room;
Sainte-Croix and the marchioness went to the lady's room, and Briancourt
went upstairs with the children. With the horrors of crime there were
thus mingled scenes of burlesque.
Accommodating as her husband was, the marchioness began to poison him;
then, struck with remorse, she called in to attend him one of the most
famous physicians of the time, Dr. Brayer.
'She wished to marry Sainte-Croix,' writes Madame de Sévigné, 'and with
that intention often gave her husband poison. Sainte-Croix, not anxious
to have so evil a woman as his wife, gave counter-poisons to the poor
husband, with the result that, shuttlecocked about like this five or six
times, now poisoned, now unpoisoned, he still remained alive.'
Brinvilliers emerged from this violent treatment with a weakness in the
legs. Afterwards he always carried theriac about with him, that being
regarded as an antidote; he took it from time to time, and gave doses to
his people.
Briancourt, however, succeeded in escaping from the service of his
formidable mistress, and, under the baleful impression of what he had
seen in the world, he retired to Aubervilliers, where he lived in
solitude, giving lessons in the establishment of the Fathers of the
Oratory there. Seven or eight months had passed when the marchioness
came to see him; then she sent from time to time to ask how he was
doing. It was at Aubervilliers that one evening, on July 31, 1672, he
received from his late mistress a very urgent note, begging him to go
immediately to Picpus, where she had an important communication to make
to him. There had just happened an event which was to entail
incalculable consequences: on July 30 Sainte-Croix died in his
mysterious dwelling in the cul-de-sac of the Place Maubert.
A widespread legend makes Sainte-Croix' death the result of a chemical
experiment; it is said that the glass mask with which he covered his
face to protect it from the poisonous vapours had broken. But he really
died a natural death after an illness of some months, in the course of
which he was visited by several persons who have left their testimony in
regard to the matter. In the legendary laboratory of the cul-de-sac
there was found indeed a furnace of 'digestion.' Sainte-Croix
'philosophised' there, that is, worked at the philosopher's stone, and
more particularly at solidifying mercury, that eternal dream of the
alchemists.
Madame de Brinvilliers soon learned of the death of her lover. Her first
cry was, 'The little box!'
II. HER TRIAL
Sainte-Croix died overwhelmed in debt. His things were all put under
seal. The seals were raised on August 8, 1672, by Commissary Picard,
assisted by a sergeant named Creuillebois, two notaries, the agent of
the widow, and an agent of the creditors. The three first meetings had
passed without incident when a Carmelite monk who was present handed to
the commissary the key of the private room in which the furnace was
kept. Entering, they saw on the table a rolled-up paper bearing the
words, 'My confession.' The persons present decided without hesitation
to keep the paper secret, and to burn it on the spot. They found,
further, at the end of a shelf, a small box, oblong in shape and red in
colour, from which hung a key. It contained some phials, some of which
were filled with a clear liquid like water, others with a liquid of
reddish colour; and in addition, there were the letters addressed by
Madame de Brinvilliers to Sainte-Croix, the two promissory notes signed
by the marchioness after the poisoning of her father and brothers, and a
receipt and power of attorney relating to a sum of 10,000 livres lent by
Pennautier, receiver-general of the clergy, to Monsieur and Madame de
Brinvilliers through the agency of Sainte-Croix. These two last papers
were in a sealed envelope on which was written: 'Papers to be restored
to the Sieur Pennautier, receiver-general of the clergy, as belonging to
him; and I humbly beg those into whose hands they fall, to be good
enough to return them to him at my death, they being of no consequence
except to him alone.'
Sainte-Croix had addressed the little box, with its contents, to Madame
de Brinvilliers in these terms: 'I humbly beg those into whose hands
this box falls to do me the favour to return it into the hands of the
Marquise de Brinvilliers, who lives in Rue Neuve-Saint-Paul, since all
that it contains concerns her and belongs to her alone, and moreover it
is of no use to anybody in the world but herself; and in case she dies
before I do, to burn it, and all that is in it, without opening it or
meddling with it; and so that no one may pretend ignorance, I swear by
the God I adore, and all that is most holy, that I state nothing but the
truth. If perchance any one contravenes my intentions, just and
reasonable as they are, I charge it in this world and the next upon his
conscience, for discharge of my own, and declare that this is my last
will. Made at Paris, afternoon, May 25, 1670. _Signed_: Sainte-Croix.'
Below were these words: 'There is a single packet addressed to Monsieur
Pennautier, which is to be given to him.' The very energy of these
formulæ impressed Commissary Picard. He sealed up the case and confided
it to the care of two sergeants, Cluet and Creuillebois, so that the
inventory might be made by the civil lieutenant in person. Sergeant
Creuillebois took the box home.
It was Sainte-Croix' widow who on August 8--that is, the day when the
box was discovered--sent word to Madame de Brinvilliers at Picpus that
things belonging to her were under seal. The marchioness instantly sent
some one to find the box. As that was no longer in Sainte-Croix' house,
a servant was sent off to Commissary Picard to tell him that Madame de
Brinvilliers desired to speak to him without delay. Picard answered that
he was busy. The marchioness, however, herself hurried to Madame de
Sainte-Croix, insisting on the box being given to her. It was nine
o'clock at night. 'She complained of its having been sealed up, offered
money to obtain it, proposed to break the seals in order to take out
what was inside, and to substitute something else.' But the box had been
taken away. 'It's very amusing,' she said, 'for Commissary Picard to
carry off a box that belongs to me!' She got some one to take her to
Sergeant Cluet, whom she made come down, so that she might speak to him
from her carriage. 'The lady told him that Pennautier had come to her,
and told her that he was anxious about the box, and would give fifty
golden louis to have what was in it. She also said that all that was in
the said box concerned Pennautier and herself, and that they had done
everything in concert.' We see here the first step in a manoeuvre
which Madame de Brinvilliers afterwards developed. Knowing that several
of the papers in the box concerned Pennautier, she sought to link her
cause with the financier's, speculating on his high position and
influence.
Cluet answered that he could do nothing without the commissary.
Accordingly the marchioness hurried off to him at eleven o'clock at
night. Picard sent down word that he could not receive her till the
morning.
In the morning, August 9, the commissary received a visitor from a
Châtelet[3] attorney named Delamarre, to whom the marchioness had
intrusted her interests. He told the commissary that the little box was
of great importance to Madame de Brinvilliers, begging him to send it
back to her, and saying 'that she would give him all she had in the
world.' 'There came also a man in black' (it was Briancourt) 'who told
him that the marchioness would give him anything he could wish for.'
Madame de Brinvilliers understood that the box was not to be given up,
and made preparations for flight. 'Delamarre, her attorney, repaired to
Picpus at ten o'clock at night and carried off her principal furniture,
which was even thrown hastily out of the windows.' The marchioness,
however, sent for Cluet and Creuillebois to come to Picpus. She changed
the line of her defence, and told Creuillebois that 'Sainte-Croix was
clever enough to have forged the letters, but that she would find a way
out, and had good friends.' To Madame de Sainte-Croix, who also went to
Picpus, she said that she had nothing to do with the box, that it could
only contain trifles, that she had not seen Sainte-Croix for a long
time, that these were forged letters, and that she had a complete
justification. She went on, in order to spread it abroad that her
interests were connected with those of Pennautier: 'If it trickles on
me, it will rain on Pennautier.' She said to the wife of a Châtelet
clerk named Fausset, who spoke to her of the rumours of poisoning that
were already going about. 'There is nothing in it: it will blow over;
there is a man accused with me who will give four or six thousand livres
to arrange matters,' adding that 'he was not of high rank, but was very
rich.'