August 11. Madame de Brinvilliers was represented by her attorney, who
made the following declaration: 'That if there was found a promise
signed by Lady Brinvilliers for the sum of 30,000 livres, it was a
document obtained from her by fraud, against which, in case the
signature proved genuine, she intended to appeal, in order to have it
declared null and void.'
The liquids and the powder contained in the chest were tested on
animals, death being the result. Experts decided that they contained
poison, but could not determine its nature. The general belief was that
it was arsenic.
Madame de Brinvilliers and Pennautier were soon the engrossing topic of
conversation in Paris. Fantastic rumours circulated about the poisons
found in the box, of which Madame de Sévigné made herself the sedulous
echo.
The marchioness hastened to pay a visit to Pennautier. He was not at
home. His wife turned her out neck and crop. Pennautier responded by
taking a step which did him honour: he went to Picpus to see Madame de
Brinvilliers. Asked later, after his arrest, what was his motive in
going to Picpus, he replied that, not believing Madame de Brinvilliers
guilty of such a crime, he went to pay her his respects, as is usual on
such occasions. Speaking of this step of his, his enemies wrote:
'Actuated by a sentiment of courtesy, he neglected his most obvious
interests, in which life, honour, and fortune were at stake; his
excessive politeness made him forgetful of all his interests. What a
rare and marvellous character! How free from thoughts of self!' These
lines, written with ironical intention, really express the truth. Not
long before, Monsieur and Madame de Brinvilliers had done Pennautier a
great service in a moment of difficulty by the loan of 30,000 livres;
and he seized the opportunity to show that he had not forgotten their
kindness.
P. L. Reich de Pennautier--Pennautier was the name of an estate in the
neighbourhood of Carcassonne--though scarcely thirty-five years old, had
already made an enormous fortune. His two appointments as
receiver-general for the clergy and treasurer of the Languedoc Exchange
brought him in hundreds of thousands of francs annually. He was one of
the most active and intelligent of Colbert's lieutenants. On such
questions as the resuscitation of the French manufacture of fine cloth,
the Languedoc canal, the purchase of Greek MSS. in the Levant, the
draining of the fens of Aigues-Mortes, the name of Pennautier is linked
with that of Colbert in enterprises of the utmost utility 'From a petty
cashier,' says Saint-Simon, 'Pennautier became treasurer of the clergy
and treasurer of the States of Languedoc, and enormously rich. He was a
tall and well-made man, with a gallant and dignified air, courteous and
eminently obliging; he had plenty of intelligence, and had many
connections in society.
On August 22 the civil lieutenant summoned Madame de Brinvilliers and
Pennautier to appear at the examination of the documents found in the
box. Pennautier was in the country; the marchioness was represented by
her attorney, who repeated his protests. A third personage appeared on
the scene, namely, La Chaussée. He fancied his audacity would save him,
and from the first had opposed the sealing of the house, on the ground
that he had deposited with the deceased, in whose service he had been
for seven years, 200 pistoles and 100 silver crowns which should be, he
said, behind the window of the study in a bag, with a note proving that
the money belonged to him. He claimed also a number of papers, which he
described. The knowledge that La Chaussée displayed of Sainte-Croix'
laboratory awakened suspicion. When Commissary Picard told the whilom
valet that the confiscated box had just been opened, he stood petrified
with confusion for a moment, then fled precipitately, leaving the
commissary in open-eyed amazement. The same day he left Gaussin, a
bath-proprietor whose service he had entered, and, concealing himself
during the day, roamed about Paris at night-time till he was arrested on
September 4 at six o'clock in the morning by a police officer named
Thomas Regnier. La Chaussée was very crestfallen as he walked down the
street.
From that moment the gravest suspicions were entertained against Madame
de Brinvilliers, but there was a reluctance to arrest her because of her
rank. Regnier repaired to Picpus and told her bluntly that he had found
La Chaussée, and that he had learned a good many things from the
commissary. The marchioness blushed. 'What is it, madam? You say
nothing?' But the lady, changing the subject, asked him to escort her to
mass. When they returned, she spoke to him again about the box. She
seemed a prey to uneasiness. 'But madam,' said Regnier, 'surely you are
not mixed up in this business?' 'Why should I be?' she replied. 'That
villain La Chaussée, when with Commissary Picard, must have said
something against you, and would say it again if he was captured.' 'It
would be well to take the villain to Picardy,' said the marchioness.
She said also that she had long been pressing Sainte-Croix to return the
box, and that Pennautier was involved with herself in the matter.
Regnier left Madame de Brinvilliers and went to find Briancourt at
Vertus. He told him, to begin with, that he had arrested La Chaussée,
and Briancourt exclaimed, 'Then she is a lost woman!' He went on to
speak of the poison which she had often talked about, and said that she
had several sorts of it in her house.
Meanwhile Madame Antoine d'Aubray, widow of the last civil lieutenant
and sister-in-law of the marchioness, had learned what was going
on--that her husband had actually died of poison as the doctors had
suspected. Hastening to Paris, she presented a petition to the Châtelet
on September 10, and was admitted a plaintiff in a civil action for
damages against La Chaussée and Madame de Brinvilliers. The latter had
just fled to England, with no other attendant than a kitchenmaid. All
suspicions were at once confirmed. The action against La Chaussée heard
before the Châtelet ended on February 23, 1673, in a decree sentencing
the defendant to the preliminary torture, _manentibus indiciis_. If the
wretched man gave proof of endurance under torture, it would be the
salvation both of himself and of the marchioness. Madame d'Aubray made a
passionate intervention. She appealed to the Parlement,[4] endeavouring
to prove, in a fresh affidavit, that the charges had been fully
sustained, and that it was not permissible to have recourse to a
preliminary dubious in itself and one that might snatch the criminals
from due punishment. The case was reopened at the Tournelle.[5] In spite
of a skilful defence, La Chaussée was condemned to death on March 24,
1673. The sentence set forth that he was convicted of poisoning, and
condemned to be broken alive on the wheel after being put to the
'question ordinary and extraordinary,' and that Madame de Brinvilliers
was to be beheaded for contempt of court.
When submitted to torture, La Chaussée displayed uncommon courage and
denied everything. The mode of torture adopted was that of the boot.
The legs of the condemned man were placed between boards, which were
driven by degrees closer together by the introduction of eight wedges in
succession, the legs being thus horribly mangled. Released from the
machine, he was carried on a mattress to a corner of the fireplace, and
refreshed with brandy. In anticipation of instant death, La Chaussée
voluntarily confessed his crimes, including the poisoning of Villequoy's
tart, and then spoke of the iniquities of Madame de Brinvilliers. 'What
accuser,' says La Reynie, 'would have been listened to for a moment if
God had not permitted the capture of this valet, whom the first judges
could not condemn for want of proof, but whom the Parlement condemned on
conjectures and strong presumptions; and if God had not touched the
heart of this wretch, who, after having suffered torture in absolute
silence, confessed his crimes a moment before being executed?' La
Chaussée was broken on the wheel the same day.
* * * * *
Taking refuge in London, the marchioness led a wretched existence, in
distress which she found insupportable, and a prey to incessant fears.
Louis XIV had from the first taken a very strong personal interest in
this case. It was his sincere desire that the investigation should be
made as complete and luminous as possible, and he was determined to
follow up and strike at all the accomplices, however high they were
placed. The Secretaries of State had not awaited the declarations made
by La Chaussée on May 24, 1673, before requesting the English Government
to extradite the accused woman. In November and December 1672 several
letters were exchanged between Colbert and his brother the Marquis de
Croissy, then French ambassador at the court of Charles II. The king of
England consented to the extradition, but declared that he could not
allow the arrest to be made by English officers; that would have to be
undertaken by France. Croissy was highly embarrassed. The embassy was
not provided with tools for such jobs. Colbert insisted, and at length
the ambassador was on the point of winning Charles's consent to the
employment of English police, when Madame de Brinvilliers, taking
fright, quitted England for the Netherlands.
Meanwhile her husband, this amazing Marquis de Brinvilliers, had quietly
taken up his abode, with his children and domestics, in the chateau of
Offémont, belonging to the estate of his father-in-law and two
brothers-in-law whom his wife had poisoned. He had taken possession of
the surrounding domain, and actually it was not till two _lettres de
cachet_ had been signed by Louis XIV, bearing date February 22 and March
31, 1674, ordering him to leave the chateau and never approach within
three leagues of it, that he decided to allow the widow of the civil
lieutenant to enter upon the enjoyment of her own property.
We have very little information on the life of the marchioness between
her departure from London and her arrest on March 25, 1676, at Liége in
a convent where she had taken shelter. She had gone from London to the
Netherlands, then into Picardy, the country conquered by King Louis,
thence to Cambrai and Valenciennes, where she entered a convent, but
was obliged to leave it on account of the war. From Valenciennes she
fled to Antwerp, then to Liége. She had nothing to support her but an
annuity of 500 livres, which fell to 250 on the death of her sister; she
was sometimes 'reduced to borrowing a crown.' While at Cambrai, she
appears to have sent asking her husband to join her there; his answer
was, 'She would poison me like the rest.'
It came to the ears of Louvois that Madame de Brinvilliers was in hiding
at Liége. He at once despatched Desgrez, the captain of police, a man of
tried ability. Desgrez was instructed to make all speed, for the French
troops then in possession of Liége were on the point of handing over the
town to the Spaniards. Michelet and the majority of historians have
woven the arrest of the marchioness into a romance. Desgrez, a handsome
fellow, disguises himself as a courtly abbé, and wins a warm welcome
from the lady, always eager for gallant adventures: at the rendezvous,
the lover appears as a police officer, accompanied by a number of
archers. As a matter of fact, the arrest was managed in the simplest
manner, 'on the last day,' writes La Reynie, 'that the king's authority
was recognised in the town of Liége.' It was not even Desgrez who
carried it through, but a French political agent in the Netherlands, a
former clerk of Fouquet's named Bruant, otherwise Descarrières. 'The
burgomasters,' wrote the latter to Louvois on March 25, 'have behaved so
well that they confided to me their master-key to go and arrest this
lady, without wanting to know why it was to be done.' Next day, March
26, Descarrières wrote again to Louvois: 'I arranged that the detective
(Desgrez) should be present as privy to the capture'; he informed him
also that a small box was seized on the lady's person, at which 'she
appeared much agitated, and at first told mayor Goffin that her
confession was in the casket,' begging him to have it restored to her.
Descarrières sealed the box with his own seal and that of Desgrez.
La Reynie says upon this subject: 'It was God who ordained that this
wretched woman, who fled from kingdom to kingdom, should be careful to
write and carry with her the proofs necessary to her condemnation.' This
confession, in which the marchioness recalls in a few pages all the
crimes of her life, was published by Armand Fouquier; but its flavour is
so strong that the editor was not able to reproduce the original text,
but had to translate the principal passages into Latin.
From Liége the marchioness was led under guard to Maestricht, where she
arrived on March 29; she was there locked up, and rigorously watched in
the town hall. Immediately after her arrest, the prisoner tried to
commit suicide by swallowing the fragments of a glass which she had
broken between her teeth. She swallowed pins, too, but did not succeed
in killing herself. Resne, one of the sentries, vigorously abused her:
'You are a wicked woman! After having dyed your hands in the blood of
your family, you want to do away with yourself!' She answered, 'If I did
so, it was under evil counsel.' On another occasion Desgrez was informed
that the lady had endeavoured to commit suicide in a far more horrible
fashion. 'Ah, you wretch!' he cried. 'I see that you want to do for
yourself, and that you did poison your brothers!' She replied: 'If I had
only had good advice! We often have our evil moments.' The archers who
guarded her during her journey from Liége to Paris gave the judges a
description of this third attempt at suicide which it is impossible to
reproduce. The following is a note from Emmanuel de Coulanges, forwarded
by Madame de Sévigné to Madame de Grignan: 'She stuck a stick into
herself; guess where: it was not in her eye, nor her mouth, nor her ear,
nor her nose, nor was she absolutely brutal.'
During the journey Madame de Brinvilliers was escorted by the Marshal
d'Estrades in person as far as Huy, and from Huy to Rocroi by the troops
of Monsieur de Montal. The prisoner's character displayed itself in all
its untamed energy. Locked up at Maestricht, she suggested to Antoine
Barbier, an archer of the guard who had won her confidence, to make a
gag and a rope-ladder: the gag was for Desgrez and the rope-ladder for
her own escape. She promised Barbier a thousand pistoles. At other
times she urged him to help her throttle Desgrez, kill the _valet de
chambre_, detach the two leading horses from the coach, take the
documents, the casket with her confession, and another important paper,
and burn them all, for which purpose he was to carry a lighted match.
She wrote to former servants who remained faithful to her, and actually
succeeded in getting letters delivered to them, for they endeavoured to
rescue her, and tried to bribe her guardians.
She persisted in the plan she had devised in regard to the accusation
under which Pennautier lay. She asked Barbier for ink to write to him;
he gave her some, and feigned to have despatched the letter. And when he
asked her if Pennautier was one of her friends, 'Yes, yes,' she replied,
'and he is as much interested in my safety as I am myself.' Another time
she said: 'He must be much more frightened than I am. I have been
questioned about him, but I have said nothing, and have too much feeling
to charge him: half of the aristocracy are involved too, and I should
ruin them all if I spoke.' This she repeated several times.
At Mézières the marchioness met Denis de Palluau, a Parlement
counsellor, whom the court had deputed to put her through a first
interrogation. Corbinelli, the friend of Madame de Sévigné, wrote to
Madame de Grignan: 'The king has required the Parlement to depute
Palluau, counsellor in the High Court, to go to Rocroi, where he is to
interrogate the Brinvilliers, because they don't wish to wait till she
arrives here, where the whole bar is connected with the poor criminal.'
The first examination to which Palluau subjected the marchioness is
dated Mézières, April 17, 1676. The prisoner took refuge in systematic
denials.
'Questioned on the first article of her confession, as to the house she
set on fire, she said she had not done so, and that when she had written
such things she was out of her mind.
'Questioned on the six remaining articles of her confession, she said
she did not know what that was, and remembered nothing about it.
'Asked if she had not poisoned her father and brothers, she said she
knew nothing about it.
'Asked if it was not La Chaussée who had poisoned her brothers, she said
she knew nothing of all that.
'Eight letters were shown her, and she was enjoined to disclose to whom
she had written them; she said she did not remember.
'Asked why she wrote to Théria to secure the box, she said she did not
know what that was.
'Asked why, in writing to Théria, she said she was lost if he did not
get the box and win his case, she said she did not remember.'
The marchioness was lodged in the Conciergerie on the day of her arrival
in Paris, namely, April 26. She was left under the guard of the archer
Barbier, to whom she continued to intrust letters, which he said he
carried to their addresses, but which he really handed to the judges.
On April 29 she wrote to Pennautier:--
'I hear from my friend that you are intending to help me in this
business, and you may be sure that this will be to me an additional
obligation to all your kindnesses. Wherefore, sir, if you really mean
this, you must please not lose any time, and not be seen with the people
who will go to find out from you in what way you wish to manage things.
I think it would be much to the purpose if you did not show yourself too
much, but your friends must know where you are, for the counsellor
severely examined me about you at Mézières.'
There follows a recommendation to buy the silence of the 'Bernardins
widow,' that is, the widow of Sainte-Croix, who lodged in the Rue des
Bernardins.
Madame de Brinvilliers disclosed by and by the motives of her conduct in
regard to Pennautier. 'I do not know at all,' she said on the night
before her death, 'that Monsieur Pennautier ever had any communication
with Sainte-Croix about the poisons, and I could not accuse him without
betraying my conscience. But as a note concerning him was found in the
box, and as I saw him many times with Sainte-Croix, I thought that their
friendship had progressed so far as to have dealings in poisons, and in
this suspicion I ventured to write to him as though I knew it was so,
running no risk of injuring my own case thereby, and inwardly arguing
thus: if there was any connection between them in regard to the poisons,
Monsieur Pennautier will believe that I must know the secret,
considering the step I am taking, and that will induce him to exert
himself on my behalf as much as on his own, for fear lest I accuse him;
and if he is innocent, my letter is waste labour. I risk nothing but the
indignation of a person who would be careful not to stand up for me, nor
to render me any service if I had written him nothing.'
The letters of the prisoner increased the suspicions against Pennautier
to such an extent that a decree was issued for the arrest of the unlucky
functionary, and he was shut up in the Conciergerie in the same room
that Ravaillac[6] had occupied.
* * * * *
Marie Vosser, widow of Hannyvel de Saint-Laurent, Pennautier's
predecessor in the office of receiver for the clergy, was striving to
arouse public opinion against Pennautier. She accused him of having
poisoned her husband on May 2, 1669, in order to succeed him in an
office of considerable emolument. She overwhelmed him with affidavits
drawn up by Vautier, one of the best advocates in Paris. These damaging
documents were in everybody's hands.
The rapidly acquired wealth of Pennautier, far from protecting him in
the opinion of the public, had raised up a thousand enemies who
diligently spread false reports about him. The people regarded his
influence and wealth with amazement, the nobility with envy. On the
other hand, Pennautier, like Fouquet, found some faithful friends, a
circumstance which does honour to the time. 'It is wonderful,' says
Saint-Simon, 'how many of the most notable men are working on his
behalf.' This generosity of sentiment was the more admirable in that the
recollection of the disgrace which overwhelmed Fouquet's friends was
present to every mind. The Cardinal de Bonsy, the Duke de Verneuil, the
Archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon, and Colbert were among the
most active. The judges, who were suspected by Louis XIV himself of
having been corrupted, gave proof of an admirable independence.
Pennautier was writing a letter to one of his cousins in his office on
June 15, 1676, when the police made a sudden raid upon his room. What he
had written was as follows:--'I think that, for our friend, a stay of a
month in the country will suffice....' Startled by this sudden
interruption, Pennautier nervously put this note in his mouth as though
to swallow it. This fact remained in the sequel the sole charge which
the prosecutor could bring against him, after Madame de Brinvilliers had
entirely exculpated him. His declarations under examination were of
convincing frankness; moreover, in a statement printed in answer to the
pamphlets of Sainte-Croix' widow, he established incontestably the
falsity of some points on which his adversaries were endeavouring to
base their accusations. These latter found themselves reduced to
maintaining that the official reports drawn up at the time when the
seals had been broken at Sainte-Croix' place had been falsified.
'I am accused of having poisoned Saint-Laurent,' added Pennautier; 'but
has it been so much as proved that he died of poison? It is at least
singular to declare me guilty of a crime that was never committed, for
the reports of the doctors, as well as the circumstances under which he
died, prove that his death was natural.'
The close of Pennautier's reply was crushing for his accuser. He pointed
out that Madame de Saint-Laurent had waited six years before bringing
her case into court. How was that silence explained? Saint-Laurent being
dead, Pennautier was appointed to his office of receiver-general for the
clergy. 'Saint-Laurent's wife gave him her nomination on June 12, 1669;
the same day they drew up a sort of contract together, by which the lady
reserved half the emoluments of the office, and Pennautier gave 2000
pistoles to the Sieur de Mannevillette, who claimed from the lady the
right to return to this office, in accordance with the deed of
defeasance given him by Saint-Laurent when the Sieur de Mannevillette
resigned that office in his favour on March 17, 1669. The dame de
Saint-Laurent quietly enjoyed this moiety of the emoluments of the
office until the last day of December 1675, when the agreement
terminated; and if Pennautier had been willing to renew the agreement
with her, when the general assembly of the clergy did him the honour to
elect him receiver-general for ten years, which will end on the last day
of December 1685, those who know the dame de Saint-Laurent are convinced
that she would never have accused Pennautier of poisoning the Sieur de
Saint-Laurent her husband.'
We have dwelt at some length on this incident because of the important
part played by Pennautier in the restoration of commerce and industry in
France under the direction of Colbert.
* * * * *
Nothing was talked about in Paris but Madame de Brinvilliers and
Pennautier--'a grave injustice to the war,' as Madame de Sévigné said.
Through the privilege of nobility, Madame de Brinvilliers was brought
before the highest judicial tribunal in the kingdom--the High Court and
the Tournelle in conjunction. She requested a counsel to assist her in
her defence, but the request was refused, at least provisionally.