poisoning. On the contrary, as we shall see hereafter, it engendered
that insane imitation which is so strange a feature of the human
character. James himself is supposed, with great probability, to have
fallen a victim to it. In the notes to "Harris's Life and Writings of
James I," there is a good deal of information on the subject. The guilt
of Buckingham, although not fully established, rests upon circumstances
of suspicion stronger than have been sufficient to lead hundreds to the
scaffold. His motives for committing the crime are stated to have been
a desire of revenge for the coldness with which the King, in the latter
years of his reign, began to regard him; his fear that James intended
to degrade him; and his hope that the great influence he possessed over
the mind of the heir-apparent would last through a new reign, if the
old one were brought to a close.
In the second volume of the "Harleian Miscellany," there is a tract,
entitled the "Forerunner of Revenge," written by George Eglisham,
doctor of medicine, and one of the physicians to King James. Harris,
in quoting it, says that it is full of rancour and prejudice. It is
evidently exaggerated; but forms, nevertheless, a link in the chain of
evidence. Eglisham says:--"The King being sick of an ague, the Duke
took this opportunity, when all the King's doctors of physic were at
dinner, and offered to him a white powder to take, the which he a long
time refused; but, overcome with his flattering importunity, he took it
in wine, and immediately became worse and worse, falling into many
swoonings and pains, and violent fluxes of the belly, so tormented,
that his Majesty cried out aloud of this white powder, 'Would to God I
had never taken it?" He then tells us "Of the Countess of Buckingham
(the Duke's mother) applying the plaister to the King's heart and
breast, whereupon he grew faint and short-breathed, and in agony. That
the physicians exclaimed, that the King was poisoned; that Buckingham
commanded them out of the room, and committed one of them close
prisoner to his own chamber, and another to be removed from court; and
that, after his Majesty's death, his body and head swelled above
measure; his hair, with the skin of his head, stuck to his pillow, and
his nails became loose on his fingers and toes." Clarendon, who, by the
way, was a partisan of the Duke's, gives a totally different account of
James's death. He says, "It was occasioned by an ague (after a short
indisposition by the gout) which, meeting many humours in a fat
unwieldy body of fifty-eight years old, in four or five fits carried
him out of the world. After whose death many scandalous and libellous
discourses were raised, without the least colour or ground; as appeared
upon the strictest and most malicious examination that could be made,
long after, in a time of licence, when nobody was afraid of offending
majesty, and when prosecuting the highest reproaches and contumelies
against the royal family was held very meritorious." Notwithstanding
this confident declaration, the world will hardly be persuaded that
there was not some truth in the rumours that were abroad. The inquiries
which were instituted were not strict, as he asserts, and all the
unconstitutional influence of the powerful favourite was exerted to
defeat them. In the celebrated accusations brought against Buckingham
by the Earl of Bristol, the poisoning of King James was placed last on
the list, and the pages of history bear evidence of the summary mode in
which they were, for the time, got rid of.
The man from whom Buckingham is said to have procured his poisons was
one Dr. Lamb, a conjuror and empiric, who, besides dealing in poisons,
pretended to be a fortune-teller. The popular fury, which broke with
comparative harmlessness against his patron, was directed against this
man, until he could not appear with safety in the streets of London.
His fate was melancholy. Walking one day in Cheapside, disguised, as he
thought, from all observers, he was recognized by some idle boys, who
began to hoot and pelt him with rubbish, calling out, "The poisoner!
the poisoner! Down with the wizard! down with him!" A mob very soon
collected, and the Doctor took to his heels and ran for his life. He
was pursued and seized in Wood Street, and from thence dragged by the
hair through the mire to St. Paul's Cross; the mob beating him with
sticks and stones, and calling out, "Kill the wizard! kill the
poisoner!"
Charles I, on hearing of the riot, rode from Whitehall to quell it; but
he arrived too late to save the victim. Every bone in his body was
broken, and he was quite dead. Charles was excessively indignant, and
fined the city six hundred pounds for its inability to deliver up the
ringleaders to justice.
But it was in Italy that poisoning was most prevalent. From a very
early period, it seems to have been looked upon in that country as a
perfectly justifiable means of getting rid of an enemy. The Italians of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries poisoned their opponents with
as little compunction as an Englishman of the present day brings an
action at law against any one who has done him an injury. The writings
of contemporary authors inform us that, when La Spara and La Tophania
carried on their infernal trade, ladies put poisonbottles on their
dressing-tables as openly, and used them with as little scruple upon
others, as modern dames use Eau de Cologne or lavender-water upon
themselves. So powerful is the influence of fashion, it can even cause
murder to be regarded as a venial peccadillo.
In the memoirs of the last Duke of Guise, who made a Quixotic attempt,
in 1648, to seize upon the government of Naples, we find some curious
particulars relative to the popular feeling with regard to poisoning. A
man, named Gennaro Annese, who, after the short and extraordinary
career of Masaniello the fisherman, had established himself as a sort
of captain-general of the populace, rendered himself so obnoxious to
the Duke of Guise that the adherents of the latter determined to murder
him. The captain of the guard, as the Duke himself very coolly informs
us, was requested to undertake this office. It was suggested to him
that the poniard would be the most effectual instrument, but the man
turned up his eyes with pious horror at the proposition. He was ready
to poison Gennaro Annese whenever he might be called upon to do so; but
to poniard him, he said, would be disgraceful, and unbecoming an
officer of the guards! At last poison was agreed upon, and Augustino
Molla, an attorney in the Duke's confidence, brought the bottle
containing the liquid to show it to his master. The following is the
Duke's own account:--
"Augustino came to me at night, and told me: 'I have brought you
something which will free you from Gennaro. He deserves death, and it
is no great matter after what fashion justice is done upon him. Look at
this vial, full of clear and beautiful water: in four days' time, it
will punish all his treasons. The captain of the guard has undertaken
to give it him; and as it has no taste at all, Gennaro will suspect
nothing.'"
The Duke further informs us that the dose was duly administered; but
that Gennaro, fortunately for himself, ate nothing for dinner that day
but cabbage dressed with oil, which acting as an antidote, caused him
to vomit profusely, and saved his life. He was exceedingly ill for five
days, but never suspected that he had been poisoned.
In process of time, poison vending became a profitable trade. Eleven
years after this period, it was carried on at Rome to such an extent
that the sluggish government was roused to interference. Beckmann, in
his "History of Inventions," and Lebret, in his "Magazin zum Gebrauche
der Staaten Kirche Geschichte," or Magazine of Materials for a History
of a State Church, relates that, in the year 1659, it was made known to
Pope Alexander VII. that great numbers of young women had avowed in the
confessional that they had poisoned their husbands with slow poisons.
The Catholic clergy, who in general hold the secrets of the
confessional so sacred, were shocked and alarmed at the extraordinary
prevalence of the crime. Although they refrained from revealing the
names of the penitents, they conceived themselves bound to apprise the
head of the church of the enormities that were practised. It was also
the subject of general conversation in Rome that young widows were
unusually abundant. It was remarked, too, that if any couple lived
unhappily together, the husband soon took ill and died. The papal
authorities, when once they began to inquire, soon learned that a
society of young wives had been formed, and met nightly, for some
mysterious purpose, at the house of an old woman named Hieronyma Spara.
This hag was a reputed witch and fortune-teller, and acted as president
of the young viragos, several of whom, it was afterwards ascertained,
belonged to the first families of Rome.
In order to have positive evidence of the practices of this female
conclave, a lady was employed by the Government to seek an interview
with them. She dressed herself out in the most magnificent style; and
having been amply provided with money, she found but little difficulty,
when she had stated her object, of procuring an audience of La Spara
and her sisterhood. She pretended to be in extreme distress of mind on
account of the infidelities and ill-treatment of her husband, and
implored La Spara to furnish her with a few drops of the wonderful
elixir, the efficacy of which in sending cruel husbands to "their last
long sleep" was so much vaunted by the ladies of Rome. La Spara fell
into the snare, and sold her some of her "drops," at a price
commensurate with the supposed wealth of the purchaser.
The liquor thus obtained was subjected to an analysis, and found to be,
as was suspected, a slow poison--clear, tasteless, and limpid, like
that spoken of by the Duke of Guise. Upon this evidence the house was
surrounded by the police, and La Spara and her companions taken into
custody. La Spara, who is described as having been a little, ugly, old
woman, was put to the torture, but obstinately refused to confess her
guilt. Another of the women, named La Gratiosa, had less firmness, and
laid bare all the secrets of the infernal sisterhood. Taking a
confession, extorted by anguish on the rack, at its true value (nothing
at all), there is still sufficient evidence to warrant posterity in the
belief of their guilt. They were found guilty, and condemned, according
to their degrees of culpability, to various punishments. La Spara,
Gratiosa, and three young women, who had poisoned their husbands, were
hanged together at Rome. Upwards of thirty women were whipped publicly
through the streets; and several, whose high rank screened them from
more degrading punishment, were banished from the country, and mulcted
in heavy fines. In a few months afterwards, nine women more were hanged
for poisoning; and another bevy, including many young and beautiful
girls, were whipped half naked through the streets of Rome.
This severity did not put a stop to the practice, and jealous women and
avaricious men, anxious to step into the inheritance of fathers,
uncles, or brothers, resorted to poison. As it was quite free from
taste, colour, and smell, it was administered without exciting
suspicion. The skilful vendors compounded it of different degrees of
strength, so that the poisoners had only to say whether they wanted
their victims to die in a week, a month, or six months, and they were
suited with corresponding doses. The vendors were chiefly women, of
whom the most celebrated was a hag, named Tophania, who was in this way
accessory to the death of upwards of six hundred persons. This woman
appears to have been a dealer in poisons from her girlhood, and resided
first at Palermo and then at Naples. That entertaining traveller,
Father Lebat, has given, in his Letters from Italy, many curious
particulars relating to her. When he was at Civita Vecchia, in 1719,
the Viceroy of Naples discovered that poison was extensively sold in
the latter city, and that it went by the name of aqueta, or
little-water. On making further inquiry, he ascertained that Tophania
(who was by this time near seventy years of age, and who seems to have
begun her evil courses very soon after the execution of La Spara) sent
large quantities of it to all parts of Italy in small vials, with the
inscription "Manna of St. Nicholas of Barri."
The tomb of St. Nicholas of Barri was celebrated throughout Italy. A
miraculous oil was said to ooze from it, which cured nearly all the
maladies that flesh is heir to, provided the recipient made use of it
with the due degree of faith. La Tophania artfully gave this name to
her poison to elude the vigilance of the custom-house officers, who, in
common with everybody else, had a pious respect for St. Nicholas de
Barri and his wonderful oil.
The poison was similar to that manufactured by La Spara. Hahnemann the
physician, and father of the homoepathic doctrine, writing upon this
subject, says it was compounded of arsenical neutral salts, occasioning
in the victim a gradual loss of appetite, faintness, gnawing pains in
the stomach, loss of strength, and wasting of the lungs. The Abbe
Gagliardi says that a few drops of it were generally poured into tea,
chocolate, or soup, and its effects were slow, and almost
imperceptible. Garelli, physician to the Emperor of Austria, in a
letter to Hoffmann, says it was crystallized arsenic, dissolved in a
large quantity of water by decoction, with the addition (for some
unexplained purpose) of the herb cymbalaria. The Neapolitans called it
Aqua Toffnina; and it became notorious all over Europe under the name
of Aqua Tophania.
Although this woman carried on her infamous traffic so extensively, it
was extremely difficult to meet with her. She lived in continual dread
of discovery. She constantly changed her name and residence; and
pretending to be a person of great godliness, resided in monasteries
for months together. Whenever she was more than usually apprehensive of
detection, she sought ecclesiastical protection. She was soon apprised
of the search made for her by the Viceroy of Naples, and, according to
her practice, took refuge in a monastery. Either the search after her
was not very rigid, or her measures were exceedingly well taken; for
she contrived to elude the vigilance of the authorities for several
years. What is still more extraordinary, as showing the ramifications
of her system, her trade was still carried on to as great an extent as
before. Lebat informs us that she had so great a sympathy for poor
wives who hated their husbands and wanted to get rid of them, but could
not afford to buy her wonderful aqua, that she made them presents of it.
She was not allowed, however, to play at this game for ever; she was at
length discovered in a nunnery, and her retreat cut off. The Viceroy
made several representations to the superior to deliver her up, but
without effect. The abbess, supported by the archbishop of the diocese,
constantly refused. The public curiosity was in consequence so much
excited at the additional importance thus thrust upon the criminal,
that thousands of persons visited the nunnery in order to catch a
glimpse of her.
The patience of the Viceroy appears to have been exhausted by these
delays. Being a man of sense, and not a very zealous Catholic, he
determined that even the Church should not shield a criminal so
atrocious. Setting the privileges of the nunnery at defiance, he sent a
troop of soldiers, who broke over the walls and carried her away vi et
armis. The Archbishop, Cardinal Pignatelli, was highly indignant, and
threatened to excommunicate and lay the whole city under interdict. All
the inferior clergy, animated by the esprit du corps, took up the
question, and so worked upon the superstitious and bigoted people, that
they were ready to rise in a mass to storm the palace of the Viceroy
and rescue the prisoner.
These were serious difficulties; but the Viceroy was not a man to be
daunted. Indeed, he seems to have acted throughout with a rare union of
astuteness, coolness, and energy. To avoid the evil consequences of the
threatened excommunication, he placed a guard round the palace of the
Archbishop, judging that the latter would not be so foolish as to
launch out an anathema which would cause the city to be starved, and
himself in it. The marketpeople would not have dared to come to the
city with provisions, so long as it remained under the ban. There would
have been too much inconvenience to himself and his ghostly brethren in
such a measure; and, as the Viceroy anticipated, the good Cardinal
reserved his thunders for some other occasion.
Still there was the populace. To quiet their clamour and avert the
impending insurrection, the agents of the government adroitly mingled
with the people, and spread abroad a report that Tophania had poisoned
all the wells and fountains of the city. This was enough. The popular
feeling turned against her immediately. Those who, but a moment before,
had looked upon her as a saint, now reviled her as a devil, and were as
eager for her punishment as they had before been for her escape.
Tophania was then put to the torture. She confessed the long catalogue
of her crimes, and named all the persons who had employed her. She was
shortly afterwards strangled, and her corpse thrown over the wall into
the garden of the convent, from whence she had been taken. This appears
to have been done to conciliate the clergy, by allowing them, at least,
the burial of one who had taken refuge within their precincts.
After her death the mania for poisoning seems to have abated; but we
have yet to see what hold it took upon the French people at a somewhat
earlier period. So rooted had it become in France between the years
1670 and 1680, that Madame de Sevigne, in one of her letters, expresses
her fear that Frenchman and poisoner would become synonymous terms.
As in Italy, the first notice the government received of the prevalence
of this crime was given by the clergy, to whom females of high rank,
and some among the middle and lower classes, had avowed in the
confessional that they had poisoned their husbands. In consequence of
these disclosures, two Italians, named Exili and Glaser, were arrested,
and thrown into the Bastille, on the charge of compounding and selling
the drugs used for these murders. Glaser died in prison, but Exili
remained without trial for several months; and there, shortly
afterwards, he made the acquaintance of another prisoner, named Sainte
Croix, by whose example the crime was still further disseminated among
the French people.
The most notorious of the poisoners that derived their pernicious
knowledge from this man was Madame de Brinvilliers, a young woman
connected both by birth and marriage with some of the noblest families
of France. She seems, from her very earliest years, to have been
heartless and depraved; and, if we may believe her own confession, was
steeped in wickedness ere she had well entered her teens. She was,
however, beautiful and accomplished; and, in the eye of the world,
seemed exemplary and kind. Guyot de Pitaval, in the "Causes Celebres,"
and Madame de Sevigne, in her Letters, represent her as mild and
agreeable in her manners, and offering no traces on her countenance of
the evil soul within. She was married in 1651 to the Marquis de
Brinvilliers, with whom she lived unhappily for some years. He was a
loose dissipated character, and was the means of introducing Sainte
Croix to his wife, a man who cast a blight upon her life, and dragged
her on from crime to crime till her offences became so great that the
mind shudders to dwell upon them. For this man she conceived a guilty
passion, to gratify which she plunged at once into the gulf of sin.
She was drawn to its most loathsome depths ere retribution overtook her.
She had as yet shown a fair outside to the world, and found but little
difficulty in effecting a legal separation from her husband, who had
not the art to conceal his vices. The proceeding gave great offence to
her family. She appears, after this, to have thrown off the mask
completely, and carried on her intrigues so openly with her lover,
Sainte Croix, that her father, M. D'Aubray, scandalised at her conduct,
procured a lettre de cachet, and had him imprisoned in the Bastille for
a twelvemonth.
Sainte Croix, who had been in Italy, was a dabbler in poisons. He knew
something of the secrets of the detestable La Spara, and improved
himself in them from the instructions of Exili, with whom he speedily
contracted a sort of friendship. By him he was shown how to prepare,
not only the liquid poisons employed in Italy, but that known as
succession powder, which afterwards became so celebrated in France.
Like his mistress, he appeared amiable, witty, and intelligent, and
showed no signs to the world of the two fierce passions, revenge and
avarice, which were gnawing at his heart. Both these passions were to
be sated on the unfortunate family of D'Aubray; his revenge, because
they had imprisoned him; and his avarice, because they were rich.
Reckless and extravagant, he was always in want of money, and he had no
one to supply him but Madame de Brinvilliers, whose own portion was far
from sufficient to satisfy his need. Groaning to think that any
impediment should stand between him and wealth, he conceived the horrid
idea of poisoning M. D'Aubray her father, and her two brothers, that
she might inherit the property. Three murders were nothing to such a
villain. He communicated his plan to Madame de Brinvilliers; and she,
without the slightest scruple, agreed to aid him: he undertook to
compound the poisons, and she to administer them. The zeal and alacrity
with which she set to work seem hardly credible. Sainte Croix found
her an apt scholar; and she soon became as expert as himself in the
manufacture of poisons. To try the strength of the first doses, she
used to administer them to dogs, rabbits, and pigeons. Afterwards,
wishing to be more certain of their effects, she went round to the
hospitals, and administered them to the sick poor in the soups which
she brought in apparent charity. [This is denied by Voltaire in his
"Age of Louis XIV;" but he does not state for what reason. His words
are, "Il est faux qu'elle eut essaye ses poisons dans les hopitaux,
comme le disait le peuple et comme il est ecrit dans les 'Causes
Celebres,' ouvrage d'un avocat sans cause et fait pour le peuple."]
None of the poisons were intended to kill at the first dose; so that
she could try them once upon an individual without fear of murder. She
tried the same atrocious experiment upon the guests at her father's
table, by poisoning a pigeon-pie! To be more certain still, she next
poisoned herself! When convinced by this desperate essay of the potency
of the draught, she procured an antidote from Sainte Croix, and all
doubts being removed, commenced operations upon her grey-headed father.
She administered the first dose with her own hands, in his chocolate.
The poison worked well. The old man was taken ill, and his daughter,
apparently full of tenderness and anxiety, watched by his bedside. The
next day she gave him some broth, which she recommended as highly
nourishing. This also was poisoned. In this manner she gradually wore
out his frame, and in less than ten days he was a corpse! His death
seemed so much the result of disease, that no suspicions were excited.
When the two brothers arrived from the provinces to render the last sad
duties to their sire, they found their sister as grieved, to all
outward appearance, as even filial affection could desire: but the
young men only came to perish. They stood between Sainte Croix and the
already half-clutched gold, and their doom was sealed. A man, named La
Chaussee, was hired by Sainte Croix to aid in administering the
poisons; and, in less than six weeks' time, they had both gone to their
long home.
Suspicion was now excited; but so cautiously had all been done, that it
found no one upon whom to attach itself. The Marquise had a sister, and
she was entitled, by the death of her relatives, to half the property.
Less than the whole would not satisfy Sainte Croix, and he determined
that she should die the same death as her father and brothers. She was
too distrustful, however; and, by quitting Paris, she escaped the
destruction that was lurking for her.