Chapter 2 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 formul? 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 man?uvre 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 Chatelet[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 Chatelet 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.'

The seals placed on the box were raised by the civil lieutenant on 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 Chatelet 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 Chatelet 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.

The court was presided over by the first president, Lamoignon. Between April 29 and July 16, 1676, the case occupied twenty-two sittings. The marchioness displayed an energy and force of will which was a constant subject of astonishment to her judges. She denied everything obstinately, and contradicted her accusers in a hard and haughty voice, but never failed in the respect due to the judges-a respect in which pride and nobility mingled, and which made the audience feel that she considered herself at least the equal of the men judging her.

When they came to read the account of the examination at Mézières on April 17, there occurred a scene which was not unexpected. The following is an extract from the official report of the proceedings:-

'At the reading of these interrogatories, the first president wished to intervene and postpone it until after the confession had been read. This raised a difficulty, and a discussion ensued as to whether it was allowable to question the lady on these particular crimes, such as sodomy and incest, which being on this occasion only a matter of confession, it seemed that they should be kept a great secret; some were for, others against.

'Monsieur de Palluau said that, having consulted the law-doctors, he had been told that, a confession having been found en route, it ought to have been burnt under penalty, as some believed, of mortal sin.

'Other doctors held that the said Palluau, in his capacity as judge, had had no choice but to give a description of the confession, and to interrogate her on the aforesaid paper beginning, I accuse myself, my father, etc.

'The first president held that the question was extremely uncertain, yet he thought the papers ought to be read.

'The President de Mesmes held that this sort of confession had been utilised in Christian countries, and quoted the epistle of St. Leo, showing that the judges had made use of them.

'Nivelle, advocate, urged the contrary opinion.

'The first president answered that the epistle of St. Leo was utterly opposed to the contention of Monsieur de Mesmes, and that there was nothing for it but to resume the reading.

'The question having been argued, the reading was continued.

'Asked if she had not made her confession, and to whom she ought to confess, she answered that she had had no intention whatever of making a confession, and knew no priests or monks to whom she ought to confess.

'Monsieur Roujault reported in the afternoon that he had put the question to Monsieur Benjamin, an ecclesiastical judge, to Monsieur du Saussoy and other casuists, and to Monsieur de Lestocq, doctor and professor in theology, who all agreed that this paper should be seen, and Madame de Brinvilliers questioned on it; that the secrecy of the confessional could only be between the confessor and the penitent, and a paper having been found purporting to be a confession, it might be read by the judges.'

On July 13, 1676, a terrible deposition was heard-that of Briancourt, who related in detail his mistress's life. He spoke in a voice broken by emotion. The marchioness contradicted him with the same cold, haughty impassivity. 'Her spirit quite overawes us,' said President Lamoignon. 'We worked yesterday at her case till eight o'clock in the evening; she was confronted with Briancourt for thirteen hours, and to-day another five, and she has gone through both ordeals with surprising courage. No one could have more respect for the judges, nor more scorn for the witness confronting her: she taunted him with being a besotted lackey, bundled out of the house for his disorderly conduct, and one whose testimony should not be received against her.' But she was lost. The marchioness saw looming before her the spectacle of her ignominious punishment-the public penance on her knees before the porch of Notre Dame, clad only in her shift, torch in hand; she saw the instruments of torture, the thought of which might make the boldest shudder, then the scaffold, the stake, the 'tomb of fire' whence the hand of the executioner would scatter her ashes, under the gaze of the mob. The judges themselves, who were about to condemn her, felt a tightening at the heart. And when Briancourt, at the close of his deposition, his eyes streaming with tears, his voice choked with sobs, said: 'I warned you many a time, madam, about your disorders and your cruelty, and that your crimes would ruin you,' the marchioness replied-a wonderful reply in its pride and self-control-'You are chicken-hearted, you are crying!' Could one find such a saying in Roman history, or in Corneille? We prefer the bare cold version of the official minute to the version reported by President Lamoignon to the abbé Pirot: 'She insulted Briancourt about the tears he shed at the remembrance of the death of her brothers, when he declared that she had made him her confidant in regard to their poisoning, and told him that he was a villain to weep before all these gentlemen-that it resulted from a mean spirit. All this was said with great coolness, and without any appearance of changing countenance during the five hours we all watched her to-day.'

Advocate Nivelle, on whom fell the heavy task of presenting the defence of the accused lady, acquitted himself of it with remarkable success. His defence was still renowned in the eighteenth century. It was broad in style, and some of his phrases were of great beauty.

'The enormity of the crimes,' he said, 'and the rank of the person accused require proofs of the most convincing clearness, written, so to speak, with rays of sunlight.' He went on to ask if the proofs adduced against Madame de Brinvilliers were of this quality. He succeeded in throwing doubt on the sincerity of several of the more weighty depositions-that of Sergeant Cluet, for instance, who was devoted body and soul, he said, to the opposite party; to the widow d'Aubray, who sustained her part of plaintiff with the extremest animosity. The deposition of Edme Briscien, he maintained, should be entirely rejected, for the witness was not confronted with the marchioness, and on that point the rules of procedure were absolute. He very cleverly took advantage of some inconsistencies in La Chaussée's declaration after torture. The argument based on Sainte-Croix' famous box seemed to him to have as little weight. Indeed, the note of May 25, 1670, in which Sainte-Croix declared that the contents of the box belonged to the marchioness, was undoubtedly anterior to the introduction of poison bottles into the box; it applied only to the lady's letters to Sainte-Croix, in which there was no question of poison. Coming at last to the written confession seized at Liége, Nivelle strongly protested against the inferential proof of guilt which the judges drew from it. 'The last proof,' he said, 'relates to a paper found among those of the marchioness, in which she had written a religious confession. It is astounding that the accusers desired the judges to read this paper, for it was of a nature which laws human and divine hold sacred and inviolable under the seal of secrecy and silence demanded by the rules of one of the most august of mysteries, as I will prove by invincible arguments.' These arguments were exhausted in a minute study of the writings of the Church fathers and of ecclesiastical history, from which the advocate produced numerous examples and excerpts likely to imbue the judges with the profoundest respect for the secrecy of confession, under whatever form it might present itself.

Finally, Nivelle set himself to win a little sympathy, or at any rate pity, for his client. He depicted this woman as a frail thing, of noble birth, beautiful and sensitive by nature, a butt for several months past to calumnies prompted by hate, to the rough treatment and insults of archers, drunken soldiers, and coarse jailors; she had also been deprived of spiritual consolation, and even on Whitsunday had been refused permission to hear mass. Undoubtedly Nivelle largely contributed to that revulsion of feeling in favour of the marchioness which was so strongly marked during the last days.

The advocate concluded his address with a powerful appeal to the prosecutrix: 'The accuser ought not to press hardly against the lady, because she has already received satisfaction for the death of her husband in the exemplary punishment of that wretched criminal (La Chaussée) who slew him; she should rather wish that the family to which she is allied should not be sullied with an eternal disgrace, and that she should not incur the reproach of being wanting in natural feeling for her nephews, whom she ought to consider as her own children. The death of the late Messieurs d'Aubray has been publicly avenged, and if they could now tell us what they feel, they would doubtless show that the affection they always bore to their sister was a sign that they recognised how incapable she was of so unnatural a crime; they would themselves plead for their own blood, and be far indeed from sacrificing their relatives and exposing them to infamous punishment; they would prove that their highest satisfaction is to preserve their honour in preserving her life, and that otherwise it would be to punish themselves rather than to avenge them. But if they find their consolation in the acquittal of Lady Brinvilliers; if her children-who would suffer punishment as if they were guilty, and to whom life would become a torture and death a consolation-find in it the preservation of the honour of a family so notable as that from which their mother is sprung-these wise magistrates who are to judge her will also have more glory in giving to the public a famous example of their justice, their piety, and their sovereign equity, by declaring her innocent.'

On July 15, 1676, Madame de Brinvilliers appeared for the last time before her judges for her final cross-examination, and in the course of this long ordeal, in which for three hours her whole life was remorselessly dissected, she did not flag for a moment. She denied everything; she did not know what poison and antidote meant; her pretended confession was sheer madness. 'She did not appear affected by what the first president said, though, after he had done his part as judge, he assumed the tone of a merciful friend, and addressed to her words most admirably calculated to move her, and bring her to feel in some degree the lamentable state in which she was. The first president,' we read in a summary report of the trial, 'dwelt upon the dreadful illness of her father, on the perilous state she was in, and told her that she was engaged in perhaps the last act of her life; he invited her seriously to reflect on her evil conduct, which had drawn upon her the reproaches of her family, and even of those who had lived in sin with her. The President de Novion reminded her that her brother the civil lieutenant had suspected other persons, and that this suspicion had embittered his last moments. The first president told her also' (and this is one of the most curious features of the trial for the study of the moral ideas of the period), 'that the greatest of all her crimes, horrible as they were, was, not the poisoning of her father and brothers, but her attempt to poison herself. She was kept for another half hour, but would say nothing, merely showing signs of a little distress at heart.'

'The first president wept bitterly,' writes the abbé Pirot, 'and all the judges shed tears.' She alone kept her head proudly erect, and preserved undimmed the stony clearness of her blue eyes.

Taine has given in one line a marvellous definition of the character of Racine's heroines and the art of the poet himself: 'We imagine the tears which never appear in their beautiful eyes.' The sequel of our story will indicate, even more than the preceding pages, that Madame de Brinvilliers in some points resembled some of Racine's heroines, and will help to show with what exactitude the incomparable poet reproduced the models presented him by the society of his time.

In closing this memorable scene on July 15, President Lamoignon told the prisoner that, out of charity and on the plea of her sister the Carmelite nun, a person of the greatest merit and the highest virtue was being sent to her to console her and to exhort her to think of her soul's salvation. We are about to see coming upon the stage one of the most interesting figures in the drama, the sympathetic abbé, Edme Pirot.