The Marquise de Brinvilliers—Homicidal mania—Mysterious death of her father, M. D’Aubray—Death of her eldest brother and her second brother—Sainte Croix’s sudden death—Fatal secret betrayed—Marchioness flies to England—Brought to Paris—Her trial—Torture and cruel sentence—Others suspected—Pennautier—Trade in poisoning—The Chambre Ardente—La Voisin—Great people implicated—Wholesale sentences—The galleys, or forced labor at the oar a common punishment—War galleys—Manned with difficulty—Illegal detention—Horrors of the galleys.
Paris was convulsed and shaken to its roots in 1674, when the abominable crimes of the Marchioness of Brinvilliers were laid bare. They have continued to horrify the whole world. Here was a beautiful woman of good family, of quiet demeanor, seemingly soft-hearted and sweet tempered, who nevertheless murdered her nearest relations,—father, brother, sisters, her husband and her own children by secret and detestable practices. It could have been nothing less than homicidal mania in its worst development. The rage to kill, or, more exactly, to test the value of the lethal weapons she recklessly wielded, seized her under the guise of a high, religious duty to visit the hospitals to try the effects of her poisons on the sick poor. There were those at the time who saw in the discovery of her murderous processes the direct interposition of Providence. First, there was the sudden death of her principal accomplice, and the sure indications found among the papers he left; next, the confirmatory proofs afforded by a servant who had borne the “question” without opening his lips, and only confessed at the scaffold; last of all, the guilty woman’s arrest in Liége on the last day that the French king’s authority was paramount in that city; and more, there was the fact that when taken, she was in possession of papers indispensable to secure her own conviction.
Marie-Madeleine d’Aubray was beautiful, the daughter of the d’Aubray who filled the high legal office of Lieutenant-Criminel, and she married the Marquis de Brinvilliers at the age of twenty-one. She was possessed of great personal attraction: a small woman of slight, exquisite figure, her face round and regular, her complexion extraordinarily fair, her hair abundant and of a dark chestnut color. Everything promised a happy life for the young people. They were drawn together by strong liking, they were fairly rich and held their heads high in the best circle of the court. They lived together happily for some years, and five children were born to them, but presently they fell into extravagant ways and wasted their substance. The Marquis became a roué and a gambler, and left his wife very much alone and exposed to temptation, and especially to the marked attentions of a certain Godin de St. Croix, a young, handsome and seductive gallant, whom the Marquis had himself introduced and welcomed to his house. At the trial it was urged that this St. Croix had been the real criminal; he is described as a demon of violent and unbridled passion, who had led the Marchioness astray, a statement never proved.
The liaison soon became public property, but the husband was altogether indifferent to his wife’s misconduct, having a disreputable character of his own. The father and brothers strongly disapproved and reproached the Marchioness fiercely. The elder d’Aubray, quite unable to check the scandal, at last obtained a lettre de cachet, an order of summary imprisonment, against St. Croix, and the lover was arrested in the Marchioness’ carriage, seated by her side. He was committed at once to the Bastile, where he became the cellmate of an Italian generally called Exili; although his real name is said to have been Egidi, while his occult profession, according to contemporary writers, was that of an artist in poisons. From this chance prison acquaintance flowed the whole of the subsequent crimes. When St. Croix was released from the Bastile, he obtained the release also of Exili and, taking him into his service, the two applied themselves to the extensive manufacture of poisons, assisted by an apothecary named Glaser. St. Croix was supposed to have reformed. When once more free, he married, became reserved and grew devout. Secretly he renewed his intimacy with the Marchioness and persuaded her to get rid of her near relatives in order to acquire the whole of the d’Aubray property; and he provided her with the poisons for the purpose.
M. d’Aubray had forgiven his daughter, and had taken her with him to his country estate at Offémont in the autumn of 1666. The Marchioness treated him with the utmost affection and seemed to have quite abandoned her loose ways. Suddenly, soon after their arrival, M. d’Aubray was seized with some mysterious malady, accompanied by constant vomitings and intolerable sufferings. Removed to Paris next day, he was attended by a strange doctor, who had not seen the beginning of the attack, and speedily died in convulsions. It was suggested as the cause of his death, that he had been suffering from gout driven into the stomach.
The inheritance was small, and there were four children to share it. The Marchioness had two brothers and two sisters. One sister was married and the mother of two children, the other was a Carmelite nun. The eldest brother, Antoine d’Aubray, succeeded to his father’s office as Lieutenant-Criminel, and within four years he also died under suspicious circumstances. He lived in Paris, and upon entering his house one day called for a drink. A new valet, named La Chaussée, brought him a glass of wine and water. It was horribly bitter to the taste, and d’Aubray threw the greater part away, expressing his belief that the rascal, La Chaussée, wanted to poison him. It was like liquid fire, and others, who tasted it, declared that it contained vitriol. La Chaussée, apologising, recovered the glass, threw the rest of the liquid into the fire and excused himself by saying that a fellow servant had just used the tumbler as a medicine glass. This incident was presently forgotten, but next spring, at a dinner given by M. d’Aubray, guests and host were seized with a strange illness after eating a tart or vol au vent, and M. d’Aubray never recovered his health. He “pined visibly” after his return to Paris, losing appetite and flesh, and presently died, apparently of extreme weakness, on the 17th of June, 1670. A post mortem was held, but disclosed nothing, and the death was attributed to “malignant humours,” a ridiculously vague expression showing the medical ignorance of the times.
The second brother did not survive. He too was attacked with illness, and died of the same loss of power and vitality. An autopsy resulted in a certain suspicion of foul play. The doctors reported that the lungs of the deceased were ulcerated, the liver and heart burned up and destroyed. Undoubtedly there had been noxious action, but it could not be definitely referred to poison. No steps, however, were taken by the police to inquire into the circumstances of this sudden death.
Meanwhile the Marchioness had been deserted by her husband, and she gave herself up to reckless dissipation. When St. Croix abandoned her also, she resolved to commit suicide. “I shall put an end to my life,” she wrote him in a letter afterwards found among his papers, “by using what you gave me, the preparation of Glaser.” Courage failed her, and now chance or strange fortune intervened with terrible revelations. St. Croix’s sudden death betrayed the secret of the crime.
He was in the habit of working at a private laboratory in the Place Maubert, where he distilled his lethal drugs. One day as he bent over the furnace, his face protected by a glass mask, the glass burst unexpectedly, and he inhaled a breath of the poisonous fumes, which stretched him dead upon the spot. Naturally there could be no destruction of compromising papers, and these at once fell into the hands of the police. Before they could be examined, the Marchioness, terrified at the prospect of impending detection, committed herself hopelessly by her imprudence. She went at once to the person to whom the papers had been confided and begged for a casket in which were a number of her letters. She was imprudent enough to offer a bribe of fifty louis, and was so eager in her appeal, that suspicion arose and her request was refused. Ruin stared her in the face, she went home, got what money she could and fled from Paris.