She spoke of her children, displaying a tender affection for them. ‘“Sir,” she said to me, “I have not asked to see them; that would only have upset both them and me. I beseech you to be a mother to them.”’ Pirot replied that it was the Virgin who would serve them as mother, and that the marchioness should pray to her to maintain them in purity and humility all their life long. From the first, Pirot had probed his fair prisoner’s character to the bottom. ‘Ah!’ she said, interrupting him, ‘those are grand virtues! Do you know that, humbled though I be by my hapless present state, yet I do not feel humble enough? I am still attached to this world’s glory, and it is hard to bear the shame with which I am loaded.’ And to the priest’s remarks she replied: ‘I tell myself all that when I reflect, but that does not prevent feelings of pride and glory sometimes passing through my mind, as they are natural to me.’ And she added words that must have terrified the unhappy priest: ‘At this present hour in which I speak to you, there are still moments when I cannot regret having known the man (Sainte-Croix) whose acquaintance has been so fatal to me, or hate his friendship which is so dire to me and has brought upon me so many misfortunes.’
Pirot supped that evening with the prisoner; then, when night had fallen, he withdrew, promising to return in the morning. He was in great agitation, and on reaching his apartment he had recourse to his breviary. ‘The image of the lady I had seen all day so powerfully possessed me that I could hardly attend to what I was reading: it seemed to me that I was for nearly half an hour circling round Domine, labia mea aperies, returning always to where I had begun. At last, seeing that I must get on, I applied myself a little more diligently to my reading, so as to be less distracted by this idea. But in spite of all my close attention, I was quite three hours in reciting my office.’
He has described at length his sleeplessness, the thoughts that crowded upon his mind, the anguish which choked him: ‘I got no sleep at all. Those who know the delicacy of my nature, how sensitive I am to the misery and pain I see in persons who are indifferent to me, will have no difficulty in realising the depth of my sorrow for a lady whom I had seen so afflicted, and who was so near to my heart by reason of the interest I was bound to take in the salvation of the soul intrusted to me.’ Stretching out his clasped hands towards heaven, he cried: ‘O God, I am greatly concerned for her whose salvation is as dear to me as my own; I die every moment for her, and all the reward I ask in the conflict I have to maintain with her before she closes her career is to see her crowned with Thee!’
In the morning Pirot returned to the prisoner. ‘I was taken up the tower, where I found Father de Chevigny in tears as he closed a prayer with the lady, who greeted me with the same courage that I had seen in her on the previous evening.’
Madame de Brinvilliers has slept as peacefully as a child.
One of the first questions she put to her confessor related to a fear which had arisen in her mind, and the thought of which gave her much torture. ‘Sir,’ she said to me, ‘you gave me yesterday some hope that I might be saved, but I cannot have the presumption to promise myself that that will be till after a long time in purgatory. How shall I know whether I am in purgatory or hell?’ Pirot reassured her.
Soon afterwards a message came that Madame de Brinvilliers was to descend to hear her sentence read. ‘She was prepared for death and torture; but she had not thought of the public penance or of the fire. She answered fearlessly, “In a moment, but just now we are finishing our conversation, this gentleman and I.” We shortly finished our talk in great serenity.’
On leaving the prisoner, Pirot betook himself to the chapel of the Conciergerie. ‘I said mass for her, and went into the jailer’s room. I found him there, and he told me that he had accompanied her to the torture-chamber, and that after her sentence had been read, when the executioner approached to seize her, she looked him up and down without saying a word, and seeing a rope in his hand, she offered him her hands already clasped. I learned after dinner from the procurator-general that she had been agitated at the reading of her sentence, and that she got it read a second time.’
The sentence was dated July 16, 1676:—
‘The court has declared and declares the said d’Aubray de Brinvilliers duly accused and convicted of having poisoned Maître Dreux d’Aubray her father, and the said d’Aubray, civil lieutenant and counsellor in the said court, her brothers, and for reparation has condemned and condemns the said d’Aubray de Brinvilliers to do public penance before the principal door of the church of Paris, where she will be taken in a cart, bare-footed, a rope on her neck, holding in her hands a lighted torch of two pounds weight, and there on her knees to say and declare that wickedly, from revenge and to have their property, she has poisoned her father and two brothers, and attempted the life of her late sister, of which she repents, and asks pardon of God, the king, and justice; this done, to be led and conducted in the said cart to the Place de Grève of this city, to have her head cut off there on a scaffold, which will be erected for that purpose on the said place; her body to be burned, and her ashes thrown to the winds: the question ordinary and extraordinary to be first applied in order to obtain revelation of her accomplices.’