"M. d'Aubrai—my father."
"You were very devout at this time, attending church and visiting hospitals?"
"I was testing the powers of our science on the patients. I gave poisoned biscuits to the sick."
"You had two brothers?"
"Yes ... we were two too many in my family. Lachaussée, Sainte-Croix' valet, had instructions to poison my brothers; they died in the country, with some of their friends, after eating a pigeon-pie which Lachaussée used to make to perfection."
"You poisoned one of your children?"
"Sainte-Croix hated it!"
"You wanted to poison your husband?"
"Sainte-Croix for some reason prevented it. After I had administered the poison, he would give my husband an antidote."
Before she was released from the trestle, Madame's confession was complete. Sainte-Croix, imprisoned in the Bastille, on a lettre-de-cachet obtained by M. de Brinvilliers, had there made the acquaintance of an Italian chemist, named Exili, who had taught him the whole art and mystery of poison. Exili's cell in the Bastille was the first laboratory of Sainte-Croix, who proved afterwards so apt a pupil that, as his mistress and accomplice avowed, he could conceal a deadly poison in a flower, an orange, a letter, a glove, "or in nothing at all."