Marquise de Brinvilliers

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CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

IN EIGHT VOLUMES


THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS

Towards the end of the year 1665, on a fine autumn evening, there was a
considerable crowd assembled on the Pont-Neuf where it makes a turn down
to the rue Dauphine. The object of this crowd and the centre of
attraction was a closely shut, carriage. A police official was trying to
force open the door, and two out of the four sergeants who were with him
were holding the horses back and the other two stopping the driver, who
paid no attention to their commands, but only endeavoured to urge his
horses to a gallop. The struggle had been going on same time, when
suddenly one of the doors violently pushed open, and a young officer in
the uniform of a cavalry captain jumped down, shutting the door as he did
so though not too quickly for the nearest spectators to perceive a woman
sitting at the back of the carriage. She was wrapped in cloak and veil,
and judging by the precautions she, had taken to hide her face from every
eye, she must have had her reasons for avoiding recognition.

"Sir," said the young man, addressing the officer with a haughty air, "I
presume, till I find myself mistaken, that your business is with me
alone; so I will ask you to inform me what powers you may have for thus
stopping my coach; also, since I have alighted, I desire you to give your
men orders to let the vehicle go on."

"First of all," replied the man, by no means intimidated by these lordly
airs, but signing to his men that they must not release the coach or the
horses, "be so good as to answer my questions."

"I am attending," said the young man, controlling his agitation by a
visible effort.

"Are you the Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte-Croix?"

"I am he."

"Captain of the Tracy, regiment?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then I arrest you in the king's name."

"What powers have you?"

"This warrant."

Sainte-Croix cast a rapid glance at the paper, and instantly recognised
the signature of the minister of police: he then apparently confined his
attention to the woman who was still in the carriage; then he returned to
his first question.

"This is all very well, sir," he said to the officer, "but this warrant
contains no other name than mine, and so you have no right to expose thus
to the public gaze the lady with whom I was travelling when you arrested
me. I must beg of you to order your assistants to allow this carriage to
drive on; then take me where you please, for I am ready to go with you."

To the officer this request seemed a just one: he signed to his men to
let the driver and the horses go on; and, they, who had waited only for
this, lost no time in breaking through the crowd, which melted away
before them; thus the woman escaped for whose safety the prisoner seemed
so much concerned.

Sainte-Croix kept his promise and offered no resistance; for some moments
he followed the officer, surrounded by a crowd which seemed to have
transferred all its curiosity to his account; then, at the corner of the
Quai de d'Horloge, a man called up a carriage that had not been observed
before, and Sainte-Croix took his place with the same haughty and
disdainful air that he had shown throughout the scene we have just
described. The officer sat beside him, two of his men got up behind, and
the other two, obeying no doubt their master's orders, retired with a
parting direction to the driver,

"The Bastille!"

Our readers will now permit us to make them more fully acquainted with
the man who is to take the first place in the story. The origin of
Gaudin de Sainte-Croix was not known: according to one tale, he was the
natural son of a great lord; another account declared that he was the
offspring of poor people, but that, disgusted with his obscure birth, he
preferred a splendid disgrace, and therefore chose to pass for what he
was not. The only certainty is that he was born at Montauban, and in
actual rank and position he was captain of the Tracy regiment. At the
time when this narrative opens, towards the end of 1665, Sainte-Croix was
about twenty-eight or thirty, a fine young man of cheerful and lively
appearance, a merry comrade at a banquet, and an excellent captain: he
took his pleasure with other men, and was so impressionable a character
that he enjoyed a virtuous project as well as any plan for a debauch; in
love he was most susceptible, and jealous to the point of madness even
about a courtesan, had she once taken his fancy; his prodigality was
princely, although he had no income; further, he was most sensitive to
slights, as all men are who, because they are placed in an equivocal
position, fancy that everyone who makes any reference to their origin is
offering an intentional insult.

We must now see by what a chain of circumstances he had arrived at his
present position. About the year 1660, Sainte-Croix, while in the army,
had made the acquaintance of the Marquis de Brinvilliers, maitre-de-camp
of the Normandy regiment.

Their age was much the same, and so was their manner of life: their
virtues and their vices were similar, and thus it happened that a mere
acquaintance grew into a friendship, and on his return from the field the
marquis introduced Sainte-Croix to his wife, and he became an intimate of
the house. The usual results followed. Madame de Brinvilliers was then
scarcely eight-and-twenty: she had married the marquis in 1651-that is,
nine years before. He enjoyed an income of 30,000 livres, to which she
added her dowry of 200,000 livres, exclusive of her expectations in the
future. Her name was Marie-Madeleine; she had a sister and two brothers:
her father, M. de Dreux d'Aubray; was civil lieutenant at the Chatelet de
Paris. At the age of twenty-eight the marquise was at the height of her
beauty: her figure was small but perfectly proportioned; her rounded face
was charmingly pretty; her features, so regular that no emotion seemed to
alter their beauty, suggested the lines of a statue miraculously endowed
with life: it was easy enough to mistake for the repose of a happy
conscience the cold, cruel calm which served as a mask to cover remorse.

Sainte-Croix and the marquise loved at first sight, and she was soon his
mistress. The marquis, perhaps endowed with the conjugal philosophy
which alone pleased the taste of the period, perhaps too much occupied
with his own pleasure to see what was going on before his eyes, offered
no jealous obstacle to the intimacy, and continued his foolish
extravagances long after they had impaired his fortunes: his affairs
became so entangled that the marquise, who cared for him no longer, and
desired a fuller liberty for the indulgence of her new passion, demanded
and obtained a separation. She then left her husband's house, and
henceforth abandoning all discretion, appeared everywhere in public with
Sainte-Croix. This behaviour, authorised as it was by the example of the
highest nobility, made no impression upon the Marquis of Brinvilliers,
who merrily pursued the road to ruin, without worrying about his wife's
behaviour. Not so M. de Dreux d'Aubray: he had the scrupulosity of a
legal dignitary. He was scandalised at his daughter's conduct, and
feared a stain upon his own fair name: he procured a warrant for the
arrest of Sainte-Croix wheresoever the bearer might chance to encounter
him. We have seen how it was put in execution when Sainte-Croix was
driving in the carriage of the marquise, whom our readers will doubtless
have recognised as the woman who concealed herself so carefully.

From one's knowledge of the character of Sainte-Croix, it is easy to
imagine that he had to use great self-control to govern the anger he felt
at being arrested in the middle of the street; thus, although during the
whole drive he uttered not a single word, it was plain to see that a
terrible storm was gathering, soon to break. But he preserved the same
impossibility both at the opening and shutting of the fatal gates, which,
like the gates of hell, had so often bidden those who entered abandon all
hope on their threshold, and again when he replied to the formal
questions put to him by the governor. His voice was calm, and when they
gave him they prison register he signed it with a steady hand. At once a
gaoler, taking his orders from the governor, bade him follow: after
traversing various corridors, cold and damp, where the daylight might
sometimes enter but fresh air never, he opened a door, and Sainte-Croix
had no sooner entered than he heard it locked behind him.

At the grating of the lock he turned. The gaoler had left him with no
light but the rays of the moon, which, shining through a barred window
some eight or ten feet from the ground, shed a gleam upon a miserable
truckle-bed and left the rest of the room in deep obscurity. The
prisoner stood still for a moment and listened; then, when he had heard
the steps die away in the distance and knew himself to be alone at last,
he fell upon the bed with a cry more like the roaring of a wild beast
than any human sound: he cursed his fellow-man who had snatched him from
his joyous life to plunge him into a dungeon; he cursed his God who had
let this happen; he cried aloud to whatever powers might be that could
grant him revenge and liberty.

Just at that moment, as though summoned by these words from the bowels of
the earth, a man slowly stepped into the circle of blue light that fell
from the window-a man thin and pale, a man with long hair, in a black
doublet, who approached the foot of the bed where Sainte-Croix lay.
Brave as he was, this apparition so fully answered to his prayers (and at
the period the power of incantation and magic was still believed in) that
he felt no doubt that the arch-enemy of the human race, who is
continually at hand, had heard him and had now come in answer to his
prayers. He sat up on the bed, feeling mechanically at the place where
the handle of his sword would have been but two hours since, feeling his
hair stand on end, and a cold sweat began to stream down his face as the
strange fantastic being step by step approached him. At length the
apparition paused, the prisoner and he stood face to face for a moment,
their eyes riveted; then the mysterious stranger spoke in gloomy tones.

"Young man," said he, "you have prayed to the devil for vengeance on the
men who have taken you, for help against the God who has abandoned you.
I have the means, and I am here to proffer it. Have you the courage to
accept?"

"First of all," asked Sainte-Croix; "who are you?"

"Why seek you to know who I am," replied the unknown, "at the very moment
when I come at your call, and bring what you desire?"

"All the same," said Sainte-Croix, still attributing what he heard to a
supernatural being, "when one makes a compact of this kind, one prefers
to know with whom one is treating."

"Well, since you must know," said the stranger, "I am the Italian Exili."

Sainte-Croix shuddered anew, passing from a supernatural vision to a
horrible reality. The name he had just heard had a terrible notoriety at
the time, not only in France but in Italy as well. Exili had been driven
out of Rome, charged with many poisonings, which, however, could not be
satisfactorily brought home to him. He had gone to Paris, and there, as
in his native country, he had drawn the eyes of the authorities upon
himself; but neither in Paris nor in Rome was he, the pupil of Rene and
of Trophana, convicted of guilt. All the same, though proof was wanting,
his enormities were so well accredited that there was no scruple as to
having him arrested. A warrant was out against him: Exili was taken up,
and was lodged in the Bastille. He had been there about six months when
Sainte-Croix was brought to the same place. The prisoners were numerous
just then, so the governor had his new guest put up in the same room as
the old one, mating Exili and Sainte-Croix, not knowing that they were a
pair of demons. Our readers now understand the rest. Sainte-Croix was
put into an unlighted room by the gaoler, and in the dark had failed to
see his companion: he had abandoned himself to his rage, his imprecations
had revealed his state of mind to Exili, who at once seized the occasion
for gaining a devoted and powerful disciple, who once out of prison might
open the doors for him, perhaps, or at least avenge his fate should he be
incarcerated for life.

The repugnance felt by Sainte-Croix for his fellow-prisoner did not last
long, and the clever master found his pupil apt. Sainte-Croix, a strange
mixture of qualities good and evil, had reached the supreme crisis of his
life, when the powers of darkness or of light were to prevail. Maybe, if
he had met some angelic soul at this point, he would have been led to
God; he encountered a demon, who conducted him to Satan.

Exili was no vulgar poisoner: he was a great artist in poisons,
comparable with the Medici or the Borgias. For him murder was a fine
art, and he had reduced it to fixed and rigid rules: he had arrived at a
point when he was guided not by his personal interest but by a taste for
experiment. God has reserved the act of creation for Himself, but has
suffered destruction to be within the scope of man: man therefore
supposes that in destroying life he is God's equal. Such was the nature
of Exili's pride: he was the dark, pale alchemist of death: others might
seek the mighty secret of life, but he had found the secret of
destruction.

For a time Sainte-Croix hesitated: at last he yielded to the taunts of
his companion, who accused Frenchmen of showing too much honour in their
crimes, of allowing themselves to be involved in the ruin of their
enemies, whereas they might easily survive them and triumph over their
destruction. In opposition to this French gallantry, which often
involves the murderer in a death more cruel than that he has given, he
pointed to the Florentine traitor with his amiable smile and his deadly
poison. He indicated certain powders and potions, some of them of dull
action, wearing out the victim so slowly that he dies after long
suffering; others violent and so quick, that they kill like a flash of
lightning, leaving not even time for a single cry. Little by little
Sainte-Croix became interested in the ghastly science that puts the lives
of all men in the hand of one. He joined in Exili's experiments; then he
grew clever enough to make them for himself; and when, at the year's end,
he left the Bastille, the pupil was almost as accomplished as his master.

Sainte-Croix returned into that society which had banished him, fortified
by a fatal secret by whose aid he could repay all the evil he had
received. Soon afterwards Exili was set free--how it happened is not
known--and sought out Sainte-Croix, who let him a room in the name of his
steward, Martin de Breuille, a room situated in the blind, alley off the
Place Maubert, owned by a woman called Brunet.

It is not known whether Sainte-Croix had an opportunity of seeing the
Marquise de Brinvilliers during his sojourn in the Bastille, but it is
certain that as soon as he was a free man the lovers were more attached
than ever. They had learned by experience, however, of what they had to
fear; so they resolved that they would at once make trial of
Sainte-Croix's newly acquired knowledge, and M. d'Aubray was selected by
his daughter for the first victim. At one blow she would free herself
from the inconvenience of his rigid censorship, and by inheriting his
goods would repair her own fortune, which had been almost dissipated by
her husband. But in trying such a bold stroke one must be very sure of
results, so the marquise decided to experiment beforehand on another
person. Accordingly, when one day after luncheon her maid, Francoise
Roussel, came into her room, she gave her a slice of mutton and some
preserved gooseberries for her own meal. The girl unsuspiciously ate
what her mistress gave her, but almost at once felt ill, saying she had
severe pain in the stomach, and a sensation as though her heart were
being pricked with pins. But she did not die, and the marquise perceived
that the poison needed to be made stronger, and returned it to
Sainte-Croix, who brought her some more in a few days' time.

The moment had come for action. M. d'Aubray, tired with business, was to
spend a holiday at his castle called Offemont. The marquise offered to
go with him. M. d'Aubray, who supposed her relations with Sainte-Croix
to be quite broken off, joyfully accepted. Offemont was exactly the
place for a crime of this nature. In the middle of the forest of Aigue,
three or four miles from Compiegne, it would be impossible to get
efficient help before the rapid action of the poison had made it useless.

M. d'Aubray started with his daughter and one servant only. Never had
the marquise been so devoted to her father, so especially attentive, as
she was during this journey. And M. d'Aubray, like Christ--who though He
had no children had a father's heart--loved his repentant daughter more
than if she had never strayed. And then the marquise profited by the
terrible calm look which we have already noticed in her face: always with
her father, sleeping in a room adjoining his, eating with him, caring for
his comfort in every way, thoughtful and affectionate, allowing no other
person to do anything for him, she had to present a smiling face, in
which the most suspicious eye could detect nothing but filial tenderness,
though the vilest projects were in her heart. With this mask she one
evening offered him some soup that was poisoned. He took it; with her
eyes she saw him put it to his lips, watched him drink it down, and with
a brazen countenance she gave no outward sign of that terrible anxiety
that must have been pressing on her heart. When he had drunk it all, and
she had taken with steady hands the cup and its saucer, she went back to
her own room, waited and listened....

The effect was rapid. The marquise heard her father moan; then she heard
groans. At last, unable to endure his sufferings, he called out to his
daughter. The marquise went to him. But now her face showed signs of
the liveliest anxiety, and it was for M. d'Aubray to try to reassure her
about himself! He thought it was only a trifling indisposition, and was
not willing that a doctor should be disturbed. But then he was seized by
a frightful vomiting, followed by such unendurable pain that he yielded
to his daughter's entreaty that she should send for help. A doctor
arrived at about eight o'clock in the morning, but by that time all that
could have helped a scientific inquiry had been disposed of: the doctor
saw nothing, in M. d'Aubray's story but what might be accounted for by
indigestion; so he dosed him, and went back to Compiegne.

All that day the marquise never left the sick man. At night she had a
bed made up in his room, declaring that no one else must sit up with him;
thus she, was able to watch the progress of the malady and see with her
own eyes the conflict between death and life in the body of her father.
The next day the doctor came again: M. d'Aubray was worse; the nausea had
ceased, but the pains in the stomach were now more acute; a strange fire
seemed to burn his vitals; and a treatment was ordered which necessitated
his return to Paris. He was soon so weak that he thought it might be
best to go only so far as Compiegne, but the marquise was so insistent as
to the necessity for further and better advice than anything he could get
away from home, that M. d'Aubray decided to go. He made the journey in
his own carriage, leaning upon his daughter's shoulder; the behaviour of
the marquise was always the same: at last M. d'Aubray reached Paris. All
had taken place as the marquise desired; for the scene was now changed:
the doctor who had witnessed the symptoms would not be present at the
death; no one could discover the cause by studying the progress of the
disorder; the thread of investigation was snapped in two, and the two
ends were now too distant to be joined again. In spite, of every
possible attention, M. d'Aubray grew continually worse; the marquise was
faithful to her mission, and never left him for an hour. At list, after
four days of agony, he died in his daughter's arms, blessing the woman
who was his murderess. Her grief then broke forth uncontrolled. Her
sobs and tears were so vehement that her brothers' grief seemed cold
beside hers. Nobody suspected a crime, so no autopsy was held; the tomb
was closed, and not the slightest suspicion had approached her.

But the marquise had only gained half her purpose. She had now more
freedom for her love affairs, but her father's dispositions were not so
favourable as she expected: the greater part of his property, together
with his business, passed to the elder brother and to the second brother,
who was Parliamentary councillor; the position of, the marquise was very
little improved in point of fortune.

Sainte-Croix was leading a fine and joyous life. Although nobody
supposed him to be wealthy, he had a steward called Martin, three lackeys
called George, Lapierre, and Lachaussee, and besides his coach and other
carriages he kept ordinary bearers for excursions at night. As he was
young and good-looking, nobody troubled about where all these luxuries
came from. It was quite the custom in those days that a well-set-up
young gentleman should want for nothing, and Sainte-Croix was commonly
said to have found the philosopher's stone. In his life in the world he
had formed friendships with various persons, some noble, some rich: among
the latter was a man named Reich de Penautier, receiver-general of the
clergy and treasurer of the States of Languedoc, a millionaire, and one
of those men who are always successful, and who seem able by the help of
their money to arrange matters that would appear to be in the province of
God alone. This Penautier was connected in business with a man called
d'Alibert, his first clerk, who died all of a sudden of apoplexy. The
attack was known to Penautier sooner than to his own family: then the
papers about the conditions of partnership disappeared, no one knew how,
and d'Alibert's wife and child were ruined. D'Alibert's brother-in-law,
who was Sieur de la Magdelaine, felt certain vague suspicions concerning
this death, and wished to get to the bottom of it; he accordingly began
investigations, which were suddenly brought to an end by his death.

In one way alone Fortune seemed to have abandoned her favourite: Maitre
Penautier had a great desire to succeed the Sieur of Mennevillette, who
was receiver of the clergy, and this office was worth nearly 60,000
livres. Penautier knew that Mennevillette was retiring in favour of his
chief clerk, Messire Pierre Hannyvel, Sieur de Saint-Laurent, and he had
taken all the necessary, steps for buying the place over his head: the
Sieur de Saint-Laurent, with the full support of the clergy, obtained the
reversion for nothing--a thing that never happened before. Penautier
then offered him 40,000 crowns to go halves, but Saint-Laurent refused.
Their relations, however, were not broken off, and they continued to
meet. Penautier was considered such a lucky fellow that it was generally
expected he would somehow or other get some day the post he coveted so
highly. People who had no faith in the mysteries of alchemy declared that
Sainte-Croix and Penautier did business together.

Now, when the period for mourning was over, the relations of the marquise
and Sainte-Croix were as open and public as before: the two brothers
d'Aubray expostulated with her by the medium of an older sister who was
in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on
his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers.
Thus her first crime had been all but in vain: she had wanted to get rid
of her father's rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune
was diminished by reason of her elder brothers, and she had scarcely
enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed from the mouths
of her brothers, one of whom, being civil lieutenant, had the power to
separate her again from her lover. This must be prevented. Lachaussee
left the service of Sainte-Croix, and by a contrivance of the marquise
was installed three months later as servant of the elder brother, who
lived with the civil lieutenant. The poison to be used on this occasion
was not so swift as the one taken by M. d'Aubray so violent a death
happening so soon in the same family might arouse suspicion. Experiments
were tried once more, not on animals--for their different organisation
might put the poisoner's science in the wrong--but as before upon human
subjects; as before, a 'corpus vili' was taken. The marquise had the
reputation of a pious and charitable lady; seldom did she fail to relieve
the poor who appealed: more than this, she took part in the work of those
devoted women who are pledged to the service of the sick, and she walked
the hospitals and presented wine and other medicaments. No one was
surprised when she appeared in her ordinary way at l'Hotel-Dieu. This
time she brought biscuits and cakes for the convalescent patients, her
gifts being, as usual, gratefully received. A month later she paid
another visit, and inquired after certain patients in whom she was
particularly interested: since the last time she came they had suffered a
relapse--the malady had changed in nature, and had shown graver symptoms.
It was a kind of deadly fatigue, killing them by a slows strange decay.
She asked questions of the doctors but could learn nothing: this malady
was unknown to them, and defied all the resources of their art. A
fortnight later she returned. Some of the sick people were dead, others
still alive, but desperately ill; living skeletons, all that seemed left
of them was sight, speech, and breath. At the end of two months they
were all dead, and the physicians had been as much at a loss over the
post-mortems as over the treatment of the dying.