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Updated: June 24, 2025
He then pulled out a bottle from under his cloak, and drank a dram; and taking the body under one arm, all dressed as it was, and the head in his other hand, the eyes still bandaged, he threw both upon the faggots, which his assistant lighted. "The next day," says Madame de Sevigne, "people were looking for the charred bones of Madame de Brinvilliers, because they said she was a saint."
Altogether ignorant of the fatal mischance which had brought his villanies to light, he did not dream of danger. He was arrested and brought to trial: being put to the torture, he confessed that he had administered poison to the Messieurs d'Aubray, and that he had received a hundred pistoles, and the promise of an annuity for life, from Sainte Croix and Madame de Brinvilliers, for the job.
The Brinvilliers do not belong to this century: this age possesses calumny, which is a much more convenient instrument of death; and it is by that I shall perish."
He was condemned to be broken alive on the wheel, and the Marchioness was, by default, sentenced to be beheaded. He was executed accordingly, in March 1673, on the Place de Greve, in Paris. La Brinvilliers appears to have resided for nearly three years in England.
But against that I cannot guard, and the act of writing relieves my feelings at the moment that is at least what I ask of it. You would not believe the condition into which this place has thrown me. Do not refer to my weakness, I beg of you; but you must love me, and have respect for my tears, since they flow from a heart which is full of you. The Brinvilliers Affair
Time and thirst are two things you and I talk about; but the victims whom holy men and righteous judges used to stretch on their engines knew better what they meant than you or I! What is that great bucket of water for? said the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, before she was placed on the rack. For you to drink, said the torturer to the little woman.
At the time of the poisonings committed by Madame de Brinvilliers, the Government obtained evidence that a powder, called "the powder of inheritance," was being sold in Paris, by means of which impatient heirs shortened the days of unfortunate holders, and entered into possession before their time.
M. de Brinvilliers has always concerned himself with me, and has only failed in doing what it was impossible to do. Our interchange of letters never ceased while I was out of the kingdom; do not doubt but that he would have come to Paris as soon as he knew I was in prison, had the state of his affairs allowed him to come safely.
As to the confession, the strongest and, he maintained, the only evidence against Madame de Brinvilliers, he attacked its validity by bringing forward certain similar cases, where the evidence supplied by the accused against themselves had not been admitted by reason of the legal action: 'Non auditur perire volens'. He cited three instances, and as they are themselves interesting, we copy them verbatim from his notes.
Meanwhile it was whispered that the Spanish princes, and the sons of Catherine de' Medici upon the throne of France, conned its pages just as a manual of toxicology might be studied by a Marquise de Brinvilliers.
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