THE ALUMNI JOURNAL, 



199 



Saint Simon's Memoirs a detailed account 

 of the whole affair, how the King, ter- 

 ribly excited, sent for his brother's 

 steward and cross-examined him furious- 

 ly. And how the latter finally explain- 

 ed that one of the husband's suite, who 

 had made himself offensive to Madame, 

 and had consequently been exiled to 

 Italy, had forwarded the poison to one of 

 his friends. That the latter, remember- 

 ing Henrietta's practice of drinking a 

 glass of succory water about seven 

 o'clock every evening, had slipped into 

 the anteroom a little before that, opened 

 the closet where the maid had just 

 set the pitcher, and dropped in the poison. 

 One of the servants came in just as he 

 was doing this, and berated him for med- 

 dling there. But he gave some simple 

 excuse, and, quietly passing into the 

 sitting room, he stayed there, chatting 

 with the princess and her ladies until the 

 fatal draught was brought in. 



The King, according to Saint Simon, 

 listened to this tale witn intense interest, 

 and then asked anxiously if his brother 

 had been aware of the plot. " No, Sire," 

 said the stewart. "none of us was so 

 stupid as to tell him ; he has no secrecy, 

 he wouldjiave betrayed us." On hear- 

 ing this answer the King uttered a great 

 l, Ah " like a man oppressed who sud- 

 denly breathes again, and then had tfie 

 matter hushed up. 



But, in spite of all efforts to avoid 

 scandal, the terrible practice of poisoning 

 was steadily spreading throughout the 

 court circles. It first came before the 

 ears of the government, as before in Italy, 

 through the priests at confession, and as 

 a result two Italian chemists were lock- 

 ed up in the Bastille for the offense of 

 selling poison. One of them died, but 

 the other, Exile, lived there long enough 

 to meet a young French officer, Gaudin 

 de Sainte Croix, and through him to do 

 an incalculable amount of damage. 



Sainte Croix was a young adventurer, 

 of good presence and of gentle blood, 

 who had made the acquaintance of an 

 elderly and dissipated nobleman, the 

 Marquis de Bruivilliers, and, through 

 him, of his young and beautiful wife. 

 As was not uncommon in those days, the 

 intimacy of the young people grew rapid- 

 ly beyond the bounds of strict propriety, 

 and, although the husband did not seem 

 to mind, the young lady's father, M. 

 D'Aubray, a man of considerable wealth 

 and high position, had young Sainte 

 Croix thrown into the Bastille, where, 

 as fate would have it, he was assigned to 

 the same cell as Exile. 



The young officer, enraged at his im- 

 prisonment, made full use of his oppor- 

 tunities, and, when he emerged a year or 

 two later, and renewed his intimacy, al- 

 though less openly, with the Marquise, 

 he with her aid began to practice his new 

 knowledge. It took them some time be- 

 fore they could prepare the poisons to 

 their satisfaction, and they tried their 

 poisons first 011 animals, then on servants 

 and, occasionally, on friends, and finally, 

 so at least it is stated by those who ought 

 to have known, upon patients in the hos- 

 pitals, where the fair Marquise, turned 

 " religieuse," was in the habit of going 

 regularly, carrying baskets of delicacies. 

 Finally their experiments proved suc- 

 cessful, and they began operations in 

 earnest. 



The first victim was good old M. 

 D'Aubray, who, believing firmly in the 

 thorough reformation of his daughter, 

 died in her arms after a somewhat short 

 illness. In order to inherit as much of 

 his property as possible, they then at- 

 tacked his children, and by the aid of a 

 trusty tool, whom they introduced into 

 the family as a butler, they poisoned 

 both of her two brothers and one of her 

 two sisters. The second sister, alarmed 

 at this sudden mortality in the family, 



