752 



POISONING. 



rendered himself voluntarily to imprisonment. He 

 was confined, by order of Louvois, the minister, 

 who was his enemy, in a dungeon six feet and a 

 half long, where he fell sick. He remained five 

 weeks without being brought to trial. He was 

 anally confronted with Le Sage and one of his 

 confederates, and it appeared and was admitted, 

 that he had once resorted to Le Sage to have his 

 horoscope cast. 



Among the crimes with which he was charged 

 by Le Sage, was that of having entered into cove- 

 nant with the devil, to procure a marriage between 

 his son and the daughter of the marquis de Lou- 

 vois. In reply to this imputation, he simply said, 

 " When my ancestor, Matthew de Montmorency, 

 married the widow of Louis le Gros, he did not 

 consult the devil, but the states general of France, 

 which declared, that in order to secure to the king, 

 in his minority, the support of the Montmorencys, 

 the marriage was expedient." 



The trial of the marshal was prolonged fourteen 

 months, and he was finally released, without being 

 condemned or acquitted. La Voisin, La Vigoreux, 

 her brother, a priest of the same name, and Le 

 Sage, were burned alive at Paris. The marshal 

 de Luxembourg retired for a few days into the 

 country, and then returned to court, to resume 

 his functions, as captain of the guards. He did 

 not see the minister Louvois, nor did the king say 

 a word to him on the subject. He replied to all 

 the charges of all his enemies, by the brilliant 

 achievements of his subsequent campaigns. 



Is there no way of bringing these strange inci- 

 dents within the operation of the common laws of 

 human nature? Undoubtedly. A belief in for- 

 tune-telling and divination was universal at this 

 period. The traffic in poisons had accidentally es- 

 tablished itself at Paris, at this juncture, and the 

 two trades, by no very violent association, hap- 

 pened to be united in the same hands. The burn- 

 ing chamber was a political machine, by means of 

 which Louvois and Madame de Montespan brought 

 the whole court within their grasp, under a charge 

 of sorcery and poisoning. They had got posses- 

 sion of a few wretches, who were unquestionably 

 guilty, and who, from pure malice or the hope of 

 purchasing their own pardon, accused any body, 

 that was odious to the minister or the mistress, and 

 swore to anything that was desired. 



The poisoners were executed. Those against 

 whom nothing but divination was alleged were re- 

 leased, the burning chamber was broken up, after 

 about eighteen months' jurisdiction, and poison- 

 ing, as an organized business, passed away. 



The time would fail us to go much further into 

 particular anecdotes. The duchess of Portsmouth 

 never ceased to charge James II. with poisoning 

 his brother king Charles ; and Maria Louisa, 

 daughter of Louis XIV., and Infanta of Spain, was 

 believed to be poisoned, eating an eel pie. The 

 celebrated duke of Orleans, afterwards regent, was 

 so vehemently suspected of poisoning the duke of 

 Burgundy and his son, who stood between him and 

 the throne, that he was driven in his grief and des- 

 peration, to demand a judicial inquiry. The cla- 

 mour was such, that no one (says Voltaire) who 

 had not witnessed, could believe it. The marquis 

 de Camillac found the duke stretched on the 

 ground, bathed in tears, and driven to despair. 

 The warrant for his arrest was actually made out 

 and signed by the king, but suppressed at his mo- 

 ther's intercession. 



Is there no moral conveyed by these sketches? 

 Unquestionably there is. We regard with horror 

 these acts of secret or daring atrocity, we congratu- 

 late ourselves that we live in an age, when the 

 poisoner is a rare and solitary criminal. But is 

 not he who maliciously circulates a calumny, the 

 poisoner of his neighbour's good name? Is not he 

 who, for the sake of gain, employs himself in dis- 

 pensing a maddening liquor to the easily tempted, 

 a poisoner of health and morals? Locusta and 

 Toffana poisoned the body. Is not he who pours 

 into his brother's heart the venom of a bad ex- 

 ample the poisoner of the undying soul? 



POISSON, M., President of the Academic de 

 i Sciences, a peer of France, and a foreign member 

 ! of the royal society of London, was born in 1782 ; 

 | and his whole life may be said to have been con- 

 secrated to the promotion of analytical discovery 

 and scientific investigation. The principal work 

 by which his name became spread over Europe was 

 his " Traite de Mecanique Rationelle ;" a work 

 in which the deepest powers of analytical calcula- 

 tion are made subservient to the enunciation and 

 demonstration of the various branches of the sub- 

 ject; and which has since become the text book, 

 the magnum opus, for all who enter into the sub- 

 ject of mechanics at all profoundly. Among the 

 other works of M. Poisson may be mentioned his 

 "Researches on Planetary Perturbations ;" "On 

 the Oscillations of Fluids ; " " On the Movement 

 of Elastic Fluids in Cylindrical Tubes ; " " The 

 Theory of Wind Instruments ;" " The Treatise on 

 Heat, and on the Distribution of Heat ; " as also 

 his " Essay on the Doctrine of Chances." In 

 1825, M. Poisson published his method of compar- 

 ing the magnetic condition of the earth anterior to 

 its condition as now existing, in which he entered 

 into the inquiry as to whether the action of the 

 earth on the magnetic needle had increased or 

 decreased. Besides these works, M. Poisson pub- 

 lished several minor essays on the vibrations of 

 sonorous bodies, the propagation of motion in 

 elastic fluids, &c. M. Poisson was long one of 

 the Examiners of admission at the Ecole Poly- 

 technique, and at the time of his death, which 

 took place on the 25th April, 1840, was president 

 of the academy of sciences, and a peer of France. 

 He was elected a foreign member of the royal 

 society of London in 1818. For some years before 

 his death, he resided at Sceaux, about five miles 

 south of Paris. His funeral was conducted on a 

 scale of unusual ceremony, and was especially re- 

 markable as being attended by all the savans of 

 Paris. 



POND, JOHN, an eminent practical astronomer, 

 who for a period of nearly twenty-five years filled 

 the high and important office of Astronomer Royal; 

 died at Greenwich on the 7th Sept. 1836. His 

 perception of the capabilities of instruments gen- 

 erally, and of the mode of so using them as to 

 render all their strong points available and their 

 weak ones unprejudicial, formed a very striking 

 feature in his professional character. The numer- 

 ous bulky folio volumes of his observations, so 

 highly appreciated by scientific men in every part 

 of the globe, are alone sufficient to show the 

 extent and utility of the work performed at 

 Greenwich during the time that the establishment 

 was under his direction. The accuracy of a por- 

 tion of those observations is to be attributed to 

 improvements in the mural circle, suggested by Mr 

 Pond, which converted it into the most perfect 



