THE OLD POISON-LORE. 
II 
§ 7 -] 
meat ; this juice was considered far more poisonous than an ordinary 
solution of arsenic. The researches of Selmi on compounds containing 
arsenic, produced when animal bodies decompose in arsenical fluids, 
lend some support to this view ; or possibly the acid juice of the meat 
dissolves more arsenious acid than water. Toffana had disciples ; she 
taught the art to Hieronyma Spara, who formed an association of young 
married women during the popedom of Alexander VII. ; these were 
detected on their own confession. 1 
Contemporaneously with Toffana, another Italian, Exili or Egide or 
Gilles, attached to the service of Queen Christiana of Sweden, devoted 
himself to similar crimes. He made the acquaintance of M. de St 
Croix or Godin, a captain of horse in the Tracy regiment, when both 
were imprisoned in the Bastille. It is popularly supposed that he it 
was who instructed St Croix in the use of poisons, and St Croix, in his 
turn, imparted the secret to his partner, Madame (or Marchioness) de 
Brinvilliers, a little woman with very soft blue eyes, and said to be of 
marvellous beauty. Frantz Funck Brentano 2 denies this account, saying 
that the true version is that St Croix and Madame de Brinvilliers got 
their knowledge from Christopher Glaser, a Swiss chemist, author of 
a treatise on chemistry, and discoverer of potassium sulphate. The 
lovers, at all events, wrote of their poisons as “ Glaser’s recipes,” the 
chief ingredient of which was without doubt arsenic. 
Madame de Brinvilliers poisoned her father, her brothers, and other 
members of her family ; she is also said to have experimented on the 
patients at the Hotel Dieu, in order to test the strength of the powders 
prepared for her by St Croix. These powders were afterwards called 
“ Les poudres de succession,” from a joking remark made by Madame 
in her cups. St Croix robbed the executioner by dying a natural death, 
and Madame de Brinvilliers, after a sensational trial, at the end of which 
the first president wept bitterly and all the judges shed tears, was 
sentenced to torture 3 and death. The tale that St Croix was suffocated 
1 Le Bret’s Magazin zu Gebrauche der Staat- u. Kirchen-Geschichte, Theil 4. Frank¬ 
fort and Leipzig, 1774. 
2 Princes and Poisoners : Studies of the Court of Louis XIV. 
3 The Marchioness was imprisoned in the Conciorgerio and tortured. Victor 
Hugo, describing the rack in that prison, says: “ The Marchioness de Brinvilliers 
was stretched upon it stark naked, fastened down, so to speak, quartered by four 
chains attached to the four limbs, and there suffered the frightful extraordinary 
torture by water,” which caused her to ask, “ How are you going to contrive to put 
that great barrel of water in this little body ? ”— Things seen by Victor Hugo, vol. i. 
The water torture was this :—a huge funnel-like vessel was fitted on to the neck, 
the edge of the funnel coming up to the eyes ; on now pouring water into the funnel 
so that the fluid rises above the nose and mouth, the poor wretch is bound to swallow 
the fluid or die of suffocation ; if indeed the sufferer resolve to be choked, in the first 
few moments of unconsciousness the fluid is swallowed automatically, and air again 
admitted to the lungs ; it is therefore .obvious that in this way prodigious quantities 
of fluid might be taken. 
