men can easily overcome. In a third letter, finally, she wrote to the beloved Theria that if he could not save her using force publicly; hence, he should at least come to stab to death some of her coach's horses, and take hold of the coffer, because otherwise it would be unmistakably lost.
None of these letters landed into Theria’s hands, because the guard betrayed her commission. It is only fortuitously that he found himself in Maastricht, when she would be brought to this city and made an attempt to corrupt her guards. He raised his rewards up to 1 000 Pistols, if they would make the Marquess escape. But they remained unmoved. As all hope for salvation seemed lost, the Marquess wanted, out of despair, to take her own life, and to this end, wanted to swallow a needle. One of her guards would, however, guess her intention and prevented her from executing it.
In the meantime, the Parliament received the order to send Member of Parliament Palluau to go to Rocroi and to hear immediately the Marquess. The goal of this order was either to hinder her from unravelling a cabal to her advantage, as she was almost in relationship with the whole Parliament, or not to give her time to think about her answers and to regain force, through making up skillful subterfuges, with other Members of Parliament. The commission would be correctly executed.
As soon as the Marquess arrived in Paris and was brought for custody in the Parliament prison, she turned to Mister Penautier who, as main cashier of the regular and spiritual authorities of Languedoc, disposed of a great income and had permission to keep an opulent table. Through these two advantages, he enjoyed overall respect and could, in fact, grant protection. He found himself, however, dragged into this story, but needed for himself his whole credibility.
A letter which the Marquess wrote to him from the Parliament prison, would be delivered and brought to him to his great embarrassment. She told him really frankly in this letter about the danger which was menacing her, of losing her life on the scaffold, and about the conduct which she was resolved to observe during her hearing. She has undertaken, she wrote, to deny everything and to confess nothing. She asked him, finally, still for an advice and sought his friends' influence to make prevail for her.
In line with this resolution, she has, in fact, already in the hearing in Rocroi, observed this behaviour and has denied everything stubbornly. She would know nothing about the letters which she has written after her imprisonment; and she would also not know of Saint Croix's little coffer which people showed to her. About the promissory note of 30 000 Pounds, she said that she has shown it to Saint Croix so that he could show it to her creditors, and this could be used as guarantee for the future expenses and collateral against the trials which people have set up against her. For that reason, he has given her a receipt which she, however, has lost in the meantime.
In prison, she affected a mental calmness which was totally foreign to her heart. She knew her crimes, and she also realized that her judges know all about them too. Unceasingly, the image of death which she expected, surrounded her, and in the moment when she seemed to play with an apparent calm a party of piquet, her unique thought was about committing suicide. She chose for this goal a means which she hoped, would curtail the attention of her guards most easily. She has fabricated a sharp tool with a very long tube and intended to use it without any outside help. She sought, so far, to introduce it in her body and pierce her own organs, resolved to remove herself, through the torments of such death, from the humiliation which the hands of Justice has prepared for her. People discovered, however, her plan and she would be prevented from achieving it.
The most important among the proofs existing against her, was her written confession in which information about the most secret details of her life would be kept. There is almost not any crime which she is not recognizing in those writings. Immediately in the introduction, she declared herself to be a murderer, and recognized that she has put fire in a house and has acquainted herself with excesses of all sorts, has indulged herself into all the disorders of voluptuousness and drunkenness without any restraint. “Lady Brinvillier told us in her confession,” wrote Lady Sévigné in her 269th letter and in fact, it is really true what she wrote about it, if otherwise what has been said about the case, was not always true, “that she ceased to be a virgin already in her seventh year, and has behaved all along in equal manner. She has poisoned her father, her brothers and once her children, and has even taken poison herself to find out an antidote against it. Medea herself would not have gone so far.
She has recognized among other confessions, her handwriting, a move which is not so intelligent; however, she affirmed that she has written these notes while experiencing the most violent fever, that they only constitute a series of senseless, clumsy discourse which people could not even read without laughing.” In the following letters, she added still: “People speak, now, of nothing else but Brinvillier. About what she said, what she did, how she behaved. Her parricide, she has presumably written in her confession in order not to forget it to her confessor. People must in fact confess that her littlest scruples about fearing to forget something, are laudable.”
The criminal found, in the meantime, a skillful defender in Mister Nivelle, a man who was equally famous for his intelligence and honesty as for his fundamental, scholarly knowledge and who deployed all the forces of his spirit to save his client. The following are the main defence which he presented for her:
“The Marquess was very wrong,” said he immediately in the preamble of his apology, “to allow such a reprehensible love to take root in her heart, and it is even more reproachable as she has chosen the most despicable of all human beings as the object of her tenderness. But she did not know him. He knew to deceive people and hid the most condemnable heart under the mask of a rigorous honesty.
“He alone was the author of the horrible destiny which the Marquess' family encountered; and this vicious person whom she loved so tenderly, whom she made into a confidant of her sufferings, in whose company she sought trust and relief, deeply wounded by the sudden and sad loss of her most loved and trusted persons; this villain was horrible enough, for while he dried her tears with one hand, he did broke her heart, one more time, with the other.
“He has sworn the downfall of her family, and he kept his oath. Deeply vexed by Lord Aubray's attitude who has taken him away from the arms of Love, to allow him to languish in a terrible prison, he has long nurtured a bitter revenge in his heart. Greed, finally, pushed him to take his resolution, to execute the revenge which he has already for long prepared. He would take hold of a great fortune, while he would, actually, only satisfy his hatred. Two motives which were strong enough to make such a dark soul capable of anything. It is true that the fortune did not fall into his hands; however, the Marquess whom he dominated totally, was a heiress and whatever was in her hands, he could dispose of, unlimitedly. She wanted this terrible event which gave her a fortune, fortune which she had to buy with such a great loss, and not knowing from what terrible hand she would receive this unfortunate present, she accused Nature itself, for having to share all this fortune which she would have rather bought with her own life, if it were only allowed her.
“In the letters which people have found in the infamous small coffer, there was not the least trace of the share which she has had in the gruesome acts committed by Saint Croix. However, is there really something to discover, since Saint Croix has already so carefully arranged everything for her? The highest trust of a tender love seems to have inspired these letters, they bore the mark of the frankest truthfulness, her whole heart is unravelled in there, and hence, people do not even find the littlest thing to suspect about her participation in these terrible murders.
“Such an exercised villain as Saint Croix was, did know well enough that the security of a criminal depends upon his discretion, and that any confidant is always to be considered as an opening through which secrets can be easily divulged. Such a human being trusted only his most indispensable henchmen, and to that end, did not choose persons from whom it is to be feared that they would be frightened by the voice of Nature just by executing the first move, hence missing their blow with a trembling, uncertain hand, or be tortured by remorse after completing their action, and hence could betray
