roix. The latter, being a man of passionate nature,
characterless, affecting sanctity, but addicted from his youth to
every vice, jealous, envious even to fury, nothing could be more
welcome to him than Exili's devilish secret, which gave him the power
of destroying all his enemies. He became Exili's assiduous pupil, and
soon equalled his instructor, so that when he was released from prison
he was in a position to carry on operations by himself on his own
account.

La Brinvilliers was a depraved woman, and Sainte-Croix made her a
monster. She managed, by degrees, to poison, first, her own father
(with whom she was living, on the hypocritical pretence of taking care
of him in his declining years), next her two brothers, and then her
sister; the father out of revenge, and the others for their fortunes.
The histories of more than one poisoner bear terrible evidence that
this description of crime assumes the form of an irresistible passion.
Just as a chemist makes experiments for the pleasure and the interest
of watching them, poisoners have often, without the smallest ulterior
object, killed persons whose living or dying was to them a matter of
complete indifference. The sudden deaths of a number of paupers,
patients at the Hotel Dieu, a little time after the events just alluded
to, led to suspicion that the bread which La Brinvilliers was in the
habit of giving them every week (by way of an example of piety and
benevolence) was poisoned. And it is certain that she poisoned pigeon
pasties which were served up to guests whom she had invited. The
Chevalier du Guet, and many more, were the victims of those diabolical
entertainments. Sainte-Croix, his accomplice La Chaussee, and La
Brinvilliers, managed to hide their crimes for a long while under a
veil of impenetrable secrecy. But, however the wicked may brazen
matters out, there comes a time when the Eternal Power of Heaven
punishes the criminal, even here on earth. The poisons which
Sainte-Croix prepared were so marvellously delicate that if the powder
(which the Parisians appositely named "_poudre de succession_") was
uncovered while being made, a single inhalation of it was sufficient to
cause immediate death. Therefore Sainte-Croix always wore a glass mask
when at work. This mask fell off one day just as he was shaking a
finished powder into a phial, and, having inhaled some of the powder,
he fell dead in an instant. As he had no heirs, the law courts at once
placed his