time been living in relations with the
Marchioness de Brinvillier,[6] which brought disgrace on all the
family; so at last, as the Marquis continued indifferent to his wife's
shameful conduct, her father, Dreux d'Aubray, _Civil Lieutenant_ of
Paris, compelled the guilty pair to part by means of a warrant which
was executed upon the Captain. Passionate, unprincipled, hypocritically
feigning to be pious, and yet inclined from his youth up to all kinds
of vice, jealous, revengeful even to madness, the Captain could not
have met with any more welcome information than that contained in
Exili's diabolical secret, since it would give him the power to
annihilate all his enemies. He became an eager scholar of Exili, and
soon came to be as clever as his master, so that, on being liberated
from the Bastille, he was in a position to work on unaided.

Before an abandoned woman, De Brinvillier became through Sainte Croix's
instrumentality a monster. He contrived to induce her to poison
successively her own father, with whom she was living, tending with
heartless hypocrisy his declining days, and then her two brothers, and
finally her sister,--her father out of revenge, and the others on
account of the rich family inheritance. From the histories of several
poisoners we have terrible examples how the commission of crimes of
this class becomes at last an all-absorbing passion. Often, without any
further purpose than the mere vile pleasure of the thing, just as
chemists make experiments for their own enjoyment, have poisoners
destroyed persons whose life or death must have been to them a matter
of perfect indifference.

The sudden decease of several poor people in the Hotel Dieu some time
afterwards excited the suspicion that the bread had been poisoned which
Brinvillier, in order to acquire a reputation for piety and
benevolence, used to distribute there every week. At any rate, it is
undoubtedly true that she was in the habit of serving the guests whom
she invited to her house with poisoned pigeon pie. The Chevalier de
Guet and several other persons fell victims to these hellish banquets.
Sainte Croix, his confederate La Chaussee,[7] and Brinvillier were able
for a long time to enshroud their horrid deeds behind an impenetrable
veil. But of what avail is the infamous cunning of reprobate men when
the Divine Power has decreed that punishment shall overtake the guilty
here on earth?

The poisons which Sainte Croix prepared were of so