had had no dealings with him.

The marquise took refuge, we see, in a complete system of denial:
arrived in Paris, and confined in the Conciergerie, she did the
same; but soon other terrible charges were added, which still further
overwhelmed her.

The sergeant Cluet deposed: that, observing a lackey to M. d'Aubray, the
councillor, to be the man Lachaussee, whom he had seen in the service
of Sainte-Croix, he said to the marquise that if her brother knew that
Lachaussee had been with Sainte-Croix he would not like it, but that
Madame de Brinvilliers exclaimed, "Dear me, don't tell my brothers; they
would give him a thrashing, no doubt, and he may just as well get his
wages as any body else." He said nothing to the d'Aubrays, though he saw
Lachaussee paying daily visits to Sainte-Croix and to the marquise, who
was worrying Sainte-Croix to let her have her box, and wanted her bill
for two or three thousand pistoles. Other wise she would have had him
assassinated. She often said that she was very anxious that no one
should see the contents of the box; that it was a very important matter,
but only concerned herself. After the box was opened, the witness added,
he had told the marquise, that the commissary Picard said to Lachaussee
that there were strange things in it; but the lady blushed, and changed
the subject. He asked her if she were not an accomplice. She said,
"What! I?" but then muttered to herself: "Lachaussee ought to be
sent off to Picardy." The witness repeated that she had been after
Sainte-Croix along time about the box, and if she had got it she would
have had his throat cut. The witness further said that when he told
Briancourt that Lachaussee was taken and would doubtless confess all,
Briancourt, speaking of the marquise, remarked, "She is a lost woman."
That d'Aubray's daughter had called Briancourt a rogue, but Briancourt
had replied that she little knew what obligations she was under to him;
that they had wanted to poison both her and the lieutenant's widow, and
he alone had hindered it. He had heard from Briancourt that the marquise
had often said that there are means to get rid of people one dislikes,
and they can easily be put an end to in a bowl of soup.

The girl Edme Huet, a woman of Brescia, deposed that Sainte-Croix went
to see the marquise every day, and that in a box belonging to that lady
she had seen two little packets containing sublimate in powder and in
paste: she recognised these, becaus