rs, with whom she lived unhappily for some years. He was a
loose dissipated character, and was the means of introducing Sainte
Croix to his wife, a man who cast a blight upon her life, and dragged
her on from crime to crime till her offences became so great that the
mind shudders to dwell upon them. For this man she conceived a guilty
passion, to gratify which she plunged at once into the gulf of sin.
She was drawn to its most loathsome depths ere retribution overtook her.

She had as yet shown a fair outside to the world, and found but little
difficulty in effecting a legal separation from her husband, who had
not the art to conceal his vices. The proceeding gave great offence to
her family. She appears, after this, to have thrown off the mask
completely, and carried on her intrigues so openly with her lover,
Sainte Croix, that her father, M. D'Aubray, scandalised at her conduct,
procured a lettre de cachet, and had him imprisoned in the Bastille for
a twelvemonth.

Sainte Croix, who had been in Italy, was a dabbler in poisons. He knew
something of the secrets of the detestable La Spara, and improved
himself in them from the instructions of Exili, with whom he speedily
contracted a sort of friendship. By him he was shown how to prepare,
not only the liquid poisons employed in Italy, but that known as
succession powder, which afterwards became so celebrated in France.
Like his mistress, he appeared amiable, witty, and intelligent, and
showed no signs to the world of the two fierce passions, revenge and
avarice, which were gnawing at his heart. Both these passions were to
be sated on the unfortunate family of D'Aubray; his revenge, because
they had imprisoned him; and his avarice, because they were rich.
Reckless and extravagant, he was always in want of money, and he had no
one to supply him but Madame de Brinvilliers, whose own portion was far
from sufficient to satisfy his need. Groaning to think that any
impediment should stand between him and wealth, he conceived the horrid
idea of poisoning M. D'Aubray her father, and her two brothers, that
she might inherit the property. Three murders were nothing to such a
villain. He communicated his plan to Madame de Brinvilliers; and she,
without the slightest scruple, agreed to aid him: he undertook to
compound the poisons, and she to administer them. The zeal and alacrity
with which she set to work seem hardly credible. Sainte Croix found
her an apt scholar; and she soon b