[120] See Stenzelii Diss. de venenis terminatis et temporaneis, quæ Galli _les poudres de succession_ vocant; resp. J. G. Arnold. Vitebergæ, 1730. This tract contains several historical relations; but the reader is often referred to authors who either do not say that for which they were quoted, or who must relate the same thing in a different manner in some other place. As for example, Galen in b. ii. c. 7, De Antidotis, speaks of poisons without mentioning secret poison in particular. Avicenna is made to say, in his book De Viribus Cordis, that the Egyptian kings often employed this poison; but if by that quotation we are to understand Fen. undecima de dispositionibus cordis, I have sought for this information in vain. In lib. iv. fen. 6. tract. 2. c. 14, it is said “Fel canis aquatici interficit post hebdomadam.” Rhodiginus also does not relate that for which he is quoted by Stenzel. p. 7. [121] Vol. iv. p. 33. [122] J. F. le Bret, Magazin zum Gebrauche der Staaten und-Kirchen-Geschichte, part iv. Francf. and Leips. 1774, 8vo, p. 131-141. [123] The following account is collected from Causes celèbres, par M. Guyot de Pitaval, tome i.--Lettres de Mad. de Sevigné, tome iv.--Histoire du Règne de Louis XIV., par M. de Reboulet. Avignon, 1746, v. p. 159.--Histoire de Louis XIV., par M. B. de la Martinière, 1740, iv. p. 229.--Le Siècle de Louis XIV., par Voltaire, etc. [124] Voltaire says that the father did not get Sainte Croix thrown into the Bastille, but sent to his regiment. This however is not the case, for this reprobate was at that time not in the army. [125] This circumstance is denied by Voltaire, but only, as appears, to contradict Pitaval, whom he calls _un avocat sans cause_. [126] This request was as follows:--“I humbly beg that those into whose hands this box may fall, will do me the favour to deliver it into the hands only of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who resides in the Rue Neuve Saint Paul, as everything it contains concerns her, and belongs to her alone; and as, besides, there is nothing in it that can be of use to any persons except her; and in case she shall be dead before me, to burn it, and everything it contains, without opening or altering anything; and in order that no one may plead ignorance, I swear by the God whom I adore, and by all that is most sacred, that I advance nothing but what is true. And if my intentions, just and reasonable as they are, be thwarted in this point, I charge their consciences with it, both in this world and the next, in order that I may unload mine, protesting that this is my last will. Done at Paris this 25th of May in the afternoon, 1672. “DE SAINTE CROIX.” [127] Martinière says that she was burnt alive, together with all the papers respecting her trial. The latter is improbable, and the former certainly false, notwithstanding the account given in the Encyclopédie.