[128] The following description of Brinvillier may perhaps be of use to our physiognomists:--“In order to satisfy the curiosity of those who may be desirous of knowing if such a celebrated criminal partook of the beauties of her sex, I shall observe that nature had not been sparing of them to the marchioness; her features were exceedingly regular, and the form of her face, which was round, was very graceful. This beautiful outside concealed a heart extremely black. Nothing proves more that _metoposcopy_, or the science of physiognomy, is false; for this lady had that serene and tranquil air which announces virtue.”--Pitaval, p. 269. [129] Some information respecting La Voisin may be found in Lettres Historiques et Galantes par Madame de C----. A Cologne, 1709-1711, 4 vols. 12mo, ii. p. 101, and iv. p. 376. The authoress of these letters was Mad. du Noyer. [130] Leben des Grafen von Ulfeld, von H. P. aus dem Dänischen übersetzt. Copenhagen und Leipzig, 1775, 8vo, p. 200. [131] This anecdote was told to me by the celebrated Linnæus. An account of what appeared on opening the body of this prince may be seen in Baldinger’s Neues Magazin für Aerzte, vol. i. p. 91. [132] “The lieutenant-civil continued still to grow worse. After having languished a long time, being seized with a loathing of every kind of food presented to him, his vomitings still continuing, and nature being at length exhausted, he expired without any fever. The three last days he had wasted very much; he was become extremely shrunk, and he felt a great heat in his stomach. When opened, that part and the duodenum were found to be black, and sloughing off in pieces; the liver was mortified, and as it were burnt. The counsellor was ill three months, had the like symptoms as the lieutenant-civil, and died in the same manner. When opened, his stomach and liver were found in a similar state.”--pp. 274, 275. [133] In one year a ton of sand, at least, which is baked with the flour, is rubbed off from a pair of mill-stones. If a mill grinds only 4385 bushels annually, and one allows no more than twelve bushels to one man, a person swallows in a year above six pounds, and in a month half a pound of pulverized sandstone, which, in the course of a long life, will amount to upwards of three hundred weight. Is not this sufficient to make governments more attentive to this circumstance?