A judicial inquiry was now set on foot, and many witnesses examined. Among others, Anne Huet, an apothecary's daughter, who was a sort of servant of the marchioness, deposed, that one day, when the marchioness was intoxicated, she had the imprudence to show the witness a little box which she took out of a casket, and which, she said, contained the means of getting rid of her enemies, and acquiring good inheritances. Mademoiselle Huet saw that the box contained sublimate of mercury in powder and in paste. Afterwards, when the fumes of the wine had evaporated, the witness told the marchioness what she had said. "Oh," she said, "I was talking nonsense;" but at the same time she earnestly begged her not to repeat what she had heard. The marchioness (this witness added) was in the habit, when anything chagrined her, to say she would poison herself. She said there were many ways of getting rid of people when they stood in one's way,--a bowl of broth was as good as a pistol-bullet. The girl added, that she had often seen La Chaussée with Madame de Brinvillier, who chatted familiarly with him; and that she had heard the marchioness say, "He is a good lad, and has been very serviceable to me." Mademoiselle Villeray, another witness, declared that she had seen La Chaussée on a very familiar footing with Madame de Brinvillier; that she had seen them alone together since the death of the magistrate; that, two days after the death of the counsellor, she made La Chaussée hide himself behind the bed-curtains when the magistrate's secretary came to see her. La Chaussée himself, on his examination, admitted this fact. Other persons related that La Chaussée, when he was asked how his master was during his illness, used to say, "Oh, he lingers on, the----!" adding a coarse epithet; "he gives us a deal of trouble. I wonder when he will kick the bucket." On the 4th of March 1673, the court of La Tournelle pronounced a sentence, whereby La Chaussée was convicted of having poisoned the magistrate and the counsellor, and condemned to be broke alive upon the wheel, after having been put to the question ordinary and extraordinary, to discover his accomplices; and the Marchioness de Brinvillier was condemned, by default, to be beheaded. Under the torture, La Chaussée confessed his crimes, and gave a full account of all the transactions we have related, in so far as he was connected with them. He was executed in the Place de Grêve, according to his sentence. Desgrais, an officer of the Marechaussée, was sent to Liege to arrest the marchioness. He was provided with an escort, and a letter from the king to the municipality of that city, requesting that the criminal might be delivered up. Desgrais was permitted to arrest her and carry her to France.