Brave men trembled if a hand held out A nosegay or a letter, while the great Drank only from the Venice glass that broke, That shivered, scattering round it as in scorn If aught malignant, aught of thine was there, Cruel Tophana. But probably nine-tenths of the crimes suspected were the mere result of the disordered fancies of the age. Knowing as we do on what frivolous evidence women were condemned as witches, it is permissible to be sceptical in regard to the testimony received by the frightened judges when one of these notorious criminals came before them. Nor are the alleged confessions of the women themselves necessarily conclusive. The so-called witches often supplied details of their negotiations with Satan, and of their Sabbatic excursions; and hysterical women in all ages have been addicted to the relation of fictitious narratives circumstantially describing both their vicious and their virtuous exploits. The rapid putrefaction of a corpse was considered to be sufficient evidence that the cause of death had been poison, though it is likely that the poisons then in use would have tended to preserve the body. THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS was one of the most interesting of the historic poisoners. She was the daughter of the civil lieutenant of Paris, Dreux d’Aubray, and her career as a criminal coincides with the early years of Louis XIV’s reign. She is described as elegant, “petite,” sweet in her disposition, and modest in her demeanour. According to her own confessions, produced at her trial, sometimes admitted, and sometimes denied by her (and characterised by Michelet as confused and impossible, and probably composed under the influence of fever), she commenced her career of crime at the age of 7 years by incestuous intercourse with her brother. She accused herself also of arson. She married the Marquis de Brinvilliers when she was about 20, and after helping him to dissipate their joint fortune, she obtained an order of separation as far as property was concerned, but continued to live with him as well as with his intimate friend, a sinister person who called himself Ste. Croix, and professed to have been a cavalry officer. His real name was Godin, and Michelet, who investigated all the court documents dealing with the case, makes him apparently the agent, and ultimately the victim, of an arch-fiend of the name of Penautier, a cleric who at least profited largely by the sudden deaths of various persons. He describes Ste. Croix as a person of austere manners and as the author of some ascetic books. Penautier was never formally accused, and it is not easy to disentangle the intrigues associated with the case. Whatever these may have been, Madame’s father, disgusted with the scandal created, got Ste. Croix placed in the Bastille. There it is alleged he met with the notorious Italian poisoner, Exili, and learned from him a number of