In his former book, M. Funck-Brentano solved once for all the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask, showed up the impostor Latude in his true colours, and gave us surprising information about the latter days of the Bastille. In the present volume, the fruit of several years' research among the archives at the Arsenal Library, he conclusively dispels the cloud of suspicion that has hung over the sudden death of Charles I's winsome and ill-fated daughter Henrietta; gives us for the first time the authentic history of that beautiful poisoner Madame de Brinvilliers; suggests a very plausible explanation of Racine's hitherto inexplicable retirement from dramatic writing; and throws a strange light upon the private history of Madame de Montespan and other fair ladies of Louis XIV's Court. If it be objected that some of the details of the 'black mass' and kindred abominations are too gruesome for print, it may be urged in reply that these details are related with the cold impartial pen of a serious historian, not coloured or heightened with a view to melodramatic effect. 'Truth's a dog that must to kennel,' says Lear's Fool; Louis the Magnificent tried to stifle the damning evidence against his jealous, passionate mistress; when Time and patient research among long-forgotten papers have combined to bring the truth to light, it would ill become us to blame a scholar like M. Funck-Brentano for not joining the monarch's conspiracy of silence. G. M. _November 1900._ CONTENTS PAGE MARIE MADELEINE DE BRINVILLIERS-- I. HER LIFE, 1 II. HER TRIAL, 36 III. HER DEATH, 76 THE POISON DRAMA AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV-- I. THE SORCERESSES-- The Dinner of La Vigoreux, 117 Sorcery in the Seventeenth Century, 121 The Practices of the Witches, 128 The Alchemists, 133 La Voisin, 144 The Magician Lesage, 159 The 'Chambre Ardente,' 163 Louis XIV and the Poison Affair, 180 II. MADAME DE MONTESPAN, 187 III. A MAGISTRATE--GABRIEL NICOLAS DE LA REYNIE, 265 THE DEATH OF 'MADAME,' 313 RACINE AND THE POISON AFFAIR, 346 'LA DEVINERESSE,' 361 INDEX, 375 ILLUSTRATIONS