Princes and Poisoners: Studies of the Court of Louis XIVFunck-Brentano, Frantz
History
Princes and Poisoners: Studies of the Court of Louis XIV
Funck-Brentano, Frantz
France -- Court and courtiers; France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715; Poisoners
From Liége the marchioness was led under guard to Maestricht, where she
arrived on March 29; she was there locked up, and rigorously watched in
the town hall. Immediately after her arrest, the prisoner tried to
commit suicide by swallowing the fragments of a glass which she had
broken between her teeth. She swallowed pins, too, but did not succeed
in killing herself. Resne, one of the sentries, vigorously abused her:
'You are a wicked woman! After having dyed your hands in the blood of
your family, you want to do away with yourself!' She answered, 'If I did
so, it was under evil counsel.' On another occasion Desgrez was informed
that the lady had endeavoured to commit suicide in a far more horrible
fashion. 'Ah, you wretch!' he cried. 'I see that you want to do for
yourself, and that you did poison your brothers!' She replied: 'If I had
only had good advice! We often have our evil moments.' The archers who
guarded her during her journey from Liége to Paris gave the judges a
description of this third attempt at suicide which it is impossible to
reproduce. The following is a note from Emmanuel de Coulanges, forwarded
by Madame de Sévigné to Madame de Grignan: 'She stuck a stick into
herself; guess where: it was not in her eye, nor her mouth, nor her ear,
nor her nose, nor was she absolutely brutal.'
During the journey Madame de Brinvilliers was escorted by the Marshal
d'Estrades in person as far as Huy, and from Huy to Rocroi by the troops
of Monsieur de Montal. The prisoner's character displayed itself in all
its untamed energy. Locked up at Maestricht, she suggested to Antoine
Barbier, an archer of the guard who had won her confidence, to make a
gag and a rope-ladder: the gag was for Desgrez and the rope-ladder for
her own escape. She promised Barbier a thousand pistoles. At other
times she urged him to help her throttle Desgrez, kill the _valet de
chambre_, detach the two leading horses from the coach, take the
documents, the casket with her confession, and another important paper,
and burn them all, for which purpose he was to carry a lighted match.
She wrote to former servants who remained faithful to her, and actually
succeeded in getting letters delivered to them, for they endeavoured to
rescue her, and tried to bribe her guardians.
She persisted in the plan she had devised in regard to the accusation
under which Pennautier lay. She asked Barbier for ink to write to him;
he gave her some, and feigned to have despatched the letter. And when he
asked her if Pennautier was one of her friends, 'Yes, yes,' she replied,
'and he is as much interested in my safety as I am myself.' Another time
she said: 'He must be much more frightened than I am. I have been
questioned about him, but I have said nothing, and have too much feeling
to charge him: half of the aristocracy are involved too, and I should
ruin them all if I spoke.' This she repeated several times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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