On July 15, 1676, Madame de Brinvilliers appeared for the last time before her judges for her final cross-examination, and in the course of this long ordeal, in which for three hours her whole life was remorselessly dissected, she did not flag for a moment. She denied everything; she did not know what poison and antidote meant; her pretended confession was sheer madness. 'She did not appear affected by what the first president said, though, after he had done his part as judge, he assumed the tone of a merciful friend, and addressed to her words most admirably calculated to move her, and bring her to feel in some degree the lamentable state in which she was. The first president,' we read in a summary report of the trial, 'dwelt upon the dreadful illness of her father, on the perilous state she was in, and told her that she was engaged in perhaps the last act of her life; he invited her seriously to reflect on her evil conduct, which had drawn upon her the reproaches of her family, and even of those who had lived in sin with her. The President de Novion reminded her that her brother the civil lieutenant had suspected other persons, and that this suspicion had embittered his last moments. The first president told her also' (and this is one of the most curious features of the trial for the study of the moral ideas of the period), 'that the greatest of all her crimes, horrible as they were, was, not the poisoning of her father and brothers, but her attempt to poison herself. She was kept for another half hour, but would say nothing, merely showing signs of a little distress at heart.' 'The first president wept bitterly,' writes the abbé Pirot, 'and all the judges shed tears.' She alone kept her head proudly erect, and preserved undimmed the stony clearness of her blue eyes. Taine has given in one line a marvellous definition of the character of Racine's heroines and the art of the poet himself: 'We imagine the tears which never appear in their beautiful eyes.' The sequel of our story will indicate, even more than the preceding pages, that Madame de Brinvilliers in some points resembled some of Racine's heroines, and will help to show with what exactitude the incomparable poet reproduced the models presented him by the society of his time. In closing this memorable scene on July 15, President Lamoignon told the prisoner that, out of charity and on the plea of her sister the Carmelite nun, a person of the greatest merit and the highest virtue was being sent to her to console her and to exhort her to think of her soul's salvation. We are about to see coming upon the stage one of the most interesting figures in the drama, the sympathetic abbé, Edme Pirot. III. HER DEATH