Guillaume the executioner bandaged the eyes of the condemned woman. She repeated the last prayers along with her confessor. Guillaume with the back of his sleeve wiped away the beads of sweat which covered his brow. Suddenly Pirot heard a dull blow, and ceased to speak. 'Madame de Brinvilliers held her head very straight. The executioner severed it at a single stroke, which cut so clean that it remained for a moment on the trunk before falling. I was indeed in agony for an instant, fearing that he had missed his aim and that he would have to strike a second time.' 'Sir,' said the headsman, 'isn't it a fine stroke?' He added: 'On these occasions I always commend myself to God, and hitherto he has been with me; five or six days ago this lady was troubling me and I couldn't get her out of my head: I will have six masses said.' And, uncorking a bottle, he drank a good draught of wine. The body was borne to the stake; the flames consumed it, and then the ashes were scattered; but the mob struggled to collect some fragments of the charred bones: all who had been able to get near the scaffold had seen the face of the criminal illumined with a halo, and they departed saying that the dead woman was a saint. Madame de Sévigné writes that Pirot repeated the saying to every one he met. The children of the Marquis de Brinvilliers took the name of Offémont. Pennautier was acquitted and left the prison on July 27. He recovered his high position and the repute in which he had been held. * * * * * In declaring that she had had no other accomplices than Sainte-Croix and her lackeys Madame de Brinvilliers was speaking the truth. But at that period crimes as great as hers were being committed in Paris, and it was not long before the judges discovered them. There was for instance the celebrated case heard by the 'Chambre Ardente,' to which that of Madame de Brinvilliers serves as introduction. THE POISON DRAMA AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV I. THE SORCERESSES _The Dinner of La Vigoureux._