Delivered thus from a formidable censor, Madame de Brinvilliers no longer put any restraint on her debaucheries. She had several lovers at once, in addition to Sainte-Croix. By him she had 'two children among her own'; she was the mistress of F. de Pouget, Marquis de Nadaillac, captain of light horse, and cousin of her husband. Another lover was a cousin of her own, by whom she had a child. Finally, she granted her favours to a mere youth, her children's tutor, of whom there will be much more to say. In spite of this, she felt keenly irritated when Sainte-Croix appeared to be unfaithful to her; and when she learnt that her husband was keeping a woman named Dufay, in her rage she thought of stabbing her. 'She had naturally a great delicacy of feeling,' her confessor was to write of her, 'and was highly sensitive on a point of honour and in regard to injuries.' Her expenses and prodigalities redoubled, and it was not long before her share of her father's wealth had melted away. At this point occurs an incident which bears witness at once to the distress into which she had fallen and to the savage energy of her character. In 1670, a property belonging to herself and her husband at Norat, was sold by order of the Court to satisfy their creditors; in her ungovernable fury the marquise attempted to set the place on fire. The greater part of her father's estate had come to her two brothers, one of whom had been appointed civil lieutenant, as we have seen; the other was councillor to the Court. Madame de Brinvilliers had already tried to procure the assassination of the elder by two hired bravoes on the road to Orleans--one of those audacious strokes which to the end of her days she never ceased to devise. She declared at this moment that her brother was 'no good.' Pressed by need of money, she 'resolved on fresh poisonings so as not to lose the fruits of the first.' Sainte-Croix was fully agreed as to the necessity of the proceedings; but before he set about carrying them into effect he got from his mistress two promissory notes, one for 25,000, the other for 30,000 livres. In 1669, Madame de Brinvilliers succeeded in introducing a wretch named Jean Hamelin, commonly known as La Chaussée, into her brother the councillor's household as a footman. The two brothers lived in the same house, and La Chaussée had every facility for giving poison to both. One day when he was waiting at table, the dose he put into the glass he was handing was so strong that the civil lieutenant rose up in great agitation, crying, 'Ah, wretch, what have you given me? I think you want to poison me!' And he bade his secretary taste the stuff. The latter took some on a spoon and declared that he detected a strong taste of vitriol. La Chaussée did not lose his head. 'No doubt it is the glass Lacroix (the valet) used this morning,' he said, 'when he took medicine.' And he hastily threw the contents of the glass into the fire.