The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV

by Anne Somerset

  After Briancourt had finished giving evidence Mme de Brinvilliers was brought in for her confrontation with the chief witness for the prosecution. Her composure never faltered throughout this gruelling session, which lasted until eight in the evening of 13 July and then resumed early the next morning for a further five hours. She began by objecting that Briancourt was a drunkard whom she had dismissed from her household for disorderly conduct and that therefore no reliance should be placed on his testimony. When his allegations were put to her, she calmly rebutted them, sneering, as Briancourt began weeping, that this merely demonstrated his utter baseness and that he should be ashamed to make such an exhibition of himself before the judges. While not disguising her contempt for Briancourt, she remained throughout in complete control of her emotions, speaking calmly and showing great respect for the judges. The most senior judge present was simultaneously repelled and fascinated by her performance for, though chilled by her utter lack of remorse, he could only marvel at the steely resolve and self-possession of this ‘intrepid or, rather, unfeeling soul’.49

  On 15 July Mme de Brinvilliers underwent her final interrogation on the sellette. Once again she unflinchingly maintained her innocence but she did so in vain, for the judges had already made up their minds. Mme de Brinvilliers was then returned to prison so that they could record their verdict and decide on her sentence. On 16 July they pronounced her guilty and decreed that she should be tortured in the hope that she would name her accomplices. After that she would be beheaded, then her body would be burnt and the ashes thrown to the winds. In passing this sentence the judges were, in fact, being generous. In his report on the case the Attorney-General had recommended that, prior to execution, the prisoner should be punished for her parricide by having her right hand cut off at the wrist. The judges had overruled him and they had also shown leniency by specifying that she should be beheaded, when they could have condemned her to be burnt alive.

  * * *

  It was now necessary to find a confessor to minister to the condemned woman during her final hours. The man selected for the task was a Jesuit professor of theology named Edmé Pirot. In some ways it was a surprising choice for he had no previous experience of attending prisoners on their way to execution. However, as the First President of the Paris Parlement made clear to Pirot, it was not simply concern for Mme de Brinvilliers’s immortal soul that had influenced the decision. There were fears at the highest level that she still harboured terrible secrets and it was felt that in order that ‘her crimes die with her’ she must be persuaded to divulge all she knew. Otherwise there was a danger that associates of hers would carry out similar crimes without being apprehended and in this way ‘her poisons would serve her after her death’.50

  Pirot saw Mme de Brinvilliers for the first time on the morning of 16 July. As yet she had not been notified of the judges’ decision, but she told him she considered it inevitable that she would be found guilty, which meant that, within twenty-four hours, she would have to undergo torture and face death. Like the judges who had tried her, Pirot was amazed by the fact that she did not seem at all perturbed by the prospect. When she was given her midday meal she tranquilly requested that the soup served that evening should be more nutritious than usual, as the following day was likely to be ‘very tiring for me’.51 However, as the hours passed by, Pirot was able to penetrate her protective carapace by impressing upon her that even the vilest sinner could attain divine forgiveness through penitence. He was delighted to see ‘the first signs of contrition and distress’ as she began to weep, declaring it was fortunate that her crimes had not gone undetected, as this afforded her a chance to escape eternal damnation. Pirot urged her to summon the judges immediately and admit everything, but though she promised she would ultimately make a full confession to the Attorney-General, she said she did not wish to do this until the following day. She realised that if she delayed it would be assumed that her admissions had been coerced from her by torture, but she said that for the remainder of the day she wished to concentrate on the spiritual guidance Pirot could offer her.

  Early the following morning, 17 July, Mme de Brinvilliers was formally informed of the verdict against her and the full sentence of the court was read to her. She was then taken to the torture chamber to be subjected to the water torture, an ordeal in some ways more terrible than the brodequins. It consisted of more than twenty pints of water being forced down the victim’s throat and Mme de Sévigné heard that when Mme de Brinvilliers saw the three large buckets of water that she would be compelled to drink she exclaimed that the intention must be to drown her, as no one could suppose that a woman of her size could swallow such a huge amount. Pirot, however, was given a different account. He was told that when she sighted the buckets she remarked calmly, ‘Gentlemen, that is needless; I will tell everything without being put to the question. It is not that I aspire to escape it; my sentence says that it is to be given to me and I believe that I will not be spared it. But I will declare everything beforehand.’52

  As promised, she then unburdened herself to the Attorney-General, acknowledging freely that she had poisoned her father and two brothers. It was now, too, that she made her claims about Christophe Glaser having been sent to Florence by M. Fouquet to find out about poisons, though she stressed she was only repeating what Sainte-Croix had told her and that she did not know if there was any truth in what he had said. In some respects, however, her revelations fell far short of what had been hoped, for nothing was forthcoming about accomplices who remained at large and who might be plotting further homicides.

  The torture was then inflicted but nothing further could be wrung from Mme de Brinvilliers. Later it was claimed in some quarters that because of her connections with eminent members of the judiciary, orders were given that she should only be subjected to mild torture and that she had been able to bear this without making further disclosures. A highly placed courtier recorded that the King himself believed she had not been pressed hard enough and that his displeasure with the Parlement for showing her such favouritism later led him to set up a commission which was outside Parlement’s jurisdiction to investigate other poisonings.53

  One person who was sure that ‘La Brinvilliers’s torture was alleviated’ subsequently pointed out that the crowds of people who saw her go to her execution could confirm that all her limbs were still functioning satisfactorily and such ‘free and easy movements … are incompatible with coercive and harsh torture’. It is clear from Pirot’s account of her execution that after being tortured she was able to walk with relative ease, although he noted she had difficulty kneeling. However, torture was not intended to leave its victims permanently mutilated and one should therefore be cautious about accepting the allegations that she was given privileged treatment.54 A doctor and surgeon were in attendance throughout the torture session, but this was a standard precaution designed to guard against the victim dying under interrogation and the written record of the proceedings certainly does not bear out the theory that she escaped lightly.

  In preparation for her ordeal Mme de Brinvilliers was first stripped naked and then bent backwards over a wooden trestle. Her ankles were attached to a ring on the floor and her wrists fastened to rings set low on a wall. Her body was thus unnaturally distended and in a position of extreme discomfort even before the torture itself began. A cow’s horn was then forced between her lips and eight coquemards of water (a coquemard was a unit of measurement equalling two and a half pints) were funnelled down her throat. After each coquemard had been administered there was a pause so that questions could be put to the prisoner and the answers noted down by the clerk in attendance.

  From the outset Mme de Brinvilliers appears to have been in great pain, for as she was being stretched over the trestle she cried out, ‘Oh, my God! They’re killing me and yet I have told the truth!’ As the first unit of water was poured into her mouth she spluttered ‘You’re killing me!’ but even as she writhed and moaned, she insisted that she could n
ot add to her story. The only thing that she called to mind was that she had once sold poison to an unnamed man who had wanted to poison his wife, but such vague information was of little interest. She refused to say anything further, pleading that it would burden her conscience if she falsely incriminated innocent people.

  After she had been compelled to swallow ten pints of water the torture entered a new or ‘extraordinary’ phase, more severe still than the ‘ordinary’ form which had preceded it. The trestle on which she was supported was removed and replaced by another higher off the ground, so that her body became still more arched and contorted. As the ropes binding her ankles and wrists bit cruelly into her flesh, the wretched woman shrieked, ‘Oh, my God! You’re dismembering me! Lord forgive me! Lord have pity on me!’ Despite her pleas and groans, yet greater quantities of water were forced into her, but without producing the desired result. With grim determination she told her interrogators that they could kill her if they saw fit, but she refused to forfeit her soul by telling lies.55

  At last her tormentors accepted that it was futile to prolong her sufferings and she was untied and laid upon a mattress. This was an integral part of the torture ritual and, oddly enough, was often the most productive, for the overwhelming relief of being suddenly free of pain caused many hitherto obdurate prisoners to impart things of significance. Mme de Brinvilliers, however, remained silent even at this psychologically vulnerable moment. After a torture and interrogation session which had lasted a total of four and a half hours, she was permitted to rejoin her confessor in order to prepare herself for the final ordeal of execution.

  * * *

  For more than four hours Mme de Brinvilliers was closeted with Pirot in the Conciergerie chapel. At length, just before seven, the executioner indicated that the final reckoning could not be postponed any longer. As she was led down the passageway towards the prison door, she had to pass a group of about fifty high-born people who, like everyone else in Paris, were consumed with curiosity about this prodigy of evil. They had exploited their privileged position at court to station themselves where they could be sure of having a good look at her.

  Among those who watched her as she passed was the Comtesse de Soissons, one of the grandest ladies at Louis XIV’s court who, piquantly, would herself later be compromised in the Affair of the Poisons. At the time of her disgrace it was even suggested that the Comtesse de Soissons had been in some way linked with Mme de Brinvilliers’s activities, though no evidence was ever put forward to justify the claim. Certainly if Mme de Brinvilliers had ever been acquainted with the Comtesse de Soissons, she gave no indication of it as she passed the well-dressed group who were ‘devouring her with their eyes’. While understandably disconcerted at finding herself the object of such ghoulish scrutiny she confined herself to murmuring to her confessor, ‘Monsieur, here is a strange curiosity.’56

  In the gaol courtyard Mme de Brinvilliers was loaded on to a tumbril and transported through the teeming streets to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. There she was required to perform a public penance: bearing a lighted torch in her hand, she had to kneel outside the church and ask pardon of ‘God, the King and justice’ for having murdered her father and brothers ‘wickedly and out of vengeance and to have their wealth’.57 Then she was put back in the cart and driven to the Place de Grève.

  The windows of the houses in the Place de Grève were packed with spectators who had paid high prices to observe the execution from a prime vantage point. In the square itself the crowd surrounding the scaffold was so dense that the cart driver had to lash out with his whip to force through a passage. When Mme de Brinvilliers was finally able to mount the scaffold, a new indignity awaited her, for she had to go down on her knees while the executioner laboriously shaved her head. All the while Pirot knelt by her side murmuring prayers, but his words were often drowned out by the angry roars of the crowd.

  Having finished his preparations, the executioner indicated that he was ready to wield his sword and Pirot withdrew slightly. The blade flashed so swiftly that for a moment Pirot thought that the executioner had missed his mark, for Mme de Brinvilliers’s head remained on her shoulders. Then, as he watched, the head slowly toppled sideways. Satisfied by the way he had proved his expertise, the executioner demanded complacently of Pirot, ‘That was a good stroke, Monsieur, was it not?’58

  * * *

  ‘At last it is done; la Brinvilliers is in the air,’ Mme de Sévigné informed her daughter later that night. Having described how ‘after the execution, her poor little body was thrown on a great big fire and the ashes to the winds’ she added playfully that now that ‘we will be inhaling her’ perhaps ‘we will be taken by some kind of mood for poisoning which will surprise us all’.59 She was, of course, being facetious (some might say tasteless) but events would show there were genuine fears that the ‘mood for poisoning’ was indeed rampant in France.

  The trouble was that though Mme de Brinvilliers had been punished for her crimes and Sainte-Croix was dead, many people did not accept that the matter could be regarded as closed. It seems that among those who had doubts on this score was King Louis XIV himself, who had shown such concern about bringing Mme de Brinvilliers to justice that even while on campaign he had been sent regular reports about the progress of her trial.60 Undoubtedly he had been pleased by its outcome, but he did not feel that it had been conclusive, for he was one of those who feared that this murder case had not been an isolated phenomenon. There was a widespread assumption that Sainte-Croix could not have worked alone. This meant that there was a possibility that others who were equally expert about poisoning and who shared Mme de Brinvilliers’s predatory tendencies were still operating undetected. If so, it was dangerously complacent to assume that with the execution of Mme de Brinvilliers an evil had been eradicated.

  Such concerns were heightened by the case of Pierre-Louis Reich de Pennautier, an immensely rich man who had been imprisoned a month before the death of Mme de Brinvilliers. For many years Pennautier had occupied the demanding but relatively unremunerative post of Treasurer of the Estates of Languedoc. In 1669, however, he had secured for himself one of the most coveted offices in the kingdom when he had succeeded M. Hannyvel de Saint-Laurens as Receiver-General of the French clergy. As such he had become a financier of the first importance, for he was not only entrusted with the collection of all ecclesiastical dues owed to the Crown, but he advanced the government loans on the anticipated revenues. The rewards of the position were commensurate with the responsibilities, for the job was estimated to be worth 60,000 livres a year.

  When Sainte-Croix’s casket had been opened in August 1672, one set of papers had been found there which did not concern Mme de Brinvilliers. The bundle was endorsed, ‘Packet addressed to M. Pennautier, which must be given back’. When the contents of the casket were inventoried on 18 August it was officially recorded that the documents related to a loan Pennautier had made to M. and Mme de Brinvilliers in June 1668, which had been partially repaid in May of the following year. Pennautier was then summoned before the official who was compiling the inventory and, when shown the documents, acknowledged they were genuine.

  Pennautier’s transactions with M. and Mme de Brinvilliers appeared to have been legitimate but suspicions were still aroused. After La Chausée’s execution in March 1673 Pennautier was questioned about his links with Sainte-Croix and Mme de Brinvilliers. On 22 April Pennautier deposed that he had known Sainte-Croix for ten or twelve years and that he had occasionally loaned him money. He also said that he had sometimes encountered Mme de Brinvilliers when visiting houses in the area of Paris where they both lived, but that in recent years he had hardly seen her.

  Unfortunately, this accorded oddly with his admission that, when he had discovered that most of the papers found in Sainte-Croix’s casket had related to Mme de Brinvilliers, he had attempted to visit her at her rented lodgings. When asked why he had wanted to see her, he said he had gone to pay his compliments out of ‘pure civility’, a
s slanderous things were being said about the lady and he had wished to demonstrate his support.61 It was hardly a satisfactory explanation but, for the moment at least, the investigating magistrate had to accept it.

  Mme de Brinvilliers’s capture afforded an opportunity for the matter to be probed further. At her first interrogation in April 1676 she was asked whether Sainte-Croix and Pennautier knew each other well, and she did the financier no favours when she replied that the pair had been ‘very good friends and had secret business’. In a bid to find out more a trap was set: once she was in prison in Paris, a supposedly obliging gaoler pretended that if she wished to contact anyone he would deliver letters. Falling for the ruse, Mme de Brinvilliers wrote twice to Pennautier, warning him that questions were being asked about him and urging him to do all he could to help her. In particular, she wanted him to ensure that an individual named Martin, who had been a known associate of Sainte-Croix’s, should go into hiding, cautioning Pennautier that these ‘things matter as much to you as to me’.62 The letters were intercepted before Pennautier could receive them. It was decided that it was now justifiable to take him into custody. On 15 June Pennautier was arrested as he sat at his desk writing a letter, making matters worse for himself when he frantically tore up the paper before him and tried to swallow the pieces.

  In subsequent interrogations Mme de Brinvilliers was questioned intensively about Pennautier but she said nothing to damage him. Even at the end, when she finally acknowledged her own crimes, she made no accusations against the financier. Under torture she was again pressed on the subject but she merely said that while she had sometimes wondered whether Pennautier and Sainte-Croix had had dealings about poison she had never seen any proof of this. She explained that while in prison, she had decided she had nothing to lose by writing to a rich and powerful man like Pennautier, implying that she could compromise him, but that in reality she knew nothing to his discredit.63