2024-01-02 18:30:33
It is the number of victims she caused and her total lack of scruples that the Marquise de Brinvilliers, known as “La Brinvilliers”, must have passed down to posterity. His weapon? The poison, which she studied with the greatest care and which she used to get rid of anyone who bothered her. If blood crimes are more often committed by men, poison has the reputation of being favored by women. In the 17th century, some had made a career out of it, a sort of illegal craft, the know-how of which they passed on to apprentices. They sold their products to anyone who wanted to get rid of a rival or receive an inheritance prematurely. The poisons were also called “succession powders”. La Brinvilliers learned the art of poison as a self-taught woman and mostly acted on her own behalf.
Marie-Madeleine Dreux d’Aubray, daughter of a magistrate, was born on July 6, 1630. History says that she was raped by a servant during her childhood and that she subsequently maintained incestuous relations with her brothers. At 21, a pretty, sassy and richly endowed young woman, she married the Marquis Antoine Gobelin de Brinvilliers. Quickly, the newlyweds start having extra-marital affairs, until the day the Marquise falls deeply in love with a former cavalry officer, Godin de Sainte-Croix.
Godin has the reputation of being an unsavory man and Marie-Madeleine’s father takes a dim view of his daughter’s adulterous loves. The magistrate therefore obtains a lettres de cachet which sends the unwanted lover to the Bastille for two months. Bad luck comes to him, because Godin de Sainte-Croix has as a cellmate a former king’s apothecary, who introduces him to the art of manufacturing and administering poisons. A know-how that he is quick to share with his sweetheart whom he finds as soon as he is released.
Essays on the patients of the Hôtel-Dieu
Marie-Madeleine is passionate about this science and begins making deadly potions. But a product must be tested. We presume that as a good scientist, she carried out tests that were not at all therapeutic on patients at the Hôtel-Dieu. She visits the latter while she is in charge of the good works of the establishment, and she will be suspected of having caused several dozen of their lives to die. It must be said that she has decided to get rid of her puritan father, and there is no question of missing out. When she was reassured about the quality of her products, she visited her father who did not survive the care provided by his daughter and died in 1666.
Our marquise has become infatuated with the art of poison which proves very practical for solving problems. When she finds herself penniless, she methodically kills her two brothers then her sister, which allows her to pocket the entirety of her father’s inheritance.
Still very much in love with Godin de Sainte-Croix, she decides to marry him. Only, she is already married. For every problem, there is a solution: she sets out to poison her husband! Unfortunately for her, the one of her heart has become very friendly with the marquis. And unfortunately for her again, he knows how to diagnose the symptoms of poisoning. So much so that, when the Marquis de Brinvilliers feels unwell, Godin recognizes the toxic hand of his lover. He therefore administers an antidote to his friend and saves him. Marie-Madeleine hastens to poison her husband once again, but Godin saves him again. The merry-go-round lasts for years. Several times, the poor marquis, who suspects nothing, absorbs poison and receives an antidote which allows him to recover.
Godin de Sainte-Croix ends up becoming frightened by the obstinacy of his mistress in wanting to poison his neighbor and flees. He also prepares his revenge in the event that his formidable lover decides to murder him in turn. He leaves, in a cassette, various documents and vials of poison, which prove the crimes they committed together, and intended to be found in case he died before the marquise. It was not poison that killed Godin in 1672, but a banal accident. Bailiffs who came to search his home found the cassette, following a request from the deceased’s creditors.
Found in Liège in a convent
La Brinvilliers is not unaware of the posthumous arrangements of her former lover, who tried to blackmail her to extort money. When she learned of his death, she fled to England, then joined the episcopal principality of Liège, a territory which escaped the domination of the Dukes of Burgundy, vassals of the kings of France, and which depended on the Holy Roman Empire.
She was sentenced to death in absentia before being found near Liège, in a convent where she was hiding. Brought back to Paris, her trial began at the end of April 1676.
Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, first lieutenant general of Paris, led the investigation and studied the records of the Hôtel-Dieu. The policeman noted a particularly high mortality rate among the patients of the hospice during the period when the Marquise de Brinvilliers was in charge of the good works of the establishment, but it was parricide which was most harshly blamed on the Brinvilliers. The murderer sees her death sentence confirmed. Her title of nobility enabled her to escape the stake which generally punished women who specialized in poison. She was decapitated in Place de Grève, and it was only post mortem that his body was burned and his ashes scattered.
La Brinvilliers is suspected of having committed other assassinations and of having sold her services, in particular to try to poison Colbert.
She never admitted anything. Her resistance to torture and a late but fervent piety in religious practice, paradoxically earned this prolific criminal to be considered a saint by part of the population.
The history of Brinvilliers inspired the singer Marie-Paul Belle who dedicated it a song !
#Stories #long #winter #evenings #Brinvilliers #poisonous #marquise