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Excerpt from Madame De Brinvilliers and Her Times, 1630-1676 Nietzsche tells us that "woman is unutterably more wicked than man." If Madame de Brinvilliers could be taken as a normal type of her sex one might be disposed to agree with the German philosopher. But Marie Marguerite d'Aubray was far from being an ordinary example of womanhood, and it is exactly that which makes her case so engrossing. Amongst the records of famous criminals the trial of this highly-born lady has always taken a prominent place. If criminology be at times a trifle morbid it is often valuable, and in this instance it enables us to follow rather closely a curiously complex society from which was evolved a mighty state. This volume is not intended to be so much a recital of the crimes of the Marquise as a picture of the lively circles in which she lived. One idea will certainly arise before the last page is i reached, and the reader must guard his mind against it. It is unfortunate that the wicked people are generally more interesting than the good. There was much vice in the reign of Louis XIV., much hypocrisy, much double-dealing. We, by the way, in the twentieth century are not so virtuous that we need cast stones at the seventeenth. But France, it must always be remembered, cannot be judged from Paris, and France was not wholly bad. Had it been so, Louis XIV. and his ministers with all their prescience could never have made it the first nation in Europe. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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BRINVILLIERS, MARIE MADELEINE MARGUERITE D'AUBRAY, MARQUISE DE (c. 1630-1676), French poisoner, daughter of Dreux d'Aubray, civil lieutenant of Paris, was born in Paris about 1630. In 1651 she married the marquis de Brinvilliers, then serving in the regiment of Normandy. Contemporary evidence describes the marquise at this time as a pretty and much-courted little woman, with a fascinating air of childlike innocence. In 1659 her husband introduced her to his friend Godin de Sainte-Croix, a handsome young cavalry officer of extravagant tastes and bad reputation, whose mistress she became. Their relations soon created a public scandal, and as the marquis de Brinvilliers, who had left France to avoid his creditors, made no effort to terminate them, M. d'Aubray secured the arrest of Sainte-Croix on a lettre de cachet. For a year Sainte-Croix remained a prisoner in the Bastille, where he is popularly supposed to have acquired a knowledge of poisons from his fellow-prisoner, the Italian poisoner Exili. When he left the Bastille, he plotted with his willing mistress his revenge upon her father. She cheerfully undertook to experiment with the poisons which Sainte-Croix, possibly with the help of a chemist, Christopher Glaser, prepared, and found subjects ready to hand in the poor who sought her charity, and the sick whom she visited in the hospitals. Meanwhile Sainte-Croix, completely ruined financially, enlarged his original idea, and determined that not only M. Dreux d'Aubray but also the latter's two sons and other daughter should be poisoned, so that the marquise de Brinvilliers and himself might come into possession of the large family fortune.