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and the gentleman and lady were expected in turn to make some
speech appropriate to the gifts presented. In this the principal
address was shown; for whilst some could but mumble out a few
clumsy phrases or compliments, others convulsed the assembly with
laughter at a smart repartee or jest. Truth to tell, the greater portion
of them were all tolerably well up to their business; for habitude had
rendered them tolerably au fait at uttering a jest on the spur of the
moment; and, as a pretty wide license was allowed, when a laugh
could not be raised by wit it was done by entendre.
Lauzun had a small trinket-key given to him, and Estelle
recommended him to keep it against he got into the Bastille, which
would be sure to occur, in the common course of things, before
three weeks. Marotte Dupré had a heart of sweetmeat, and her
partner an imitation-piece of money of the same material, about
which appropriate distributions Dubois made great mirth, having a
ready tact for impromptus. When the signal for the cessation of the
dance was made (which the leader of it generally took care to do
when he found himself with an agreeable partner), Chavagnac was
next to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers. He led her forward, and the
rest of the company looked on with more than usual interest to see
what the incognita would gain. By an error of Louise, who was
throughout the ceremony so flurried that she scarcely knew what
she was doing, she presented the first gift to Chavagnac—a small
flacon of scent, than which nothing could be more absurd, rough
soldier, almost marauder, as he was. But to Marie, and to her alone,
her own present had a terrible meaning. It was a small headsman’s
axe, in sugar and silver foil!
She sickened as she gazed at the terrible omen,—so perfectly
unimportant to the rest of the company,—and turned away from the
circle, heedless of some unmeaning words that Chavagnac
addressed to her. In a few minutes the ring broke up, and then she
approached Louise Gauthier and said hurriedly through her mask—
‘You cannot tell to what lengths of debauchery this reckless party
may proceed. If you value your happiness, follow me directly,
without a word or sign to anybody.’
 Louise fancied she recognised the voice; but the circumstance of
one like the Marchioness being in such a company appeared utterly
improbable. She was also too anxious to escape from the hôtel; and
as Marie seized her arm, she implicitly followed her to the door.
‘Stop, mes belles!’ cried Lauzun; ‘we cannot part yet: you may not
be spared so early.’
‘I am faint with the heat,’ replied the Marchioness, ‘and only wish
to go into the cool air for a minute; it will revive me.’
They passed out upon the top of the staircase, and then as soon
as the curtain had fallen back over the doorway, Marie told Louise to
keep close to her, as she descended rapidly into the court-yard. They
passed out at the porte-cochère unnoticed; and, finding a carriage at
the corner of the Rue St. Jacques, the Marchioness made Louise
enter, and, following herself, gave the word to the coachman to drive
to her house in the Rue St. Paul.
 CHAPTER XXV.
MARIE HAS LOUISE IN HER POWER—THE LAST CAROUSAL

Not a word was exchanged between Marie and Louise Gauthier

during their journey from the Hôtel de Cluny to the Rue St. Paul.
Once only was the silence broken, when the Marchioness desired the
driver, with some impatience, to urge his horses onward with
something more of speed than the leisure progression which then,
as now, was the chief attribute of the voitures de remise of the good
city of Paris. During this period she never removed the mask from
her face, and Louise was not particularly anxious to know the station
of her new acquaintance. It was sufficient cause for congratulating
herself to find that she was away from the trysting-place of Lauzun’s
debauched companions, and once more breathing the pure air of the
streets, instead of the tainted atmosphere of the hôtel.
The Pont de la Tournelle was at that period the highest up the
river, with respect to the stream, for crossing to the other side; now,
the bridges of Austerlitz, Constantine, and Bercy span the Seine
beyond this, which still exists. The carriage lumbered across the Ile
St. Louis, and, traversing the other arm of the river by the Pont
Marie, passed along the quay, until it stopped at the Hôtel d’Aubray
in the Rue St. Paul.
As they stopped at the porte-cochère, the Marchioness looked out,
and perceived to her dismay that it was open, and that the windows
which opened into the court were lighted up, whilst forms could be
seen passing and repassing, showing that there was a large
company assembled within.
The vehicle had scarcely arrived at the foot of the staircase when
Marie’s own maid, Françoise Roussel, appeared at the entrance. The
light of the carriage-lamp fell upon her face, which was ghastly pale,
and, to all appearance, distorted with pain. She was breathing in
agony, and could not speak for some seconds after she had opened
the door.
 ‘Heaven be praised that you are returned, madame!’ at length she
said. ‘Your brothers have come back from Offemont this evening,
with a party of gentlemen living near the chateau. Monsieur François
inquired after you; but I told him you had retired.’
‘Something ails you, Françoise,’ observed the Marchioness. ‘Are
you ill?’
‘I have been in agony, madame, the whole afternoon, as if I had
swallowed some pins that were red-hot.’
‘You have taken something that has done you harm,’ continued
Marie, as she descended from the carriage. ‘What have you eaten
to-day?’
‘Nothing, madame,’ replied her domestic, ‘but the confiture you
gave me for breakfast; and that could not have hurt me.’
‘Oh no,’ answered Marie, as if she thought the subject too
insignificant for further notice. But, after a moment or two, she
added, ‘Besides, I partook of that myself, you know.’
As she spoke, she turned a gaze of the most intense scrutiny upon
Françoise’s face; but no trace of any emotion would have been
visible upon her own features had she been unmasked. Then bidding
Louise, who was reassured by the apparent respectability of the
house, to follow her, they went upstairs, preceded by the panting
girl, who could scarcely hold the light lamp she carried before them.
As she reached her chamber—the one in which her interview with
Sainte-Croix took place, after the scene at Theria’s apartments, that
in its sequel led to so much of crime and misery—she took a small
cabinet down from the top of a bureau, and opening it, discovered a
row of little bottles. From one of these she let fall a few drops of
some colourless fluid into a glass of water, and told Françoise to
drink it, when she would, without doubt, experience immediate
relief. The girl took the draught and swallowed it—in the course of a
minute or two declaring herself to be comparatively free from pain,
as she poured forth expressions of gratitude to her mistress for this
prompt remedy. She was then told that she might retire to bed,
without any fear of a recurrence of her malady; and she accordingly
withdrew.
 No sooner had the door closed upon her than Marie took the mask
from her face, and advancing towards Louise, who was standing
close to the mantelpiece, where she had kept during the short
conversation between Françoise and her mistress, seized her arm,
and, looking full at her, exclaimed—
‘Do you recollect me? We met before at Versailles.’
‘You are the Marchioness of Brinvilliers,’ replied the Languedocian,
after a momentary start of surprise, in a tone the calmness of which
astonished Marie. And she endeavoured to withdraw her arm.
‘Stop,’ replied the Marchioness; ‘we do not part yet.’ And she
dragged her companion after her towards the door, turning the
heavy lock and withdrawing the key. ‘There!’ she continued, ‘see
how useless it is for you to attempt to leave me—how completely
you are in my power. Now, listen to me, and attend as you would to
the exhortations of a priest upon your dying bed.’
She threw the arm of Louise from her grasp, and regarded her for
a few seconds with a look of the deadliest hate. The beauty of her
features had disappeared in the contortions produced by the
passions that were working within her; the terrible impassibility of
her countenance gave way, and she gazed at Louise with an
expression that was almost fiendish.
‘I have you, then, at last,’ she continued, in a low, deep voice,
which, in spite of all her efforts, betrayed her emotion by its
quivering. ‘The only amulet that could charm away Sainte-Croix’s
affections is in my grasp. I can destroy it—with as little care as I
would the paltry charm of a mountebank; and when it is once
disposed of I can reign—alone—and queen of all his love. Do you
understand me?’
‘How have I interfered with you?’ returned the Languedocian. ‘I
never knew you until we met at Versailles, when I first learned by
whom Gaudin’s love—or rather the feeling which I took for love—had
been estranged from me. I did not wish to cross your path again.
Heaven knows it was not my own doing that I met you this evening.’
She spoke these words in a tone that the Marchioness had hardly
looked for. But Louise, gentle and retiring as was her nature, felt in
whose presence she now stood, and her spirit rose with the
circumstances, until her eye kindled and her cheek flushed with the
emotion of the interview. She was no longer the pale and trembling
girl; she felt that Marie had crushed her, by weaning away Gaudin’s
affections, and she replied accordingly.
Marie was astonished at the manner in which she spoke. She went
on—
‘You appear to forget in whose presence you now are, or you
would not so address me.’
‘It is from feeling too keenly whom I thus address that I do so,’
replied Louise. ‘What would you have me say?’
‘I would have you recollect the wide difference that exists between
our positions,’ answered Marie. ‘I am the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’
‘We ought to know no difference of rank,’ returned Louise; ‘a
hapless attachment has placed us all on the same level. Whatever
Gaudin’s station is, or may have been, his love raised me to his own
position—one which the Marchioness of Brinvilliers did not think
beneath her. I thought she would have been above so petty a cause
for quarrel.’
‘And from these set speeches,’ rejoined Marie, ‘which, doubtless,
have been conned over until you got them by heart, to make an
effect when they might be called for, you have lowered yourself.
Sainte-Croix has long since forgotten you. Have you no spirit, thus to
pursue a bygone lover who has discarded you?’
‘Alas, madame! I have loved,’ said Louise, with a tone so tearful,
so hopeless, but so firm, that the Marchioness paused, baffled in her
plan of attack, but not knowing what new ground to take up. Louise
continued, after a short silence—‘And if love with a great lady be
what it is to me, a poor country girl, you would not ask me why,
despite Gaudin’s neglect, I still hang upon the memory, not of him,
but of the love he first taught me to feel.’
As she spoke she sunk her face in her hands, and her tears flowed
fast and freely.
The Marchioness paced impatiently up and down the room. At
length, stopping before the seat on which Louise had fallen, she said
abruptly—
‘Will you root out this passion?’
 ‘I cannot,’ replied the Languedocian through her tears.
‘Then life and it must end together,’ said the Marchioness half
interrogatively.
‘It may be so,’ said Louise. But immediately, as if suddenly
awakened to a new import in the words, shaking her long hair from
her face, she exclaimed—
‘You would not kill me!’
A strange slow smile crept over Marie’s face, which had by this
time recovered its usual stony impassiveness, as she said—
‘We are rivals!’
But as Louise’s eyes were fixed on her with a look of wonderment,
at that moment a sudden burst of laughter from the room on the
opposite side of the landing, in which François and Henri d’Aubray,
with their companions, were carousing, arrested the attention of the
Marchioness. She walked to the door, unclosed it, and listened. A
voice was heard proposing the toast, ‘Success to your debut as a
creditor, and a long incarceration to Sainte-Croix!’ Then followed the
clink of glasses, and the vivas of the guests as they honoured the
pledge.
The Marchioness turned pale, and clenched the handle of the door
she held until the blood forsook her fingers; she appeared to forget
the presence of Louise, and reclosing the door, when the noise had
subsided, she walked to the bureau, and opening the box which we
have before described, began, half-mechanically, to arrange the
small phials with which it was filled. All was now silence in the
chamber, broken only by the measured ticking of the pendule on the
chimney-piece. It might have lasted some five minutes, when
Françoise Roussel entering the room cautiously by the porte-
derobée, whispered to her mistress, who flushed at the tidings and
hastily closed the box. Then, opening the door which led to a small
room contiguous to the apartment, she said to Louise—
‘In here: not a word—not a motion as you value life.’ Louise
obeyed mechanically, and as the door closed upon her, Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix entered.
Marie threw herself into his arms; all her jealousy for the moment
vanished on finding herself once more at his side.
 ‘You are free then?’ she asked, after this passionate greeting.
‘For the time, Marie,’ replied Gaudin. ‘I have appeased Desgrais
with part of the money I raised on your carcanet. I did not find the
exempt so relentless as my new creditor, your brother François.’
‘François!’ exclaimed the Marchioness. ‘He is here—in the next
room!’
‘I knew it,’ said Sainte-Croix, ‘or I should not have employed four
thousand francs to grease the palm of the exempt. I came to speak
with him—to tell him to his teeth that he had disgraced the name of
gentleman by that attempt to crush me.’
As he spoke he stepped towards the door communicating with the
landing-place, as if to carry his threat into execution. Marie laid her
hand upon his arm.
‘Do not go in, Gaudin,’ she said; ‘there will be bloodshed. He is
surrounded by his friends and neighbours. You will be murdered!’
‘I care not,’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix, ‘I shall not fall alone,’ and he
pressed on towards the door.
‘There is another way,’ said Marie, as she pointed to the casket
which still stood on her table. ‘This.’
Sainte-Croix gazed at her with a gloomy and meaning smile. ‘This
time,’ he said, ‘the suggestion is yours. Be it so: there will be no
blood spilled, at all events; and we may rid ourselves of one who,
whilst he lives, must ever be a serpent in our path. Is Henri with
him?’
‘He is,’ answered Marie.
‘There is enough for two,’ muttered Sainte-Croix, who had taken a
phial from its compartment, and was holding it up to the light of the
candle.
‘Must Henri die too?’ said the Marchioness. ‘He is so young—so
gay—has been so kind to me. We were almost playmates.’
And a trace of emotion passed over her brow.
‘Both or neither,’ replied Sainte-Croix; ‘decide at once. I shall await
your determination.’
And he seated himself at the table, coolly humming the burden of
a chanson à boire.
 There was a fearful struggle in Marie’s mind. But the fiend
triumphed, and no agitation was perceptible in her voice when, after
a moment’s reflection, she replied, ‘Both.’
‘Now for an agent in the work. You cannot trust any of your own
domestics. I foresaw something like this, and have brought my
instrument,’ said Gaudin. He rose, and drawing aside the curtain
beckoned from the window. The signal was answered by a cough
from below, and followed by the appearance of Lachaussée, who
had evidently expected the summons. He clumsily greeted the
Marchioness, and dropping his hat awaited Gaudin’s orders.
‘Let Françoise find a livery of your brothers’ people, and give it to
this honest fellow, Marie,’ said Sainte-Croix.
Marie went to give the order, and Gaudin developed his plan
briefly, but clearly, to Lachaussée. It was, to mix with the attendants
at the carouse, furnished with the phial, which Sainte-Croix took
from the box and gave him; then, watching his opportunity, he was
to mix a few drops of its contents with the wine of the brothers.
Assuming the dress which Françoise soon brought, Lachaussée left
the apartment, leaving Sainte-Croix and the Marchioness to await
the result.
The room in which François and Henri d’Aubray with their country
friends were assembled was large and handsome. Lights sparkled
upon the table, and played brilliantly among the flasks, cups, and
salvers which covered it, in all the rich profusion of one of those
luxurious suppers, which, although not carried to perfection until the
subsequent reign, were already admirably organised, and most
popular among the gay youth of the Parisian noblesse.
François d’Aubray was seated at the head of a long table; his stern
and somewhat sullen features contrasting strongly with the boyish
and regular face of his younger brother Henri, who sat on his right.
The company consisted almost entirely of provincial aristocracy—
those whose estates joined that of D’Aubray at Offemont, in
Compiègne. There was more of splendour than taste in their
costumes; the wit was coarser, too, and the laughter louder than
Parisian good-breeding would have sanctioned.
 ‘And so you have run down your game at last,’ said the Marquis of
Villeaume, one of the guests, to François.
‘Yes—thanks to Desgrais,’ was the reply. ‘Sainte-Croix is at this
moment in the hands of the lieutenant-civil, and, if I know aught of
his affairs, he will not soon reappear to trouble the peace of our
family.’
‘Mon dieu! François, you are too severe,’ gaily interrupted Henri.
‘Gaudin de Sainte-Croix is a bon garçon, after all; and I am half
inclined to quarrel with you for tracking him down as if he were a
paltry bourgeois.’
‘Henri,’ said François, turning sharply towards him; ‘no more of
this. Our sisters honour must not be lightly dealt with. Sainte-Croix is
a villain, and deserves a villain’s doom.’
‘A truce to family grievances!’ roared a red-faced Baron, heavily
booted and spurred; one of those Nimrods who were quite as
ridiculous, and much more numerous in the France of Louis
Quatorze, than their imitators of the ‘Jockey Club’ of the present day.
‘Debtor-hunting is a bourgeois sport compared to stag-hunting, after
all; the only amusement for young gentlemen.’
‘Where is Antoine Brinvilliers?’ asked another guest of François.
‘He ought to be very grateful to you, for your care of Madame la
Marquise’s reputation.’
‘Once for all, messieurs,’ said François, who turned crimson at the
implied taunt: ‘no more words of our sister, or our family concerns,
or harm may come of it.’
‘A toast!’ cried Henri, rising. ‘Aux Amours!’
‘In Burgundy!’ roared a chorus of voices. ‘And les hanapes.’
The large cups so called—heirlooms in the family of D’Aubray,
were brought forward by the attendants. Lachaussée had entered
the room whilst the conversation we have narrated was in progress;
and, taking his place at the buffet, had silently and sedulously
officiated amongst the other attendants, without exciting notice.
Almost every guest had his servants there, and such was the
confusion of liveries that the presence of a strange valet, wearing
the Brinvilliers’ colours, was not likely to call forth remark. He it was
who, taking a bottle of Burgundy, now stationed himself behind the
chair of François, who, mechanically lifting his cup, did not observe
that the hand which filled it held a phial, and that some drops of the
contents mingled with the wine.
The number of hanapes was four, and they were passed from
hand to hand. François, after drinking, handed his to Henri, who
honoured his own toast like a hardy drinker. As he passed it to De
Villeaume, Lachaussée, pretending to reach over him for something,
contrived to knock the goblet from his hand and spill its contents. A
storm of abuse for his awkwardness was the result, under which he
managed to leave the room with as little notice as he had caused by
entering it.
Chafed by the wine they had drunk, the mirth of the party waxed
wilder and louder. Songs were sung; games at tennis and ombre
arranged; bets settled; parties de chasses organised. The revelry
was at its highest pitch, when a series of loud and sudden shrieks
was heard from the staircase. It was a woman’s voice that uttered
them, and a rush was directly made by the guests in the direction of
the sound.
They found Louise Gauthier struggling in the hands of some of the
valets on the landing-place. The room into which she had been
hurried by the Marchioness had another exit, which was unlocked.
This she had soon discovered on regaining her presence of mind,
and in attempting to leave the hôtel by it, she had been seen and
rudely seized by the servants, who were amused by her terror. To
D’Aubray’s guests, flushed as they were with wine, the sight of a
woman was a new incentive, and poor Louise would have fared
worse at the hands of the masters than of the servants had it not
been for the interposition of François d’Aubray, who, pressing
through the crowd that surrounded the frightened and fainting girl,
bade all stand back in a tone that enforced obedience.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, ‘and what business brings you here?’
‘I am a poor girl; brought here for what reason I know not, by
Madame la Marquise, not an hour since,’ replied Louise, reassured by
the calmness of his manner, which contrasted strangely with the
wildness and recklessness of all around.
 ‘Mort de ma vie! by Madame la Marquise!’ cried Henri. ‘She is
here, then?’
‘We entered together,’ said Louise.
‘Ha!’ exclaimed François, with a savage ferocity, that made him
fearful to look upon, ‘she is playing fast and loose with us. On your
life, girl, is this the truth?’
‘It is the truth,’ replied Louise.
‘And where is the Marchioness?’ he asked thickly, and in a voice
almost inarticulate from passion.
‘In her apartment, when I left her,’ said the Languedocian.
‘Alone?’ asked François.
‘Some one entered the room as I quitted it,’ was the answer.
Francois d’Aubray hardly awaited her reply. Springing like a tiger
across the landing-place to the door of Marie’s boudoir he cried—
‘Stand by me, gentlemen, for the honour of Compiègne! De
Villeaume! down into the court-yard, and see that no one leaves the
hôtel by that way. You, messieurs, guard the issues here. Henri!
come you with me.’
And he attempted to pass into his sister’s apartment.
‘Open!’ he roared, rather than shouted,—‘open! harlot! adultress!
—open!’
There was no reply. He shook the door, but it was locked within,
and resisted his frantic efforts to break it open.
‘By the ante-chamber!’ said Henri, pointing to the open door by
which Louise had arrived. François comprehended the direction,
although rage had almost mastered his senses. Rapidly the brothers
entered, and, passing through the apartment of Louise’s captivity,
found the entrance communicating with Marie’s boudoir unfastened.
Flinging it open, they rushed into the room.
Marie de Brinvilliers was standing by the fireplace; pale, but calm.
By the secret door, which he held open, listening to the steps and
voices in the court, stood Sainte-Croix, his sword drawn, his teeth
set—a desperate man at bay.
François d’Aubray strode across the room, and with his open hand
struck his sister on the face, hissing through his clenched teeth,
‘Fiend!’
 Marie uttered no cry, made no motion, though Gaudin, with a
terrible oath, sprang forward, and would have run François through
the body had not a sign from the Marchioness restrained him.
‘You—you—Sainte-Croix!’ cried Henri, crossing swords immediately
with the other, as his brother, stopping short in his progress towards
him, reeled, and stumbled against the chimney-piece.
‘Look to your brother,’ said Sainte-Croix, as he put by the furious
thrusts of Henri—‘and to yourself,’ he muttered, as with a sudden
expert wrench he disarmed him.
Marie crossed to Sainte-Croix. ‘It works!’ she whispered.
‘Henri!’ gasped François, as the froth gathered round his leaden
lips, and the cold sweat rose in thick beads upon his forehead, ‘what
is this?—Give me some water.’
He made a spring at a glass vase that stood on a bracket near him
filled with water; but, as if blinded at the instant, missed his mark,
and fell heavily on the floor. His brother raised his arm, and on
letting it go sank passively by his side.
‘He is dead!’ exclaimed Henri, as a pallor, far beyond that which
horror would have produced, overspread his own features.
‘It is apoplexy!’ said one of the bystanders. ‘In his passion he has
ruptured a vessel of the brain.’
The guests crowded round the body. Sainte-Croix and Marie
looked at one another as they awaited the pangs of the other victim.
 CHAPTER XXVI.
SAINTE-CROIX DISCOVERS THE GREAT SECRET SOONER THAN HE
EXPECTED

A few weeks passed, and the terrible events of the last chapter were
almost forgotten by the volatile people of Paris, and even by the
provincials who had been present at the double tragedy—for Henri
d’Aubray had followed his brother, although, from his robust health
and strong constitution, he had battled more vigorously against the
effects of the poison, his sufferings being prolonged in consequence.
It is unnecessary to follow the horrid details of the effect of the Aqua
Tofana, or to describe the last agonies, when ‘il se plaignait d’avoir
un foyer brûlant dans la poitrine, et la flamme intérieure qui le
devorait semblait sortir par les yeux, seule partie de son corps qui
demeurât vivante encore, quand le reste n’était déjà plus qu’un
cadavre.’ It will suffice to say that no suspicion, as yet, rested upon
the murderers. The bodies were examined, in the presence of the
first surgeons of Paris, as well as the usual medical attendants of the
D’Aubray family; and although everywhere in the system traces of
violent organic lesion were apparent, yet none could say whether
these things had been produced by other than mere accidental
morbid causes. Tests would, as in the present day, have soon
detected the presence of the poisons—the more readily as they were
mostly mineral that were used—but the secret of these reagents
remained almost in the sole possession of those who made them;
and the subtlety of some of their toxicological preparations proves
that the disciples of Spara were chemists of no mean order.18 People
wondered for a little while at the coincidence of the several deaths
occurring in one family, and in a manner so similar, and then thought
no more of the matter. The cemetery received the bodies of the
victims; and the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, now her own mistress,
and the sole possessor of a magnificent income, shared it openly
with Sainte-Croix; and the hôtel in the Rue St. Paul vied with the
most celebrated of Paris in the gorgeous luxury of its festivities. But
the day of reckoning and heavy retribution was fast approaching.
We have before alluded to the Palais des Thermes—the remains of
which ancient edifice may still be seen from the footway of the Rue
de la Harpe, between the Rue du Foin and the Rue des Mathurins—
as being the most important ruins marking the occupation of Paris
by the Romans. The researches of various individuals from time to
time have shown that this palace was once of enormous size,
extending as far as the small stream of the Seine which flows
beneath the Hôtel Dieu; and, indeed, in the cellars of many of the
houses, between the present site of the large salle and the river,
pillars and vaulted ways, precisely similar to those in the Rue de la
Harpe, have been frequently discovered; added to which, before the
demolition of the Petit-Châtelet, a small fortress at the bottom of the
Rue St. Jacques, the remains of some ancient walls were visible
running towards the Palais from the banks of the Seine.
There were souterrains stretching out in many other directions;
the whole of the buildings adjoining were undermined by them, the
entrance to the largest having been discovered, by accident, in the
court-yard of the Convent des Mathurins, within a few months of the
date of our romance. And these must not be confounded with the
rough catacombs to which we have been already introduced, hewn
in the gypsum as chance directed, but were regularly arched ways
from ten to sixteen feet below the surface of the ground,
communicating with one another by doors and supported by walls
four feet thick.
The ruins of the Palais des Thermes and the adjoining vaults,
although not open to the street as they are at present, had long
been the resort of that class of wanderers about Paris now classified
as Bohemiens, until an edict drove them to the catacombs of the
Biévre and the Cours des Miracles to establish their colonies. The
shelter of the Palais, ‘favorisent les fréquentes défaites d’une pudeur
chancelante,’ was ordered to be abolished, and the entire place was,
in a measure, enclosed and let, at some humble rate, as a
storehouse or cellar for the tradesmen in the Rue de la Harpe.
 The winter’s evening was closing in, cold and dismal, as Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix was traversing the streets between the Place Maubert
and the Rue de la Harpe, a short time after the events we have
described. The front of the Palais des Thermes was at this period
concealed from the street by an old dwelling-house, but the porte-
cochére was always open, and he passed across the court,
unchallenged, to the entrance of the large hall that still exists. Here
he rang a rusty bell, which had the effect of bringing a man to the
wicket, who wore the dress of a mechanic. He appeared to know
Sainte-Croix, as he admitted him directly, without anything more
than a humble recognition; and then giving him a small end of
lighted candle in a split lath, similar to those used in cellars, he left
him to go on at his own will.
Gaudin crossed the large salle, the sides of which were covered by
wine-casks piled one on the other, and entered a small archway at
the extremity, which was at the top of a dozen steps. Descending,
he went along a vaulted passage, and at last reached a species of
cellar, which was fitted up as a laboratory. By the light of the fire
alone, which was burning in the furnace, he discovered Exili.
‘You have brought my money,’ said the physician, half
interrogatively, as he turned his ghastly features towards Sainte-
Croix. ‘Five thousand crowns is light payment for the services I have
rendered you. It should have been here before.’
‘I regret that I have not yet got it,’ answered Gaudin. ‘The greater
part of the possessions which have fallen to Madame de Brinvilliers
cannot yet be made available. I went this morning to the Jew who
before aided me, on the Quai des Orfèvres, to get some money, but
he was from home.’
It is true that Sainte-Croix had been in that direction during the
day, but it was with a far different object. To elude the payment of
Exili’s bond he had determined upon destroying him, running the risk
of whatever might happen subsequently through the physician’s
knowledge of the murders. And he had therefore ordered a body of
the Garde Royal to attend at the Palais des Thermes that evening,
when they would receive sufficient proof of the trade Exili was
driving in his capacity of alchemist.
 ‘It must be paid, however,’ said Exili, ‘and by daybreak to-morrow
morning. Look you, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, I am not to be put off
like your grovelling creditors have been, with your dull, ordinary
debts. To-morrow I start for England, and I will have the money with
me.’
‘I tell you I cannot procure it by that time,’ said Gaudin. ‘A day can
be of no consequence to you.’
‘No more than it may be a matter of life or death—a simple affair,
I grant you, with either of us, but still worth caring for. Ha! what is
this?’
He had purposely brushed his hand against Sainte-Croix’s cloak,
and in the pocket of it he felt some weighty substance. The chink
assured him it was gold.
‘You cannot have that,’ said Gaudin confusedly; ‘it is going with me
to the gaming-table this evening. Chavagnac has promised me my
revenge at De Lauzun’s.’
‘You have rich jewels, too, about you,’ continued Exili, peering at
him with a fearful expression. ‘The carcanet, I see, has been
redeemed, and becomes you well. That diamond clasp is a fortune in
itself.’
The gaze of the physician grew every moment more peculiar, as
he gazed at Gaudin’s rich attire.
‘Beware!’ cried Sainte-Croix; ‘if you touch one, I will hew you
down as I would a dog. Not one of them is mine. They belong to the
Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’
‘Nay,’ replied Exili, changing his tone, ‘I did but admire them.
Come, then, a truce to this. Will you promise me the sum named in
the bond to-morrow?’
‘To-morrow you shall have it,’ said Sainte-Croix.
‘I am satisfied,’ said the physician. ‘I was annoyed at the moment,
but it has passed.’
And he turned round to the furnace to superintend the progress of
some preparation that was evaporating over the fire.
‘What have you there?’ asked Gaudin, who appeared anxious to
prolong the interview, and carry on the time as he best might.
 ‘A venom more deadly than any we have yet known—that will kill
like lightning and leave no trace of its presence to the most subtle
tests. I have been weeks preparing it, and it approaches perfection.’
‘You will give me the secret?’ asked Gaudin.
‘As soon as it is finished, and the time is coming on apace. You
have arrived opportunely to assist me.’
He took a mask with glass eyes from a shelf, and tied it round his
face.
‘Its very sublimation, now commencing, is deadly,’ continued Exili;
‘but there is a medicated veil in the nostrils of this mask to
decompose its particles. If you would see the preparation completed
you must wear one as well.’
Another visor was at his side. Under pretence of rearranging the
string he broke it from the mask, and then fixed it back with some
resinous compound that he used to cover the stoppers of his bottles,
and render them air-tight. All this was so rapidly done that Sainte-
Croix took no notice of it.
‘Now, let me fix this on,’ said Exili, ‘and you need not dread the
vapour. Besides, you can assist me. I have left some drugs with the
porter which I must fetch,’ he continued, as he cautiously fixed the
visor to Sainte-Croix’s face.
‘I will mind the furnace whilst you go,’ said Gaudin, as he heard an
adjacent bell sound the hour at which he had appointed the guard to
arrive. ‘There is no danger in this mask, you say?’
‘None,’ said Exili. ‘You must watch the compound narrowly as soon
as you see particles of its sublimation deposited in that glass bell
which overhangs it. Then, when it turns colour, remove it from the
furnace.’
Anxious to become acquainted with the new poison, and in the
hope that, as soon as he acquired the secret of its manufacture, the
guard would arrive, Gaudin promised compliance gladly. Exili, on
some trifling excuse, left the apartment; but, as soon as his footfall
was beyond Sainte-Croix’s hearing, he returned, treading as
stealthily as a tiger, and took up his place at the door to watch his
prey. Gaudin was still at the furnace, fanning the embers with the
cover of a book, as he watched the deadly compound in the
evaporating dish. At last, the small particles began to deposit
themselves on the bell glass above, as Exili had foretold, and Gaudin
bent his head close to the preparation to watch for the change of
colour. But in so doing, the heat of the furnace melted the resin with
which the string had been fastened. It gave way, and the mask fell
on the floor, whilst the vapour of the poison rose full in his face,
almost before, in his eager attention, he was aware of the accident.
One terrible scream—a cry which once heard could never be
forgotten—not that of agony, or terror, or surprise, but a shrill and
violent indrawing of the breath, resembling rather the screech of
some huge, hoarse bird of prey, irritated to madness, than the sound
of a human voice, was all that broke from Gaudin’s lips. Every
muscle of his face was at the instant contorted into the most
frightful form; he remained for a second, and no more, wavering at
the side of the furnace, and then fell heavily on the floor. He was
dead!
Exili had expected this. His eagerness would hardly restrain him
from rushing upon Sainte-Croix as he fell; and scarcely was
 The Death of Sainte-Croix

he on the ground when the physician, dashing the rest of the poison
from the furnace, darted on him like a beast of prey, and
immediately drew forth the bag of money from his cloak and
transferred it to his own pouch. He next tore away every ornament
of any value that adorned Gaudin’s costly dress; finally taking the
small gold heart which hung round his neck, enclosing the morsel of
pink crystal which had attracted Exili’s attention the first night of his
sojourn in the Bastille. As he opened it to look at the beryl, he
observed a thin slip of vellum folded under it within the case, on
which were traced some faint characters. By the light which Sainte-
Croix had brought with him, and which was burning faintly in the
subterraneous atmosphere, he read the following words with
difficulty:—

‘Beatrice Spara to her child, on the eve of her execution.

Rome, A.D. 1642. An amulet against an evil eye and poisons.’

A stifled exclamation of horror, yet intense to the most painful

degree of mental anguish, escaped him as the meaning came upon
him. For a few seconds his eyes were riveted on the crystal, as if
they would start from his head; his lips were parted, and his breath
suspended. Then another and another gasping cry followed; again
he read the lines, as though he would have altered their import; but
the simple words remained the same, and fearful was their
revelation—until, covering his face with his hands, he fell on his
knees beside the body. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix—the unknown
adventurer—the soldier of fortune, whom nobody had ever dared to
question respecting his parentage, was his own son!—the fruit of his
intimacy with the Sicilian woman, from whom at Palermo he had
learned the secrets of his hellish trade, in the first instance to
remove those who were inimical to the liaison. The child was not
above two years old when he himself had been compelled to fly from
Italy, and he had imagined that, after the execution of Beatrice, the
infant had perished unknown and uncared for in the streets of
Rome.
For some minutes he remained completely stupefied, but was
aroused at last by a violent knocking at the door of the vault; and
immediately afterwards the man who owned the house in the Rue
de la Harpe rushed in, and announced the presence of the guard,
who, not finding Sainte-Croix to meet them as they expected, had
made the cooper conduct them to Exili’s laboratory. He had scarcely
uttered the words when their bristling halberds, mingling with
torches, appeared behind him.
‘Back!’ screamed Exili as he saw the guard, ‘keep off! or I can slay
you with myself, so that not one shall live to tell the tale.’
The officer in command told the men to enter; but one or two
remembered the fate of those in the boat-mill whom the vapour had
killed, and they hung back.
‘Your lives are in my hands,’ continued the physician, ‘and if you
move one step they are forfeited. I am not yet captured.’
He darted through a doorway at the end of the room as he spoke,
and disappeared. The guard directly pressed onward; but as Exili
passed out at the arch, a mass of timber descended like a portcullis
and opposed their further progress. A loud and fiendish laugh
sounded in the souterrain, which grew fainter and fainter until they
heard it no more.
 CHAPTER XXVII.
MATTERS BECOME VERY SERIOUS FOR ALL PARTIES—THE DISCOVERY
AND THE FLIGHT

‘Ah!’ said Maître Picard, with a long expression of comfortable

fatigue, and the same shudder of extreme enjoyment which he
would have indulged in had he just crept into a bed artificially
warmed, ‘Ah! it is a great thing to enjoy yourself, having done your
duty as a man and a Garde Bourgeois!’
And he sank into an easy chair in which he would have been
hidden but for his rotundity, and propping up his little legs with
another seat, lighted a mighty pipe, the bowl whereof was fashioned
like a dragon’s head, which vomited forth smoke from its nostrils in a
manner terrible to behold.
It was a cold night. There were large logs of wood blazing and
crackling up the chimney from the iron dogs, and amongst the
glowing embers that surrounded them various culinary utensils were
embedded, some of which sent forth fragrant odours of strong
drinks or savoury extracts, whilst on a spit, formed of an old rapier,
was impaled a pheasant, which the Gascon, Jean Blacquart, was
industriously turning round as he sat upon the floor with his back
against the chimney-projection, humming a student’s song, to which
he made the bird revolve, in proper measure.
Everything looked very comfortable. The cloth was laid for supper,
and bright pewter vessels and horn mugs with silver rims caught the
light from the fire, which likewise threw its warm glow upon the
ceiling and made the shadows dance and flicker on the walls. It was
not so pleasant without. The frost was hard; the snow fell heavily;
and the cold wind came roaring up the narrow streets, chasing all
the cut-purses and evil company before it, much faster than all the
guards of the night could have done even at the points of their
halberds.
 ‘I think you might change your love-song for a sprightly dance,
Jean,’ said Maître Picard. ‘Your tender pauses, during which the spit
stops, do but scorch the breast of the bird, whilst the back profits
not.’
‘It is an emblem of love, in general,’ replied the Gascon; ‘seeing
that our breast is doubly warmed thereby, whilst our back comes off
but badly, especially if our sweetheart is expensive, and requires of
one the price of three doublets to make one robe.’
‘I was in love once,’ said Maître Picard, ‘but it is a long time ago. It
wastes the substance of a portly man. Had I not eaten twice my
ordinary allowance I should have fallen under the attack. The
presents, too, which I offered to my lady were of great value, and
none were ever returned.’
‘I never give presents,’ observed the Gascon, ‘for I have found in
many hundred cases that my affection is considered above all price,
and received as such.’
‘But suppose a rival of more pretensions comes to oppose you?’
said Maître Picard.
‘I never had a rival,’ said Blacquart grandly; ‘and I never shall.
Admitting one was to presume and cross my path, he would find no
ordinary antagonist. With this stalwart arm and a trusty blade I
would mince him before he knew where he was.’ And in his
enthusiasm he caught hold of the handle of the rapier, which formed
the spit, and brandished it about, perfectly forgetting the presence
of the pheasant, and firmly convinced that his chivalric energies
were really in action. He took no heed of the remonstrance of Maître
Picard, until a sudden and violent knocking at the street door so
frightened him in the midst of his imaginary bravery that he let the
rapier fall, and bird, spit, and all tumbled on the floor.
‘Cap de dis! it made me jump,’ observed the Gascon. ‘What can it
be, at this time of night?’
‘You can find out if you go and see,’ replied Maître Picard from
behind his pipe.
‘Suppose it should be some wickedly-disposed students come
again to vex us?’ suggested Blacquart, ‘and they were to bind me
hand and foot. What would become of you without my protection?—
Ugh!’
The last exclamation was provoked by a repetition of the knocking
more violent than ever.
‘Go and open the door!’ roared Maître Picard, until he looked quite
apoplectic. ‘No one is out to-night for their own amusement, depend
upon it.’
With a great disinclination to stir away from the fireplace, the
Gascon advanced towards the door. But, before he opened it, he
inquired with much assumption of courage—
‘Who’s there?’
‘It is I, Philippe Glazer,’ said a well-known voice. ‘Are you dead or
deaf, not to let me in? Open the door; quick!—quick!’
Reassured by the announcement, Blacquart soon unbarred the
door, and Glazer hastened into the apartment. He was scarcely
dressed, having evidently hurried from home in great precipitancy.
‘Maître Picard!’ he exclaimed, ‘you must come over with me
directly to the Place Maubert. A terrible event has come about. M.
Gaudin de Sainte-Croix——’
‘Well, what of him?’ asked the bourgeois, aroused from his half-
lethargy of comfort and tobacco by Glazer’s haggard and anxious
appearance.
‘He is dead!’ replied Philippe. ‘He lodged with us, or rather had a
room to carry on his chemical experiments, and we have just heard
that his body has been found lifeless in the vaults of the Palais des
Thermes.’
‘Murdered?’ asked both the Gascon and Maître Picard at once.
‘I know not,’ answered Glazer; ‘a hundred stories are already
about, but we are too bewildered to attend to any. However, he has
left nearly all his possessions in our keeping, and we must
immediately seal them up until the pleasure of the authorities be
known.’
‘It is the office of the Commissary of Police of the quartier,’ said
Maître Picard.
‘I know it,’ answered Glazer impatiently. ‘But M. Artus is ill in bed,
and he has deputed you to witness the process, as a man of good
report in his jurisdiction. His clerk, Pierre Frater, has started to our
house. I pray you come, without more loss of time.’
It was a sad trial for Maître Picard to leave his intended banquet,
especially to the mercies of the Gascon, whose appetite, in common
with that pertaining to all weakened intellects, was enormous. But
the urgency of the case, and Philippe Glazer’s empressement, left
him no chance of getting off the duty; and hastily gathering together
his cloak, arms, and other marks of his authority, he turned out, not
without much grumbling, to accompany Glazer to his father’s house
in the Place Maubert, which was not above ten minutes’ walk from
the Rue des Mathurins.
Late as it was, the news of Sainte-Croix’s death had travelled over
that part of Paris contiguous to the scene of the event, and when
Philippe and the bourgeois arrived the court was filled with people
who had collected, in spite of the inclemency of the weather, to gain
some authentic intelligence connected with the catastrophe. The fact
that Exili was, in some way or another, connected with the accident,
had already given rise to the most marvellous stories, the principal
one being that the devil had been seen perched on the northern
tower of Notre Dame with the wretched physician in his grasp,
preparatory to carrying him off to some fearful place of torment, the
mention of which provoked more crossings and holy words than all
the masses which the gossipers had attended for the last week.
Elbowing his way through the throng, Maître Picard assumed all
his wonted importance, whilst he ordered Philippe to admit no one
but the members of his household; and then, accompanied by Pierre
Frater, the Commissary’s clerk, he ascended to the room which
Gaudin had occupied.
It teemed with that fearful interest which sudden death throws
around the most unimportant objects connected with the existence
of the victim. The pen lay upon the half-finished letters; a list of
things to be attended to on the morrow was pinned to the wall; and
the watch was ticking on its stand, although the hand that had put it
in action was still and cold. On the table were some dice, at which
their owner had evidently been working, to render their cast a
certainty at the next game of hazard he engaged in. A flagon of
wine, half-emptied, a book marked for reference, a cloak drying
before the expiring embers of the fireplace, each inanimate article
spoke with terrible meaning.
‘You have the seals, Maître Frater,’ said the bourgeois; ‘we will
secure everything until we have further orders.’
The clerk of the Commissary produced the official seal, together
with some long strips of parchment to bind them together, and
assisted by Philippe they proceeded to attach them to everything of
importance in the room. But whilst they were thus engaged, a
confused murmur was heard in the court below, and Maître Picard,
looking from the window, saw a carriage drive through the porte-
cochère as hastily as the snow would permit. A man sprang from it,
closed the door after him, and the next minute came up the
staircase hurriedly, and almost forced his way into the room.
‘There is no admittance, monsieur,’ said the little bourgeois,
presenting his halberd.
But the intruder was already in the centre of the chamber.
‘I am the valet of M. de Sainte-Croix, and my name is Lachaussée,’
he said. ‘I oppose this proceeding of sealing up his effects.’
‘On what grounds?’ asked the clerk, Frater.
‘Because there is much that is my own property,’ replied
Lachaussée. ‘You will find one hundred pistoles, and the same
number of silver crowns in a canvas bag, in that bureau. My master
gave them to me, and promised still further to transfer three
hundred livres to me. You will, without doubt, find that he has done
so; if he has not, you may depend upon my word that everything is
right which I have stated.’19
‘We do not doubt your word, monsieur,’ said the clerk; ‘but we
cannot, at present, give up to you so much as a pin from this room.
When the seals are broken by the authorities, whose servants we
merely are, and under whose orders we now act, you may rest
assured that the interests of no one will be overlooked.’
‘But this is such a trifle; you surely will not put me to such great
inconvenience, for such it will be,’ answered Lachaussée, changing
his tone.
 ‘We regret it,’ answered Maître Picard with much grandeur—now
he had heard from Pierre Frater what he was to say; ‘we regret it;
but, at present, the law is peremptory.’
‘If I have no influence with you,’ said Lachaussée, ‘I will bring
hither one who, possibly, may have some.’
Before they had time to reply he left the room, and in the course
of a minute returned, bringing back with him, to the astonishment of
every one present, the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.
Marie was pale as marble. Her beautiful hair, usually arranged with
such careful taste, was hanging about her neck and shoulders in wild
confusion; her eyes glistened, and her lips were blanched and
quivering. She had evidently left home hurriedly, wrapping about her
the first garments that came to hand, which she drew closely round
her figure from the inclemency of the weather. And yet, looking as
she then did the picture of agony and consternation, from time to
time she made visible efforts to master her excitement and, with
that habitual duplicity which had long become her nature, to deceive
those with whom she was confronted, respecting the real state of
her feelings.
She looked wildly at the assembled party as she entered, and at
last her eye fell upon young Glazer, whom she was well acquainted
with, as we have already seen. Glad to meet with any one who knew
her, under such circumstances, she directly went towards him, and
caught his arm for support, exclaiming in a hollow and trembling
voice—
‘O Philippe!—you know all—this is indeed terrible!’
Glazer addressed a few commonplace words of consolation to her;
but ere she had finished, an access of violent hysterics placed the
terrified woman beyond the comprehension of his words. He
supported her to a chair, and Frater, Picard, and their attendants
gathered round her in silence, as they watched her convulsed form
with feelings of real pity; for the attachment existing between
Gaudin and herself was now no secret. The only one perfectly
unmoved was Lachaussée, and he regarded her with an expression
of unconcern, showing that he doubted the reality of the attack.
 In a few minutes she recovered; and starting up from her seat,
addressed herself to Pierre Frater, who, from his clerkly look, her
perception enabled her to tell was the chief person in authority.
‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘I know not what Lachaussée has sought to
obtain; but there is a small box here belonging to me alone, which I
presume there will be no objection to my carrying away with me.
Philippe Glazer may divine the nature of the papers it contains. He
will explain it to you.’
‘Madam,’ replied the clerk, ‘it pains me to repeat the same answer
to you which I gave to the valet of M. de Sainte-Croix; but nothing
can be moved except with the consent of the Commissary, my
master.’
‘Nothing of M. de Sainte-Croix’s property, I am aware,’ replied the
Marchioness: ‘but this is mine—my own—do you understand? See!
there it is!—you must give it to me—indeed, indeed you must.’
As she spoke she pointed to the small inlaid cabinet which has
been before alluded to, and which was visible behind the glass-front
of a secretary between the windows. She repeated her request with
renewed energy. And well, indeed, she might; for it was that box
which had furnished the most terrible poisons to her victims.
‘Indeed, madam,’ answered Frater, firmly but respectfully, ‘you
cannot have it at this moment.’
‘You must give it to me!’ she exclaimed, seizing the clerk by the
hand. ‘It contains a matter of life and death, and you cannot tell
whom it may affect. Give me the box; my position and influence will
free you from any responsibility for so doing. You see, the seals have
not yet been put on the bureau; it can be of no consequence to you
in the discharge of your duty. Let me have it.’
She let go his hand and went towards the bureau. But Frater
stepped before her, as he exclaimed—
‘Pardon me, madam; and do not oblige me to forget my gallantry,
or that politeness which is due to a lady of your station, by
forgetting your own proper sense. The cabinet can only be delivered
up to you upon the authority of M. Artus.’
‘And where is he?’ she inquired hurriedly.
 ‘He is ill—at his house in the Rue des Noyers,’ answered the clerk,
‘To-morrow he will, without doubt, give you every assistance.’
‘To-morrow will be too late!’ exclaimed Marie. ‘I must see him now
—this instant. Au revoir, messieurs; I shall hope in a few minutes to
bring you his order that you may deliver me my cabinet.’
And without any further salute she turned and left the room,
requesting Lachaussée to await her return.
Her exceeding anxiety was placed to the score of her attachment
to Sainte-Croix; and as she quitted the apartment the others went
on with their duties in silence. Lachaussée seated himself in a recess
of the chamber and watched their proceedings; and Philippe
collected a few things together which belonged to his father, and
consisted principally of some chemical glasses and evaporating
dishes, placing them in a box by themselves to be moved away as
soon as it was permitted.
But scarcely five minutes had elapsed ere another carriage drove
into the court, and Desgrais, the active exempt of the Maréchaussée,
came upstairs to the apartment, followed by one or two agents of
the police. As he entered the room, he cast his eye over the different
pieces of furniture, and perceiving that the judicial seal was already
upon many of them, nodded his head in token of approval. Then
turning to Philippe he said—
‘Monsieur Glazer, there will be no occasion to inconvenience you
by detaining your own goods. Whatever you will describe as yours,
shall be at once made over to you on your signature.’
‘You are very good,’ replied Philippe; ‘but everything belonging to
us, in the care of this poor gentleman, was of little consequence.
There is, however, that little cabinet, which may be returned to its
owner, who is most anxious to have it. It has been earnestly claimed
by the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’
‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers!’ exclaimed Desgrais with some
emphasis. ‘And you say she was anxious to carry it away?’
‘Just as I have told you; in fact her solicitude was remarkable.’
Desgrais was silent for a minute.
‘Stop!’ at length he said; ‘we will examine this cabinet that
appears so precious. I have reasons for it.’