break the seals in order to take out what was inside, and to substitute something else.’ But the box had been taken away. ‘It’s very amusing,’ she said, ‘for Commissary Picard to carry off a box that belongs to me!’ She got some one to take her to Sergeant Cluet, whom she made come down, so that she might speak to him from her carriage. ‘The lady told him that Pennautier had come to her, and told her that he was anxious about the box, and would give fifty golden louis to have what was in it. She also said that all that was in the said box concerned Pennautier and herself, and that they had done everything in concert.’ We see here the first step in a manœuvre which Madame de Brinvilliers afterwards developed. Knowing that several of the papers in the box concerned Pennautier, she sought to link her cause with the financier’s, speculating on his high position and influence.

Cluet answered that he could do nothing without the commissary. Accordingly the marchioness hurried off to him at eleven o’clock at night. Picard sent down word that he could not receive her till the morning.

In the morning, August 9, the commissary received a visitor from a Châtelet[3] attorney named Delamarre, to whom the marchioness had intrusted her interests. He told the commissary that the little box was of great importance to Madame de Brinvilliers, begging him to send it back to her, and saying ‘that she would give him all she had in the world.’ ‘There came also a man in black’ (it was Briancourt) ‘who told him that the marchioness would give him anything he could wish for.’

Madame de Brinvilliers understood that the box was not to be given up, and made preparations for flight. ‘Delamarre, her attorney, repaired to Picpus at ten o’clock at night and carried off her principal furniture, which was even thrown hastily out of the windows.’ The marchioness, however, sent for Cluet and Creuillebois to come to Picpus. She changed the line of her defence, and told Creuillebois that ‘Sainte-Croix was clever enough to have forged the letters, but that she would find a way out, and had good friends.’ To Madame de Sainte-Croix, who also went to Picpus, she said that she had nothing to do with the box, that it could only contain trifles, that she had not seen Sainte-Croix for a long time, that these were forged letters, and that she had a complete justification. She went on, in order to spread it abroad that her interests were connected with those of Pennautier: ‘If it trickles on me, it will rain on Pennautier.’ She said to the wife of a Châtelet clerk named Fausset, who spoke to her of the rumours of poisoning that were already going about. ‘There is nothing in it: it will blow over; there is a man accused with me who will give four or six thousand livres to arrange matters,’ adding that ‘he was not of high rank, but was very rich.’

The seals placed on the box were raised by the civil lieutenant on August 11. Madame de Brinvilliers was represented by her attorney, who made the following declaration: ‘That if there was found a promise signed by Lady Brinvilliers for the sum of 30,000 livres, it was a document obtained from her by fraud, against which, in case the signature proved genuine, she intended to appeal, in order to have it declared null and void.’

The liquids and the powder contained in the chest were tested on animals, death being the result. Experts decided that they contained poison, but could not determine its nature. The general belief was that it was arsenic.

Madame de Brinvilliers and Pennautier were soon the engrossing topic of conversation in Paris. Fantastic rumours circulated about the poisons found in the box, of which Madame de Sévigné made herself the sedulous echo.

The marchioness hastened to pay a visit to Pennautier. He was not at home. His wife turned her out neck and crop. Pennautier responded by taking a step which did him honour: he went to Picpus to see Madame de Brinvilliers. Asked later, after his arrest, what was his motive in going to Picpus, he replied that, not believing Madame de Brinvilliers guilty of such a crime, he went to pay her his respects, as is usual on such occasions. Speaking of this step of his, his enemies wrote: ‘Actuated by a sentiment of courtesy, he neglected his most obvious interests, in which life, honour, and fortune were at stake; his excessive politeness made him forgetful of all his interests. What a rare and marvellous character! How free from thoughts of self!’ These lines, written with ironical intention, really express the truth. Not long before, Monsieur and Madame de Brinvilliers had done Pennautier a great service in a moment of difficulty by the loan of 30,000 livres; and he seized the opportunity to show that he had not forgotten their kindness.

P. L. Reich de Pennautier—Pennautier was the name of an estate in the neighbourhood of Carcassonne—though scarcely thirty-five years old, had already made an enormous fortune. His two appointments as receiver-general for the clergy and treasurer of the Languedoc Exchange brought him in hundreds of thousands of francs annually. He was one of the most active and intelligent of Colbert’s lieutenants. On such questions as the resuscitation of the French manufacture of fine cloth, the Languedoc canal, the purchase of Greek MSS. in the Levant, the draining of the fens of Aigues-Mortes, the name of Pennautier is linked with that of Colbert in enterprises of the utmost utility ‘From a petty cashier,’ says Saint-Simon, ‘Pennautier became treasurer of the clergy and treasurer of the States of Languedoc, and enormously rich. He was a tall and well-made man, with a gallant and dignified air, courteous and eminently obliging; he had plenty of intelligence, and had many connections in society.

On August 22 the civil lieutenant summoned Madame de Brinvilliers and Pennautier to appear at the examination of the documents found in the box. Pennautier was in the country; the marchioness was represented by her attorney, who repeated his protests. A third personage appeared on the scene, namely, La Chaussée. He fancied his audacity would save him, and from the first had opposed the sealing of the house, on the ground that he had deposited with the deceased, in whose service he had been for seven years, 200 pistoles and 100 silver crowns which should be, he said, behind the window of the study in a bag, with a note proving that the money belonged to him. He claimed also a number of papers, which he described. The knowledge that La Chaussée displayed of Sainte-Croix’ laboratory awakened suspicion. When Commissary Picard told the whilom valet that the confiscated box had just been opened, he stood petrified with confusion for a moment, then fled precipitately, leaving the commissary in open-eyed amazement. The same day he left Gaussin, a bath-proprietor whose service he had entered, and, concealing himself during the day, roamed about Paris at night-time till he was arrested on September 4 at six o’clock in the morning by a police officer named Thomas Regnier. La Chaussée was very crestfallen as he walked down the street.

From that moment the gravest suspicions were entertained against Madame de Brinvilliers, but there was a reluctance to arrest her because of her rank. Regnier repaired to Picpus and told her bluntly that he had found La Chaussée, and that he had learned a good many things from the commissary. The marchioness blushed. ‘What is it, madam? You say nothing?’ But the lady, changing the subject, asked him to escort her to mass. When they returned, she spoke to him again about the box. She seemed a prey to uneasiness. ‘But madam,’ said Regnier, ‘surely you are not mixed up in