The Halifax Comet. — 1894-02-24 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

THE COMET.  pare, not only the liquid poisons employed in Italy, but that known as succession powder, which afterwards became so celebrated in France. Like his mistress, he appeared amiable, witty, and intelligent, and showed no signs to the world of the two fierce passions, revenge, and avarice, which were gnawing at his heart. Both these passions were to be sated on the unfortunate family of D'Aubray ; his revenge, because they had imprisoned him; and his avarice, because they were rich. Reckless and extravagant, he was always in want of money, and he had no one to supply him but Madame de Brinvilliers, whose own portion was far from sufficient to satisfy his need. Groaning to think that any impediment should stand between him and wealth, he conceived the horrid idea of poisoning M. D'Aubray, her father, and her two brothers that she might inherit the property. Three murders were nothing to such a villain. He communicatedhis plan to Madame de Brinvilliers and she, without the slightest scruple, agreed to aid him: he undertook to compound the poisons, and she to administer them. The zeal and alacrity w.th which she set to work seem hardly credible. Sainte Croix found her an apt scholar; and she soon became as expert as himself in the manufacture of poisons. To try the strength of the first doses, she used to administer them to dogs, rabbits, and pigeons. Afterwards, .o.ishing to be more certain of their effeets, she went round to the hospitals, and administered them to the sick poor in the soups which she brought in apparent charity.* None of the poisons were intended to kill at the first dose; so that she could try them once upon an individual without fear of murder. She tried the same atrocious experiment upon the guests at her father's table by poisoning a pigeon pie! To be more certain- still, she next poisoned herself! When convinced by this desperate essay of the potency of the draught, she procured an antidote from Sainte Croix, and all doubts being removed, commenced operations upon her grey-headed father. She administered the first dose with her own hands in his chocolate. The poison worked well. The old man was taken ill, and his daughter, apparently full of tenderness and anxiety, watched by his bedside. The next day she gave him some broth, which she recommended as highly nourishing. This also was poisoned. In this manner she gradually wore out his frame, and in less than ten days he was a corpse! His death seemed so much the result of disease, that no suspicions were excited. When the two brothers arrived from the provinces to render the last sad duties to their sire, they found their sister as grieved, to all outward appearance, as even filial affection could desire: but the young men only came to perish. They stood between Sainte Croix and the already half-clutched gold, and their doom was sealed. A man, na,med La Chaussee, was hired by Sainte Croix to aid in administering the poisons; and, in less than six weeks' time, they had both gone to their long home. Suspicion was now excited; but so cautiously had all been done, that it found no one upon whom to attach itself. The  * This is deniei by Voltaire in his "Age of Louis