meet him outside the
walls of the convent, where their amorous intrigue might be carried on
more conveniently than within. Faithful to her appointment with her
supposed new lover, she came, and found herself, not in the embrace of a
gallant, but in the custody of a policeman.

Her trial was not long delayed. The proofs against her were abundant. The
dying declaration of La Chaussee would have been alone enough to convict
her; but besides that, there were the mysterious document attached to the
box of St. Croix, her flight from France, and, stronger and more damning
proof than all, a paper, in her own handwriting, found among the effects
of St. Croix, in which she detailed to him the misdeeds of her life, and
spoke of the murder of her father and brothers in terms that left no doubt
of her guilt. During the trial, all Paris was in commotion. La
Brinvilliers was the only subject of conversation. All the details of her
crimes were published, and greedily devoured; and the idea of secret
poisoning first put into the heads of hundreds, who afterwards became
guilty of it.

On the 16th of July, 1676, the Superior Criminal Court of Paris pronounced
a verdict of guilty against her, for the murder of her father and
brothers, and the attempt upon the life of her sister. She was condemned
to be drawn on a hurdle, with her feet bare, a rope about her neck, and a
burning torch in her hand, to the great entrance of the cathedral of Notre
Dame, where she was to make the _amende honorable_ in sight of all the
people; to be taken from thence to the Place de Greve, and there to be
beheaded. Her body was afterwards to be burned, and her ashes scattered to
the winds.

After her sentence, she made a full confession of her guilt. She seems to
have looked upon death without fear; but it was recklessness, not courage,
that supported her. Madame de Sevigne says, that when on the hurdle, on
her way to the scaffold, she entreated her confessor to exert his
influence with the executioner to place himself next to her, that his body
might hide from her view "that scoundrel Desgrais, who had entrapped her."
She also asked the ladies, who had been drawn to their windows to witness
the procession, what they were looking at? adding, "a pretty sight you
have come to see, truly!" She laughed when on the scaffold, dying as she
had lived, impenitent and heartless. On the morrow, the populace came in
crowds to collect her ashes to preserve them as relics.