boratory in his own house, and at
once proceeded to experiment upon the terrible secrets learned from
Exili, and which he revealed to his fair, frail mistress, who, mad to
make herself his wife, saw in these a means to remove every obstacle out
of the way. She poisoned her husband, her father, her brother, and at
last, carried away by a mania for murder, administered on all sides the
fatal poudre de succession, which brought death to house, palace, and
hospital, and filled the capital, nay, the whole kingdom, with suspicion
and terror.

This fatal poison history describes as either a light and almost
impalpable powder, tasteless, colorless, and inodorous, or a liquid
clear as a dewdrop, when in the form of the aqua tofana. It was capable
of causing death either instantaneously or by slow and lingering decline
at the end of a definite number of days, weeks, or even months, as was
desired. Death was not less sure because deferred, and it could be made
to assume the appearance of dumb paralysis, wasting atrophy, or burning
fever, at the discretion of the compounder of the fatal poison.

The ordinary effect of the aqua tofana was immediate death. The poudre
de succession was more slow in killing. It produced in its pure form a
burning heat, like that of a fiery furnace in the chest, the flames of
which, as they consumed the patient, darted out of his eyes, the only
part of the body which seemed to be alive, while the rest was little
more than a dead corpse.

Upon the introduction of this terrible poison into France, Death, like
an invisible spirit of evil, glided silently about the kingdom, creeping
into the closest family circles, seizing everywhere on its helpless
victims. The nearest and dearest relationships of life were no longer
the safe guardians of the domestic hearth. The man who to-day appeared
in the glow of health dropped to-morrow and died the next day. No skill
of the physician was able to save him, or to detect the true cause of
his death, attributing it usually to the false appearances of disease
which it was made to assume.

The victims of the poudre de succession were counted by thousands.
The possession of wealth, a lucrative office, a fair young wife, or a
coveted husband, were sufficient reasons for sudden death to cut off
the holder of these envied blessings. A terrible mistrust pervaded
all classes of society. The husband trembled before his wife, the wife
before her husband, father and son, broth