more fully acquainted with
the man who is to take the first place in the story. The origin of
Gaudin de Sainte-Croix was not known: according to one tale, he was the
natural son of a great lord; another account declared that he was the
offspring of poor people, but that, disgusted with his obscure birth, he
preferred a splendid disgrace, and therefore chose to pass for what he
was not. The only certainty is that he was born at Montauban, and in
actual rank and position he was captain of the Tracy regiment. At the
time when this narrative opens, towards the end of 1665, Sainte-Croix was
about twenty-eight or thirty, a fine young man of cheerful and lively
appearance, a merry comrade at a banquet, and an excellent captain: he
took his pleasure with other men, and was so impressionable a character
that he enjoyed a virtuous project as well as any plan for a debauch; in
love he was most susceptible, and jealous to the point of madness even
about a courtesan, had she once taken his fancy; his prodigality was
princely, although he had no income; further, he was most sensitive to
slights, as all men are who, because they are placed in an equivocal
position, fancy that everyone who makes any reference to their origin is
offering an intentional insult.

We must now see by what a chain of circumstances he had arrived at his
present position. About the year 1660, Sainte-Croix, while in the army,
had made the acquaintance of the Marquis de Brinvilliers, maitre-de-camp
of the Normandy regiment.

Their age was much the same, and so was their manner of life: their
virtues and their vices were similar, and thus it happened that a mere
acquaintance grew into a friendship, and on his return from the field the
marquis introduced Sainte-Croix to his wife, and he became an intimate of
the house. The usual results followed. Madame de Brinvilliers was then
scarcely eight-and-twenty: she had married the marquis in 1651-that is,
nine years before. He enjoyed an income of 30,000 livres, to which she
added her dowry of 200,000 livres, exclusive of her expectations in the
future. Her name was Marie-Madeleine; she had a sister and two brothers:
her father, M. de Dreux d'Aubray; was civil lieutenant at the Chatelet de
Paris. At the age of twenty-eight the marquise was at the height of her
beauty: her figure was small but perfectly proportioned; her rounded face
was charmingly pretty; her features, so regular that no emotion seemed to
alte