was worrying Sainte-Croix to let her have her box, and wanted her bill
for two or three thousand pistoles. Other wise she would have had him
assassinated. She often said that she was very anxious that no one
should see the contents of the box; that it was a very important matter,
but only concerned herself. After the box was opened, the witness added,
he had told the marquise, that the commissary Picard said to Lachaussee
that there were strange things in it; but the lady blushed, and changed
the subject. He asked her if she were not an accomplice. She said,
"What! I?" but then muttered to herself: "Lachaussee ought to be sent off
to Picardy." The witness repeated that she had been after Sainte-Croix
along time about the box, and if she had got it she would have had his
throat cut. The witness further said that when he told Briancourt that
Lachaussee was taken and would doubtless confess all, Briancourt,
speaking of the marquise, remarked, "She is a lost woman." That
d'Aubray's daughter had called Briancourt a rogue, but Briancourt had
replied that she little knew what obligations she was under to him; that
they had wanted to poison both her and the lieutenant's widow, and he
alone had hindered it. He had heard from Briancourt that the marquise
had often said that there are means to get rid of people one dislikes,
and they can easily be put an end to in a bowl of soup.

The girl Edme Huet, a woman of Brescia, deposed that Sainte-Croix went to
see the marquise every day, and that in a box belonging to that lady she
had seen two little packets containing sublimate in powder and in paste:
she recognised these, because she was an apothecary's daughter. She
added that one day Madame de Brinvilliers, after a dinner party, in a
merry mood, said, showing her a little box, "Here is vengeance on one's
enemies: this box is small, but holds plenty of successsions!" That she
gave back the box into her hands, but soon changing from her sprightly
mood, she cried, "Good heavens, what have I said? Tell nobody." That
Lambert, clerk at the palace, told her he had brought the packets to
Madame from Sainte-Croix; that Lachaussee often went to see her; and that
she herself, not being paid ten pistoles which the marquise owed her,
went to complain to Sainte-Croix, threatening to tell the lieutenant what
she had seen; and accordingly the ten pistoles were paid; further, that
the marquise and Sainte-Croix always kept poison about the