had sped so quickly that the
doctor had not even seen a flash. He stopped, his hair bristling, his
brow bathed in sweat; for, not seeing the head fall, he supposed that the
executioner had missed the mark and must needs start afresh. But his
fear was short-lived, for almost at the same moment the head inclined to
the left, slid on to the shoulder, and thence backward, while the body
fell forward on the crossway block, supported so that the spectators
could see the neck cut open and bleeding. Immediately, in fulfilment of
his promise, the doctor said a De Profundis.

When the prayer was done and the doctor raised his head, he saw before
him the executioner wiping his face. "Well, sir," said he, "was not that
a good stroke? I always put up a prayer on these occasions, and God has
always assisted me; but I have been anxious for several days about this
lady. I had six masses said, and I felt strengthened in hand and heart."
He then pulled out a bottle from under his cloak, and drank a dram; and
taking the body under one arm, all dressed as it was, and the head in his
other hand, the eyes still bandaged, he threw both upon the faggots,
which his assistant lighted.

"The next day," says Madame de Sevigne, "people were looking for the
charred bones of Madame de Brinvilliers, because they said she was a
saint."

In 1814, M. d'Offemont, father of the present occupier of the castle
where the Marquise de Brinvilliers poisoned her father, frightened at the
approach of all the allied troops, contrived in one of the towers several
hiding-places, where he shut up his silver and such other valuables as
were to be found in this lonely country in the midst of the forest of
Laigue. The foreign troops were passing backwards and forwards at
Offemont, and after a three months' occupation retired to the farther
side of the frontier.

Then the owners ventured to take out the various things that had been
hidden; and tapping the walls, to make sure nothing had been overlooked,
they detected a hollow sound that indicated the presence of some
unsuspected cavity. With picks and bars they broke the wall open, and
when several stones had come out they found a large closet like a
laboratory, containing furnaces, chemical instruments, phials
hermetically sealed full of an unknown liquid, and four packets of
powders of different colours. Unluckily, the people who made these
discoveries thought them of too much or too little importance; and