could
not. Having disguised himself as a priest, he sought admission to the
convent, and obtained an interview with La Brinvilliers. He said, that
being a Frenchman, and passing through Liege, he could not leave that
city without paying a visit to a lady whose beauty and misfortunes were
so celebrated. Her vanity was flattered by the compliment. Desgrais
saw, to use a vulgar but forcible expression, "that he had got on the
blind side of her;" and he adroitly continued to pour out the language
of love and admiration, till the deluded Marchioness was thrown
completely off her guard. She agreed, without much solicitation, to
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 was 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, t