ok them at the close of
the year 1679. They were both tried, found guilty, and burned alive on
the Place de Greve, on the 22nd of February, 1680, after their hands
had been bored through with a red-hot iron, and then cut off. Their
numerous accomplices in Paris and in the provinces were also discovered
and brought to trial. According to some authors, thirty, and to others,
fifty of them, chiefly women, were hanged in the principal cities.

Lavoisin kept a list of the visiters who came to her house to purchase
poisons. This paper was seized by the police on her arrest, and
examined by the tribunals. Among the names were found those of the
Marshal de Luxembourg, the Countess de Soissons, and the Duchess de
Bouillon. The Marshal seems only to have been guilty of a piece of
discreditable folly in visiting a woman of this description, but the
popular voice at the time imputed to him something more than folly.
The author of the "Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe since the Peace of
Utrecht," says, "The miserable gang who dealt in poison and prophecy
alleged that he had sold himself to the devil, and that a young girl of
the name of Dupin had been poisoned by his means. Among other stories,
they said he had made a contract with the devil, in order to marry his
son to the daughter of the Marquis of Louvois. To this atrocious and
absurd accusation the Marshal, who had surrendered himself at the
Bastille on the first accusation against him, replied with the mingled
sentiment of pride and innocence, 'When Mathieu de Montmorenci, my
ancestor, married the widow of Louis le Gros, he did not have recourse
to the devil, but to the States-General, in order to obtain for the
minor king the support of the house of Montmorenci.' This brave man was
imprisoned in a cell six feet and a half long, and his trial, which was
interrupted for several weeks, lasted altogether fourteen months. No
judgment was pronounced upon him."

The Countess of Soissons fled to Brussels, rather than undergo the risk
of a trial; and was never able to clear herself from the stigma that
attached to her, of having made an attempt to poison the Queen of Spain
by doses of succession powder. The Duchess of Bouillon was arrested,
and tried by the Chambre Ardente. It would appear, however, that she
had nothing to do with the slow poisons, but had merely endeavoured to
pry into the secrets of futurity, and gratify her curiosity with a
sight of the devil. One of the president