A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Brinvilliers, Marie Marguerite, Marchioness de
BRINVILLIERS, MARIE MARGUERITE, MARCHIONESS DE,
Was a woman whose singular atrocity gives her a species of infamous claim to notice in this collection. She was born at Paris in 1651, being the daughter of D'Aubrai, lieutenant-civil, of Paris, who married her to N. Grobelin, marquis of Brinvilliers. Although possessed of attractions to captivate lovers, she was for some time much attached to her husband, but at length became madly in love with a Gascon officer, named Goden St. Croix. This young man had been introduced to her by the marquis himself, who was adjutant of the regiment of Normandy. Her father, being informed of the affair, imprisoned the officer, who was a mere adventurer. in the Bastile, where he was detained a year. This punishment of her lover made the marchioness, apparently, more circumspect; but she nourished in her heart the most implacable hatred towards her father, sister, and two brothers, all of whom were poisoned by her in the year 1670. During the whole time, the marchioness was visiting the hospitals, outwardly as a devotee, but, as was afterwards strongly suspected, really in order to try on the prisoners the effect of the poisons produced by her paramour, who had learned the art of preparing them daring his imprisonment, of an Italian named Exili.
On the discovery of her crime, this wicked woman was condemned to be beheaded, and afterwards burned. She suffered with the greatest calmness, and evinced no feelings of repentance.
The marchioness of Brinvilliers seems to have been by nature inclined to wickedness. She acknowledged in her last confession, that at the age of seven she set fire to a house, urged by an inexplicable desire to commit crime. Yet she made pretension to religion, went regularly to confession, and when arrested at Leige, a sort of general form was found in her possession, which sufficiently alluded to her criminality to form a strong presumption against her. She probably had more respect for the ceremonies of her faith than for the law of God.