I have honestly shaken him; during his lifetime, I would have never sha-
ken him!”
The Tribunal of Châtelet kept, in the meantime, the proofs not for sufficient to pronounce the death sentence against him, and condemn him of first degree torture. However, Lady Villarceau made an appeal against this judgement which could be removing the criminal easily from the deserved punishment, if he only has enough courage to overcome torture and to deny his crime steadfastly. Afterwards, on March 4th, 1673, the criminal court would issue the following new judgement about LaChaussée: “it is solemnly and publicly declared that LaChaussée, accused and guilty of the crime of having killed with poison the civil Lieutenant and the Member of Parliament of Aubray, is being condemned to the well deserved punishment of being attached alive on a wheel and then to be dismembered. Before the execution, however, he should still be submitted to ordinary and extraordinary torture, in order to know from him the name of his accomplices. By the way, the Marquess of Brinvillier who disdained to appear before the judge, is condemned to be beheaded.”
During torture, he confessed his crimes and declared that he has specifically only been a commissioner for Saint Croix who gave him great rewards to execute his intentions. “The first time;” he added, “when Saint Croix gave poison to me, he said to me that he has already received the same poison from the Marquess whose brothers should be poisoned with it; however, after the act really took place, he said that Lady Brinvillier knew nothing about it.
This last information, however, seemed very improbable to me, for she spoke not only daily with me about poison, but rather wanted me also, after having completed the act, to flee and even gave me money in this intention. The poisoning of the two brothers,” he continued, “I executed with water and broths. I poured the reddish poison in the glass which I gave to the civil Lieutenant and the translucent poison in the pâté served in Villequoy.” People can conclude from that, that it took him many attempts to poison the two brothers. “Saint Croix,” he said finally still, “has also great envy to poison the Marquess's sister, and endeavoured to have a servant hired by her, who should have committed the act. Only that the attempt failed, either because a favourable fortuity took place, or because the young Lady Aubray, guessing the true cause of the sudden deaths in her family, distrusted everything which came through the hand, or the recommendation of her sister.”
Despite all this, this Lady supported her murdering sister by giving her money during her fleeing. Now, LaChaussée's death sentence would be immediately executed on the public place.
The whole weight of the accusation in the investigation was now falling upon the Marquess of Brinvillier. Everyone was convinced that she was guilty; people spoke her name with despite. In the meantime, she believed to escape from the arms of Justice by fleeing away in a foreign land.
But the asylum which Princes, moved by their feelings of humanity, grant even to those who have suppressed all feelings of humanity in themselves; the protection which will be assured for misdemeanors, is not a license to commit a crime before which Humanity itself was frightened: the authors of such crimes will be delivered to Justice, as soon as the reasons for the arrest would be presented to the regents.
People sent a Corporal from the mounted police, named Desgrais, to Lüttich, accompanied by some justice officers with a royal letter to the Council of the Sixty itself, in which the monarch demanded that the Marquess be delivered to him to allow the pertaining punishments to be executed upon her. The Council to which Desgrais presented the letter with an excerpt of the legal act, did not have any hesitation to give him immediately permission to arrest Lady Brinvillier.
Desgrais who heard that she has hidden in a cloister, kept it not for advisable to arrest her with force in this free zone. He could easily fail his whole goal. It was to be feared that a forceful capture in the cloister could be seen as desecration of a saintly place and could cause a riot in the city, and may snatch away from his hands his captive.
He found, hence, an outcome in a malice. Disguised as an Abbot, he called for the Marquess. He would be a French man, he said, and did not want to travel through Lüttich without visiting a Lady who equally aroused a general interest through her unfortunate destiny as a general admiration through her beauty. He played his role so well that he soon came to talk to her about love. He found a hearing by the Marquess. A cloister is a very uncomfortable place for the reliable encounters of two lovers. Desgrais proposed, hence, a trip in the countryside. His proposition would be accepted. Hardly were they, however, outside the city that the beloved Abbot suddenly transformed himself into a terrible Corporal of the mounted police, and gave her into the hands of his men who have waited her already there.
Vested with an order from the Council, which secured him a free entry, he went then immediately into the cloister and searched everything that he found in the Marquess' room. The Marquess was most worried by a coffer which he found under her bed. She asked very pressingly that people should give it back to her. But Desgrais was deaf enough to all her requests. Finally, she demanded only to have, at least, the papers which she called her confessions; but this would be denied her too. Even for the respect which people otherwise care to show for everything relating to the sacrament of confession, the Corporal could not determine himself to give back to her her handwritten papers. He held it for his rigorous officer's duty not only the criminal, but rather also everything that could serve to her conviction, to deliver to the hands of Justice.
The Marquess attempted, in the meantime, another means to save herself, or at least her coffer. She offered money to one of the guards to undertake a commission for her, and as this one was willing, hence she gave him a letter for a certain Theria with whom she has lived during her stay in Lüttich in very intimate company. In this letter, she asked him to come to help her most hurriedly and to save her from the hands of Desgrais; and in a second letter, she told him that her whole guard consist only of eight soldiers whom five resolved men can easily overcome. In a third letter, finally, she wrote to the beloved Theria that if he could not save her using force publicly; hence, he should at least come to stab to death some of her coach's horses, and take hold of the coffer, because otherwise it would be unmistakably lost.
None of these letters landed into Theria’s hands, because the guard betrayed her commission. It is only fortuitously that he found himself in Maastricht, when she would be brought to this city and made an attempt to corrupt her guards. He raised his rewards up to 1 000 Pistols, if they would make the Marquess escape. But they remained unmoved. As all hope for salvation seemed lost, the Marquess wanted, out of despair, to take her own life, and to this end, wanted to swallow a needle. One of her guards would, however, guess her intention and prevented her from executing it.
In the meantime, the Parliament received the order to send Member of Parliament Palluau to go to Rocroi and to hear immediately the Marquess. The goal of this order was either to hinder her from unravelling a cabal to her advantage, as she was almost in relationship with the whole Parliament, or not to give her time to think about her answers and to regain force, through making up skillful subterfuges, with other Members of Parliament. The commission would be correctly executed.
As soon as the Marquess arrived in Paris and was brought for custody in the Parliament prison, she turned to Mister Penautier who, as main cashier of the regular and spiritual authorities of Languedoc, disposed of a great income and had permission to keep an opulent table. Through these two advantages, he enjoyed overall respect and could, in fact, grant protection. He found himself, however, dragged into this story, but needed for himself his whole credibility.
A letter which the Marquess wrote to him from the Parliament prison, would be delivered and brought to him to his great embarrassment. She told him really frankly in this letter about the danger which was menacing her, of losing her life on the scaffold, and about the conduct which she was resolved to observe during her hearing. She has undertaken, she wrote, to deny everything and to confess nothing. She asked him, finally, still for an advice and sought his friends' influence to make prevail for her.
In line with this resolution, she has, in fact, already in the hearing in Rocroi, observed this behaviour and has denied everything stubbornly. She would know nothing about the letters which she has written after her imprisonment; and she would also not know of Saint Croix's little coffer which people showed to her. About