its outward manifestations, was in the habit of visiting the hospitals, bringing soups and cordials. It was noticed about this time, that a number of patients at the Hotel Dieu, in whom she took special interest, suddenly died. To her maid Francoise Roussel she one day gave a slice of ham and some goose berry preserves. Almost immediately the girl was seized with severe cramps, feeling, as she subsequently testified, " as though her heart had been pierced." She recovered, however. When d'Aubray left Paris for his Chateau of Offemont for the purpose of transacting certain business relative to the estate, he was accompanied by his daughter. For eight months previous, she had been administering in small doses the poison given her by Sainte Croix. This was in all probability, aqua tofana, as has been seen, a strong solution of arsenic. The design was to undermine the victim's constitution, an end which it appar ently failed to accomplish. Sainte Croix and the Marquise had become impatient, and it was resolved that the Civil Lieutenant should not return alive. The task proved surpris ingly free from difficulty. On the second night after his arrival, he was attacked with terrific vomitings accompanied by frightful agony. Madame la Marquise had prepared the soup eaten at dinner. Offemont was an ideal spot for the commission of such a crime. "Situated," as Dumas puts it, " in the centre of the forest of Aigue, at three or four leagues distance from Compiegne, the poison had already made such violent progress when succor came as to render the latter useless." As a matter of fact when the physician ar rived from Compiegne, his diagnosis revealed nothing more important than an attack of indigestion, and the patient was treated ac cordingly. At the solicitation of the Mar quise, anxious to complicate matters by a substitution of physicians, her father, a dying
man, was removed to Paris. Here, after lingering in agony a few days, he expired. As the victim was supposed to have died a natural death no autopsy was made. For the moment the crime remained undiscovered. Still, the result was not as satisfactory as had been expected. The larger part, in fact almost the entirety, of the paternal estate was bequeathed to the brothers of the Marquise. One was, as his father had been, a Civil Lieutenant, the other a Counsellor of Parliament. In the place of one guardian, she had now found two. Such a state of af fairs was insufferable. Their deaths were determined on. All this time Sainte Croix was living a life of the greatest splendor, though the source of his wealth was unknown. The Chevalier was a man of a remarkable degree of bril liancy, and few suspected that he followed the profession (if such it may be called) of a traf ficker in poisons. One Jean Amelin, called La Chaussee, a lackey in his service, was se lected as a fitting instrument with which to execute the crime. It is exceedingly unfortunate that there should exist a tendency to surround the perpetrator of a great crime with a halo of romance. The community cherishes its illu sions, and woe to the reckless historian who dares to present a Dick Turpin or a Claude Duval other than 'as the dashing_ gallant who courteously took from the rich what they could well afford to lose, who royally spent what was bravely taken, and who, after hav ing fought against tremendous odds, was finally captured and put to a highly spectacu lar death before an admiring assemblage. Posterity might have forgiven much had Sainte Croix been, as he is sometimes repre sented, the true and faithful lover of the Marquise for whose sake the crimes had been committed. Nothing can be pardoned in the paid assassin, careful to exact the stipulated
