Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/301

 Of course be betook himself again, though cautiously and in secret, to his former mistress, and de Brinvilliers, who was only a depraved woman, became, with the help of St. Croix, an absolute monster. Gradually she was led on to poison her own father with whom she lived, hypocritically pretending to nurse him in his old age, and in like manner, her brothers and sisters were sacrificed. Against her father, she was instigated only by revenge, because he had interposed his authority to deprive her of her paramour; but as to the rest, she had other motives, for by their deaths she succeeded to a very rich inheritance.

From various examples of such assassins, we may prove the horrible truth, that the inclination towards crimes of this description becomes at last an absolute ruling passion, without any other object but the unnatural pleasure they derive from it, (as the alchemist makes experiments for his own diversion.) Such dealers in poison have often destroyed individuals, whose life or death must have been to them, in other respects, perfectly indifferent. The sudden and almost simultaneous death of many poor prisoners at the Hotel Dieu, afterwards raised the suspicion that the bread was poisoned which de Brinvilliers used to share out among them, in order to acquire a reputation as a model of piety and benevolence.

However this might be, it is historically certain, that she many times poisoned the dishes at her own table, especially Perigord pies, and placed them before the distinguished guests that were invited to her house, so that the Chevalier de Guet, and several other persons of eminence, fell victims to those demoniacal banquets. Notwithstanding all these practices, however, St. Croix, de Brinvilliers, and a female assistant named la Chaussee, were able for a long time to keep their crimes under an impenetrable veil. There was, at all events, no sufficient proof against them, nor could their physicians always decide that their victims had died by poison; but whatever may be the cunning and hypocrisy of such wretches, Divine justice never fails, sooner or later, to overtake the guilty.