Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/302

 The poisons which St. Croix compounded were of a nature so fine and subtle, that if the greatest caution were not observed in preparing the powder, (since named by the Parisians poudre de succession,) a single chance inhalation might cause the instant death of the artist. St. Croix, therefore, when engaged in his operations, wore a mask, principally made of glass, and with the nostrils covered with silk; but this happened to fall off one day, when he was in the act of shaking a powder, just prepared, into a phial, and in an instant, (being already almost suffocated for want of breath,) having inhaled some of the fine dust which flew about him, he fell down and almost immediately expired.

As he had died without heirs, the officers of the law hastened to his apartments to take charge of his effects. There they found, shut up in a box. the whole arsenal of poisons, by means of which St. Croix had carried on his work of destruction; and besides this, there were found many letters of de Brinvilliers, which left no doubts as to her guilt. She fled accordingly to a convent at Liege; but Desgrais, the principal officer of police, was sent after her. Disguised as a monk, he appeared in the convent, where she had taken refuge, and (his features luckily being unknown to her,) he succeeded in drawing this abominable woman into an intrigue, and persuaded her to make an assignation with him in a retired garden beyond the town walls. Immediately on her arrival there, she was surrounded by the catch-poles of Desgrais; the amorous monk transformed himself into a police officer, and forced her into a carriage that stood ready near the garden, when, with a guard of cavalry, they drove off directly for Paris. La Chaussee had by this time been brought to the block; de Brinvilliers soon suffered the same death, after which her body was burned, and her ashes strewn to the wind.

The Parisians felt themselves greatly relieved, when these monsters were taken from the world, who could, unpunished and unsuspected, direct their machinations against friend and foe; but soon afterwards it was proved, that though the town