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 The Sainte Croix-De Brinvilliers Case. one hundred and fifty persons. The French authorities appear to have regarded him as altogether too dangerous an individual to be permitted to remain at large, for shortly after his arrival in Paris he was arrested under a Icttre de cachet. He had been in the Bastille for nearly six months when Sainte Croix was committed.

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led to the assassination of the father of Madame de Brinvilliers. Immediately upon leaving the Bastille, Sainte Croix, in the name of his intendent, Martin de Breuille, leased a small apartment which he used as a laboratory. Here he was rejoined by Exili who was released shortly after. Whether the Marquis was an

A year, later when Sainte Croix was THEre BASTILLE.

leased, he knew everything that Exili could teach. The pupil was beginning to excel the master. The interrupted relations with Madame de Brinvilliers were resumed, this time with more caution. The peril of another of old d'Aubray's lettrcs de cachet was continually hanging over the lovers. Their extrava gances soon resulted in the piling up of vast debts, payment of which was out of the question. Such were the motives which

accomplice in the murder of his father-in-law has always remained somewhat of an open question. Presumptions, however, are strong ly in his favor. His faults, and they were many, were those of the epoch of a la Valliere or a de Montespan. Nothing indicates that there existed the deliberate and cold blooded cruelty inherent in his wife. Lest there should be any possibility of failure, it was resolved to make certain ex periments. Madame de Brinvilliers, who had always great respect for religion, at least in