119 The accounts given by the ancients of the sea-hare have been collected in Grevini Lib. de Venenis, Antverpiæ 1571, p. 209. In the Annals of Glycas, iii. (Script. Byz.), it is said that Titus was despatched by this poison; and in the first book, b. 27, he says the sea-hare occasions speedy and inevitable destruction to man.
120 See Stenzelii Diss. de venenis terminatis et temporaneis, quæ Galli les poudres de succession vocant; resp. J. G. Arnold. Vitebergæ, 1730. This tract contains several historical relations; but the reader is often referred to authors who either do not say that for which they were quoted, or who must relate the same thing in a different manner in some other place. As for example, Galen in b. ii. c. 7, De Antidotis, speaks of poisons without mentioning secret poison in particular. Avicenna is made to say, in his book De Viribus Cordis, that the Egyptian kings often employed this poison; but if by that quotation we are to understand Fen. undecima de dispositionibus cordis, I have sought for this information in vain. In lib. iv. fen. 6. tract. 2. c. 14, it is said “Fel canis aquatici interficit post hebdomadam.” Rhodiginus also does not relate that for which he is quoted by Stenzel. p. 7.
121 Vol. iv. p. 33.
122 J. F. le Bret, Magazin zum Gebrauche der Staaten und-Kirchen-Geschichte, part iv. Francf. and Leips. 1774, 8vo, p. 131–141.
123 The following account is collected from Causes celèbres, par M. Guyot de Pitaval, tome i.—Lettres de Mad. de Sevigné, tome iv.—Histoire du Règne de Louis XIV., par M. de Reboulet. Avignon, 1746, v. p. 159.—Histoire de Louis XIV., par M. B. de la Martinière, 1740, iv. p. 229.—Le Siècle de Louis XIV., par Voltaire, etc.
124 Voltaire says that the father did not get Sainte Croix thrown into the Bastille, but sent to his regiment. This however is not the case, for this reprobate was at that time not in the army.
125 This circumstance is denied by Voltaire, but only, as appears, to contradict Pitaval, whom he calls un avocat sans cause.
126 This request was as follows:—“I humbly beg that those into whose hands this box may fall, will do me the favour to deliver it into the hands only of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who resides in the Rue Neuve Saint Paul, as everything it contains concerns her, and belongs to her alone; and as, besides, there is nothing in it that can be of use to any persons except her; and in case she shall be dead before me, to burn it, and everything it contains, without opening or altering anything; and in order that no one may plead ignorance, I swear by the God whom I adore, and by all that is most sacred, that I advance nothing but what is true. And if my intentions, just and reasonable as they are, be thwarted in this point, I charge their consciences with it, both in this world and the next, in order that I may unload mine, protesting that this is my last will. Done at Paris this 25th of May in the afternoon, 1672.
“De Sainte Croix.”
127 Martinière says that she was burnt alive, together with all the papers respecting her trial. The latter is improbable, and the former certainly false, notwithstanding the account given in the Encyclopédie.
128 The following description of Brinvillier may perhaps be of use to our physiognomists:—“In order to satisfy the curiosity of those who may be desirous of knowing if such a celebrated criminal partook of the beauties of her sex, I shall observe that nature had not been sparing of them to the marchioness; her features were exceedingly regular, and the form of her face, which was round, was very graceful. This beautiful outside concealed a heart extremely black. Nothing proves more that metoposcopy, or the science of physiognomy, is false; for this lady had that serene and tranquil air which announces virtue.”—Pitaval, p. 269.
129 Some information respecting La Voisin may be found in Lettres Historiques et Galantes par Madame de C——. A Cologne, 1709–1711, 4 vols. 12mo, ii. p. 101, and iv. p. 376. The authoress of these letters was Mad. du Noyer.
130 Leben des Grafen von Ulfeld, von H. P. aus dem Dänischen übersetzt. Copenhagen und Leipzig, 1775, 8vo, p. 200.
131 This anecdote was told to me by the celebrated Linnæus. An account of what appeared on opening the body of this prince may be seen in Baldinger’s Neues Magazin für Aerzte, vol. i. p. 91.
132 “The lieutenant-civil continued still to grow worse. After having languished a long time, being seized with a loathing of every kind of food presented to him, his vomitings still continuing, and nature being at length exhausted, he expired without any fever. The three last days he had wasted very much; he was become extremely shrunk, and he felt a great heat in his stomach. When opened, that part and the duodenum were found to be black, and sloughing off in pieces; the liver was mortified, and as it were burnt. The counsellor was ill three months, had the like symptoms as the lieutenant-civil, and died in the same manner. When opened, his stomach and liver were found in a similar state.”—pp. 274, 275.
133 In one year a ton of sand, at least, which is baked with the flour, is rubbed off from a pair of mill-stones. If a mill grinds only 4385 bushels annually, and one allows no more than twelve bushels to one man, a person swallows in a year above six pounds, and in a month half a pound of pulverized sandstone, which, in the course of a long life, will amount to upwards of three hundred weight. Is not this sufficient to make governments more attentive to this circumstance?
[Although not very agreeable to the reader to learn that he swallows above six pounds of mill-stone powder in the course of the year, it may perhaps ease his mind to know that the learned author is entirely mistaken in regarding it as a poison. The inhabitants of the northern countries of Europe frequently mix quartz powder with their heavy food to assist in its digestion; and we are informed by Professor Ehrenberg, that in times of scarcity, the inhabitants of Lapland mix the siliceous shells of some species of fossil Infusoria with the ground bark of trees for food. It is probably from this circumstance that the infusorial deposit derives its name of Berg-mehl, or Mountain-meal.]
134 For the following important information I am indebted to Professor Baldinger:—“There is no doubt that the slow poison of the French and Italians, commonly called succession powder (poudre de la succession), owes its origin to sugar of lead. I know a chemist who superintends the laboratory of a certain prince on the confines of Bohemia, and who by the orders (perhaps not very laudable) of his patron, has spent much time and labour in strengthening and moderating poisons. He has often declared, that of sugar of lead, with the addition of some more volatile corrosive, a very slow poison could be prepared; which, if swallowed by a dog or other animal, would insensibly destroy it, without any violent symptoms, in the course of some weeks or months.”