Marie-Madeleine de Brinvilliers

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portrait drawing of Marie-Madeleine de Brinvilliers shortly before her execution, by Charles Lebrun , 1676

Marie-Madeleine Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers (* July 2, 1630 in Paris , † July 17, 1676 there ) was one of the most famous poisoners in criminal history. She was convicted of poisoning her father and two brothers and attempting to murder her sister. She committed these murders with the help of her lover, the Chevalier Godin de Sainte-Croix. More poisonous murders and attempted murders were said to have been made, but they have never been conclusively proven. The case was often taken up artistically.

prehistory

Marie Madeleine Marguerite d'Aubray came from a rich and respected noble family. She has been described as beautiful, charming, and witty. In the event of the death of her father, Antoine Dreux d'Aubray, she had the prospect of a substantial inheritance , which, however, would have to be shared with her three siblings - two brothers and one sister.

At the age of 21 she married the Marquis Antoine Gobelin de Brinvilliers. The marriage had five children. The Marquis family had grown rich from the Flemish wool trade. However, he himself was a spendthrift, who is said to have taken numerous lovers, but also granted his wife corresponding freedoms. Because of the lavish lifestyle of the Marquis, his wife was allowed to manage her own property separately.

Through her husband, she met Godin de Sainte-Croix, a soldier of fortune, and began an affair with him that lasted until his death. The Chevalier was very interested in alchemy and chemistry. At the same time, this lover of the Marquise was also constantly in need of money because of his lifestyle.

The Marquise's father was against this affair and had the Chevalier arrested on March 19, 1663 and imprisoned in the Bastille in Paris for a year . However, Sainte-Croix was only held for a month and a half and was then able to flee to the Marquise again.

In the Bastille, Sainte-Croix met a certain exile (also Eggidi ), a native Italian who is said to have been in the service of Queen Christine of Sweden and to have dealt with the production of poisons. Otherwise little is known about Exili, other than rumors that he worked for Olimpia Maidalchini and allegedly left Italy on conviction. From this the Chevalier learned of a poison which, according to the knowledge of toxicology at the time, was undetectable; probably a compound of arsenic . This poison later became known as eau admirable . But it could also have been vitriol , mercury compounds , opium or toad fat. Sainte-Croix taught the marquise how to make the poison or made it available to her.

The crime

Murder of the father

The marquise first made up with her father and followed him to his country estate. There she took care of him, kept other people away from him, prepared his own dishes and served them to him himself. She admitted that she began giving her father about 30 times smaller doses of the poison over a period of eight months. The consequences of chronic poisoning set in, from which he finally died in Paris on September 10, 1666. The suspicion of a poisoning did not arise at this time, which is why an autopsy was not carried out.

It is believed that the motive was to be sought in the Marquise's financial embarrassment or at least that the Chevaliers de Sainte-Croix's vengeance because of his stay in the Bastille was the motive for this murder.

Murder of the brothers

Sainte-Croix forced the Marquise to issue him two promissory notes for 25,000 livres and 30,000 livres. In order to satisfy him and to cover further costs, Marie Madeleine de Brinvilliers soon needed money again.

In order to be able to get rid of her brothers, she got a certain Jean Stamelin, called La Chaussée , a job as valet with her younger brother, who shared an apartment with the older one. This valet was promised a pension and a large sum of money for his further involvement in the attack on the brothers . A first attempt with poisoned wine failed because a strange taste was noticed.

At the beginning of April 1670 the brothers went to an estate to spend the Easter holidays there. During this stay, a ragout pie was served at a meal, after which seven people, including the two brothers, fell ill. The marquise's older brother died on June 17, and the second brother also died three months later. Both showed symptoms of chronic arsenic poisoning , including severe emaciation, sickness, burning in the stomach and frequent vomiting. The subsequent opening of the body revealed damage to the stomach , duodenum and liver . As a result, doctors and a pharmacist called in assumed poisoning. The Marquise de Brinvilliers had an alibi because she was in a different place at the time in question. Jean Stamelin was considered the epitome of a loyal servant.

Attempted murder of the sister

In order to receive the entire fortune that she had to share with her sister up to now, she should now also be murdered. Thérèse d'Aubray sensed that she was in danger and examined every dish before she consumed it. However, this did not prevent her from dying before the trials of the Marquise de Brinvilliers were over.

Uncovering the murders and trials

Marquise de Brinvilliers is tortured

Ultimately, the murders were uncovered by accident. The Chevalier de Sainte-Croix died on July 30, 1672 in his laboratory , presumably of poisonous gases. Since he was heavily in debt, his estate was judicially sealed. In this estate there was also a box with a letter stating that this box was to be sent to the Marquise de Brinvilliers and that the contents only concern her. It also contained the promissory notes she had issued, a collection of various poisons and all of Marie Madeleine's letters to Sainte-Croix. The poisons were tried in animal experiments and proved to be fatal. The investigations that followed led to several testimony that seriously incriminated La Chaussée and the Marquise. In addition, La Chaussée behaved very conspicuously and eventually went into hiding. Another poison was found during a search of his home . He was finally arrested on September 4, 1672.

On March 24, 1673, the main hearing against La Chaussée and - in her absence - against Marie Madeleine Marquise de Brinvilliers took place. La Chaussée was sentenced to death by cycling and previous torture in order to find out possible other accomplices before his execution .

Marie Madeleine Marguerite d'Aubray first fled to England and, when she was threatened with extradition , went to a monastery in Liège . The city finally agreed to be extradited as well. The Marquise de Brinvilliers was lured out of the monastery and arrested by a ruse.

As a noblewoman she enjoyed the privilege of being sentenced only by a chamber of the highest court, which is why another main hearing against her took place between April 29 and July 16, 1676. She was sentenced to death on the scaffold and to water torture so that she could reveal any confidante. After the execution on July 17, 1676, her body was cremated and her ashes scattered to the wind.

Further acts alleged to be done by the marquise

The Brinvilliers were also accused of other murders:

  • In order to try the poison before the attack on her father, she is said to have distributed poisoned rusks to the poor, especially in the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris.
  • The marquise is said to have tested the poison on animals and hospital patients before she painfully killed her father.
  • She is said to have given her chambermaid a dish of poisoned currants and ham, from which she fell ill but did not die (statement of the maid).
  • The steward and temporary lover of the Marquise Briancourt claimed in his testimony that he had narrowly escaped an attempted murder, since at a meeting with the Brinvilliers he wanted to have noticed the Chevalier de Sainte-Croix wrapped in rags hidden in the fireplace (testimony of the steward).
  • She is also said to have claimed to have poisoned one of her children (as stated in the Liège confession).
  • After all, the Marquise de Brinvilliers is said to have tried to poison her husband in order to be able to marry Sainte-Croix. This was only prevented by the fact that the Chevalier did not want to marry her and secretly gave the husband an antidote .

consequences

As a result of the deaths of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, King Louis XIV established a Chambre ardente (French, "glowing chamber") called the Cour des poisons as a special court . This chamber was active from 1677 to 1680. Many people from the highest classes of society - up to people from the immediate environment of the king - were summoned to the bar of this court. The follow-up litigation also included the one against the poisoner Catherine Monvoisin , known as “La Voisin”. The events are known as the " poison affair ".

The investigations in connection with the crimes were also directed against the respected pharmacist and chemist Christophe Glaser , from whose pharmacy the Marquise and the Chevalier Sainte-Croix had obtained the necessary chemicals . This was exonerated, but as a result pharmacists and druggists in France were legally required to keep a so-called poison book in which the names of the buyers of poisons had to be listed.

The Fall of the Marquise in Literature and Culture

The case of the Marquise de Brinvilliers has been dealt with both criminologically and artistically.

The Brinvilliers route to execution was described in a letter from the Marquise de Sévigné as follows:

“At six o'clock she was brought to Notre-Dame in a shirt and with a rope around her neck, lying on straw, to make atonement. Then they were driven on in the same cart. I saw her lying backwards in it on the straw, clad only in a shirt and a low bonnet; a clergyman next to her and the hangman on the other side; truly, I shuddered. Those who witnessed the execution say she bravely climbed the scaffold. I was on the Notre Dame Bridge with the good Escars. I have never seen such a crowd, and never has Paris been so moved and tense. "

The case of the Marquise de Brinvilliers finally became known primarily through its publication in François Gayot de Pitaval's twenty-volume Causes célèbres et intéressantes, avec les jugemens qui les ont décidées , which is a collection of criminal cases for the purpose of introducing young lawyers to the requirements of the Investigation and resolution of cases was and therefore focused on the criminal cases. The criminal files were the basis for the publication. The collection was also very popular with the general public. The case of the Marquise de Brinvilliers stimulated the imagination before most other cases in Pitaval's collection: At first an occult sheen had developed around the name of the Marquise, then several riddles and mysteries are connected with the case. The criminal case was used as a yardstick for other cases of poisoning, for example Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach described the multiple poisoner Anna Margaretha Zwanziger (1760–1811) as “the German Brinvilliers”. The case of the marquise was taken up precisely because of its fame in other literary and art forms.

The interpreters of the criminal case disagreed as to whether the Marquise de Brinvilliers was seduced with weak character or a greedy seductress. While Maximilian Jacta portrayed a poisoner manipulated by Sainte-Croix in the collection "Famous Criminal Trials" in the 1960s, the author Brigitte Luciani came to the conclusion that the marquise was unscrupulous and addicted to gambling and had children from various men.

literature

  • Alexandre Dumas the Elder Ä. wrote a historical essay Marquise de Brinvilliers .
  • Arthur Conan Doyle dealt fictionally in The Leather Funnel with the case of the Marquise de Brinvilliers and mentioned her in A Study in Scarlet . The Leather Funnel was filmed in 1973 for television under the direction of Alan Gibson , in German-speaking countries this film is called The Great Secrets of Orson Welles .
  • The Marquise de Brinvilliers is also mentioned in ETA Hoffmann's detective novella Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1819), as Hoffmann used the Chambre ardente commissioned with the investigation as a means of covert criticism of the Prussian special jurisdiction.
  • Hermann Hesse dealt several times with the case of the Brinvilliers: On the one hand, he wrote the short narrative text "Die Verhaftung" in 1911, which is a revision of the French Pitaval story and describes the arrest of the Marquis de Brinvilliers by a ruse by Private Desgrais, on the other hand he wrote 1921 the essay "The Brinvilliers" for the yearbook The Harvest (Verlag Reinhardt, Basel, from p. 123).
  • In 1922 Reinhold Schmidt published the novel Marquise de Brinvilliers, the passionate poisoner at the Mitteldeutsche Verlagsanstalt.
  • Eckart von Naso published the Paris Nokturno - Chronik d. Marquise von Brinvilliers (Scheffler-Verlag).
  • In addition, Paul Elgers recently wrote a novel The Marquise von Brinvilliers (Greifenverlag zu Rudolstadt, 1964)
  • Edgar Maas wrote the novel A lady of rank. The all too free lifestyle of the Marquise von Brinvilliers (Heyne books, 1969)
  • Grégoire Alexandroff wrote the comic The Legacy Powder: The comic about the Marquise de Brinvilliers , ( AvivA Verlag , Berlin 1997).

Operas

The Marquise de Brinvilliers provided material for various operas , such as La Marquise de, written by François-Adrien Boïeldieu , Daniel-François-Esprit Auber , Désiré Alexandre Batton , Henri Montan Berton , Felice Blangini , Michele Carafa , Luigi Cherubini , Ferdinando Paër Brinvilliers (1831); for the opera La Marquise de Brinvilliers written by Eugène Scribe (first performed on October 31, 1831 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris); and the opera La Marquise de Brinvilliers , composed by Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold , (composed 1831).

Film adaptations / plays

Herbert Asmodi created Die Marquise von B., a two-part television play for ZDF (1970) with Heidelinde Weis in the lead role. He also wrote the play Marie von Brinvilliers, Lover, Poisoner and Marquise as Comedy (1971).

literature

  • Louis Lewin: The poisons in world history - toxicological generally understandable studies of historical sources. Reprographic reprint of the edition by Springer, Berlin 1920. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 1984, ISBN 3-8067-2013-4 .
  • Brigitte Luciani: The Marquise de Brinvilliers and the legacy powder - or how do I get rid of my family? Aviva, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-932338-01-4 .
  • François Gayot de Pitaval : Unheard of criminal cases. A collection of famous and strange criminal cases. After the selection and translation published by Friedrich Schiller in 1792–1794 , revised. and zsgest. Voltmedia, Paderborn 2005, ISBN 3-937229-03-5 .
  • Maximilian Jacta (alias Erich Schwinge ): Famous criminal trials . Special edition. Orbis-Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-572-01242-2 .
  • Eckart von Naso : The chronicle of the poisoner. Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Potsdam 1926.
  • Brinvilliers . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 3, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, pp. 434–435.
  • Brinvilliers, Marie Madeleine Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 4 : Bishārīn - Calgary . London 1910, p. 572 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hugh Stokes: Madame de Brinvilliers and Her Times 1630–1676. P. 108.
  2. ↑ Louis Lewin: The poisons in world history. P. 440.
  3. ↑ a b Florian Welle: The most notorious poisoner of the Ancien Régime. In: sueddeutsche.de . September 30, 2018, accessed July 16, 2021 .
  4. ↑ a b Brinvilliers . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 3, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885-1892, pp. 434-435.
  5. ↑ a b Jan von Flocken : 1679 - The poisoning scandal of Versailles. In: Welt Online . January 9, 2008, accessed July 16, 2021 .
  6. ^ A b c d François Gayot de Pitaval : Unheard of criminal cases. A collection of famous and strange criminal cases. After the selection and translation published by Friedrich Schiller from 1792–1794.
  7. ^ Brinvilliers, Marie Madeleine Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 4 : Bishārīn - Calgary . London 1910, p. 572 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  8. ↑ Selected letters from the Marquise of Sevigné. Translated by Ferdinand Lotheißen. Munich 1925, p. 127.
  9. ↑ The Marquise who Poisoned; Romance and Tragedy Went Hand in Hand in the Life of Mme. De Brinvilliers. In: The New York Times . January 21, 1912, p. R28 , accessed July 16, 2021 .
  10. ↑ Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach, Gerold Schmidt: Everyday life in old Bavaria. Norderstedt 2006, ISBN 3-8334-6060-1 .
  11. ↑ Alexandre Dumas: Marquise de Brinvilliers. on Project Gutenberg. Archived from the original on November 10, 2004 ; accessed on July 16, 2021 (English).
  12. ↑ Arthur Conan Doyle: The Leather Funnel. on eastoftheweb.com. Accessed July 16, 2021 .
  13. ↑ The Leather Funnel in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  14. ↑ Bernd Hesse: The crime story "Das Fräulein von Scuderi" as a mirror of the judicial office of ETA Hoffmann. In: New Legal Weekly . 2008, 698.
  15. ↑ See Hermann Hesse: The arrest. In: Ders .: Legends. Compiled by Volker Michels. Frankfurt am Main 1975 (= Library Suhrkamp. Volume 472), pp. 148–155.
personal data
SURNAME Brinvilliers, Marie-Madeleine de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aubray, Marie-Madeleine d '
SHORT DESCRIPTION French poisoner
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1630
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH July 17, 1676
PLACE OF DEATH Paris