CHAPTER VI.

MAÎTRE GLAZER, THE APOTHECARY, AND HIS MAN, PANURGE, DISCOURSE WITH THE PEOPLE ON POISONS--THE VISIT OF THE MARCHIONESS

There was plenty to occupy the gossips the morning after the events of the preceding chapters, in the good city of Paris. The capture of Exili, with all the additions and exaggerations that word of mouth could promulgate, formed the only topic of conversation; nothing else was canvassed by the little knots of idlers who collected at the corners of the Pont Neuf and on the quays.

There were few newspapers then to spread their simultaneous intelligence over the city. The first important journal, established under the auspices of Colbert, as yet appealed to a very limited number of the citizens beyond the scientific, and those interested in manufacturing and commercial improvements. There was a weekly paper, to be sure, from which the eager populace might have gained some news, had the occurrences come within the range of its time of publication; and the subject would have been dilated upon with especial care, for its originator was a physician. Le Docteur Renaudot had found, as the medical men of the present day are aware, that a knowledge of the current events of the time was thought as much of in a physician, by his patients, as a knowledge of his profession; and so he cultivated its acquisition to his great profit. But when a healthy season came, and he had less to do and talk about, it struck him that some advantage might accrue from distributing his news generally, in a printed form. He did so; the plan succeeded; and to this circumstance is the origin of the French press to be traced.

But all news connected with assaults and offences found a loquacious Mercury in every member of the Garde Bourgeois. Not one who had assisted, on the antecedent evening, at the capture of Exili omitted to take all the credit to himself, as he babbled to a crowd of gasping auditors from his shop-window. Maître Picard, who had arrived, boiling over with indignation, at the office of the Prévôt in the Châtelet, found even his complaint against the scholars overlooked, in the more important excitement. The exposition of the horrible means, so long suspected, by which the Italian gained his living, and the strange death of the _chevalier du guet_ by the poisoned atmosphere of the chamber, absorbed all other attention.

And well indeed it might. The frightful effects of the ‘Acquetta di Napoli,’ to which rumour had assigned the power of causing death at any determinate period, after weeks, months, or even years of atrophy and wasting agony,--this terrible fluid, tasteless, inodorous, colourless,--so facile in its administration, and so impossible to be detected, had been for half a century the dread of southern Europe. Once administered, there was no hope for the sufferer, except in a few antidotes, the secret of which appeared to rest with the poisoners alone. A certain indescribable change crept on; a nameless feeling of indisposition, as the powers of life gradually sank beneath the influence of its venom, but one that offered no clue whereby the most perceptive physician could ascertain the seat of evil or the principal organ affected. Then came anxiety and weariness; the spirits broke down, hope departed, and a constant gnawing pain, that appeared to run in liquid torment through all the arteries of the body, passing even by the capillaries, to bring fresh pain and poisoned vital fluid to the heart, left the helpless victim without ease or slumber; and as time advanced, in misery and anguish that evaded every remedy, so did the poison fasten itself deeper and deadlier on the system, until the last stage of its effects arrived, and life departed in a manner too horrible to describe.

Respecting this fearful scourge little technical information that is left can be relied upon. It appears to have been a preparation of arsenic; and, if this be true, the ignorance of the age might have allowed the deadly metal to pass undetected by analysis; but, as we have before stated, toxicology is now more certain in its researches after hidden poison, and in this deadly drug especially. The merest trace of it, in whatever form it may be administered, even when to the eye of the vulgar affording no more attributes than pure water for analysis, can be reduced to its mineral state. The grave itself refuses to conceal the crime; and the poison has the remarkable property of embalming the body, as it were, and by its antiseptic virtue giving back the vital organs to the light of day, should exhumation be required, in such a state as to place all matter of detecting its presence beyond the slightest doubt, even in the quantity of the most minute atom.

It was about the shop of Maître Glazer, the apothecary, in the Place Maubert, at the river boundary of the Quartier Latin, that the principal collection of gossipers clustered all day long. He had acquired some renown in Paris for compounding and vending antidotes to the dreaded poisons: and it was reported that his unhappy assistant, Panurge, as he was nicknamed by the acquaintances of the apothecary--albeit his real name was Martin--was the subject of all his experiments. Panurge was a tall, spare creature, whose skeleton appeared to be composed of nothing but large joints, and chiefly resembled his predecessor of the same name in being a wonderful coward as well as boaster; and herein he closely assimilated in his nature to the Gascon scholar, Blacquart. And when the latter sometimes accompanied his master’s son, Philippe Glazer, to the house, these two would outlie one another in a marvellous manner, until they had well-nigh quarrelled and fought, but for very cowardice.

On the evening subsequent to the events of the last chapter, Maître Glazer was holding forth to a crowd of anxious auditors, even until after dark; whilst his man was busied in distilling some water of rare merit in all diseases. His shop had never held a larger meeting. It was known by the sign ‘_Au Basilisk_,’ and had the ‘effigies’ of that fabulous serpent painted over the door, done from the book of Ambrose Paré, which formed his entire medical library.

‘Look you, Maître Glazer,’ said a bystander; ‘though Exili be taken, we are none of us yet sure of our lives. For are there not devil’s drinks of Italy that will kill at any certain and definite time?’

‘Theophrastus thus answers that question,’ replied Glazer, giving his authority first, that his statement might have more weight. ‘Of poisons some more speedily perform their parts, others more slowly; yet you may find no such as will kill in set limits of time. And when one hath lingered long, then hath he been fed little by little, and so tenderly nursed, as it were, into his grave.’

‘I have felt ill long,’ said a portly bourgeois. ‘Pray heaven I am not fed with poison in such manner! How may I avoid it?’

‘By ceasing to eat, Michel,’ replied Maître Glazer. ‘Yet there are other methods of killing, which no man may combat but with antidotes on their effects being known. Pope Clement, the seventh of that name, and uncle to the mother of one of our kings, was poisoned by the fume of a medicated torch carried before him, and died thereof; and Mathiolus tells us that there were two mountebanks in the market-place of Sienna, the one of which, but smelling to a poisoned gillyflower given him by the other, presently fell down dead.’

‘And a certain man not long ago,’ said Panurge, ‘when he had put his nose and smelled a little unto a pomander which was secretly poisoned, did presently swell so that he almost filled the room, and would have died, but I gave him an antidote. Then he shrunk rapidly, and went on his way healed.’

There was an expression of disbelief amongst the crowd, and a young artisan laughed aloud derisively; at which Panurge inquired bravely ‘Who it was?’

But when the artisan said it was himself, the ire of Panurge relaxed; and he said, if it had been any one else he should have taken up the affront warmly. And then, on a reproving sign from Maître Glazer, he continued his work.

The evening soon warned the last of the talkers home, after Maître Glazer had held forth for some time longer on his favourite theme. When the latest idler had departed, Panurge closed the shop, and they retired into the small apartment behind for supper.

The shop was at the corner of the _porte-cochère_ leading to the court-yard, and one window looked upon the passage, so that everybody who passed to the other apartments of the house could be seen. The meal was soon arranged by the concierge of the establishment--for Maître Glazer was a widower--and he sat down with his assistant to enjoy it.

‘Has my boy come back?’ asked the apothecary, as they took their places.

‘I have not seen him,’ replied Panurge. ‘His neighbour Theria, the Brabantian, is at home though, for there is a light in his window high up.’

‘They are great friends of Philippe’s,’ said Maître Glazer; ‘both Theria and his wife--a modest, well-favoured body.’

‘Mère Jobert says it is not his wife,’ replied the assistant; ‘but merely a grisette of the city. Oh, the corrupt state of Paris!’

‘She is outwardly well-behaved, and of mild manners,’ returned the apothecary; ‘and we wish to know no further. There is more vice at court than in that _mansarde_, which is approved of by the world.’

‘Theria does not like her to see much of me,’ said Panurge, conceitedly smoothing three or four hairs that straggled about his chin, where his beard ought to have been.

‘Why not--for fear you should frighten her?’

‘Frighten her! by the mass, it is far otherwise,’ answered the assistant. ‘There are not many gallants in Paris who have been so favoured as myself, or can show such a leg.’

He stretched out the bony limb, and was gazing at it in admiration when the attention of the apothecary was drawn off from some sharp reply he was about to make to Panurge’s vanity, by a hurried tap at the door--a side one leading into the court. The rhapsodies of Panurge were stopped short, and he rose to let in the supposed patient--for there was small chance of its being any one else at that hour.

As he opened the door, a female entered hurriedly, and threw off a common cloak--one such as those worn in winter by the sisters of the hospitals. She was a young and handsome woman, in reality about thirty years of age, but her countenance bore an expression of girlish simplicity and freshness which rather belonged to nineteen. Her eyes were blue and lustrous; her hair, dark chestnut, arranged in curls, according to the fashion of the period, on each side of her white expansive forehead; and her parted lips, as she breathed rapidly from hurry or agitation, disclosed a row of teeth singularly perfect and beautiful. One might have looked long amidst the fair dames of Paris to have found features similarly soft and confiding in their aspect; the nose, which was _retroussé_, alone giving an expression--but a very slight one--of coquetry. Her figure was under the middle size, delicate and perfect in its contour; and, but for the mantle which she had worn over her other handsome apparel, a spectator would have wondered at seeing one so gentle in the streets of Paris by herself after dark, and during one of the most licentious epochs of French history. As Maître Glazer recognised his visitor, he rose and saluted her respectfully, with a reverence due to her rank; for it was Marie-Marguerite d’Aubray, Marchioness of Brinvilliers.

‘I am paying you a late visit to-night, Maître Glazer,’ she said laughingly; ‘it is lucky your assistant is here, or we might furnish scandal for our good city of Paris.’

‘Your reputation would be safe with so old a man as myself, madame,’ replied the apothecary; ‘even with your most bitter enemy. Is M. the Marquis well?’

‘Quite well, Maître Glazer, I thank you. As to my enemy, I hope I cannot reckon even one.’

‘Report is never idle now, madame; but you have little to dread; few have your enviable name.’

The Marchioness fixed her bright eyes on Glazer as she bowed in reply to the old man’s speech, allowing a smile of great sweetness to play over her fair face.

‘Is your son Philippe at home?’ she continued. ‘I wished to inquire after some of our charges at the Hôtel Dieu.’

‘I was asking but just now. There is a light with his friend Theria.’

‘I will go over to his _étage_ and see,’ replied the lady. ‘We are old friends, you know; he will not mind my intrusion.’

She gathered the cloak once more around her, and then, with another silvery laugh, nodded kindly to Glazer and Panurge, and tripped across the court, leaving the apothecary and his assistant to finish their meal.

‘An excellent lady,’ said Glazer, as she left; ‘good and charitable. Would we had many more in Paris like her! And she has hard work, too, at the hospitals at present, as Philippe tells me; some evil demon seems to breathe a lingering sickness into her patients’ frames the minute she takes them under her devoted care.’

Panurge spoke but little, contenting himself with gradually clearing everything digestible that was upon the table; and at last the heavy curfew betokened to Maître Glazer that his usual hour of retiring for the night had arrived. The old man, preceded by his assistant with a lamp, made a careful survey of his establishment, putting out the remnant of fire in his laboratory, and Panurge prepared his couch, which was a species of berth under the counter. From their occupation they were both startled by a second knocking at the door, hurried and violent; and, on challenging the new-comer, a voice without inquired, ‘if Philippe had come in?’

‘My son seems in request to-night,’ said Glazer. ‘That should be the Chevalier de Sainte-Croix’s voice.’

‘You are right, Maître,’ cried Gaudin without, for it was he. ‘Do not disturb yourself. Shall I find your son in his apartment?’

‘I cannot say, monsieur. Madame de Brinvilliers asked the same question but a few minutes since.’

‘She is here, then?’ asked Sainte-Croix with an eagerness that betokened the Marchioness was chiefly concerned in his visit.

‘She crossed the court just now, and has scarcely had time to return.’

‘Enough, Maître Glazer,’ replied Sainte-Croix. ‘I am sorry to have disturbed you. Good-night!’

Without waiting for a return of the salutation, Gaudin left the door and hurried along the archway towards the staircase, evidently impelled by no ordinary excitement. He had called that evening upon Madame de Brinvilliers, at her hotel in the Rue des Cordeliers, to seek an interview with her upon the subject of her acquaintance made with Theria at the Jacobins, which since last evening had been rankling in his heart. For some of the busy tongues of Paris had long whispered of a liaison that passed the bounds of friendship, between Gaudin and the Marchioness; nor were the reports unfounded. Sainte-Croix was madly, deeply devoted to her; but jealous at the same time, to a point which rendered every word or look that she bestowed upon another a source of raging torture to his mind. He found the Marchioness had left word with her _femme de chambre_ that she had gone to see Philippe Glazer respecting her hospital patients, whom she was accustomed to serve as a _sainte fille_; and, knowing that Theria occupied the same flat with the young student, his suspicions were immediately aroused. She had, beyond doubt, made an appointment with him.

With his brain on fire he left the hotel; and rapidly threading the dark and wretched streets that led to the Place Maubert, rather by instinct than the slightest attention to the localities, he reached the _porte-cochère_ by the side of Glazer’s shop. Here he gained the information just alluded to, and immediately proceeded to the floor on which the rooms of the scholars were placed, flying up the stairs three and four at a time, until he came to the landing. There was no light in Glazer’s chamber; he listened, and all was quiet; he was evidently not within. But from Theria’s he thought he heard the murmur of voices proceeding, mingled now and then with light laughter which he recognised; whose sound made his blood boil again. He seized the handle of the _sonnette_ and pulled it violently. In less than half a minute, during which time he was chafing up and down the landing like an infuriated animal, the summons was answered. A small window in the wall was opened, and a female face appeared at it--that of a young and tolerably good-looking woman, apparently belonging to the class of grisettes.

‘Is Camille within?’ asked Sainte-Croix, with an assumption of intimacy with Theria.

An answer was given in the negative.

‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers is here, I believe?’ continued Gaudin. And, without waiting for a reply, he added, ‘Will you tell her she is wanted on most pressing business?’

The woman retired and closed the window. Immediately afterwards he heard footsteps approaching; the outer door opened, and Madame de Brinvilliers appeared.

A stifled scream of fear and surprise, yet sufficiently intense to show her emotion at the presence of Gaudin, broke from her lips as she recognised him. But, directly, she recovered her impassibility of features--that wonderful calmness and innocent expression which afterwards was so severely put to the proof without being shaken--and asked, with apparent unconcern--

‘Well, monsieur, what do you want with me?’

‘Marie!’ exclaimed Gaudin; ‘let me ask your business _here_, at this hour, unattended, and in the apartment of a scholar of the Hôtel Dieu?’

‘You are mad, Sainte-Croix,’ said the Marchioness; ‘am I to be accountable to you for all my actions? M. Theria is not here, and I came to see his wife on my own affairs.’

‘Liar!’ cried Gaudin, as he quivered with jealous rage, seizing the arm of the Marchioness with a clutch of iron. ‘Theria is within, and you came to meet him only. You know that woman is not his wife; though many there be less constant. You would wean his love from her, and make him cast her upon the world, that you might be installed as his paramour. You see, I know all--in another moment she also shall be acquainted with everything.’

Sainte-Croix had spoken much of this upon mere chance, but it proved to be correct. In an instant the accustomed firmness of the Marchioness deserted her, and she fell upon her knees at his feet, on the cold, damp floor of the landing.

‘In the name of mercy, leave this house, Gaudin!’ she exclaimed hurriedly. ‘I have been very, very wrong. I confess I ought to have been more candid. But leave this house--on my bended knees I implore it. I will explain everything.’

‘I shall not stir, Marie,’ replied Sainte-Croix; and through all his excitement a sarcastic smile played upon his lip as he saw the trembling woman at his feet. ‘The tumult of this interview will reach your new favourite’s ears; possibly the police of to-morrow will exhibit strange prisoners.’

In an agony of terror the Marchioness clung to Sainte-Croix and again besought him to depart. But Gaudin saw, as she quailed before his determined aspect, that he had gained a temporary triumph over her haughty disposition; and he enjoyed her distress in proportion as it increased.

‘Gaudin!’ she cried; ‘pray, pray quit this place. I will do

[image: img_05.jpg caption: Sainte-Croix Upbraiding the Marchioness]

all that you may in future wish, so that you will but go away. I will be your abject slave; you shall spurn me, trample on me, crush me, if you choose; only leave the house.’

‘I am waiting for an interview with M. Theria,’ Sainte-Croix replied coldly.

‘You will not depart!’ exclaimed the Marchioness, suddenly altering her tone, and springing up from her position of supplication. ‘Then but one resource is left.’

‘Where are you about to go?’ asked Sainte-Croix, as she advanced towards the top of the flight of stairs.

‘Hinder me not,’ returned Marie. ‘To the river!’

The Seine flowed but a few steps from the corner of the Place Maubert, and Sainte-Croix doubted not but that, in her desperation of fear and excitement, she would not hesitate to precipitate herself into it from the quay--at that time unguarded by wall or barrier of any kind. He seized her wrist as she was about to descend, and exclaimed hurriedly--

‘Wherever you go, Marie, I go too; even to perdition!’

They flew down the winding stairs, scarcely knowing how they progressed, Sainte-Croix still keeping hold of his companion. In an instant they were at the bottom of the flight, and Gaudin’s hand was glowing like a live coal from the rapid friction of the balusters as they descended; but, frenzied and insensible to the pain, he saw or thought of nothing except the pale and terrified creature in his grasp. As they reached the end of their headlong and impetuous course, Marie could no longer bear up against the whirl of tumultuous passions that agitated her. The struggle had been too intense; her nerves gave way, and she sank, apparently lifeless, on the ground.

The interview between Sainte-Croix and Madame de Brinvilliers, hurried as it had been, was too violent for the sound of their altercation not to reach Theria’s chambers, and the frenzied pair had scarcely reached the bottom of the stairs, when the student was following them, accompanied by the terrified grisette, who was bearing a light. He found Gaudin endeavouring to raise the fainting Marchioness. She had struck her face, in falling, against a projecting portion of the staircase, and was bleeding therefrom; a circumstance which, in the hurry of the instant, Theria attributed to Sainte-Croix. A few hot and hurried words passed on either side, and the next instant their swords were drawn and crossed.

Sainte-Croix, it need scarcely be observed, was a practised swordsman. But he nearly found his match in Camille Theria. The students were at that time most expert in fencing; and Gaudin was somewhat hardly driven by the assaults of his antagonist, who, with more enthusiasm than science, pressed on him, following thrust after thrust so rapidly, that Sainte-Croix was compelled to act on the defensive alone for some seconds. At length the cool calculation of the soldier, unnerved though he had been by the events of the last few minutes, prevailed over the impetuous assaults of his adversary. He allowed Theria to spend his energy in a series of heated attacks, which he put aside with practised skill; until, watching his moment, he made a lunge and thrust his rapier completely through the fleshy part of the sword-arm of the student, whose weapon fell to the ground.

‘I have it!’ cried Camille, as he reeled back against the pillar of the staircase; and stretching out his left hand he caught hold of the hilt of Gaudin’s sword, preventing him from drawing it back again, until, with singular nerve, he allowed the bright blade to be retracted through his quivering muscle.

‘A peace, monsieur; I have it!’ he continued, smiling as he watched the trickling dark stream that followed its withdrawal. ‘But you have not crippled me beyond to-night. Glazer will tell you that the veins will soon close. Had it been a leaping artery, the case would have been different. Clemence, tie my arm round with your handkerchief.’

The grisette, who had been frightened to death during the contest, was now supporting the still senseless Marchioness. Gaudin knelt down and relieved her of her charge, and she immediately bound up Theria’s wound as he had requested, and then, at his command, went back to the chambers upstairs; she evidently lived in complete submission to what he chose to order.

‘So!’ said Camille, ‘that is past. We have met again in an odd fashion, Captain de Sainte-Croix.’

As he was speaking, Marie opened her eyes and looked around. But, the instant she saw the two rivals she shuddered convulsively, and again relapsed into insensibility.

‘She is a clever actress,’ continued Camille, smiling; ‘they will tell you so at Versailles.’

‘We have each been duped,’ answered Gaudin, somewhat struck at the cool manner in which Theria appeared to take everything; ‘she has been playing a deep, double game with us.’

‘She will play one no longer as far as I am concerned. You are welcome to all her affections, and I shall rank you as one of my best friends for your visit this evening.’

‘Let me ask one thing,’ said Gaudin. ‘For her sake this rencontre must be kept between ourselves.’

‘You have my honour that it shall,’ answered Theria, ‘if you think such an article good security.’

But, whatever might have been their intentions, they were not permitted to preserve the secrecy. For Glazer’s man, Panurge, hearing the struggle in the court, had thought it by far the best plan to call in the guard instead of going himself to see what it was; and opening the window of the shop, looking on to the street, had bawled so lustily that a detachment of the Guet Royal was soon summoned, and by his directions now entered the court-yard, upon the assurance that a woman was being murdered.

They advanced at once to the foot of the staircase, where Theria, Gaudin, and Marie were stationed; their bright cressets shedding a vivid light over every part of the interior. Some young men, who had come up with the guard, as they were returning from their orgies, pressed forward with curiosity to ascertain the cause of the tumult.

But from one of them a fearful cry of surprise was heard as he recognised the persons before him. Sainte-Croix raised his eyes, and found that he was standing face to face with Antoine, Marquis of Brinvilliers!