Poison Romance and Poison Mysteries

assed unrecognised or were attributed to natural causes, and the poisoners' fiendish work was frequently undiscovered and rendered easy. In the early Christian er

this kind. Locusta, who is said to have supplied the poison by which Agrippina got rid of Claudius, and who also prepared the

male slave presented herself to the edile curule Q. Fabius and accused more than twenty Roman ladies of poisoning: designing specially Cornelia, a lady of an illustrious family of that name, and Sergia, another patrician lady. It is recorded that as many as three hundred and sixty-six ladies were similarly accused; but Cornelia and Ser

riminal purposes. In medi?val times a law was passed in Italy rendering the apothecary, who knowingly sold poison for criminal purposes, liable to a heavy penalty, and yet secret poisoning was practised

enth century two great criminal s

e proposed removal, the reasons for the assassination, and the sum to be paid for its execution. Thus these conspirators quietly arranged to take the lives of many prominent individuals; and when the deed was executed, it was registered on the margin of their official record by the significant word "Factum." On December 15, 1543, John of Raguba, a Franciscan brother, offered the Council a selection of poisons, and declared himself ready to remove any person whom they deemed objectionable out of the way. He calmly s

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y, the more eminent the man, the more it is necessary to reward the

teenth centuries, and the magnitude of their operations during that period

, and hellebore, in his account of poisonous bodies. He gives the following recipe for compounding a very strong poison, which he calls "Venenum Lupinum": "Take of the powdered leaves of Aconitum lycoctonum, Taxus baccata, with powdered glass, caustic lime, sulphide of arsenic, and bitter almonds. Mix them with honey, and make into pills the size of a hazel nut." He also recommends a curious mixture to poison

rs of age, without ever having fallen into the meshes of the law, and it is stated over six hundred persons were poisoned through her instrumentality. She dealt only with individuals, after due safeguards had been built up, and she changed her abode so frequently, and adopted so many disguises, that her detection was rendered very difficult. She also called in the aids of religion and superstition, and those who were uninitiated in the history of her deadly elixir, imagined it to be a certain miraculous oil which was supposed to ooze from the tomb of St. Nicholas. The Popes Pius III and Clement XIV are said to have fallen victims to its use. The composition of the Acquetta di Napoli was long a profound secret, but it is said to have been known by the Emperor Charles VI of Austria. According to a letter addressed to Hoffmann[2] by Garceli, physician to the emperor, he informed the latter that, being Governor of Naples at the tim

the person to complain to his physician. The physician examines and reflects, but finds no symptoms either external or internal, no vomiting, no inflammation, no fever. In short, he can only advise patience, strict regimen, and laxatives. The malady, however, creeps on, and the physician is again sent for. Still he cannot detect any symptoms of note. Meanwhile the poison takes firmer hold o

gia." It is said to have been prepared by killing a hog, disjointing it, strewing the pieces with white arsenic, which was well rubbed in, and finally collecting the juice w

the sole or chief object of which was to destroy the lives of the husbands of the members. They met at regular intervals at the house of one Hieronyma Spara, a woman reputed to be a witch, who provided her fellow associates and pupils with the required poison, and planned and instructed them how to use it. Operations had been carried on for some time, when the e

IV, a woman of great beauty, died very suddenly at the age of twenty-six, on June 30, 1672, and it was generally believed she had been poisoned. The rumour seems to have been set on foot by one of her husband's old servants, who professed to know the individual who ha

ry and alchemist, named Glaser, settled in Paris, together with two Italians, one of whom was called Exili. Their professed object was a research to discover the Philosopher's Stone. Having lost the little they possessed in a very short time in the pursuit of this chimera, they commenced the secret sale of poisons. Through the confessional their nefarious trade became known to the Grand Penitentiary of Paris. This dignitary gave information to the Government, and the two suspected Italians were promptly sent to the Bastille, where one of them died; but Exili, while still in prison, managed to carry on his business, and found ready purchasers for his secrets, and the number of deaths attributed to poison increased to such an extent, that a special court for the investigation of poisoning cases, called "La Chambre Ardente," was formed. A few years later the whole of France was aroused by the confession of the Marquise de Brinvilliers of having poisoned her father, two brothers, and a sister. Her husband, the Marquis de Brinvilliers, invited a friend, one Captain St. Croix, who was an officer in his regiment, to

arious poisons, including corrosive sublimate, antimony, and opium. When the marquise heard of the death of her lover, she at once made every effort to obtain the box by bribing the officers of justice, but failed. La Chaussée, the servant of St. Croix, laid claim to the property, but was arrested as an accomplice and imprisoned. On confessing many serious crimes he was broken alive on the wheel in 1673. Evidence was brought to prove at the trial of De Brinvilliers, that both she and St. Croix were secretly combined with other persons accused of similar crimes.

rarely idle. Persons of the highest rank were cited to appear before it; among others, two nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, the Du

fter which he was allowed to remain fourteen months in prison. La Voisin and his accomplices were eventually condemned and burn

ven sent her from Versailles what they believed to be a counter-poison." This did not arrive until after her death. In the memoirs of the Marquis de Dangeau, he says: "The king announced the death of his daughter at supper in these words-'The Queen of Spain is dead, poisoned by eating of an eel pye; and the Countess de Pernits and the Cameras, Zapeita, and Nina, w

ent proof, and the public outcry became terrible. On a visit of the Marquis de Canellae, the prince was found extended on the floor shedding tears, and distracted with despair. His chemist and fellow worker, Homberg, ran to surrender himself at the Bastille, but they refused to receive him without orders. The prince was so beside himself on hearing the public outcry and su

sed to consist of diamond dust, but, according to Haller, was really composed of suga

cina Rationalis Sy