BRINVILLIERS, MARIE-MADELEINE-MARGURITE D'AUBRAY, MARQUI

(marchioness of) born c. 1630 died July 16, 1676, Paris, Fr. notorious French poisoner. The daughter of Antoine Dreux d'Aubray, civil lieutenant of Paris, she married an army officer, Antoine Gobelin de Brinvilliers, in 1651. Attractive and pleasure-loving, she became the mistress of a friend of her husband, J.-B. Godin de Sainte-Croix. On her father's intervention, Sainte-Croix was sent to the Bastille in 1663. On his release he plotted with his mistress to take revenge on her father by poisoning him. With the assistance of one of the king's apothecaries, he obtained poisons, which she tested on patients in hospitals. Eventually she poisoned her father (1666) and then her two brothers (1670), but an attempt on her husband failed. After Sainte-Croix's death (1672), the crimes were discovered. The marquise escaped but was eventually arrested at Lige and was beheaded in Paris in 1676. During her interrogation, Madame de Brinvilliers declared: Half the people of quality are involved in this sort of thing, and I could ruin them if I were to talk. The persons whom she refused to name were those later compromised in a scandal that touched the court of King Louis XIV (see Poisons, Affair of the).