Marie-Madeleine d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers (French: [bʁɛ̃vilje]; 22 July 1630 – 16 July 1676) was a French aristocrat who was convicted of murdering her father and two of her brothers in order to inherit their estates. After her death, there was speculation that she tested her poisons on upwards of 30 sick people in hospitals and street dogs, but these rumours were never confirmed. Her crimes were discovered after the death of her lover and co-conspirator, Captain Godin de Sainte-Croix, who saved letters detailing dealings of poisonings between the two. After being arrested, she was tortured, forced to confess, and finally executed. Her trial and death spawned the onset of the Affair of the Poisons, a major scandal during the reign of Louis XIV accusing aristocrats of practising witchcraft and poisoning people. Components of her life have been adapted into various media including short stories, poems, and songs to name a few.
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In this Dossier
Madame de Brinvilliers in the context of The Laboratory
"The Laboratory" is a poem and dramatic monologue by Robert Browning. The poem was first published in June 1844 in Hood's Magazine and Comic Miscellany, and later Dramatic Romances and Lyrics in 1845.
This poem, set in seventeenth-century France, is the monologue of a woman speaking to an apothecary as he prepares a poison, which she intends to use to kill her rivals in love. It was inspired by the life of Marie Madeleine Marguerite d'Aubray, marquise de Brinvilliers (1630–1676), who poisoned her father and two brothers and planned to poison her husband, matching the narrator's actions in "The Laboratory".