Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, had in…
July 1676 CE
There were also rumors that she had poisoned poor people during her visits to hospitals.
She fled in 1675 but was arrested in Liège.
She was forced to confess and sentenced to death.
She is tortured on July 17, 1676, with the water cure, that is, forced to drink sixteen pints of water; she is then beheaded and her body burned at the stake.
Her accomplice Sainte-Croix had died in 1672 of natural causes.
Her trial and the attendant scandal launches the Affair of the Poisons, which sees several French aristocrats charged with poison and witchcraft.
The sensational trial had drawn attention to a number of other mysterious deaths, starting a number of rumors.
Prominent people, including Louis XIV, have become alarmed that they also might be poisoned.
The King forces some of his servants to become his foretasters.