The Marquise of Poison: Marie-Madeleine de Brinvilliers and the Crime That Terrified Paris (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798250561044)

Paris. The late reign of Louis XIV. A death that should have been ordinary.

On 31 July 1672, a man is found dead in his Paris rooms-and an inventory opens a locked cassette that should never have been opened. Inside: "diverse vials" and nine letters linked to Marie-Madeleine d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers. In the official account, those letters point to an unthinkable claim: that a noblewoman poisoned her own father (1666) and two brothers (1670). And the vials? "Virulent poisons" said to leave little trace-perfect for a world where illness already looked like death.

What begins as a private scandal becomes a matter of state, tangled with money, influence, and ministerial rivalry. Brinvilliers runs. Paris hunts. And when the machinery of justice finally closes around her, "truth" is produced through procedure-confession, coercion, and spectacle.

The Marquise of Poison is true crime and history: it follows the paper trail, keeps the legal process visible, and separates what can be shown from what is merely said-refusing the easy, sensational version of a case that terrified a city.

Content note: murder, coercion, judicial violence, and execution.

Author: Alana Sanchez
ISBN-13: 9798250561044
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 03/03/2026
Pages: 218
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.46lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.25w x 0.55d