IN the judicial annals of France there has never been a more striking or celebrated figure than the Marquise de Brinvilliers. The enormity of her crimes, the brilliance of her rank, the circumstances accompanying her trial and death, -the story of which, as told by her confessor, the abb Pirot, is one of the masterpieces of French literature, -finally, the strange energy of her character, which after her execution caused her to be regarded as a saint...