The Marchioness of Brinvilliers - the poisoner of the seventeenth century #821848

One hundred and eighty years ago, on a sunny spring evening in the year of grace 1665, the space of ground which extended from the front of the Grand Châtelet in Paris to the rude wooden barrier which then formed the only safeguard between the public road and the river, at the northern foot of the Pont au Change, was crowded with a joyous and attentive mass of people, who had collected from their evening promenade to this spot, and now surrounded the temporary platform of an itinerant charlatan, erected in front of the ancient fortress.
Let us rest awhile on the steps of the Pont au Change, to become acquainted with the localities; for little of its ancient appearance now remains. The present resident at Paris, however well versed he might be in the topography of that city, might search in vain for even the vestiges of any part of the principal building, which rose, at the date above spoken of, on the banks of the River Seine. The Pont au Change still exists, but not as it then appeared. The visitor may call to mind this picturesque structure, with its seven arches crossing to the Marché aux Fleurs from the corner of the Quai de la Megisserie. In 1660 it was covered with houses, in common with most of the other bridges that spanned the Seine, with the exception of the Pont Neuf. These were now partly in ruins, from the ravages of time, and frequent conflagrations. Lower down the river might be seen the vestiges of the Pont Marchand—a wooden bridge, which had been burnt down nearly forty years before, some of whose charred and blackened timbers still obstructed the free course of the river. It had stood on the site of the Pont aux Meuniers—also a wooden bridge—to which six or seven boat-mills were attached; and these, in consequence of the flooding of the Seine, dragged the whole structure away in the winter of 1596.