Princes and Poisoners: Studies of the Court of Louis XIV

r of La V

Hugues de Lionne, the great statesman, and by the startling fate which had just befallen the Duke of Savoy. A note found on September 21, 1677, in the confessional of the Jesuits in Rue Saint-Antoine denounced a plot to poison the king and the dauphin. On December 5 following, La Reynie, lieutenant of police, caused the arrest of Louis de Vanens, who said he had been an officer. The papers seized on him and on Finette, his mi

hesses and marchionesses and princes and lords. 'Another three poisonings, and she would retire with her fortune made!' At this remark the guests began to laugh still more loudly: this fat woman was irresistibly funny. Ma?tre Perrin alone saw, by a sharp and rapid frown on the face of Madame Vigoureux, that there was something serious in it. He knew Desgrez, the police officer who had arrested Madame de Brinvilliers, and to him he related the incident. Desgrez did not laugh at all, and that very day he sent the wife of one of his archers to the fortune-teller with a complaint against her husband. The fortune-teller, at the first visit, promised her assistance; at the second, she gave her a phial of poison, which the

lly known as La Voisin, was the greatest criminal of whom history has any record. She was arrested as she left the church of Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle after hearing mass. In her track La Reynie was to penetrate into a region of crime that the imagination can

the Sevente

tion of which could not but engender the most absurd superstitions. That was the epoch when the sweet Marguerite Alacoque, in her divine ecstasy, exchanged her heart with that of Christ, and wrote in her own blood, under dictation from on high, the contract which ascribed to God these words: 'I constitute thee heiress of my heart and all its treasures

handed down as heritable property. Jeanne Harvillier, burnt to death on April 30, 1579, may serve as type. Her mother, a witch like herself, had been burnt to death thirty years before. Such a death was the natural end to her career, an end foreseen, and one that terrified those fascinated by the strange vocation much less than one would imagine. Jeanne was born about 1528, at Verberie near Compiègne. At the age of twelve she was presented by her mother to the devil, who appeared to her in the shape of a very tall dark man. Jeanne renounced God, and consecrated herself to the 'Spirit.' 'At the same time she had carnal intercourse with him, which continued from the age of twelve to the age of fifty, when she was arrested. It sometimes happened that her hus

light, and bring to the test of touch and sight, the error of those who have written that the flights of witches are imaginary, and nothing but a trance.' This last opinion had been maintained by John Wier, physician to the Duke of Cleves, in a book

n abominable doctrine! says Bodin. He had lost all respect, then, for anything. Bodin was beside himself. John Wier, he says, wrote under the dictation of Satan. Moreover, had he not himself confessed that he was a disciple of Agrippa, 'the greatest sorcerer th

is powerful intellect, firmly believed in sorcery. At the close of the seventeenth century, Bonet was obliged to go to a Protestant republic to get his treatise on medicine printed, in which he spoke lightly of magic and d

ed, and reproduced here after the archives of the Bastille, will enable us to u

r, by a promise of money, the galley prisoner who was fastened to the chain next to Hocque-a man named Béatrix. He spoke to the shepherd, who replied that he had in fact cast a poison-spell over the cattle of Visié, and that, failing himself, only two shepherds named Bras-de-Fer and Courte Epée had the power to remove the fatal charm. At the urgent request of Béatrix, Hocque dictated a letter to be sent to Bras-de-Fer, but the letter was no sooner despatched than he fell into a horrible despair. He cried hoarsely that Béatrix had made him do something that would cause his death, which he would be unable to escape from the mo

mate undid his work was so strong that he did die. Is it possible to imagine a

ices of t

, the great Renaissance physician, burnt in 1527 the medical books of his time, declaring that nothing but the formulae of the witches was of any use. The old hags had soothing draughts for pain, healing ointments for wounds, and they acted on nervous maladies by suggestion. That was the serious side of their art. Most of

, and that they did not realise such fortunes merely by looking at people's hands. La Voisin said that nothing could be better than to hunt up all the people who looked at hands, that those engaged in the business 'heard strange things when love intrigues were not prospering, that poisonings were an everyday occurrence, that many of them were paid as much as 10,000 livres' (￡2000 of our money). Similar declarations were made by Leroux, another witch, and by the magician Lesage. 'It is extremely important,' said the latter, 'to get to the bottom of these wretched practices, and to fathom this mystery of iniquity which exists among all those who oste

nd surrounded with dark candles; when the child was born, the mother gave up her son to be consecrated to the devil. After pronouncing filthy incantations, the priest cut the victim's throat, sometimes under the very eyes of its mother; but more often he carried it away to sacrifice it elsewhere, because at the last moment outraged nature asserted her rights, and these unhappy creatures snatched their babes from death. At other times, they were content to cut the throat of a deserted child; o

erely that these crimes are possible; one can hardly bring oneself to consider them. Yet it is those who have committed t

Alch

emists and 'philosophers,' represented by such people as Vanens, Chasteuil, Cadelan, Ra

ter a successful student career, Fran?ois was admitted doctor of law. In 1644 he became a knight of Malta. He did signal service to the Order, and Lascaris, the grand master, placed on his breast the cross of honour. He then became captain of the guards of the great Condé. In 1652 he retired to Toulon, fitted out a ship, and under the Maltese flag went privateering against the Mussulmans. Algerian corsairs captured him and led him into captivity. After two years of slavery he came to Marseilles, where he turned monk and became prior of the Carmelites. He smuggled into the convent a young girl-a slender, fair-haired child, with large, bright blue eyes; and there he kept her locked up in his cell. When she was on the point of giving birth to her child, Chasteuil, assisted by a lay brother, strangled her in h

teuil in the service of the Duke of Savoy, captain of the guards of the White Cross, and-extraordinary fact-tutor to his son! While occupied with the education of the young Prince of Piedmont, Chasteuil continued his 'philosophy,' and discovered an oil, which, as he appeared convinced himself, would turn metals into gold. He also wrote translations of authors sacred and profane-the minor prophets, Petronius, the Theba?d of Statius; and he dabb

stoves open and closed, grates and mortars, retorts and matrasses, sal-ammoniac and iron filings, and a thousand varieties of powders, pastes, and liquids. Finally, he had another establishment at the abbey of Ainay, near Lyons, completely fitted up for the fusion of metals, the distillation of herbs, and other practices of alchemy. Before long the association was enlarged by the addition of a person of some importance, Louis de Vasconcelos y Souza, Count of Castelmelhor, wh

d modern science to-day does not deny that they were right-that the metals are compound bodies of identical composition. Their varieties are due simply to the different proportions of the elements in combination; it is possible then, by the aid of an agent that would alter these proportions, to change these bo

was found an MS. poem in hon

ié qui change e

in an elixir, of whic

ne mer

fondus tous les

a teindre et fix

er's stone, but the liquefaction of gold by cold: this was to furnish a universal panacea. 'Liquid gold restore

ut which we hear so frequently at that period; and, as we shall see, they had the best reasons in the wor

hol and sulphuric acid, which acts as an astringent in cases of h?morrhage. Rabel had compounded another elixir, whose innumerable merits were celebrated in notices in prose and verse which the most glowing of modern advertisements have not surpassed. Cadelan supplied funds. Bodin speaks in very precise terms about the alchemists: 'They extract the quintessence of plants, and make admirable and salutary oils and waters, and discourse subtly on the virtues and the transmutation of metals; but they also make false money.' At the moment when Cadelan and his associates were arrested, he was on the point of farming the Paris mint. Was this in order to make false louis d'

and Madame Bachimont, Barthomynat (known as La Chaboissière), de Vanens' valet-were laid by the heels, some in the Bastille, the others at Pierre-en-Cize. Chasteuil had just died quietly at

oted to demoniacal practices. His valet, La Chaboissière, declared that one night he had to accompany his master and a cleric into the woods on the outskirts of Poissy, where they searched for treasures with incantations and invocations to the 'spirit.' Vanens was a diabolical character. He was confined at the Bastille in the same room with other prisoners, as the custom was. He had with him a sort of white and tan spaniel. As midnight approached, he recited some prayer over the body of the dog, and wen

Reynie: 'To see La Chaboissière again about his reluctance to have written down in his statement, after hearing it read,

Voi

must add that of the most famous of the witches, Catherine Des

aris faisait l

and when I gave those who came to me for that purpose my usual answer, that those they wished to be rid of would die when it pleased God, they told me that I was not very clever.' Margot, La Voisin's servant, said that the whole world came there, adding: 'La Voisin is to-day dragging a great ruck down with her-a long chain of persons

st of the day: after that, in the evening, she kept open house, engaged fiddlers, and enjoyed herself thoroughly; this went on for several years.' This life had little resemblance, it will be seen, to that of her ancestress, the witch described by M

were not comfortable; and her lovers were many. We find in the first rank of them André Guillaume, the executioner of Paris, who beheaded Madame de Brinvilliers, and who, by a horrible coincidence, only just escap

incere faith in alchemy. She subsidised great enterprises, and helped to establish manufactures, being much interested in scientific and

be and a cloak specially woven for her, for which she paid 15,000 livres (￡3000 of English money). The queen herself had no finery more beautiful than this 'imperial robe,' which 'was the talk of all Paris.' The cloak was of crimson velvet studded with 205 two-headed eagle

ught with Marie Bosse and tore her hair out. 'One day, Latour being with her on the ramparts, she got him to give her husband fifty blows with a stick, while she held Latour's hat.' On that occasion, Latour bit poor Monvoisi

morning, a shirt of the wicked spouse. Our sorceress had the most implicit faith in the efficacy of this practice, and we must do her the justice to state that she always began by sending to Montmartre women who came to her with tales of their tro

hold, Monvoisin was seized with severe pain in the stomach. He cried out that if there was anybody who wished to do for him, he had better shoot him at once instead of letting him linger.

n her.' 'It was chiromancy and face-reading that I learnt at the age of nine. I have been persecuted for fourteen years: that is the work of the missionaries' (these were the members of a community established by St. Vincent de Paul, then very popular, who were actively occupied in converting sinners and removing scandals of all

that she ought not to engage in such great crimes. 'You are mad!' cried the witch, 'the times are too bad. How am I to feed my family? I have six

es; (4) national diversities; (5) physical temperaments; (6) diversities of age; not depending on a single sign, for men are often attacked by some defect which force of mind, aided by grace, can assuredly overcome.' When the Countess de Beaufort de Canillac came to consult the fortune-teller, 'the lady wishing to give me her hand without unmasking, I told her that I did not know physiognomies of

ow, seeing nothing of her captain, became alarmed, and hastened to La Voisin. She began her incantations, with the assistance of Lesage. The magician walked up and down the garden with a wand, with which he struck the earth, repeating the words, Per Deum sanctum, per Deum vivum! Then he said: 'Louis Denis de Rubentel, I conjure thee in the name of the Almighty to go find Marie Miron (Madame Brissart's maiden name): she to possess thee wholly, body, soul, and spirit, and thou to love none but her!' On another occasion, he put into a little ball of wax a paper on which the names of Rubentel and Madame Brissart were written, and in the presen

to bring their torment to an end, begging her to soften the hard hearts of their mistresses, or to bend the opposition of a cruel father. Or it was the fierce carnal love of mature women obstinatel

as said were laid stark naked, without even their chemise, upon a table which served as altar; their arms were stretched out, and they held a taper in each hand.' Sometimes they did not actually undress themselves, 'but only tucked up their garments as high as the throat.' The chalice was placed on the bare belly. At the moment of the offertoire, a child had its throat cut. Guibourg usually stuck a long needle i

daughter of La Voisin, on the very eve of her trouble, not trusting her mother, fled the house, and only returned after placing her infant in safety. The witches ran off with children in the streets. La Reynie wrote to Louvois: 'Remember the great disturbance in Paris in 1676, when there were seditious gatherings and mobs and runnings to and fro in several parts of the city, through the rumour that peop

hich she procured abortions, and behind the room there was a recess with a stove, in which were found the charred remains of small human bones.' Little children were burned in this stove. One day, in an effusive moment, La Voisin confessed that 'she had burnt in the stove, or buried in the garden, the bodies of more than 2500 children prematurely born.' Here again we come upon su

magination of Michelet-the extraordinary woman whose crimes sent a shudder through the man who

given her a froglike expression, but no doubt he sketched her under the influence of a preconceived idea. Madame de Sévigné, who had a singular taste for this sort of spectacle, saw her mount to the stake: 'La Voisin,' she wrote, 'very prettily surrendered her soul to the devil.' The co

gician

of sorceresses, alchemists, and magicians. A sceptic among believers, he duped the women wi

as a wool merchant. Though he had a wife in Lower Normandy, he promised La Voisin that he would marry her if she became a widow. The first alias he chose was Duboisson. In 1667 he was arrested, condemned

d to Paris, where he renewed h

in a warming-pan. Having then sifted its ashes, he put them in his room. It was the beginning of Lent, during which he used to recite the Passion of our Lord daily, with his feet in water, though it was freezing hard. Then he put a white cloth on the table, lit two tapers, and sent for three crystal glasses, with which having performed his "mystery," which was Greek to La Voisin, he shut them up in a cupboard with a twig of laur

had turned into wine, and it was a liquid of an extremely pleasant taste.' 'A sergeant having come to La Voisin's house to distrain on her at the instance of an upholsterer named Lenoir, La Voisin sent for Lesage, told him that she was ruined, and that there was something in the cupboard which must be taken away, namely, a consecrated

hem write, for instance, requests to the devil in notes which he then pretended to throw in the fire, enclosed in balls of wax; a

rch 17, 1679, and we shall see the importance

ambre A

e chemists and able physicians were then powerless to discover traces of poison in a corpse. The matter was intrusted to a special commission, in the hope that by

, was a member of the Academy. The office of clerk was filled by Sagot, La Reynie's confidential secretary and ordinary clerk of the Chatelet. 'The Commission,' writes Ravaisson, 'was composed of the élite of the councillors of state, and

withhold details of these practices from the knowledge of the public. The magistrates themselves had no

procedure wa

oceeded to the confrontation of the prisoners, after which the commissaries submitted a detailed report to the court. The attorney presented to them his general conclusions, and the court decided whether the accused person should be 'recommended,' that is, remain a prisoner in virtue of a warrant issued by them. In t

t meeting, to July 21, 1682, when it closed its doors, it held 210 sittings, after having be

th in jail; five were condemned to the galleys; twenty-three were exiled; but the most guilty had accomplices in such high places that their cases were never carried to an end. We must add the prisoners who committed suicide in prison, such as La Dodée, a sorceress aged thirty-five, st

came before this court one

he said, the bother and annoyance of a rupture. She had also tried to poison her husband, and to get rid of Madame de Richelieu by sorcery. All these details were widely known in Paris, where society, difficult as it is to believe it, was wonderfully amused by them. The husband was riddled with epigrams, which Madame de Sévigné declares 'divinely diverting.' Madame de Dreux was too pretty, really!-and besides, she was a cousin of two of the judges of the Chambre Ardente; the result was that on April 27, 1680, the judges contented themselves with admonishing

s warned, and escaped. She was proceeded against for contumacy. Her husband and Monsieur de Richelieu were then seen pleading for her in company. On January 23,

and disinterested man.' He had given proof of independence of character at the time of Fouquet's case, by showing clemency to the superintendent. Madame Leféron found him a bore, avaricious, and further-how can one say it?-insufficient. Yet the fair dame had passed her fiftieth year. But she was madly smitten with one Monsieur de Prade, who on his side was in love with her money. She asked La Voisin for poi

and when I asked her if the phial of liquid had taken effect, she said, "Effect or not, he is done for!"' De Prade appeared no less happy. He scoured the city in a brand-new carriage, 'with three or four lackeys behind.' His joy was short. The lady saw that her new husband thought chiefly of getting 'donations' out of her, a

e pretty face, the delicate and keen intelligence, and the exquisite distinction of the young lady. Unhappily for herself, she met a certain La Rivière, who had a wonderful talent for getting money out of ladies. As we know, in the seventeenth century, a talent of this sort was not the discreditable thing it is to-day. Her excellent husband, becoming suspicious, drew his purse-stri

but failed to find men to assist her. At last she saw Marie Bosse, who from the first appeared to her more plucky. However, Madame de Poulaillon displayed so furious a haste to get rid of her 'old goodman,' that Marie Bosse, hardened as she was, fairly took fright. She would not give her in one dose the powder necessary for the poisoning, for fear that the lady, by giving it all at once, would create a scandal. The sorceress was prudent enough to begin with the shirt, one of the most hor

fe could not obtain the necessary assistance from her servants. Then in her rage she applied to some soldiers, and asked them to wait for her husband at the corner of a road she pointed out to them, where it would be the easiest thing in the world, she said, to d

Rivière, who, kept informed of the progress of the trial, joked pleasantly with his new flame on the misfortunes of his old mistress. She, though madly in love with the gallant, was shocked. 'If the misfortune of the lady who has so much merit, I hear, and who loves you and has

infinite spirit,' notes Sagot the clerk, 'cared little about death, and though she did not expect to escape, showed during her whole examination an extraordinary presence of mind, which won the judges' admiration and pity.' La Reynie writes that the judges were touched 'by her spirit, and by the grace with which at the last she explained her unhappiness and her crime.' 'The commissioners,' says Sagot, 'remained in deliberation for four whole hours, all of them, especially those who had some interest in these ladies, being prepared for anything which might serve, if not for the dischar

and at the same time winning deliverance from all her other woes.' On the demand of the young lady herself, her punishment was increased by royal warrant to detention with the Penitents at Angers. Meanwhile La Rivière, after making Madame de Coligny a mother, married her without a

with so much the more reason that soon afterwards a certain widow lady named Brunet was condemned w

nd if Philibert, delighted with the ducats and the daughter, had not accepted them with alacrity. Madame Brunet uttered a cry of horror! Philibert explained to her that he had consulted apostolic notaries, and that for a consideration it would be possible to obtain canonical letters which would set things right; and festivities were got up for the betrothal. In desperation Madame Brunet confided in La Voisin: 'If she had to do penance for ten years, it was necessary that God should carry off Brunet, her husband, for she could not abide to see Philibert, whom she loved passionately, in the arms of her daughter.' She even took her lover to the sorceress. Philibert deposed at the trial that, under pretext of showing him a garden, Madame Brunet

dertook the operation, fo

in 1673, and Philibe

s, 'to wed the mother rather than the daughter, which I did,

le she was still alive, then she was hanged, and her body cast into the fire. Louis XIV, who was fond of his flutist, advised him to leave France if he was con

and the Po

m people dreaded, but the magistrates. People talked about a lady of the highest rank who was declaring everywhere that the judges and all their proceedings ought to be burnt. La Reynie asked for the protection of an escort when he went to V

y the Chamber, has commanded me to acquaint you with His Majesty's desire that you should assure the judges o

y recommended us to do justice and our duty, in extremely strong and precise terms, indicating to us that he desired, on behalf of the public weal, that we should penetrate as deeply as possible into the terri

ly as a matter of form. 'La Voisin was not tortured at all,' writes La Reynie in indignation, 'and this means not having been applied, has naturally produced no effect.' It was feared that the sorceress, whose discretion had been so remarkable hitherto, might say too much in the agony of torture, and, independently of La Reynie, the torturers had received their orders. The judges had also received independent orders, and their reluctanc

f her accomplice the Abbé Guibourg, and of her daughter, Marguerite Monvoisin,

evote all possible care to elucidate the facts contained in the said declaration-that you should take care to have written down in separate reports the examinations, confrontations, and everyt

risoners with whom we shall ha

e Lesage his life if he revealed all he knew. Lesage related most horrible things. Word then went round not to listen to any more; he was a liar. But on September 30 and October 1, 1680, these narratives were confirmed in

erted in the copies made for the convenience of the Court of the Arsenal, His Majesty in Council has commanded that the minutes and originals of the said proceedings be laid before the chancellor by the clerk to

) Le Te

s. He saw now, moreover, that these were in accordance with the truth, and that if the examinations were continued, it

x-de-la-Bretonnerie, to the house of his successor in the clerkship to the Chatelet and the Chambre Ardente, Nicolas Gaudion. On July 13, 1709, the casket was taken to the king's private room, where, in the presence of Chancellor Pontchartrain, Louis XIV burnt the paper

efouled by them. Colbert and Louvois were for a moment in dire alarm. The all-powerful monarch, aided by his two great ministers, believed that he had buried in unfathomable darkness the terrible story of his shame and grief. But