The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV

by Anne Somerset

  Throughout his life the King evinced what Saint-Simon described as ‘a just but singular horror for all inhabitants of Sodom.’ Nevertheless, however much he may have wanted to eradicate homosexuality at court, he was precluded from effective action because his own brother, Monsieur, was a notorious pederast. This flamboyant figure, who even went into battle heavily bejewelled and wearing make-up, took the Chevalier de Lorraine as his favourite. In early 1670 the King was furious when Monsieur demanded that he confer the revenues of two abbeys on the Chevalier. The King objected that Lorraine ‘led too libertine a life to possess benefices’ and let it be known that he believed that the Chevalier had committed ‘the infamous crime of sodomy with the Comte de Guiche and even with men who had been burnt for that crime in the [Place de] Grève’. When Monsieur protested, the Chevalier was arrested and exiled, though within two years the King relented and permitted his return. Monsieur himself remained incorrigible. Primi Visconti heard that when in the company of the Duc de Créqui, the Marquis de La Vallière and the Marquis d’Effiat, ‘they talked about young men like a group of lovers comparing the charms of young ladies.’56

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  The monarch at the centre of the court was a truly remarkable individual. Louis XIV had inherited the crown in 1643 when he was four years old. The early years of his reign had been troubled by a period of aristocratic insubordination and civil unrest known as the Fronde, but once this had been quelled the royal authority could hardly have been more comprehensively reasserted. By the time the King entered his forties his power was awesome and Primi Visconti was guilty of only slight hyperbole when he wrote, ‘Both within and without the realm all were submissive to him. He only had to desire something to have it. Everything, down to the weather, favoured him … Besides this, he had money, glory and, above all, fine health; in short, he lacked nothing but immortality.’ Somewhat surprisingly, however, this shrewd observer qualified this by saying that he did not envy the King ‘for, in spite of all this, I am sure he was not happy’.57

  In some ways this would appear a curious statement, for the King himself left testimonials that he found his life pleasurable and fulfilling. In his memoir, Reflections on the Calling of a King, he told his son that, providing one was up to the job, theirs was a ‘grand, noble and delicious’ occupation. Elsewhere he vividly described his exhilaration when he first immersed himself in royal business: ‘I could almost feel my spirits and my courage rising … I discovered something new about myself and joyfully wondered how I could have ignored it so long … I knew then that I was King and born for it.’58

  Saint-Simon noted that the King ‘had a natural bent towards details’, and worked extremely hard. He seemingly coped admirably with the pressure. After spending hours in council he amazed people by the apparent ease with which he threw off the cares of government and gave himself over to pleasure. Naturally, however, there were times when he found his work stressful. Even while enthusing to the Dauphin about the satisfactions his position could afford, the King acknowledged ‘it is not exempt from troubles, fatigues and anxieties.’ He even noted that on occasion uncertainty could induce feelings of despair. In private it seems that he intermittently succumbed to depression. A casual mistress of the King’s, Mlle des Oeillets, related that, when with her, the King did not disguise that he ‘had his troubles … Sometimes he sat for whole hours by the fire, very pensive and heaving sighs.’ Her testimony could perhaps be discounted were it not for the fact that, much later in the reign, Louis’s morganatic wife, Mme de Maintenon, said much the same thing. She told a confidante that it fell to her to soothe his ‘griefs … his melancholy and his vapours; sometimes he is seized by sobs which he cannot master.’59

  When France was experiencing difficulties during the Dutch War there were times when Louis fell prey to what might have been psychosomatic illnesses. In 1673 he was tormented by insomnia, and such sleep as he did have was disturbed by ‘dreams, cries and agitations’. For the past four or five years he had also suffered from sporadic fits of ‘the vapours’, a new ailment, which became fashionable at court after the King was diagnosed as a victim. This vague term encompassed a wide series of disorders, which could take the form of headaches, digestive problems and general malaise, ‘which constricts the heart and fogs the mind’. The royal physicians prescribed purgative broths and emollient enemas and, on the whole, these seemed to contain the problem, although in January 1675 the King was assailed by ‘a violent vapour which made his head spin’. This soon passed but in late September the complaint returned in a much fiercer form. The King was plagued by severe headaches, shivering, hot flushes, shortness of breath, lack of appetite, depression, yawning fits, a sensation of weakness in the legs and ‘dryness of stomach’. He did not have a fever, but when he managed to sleep he often woke drenched in sweat. He complained of having a permanently bitter taste in his mouth and the doctors noted that his tongue was heavily coated. Once again d’Aquin prescribed purgative broths and enemas, and insisted that the King must be bled, despite the fact that Louis maintained that this remedy did not agree with him.60

  After six weeks the crisis passed. D’Aquin had no doubts as to what had caused the problem: he declared that these vapours originated from a melancholic humour in the spleen, as was shown by the fact that they were accompanied by depression and a desire for solitude. He explained that, from the spleen, ‘They slide through the arteries to the heart and lungs, where they excite palpitations and anxieties … Rising from there to the brain, they cause giddiness and head spinning by agitating the spirits of the optical nerves.’ D’Aquin also believed that overwork had contributed to the attack, which had been exacerbated by the King’s blood being overheated by ‘the continual fatigues of war.’61

  However, other explanations can be put forward for the King’s ill health at this time. It is possible that the medical treatment he received actually undermined his constitution. Certainly, some people at court thought that Dr Vallot, who died in 1672, made the King take much too strong purgatives. In December 1673 there were concerns that d’Aquin was also overdosing him with laxatives. As d’Aquin indignantly noted, ‘The natural goodness of the courtiers, and their remarkable capacity in all things, particularly medicine, made them say many things against this remedy, of which the King took little notice, and shut them up by saying that he found himself very well for it.’62

  It is also possible that the King occasionally took substances which no doctor had prescribed and which had an adverse effect on him. Saint-Simon claimed that the reason why the King took ‘a highly fashionable bath attendant of Paris’ named Quentin Vienne into his service as a valet was that Vienne had supplied Louis with ‘various drugs reputed to give opportunities of greater [sexual] satisfaction’.63 Furthermore, during the Affair of the Poisons it was suggested that around this time the King’s mistress had been feeding him love philtres, which she obtained illicitly. This gave rise to suspicions that the curious symptoms suffered by the King in 1675 had been caused by cantharides poisoning.

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  It was not just the conduct of state affairs that kept the King under pressure for, as he himself warned his son, ‘Our work is sometimes less difficult than our amusements.’ Louis could not but be acutely aware that there were very few moments in the day when he could escape the court’s scrutiny and he regarded it as his duty to maintain an impeccably regal aura at all times. Primi Visconti observed that though the King occasionally appeared relaxed in private, he would instinctively straighten his bearing and assume a more dignified expression if he thought there was any chance he could be glimpsed through an open door. Courtiers were in attendance even as he dressed in the mornings or sat on the close stool, and a large crowd likewise watched him eat his dinner or retire to bed. Since the King knew he was the cynosure of all eyes his every gesture and look were carefully weighed and carried out with an immaculate poise which so impressed the Abbé Choisy that he declared it was no flattery to describe him as ‘great eve
n in the slightest things.’ Even Saint-Simon, often so critical of the King, wrote admiringly of ‘his polite chivalrous manner which he … knew so well how to combine with stateliness and propriety’.64

  However, the paradox was that although the King was in a sense on permanent display, his was in many ways a very isolated existence. Saint-Simon noted, ‘The awe inspired by his appearance was such that wherever he might be his presence imposed silence and a degree of fear’, and though one of Louis’s generals claimed that he had the knack of putting people at their ease, it is clear that even quite experienced courtiers could be overcome by shyness in his company. The playwright Racine berated himself for the way he became tongue-tied in the royal presence, despite the fact that he saw the King quite often. In 1685 the wit and presence of mind of Mme de Sévigné’s daughter counted for nothing when she was presented to the King, for she was so ‘totally disconcerted by that awesome majesty of his’ that she quite forgot everything she had intended to say.65

  The King himself was generally somewhat taciturn, although he knew how to be a delightful conversationalist. The diplomat Ezechiel Spanheim said that the King ‘spoke little but to the point’ and that in his private conversation he contrived to blend majesty and affability in a manner that was neither too haughty nor informal. Mme de Maintenon’s niece, Mme de Caylus, said that in a few well-chosen words the King could wrap up almost any subject that arose. When he talked seriously, people were impressed by his knowledge and charmed by the way he displayed it. When he discoursed in a lighter vein, it was ‘with infinite grace, with a noble and subtle turn of phrase which I have never known in anyone but him’. His sister-in-law the Duchesse d’Orléans said he could be ‘truly agreeable company’ while Saint-Simon conceded, ‘No man of fashion could tell a tale or set a scene better than he, yet his most casual speeches were never lacking in natural and conscious majesty.’66

  Though the King was naturally drawn towards witty people, and though he was perfectly capable of acquitting himself well in such company, he knew he had to be exceptionally guarded in his social dealings. Louis was well aware of the harm that could be caused by apparently inconsequential remarks and when his son was very young he impressed on him the overriding importance of circumspection. ‘It is not merely in important negotiations that princes must watch what they say; this is also true of their most ordinary and intimate conversations,’ he cautioned.

  Unpleasant as this restraint may be it is absolutely necessary for those in our position to speak of nothing lightly … Things that would be meaningless in the mouth of a private individual often become important when spoken by a prince. He cannot show the slightest disdain towards anyone without wounding him to the heart … One of the best solutions for this is to do more listening than talking, because it is very hard to talk a great deal without saying too much. Even a pleasant conversation about seemingly unimportant things will sometimes lead to the most hidden ones … Little harm has ever come from not having said enough … but infinite misfortunes have resulted from having said too much.67

  The King’s reserve towards his courtiers was not dictated solely by a fear of causing offence, but also because he believed it essential to the preservation of his mystique. The Comte de Bussy declared, ‘By nature the King loves society, but he holds himself back out of policy.’ He explained that the King feared the French tendency to take advantage of attempts at familiarity, leading inevitably to their respecting him less. Comments by the King support this interpretation. He warned his son, ‘Those who are closest to the Prince, being the first to know his weakness … are also the first to abuse it.’ When his grandson was setting out to assume the Spanish Crown, Louis issued the blunt prohibition, ‘Never have an attachment for anybody.’68

  The King’s aloofness was doubtless encouraged by the fact that when he did permit himself to form close bonds with the Marquis de Vardes and the Duc de Lauzun, these two men let him down badly. After they proved unworthy of his affection, the King was said to have commented bitterly that ‘he had looked for friends and found only intriguers’. Both men were punished harshly by Louis, whose anger at such misdemeanours was demonstrated by his remark to his son that ‘my rebel subjects when they have had the audacity to take up arms against me have perhaps provoked me to less indignation than those who, while remaining close to me paid me more respect with greater assiduity than all the rest, when I was well aware that they were betraying me and had no true respect for me or true affection of the heart.’69

  The King was so inscrutable that it was impossible for courtiers to tell from his exterior whether or not things were going well for him. During the Dutch war Primi Visconti noted, ‘The King conducts himself in such a way that one does not know when he is victorious or when he loses. Since the start of his reign he has never been seen to be angry and he has never once sworn.’ The curé of Versailles, Hébert, confirmed this when he praised the King’s ‘perfect equanimity’ which gave no indication ‘whether his affairs had succeeded or if they had had some disappointing outcome’. In 1687 it was considered extraordinary when the King emerged red-faced and angry from a meeting with the Papal Nuncio, and it was clear that something exceptional had occurred to put ‘the most self-possessed prince in the world’ so out of countenance.70

  The King had certainly followed the advice of his late godfather, Cardinal Mazarin, to ‘cultivate that kingly quality of dissimulation which nature has bestowed so lavishly upon you’. He was indeed so skilled at disguising his true feelings that courtiers had no way of knowing how they stood with him. The Marquis de Sourches commented, ‘The King was the most difficult man in the world to know, often making much of people in public when he was dissatisfied with them,’ and the result was that courtiers sometimes failed to realise they had displeased him until they fell irrevocably from favour. In 1693, for example, the court was amazed when the King suddenly dismissed his chief physician, d’Aquin, who until then had been regarded as ‘the best courtier ever’ and thought to possess ‘infinite credit with his master’. Saint-Simon claimed that only the night before, ‘the King had never talked so much to d’Aquin as at his supper … and had never seemed more kindly disposed to him.’71 During the Affair of the Poisons there were other instances when the King behaved similarly. In particular, he continued to treat the Maréchal de Luxembourg with every appearance of cordiality until the very moment when he was ordered to prison on suspicion of sorcery and poisoning.

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  The King might take care that his courtiers could never tell what he was thinking but, conversely, he thought it desirable that they could keep little hidden from him. Colbert noted, ‘All things, great and small, important and trifling, are equally well known to this prince, who never misses an opportunity to make himself acquainted with everything.’ ‘He wants to know everything,’ wrote Primi Visconti, noting that Louis was not just tireless in collecting information from ministers, Presidents of Parlement and judges but also from his mistresses, who were expected to brief him on all the love affairs going on at court. Visconti concluded, ‘In any one day little happens of which he is ignorant and there are few people whose reputation and habits he does not know. He has a perspicacious eye and knows the inmost life of everyone.’72

  According to Saint-Simon, ‘The King was even more interested in gossip than people imagined, although he was known to be vastly inquisitive,’73 He claimed that Louis employed his palace guards to spy on courtiers and certainly private letters were intercepted by the postal service. If they contained anything of interest they were brought to the King’s attention.

  Far from being ashamed of such practices the King believed it essential that he remain abreast of even comparatively insignificant developments at court. He told his son that no ruler could underestimate the importance of ‘keeping an eye on the whole earth … of being informed of an infinite number of things that we are presumed to ignore, of seeing around us what is hidden from us with the greatest care, of discovering the
most remote ideas and the most hidden interests of our courtiers.’ He did not hide that he considered this one of his more ‘pleasant duties’, confiding with endearing honesty, ‘I don’t know, finally, what other pleasures we would not abandon for this one for the sake of curiosity alone.’74 Nearly twenty years after writing this the King would be shaken to discover that despite the energy he devoted to keeping his courtiers under surveillance large numbers had engaged in dubious activities without his knowledge.

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  At times the fawning and sycophancy surrounding the King reached absurd levels. Once, when the Abbé de Polignac was walking with the King in the garden of Marly, Louis’s private retreat near Versailles, it started to rain and the King expressed concern that the Abbé’s cassock afforded him little protection. ‘Sire, that makes no difference, the rain is not wet at Marly,’ the Abbé simpered. The Duc d’Uzès professed an equally strong conviction that the forces of nature were in thrall to the King. When Louis asked him on what day his wife’s baby was expected, he answered, ‘Sire, the day it pleases your Majesty.’ The Duc de Richelieu was scarcely less effusive, declaring on one occasion, ‘I would rather die than go two months without seeing the King.’75

  The King recognised the dangers of excessive flattery and advised his grandson to employ men who dared to tell him unpalatable truths, rather than seeking always to please. To his son he claimed that he sometimes tested his courtiers ‘by encouraging them to praise me even for things that I believed I had done badly, only to reproach them for it immediately.’ There is an anecdote of Primi Visconti that supports this: he relates that after biting into a nasty pear, the King teased ‘the perfect courtier’, the Maréchal de Gramont, by exclaiming, ‘What a delicious fruit! Taste it, Monsieur le Maréchal!’ The Maréchal fell into the trap, proclaiming it ‘an exquisite fruit’, whereupon the King burst out laughing and mischievously offered the pear to other courtiers for their appraisal.76