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

by Anne Somerset

  Saint-Maurice stressed at the time that the Comtesse de Soissons appeared very upset by the death of her husband but years later the Duc de Saint-Simon (who was less than six months old when Soissons died) would assert that people at court always suspected her of having killed him. Certainly, when the Comtesse fled France in January 1680 it was at once assumed that Mme Voisin had indicated she had poisoned her husband, though in fact la Voisin had not suggested anything of the sort. Yet even those who most readily entertained the possibility that Mme de Soissons could have done such a thing were mystified as to her motive, for the Comte de Soissons was known to have been the most accommodating of husbands. At one point during the Comtesse’s affair with the Marquis de Vardes, Soissons had taken the trouble to reconcile the lovers after they had quarrelled, and after Vardes had been expelled from court Soissons had not objected when his wife had embarked on an affair with the Marquis de Villeroi. On hearing of the Comtesse’s precipitate flight from France the Marquis de La Rivière commented that for her to have murdered her husband would have been ‘a crime as unreasonable as it is great’ for ‘why kill a man who let her live in complete freedom with all others?’23

  As the Marquis de Saint-Maurice had pointed out at the time, Soissons’s death certainly had not benefited his wife in material terms. Though she herself was independently wealthy, during his lifetime she had become aware that Soissons had failed to make adequate provision for his children in the event of an early death. Had he lived longer he might have been able to rectify the position, but as it was he left his children severely straitened. Furthermore, without her husband’s protection, the Comtesse’s own status at court became more precarious. The fact that she so clearly resented the King’s failure to confer the Comte de Soissons’s military and administrative posts on her sons merely made Louis more ill disposed towards her, and his decision in 1679 to remove her from her post of Surintendante of the Queen’s household emphasised how isolated she had become. The King may have been slightly nervous that her late husband’s relatives in Savoy would protest at her treatment, but when informed the Duchess of Savoy made no objection. In 1680 he was therefore confident that he could take action against the Comtesse with impunity.

  Some observers considered that Mme de Soissons had done the right thing by fleeing in order to avoid imprisonment and the ‘shame of being confronted by hags and villains’. Having made enquiries, Mme de Sévigné had been amazed to learn that the things of which the Comtesse had been accused were ‘mere fooleries, which she had told everyone about a thousand times’. In the circumstances she sympathised with the Comtesse’s decision to absent herself, declaring, ‘There is something quite noble and natural about this way of proceeding and for my part I approve of it.’ Others, however, took the view that Mme de Soissons had left the country because she knew herself to be guilty of serious crimes. M. de La Rivière was sure that ‘Mme de Soissons’s aversion to being locked up in no way justifies her escape … I see clearly that she has not taken the part of an innocent.’ M. Brayer was equally convinced that her flight could be taken as proof of her guilt.24

  It certainly put her in a disastrous position from a legal point of view. The King was very pleased that she had spared him the embarrassment of bringing her to trial and although he went through the charade of sending soldiers to the border with orders to bring her back if they overtook her, it is clear that the last thing he wanted was for her to be captured. However, by removing herself from French jurisdiction she had indisputably committed a contempt, which constituted a capital offence in itself. The result was that on three successive days an announcement was read out in Paris to the sound of trumpets, formally branding her contumacious.

  The irony is that all the evidence suggests that had she stayed in France she would in all probability have been vindicated. The Marquis de Sourches later acknowledged this, noting that La Reynie could never have found sufficient proofs to convict her, while the Marquis de La Fare expressed the view that even the order to arrest her was quite unjustifiable. Certainly, the allegations against her scarcely amounted to much, even though Mme Voisin had by now somewhat embellished her original account of the Comtesse de Soissons’s visit to her. On 16 January la Voisin recalled that after the Comtesse had spoken angrily of the way the King had discarded her for Louise de La Vallière, she had said that, unless things changed, ‘she would do away with one or the other’. Yet if Mme la Comtesse had said such a thing – and the evidence rests on la Voisin’s word alone – there was no reason to think that she had ever taken steps to execute her threat. However, as Mme de Sévigné remarked, the matter related to the King and ‘everything is significant on such a subject’.25

  Louvois appears to have been conscious that the charges levelled against Mme de Soissons were embarrassingly meagre and he did his best to lengthen the indictment. On 3 February he excitedly informed La Reynie that he now understood that, with the aid of a woman called Rouvière, Mme de Soissons had killed two or three of her servants who had inconvenienced her in some way, but this does not seem to have proved a fruitful line of enquiry. Six weeks later Louvois asked La Reynie to pursue the matter on his behalf, for his own efforts ‘would only serve to cause sensation and could prevent one from knowing the truth’.26 Since nothing came of this, one must assume that La Reynie fared no better in his bid to accumulate more evidence implicating Mme de Soissons.

  Louvois’s attempts to compile a damaging dossier against Mme de Soissons goes some way to support Primi Visconti’s contention that the Minister was motivated by an ‘old rancour’ against her and her late husband. Visconti believed that Louvois had conceived a lasting grudge after Soissons had mocked him when he fell off his horse out hunting, while Mme de Soissons had caused offence more recently when she had been contemptuous of the suggestion that Louvois’s daughter might marry one of her sons. She was said to have scoffed, ‘A fine thing it would be to see a bourgeoise the wife of a prince’ and Louvois never forgave her for this. Several sources allege that Louvois vindictively pursued her in exile and it is certainly true that a spy kept him informed of the hostile reception she was given by the populace in Brussels when first she settled there. According to Abbé Choisy, she only experienced such difficulties because Louvois arranged for funds to be distributed among the local street urchins, in return for their shouting insults as she passed. Mme de Sévigné and Primi Visconti both heard that one of Louvois’s agents surreptitiously released a horde of black cats into a church where Mme de Soissons was attending a service, provoking panic among the congregation that a witch was in their midst.27

  Primi Visconti suggested that for his own part the King had been reluctant to take action against the Comtesse de Soissons. Visconti was sure that he had only done so because Louvois had misrepresented the evidence against her, making out that the Comtesse had been set on the King’s destruction, despite the absence of proof for such a claim. The Marquis de La Fare was more inclined to blame La Reynie for the unfair way Mme de Soissons was treated and Primi Visconti did not dispute that La Reynie, too, was guilty of an abuse of power in her regard. He reported that when the other commissioners complained to the Police Chief that there was no justification for ordering her arrest and that she should instead have merely been called in for questioning, La Reynie arrogantly rejected their objections on the grounds that ‘it was the King’s will that she be imprisoned’.28

  One should not, however, exclude the possibility that in saying this La Reynie was simply telling the truth and that the King played a far more active role in the persecution of Mme de Soissons than her sympathisers were prepared to concede. Though Louvois may have spurred him on, the King had inspected the written reports of at least some of la Voisin’s and Lesage’s interrogations before authorising the arrests of people of rank and he should therefore have been aware of the limited nature of the evidence against Mme de Soissons. Considering the insubstantial nature of the allegations, it is curious how intractable he showed himself towar
ds her. There is more than one report suggesting that Mme de Soissons tried to negotiate terms for her return. She was said to have requested that she should be placed under house arrest rather than in Vincennes or the Bastille while awaiting trial or, more moderately still, that the King would guarantee her case would come to court within six months. Louis firmly refused to give any such undertakings.29

  It is impossible to say whether the King genuinely suspected that the Comtesse de Soissons had murdered her husband, or that she had contemplated killing him or Louise de La Vallière. What is clear is that over the years he had come to distrust and dislike her intensely and that, knowing her as he did, he found it easy to believe that she had uttered the menacing words la Voisin had attributed to her. He had therefore determined not to tolerate her presence and, by her precipitate flight, Mme de Soissons had freed him from the burden of proving she was guilty.

  Ten years after Mme de Soissons had left the country, the King’s sister-in-law, the Duchesse d’Orléans, expressed her view of the matter. Though her judgement tended to be wild and unmeasured, in this instance her analysis seems shrewd. When her aunt asked her for her opinion of the Comtesse, the Duchesse wrote, ‘From what I know of her I should say she was quite innocent of causing her husband’s death. I do not believe that she poisoned him and I don’t think they really believe it of her either, but only pretend to do so in order to frighten her and drive her … to seek flight, for she is feared because she is very clever and supposed to be an intriguer.’30

  * * *

  The Marquise d’Alluye, who had loyally accompanied the Comtesse de Soissons into exile in Flanders, was subsequently permitted to return to Paris, but even so she paid a high price for her friendship with her. She had not even been present when the Comtesse had had her fateful encounter with Mme Voisin, all those years ago, for though they had gone to her house together, Mme d’Alluye (or Mlle de Fouilloux, as she then was) had waited in the garden while Mme de Soissons had gone into the consulting room. La Voisin had testified that after Mme de Soissons had left her, Mlle de Fouilloux had asked whether the Comtesse would succeed in destroying her rival and regain her former favour with the King. This had been enough to ensure that Mme d’Alluye had been summoned to appear before the Chamber. After her departure from Paris it was rumoured that she had poisoned her aged father-in-law, but the only reason for such conjecture was that it was assumed she would never have been called before the commission unless suspected of a major crime.31

  Mme d’Alluye’s husband had stayed behind in Paris when she absconded and in her absence he loyally defended her. He maintained that the Chamber had overreached itself and tried to incite others who had been called before it to assert their rights. He sought to persuade the Duc de Bouillon that he should not let his wife be questioned by the commissioners, reminding that none but the highest court of Parlement was entitled to try members of the nobility. Alluye only succeeded in incensing the King, who ordered him to withdraw to Amboise. Though he was later allowed to come back to Paris, he remained barred from court until his death in 1690.32

  As for the Marquise d’Alluye, she was permitted to return to Paris after Louvois’s senior clerk was prevailed upon to intercede on her behalf, but she too never reappeared at court. She does not seem to have minded her exclusion very much, for Saint-Simon reported she led a delightful existence in the capital, free of ‘care or constraint and entirely given up to pleasure’. Recording her death in 1720, Saint-Simon related that she had

  spent her entire life immersed in love affairs and, when age forbade them for herself, lived just as passionately those of other people … Until the moment of her death she was the receptacle for the secrets of all the gallants of Paris who came each morning to confide in her. She doted on society and gambling … and spent everything she possessed at cards … So she lived, plump and hearty, free from all infirmities until she died at eighty-five after a very short illness.33

  The Comtesse de Soissons, who died in 1708, was prohibited from ever returning to France. When she first arrived in Brussels she had a disagreeable time, for the populace reviled her as a witch whenever she drove through the streets. Her notoriety soon faded, however, since the grander residents of the city were much more welcoming. The Duchess of Modena proclaimed her the victim of a serious injustice and before long the Comtesse settled down so well that she acquired a new lover. He was the Prince of Parma, a fat and gouty grandee who was perhaps not the most romantic of figures but who represented quite a conquest for a lone female fugitive in her late forties.34

  In August 1682 there were reports in France that the Comtesse was poised to return, but if the King had ever contemplated sanctioning this he ultimately thought better of it. Accordingly, Mme de Soissons’s exile continued. After travelling for a time in Germany, in 1686 she went to Madrid in hopes of arranging a prestigious match for one of her sons. There she struck up a friendship with the young Queen Marie Louise, a niece of Louis XIV’s who had married Charles II of Spain in 1679. When news of this reached Louis, he was appalled at the prospect of his inexperienced niece falling under the influence of a woman whom he viewed with such aversion. He ordered his ambassador in Spain, the Comte de Rebenac, to stay ‘well informed about [Mme de Soissons’s] intrigues in order to give the Queen advice on the matter that best suits her interests’.35

  In October 1688 the Comtesse de Soissons became caught up in a fresh controversy. It would seem that the King of Spain suffered from premature ejaculation (in the delicate words of the French ambassador, he ‘had a natural debility, which was attributed to too much vivacity on the part of the King’) and this had prevented him from consummating his marriage. In the autumn of 1688 he suddenly decided that his incapacity had been caused by the Comtesse de Soissons bewitching him and consequently he sent orders that she should leave Spain. The Comtesse appealed to the Queen but, to her annoyance, Marie Louise said she should do as the King desired. Undaunted, the Comtesse gained the support of the Imperial ambassador in Madrid, the Comte de Mansfeld, and he evidently prevailed on the King to permit her to remain a while longer, for she did not leave Spain till the following summer.36

  On 12 February 1689 Queen Marie Louise of Spain died after enduring ‘three days of continual vomiting and colic’. The circumstances were remarkably reminiscent of the agonising death of her mother, the Duchesse d’Orléans, nearly twenty years earlier, and though Marie Louise herself insisted that poison was not responsible it was inevitable that in France there were suspicions she had been murdered. In his memoirs Saint-Simon asserted that she was poisoned by the Comtesse de Soissons in league with the Comte de Mansfeld, who wanted to break the alliance between France and Spain. Saint-Simon stated that the Comtesse gave the Queen iced milk, which had been poisoned at the Imperial embassy, and then immediately left the country before the King could apprehend her.37 However, since the Comtesse remained in Spain till July 1689, the story is patently inaccurate.

  The Comte de Rebenac did have grave concerns about the manner of the Queen’s death, but he believed the most likely culprits were the Spanish nobles the Count of Oropesa and Don Emmanuel de Lira, aided by the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, the Duchess of Albuquerque. Had the Comtesse de Soissons enjoyed access to the Queen, it is inconceivable that he would have failed to name her as a prime suspect but, when the Queen died, the Comtesse had been excluded from court for several months.38

  One certainly cannot rule out that the Queen of Spain was poisoned in 1689. The faction at the Spanish court that desired closer links with Vienna undoubtedly had strong motives for wishing to be rid of her, and Marie Louise herself had reportedly expressed fears for her safety when writing home. She had requested that antidotes to poison be sent to Spain for her own use and a consignment from her father was said to have arrived there the day after she died.39 The available evidence is not sufficient to resolve the question once and for all (though, once again, porphyria has been posited as a possible cause of death) but one can at least
be reasonably certain that Saint-Simon wronged the Comtesse de Soissons when he laid the blame at her door.

  After leaving Spain the Comtesse de Soissons once again took up residence in Brussels. There are signs that she still pined for her former life in Paris and a letter she wrote in July 1692 also suggests that she recognised that her decision to leave France without facing trial had been a catastrophic error. By that time France was again at war and the Comtesse wrote to the Maréchal de Luxembourg (who was in charge of the army of Flanders) requesting that she should be permitted to travel unmolested about the environs of Brussels. ‘Who would have said in days gone by that I should be reduced to such an extremity,’ she lamented, ‘I, who was accustomed to receiving the favours of the greatest King in the world.’ Then, alluding to the fact that Luxembourg had been implicated in the Affair of the Poisons and had been vindicated at his trial, she noted that they had a mutual experience of misfortune, adding wistfully that her disgrace would doubtless have been as ephemeral as his if it had been fitting ‘for a woman like me to adopt the course you followed’.40

  But though it is clear that the Comtesse de Soissons was still bitter at the way she had been forced to forsake her adopted homeland, it is not true, as Saint-Simon claimed, that her final years in Brussels were spent in penury and loneliness. To the end of her days she occupied an eminent position in Brussels society and, far from being ostracised, she welcomed at her salon French acquaintances from former years who were passing through the town. She no doubt also derived consolation from the knowledge that her younger son, Prince Eugène, had exacted a satisfying revenge for the humiliations she had endured. Denied a position in the French army by Louis XIV, the Prince had volunteered his services to the Emperor and, as commander of the Imperial forces in the War of the Spanish Succession, he inflicted a sequence of crushing defeats on the French.