The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV
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According to one authority, Jean Lemoine,66 the inquiry into the Affair of the Poisons was dominated by Louvois, who directed it for his own ends. As Lemoine saw it, the inquiry coincided with a time when Louvois felt that Colbert was edging ahead of him in the factional rivalry in which they were permanently engaged, for in November 1679 Colbert’s brother had replaced the disgraced Minister for Foreign Affairs, Pomponne. Louvois therefore sought to use the Arsenal Chamber to redress the balance of power by summoning before it individuals who were themselves, or came from families, antagonistic to him. The Bouillons, for example, were closely related to the great general, Turenne, who prior to his death in 1675 had repeatedly clashed with Louvois over the conduct of the Dutch War. The Comtesse de Soissons, Luxembourg, Feuquières and Mme de Montespan were likewise known to be on poor terms with him.
Louvois’s involvement in the affairs of the Chambre Ardente was unofficial, but his interest in it was widely recognised. Primi Visconti stated that the setting up of the Chamber ‘was his work’ and added that many people believed that the tribunal had been brought into being with the express object of ‘satisfying the vengeful desires of two or three individuals’. The father of the Marquis de Feuquières likewise hinted that the Chamber was being used as an instrument of faction when he informed the King that in Sweden it was assumed that it provided ‘a means to satisfy private passions and to sow divisions’. Feuquières himself was sure the inquiry was conducted in a highly partisan manner and that hostile testimony was solicited by Louvois’s stooge, La Reynie, against those whom he wished to bring low.67 Unfortunately, it is difficult to assess the truth of this as the written records of the interrogations often do not include the questions which were put to suspects, but only their answers, with the result that one cannot judge the extent to which they were prodded into incriminating specific individuals.
Others at the time were equally sure that Louvois manipulated events to suit himself. The Marquis de La Fare commented in his memoirs that the Affair of the Poisons provided Louvois, ‘a malignant and hate-filled man, with a fine opportunity to ruin whomsoever he wished’. Before fleeing the country the Comtesse de Soissons reportedly said she dared not stay to defend herself as she knew that her ‘mortal enemy’ Louvois would have no compunction about falsifying evidence against her to secure a conviction. In 1680 the Marquis de Saint-Maurice, who by that time had returned to his native Savoy, was told by an informant in France that Louvois completely controlled the Chambre Ardente, acting ‘to suppress proceedings against some persons and to pursue others to extremity’.68 Certainly it is mysterious that even though serious accusations were made against certain individuals such as the Marquise de Vassé or the Comte de Gassilly, they were never called before the commission. Perhaps the reason why they were left alone was that they enjoyed Louvois’s protection.
However, there is a danger that by placing too much stress on the part of Louvois in these events one overlooks the contribution of the King, which was of key significance. Primi Visconti indeed asserted that one reason why Louvois interfered so energetically in the proceedings of the Chambre Ardente was that he saw it as a way of commending himself to his master, ‘having noticed that he was fearful of poison and that he was intent on extirpating it by the root’.69 Admittedly, it is problematic to gauge the extent of Louis’s involvement. It is not clear, for example, how many of the documents detailing the accusations against eminent people were read by him, or whether he usually relied on Louvois and La Reynie to keep him informed. If he followed the latter course it would, of course, have been easier for them to distort facts and inflame him against selected individuals. Yet the King was not by nature a passive ruler who permitted his ministers to impose on him and it is likely that he monitored this affair with his customary vigilance. When the scandal was at its height it is significant that whenever the King went far away from Paris (as in early 1680, when he went to meet the Dauphine, or that summer, when he went on a northern tour) the Chambre Ardente did not hold hearings in his absence. Clearly, the King did not want to permit it too great autonomy and was determined to remain in control of developments.
The King had no doubt that poison posed a genuine danger to his subjects and was ready to accept that he personally could be at risk from it. The Affair of the Poisons revealed how extraordinarily mistrustful he could be, even towards intimates, and exposed his chilling capacity to believe evil of others. Yet despite its searching nature, the inquiry failed to show that anyone at court had used poison and still less that a single person there had contemplated poisoning Louis. As Primi Visconti put it, ‘Not so much as a bad thought against the King was found.’ Obviously it was disquieting that the Vicomtesse de Polignac had allegedly resorted to conjurations and impious ceremonies to make the King enamoured of her, but even she could be said to have acted from a perverted form of devotion. It merely went some way to proving Primi Visconti’s contention that ‘all at court, particularly the ladies, would have given themselves to the devil for love of the King’.70
There is no doubt that the King was convinced that he was acting in the best interests of the public by setting up the Chambre Ardente and he would have considered it a dereliction of duty if he had intervened to protect eminent people who were suspected of involvement with poisoners. It is conceivable, however, that in encouraging the Chamber to pursue enquiries against such persons the King had an additional agenda, though he may not have acknowledged it, even to himself. The Chambre Ardente provided the King with a means of reminding his courtiers of his authority and checking indiscipline. For a King who prided himself on being well informed about his courtiers, it had been alarming to discover how many were engaged in unauthorised activities and the inquiry afforded him an opportunity to reassert control over them.
It was no accident that the Chambre Ardente contravened the privileges of the nobility, which entitled them to be tried by the highest chamber of Parlement. By insisting that they were subject to the jurisdiction of his special commission, the King had found a new way of subjugating them to his will and anyone who protested at this infringement of his or her rights was penalised. The King ensured that those who felt they had been wrongly treated by the Chambre Ardente could never obtain redress, as when he prevented the Maréchal de Luxembourg from bringing proceedings against La Reynie after his restoration to court. Those summoned before the Chamber were expected to suffer the indignity in silence, for criticism was not tolerated. After being discharged the Marquis de Feuquières wrote an account of his experiences (sadly lost) to his father, but prudence dictated that he sent it to him in cipher. He urged him not to show it to a soul, ‘for I would be a ruined man if certain people came to know of it’.71
In his memoirs the Marquis de La Fare wrote that he was amazed at the meekness with which those affected accepted their treatment by the Chambre Ardente. ‘I do not know whether it must be attributed to the King’s authority or to the servility of the high nobility, which was excessive in this reign,’ he mused. While he did not specify how the individuals concerned could have shown more defiance without disgracing themselves irredeemably, he believed the episode illustrated ‘the contempt which King and ministers had for the grandest people in the country’. Primi Visconti wrote that Louvois considered the Chambre Ardente to be ‘a fine invention to keep subjects on the alert’72 and one may surmise that the King regarded this as an equally desirable outcome. The findings of the commission encouraged people to be more watchful of his safety while reminding the court nobility that their conduct was subject to his scrutiny.
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In the view of Primi Visconti the proceedings of the Chambre Ardente amounted to nothing less than ‘a state inquisition of conscience’, before which ‘all France trembled’. Mme de Sévigné believed there had never been ‘a comparable scandal at a Christian court’ and was sure that people who studied it a hundred years later would ‘pity those who witnessed these indictments’.73 Certainly,
it is an extraordinary story, though sympathy for Mme de Sévigné’s aristocratic acquaintances is not perhaps the dominant emotion it excites.
For three years the realm was convulsed while La Reynie ‘turned upside down the best families in Paris’,74 but the benefits arising from this upheaval were modest. The streets were rid of some undesirable characters and a few cases of murder were resolved, but these could have been settled in the regular courts without undue trouble. By failing to deal harshly with exceptional cases such as Mme Leféron, who may well have killed her husband, the Chamber undermined one of the main reasons for its existence, which was to administer justice impartially even to the rich and well-connected.
The real problem, however, was that the commission had been set up as a result of a fundamental misconception. From the start the obsessive belief that poisoning had reached epidemic proportions and that many important people were involved in it distorted the investigation and prevented those in charge from assessing the evidence dispassionately. As suspects and false leads proliferated, so confusion mounted, until it became difficult to differentiate between the genuinely wicked and those who had merely been misguided. The inquiry showed that the superstitions and delusions which still dominated popular culture retained a following even in the rarefied world of Versailles, but it failed to prove that a significant number of the courtly élite were guilty of anything more serious. Although many people at court were – in the words of Louise de La Vallière – ‘poisoned by the infectious air one incessantly breathes there’,75 this resulted in moral corruption rather than undermining their physical well-being.
The King had sought to cleanse the realm of poisoners, but in reality it was his mind that had been poisoned. In 1670 the Chancellor of the University of Paris had observed that since witches abounded only in areas where people believed in witchcraft this led him to conclude that ‘there are maladies of the imagination which are contagious’.76 In France, during the Affair of the Poisons, when lies, intrigues and exaggerated fears conspired to triumph over reason, a similar affliction can be said to have taken hold.
NOTES
Abbreviations Used
AN
Library of the Assemblée Nationale, Paris
BA
Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris
BN
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
Norton SSV
Lucy Norton, Saint-Simon at Versailles
PRO
Public Record Office, Kew
Rav.
François Ravaission, Archives de la Bastille
Sév.
Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, ed. M. Monmerque
SS (Norton)
Historical Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, ed. and trans. Lucy Norton
SS (Truc)
Saint-Simon, Duc de, Mémoires, ed. Gonzague Truc
Details of books and authors cited are in the Bibliography that follows the Notes.
Foreword
1. Trevor-Roper, p. 119.
2. Lewis, pp. 9–10.
1: Mme de Brinvilliers
1. Clement, Police, p. 119; Pirot I, p. 93.
2. Ibid., pp. 77, 2; Sévigné IV, p. 423.
3. La Rynie believed this story. See Rav. VI, p. 396; see also Primi Visconti, p. 279, La Fare, p. 209.
4. Sév. IV, p. 504.
5. Danjou, p. 120; Pirot I, p. 112; ibid., II, p. 36.
6. Factum pour … Marquise de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 6.
7. Berryer, pp. 175–6.
8. BN 4-FM-15043, Factum pour … veuve … de Saint-Laurens, fo. 7.
9. BN 4-FM-15043, fo. 6; Danjou, p.83.
10. Procès contre … Mme de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 83.
11. Saint-Germain, Mme de Brinvilliers, pp. 123, 76.
12. Rav. IV, pp. 199, 185, 199.
13. BN 4-FM-15043, fos. 7–8.
14. Rav. IV, p. 196; BN 4-FM-15043 fo. 7; Danjou, pp. 83–4.
15. Rav. IV, p. 293; Saint-Germain, Mme de Brinvilliers, pp. 56–7; Rav. IV, p. 293.
16. Glaser, pp. 271, 274–5, 277.
17. Ibid., p. 199.
18. Pirot I, p. 105; Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 104.
19. Rav. IV, p. 244; Fouquier, Brinvilliers, p. 35.
20. Latruffe-Colomb, p. 641.
21. Factum for Pennautier, BN 4-FM-27378, fo. 24; Rav. IV, p. 195; Saint-Germain, Mme de Brinvilliers, pp. 75–6.
22. BN 4-FM-15043, fo. 7; Rav. IV, p. 200; BN 4-FM 15043, fo. 12; Saint-Germain, Mme de Brinvilliers, p. 131; Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 82.
23. Rav. IV, p. 243; Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 84.
24. Factum pour … Mme de Brinvilliers, Danjou, pp. 69–70; Ormesson II, p. 472.
25. Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 85.
26. Ibid., Danjou, p. 86.
27. Rav. IV, pp. 198, 68; Danjou, p. 86; Rav. IV, p. 98.
28. Ibid., p. 195.
29. Ibid., p. 228; Factum pour Pennautier, BN 4-FM 27378, fo. 68.
30. Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 87.
31. La Reynie believed this story, see Rav. VI, p. 396; Factum pour … veuve … de Saint-Laurens, BN 4-FM-15043, fo. 24.
32. Rav. IV, p. 300; Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 89.
33. Procès contre La Chausée, Danjou, p. 116; Rav. IV, p. 67; Factum pour Mme de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 12 says 11 June.
34. Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers, Danjou, pp. 89–90.
35. BN FP-2662, fo. 5; Pirot I, pp. 12–14.
36. Factum du Procès … fait à La Chausée, Danjou, p. 112.
37. Ibid., p. 118.
38. Lebigre, Justice du roi, pp. 208–9, 277n.
39. Rav. VI, p. 396.
40. Esmein, pp. 239–40.
41. Lough, France Observed … by British travellers, p. 109.
42. Rav. IV, pp. 168–9.
43. Her confession is printed in Saint-Germain, Mme de Brinvilliers, pp. 131–2.
44. Sévigné letters, ed. Duchêne, II, p. 279; Rav. IV, p. 227n.
45. Factum pour Marquise de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 28; Procès contre Mme de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 96.
46. Rav. IV, p. 177; Factum pour Mme de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 65.
47. Ibid., p. 72; Rav. IV, pp. 192–3; Robert, p. 42; Fouquier, Mme de Brinvilliers, p. 21.
48. Rav. IV, pp. 203–4.
49. Pirot I, p. 45.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., pp. 89–90.
52. Ibid., p. 160.
53. Sourches I, p. 81n.
54. Saint-Germain, Mme de Brinvilliers, pp. 199–200; Pirot I, p. 177; Soman (i), p. 804.
55. Le François II, pp. 104–7.
56. Rav. VI, p. 117; Pirot II, p. 2.
57. Arrest contre … dame … de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 77.
58. Pirot II, pp. 171–2.
59. Sév. IV, pp. 528–9.
60. Rav. IV, pp. 184, 186.
61. Fouquier, Mme de Brinvilliers, p. 12.
62. Rav. IV, pp. 178, 188–9.
63. Le François II, p. 229.
64. Pirot I, p. 199; ibid. II, p. 101.
65. Sév. IV, pp. 534, 541–2; BN 4-FM-15043, fo. 14.
66. BN FP 2662, fos. 24–25.
67. Saint-German, Mme de Brinvilliers, p. 199.
68. Pirot I, p. 203.
69. Sév. IV, pp. 506–7; Clement, Police, p. 123.
70. Colbert VI, p. 45; Primi Visconti, pp. 281, 280.
71. Sév. IV, p. 552.
72. BN 4-FM-27378; BN FP 2662.
73. Rav. VI, p. 18.
74. Sévigné letters, ed. Duchêne, II, p. 1247; Sév. IV, pp. 541–2; Sévigné letters, ed. Duchêne, III, p. 1148; Primi Visconti, p. 281.
75. BN 4-FM-27378, fo. 19; Clement, Police, p. 122.
76. Factum pour … Marquise de Brinvilliers, Danjou, p. 5.
77. Rav. VI, p. 397; Pirot II, p. 105; Fouquier, Brinvilliers, p. 16.
2: Louis XIV and his Court
1. Sévigné, ed. Duchêne II, pp. 350–3.
2. Choisy I, p. 169; La Fare, pp. 175–6, 180; Voltaire I, p. 160.
3. Ibid., p. 424; Gould, p. 123; Lough, Locke’s Travels, p. 150.
4. King, pp. 290, 293, 299–300; Dunlop, Versailles, p. 28.
5. Voltaire I, pp. 12–13; Bluche, Louis XIV, p. 121, Sonnino, p. 30.
6. Ibid., pp. 42, 37, 242; Spanheim, pp. 74, 93.
7. Wolf, p. 230.
8. Sév. III, pp. 415–16; Voltaire I, p. 161.
9. Clement, Mme de Montespan, p. 383; Norton, SSV, p. 262.
10. Sévigné, ed. Duchêne II, p. 353; Felibien, Versailles, pp. 31, 33.
11. Lafayette, Memoirs of the Court, p. 191.
12. Lough, op. cit., p. 172; Mongredien, Vie Quotidienne, p. 38; Norton, SSV, p. 264.
13. Kroll, p. 110; Dangeau VII, p. 36n; Bussy III, p. 456.
14. Lough, op. cit., p. 268.
15. Sonnino, p. 176.
16. Voltaire I, p. 335.
17. Maintenon, Conseils I, p. 118.
18. Primi Visconti, p. 252; Mossiker, Madame de Sévigné, pp. 300–1.
19. Patin III, p. 496; d’Antin, p. 77.
20. Sourches I, p. 138n; Vallot, p. 108, Patin III, p. 784; Magne, pp. 2–3; SS (Norton) I, p. 82.
21. Couton, p. 45; Kroll, p. 37.
22. Elias, p. 94.