The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (26 page)

FOUR

THE FIRST ARRESTS

The Affair of the Poisons can be said to have started with the arrest in February 1677 of Magdelaine de La Grange. At the time this had seemed an event of little significance. Later described by the Chief of the Paris Police as ‘the cleverest and most wicked woman in the world’, Magdelaine de La Grange was the thirty-six-year-old widow of a tax collector who had been hanged for receiving stolen goods. Like many others in Paris at the time, she operated as a fortune-teller or ‘divineress’ and claimed to have predicted successfully developments in the Dutch War and the timing of the Queen’s pregnancies. She also exploited people’s fears by suggesting to clients in poor health that they had been poisoned and offering to provide an antidote.
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However, it subsequently emerged that her knowledge about poison was more extensive than that.

For eight years Mme de La Grange had ‘lived like a queen’ in the house of an elderly lawyer named Jean Faurye. At the end of this time – according to her – he had decided to make her his wife. On 17 August 1676 she had visited a notary’s office, accompanied by a man who identified himself as Faurye. After the couple had showed the notary their marriage certificate, the purported Faurye instructed him to draw up a marriage contract arranging that all his wealth should pass to his new wife in the event of his predeceasing her. Shortly after this Faurye had, in fact, died. His relations, who had counted on inheriting his estate, were naturally upset at having their expectations overturned. They lodged a formal complaint at the Châtelet and as a result an investigation was mounted. This led the Criminal Lieutenant of Paris to conclude that Mme de La Grange’s marriage certificate was a forgery and that the gentleman who had gone to the notary’s with her was in reality Abbé Nail, the priest who supposedly had conducted the marriage. Furthermore, there were grounds for suspecting that Faurye had been poisoned. Consequently, Magdelaine de La Grange and Nail were arrested, and confined in separate prisons to await trial on charges of forgery and murder.

In February 1677 Mme de La Grange sent a letter from prison to the Marquis de Louvois. She intimated that she had discovered that one of her fellow prisoners was a spy and she had uncovered information from him which had the gravest implications for national security. Taking this very seriously, Louvois at once arranged for Mme de La Grange to be taken to his Paris house so he could question her in person.

The involvement of Louvois was an extraordinary development, for he was one of the most powerful men in France. Born in 1639, he had since his early youth been groomed by his father, Michel Le Tellier – who himself had become Secretary for War in 1643 – to serve the King. In 1662, aged only twenty-two, he had won the right to style himself ‘Secretary of State’ and to deputise for his father when the latter was absent or ill. During the next few years he and his father had together carried out the major reforms which transformed the French army into the most formidable fighting force in Europe. Though Le Tellier in theory remained Secretary for War until 1677, by 1670 Louvois was probably more active in the War Department than his father and his contribution to France’s ultimate victory in the Dutch War was immense. Having been promoted to a Minister of State in 1672, Louvois would be formally created Minister of War in October 1677, following Le Tellier’s appointment as Chancellor. His power was further enhanced by various lesser positions, including that of Superintendent of the Postal Service, which enabled him to intercept and read all private correspondence that passed through France.

Louvois drove himself very hard and laboured indefatigably on the King’s behalf. ‘I’ve never known a man work so much,’ the Marquis de Saint-Maurice declared in 1667. He was also a natural bully who did not consider politeness a priority. Even the King, who valued Louvois as an indispensable servant, would declare, once he was dead, that Louvois had been ‘an unbearable man’ and among those who had less cause to be grateful to him he excited feelings of intense dislike. The King’s sister-in-law, the Duchesse d’Orléans, subsequently recalled, ‘Louvois made himself hated by everyone on account of his brutality and coarse speech. He had no refinement and was a detestable man.’ He was physically unattractive, with a corpulent figure and jowly face, and his manners were extraordinarily brusque. Describing him as ‘mordant and peremptory in command, demanding complete submission to his wishes’, the Venetian ambassador noted that Louvois not only ignored the complaints of subordinates but was less than deferential to some of the principal personages at court.
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Besides inspiring hostility, Louvois was ruthless about pursuing vendettas. His greatest rival was the Controller-General of Finance, Colbert. While there could be no question of Louvois unseating a man who enjoyed the King’s complete confidence, the friction between the two was palpable. In 1671 Michel Le Tellier remarked sadly that, though he had tried to cultivate amicable relations with Colbert, his son seemed set on warring with him. Louvois had still fewer reservations about antagonising other important figures. During the Dutch War he inspired fury among high-ranking officers with his insistence that they conform to his will, and even came into conflict with the great generals Condé and Turenne. Later it would be alleged that Louvois used the Affair of the Poisons – in which he played an active role from the start – to pursue ‘personal enmities’ by encouraging the persecution of individuals who had annoyed him or who were affiliated to Colbert.
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Having interviewed Magdelaine de La Grange, Louvois notified the King, who ordered that she should be transferred to the Bastille for further questioning. Louvois then instructed the Chief of the Paris Police, M. de La Reynie, to assume personal charge of the interrogations. While acknowledging that de La Grange might be lying in order to delay her forthcoming trial, Louvois explained that it was impossible to be too careful when it came to the sort of matters of which she had spoken.
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There could be no doubting the efficiency of Nicolas Gabriel de La Reynie, the taciturn and sombre figure who had been Chief of the Paris Police for the past ten years. Now aged fifty-one, La Reynie had started his career serving in provincial government before purchasing a post as a Maître de Requêtes in the Paris
Parlement.
As such he had both served as an appeal court judge and had given legal advice to the Crown, tasks he had carried out so ably that he had attracted the notice of Colbert. The latter had, indeed, been on the verge of putting him in charge of admiralty reform and harbour regulation when La Reynie had been entrusted with a still greater challenge. In his capacity as a crown lawyer he had attended the meetings held in 1666 to discuss the policing of Paris and there it had been decided that a new post, the Lieutenant-General of the Paris Police, should be created. On 15 March 1667 La Reynie was given this position by the King, who declared he had chosen him because he did not know ‘a better man or a more hardworking magistrate’.
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The King made it clear that he would do everything possible to uphold the new Police Chief’s authority. He wrote to Colbert, ‘I shall submit
myself
to the rulings of this police and I intend that all shall respect and obey them as I will.’ Such royal support was vital, for the task that confronted La Reynie was daunting. Colbert commented to the King that the Police Chief would have to be ‘unflinching as a magistrate and intrepid as a soldier. He must not pale before the river in flood or plague in the hospitals any more than before popular uproar or the threats of your courtiers, for it must be expected that the court will not be the last to complain of the useful rigour of a police, carried on in the interests of the well-being and security of all.’
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These were prophetic words, for La Reynie’s handling of the Affair of the Poisons would indeed bring him into confrontation with some of the most high-born and influential figures in the country.

La Reynie’s responsibilities were multifarious and extended to many areas which today are not regarded as the province of a police force. It has been suggested, indeed, that in some ways his role was more akin to that of a modern mayor or chief executive of a great city than a present-day chief of police.
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Great importance was attached to the control of public order by prohibiting the unauthorised carrying of weapons and suppressing civil disturbances, but La Reynie was also charged with dealing with emergencies such as fire and floods. Besides this, it fell upon him to monitor the capital’s food supplies and prices in times of scarcity, repress vagrancy and prostitution, regulate the traffic, institute precautions against the plague and enforce censorship. In addition he oversaw numerous administrative tasks, such as improving hygiene in streets and public places, inspecting hostelries, inns and taverns, and ensuring that commercial regulations were observed.

La Reynie had achieved an enormous amount in a short time and in some respects had transformed Paris. Prior to his appointment Paris had the reputation of being the filthiest city in the world, clogged by stinking mud that made walking an ordeal and stained clothes indelibly. La Reynie effected a marked improvement, partly through the simple expedient of forcing householders to clean the space in front of their property. He lessened the risk that Paris might be consumed by a catastrophe on the scale of the Great Fire of London by obliging householders to maintain their backyard wells in good working order. Perhaps most commendably of all, he introduced an extensive system of street lighting, arranging in 1667 that 6500 lanterns should be strung across the city streets. This was not merely a desirable amenity but drastically reduced nocturnal crime. Primi Visconti noted that, whereas before Paris was looked on as ‘a nest of thieves and murderers’, by 1676 it was considered safe to move about it at two in the morning.
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In addition to all this, in 1674 the King had put La Reynie in charge of the special commission that had investigated and tried a treasonous conspiracy led by the Chevalier de Rohan, and Louis had been much impressed by the efficient way La Reynie conducted the case. At the time La Reynie had told Colbert that he had made it a priority to punish only the most important culprits, rather than to pursue all the ramifications of the affair. He explained that while he had been careful not to overlook anything of importance, he had become concerned that if the prisons of Paris were filled with too many suspects, people would begin to think that the innocent were being caught in the net along with the guilty.
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It would, perhaps, have been desirable if La Reynie had kept these precepts in mind when he came to deal with the Affair of the Poisons, for the inquiry into that became alarmingly diversified, with a consequent loss of focus.

La Reynie has invariably received favourable treatment from historians. This is partly on account of his undoubted achievements but also because he was eulogised in the memoirs of Saint-Simon. When La Reynie retired in 1697 Saint-Simon praised him for the equity and impartiality he had always shown, noting that while he had always performed his duty with the utmost exactitude, he had harmed people as little and as rarely as possible. In conclusion, Saint-Simon declared that he was ‘a man of great virtue and capacity who … should have attracted the hatred of the public, but who acquired universal esteem’.
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This panegyric was not strictly accurate for, during the Affair of the Poisons, La Reynie was regarded with loathing by many people at court. This, of course, can be taken to demonstrate that his unflinching integrity led him to do his duty even in the face of opposition in high quarters, but one should be cautious of assuming that La Reynie had right on his side at all times. Some of those who came under suspicion during the affair claimed that he distorted evidence against them and put pressure on witnesses to incriminate them, and these allegations cannot be automatically dismissed.

It should be borne in mind that Saint-Simon was particularly favourably disposed to La Reynie on account of the fact that the latter was an executor of a contested will of which Saint-Simon was ultimately a major beneficiary. During the Affair of the Poisons La Reynie may also have been influenced by political considerations. At the time of his appointment he was looked on as a protégé of Colbert’s but in the intervening years he had drawn closer to Louvois and he undoubtedly considered it desirable to uphold the latter’s interests. One cannot even exclude the possibility that at times during the affair he was pursuing an agenda of his own. Following his second marriage, La Reynie had become embroiled in a legal dispute with the Bouillon family over his wife’s inheritance and it is permissible to wonder whether this affected his treatment of the Duchesse de Bouillon.
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While this can never be more than a suspicion, it is indisputable that La Reynie’s personal prestige became bound up with the outcome of the Affair of the Poisons and there were times when this clouded his judgement.

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As Louvois requested, La Reynie questioned Mme de La Grange at the Bastille. Moving beyond her earlier claim that she knew about an espionage ring that threatened France, she now started implying that both the King and the Dauphin were in danger of assassination. She produced little evidence for this but stated that her lover, Faurye, had been poisoned (though not by her) for ‘secret reasons’ connected with the royal family’s safety.
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Despite their flimsy nature, her warnings were passed on to the King. He found them disturbing, but when she failed to reveal anything more under repeated probing he lost patience. In June Mme de La Grange was transferred back to the Conciergerie to await trial. From there she continued to write to Louvois but her letters were ignored.