The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (40 page)

Few present on this lavish occasion would have guessed that a sordid scandal would shortly tarnish the lustre of the court. Some of the guests would be directly affected: the Princesse de Tingry, for example, would soon have to defend herself against accusations of black magic and poison. The sister-in-law of the Cardinal de Bouillon, who had conducted the wedding ceremony, would likewise find herself the object of hostile scrutiny and others invited to the party would before long flee the country in disgrace. By another irony, Racine’s
Iphigenia
was performed at the start of the evening; those who watched the play with enjoyment were ignorant of the fact that only five days earlier Louvois had told Bezons that if he thought it appropriate, arrangements could be made for the author’s arrest.

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Since their audience with the King in late December, La Reynie and Bezons had been diligently pursuing their enquiries. Mme Voisin had been relentlessly interrogated and fresh confrontations had been staged between her and Lesage. On each occasion Lesage had been indefatigable in heaping fresh accusations on her head, but though she had indignantly denied these, she had stood by her earlier claims regarding her aristocratic clients.

Lesage proved eager to supplement his evidence in other ways. In early January he asserted that President Lamoignon, who had died nearly eighteen months after he had presided over Mme de Brinvilliers’s trial, had been poisoned. An autopsy had been carried out at the time, which had concluded that death had been caused by a stone blocking the ureter and preventing urination, but Lesage’s alternative explanation was taken very seriously. Lamoignon’s son was informed and busied himself questioning his late father’s servants to see if he could find out if anyone had held a grudge against the dead man. To La Reynie he wrote earnestly, ‘I do not doubt that if this terrible crime has been committed, God will provide enlightenment so it is not left unpunished.’ By the end of the month he was making dark hints that perhaps the Comtesse de Soissons was behind the murder. He claimed that when the Brinvilliers case was being investigated, his father had ‘found out something about Mme la Comtesse de Soissons’, and that she had never forgiven the President.
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Since he provided no further details it is impossible to judge whether his suspicions of the Comtesse had even the slightest justification.

Although on the whole Lesage was guaranteed an attentive hearing some of the claims he put forward at this time were so manifestly absurd that they were rejected out of hand. At one point he claimed that M. de Riantz, Attorney-General at the Châtelet, and M. d’Effita, the Criminal Lieutenant of Paris, had systematically protected Parisian poisoners and that this explained why crime had flourished in the capital in recent years. Carried away by his own eloquence, he urged that vigorous action be taken against the miscreants, fulminating, ‘Nothing at all must be spared on the issue of poisons, as much with regard to those who have sold it as to those who have authorised the trade, as they have done with all the other detestable crimes of which they have been the accomplices and protectors.’
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Lesage’s aspersions against these two eminent lawyers were dismissed but this did not result in other parts of his testimony being treated with greater caution.

On 15 January Louvois wrote to M. Robert, who was acting as the
Chambre Ardente’s
Attorney-General. Robert was evidently alarmed by the prospect of bringing people of the highest rank before the commission and Louvois hastened to reassure him that he need not worry about the consequences. Louvois noted,

The problems … which you are worried about, that some of these procedures will result in the discrediting of important persons, might well happen, but it would be worse if it was seen that his Majesty had given protection to people accused of crimes of the sort in question. It is this which has made him take the position of leaving everything to the conduct of the judges and in all these matters to use his authority only to support the execution of things which might be asked of him for the cause of justice.
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Louvois explained that the King’s resolve to see things through was such that he had made only two provisos. Louis had asked that if, in future, further allegations were made against important court figures such as the Duchesse de Vivonne, he should be kept informed. Furthermore, although he had not seen fit to question the accusations against some of the grandest people in the realm, he had urged that caution should be exercised with regard to one individual. As Louvois explained, the King had been reluctant to accept that Mme de Montespan’s former chambermaid – and his former lover – Mlle des Oeillets, could be mixed up in anything disreputable, considering it ‘impossible that Lesage told the truth when he spoke of her’.
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Accordingly, Louis had indicated that she should not be bothered by the Commission unless Lesage’s testimony was verified by others. As yet there was no sign of this, for whenever Mme Voisin was questioned about Mlle des Oeillets she insisted she had never laid eyes on her. Accordingly, Mlle des Oeillets was left in peace but the lives of others named by la Voisin and Lesage were now disrupted in the most dramatic fashion.

*   *   *

On 23 January 1680 arrest warrants were issued for the Comtesse de Soissons, the Vicomtesse de Polignac, the Marquis de Cessac and the Maréchal-Duc de Luxembourg. Lesser forms of summons were served on the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Comtesse du Roure, the Princesse de Tingry, the Marquis d’Alluye and the Marquis de Feuquières, who were all subpoenaed to appear at the Arsenal to answer questions on specified days.

The news caused stupefaction in Paris society and at court. Mme de Sévigné informed her daughter that all was in chaos, saying that the only event she could recall having a comparable impact had occurred ten years earlier, when an engagement had been announced between the King’s cousin, the Duchesse de Montpensier, and the Comte de Lauzun. As on that day, everyone became frantic with curiosity, rushing to friends’ houses to exchange the latest gossip. Père du Rosel assured the Prince de Condé that the talk in Paris was of nothing else and Mme de Sévigné echoed this although, frustratingly, she added that it would be imprudent to set down in writing all that was being said.
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At the outset the general consensus was that those who were to be remanded in prison must have committed terrible crimes for, as the English ambassador pointed out, ‘they are of a rank not to be treated severely without good evidence’. He added, ‘There is great astonishment here as everyone is linked to those accused through affection or family ties.’ The Venetian ambassador pitied the predicament of the King, whose repose had been shattered by the discovery that he was surrounded by untrustworthy persons. The ambassador did not doubt that the King was ‘greatly upset to see the greatest lords in the realm defiled by such excesses’ and that he felt ‘insecure in the midst of so many criminals’. It was widely believed that the scandal was still in its infancy and more arrests would follow. The Maréchal d’Estrades expected that during the coming week eighty more prominent people would be taken into custody and M. Brayer, who was keeping an acquaintance in the
Parlement
of Provence abreast with developments in Paris, made similar predictions. In the event, these proved mistaken, but M. Brayer was well informed in other respects: by 26 January he had heard that Mme de Vivonne’s name had featured in the inquiry.

In Paris a play entitled
The Divineress,
written by Thomas Corneille and Donneau de Visé, was just coming to the end of its run, but the sudden eruption of the scandal ensured that all fashionable Paris became desperate to see the topical piece. Up to 400 theatregoers had to be turned away each night and the play ended by taking more money than any production previously mounted in France.
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It was even rumoured that M. de La Reynie had collaborated with the authors to ensure that the details were authentic. This cannot have been true, for it is inconceivable that that merciless scourge of fortune-tellers and conjurers could have had a hand in this light comedy, in which the eponymous divineress is depicted as an engaging rogue rather than a genuine menace.

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It was the order for the arrest of the Comtesse de Soissons that perhaps occasioned the greatest shock in fashionable circles, despite the fact that she was never actually placed in custody. Since he had little desire to bring her to trial, the King instructed her brother-in-law, the Duc de Bouillon, to warn her that guards would shortly be coming for her, giving her time to escape. Towards midnight on 23 January Bouillon interrupted a gaming session over which the Comtesse de Soissons was presiding in her Paris house. Since the Duc had left the party not long before, the Comtesse was puzzled to see him, but when he explained the reason for his reappearance she wasted no time. After receiving the disastrous advice that she would be able to resolve matters from outside the country, she decided that she could not endure imprisonment and trial, and that her best recourse lay in flight. Having induced her best friend, the Marquise d’Alluye, to accompany her, she drove out of Paris at three in the morning of 24 January, taking with her an impressive quantity of jewels and cash.

The King was clearly much relieved that the Comtesse had elected to flee even though he implied that his conniving at her escape from justice had caused him some qualms of conscience. He told the Comtesse’s mother-in-law, the Princesse de Carignan, that while he had wanted Mme de Soissons to seize the chance to save herself, ‘Perhaps one day I shall answer for it before God and my people.’
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The King certainly had good reason to afford the Comtesse special treatment as for many years she had been on exceptionally close terms with him. The Comtesse (whose maiden name was Olympe Mancini) had been born in Rome in 1638 but before reaching her teens she had been summoned to France by her uncle, Cardinal Mazarin. In the next few years she had been much in the company of the adolescent King. Though endowed with no more than a ‘mediocre beauty’ she developed into a striking brunette with owl-like eyes and a long thin nose, which earned her the nickname of ‘the snipe’. In 1657 she had married Prince Eugène Maurice de Carignan Savoie, a first cousin of the Duke of Savoy who was recognised as a ‘foreign prince’ at the French court and who soon took the title Comte de Soissons. In the years following her marriage the King remained strongly attached to her, so much so that many people believed they were lovers. They danced, gambled and laughed together and, far from objecting to her ‘continual teasing’ of him, the King granted her ‘a certain liberty of talking to him more boldly than others’.
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When the King married Queen Marie-Thérèse, the Comtesse de Soissons became
Surintendante
of the Queen’s household, the most important position a woman could hold at court. The King constantly visited her apartments, which became a social centre for all the court. The Queen was conscious of being outshone by her lady-in-waiting and was also jealous of her flirtatious manner with the King, which led her to believe that ‘gallantry still found a place in their conversation’.
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The Comtesse de Soissons had been extremely displeased when the King had fallen in love with Louise de La Vallière. Fearing that her standing at court would decline now that the King was spending less time with her, the Comtesse decided she must find a way either of forcing the King to terminate his relationship with Louise or, if that could not be arranged, at least to use the Comtesse as an intermediary in his dealings with her. Accordingly the Comtesse and her lover, the Marquis de Vardes, had arranged for an anonymous letter to be sent to the Queen, informing her that Louise had become the King’s mistress. The plan failed when the letter was intercepted but for the next three years the King never managed to discover who had sent it. However, in March 1665 the Comtesse had made the mistake of falling out with the King’s sister-in-law, Henriette-Anne, after the latter had had the Marquis de Vardes sent away from court for insulting her. Having been turned out of Madame’s box during a ballet performance, the Comtesse took revenge by telling the King that she could show him letters that both compromised Madame’s honour and proved his sister-in-law had been disloyal to him. When the King confronted Madame about this, she retaliated by revealing to him the part played by the Comtesse and Vardes in the affair of the anonymous letter.

The King had reacted with cold fury. He considered that Vardes and the Comtesse de Soissons were guilty of a fundamental breach of trust, and the episode helped convince him that it was not possible for him to be on free and easy terms with members of his court. Vardes was imprisoned and the Comtesse was told that, though the King would continue to treat her as befitted her rank, henceforth she would never enjoy his confidence. By the end of the month she and her husband had been made to feel so unwelcome that they departed for Champagne, their prospects at court apparently irreparably blighted.
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People were surprised, therefore, when in October 1666 the King had invited the Comte and Comtesse de Soissons to return to court. The King seemed pleased to see her again, telling Monsieur that ‘she was the best woman in the world’ who was ‘not at all mischievous’ provided she was kept apart from people who had a bad influence on her. However, the Comtesse’s addiction to intrigue remained as strong as ever. In 1670 the King was displeased by reports that she had arranged for her husband’s serving men to seduce Louise de La Vallière’s chambermaids to provide her with good sources of information on the state of the King’s private life. Later that year she was barred from accompanying the court on its tour of northern France after the King heard she had made mocking remarks about Mme de Montespan. Within a few months she was on better terms with him, but her reluctance to cede her position as
Surintendante
of the Queen’s household, which Mme de Montespan coveted, was a continued source of tension. Further damage was caused by rumours that she had defied the King’s authority by having a secret meeting near Paris with the Marquis de Vardes, who had been ordered to stay away from the capital after his release from prison.
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