The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (44 page)

The Duchesse was adamant that she had never had any contact with la Vigoreux, but she readily agreed that she had once seen Lesage in the presence of the Duc de Vendôme. She explained that the two of them had written a few frivolous questions on a piece of paper, which Lesage had appeared to burn but, to her amazement, two or three days later the magician had given her note back to her. She had been so intrigued by this that she had asked him to perform the trick a second time. She had then written another note, which Lesage had again reduced to ashes, but this time he never returned it to her, even though she had several times sent a servant to enquire what had become of it. She concluded, ‘She had found the whole thing so ridiculous that she told several people about it and even wrote of it to Monsieur le Duc de Bouillon … who was with the army.’
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When asked whether she had written a request that her husband should die prematurely she indignantly denied it. Mme de Sévigné heard that she expostulated, ‘Me, get rid of him? You have only to ask him if he thinks so. He accompanied me right up to the door.’ When the commissioners had finished their questions she demanded mockingly, ‘Well, Messieurs, is that all you have to say to me?’ On being told that she was free to leave she exclaimed, ‘Truly, I would never have believed that clever men could ask me so many stupid things.’
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She went out to receive a rapturous welcome from the crowd clustered about the door of the Arsenal, all of whom were delighted by her stylish refusal to be intimidated.

Elated by the reception accorded her by her admirers, the Duchesse delighted in recounting how she had routed La Reynie and Bezons. Doubtless she could not resist embroidering the way she had defied them, for the witticisms which were now attributed to her certainly do not feature in the written record of her interrogation. It was said, for example, that La Reynie had asked her if she had ever seen the devil, to which she supposedly fired back, ‘Yes, I have seen him and he looked just like you.’
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The Duc de Bouillon was so proud of his wife that he even asked the King if he could print an account of the interview to be distributed throughout Europe, but the King curtly refused. He had been much displeased by the way the Duchesse had glorified her interview with the commissioners, which threatened to turn the Chamber into an object of ridicule. Furthermore, the King and La Reynie were evidently not convinced that the Duchesse’s airy dismissal of Lesage’s allegations against her meant they were baseless. Serious consideration was given to arranging a tripartite confrontation between her, Lesage and la Voisin, to see if they could make her change her story. In the end, however, the King decided simply to order the Duchesse to leave Paris for an indefinite period. Even this did not subdue her, for she contrived to turn her departure into a triumphal progress. As she set off for Nérac in the Pyrenees, a crowd of family members and well-wishers gathered in the street to give her a rousing send-off.
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The Duchesse was permitted to return to Paris and the court in March 1681. However, as she doubtless realised, the King still disliked her. He tolerated her presence only out of respect for her husband and was relieved that she came to court infrequently. In 1685 the Duchesse exasperated the King once more after she expressed herself indiscreetly when Louis disgraced her son and her brother-in-law, the Cardinal de Bouillon. Once again she was expelled from Paris and this time she was not able to return for five years. In 1690 she was finally allowed to resume her place as ‘a sort of queen’ in Paris society, and presided over a salon graced by numerous poets and artists. Until her sudden death in 1714 she was seen at Versailles only rarely, though she did not stay away out of shyness. Saint-Simon said that when she did visit the palace, one could hear her confident tones from two rooms away.
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Perhaps calculating that she would achieve celebrity by appearing before the commissioners, the Maréchale de la Ferté volunteered to be questioned by La Reynie and Bezons, even though they had not planned to interview her. There had been speculation in some quarters that la Voisin had performed abortions for the Maréchale, but this was never more than idle gossip.

Despite the fact that the Maréchale was giving evidence of her own volition, many of her aristocratic circle formed the impression that she was being harassed by the
Chambre Ardente,
and she was elevated to the status of heroine. In a show of solidarity, numerous friends accompanied her to the Arsenal, ‘all murmuring against the commissioners’. Her husband, too, was at pains to defend her, saying that she had only visited Mme Voisin in hopes of acquiring a winning formula for gambling. Having answered a few inconsequential questions, the Maréchale emerged to great acclaim, ‘delighted at being innocent for once in her life’.
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The Marquis de Feuquières was another of those required to submit himself for interrogation. To his father he drawled, ‘This business would be terribly disagreeable if one were on one’s own; but … the company I am in diminishes the unpleasantness.’
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On 1 February he appeared before the tribunal and gave laconic answers to the questions put to him. He confirmed that some years earlier he had encountered Lesage at the Marquise de Fontet’s house and that on that occasion he and Luxembourg had written down a few trivial queries. About a week later Lesage had visited Feuquières at his house but Feuquières said he had realised the magician was wasting his time and had sent him packing.

As for la Vigoreux, Feuquières deposed that he had only spoken to her on one occasion when she had come to his door with a young boy who she claimed was a godson of Feuquières’s late mother. She had wanted Feuquières to give him a job but the Marquis had declined, saying the boy was too young. When asked whether he had known Marie Bosse, Feuquières returned an absolute denial. After the interview was over Feuquières professed himself disgusted with the inanity of the questions put to him. ‘If I had said “yes” to every one, there still would not have been enough there to have a lackey whipped,’ he shrugged.
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However, Feuquières was far from being in the clear. He was well aware that La Reynie – whom he referred to as a ‘rabid lunatic’ – was still doing everything possible to construct a case against him. He declared himself at a loss to know why the Police Chief was pursuing him so obsessively, unless it was simply that La Reynie had become ‘enraged at not finding any criminals, for all the hubbub he has made’. On 19 April Feuquières reported that in recent days La Reynie had considered issuing an arrest warrant against him, but in the end he had not dared go through with it. The Marquis added nonchalantly that he did not mind having to wait for the matter to be settled, as Paris was so pleasant in the springtime.
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In the coming weeks Feuquières resisted all attempts to frighten him into fleeing the country, rightly judging this would be the surest way to ruination. His confidence proved justified, for in June he was formally discharged of all imputations. In no way embarrassed by his ordeal, Feuquières took formal leave of the King and Louvois before going to take the waters at Bareges.

Feuquières was incomparable at projecting an aura of injured innocence but it is possible that he had had more extensive dealings with la Vigoreux and Lesage than he admitted. The Marquise de Fontet, who had introduced him to Lesage, testified that Feuquières had once confided to her that he had buried twelve pistoles in a spot designated by Lesage. Lesage had told him that if he did so, the coins would be transformed into something much more valuable. However, when Feuquières had returned to the site, he had found nothing apart from a large hole, and all the money had disappeared.
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Given what we know of Feuquières’s superstitious nature, it is also likely that la Vigoreux had been telling the truth when she claimed that Feuquières had approached her in hopes of acquiring a charm that would prevent him being wounded in battle. Besides this she said that he had wanted her to arrange for him to ‘speak with the spirit’ and this cannot be dismissed in the light of later evidence, which proves beyond doubt he was interested in such things.

In 1696 letters from Feuquières were found addressed to a sorceress who had recently been arrested. A few years later it emerged that he had consulted another divineress called Marie-Anne de la Ville, from whom he had purchased talismans designed to bring luck in gambling and love affairs. He had also been present when she had sought to conjure up ‘Prince Babel’, who Feuquières hoped would guide him to hidden treasures.
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One should not necessarily deduce from this that in the past Feuquières had also tried to poison people, but he clearly had an obsession with the occult, which he sought to keep secret.

While under suspicion in 1680, Feuquières had conducted himself with a disdain and lack of humility that even his father feared was foolishly provocative. When criticised for this, Feuquières denied he had displayed ‘harmful pride’, insisting he had merely acted as a man who, ‘knowing himself to be quite innocent, loftily receives all calumnies and forcefully responds to them’. Once Feuquières had been discharged his father wrote to the King expressing the hope that since it was acknowledged that the accusations levelled against his son had been false, the King would evince no less compassion for the sufferings Feuquières had undergone than if he had been wounded in battle. This was a deluded hope. Feuquières’s aunt was more realistic: on learning that her nephew was in trouble she had commented, ‘Whatever happens, I cannot but fear that this will always have an evil effect on him and his fortunes.’
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Admittedly, despite Saint-Simon’s contention that Feuquières never really recovered from the Affair of the Poisons and that thereafter he ‘remained in some way touched by it’, his military career went quite well for some years after the scandal had died down. When he became an infantry brigadier in 1688 the Marquis de Sourches commented that he was the best choice the King could have made, though he added that Feuquières’s bravery and past services should have carried him higher still.
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The following year Feuquières became a Maréchal de Camp and in 1693 he was promoted to Lieutenant-General. However, despite his undoubted abilities, he never advanced further.

Saint-Simon claimed he was ruined by his overweening jealousy and infernal ambition, for his superiors could not trust a man who was always scheming to supersede them. Certainly by that time he had fallen out with his former protector, Luxembourg. In September 1692 he complained to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that on campaign Luxembourg surrounded himself with a homosexual coterie of ‘little favourites’ who were ‘all in some ways amorous of him’. These men were singled out for praise in despatches, while the exploits of others outside the charmed circle were ignored. When it became clear that Feuquières resented this, Luxembourg had asked the King that he should never again serve with him.
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In this instance it does seem that Feuquières had genuine cause for complaint, but in other ways he was responsible for his misfortunes, for the revelation that he still associated with conjurers and divineresses damaged him in the eyes of the King and contributed to the failure of his career.

Disenchanted by his lack of advancement, in 1701 Feuquières retired from active service. In 1711 (to use Saint-Simon’s words) ‘he ended his life abandoned, abhorred, poor and obscure’. From his deathbed he wrote to the King lamenting that he had obviously displeased him, ‘and though I do not know precisely how, I do not think myself any the less culpable for that. I hope, Sire, that God will forgive me my sins for I sincerely repent them. You are the image of God and I dare implore that you at least forgive my son for those faults of mine which I would have wished to expiate with my blood.’
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Perhaps touched by this plea, the King permitted Feuquières’s son to retain the pensions formerly conferred on his father.

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The Comtesse du Roure was another person whose life was permanently blighted by the Affair of the Poisons, despite the fact that in former years the King had been very fond of her. By 1680 she was a mature woman of thirty-five but she had come to court as a teenager to serve Monsieur’s first wife as a maid of honour. Known at that time as Mlle d’Artigny, she had forged a firm friendship with Louise de La Vallière. When Louise had embarked on her affair with the King, Mlle d’Artigny had sometimes acted as an intermediary between the lovers. However when she had fallen out with another maid of honour called Mlle de Montalais, the latter had sought to bring about her dismissal after discovering that early in her career Mlle d’Artigny had become pregnant. At the time she had managed to conceal this by retiring from court on some pretext and returning after the birth, but when Mlle de Montalais revealed this to the Duchesse d’Orléans, the latter wanted to expel Mlle d’Artigny from her household. In desperation Mlle d’Artigny appealed to the King to save her. Having gone to him and told him all about her earlier lapse from virtue, she begged him not to let her be sent from court in disgrace. ‘The King was touched by her frankness and ever since then he always treated her very kindly … even though she was a person of very mediocre merit.’ Not only did he prevent her dismissal but in January 1666 he gave her a sizeable dowry when she married the Comte du Roure, son of the King’s Lieutenant-General in Languedoc. In this way, ‘from being poor and crushed by ill fortune, she became a great lady’.
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