The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (46 page)

Under questioning la Voisin proved ready enough to make alarming statements about the prevalence of poison. She affirmed sorrowfully, ‘Paris is full of this kind of thing and there is an infinite number of people engaged in this evil trade.’ Pressed to give examples of those who, ‘under pretext of divination or reading hands, or of seeking treasure and the Philosopher’s Stone … engage in the sale of poisons, abortion and impieties’, she named several individuals. These included Vautier, ‘a very dangerous man’, who knew a lot about poison and perfumes; la Bergerot, who was ‘deep in intrigues’ connected with poison and magic; and la Poulain, ‘a very vicious woman’. La Voisin said la Pelletier had agreed to supply poison to kill a sister of Mme Brissart but had changed her mind on finding that the intended victim was pregnant. The herbalist Maître Pierre, who was exceptionally knowledgeable about both the curative and noxious properties of numerous plants, had planned to poison the husband of Mme Roussel, though for some reason he had not succeeded in doing so. All this did little more than confirm what la Voisin had said earlier and almost everyone she named was already in gaol.

Regarding her own clients la Voisin proffered the worrying information that ‘a great number of persons of every sort of rank and condition addressed themselves to her to seek the death of or to find the means to kill many people’. However, when it came to specific details she had little new to say. She confirmed that Mme Lepère had been her partner in a thriving abortion business, estimating that between them Mme Lepère and her daughter had aborted about 10,000 infants. She confessed that she had been involved in the poisoning of M. Leféron, M. Brunet and M. de Canilhac. She repeated that Mme de Dreux had wanted to poison both her husband and another lady of whom she was jealous, while stressing that she herself had done nothing to effect these wishes. When she was questioned about the court ladies she had testified against, she maintained that everything she had said about the Comtesse de Soissons, the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Vicomtesse de Polignac and the Comtesse du Roure had been true, but she did not enlarge on her earlier allegations. To the end she categorically denied knowing Mlle des Oeillets and insisted she had never been aware of priests conducting black masses.
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On 22 February la Voisin was transferred from Vincennes to the Bastille, before being taken to the Place de Grève for execution. Special care had been used in selecting a suitable priest to hear her final confession, for there were fears that the priests who ministered to those arrested on suspicion of poisoning were discouraging their charges from being too frank about their crimes. It does seem that there was some cause for concern: Mme du Fontet, at whose house Luxembourg had met Lesage, said that her confessor had told her to reveal nothing about the divinations that had taken place under her roof, as it was best ‘to forget about all that’.
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It is not clear why the priests should have wished to suppress such revelations, unless the Church authorities feared they would lead to disclosures about renegade priests conducting black masses. Alternatively, the confessors may have wanted to protect grand members of Parisian society from being implicated in the scandal, but whether this was for corrupt reasons or simply because they did not want anyone to be wrongfully accused can only be conjectured.

Despite the trouble taken to pick a reliable confessor for la Voisin, things did not go as planned. After being closeted with the
Grand Pénitencier
of Paris, Mme Voisin summoned the registrar of the
Chambre Ardente
and said she wanted to retract an allegation she had formerly made against Mme Leféron. Hitherto la Voisin had maintained that she had supplied Mme Leféron with a phial of liquid, obtained from a woman named la Leroux, and that this had been given to M. Leféron shortly before he died. Now, however, la Voisin said that though Mme Leféron had once referred to a phial of liquid in her possession, neither she nor la Leroux had provided her with it. Irritated that doubt had thus been cast on a crucial piece of evidence, Louvois ordered that in future
M. le Grand Pénitencier
should not be employed to receive confession in such controversial cases.
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At five in the afternoon la Voisin was placed in the cart that was to transport her through the crowded streets to the execution site. Agog to see for herself the celebrated poisoner, Mme de Sévigné had stationed herself in the Rue Saint-Antoine. As a result she caught a brief glimpse of la Voisin as she passed, dressed in a white smock and looking startlingly red in the face.

In former days la Voisin had been glib in her use of Christian terminology, invoking the Good Lord while simultaneously engaging in impious practices. Now, however, as her horrific death loomed, she spurned the consolations of religion and when her confessor stretched out his crucifix towards her, she angrily pushed it away. On arriving at the Place de Grève she refused to disembark from the tumbril and had to be dragged out by force, swearing dreadful oaths. Even after she had been chained to the stake she continued to resist her fate, for when straw was heaped upon her to ensure that she was speedily incinerated she kicked it away in desperation. These last grim struggles impressed themselves on the memory of the watching crowd but ‘at last the flames got up and she was lost from sight’. Sprightly as ever, Mme de Sévigné commented that la Voisin had now passed from the midst of one fire to another.
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Mme de Sévigné noted that it was widely expected that la Voisin’s torture and execution would bring about significant developments ‘which will surprise us’ but, in fact, it was followed by a hiatus in the commission’s proceedings. On the day of la Voisin’s execution the King had departed to welcome the new Dauphine on her arrival in France and the
Chambre Ardente
held no further hearings until after he returned to Saint-Germain in March.

Once sittings had resumed, the trial of la Voisin’s alleged accomplice, la Leroux, took place on 4 April. After being found guilty she was interrogated one last time the following day and then tortured. At the outset she declared that she would shortly be facing the last judgement and was therefore ready to reveal all. In accordance with this she agreed that she had supplied la Voisin with a water which she knew to be poison and which was subsequently handed on to Mme Leféron. She also discredited Mme de Dreux, saying that Magdelaine de La Grange had told her that Mme de Dreux had approached her and Marie Bosse in hopes of obtaining poison. Mme de Dreux had planned to use it to kill her husband, though she had baulked at the sum of 2000 écus which Mme de La Grange and Mme Bosse had named as their price.
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Having unburdened herself of these secrets, la Leroux was executed at four in the afternoon of the same day.

On 7 April the trial was held of Mme Leféron, a much more important defendant. She had been incriminated by numerous witnesses and the case against her was strong, not least because her husband was actually dead, whereas other putative victims of poisoners remained very much alive. La Voisin had more than once given a detailed account of how she had supplied Mme Leféron with poison and though she had subsequently withdrawn this, the fact that la Leroux had corroborated the original story had undermined la Voisin’s attempt to exculpate her former client. Nevertheless, when questioned on the
sellette,
Mme Leféron still maintained her innocence. She did concede that at one of their consultations la Voisin had suggested that M. Leféron’s death could be hastened, but Mme Leféron insisted she had rejected the idea. At the time M. Leféron was already suffering from ‘an illness which would not permit him to make old bones’ and therefore ‘she did not want to listen to anything, given that her husband was incurable and could not go on much longer’.
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The commissioners apparently accepted that M. Leféron had not been murdered: at the end of the trial his widow was merely fined 1500 livres and banished from Paris and its surroundings for nine years. The sentence, which fell short of completely exonerating Mme Leféron, pleased nobody. Mme de Sévigné observed sarcastically, ‘That was really worth the trouble of dishonouring her,’ while the Comte de Bussy reported that people were saying that Mme Leféron deserved either to be punished more severely or not at all.
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Certainly, the sentence reinforced the damaging perception that although the commissioners of the Arsenal Chamber could be merciless when it suited them, considerations of class and professional solidarity were apt to sway their judgement.

A day later the flautist Philbert, who had been in prison for months and whose wife had been executed the previous June, came up for trial. No evidence had emerged to suggest that he had aided his wife to poison her first husband, M. Brunet, or even that he had been aware that his predecessor had been murdered. He was therefore acquitted and freed without any stain on his character. Once restored to liberty, he attained a certain celebrity as a result of his narrow escape and was feted by hostesses all over Paris.

On 27 April it was Mme de Dreux’s turn to come before the Chamber. Her case was aided by the fact that though it was alleged that she had wanted to poison her husband and a rival mistress of her lover M. de Menars (who had preceded the Duc de Richelieu in her affections), neither of her alleged victims had come to any harm. Her husband had been highly supportive of her while she was in prison, for despite the fact that for many years they had been on distant terms (la Voisin had said they neither shared a bed nor took their meals together) he either could not believe she was capable of murder or considered that it would be a stain on his honour if she were convicted of such a crime.

Since her arrest Mme de Dreux had at all times insisted she was innocent. In a petition submitted to the commissioners she deplored the fact that she had been incarcerated, lamenting that while in Vincennes ‘she had not even heard mass, nor had any counsel or consolation apart from her innocence, which enabled her to bear with patience and tranquillity the pain’ of being falsely accused. On a more practical note, she submitted that Marie Bosse’s evidence against her was inadmissible as la Bosse had a conviction for coining.
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Having considered her case, the commissioners confined themselves to admonishing Mme de Dreux and fining her 500 livres. Mme de Sévigné heard that several of them were reluctant even to inflict this modest sanction, while the Comte de Bussy believed that although ‘this woman was innocent … the judges imposed this little penalty on her to save their honour’. M. Brayer took a different view, for he concluded that she had been let off so lightly ‘more out of consideration for some members of her family than on account of her innocence’.
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On emerging from the Arsenal after her trial, Mme de Dreux was ‘received with open arms by her husband and all her family’, but her mother could not be there to meet her. She had died while Mme de Dreux was in prison, her end hastened, so Mme de Sévigné believed, by ‘grief at seeing her daughter in this condition’. M. de Dreux did not dare tell his wife of her loss until they reached home, whereupon she fainted, and on reviving proved inconsolable. Mme de Sévigné confided to her daughter, ‘Today she is still shedding tears which M. de Richelieu cannot wipe away; he has performed marvels throughout this whole business.’
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Mme de Sévigné admitted that she had nearly wept herself on hearing this affecting tale but evidence yet to be uncovered would show that her sympathy was misplaced.

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Meanwhile La Reynie and Bezons had been working to accumulate evidence for the prosecution of the Maréchal de Luxembourg. Although this was taking a surprisingly long time, Bezons would by no means admit it was proving difficult to assemble a case. On 9 February he confidently informed Louvois that Lesage had just given them new information which, though in some respects contradictory, clarified many matters that had hitherto been obscure. Yet the written record of Lesage’s interrogation on that date
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hardly warrants Bezons’s enthusiastic interpretation and suggests that if he was ready to attach such importance to an inconsequential interview of this sort, he and La Reynie were struggling more than they cared to admit to bring the investigation to a successful conclusion.

The case that was being so laboriously constructed depended heavily on Lesage’s account of his encounter with the Maréchal at the Marquise de Fontet’s house. However, since describing that, Lesage had made much more serious allegations against Luxembourg. He had claimed that Luxembourg had attended sacrilegious ceremonies conducted by the priest, Gilles Davot, who had passed notes under the chalice to gratify Luxembourg’s desires. According to Lesage, Luxembourg had not only encouraged his secretary Bonnard to join with Marie Bosse and Mme Vigoreux in order to poison the businessman who was causing him problems, but the Maréchal himself had dealt directly with that disreputable pair. Furthermore, Luxembourg had commissioned Mme Vigoreux and her husband to arrange the murder of his wife. They had actually placed an assassin in the Duchesse de Luxembourg’s household, who had been waiting for an opportunity to poison her.

Since it was obviously unsatisfactory to rely solely on Lesage’s testimony, every effort was made to persuade Bonnard to divulge information damaging to Luxembourg. A combination of threats and inducements seem to have been used, for Luxembourg heard that Bonnard was told that if he did what was required of him he would be treated leniently. However, all this took time. Some of the other commissioners became disturbed that the case was taking so long to come to court, but when one of them expressed concern at the way Luxembourg was being kept in prison without trial, La Reynie peremptorily silenced him. He declared he possessed written proof in Luxembourg’s own hand, which established beyond doubt that the Maréchal had done wicked things and that, this being so, the King had authorised him to proceed as he saw fit.
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