The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (53 page)

When the King’s wishes were made known to La Reynie, he was not unduly disturbed, for at first he did not think it would be too difficult to preserve secrecy while he investigated further. On 6 October he expressed the view that it would not, in fact, have mattered much if la Filastre’s confessions had been read to the commissioners, for when her final retraction was taken into account, any sensible person would realise that this nullified everything she had said before. However, he conceded that there was a chance that irresponsible individuals ‘would draw on these facts … to make up stories and perhaps to sow malicious rumours’, and it was obviously desirable to avoid this. For the time being, therefore, he recommended that when the transcript of la Filastre’s torture was read to the commissioners, all mention of the attempt on Mlle de Fontanges’s life – as well as la Filastre’s subsequent retraction – should be excised.
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It was only after he had thought rather longer about this that it dawned on him that this course was more problematical than he had realised.

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As the King desired, La Reynie continued to interrogate the leading figures in the affair, but this merely caused the inquiry to descend ever further into the realms of horror. On 3 October Guibourg called to mind several other instances when he had celebrated black masses. While he was sure that none of these had taken place at la Voisin’s house, he could provide no enlightenment as to the precise locations. This was because he himself had often been uncertain as to his whereabouts and on at least one occasion a stranger had conducted him blindfold in a coach to the place where the mass was held.
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Guibourg’s efforts to convince La Reynie that he and la Voisin had seen very little of each other were undermined by the fact that Marie Montvoisin was able to conjure up the most lurid memories of things that he and her mother had done together. On 9 October she made her most sickening declaration to date.
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She said she had been present when Guibourg had performed a black mass on Mme de Montespan and that, during this ceremony, her mother had instructed her to hand Guibourg a newly born baby. Guibourg had cut the child’s throat and collected its blood in a chalice. At the appropriate point in the ceremony he elevated this vessel and the blood took the place of the sacramental wine. When the mass was over, Guibourg had torn out the butchered infant’s entrails and given them to la Voisin so she could have them distilled. The blood had been poured into a phial and carried away by Mme de Montespan.

It was at this point that Marie also began to make startling new claims about Mlle des Oeillets. Unfortunately, the written record of her interrogation only summarises what she said and her exact words remain unclear. Nevertheless, the record indicates that whereas before she had merely testified that Mlle des Oeillets had frequently visited her mother and that she had delivered powders to Mme de Montespan, Marie now suggested she had done far more terrible things. She recalled that on her visits to la Voisin, Mlle des Oeillets had often been accompanied by a mysterious ‘English milord’ and this shadowy individual had apparently been co-ordinating a terrible conspiracy against the King. Guibourg had at one point conducted obscene ceremonies for the pair, and Marie believed that the stranger intended to transport Guibourg and la Voisin to England once his objective had been accomplished. After the arrest of her mother she herself had received a letter offering to smuggle her out of the country, but being reluctant to leave France she had declined.

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The following day Guibourg was invited to comment on all this
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and he at once acknowledged that much of it was true. He stated that over the years he had performed four black masses on the same naked woman and that on each occasion a child had been sacrificed. The first of these masses had been arranged by a M. Leroy and had taken place in Menil. As he had performed the evil rite, he had uttered a supplication to ‘Astaroth and Amodeus’ on behalf of the lady who lay exposed before him. Speaking for her, he had begged these demonic beings ‘to accept the sacrifice which I offer in return for the things which I ask of you, which are: the affection of the King and Monseigneur the Dauphin; to be honoured by the princes and princesses of the court, and that nothing which I ask of the King is denied me, or my relatives and servants’.
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Having previously purchased a child for an écu, he had then slaughtered it and drained its blood. Its heart and entrails had been used to make powders for Mme de Montespan to give to the King.

The second of the four masses had been celebrated in a hovel in Saint-Denis, where the ‘same ceremonies’ had been enacted. After that, however, la Voisin had provided him with more convenient facilities for, though only the week before Guibourg had been adamant that he had never performed a black mass at her house, he now remembered that this was where the third and fourth human sacrifices had, in fact, taken place.

Having initially stated that the third mass had occurred eight or nine years earlier, Guibourg suddenly changed his mind, placing it instead at some time in 1666–7. The last of the four masses had been celebrated only five years ago, once again at la Voisin’s. Guibourg related that afterwards he had been just about to leave when he had caught sight of a piece of paper that had been left on a chair. Written on it were a series of requests couched in the form of a satanic pact, which had so impressed itself on Guibourg’s mind that he was able to recite it verbatim. The pact ran:

I ask that the affection of the King and Monseigneur the Dauphin be continued towards me; that the Queen be sterile, that the King leave her bed and table for me; that I obtain from him all that I will ask of him for myself and my family; that my manservants and maids are agreeable to [the King]; [that I be] well treated and respected by the high nobility; that I can be called to the King’s councils and know what happens there; and that this affection redoubling … the King abandon and not consider la Vallière and that, the Queen being repudiated, I can marry the King.

Naturally Guibourg was asked to identify the woman on whose body these hideous acts had been perpetrated, but though he had encountered her four times in such unforgettable circumstances his answer was strangely hesitant. He explained that on each occasion the lady had kept her face hidden behind a veil, so he had no idea what she looked like. However, he had been led to believe that she was Mme de Montespan.

Guibourg also confirmed that it was at la Voisin’s that he had ministered to the depraved requirements of Mlle des Oeillets and the titled Englishman, and he recalled an instance when he had performed a particularly distasteful spell for them. After Mlle des Oeillets had provided Guibourg with a sample of her menstrual blood, the Englishman masturbated into a chalice, then bats’ blood and flour were added to the semen collected there. Once Guibourg had uttered an incantation on this mixture, Mlle des Oeillets and her male companion took it away.

At some point La Reynie was given more details about this incident, although it is not clear whether Guibourg or Marie Montvoisin provided the information. At any rate, La Reynie somehow learned that the object of the exercise had been to kill the King. Mlle des Oeillets had manifested great bitterness towards him, at one point growing so angry during her consultation with Guibourg that the Englishman had had some difficulty calming her. It was the prospect of revenge that had finally quietened her, for Guibourg’s revolting confection (La Reynie later received the impression that the blood of a murdered child had been mixed in with the other ingredients) was thought to have fatal properties. Mlle des Oeillets intended to smear it on the King’s clothes, or even to strew it in his path, and she and the English milord were confident that Louis would die shortly afterwards.
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Guibourg’s story contained some obvious discrepancies. He claimed that around 1666–7 he had been instructed to utter a conjuration imploring that his client should gain the affection of the Dauphin, but at that time the heir to the throne was a child of five or six, whose personal inclinations were not of much significance. Conversely, Guibourg suggested that the last time he had performed a mass for the lady he had caught sight of a written pact requesting that the King should cast off Louise de La Vallière. However, this was supposedly in 1675, by which time Louise was already in her convent. It was odd, too, that the pact betrayed such an urgent desire that the King should find the lady’s servants congenial. The King had, in fact, already impregnated Mlle des Oeillets, so one would have thought Mme de Montespan had little cause to worry that her female staff were displeasing to him. Quite apart from this, it seems odd that this was an issue of such importance to her that she was ready to sell her soul for it.

M. de La Reynie took a different view. The fact that Guibourg had been able to recite the text of the pact with such fluency convinced the Police Chief that the priest had really seen the document. To La Reynie the pact had seemed full of detailed information and he questioned whether an outsider from the court like Guibourg could have picked up such ‘things of consequence’ about Mme de Montespan. It is difficult to understand why La Reynie thought this, for the pact hardly indicated a highly specialised and accurate knowledge of court gossip. Indeed, the fact that it made no mention of matters that would logically have featured among Mme de Montespan’s most pressing concerns, such as her troublesome husband or the future of her children by the King, was decidedly curious. La Reynie, however, thought it ‘morally impossible’ that Guibourg could have made all this up
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for, as a man who himself was endowed with only a limited imagination, he was apt to underestimate the powers of invention possessed by others.

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Other concerns were now troubling La Reynie. Whereas in his memorandum of 6 October he had suggested to the King that, before she died, la Filastre had withdrawn all the allegations she had made against Mme de Montespan, he now realised this was not strictly accurate. For a start he questioned whether la Filastre’s final retraction should be regarded as legitimate. He believed that confessors tended to encourage condemned prisoners to issue such disclaimers, and for this and other reasons ‘there are many judges who take no regard whatever of this kind of contrary declaration’.
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However, even if her retraction was allowable, it had to be borne in mind that it had not been absolute. La Filastre had never repudiated her claim that Guibourg had told her he had carried out a black mass on behalf of Mme de Montespan and her allegation that Galet had bragged of supplying powders to Mme de Montespan likewise remained extant. It could, of course, be argued that neither of these points was very significant. If Galet and Guibourg
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made these remarks, there was a good chance they had simply been trying to impress la Filastre with idle boasts. Furthermore, in theory hearsay evidence was not legally admissible, though La Reynie does not seem to have recognised the force of this objection. As far as he was concerned, when Guibourg’s and Galet’s statements during their confrontations with la Filastre were taken into account, this amounted in judicial terms to ‘absolute proof’ that la Filastre’s testimony on these points had been correct.
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It had taken a little time for the full implications of the course of action he had earlier recommended to the King to become apparent to La Reynie. He had suggested that the written record of la Filastre’s examination under torture could be amended, so that the judges were not shown the passages relating to the supposed conspiracy to poison Mlle de Fontanges. Now, however, La Reynie had grasped that if this was done, his ability to bring the cases of other prisoners awaiting trial to a successful conclusion would be gravely compromised.

Unless la Filastre’s final confessions were shown in their entirety to the commissioners, none of the evidence that had emerged during the investigation into her crimes could be used to prosecute other defendants. Juridical practice laid down that if this evidence was to feature in other trials, it must be relayed in full to the judges, rather than being presented to them selectively. This meant nothing that la Filastre had said could be used to secure the convictions of individuals such as Guibourg, Galet or Mme Chapelain. Furthermore, this did not represent the full extent of the problem. It was unlawful to bring a defendant to trial if any part of the evidence relating to the case had been withheld from the court. Since this would apply to every prisoner whom la Filastre had mentioned at any point in her testimony, the consequences would be considerable.

Nor was this all. It had gradually dawned on La Reynie that if the King considered it desirable to suppress la Filastre’s final testimony he might also be reluctant to proceed with the trial of any other prisoner who was likely to produce embarrassing statements against Mme de Montespan. If so, even if the other legal difficulties were overcome, there were many wicked individuals who would not be brought to judgement.

Profoundly disturbed by such a possibility, on 11 October La Reynie prepared another memorandum for Louvois outlining his difficulties.
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Lamenting the ‘impenetrable darkness’ that surrounded him, he admitted there was no obvious solution to his predicament, for there were indisputable drawbacks to permitting such sensitive material to enter the public domain. On the other hand he passionately believed it would be wrong to prevent ‘so many evils’ from coming to light.

Since the dilemma was so intractable, La Reynie considered it best to delay making a decision. He advocated that for the moment, no measures should be taken that might prejudice the outcome of the inquiry. This would give him some breathing space during which he would seek to establish whether the suspicions against Mme de Montespan could be substantiated.