The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (66 page)

*   *   *

In the view of Primi Visconti the proceedings of the
Chambre Ardente
amounted to nothing less than ‘a state inquisition of conscience’, before which ‘all France trembled’. Mme de Sévigné believed there had never been ‘a comparable scandal at a Christian court’ and was sure that people who studied it a hundred years later would ‘pity those who witnessed these indictments’.
⁷³
Certainly, it is an extraordinary story, though sympathy for Mme de Sévigné’s aristocratic acquaintances is not perhaps the dominant emotion it excites.

For three years the realm was convulsed while La Reynie ‘turned upside down the best families in Paris’,
⁷⁴
but the benefits arising from this upheaval were modest. The streets were rid of some undesirable characters and a few cases of murder were resolved, but these could have been settled in the regular courts without undue trouble. By failing to deal harshly with exceptional cases such as Mme Leféron, who may well have killed her husband, the Chamber undermined one of the main reasons for its existence, which was to administer justice impartially even to the rich and well-connected.

The real problem, however, was that the commission had been set up as a result of a fundamental misconception. From the start the obsessive belief that poisoning had reached epidemic proportions and that many important people were involved in it distorted the investigation and prevented those in charge from assessing the evidence dispassionately. As suspects and false leads proliferated, so confusion mounted, until it became difficult to differentiate between the genuinely wicked and those who had merely been misguided. The inquiry showed that the superstitions and delusions which still dominated popular culture retained a following even in the rarefied world of Versailles, but it failed to prove that a significant number of the courtly élite were guilty of anything more serious. Although many people at court were – in the words of Louise de La Vallière – ‘poisoned by the infectious air one incessantly breathes there’,
⁷⁵
this resulted in moral corruption rather than undermining their physical well-being.

The King had sought to cleanse the realm of poisoners, but in reality it was his mind that had been poisoned. In 1670 the Chancellor of the University of Paris had observed that since witches abounded only in areas where people believed in witchcraft this led him to conclude that ‘there are maladies of the imagination which are contagious’.
⁷⁶
In France, during the Affair of the Poisons, when lies, intrigues and exaggerated fears conspired to triumph over reason, a similar affliction can be said to have taken hold.

NOTES

Details of books and authors cited are in the Bibliography that follows the Notes.

Foreword

1
. Trevor-Roper, p. 119.

2
. Lewis, pp. 9–10.

1: Mme de Brinvilliers

1
. Clement,
Police,
p. 119; Pirot I, p. 93.

2
. Ibid., pp. 77, 2; Sévigné IV, p. 423.

3
. La Rynie believed this story. See Rav. VI, p. 396; see also Primi Visconti, p. 279, La Fare, p. 209.

4
. Sév. IV, p. 504.

5
. Danjou, p. 120; Pirot I, p. 112; ibid., II, p. 36.

6
.
Factum pour … Marquise de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 6.

7
. Berryer, pp. 175–6.

8
. BN 4-FM-15043,
Factum pour … veuve … de Saint-Laurens,
fo. 7.

9
. BN 4-FM-15043, fo. 6; Danjou, p.83.

10
.
Procès contre … Mme de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 83.

11
. Saint-Germain,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
pp. 123, 76.

12
. Rav. IV, pp. 199, 185, 199.

13
. BN 4-FM-15043, fos. 7–8.

14
. Rav. IV, p. 196; BN 4-FM-15043 fo. 7; Danjou, pp. 83–4.

15
. Rav. IV, p. 293; Saint-Germain,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
pp. 56–7; Rav. IV, p. 293.

16
. Glaser, pp. 271, 274–5, 277.

17
. Ibid., p. 199.

18
. Pirot I, p. 105;
Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 104.

19
. Rav. IV, p. 244; Fouquier,
Brinvilliers,
p. 35.

20
. Latruffe-Colomb, p. 641.

21
.
Factum for Pennautier,
BN 4-FM-27378, fo. 24; Rav. IV, p. 195; Saint-Germain,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
pp. 75–6.

22
. BN 4-FM-15043, fo. 7; Rav. IV, p. 200; BN 4-FM 15043, fo. 12; Saint-Germain,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
p. 131;
Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 82.

23
. Rav. IV, p. 243;
Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 84.

24
.
Factum pour … Mme de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, pp. 69–70; Ormesson II, p. 472.

25
.
Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 85.

26
. Ibid., Danjou, p. 86.

27
. Rav. IV, pp. 198, 68; Danjou, p. 86; Rav. IV, p. 98.

28
. Ibid., p. 195.

29
. Ibid., p. 228;
Factum pour Pennautier,
BN 4-FM 27378, fo. 68.

30
.
Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 87.

31
. La Reynie believed this story, see Rav. VI, p. 396;
Factum pour … veuve … de Saint-Laurens,
BN 4-FM-15043, fo. 24.

32
. Rav. IV, p. 300;
Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 89.

33
.
Procès contre La Chausée,
Danjou, p. 116; Rav. IV, p. 67;
Factum pour Mme de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 12 says 11 June.

34
.
Procès contre la dame de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, pp. 89–90.

35
. BN FP-2662, fo. 5; Pirot I, pp. 12–14.

36
.
Factum du Procès … fait à La Chausée,
Danjou, p. 112.

37
. Ibid., p. 118.

38
. Lebigre,
Justice du roi,
pp. 208–9, 277n.

39
. Rav. VI, p. 396.

40
. Esmein, pp. 239–40.

41
. Lough,
France Observed … by British travellers,
p. 109.

42
. Rav. IV, pp. 168–9.

43
. Her confession is printed in Saint-Germain,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
pp. 131–2.

44
. Sévigné letters, ed. Duchêne, II, p. 279; Rav. IV, p. 227n.

45
.
Factum pour Marquise de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 28;
Procès contre Mme de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 96.

46
. Rav. IV, p. 177;
Factum pour Mme de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 65.

47
. Ibid., p. 72; Rav. IV, pp. 192–3; Robert, p. 42; Fouquier,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
p. 21.

48
. Rav. IV, pp. 203–4.

49
. Pirot I, p. 45.

50
. Ibid.

51
. Ibid., pp. 89–90.

52
. Ibid., p. 160.

53
. Sourches I, p. 81n.

54
. Saint-Germain,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
pp. 199–200; Pirot I, p. 177; Soman (i), p. 804.

55
. Le François II, pp. 104–7.

56
. Rav. VI, p. 117; Pirot II, p. 2.

57
.
Arrest contre … dame … de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 77.

58
. Pirot II, pp. 171–2.

59
. Sév. IV, pp. 528–9.

60
. Rav. IV, pp. 184, 186.

61
. Fouquier,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
p. 12.

62
. Rav. IV, pp. 178, 188–9.

63
. Le François II, p. 229.

64
. Pirot I, p. 199; ibid. II, p. 101.

65
. Sév. IV, pp. 534, 541–2; BN 4-FM-15043, fo. 14.

66
. BN FP 2662, fos. 24–25.

67
. Saint-German,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
p. 199.

68
. Pirot I, p. 203.

69
. Sév. IV, pp. 506–7; Clement,
Police,
p. 123.

70
. Colbert VI, p. 45; Primi Visconti, pp. 281, 280.

71
. Sév. IV, p. 552.

72
. BN 4-FM-27378; BN FP 2662.

73
. Rav. VI, p. 18.

74
. Sévigné letters, ed. Duchêne, II, p. 1247; Sév. IV, pp. 541–2; Sévigné letters, ed. Duchêne, III, p. 1148; Primi Visconti, p. 281.

75
. BN 4-FM-27378, fo. 19; Clement,
Police,
p. 122.

76
.
Factum pour … Marquise de Brinvilliers,
Danjou, p. 5.

77
. Rav. VI, p. 397; Pirot II, p. 105; Fouquier,
Brinvilliers,
p. 16.

78
. Rav. IV, p. 68; Saint-Germain,
Mme de Brinvilliers,
p. 222.

2: Louis XIV and his Court

1
. Sévigné, ed. Duchêne II, pp. 350–3.

2
. Choisy I, p. 169; La Fare, pp. 175–6, 180; Voltaire I, p. 160.