The Sun King (11 page)

In spite of the fact that all the members of the nobility who were mentioned by the prisoners at Vincennes were his friends, the King firmly told the tribunal to proceed with its enquiries. Poisoning, he said, must be stopped. When Voisin's interrogation was complete, La Reynie, horrified, said he had lost all faith in human nature. ‘Men's lives are up for sale as a matter of everyday bargaining; murder is the only remedy when a family is in difficulties. Abominations are being practised everywhere — in Paris, in the suburbs and in the provinces.' All those who knew, by the rumours flying round Paris or through acquaintances on the tribunal, what had been going on, were appalled. A friend of Bussy-Rabutin's wrote to him: ‘In spite of the worldly life I have led I can't get over the horror of what you tell me.'

Among her other crimes Voisin seemed to have performed at least two thousand abortions and to have done away with many unwanted babies. Live babies had been sacrificed to the Devil, having been kidnapped from poor districts (indeed disappearances of small children had often, of late, been registered by the police). Voisin's daughter had kept her baby hidden away for fear of what might happen to it. Voisin mentioned many names, but never, even under torture, that of Mme de Montespan. This omission has been explained in two ways. Either Mme de Montespan was involved in nothing worse than a few harmless spells or Mme Voisin, terrified of the appalling death reserved for whoever even made an attempt on the King's life, did not want to seem to have been involved with anybody so close to him.

The three witches, Voisin, Bosse and Vigoureux, were condemned to death. Vigoureux died under torture; the other two survived it and were burnt alive. Mesdames de Poulaillon, Dreux and Leféron got off, but not scot free; these pretty ladies were sent to end their days repenting in convents in the Low Countries. The tribunal of the Chambre Ardente had proved to be quite as weak-minded, when it came to its own kith and kin, as Parlement would have been.

La Reynie's enquiries had been proceeding for about a year when (1680) the real bombshell burst in Court circles and the unbelievable news went round that there was a warrant out for the arrest of the
Comtesse de Soissons for the murder of her husband; the Duchesse de Bouillon for poisoning a valet who knew about her loves and for trying to poison her husband; the Marquise d'Alluye for poisoning her father-in-law; the Princesse de Tingry (one of the Queen's ladies), said to have murdered her own baby; the powerful and popular Maréchal de Luxembourg and several others of the same sort. When the police came for the Comtesse de Soissons, she was nowhere to be found. The King, against his own better judgment, had sent her a message. He told her that she could choose between going to the Bastille and standing her trial, or permanent exile from France. She did not hesitate, she fled to Brussels, taking with her Mme d'Alluye. Safely on foreign soil, she began to bargain. She said she would come back, if she need not await her trial in prison and if it could take place at once. The King replied that she would have to go to prison like everybody else and he could not guarantee speed. She was never seen in France again and there is little doubt that she was guilty. The King told her mother-in-law that, for allowing her to escape from justice, he would have to account to God and to his people. Two more of those on La Reynie's list, M. de Cessac and Mme de Polignac, also managed to fly, the others were duly arrested.

The trials were dramatic. The Duchesse de Bouillon arrived at the court room, lovely, rosy, smiling, surrounded by adoring relations, hand in hand with her husband and the lover, the Duc de Vendôme (a cousin of the King's) for whose sake it was alleged that she had tried to murder him. The Duc de Bouillon worshipped his wife. His brothers were always urging him to shut her up because of the scandal she made with all her love affairs — he said that he didn't mind in the least so long as he had his share. She freely admitted that she and Vendôme had often been to Mme Voisin's together ‘to see the Sibyls'. When the judge suggested that she had tried to murder Bouillon she laughed and said ‘Ask him!' Boucherat enquired whether she had seen the Devil and if so what was he like? She replied: ‘Small, dark and ugly, just like you.' There was no proof against her and she was acquitted. She then sat down to invent many other witticisms, with which she was supposed to have floored the judges, and had them privately printed for her friends. The King had no intention of putting up with that sort of nonsense — he banished her for contempt of court and her
esprit de l'escalier
cost her several weary years in the provinces.

Maréchal de Luxembourg's trial lasted fourteen months. He was accused, not of poisoning, but of using spells in order to get rid of the guardian of a widow whom he wanted to marry; to cause the death of his own wife; to make his sister-in-law, the Princesse de Tingry, fall in love with him and to give him victories in the field. He was not a clever witness and talked too much, but was finally exonerated on every count, though his secretary was sent to the galleys. Luxembourg then retired to the country for a week. When he came back to Court, the King never
mentioned the trial; he gave him great commands with which he won great victories for France.

The other society people involved were acquitted. They all said quite frankly that they had been customers of Mme Voisin but there was no proof that any of them were poisoners — the horrible crew of criminals at Vincennes could not be regarded as reliable witnesses. The unpopular Chambre Ardente was thought by the world in general to have covered itself with ridicule.

There was a rumour in Paris that the King wanted a general clean-up of morals and to put an end to sodomy, a vice he was known to abhor and which was punishable by the stake. Several times during his reign he was on the verge of taking steps against it; but his advisers seem to have pointed out that it would be difficult to do so, since in that matter all roads led to Monsieur. Indeed, the little man, mincing between Court and Camp and the lowest of the Paris underworld, with his rouge and his scent, and the diamond brooches he gave to boys provided wonderful protection for others of his sort. There was certainly an uncomfortable feeling abroad and many people, not only perverts, slept uneasily at this time. The great Racine himself was under suspicion. He had been a customer of Voisin's and his mistress had died suddenly (perhaps of an abortion). An order for his arrest was actually written out but never put into effect.

Suddenly the whole investigation collapsed. The reason for this was that the low-down criminals, who had lived together at Vincennes for many months, had all begun to name Mme de Montespan. Since the death of Mme Voisin and her companions, about a hundred and fifty fortune-tellers, kidnappers, alchemists, counterfeiters, unfrocked priests, abortionists, merchants of poison and love philtres and other sinister creatures of the underworld had been arrested. Among them was a man called Lesage who had been liberated from the galleys by one of Mme Voisin's powerful friends. Very much against the advice of La Reynie, Louvois offered Lesage his liberty if he would talk, and talk he did. He was the first person to bring Mme de Montespan into the affair, saying he knew that Voisin had taken powders to her at Saint-Germain. The next time her name was mentioned was when Mme Filastre, under torture, said that Mme de Montespan used to buy love philtres and other powders; but when the torturing was over, Filastre took this back. Then, as though by common consent, accusations against Mme de Montespan began to pour in from the prisoners. They affirmed, with a wealth of detail, that Mme Voisin had often been to see Athénaïs both at the Court and at Clagny. The two women had conspired in all sorts of sinister plots. Athénaïs had given the King love philtres over a period of years, and had taken part in one Black Mass. When Mme Voisin recommended two more, Mme de Montespan is supposed to have said (and this gives a certain verisimilitude to the accusation; one can almost hear her high, quavering voice) that she really had
not got time. So the others were said in her absence, but on her behalf, and involved the sacrifice of babies. The accusations became more and more lurid. Mme Voisin was to have handed the King a poisoned petition the very day she was arrested and she was said to have given Mlle de Fontanges a pair of poisoned gloves.

Deeply embarrassed, La Reynie was obliged to report this turn of events to the King, after which the council of ministers, presided over by the King, sat almost continuously for days, trying to decide what had better be done. Mme de Montespan had been like a second wife to Louis; she was the mother of his favourite child; in spite of all her tiresomeness he was still fond of her and she lived in his house. There could be no question of her going before the tribunal. If she did so, however innocent she might be, she would be branded for evermore as a probable murderess and black magician. Nor was it pleasant to think of the jokes there would be in Paris if the story of the love philtres got about. So, supported by the ministers, he said the case must be stopped and the existing dossiers burnt. Single-handed, La Reynie stood out against this decision on the grounds that poisoning must be put an end to in France and also that to pack up the tribunal at this point was unfair. ‘Different punishment for the same crimes would tarnish the King's glory and dishonour his justice.' Besides, some of the depositions which would be lost if the dossiers were destroyed contained statements exonerating certain prisoners. The King said the trials could go on so long as all evidence relative to Mme de Montespan was suppressed. But as the dossiers were full of such evidence, that would be a travesty of justice. La Reynie then said there was only one thing they could do in the circumstances. A
lettre de cachet
(a letter sealed by the King directing detention, without trial, of the person named in it) must be taken out against all the prisoners. This meant that a hundred and forty seven people who mostly seemed to have committed atrocious crimes, and who, if found guilty, would have been tortured and then burnt to death, would escape all punishment except imprisonment; and that those few who may have been innocent, would be unable to prove it and also be shut up for life. Guibourg, the unfrocked priest who pretended to have said Black Masses for Mme de Montespan and who may have helped her with sacrilegious prayers, Trianon, abominable poisoner, Chapelin who taught Filastre her dreadful art (abortion), Galet himself, would all benefit from this amazing stroke of luck. If Voison, Bosse and Vigoureux were not already dead, they too would have escaped. However, there seemed to be no other solution.

The Chambre Ardente closed its doors in 1682. The total results of its judgments were: thirty-six burnt to death after torture; four sent to the galleys; thirty-six banished or fined (mostly gentlefolk) and thirty acquitted. All the others who, so luckily for them, benefited by
lettres de cachet
, were chained up in dungeons all over France for the rest of their lives, in solitary confinement. If they spoke to their gaolers
they were whipped — Mme de Montespan's name must not be bandied about the French prisons. Thirty-seven years later some of these people were still alive.

The Affair of the Poisons had various repercussions, the most serious of which was that the King, furious with Olympe de Soissons, refused to take Prince Eugène into the French army. He had no use for the boy, who looked at him, he thought, like an insolent cock sparrow; and he suspected him of being a sodomite; in any case his bad reputation was undoubtedly justified. But as Eugène was the King's own relation and the child of such a great friend, it would have been difficult for the King to have refused if Madame la Comtesse had been there to support her son. Throwing Eugène into the enemy camp proved to be one of Louis XIV's greatest mistakes. The prestige of Colbert suffered from the Affair, as all the gentlefolk involved, including Mme de Montespan, were his special friends. He died in 1683, harassed, overworked and sad. In spite of the precautions against publicity, the whole case had been so widely discussed (indeed there was a time when nothing else was talked about in France) that people became more suspicious of poison than ever, and all mysterious deaths were put down to it. However, there was one good result: henceforward the sale of poison in France was strictly controlled (31 August 1682). Private laboratories were forbidden, and so were all the occult arts and superstitious practices.

And Mme de Montespan — was she guilty? M. Georges Mongrédien whose book on the Affair is by far the best (most of the foregoing facts, which are only like the visible part of the iceberg, have been shamelessly culled from it) thinks she was innocent of the criminal charges, that is, of attempting to poison the King and Mlle de Fontanges and conniving at the sacrifice of infants during Black Mass. La Reynie seems on the whole to have been of this opinion; the King and Mme de Maintenon, who knew her by heart, certainly were. The witnesses against her were men and women of tbe vilest sort; they had unwisely been allowed to foregather while at Vincennes and had most probably leagued together there to accuse her, with the idea that, if she was thought to be involved, they would never be brought to trial — and indeed this was the case. M. Mongrédien also points out that Mme de Montespan was never given the chance of defending herself. But there was no doubt she had played with fire. All the poisoners and unfrocked priests who were the most vociferous in accusing her said they had had dealings with her maid, Mlle des Oeillets. Interrogated by La Reynie, des Oeillets denied ever having seen any of them and demanded to be confronted with them. However, when La Reynie took her down to Vincennes they all, most disconcertingly, recognized and named her. So she remained under a shadow of suspicion, though nothing happened to her. Athénaïs had certainly tried spells, with the excellent results we have noted; and the King still remembered the awful headaches he had had at the time when he now knew that she had been giving him Galet's powders.