Poison affair

The Poison Affair ("affaire des poisons" or "Affair of the Poisons") was a murder scandal in France during the reign of King Louis XIV. It launched a period of hysterical pursuit of murder suspects, during which a number of prominent people and members of the aristocracy were implicated and sentenced for poisoning and witchcraft.

The furor began in 1675 after the trial of Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, who had conspired to poison her father and siblings with her lover, army captain Godin de Sainte-Croix, in order to inherit their estates. There were also rumors that she had poisoned poor people during her visits in hospitals. She fled but was arrested in Liège. She was forced to confess, sentenced to death and on July 17 was tortured with the water cure (forced to drink sixteen pints of water), beheaded and burned at the stake.

The sensational trial drew attention to a number of other mysterious deaths, starting a number of rumors. Prominent people, including Louis XIV, become alarmed that they also might be poisoned. The king forced some of his servants to become his foretasters. He told Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, who, among other things, was his chief of police, to root out the poisoners. The subsequent investigation of potential poisoners led to accusations of witchcraft, murder and more.

Authorities rounded up a number of fortune-tellers and alchemists that were suspected of selling not only divinations, séances and aphrodisiacs, but also "inheritance powders" (ie. poison). Some of them confessed and gave the authorities lists of their clients, who had allegedly bought poison to either get rid of their husbands or rivals in the court.

The most famous case was a witch and midwife Catherine Deshayes Monvoisin or "La Voisin", who implicated a number of important individuals in the French court. These included Olympe Mancini, the Comtesse de Soissons, her sister Marie Anne Mancini Duchesse de Bouillon, François Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville, duc de Luxembourg and, most importantly, the king's mistress, the Marquise de Montespan.

La Voisin claimed that de Montespan had bought aphrodisiacs and performed black masses with her in order to gain the king's favor. She had worked with a priest named Etienne Guibourg. There was no evidence beyond her confessions, but the bad reputation followed these people afterwards.

Also involved in the scandal was Eustache Dauger de Cavoye, the eldest living son of a prominent noble family. De Cavoye was disinherited by his family when, in an act of debauchery he chose to celebrate Good Friday with a black mass. Upon being disinherited he opened a lucrative trade in "inheritance powders" and aphrodisiacs. He mysteriously disappeared after the abrupt ending to Louis's official investigation in 1678. Because of this, and his name he was once suspected of being The Man in the Iron Mask. However this theory has fallen out of favor because it is known that he was imprisoned by his family in 1679 in the Prison Saint-Lazare.

Monvoisin was sentenced to death for witchcraft and poisoning, and burned at the stake on February 22 1680. Marshal Montmorency-Bouteville was briefly jailed in 1680, but was later released and became a captain of the guard. Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert helped to hush things up.

De La Reynie re-established the special court, the "Chambre Ardente" ("burning court") to judge cases of poisoning and witchcraft. It investigated a number of cases, including many connected to nobles and courtiers in the king's court. Over the years the court sentenced 34 people to death for poisoning or witchcraft. Two died under torture and several courtiers were exiled. The court was abolished in 1682, because the King could not risk publicity of such scandal. To this, Police Chief Reynie said, "the enormity of their crimes proved their safeguard."

Perhaps the most important effect of the scandal, and subsequent persecutions, was the expulsion from France of the aforementioned Comtesse de Soissons. Her son remained in France only to find that his mother's high-profile disgrace prevented him from realising his personal ambitions, as he was effectively barred from pursuing a military career. He would eventually leave France nurturing a profound grudge against Louis XIV and enter the service of France's sworn enemies the Habsburgs. Prince Eugene of Savoy, or Prinz Eugen, would, in time, come to be known as one of the greatest generals of the age and one of the factors behind the failure of Louis' bid for hegemony in Europe.

References

Text

* Anne Somerset - "The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV" (St. Martin's Press (October 12, 2003) ISBN 0-312-33017-0)
* Éric Le Nabour - "La Reynie: Le policier de Louis XIV (Présence de lhistoire)" (Perrin (1990) ISBN 978-2262008062)
* Judith Merkle Riley - "The Oracle Glass" (Fiction)
* Frances Mossiker - "The Affair of the Poisons: Louis XIV, Madame de Montespan, and one of History's great Unsolved Mysteries (Alfred A. Knopf (1969) ISBN 0722162456)
* François Ravaisson - "Archives de la Bastille" (Paris, 1866-1884, volumes IV, V, VI, VII)

Video

* Royal Secrets - Volume 2: Madmen / Murderers / Sorcery / Warmongers (VHS)