Those interrogating her were highly sceptical of this and an hour before she went to her execution the Attorney-General again tried to persuade her to inculpate Pennautier. Mme de Brinvilliers replied that, knowing she was about to be judged by God, she would not have protected Pennautier if she had believed him to be guilty of poisoning, but she had no grounds to accuse him of such a thing. Frustrated by her answer, the Attorney-General told Pirot, ‘This woman’s reducing us to despair,’ but even then he had not given up all hope of learning what he wanted. At the very moment that Mme de Brinvilliers was about to mount the scaffold, a clerk of the court told her that if she had anything further to add to what she had said, she could be taken into the Town Hall, where two commissioners were waiting to see her. Mme de Brinvilliers indicated that she would like to make some minor amendments to her testimony, but it was clear that these did not concern Pennautier and her offer was dismissed. ‘That’s not what we’re asking for!’ the clerk said crossly and rode off in disgust.64
Once Mme de Brinvilliers was dead it was assumed that Pennautier was out of danger. The Minister for War, Louvois, told a colleague that he expected Pennautier would soon be freed and Mme de Sévigné commented sarcastically that he would doubtless emerge from prison ‘whiter than snow’ even if, in the eyes of the public, his innocence remained in doubt. However, on 26 July 1676 Mme de Saint-Laurens, widow of the man whom Pennautier had succeeded as Receiver-General of the clergy, made the dramatic move of issuing a formal accusation against him. She contended that Pennautier had not only poisoned her late husband but also that he had murdered his father-in-law and a former business partner named Monsieur Dalibert.65
In support of this she alleged that when Sainte-Croix’s casket had first been opened, it had contained a promissory note of November 1667, written in Pennautier’s own hand, in which he undertook to pay Sainte-Croix 10,000 livres at some time in the future. Some substance was given to this claim by the fact that, when Pennautier had been called upon to authenticate his documents, he had agreed that one with that date had been among those found in the casket. Pennautier later explained that this had been caused by a simple misunderstanding, which had since been rectified, but Mme de Saint-Laurens provided a more sinister explanation. She suggested that Pennautier had bribed those in charge of the casket to remove the compromising paper, commenting portentously, ‘Pennautier’s fortune has perhaps brought off more difficult enterprises [than that].’66
Mme de Saint-Laurens pointed out that Pennautier had a clerk named Belleguise whom the authorities wished to locate so they could question him about his association with Sainte-Croix. She suggested that Pennautier had also had close links with ‘Martin’, another crony of Sainte-Croix. This was the man to whom Mme de Brinvilliers had referred in her letter to Pennautier, and whose whereabouts still remained a mystery. Mme de Saint-Laurens also drew attention to the fact that Sainte-Croix had spent lavishly despite his lack of income. She insisted that it must have been Pennautier who financed this profligate lifestyle.
According to Mme de Saint-Laurens, the reason why Pennautier had so far evaded justice was that he enjoyed the protection of high-ranking members of the judiciary. Pennautier was the brother-in-law of M. Le Boultz, and was hence allied to a powerful legal dynasty, for M. Le Boultz was himself a Conseiller in the Parlement and his father occupied a still more exalted position in the judiciary. Mme Saint-Laurens was sure they had done everything possible to aid Pennautier. She even alleged that, after Mme de Brinvilliers had undergone ‘imaginary torture’, M. Le Boultz had approached her while she lay on the mattress, thus distracting her during those ‘happy moments’ when the truth was most likely to emerge.67
Mme de Saint-Laurens was not the first person to voice such fears. Even before the execution of Mme de Brinvilliers concern about the activities of the Le Boultz clan was such that some people came to suspect that her confessor Pirot was their stooge and that, far from urging her to be frank about her accomplices, he had encouraged her to remain silent. The Attorney-General became so disturbed by these rumours that he actually confronted Pirot on the matter. The Jesuit protested that prior to being chosen as Mme de Brinvilliers’s confessor he had never met any of the Le Boultz family. He did concede, however, that after he had accepted the task M. Le Boultz had sought him out and spoken of his fears that torture might provoke Mme de Brinvilliers to make false accusations against Pennautier. If so, he begged Pirot to persuade her to retract these by telling her that she could not die with a clear conscience if she had incriminated an innocent man.68 Presumably the reason why Pirot subsequently wrote his account of Mme de Brinvilliers’s final hours and deposited it in the Jesuits’ library in Paris was that he knew his integrity had been questioned and he wished to establish that he had acted correctly.
Pennautier had other influential supporters besides MM. Le Boultz. They included the King’s Controller-General of Finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (who was grateful for the way Pennautier had persuaded the Estates of Languedoc to grant large sums of money to the Crown), and the Archbishop of Paris, but the public merely assumed he had purchased their loyalty with his wealth. Though the vengeful Mme de Saint-Laurens did not dare impugn the honesty of these important figures, she named others who she considered had been remiss in their duty. In a petition to the King she reminded him that M. Palluau, the investigating magistrate in the Brinvilliers case, was ‘an old and intimate friend’ of MM. Le Boultz. She alleged that this had made him reluctant to uncover evidence which could have been used against Pennautier, as was shown by his unaccountable failure to press Pennautier as to why he had sought to eat the letter he had been writing at the time of his arrest.69
The King was by no means impervious to such concerns, for he too was worried that Parlement would fail to show the necessary vigour and impartiality when dealing with Pennautier. He had heard the rumours that ‘strong solicitations’ had been made to Parlement on his behalf and that a great deal of money was being spread about. He was determined that this should not affect the way Pennautier was treated. On 28 June he ordered that First President Lamoignon and the Attorney-General, Achille de Harlay, should be told that he required this investigation into poisoning to be conducted with the utmost diligence. He wrote, ‘I expect that they will do everything that upright men like themselves ought to do to baffle all those of any rank whatsoever who are mixed up in such an evil trade.’ The King may have been disappointed that his intervention did not prove more effectual, for he was later said to have observed that no man worth 4 million livres like Pennautier would ever be found guilty by Parlement. He also allegedly remarked, ‘If I had a lawsuit against Le Boultz, I would lose it.’70
In early August Pennautier’s missing clerk, Belleguise, was tracked down and many people thought that once he began to talk Pennautier would be fatally compromised. It was whispered that Parlement would have preferred it if Belleguise had remained at large and that it was only because the King had taken an interest in the matter that he had been detained. Mme de Sévigné believed the Attorney-General was doing his duty properly, but she felt sure that Pennautier’s wealth had corrupted lesser members of Parlement. She heard that 100,000 écus had been distributed to make things easier for Pennautier and commented darkly that an innocent man would hardly need to be so lavish.71
* * *
To counteract the campaign waged against him by Mme de Saint-Laurens, Pennautier arranged for pamphlets to be issued protesting his innocence.72 Apart from ridiculing the idea that he could have tampered with the contents of Sainte-Croix’s casket, he put forward convincing arguments in his defence. He pointed out that it made no sense for Mme de Saint-Laurens to suggest that in 1667 he was already planning to murder her husband and that he had promised money to Sainte-Croix on that account. As he reminded his readers, at that date Saint-Laurens had not yet been appointed Receiver-General of the clergy, so Pennautier would have had nothing to gain by killing him. Even once Saint-Laurens had become the incumbent,
a mere five weeks before he died, it could hardly have been foreseen that Pennautier would benefit from his death. Saint-Laurens had already designated another man as his successor and it was impossible to predict that this arrangement would be overturned. Furthermore, after her husband’s death, Mme de Saint-Laurens had not only supported Pennautier’s candidacy to become Receiver-General, but had also reached a deal with Pennautier, whereby he undertook to share the profits of the post with her. It was surely unthinkable that Mme de Saint-Laurens would have been ready to do business with Pennautier if she had grounds to believe he had murdered her husband. It was only after the arrangement had come to an end, in December 1675, that Mme de Saint-Laurens had begun voicing suspicions about Pennautier.
Above all, however, Pennautier was adamant that there was nothing to support the idea that Saint-Laurens had died as a result of poisoning. Because his last illness had been ‘extraordinarily violent’ and his tongue had turned ‘black and livid’ when he died, an autopsy had been carried out on him. Having found ‘a great quantity of pus or floating matter in the intestines’, the doctors had concluded that the cause of death was an abscess in the lower stomach, which had burst after Saint-Laurens had been jolted during a long journey on horseback. Despite Mme de Saint-Laurens’s allegations, the doctors continued to stand by their original diagnosis.
(It should perhaps be mentioned here that three years later the fortune-teller Mme Voisin would suggest that M. de Saint-Laurens had been poisoned by his brother, the Chevalier de Hannyvel. However, her only reason for saying this was that Hannyvel, ‘an impious person who was always seeking to speak with the devil’, had subsequently talked of murdering his nephew and widowed sister-in-law so that he could inherit his brother’s wealth.73 No harm had ever ensued to them and on this evidence it would hardly be fair to reject the conclusion of Saint-Laurens’s doctors that he had died of natural causes.)
Pennautier could not deny that he had known Sainte-Croix and loaned him money but he insisted that this was of no significance. ‘With whom was this man not acquainted?’ he demanded rhetorically, adding that it was absurd to think that just because he had advanced funds to someone who happened to be a poisoner he had committed the same crime.
* * *
Pennautier’s case was finally heard on 20 July 1677. Once again he was required to explain why he had tried to see Mme de Brinvilliers after Sainte-Croix’s casket had been discovered and he was also questioned about the letter he had been writing at the time of his arrest. When the torn-up pieces had been reassembled, it had transpired that Pennautier had been making arrangements to send an unnamed man to the country, but he denied that this was ‘Martin’, whose disappearance had been so desired by Mme de Brinvilliers. He insisted it was simple panic that had prompted him to try to prevent the letter being seized by the arresting officers, and that its contents were wholly innocuous. The court accepted these assurances and Pennautier was given an absolute discharge.
Pennautier had in theory been completely vindicated. He was left free to pursue his successful career, for he had retained his post as Receiver-General of the French clergy. He resumed his place in Paris society, acting as if he had never been suspected of murder. In reality, however, his reputation never really recovered and in fashionable circles his name still provoked sniggers many years after he had supposedly been exonerated. Mme de Sévigné was proved wrong when she prophesied that from now on no one would risk dining with Pennautier but, though people soon showed themselves ready enough to accept his hospitality, he was always regarded in a faintly macabre light. An observant Italian visitor to France named Giovanni-Battista Primi Visconti confessed that he felt uneasy when Pennautier came to court and stationed himself in the throng of courtiers who gazed on while the King had his dinner. He explained that he was sure the King was aware of the presence of this notorious figure and that this cannot have enhanced his appetite.74
Pennautier’s clerk, Belleguise, was also tried in July 1677. Although at the time of his arrest there had been great expectations that he would turn out to have been a key figure who had formed a vital link between Pennautier and Sainte-Croix, his trial proved a great anticlimax. He admitted having visited Sainte-Croix’s laboratory but said that this was because he had been interested in alchemical research. He categorically denied that he had ever seen anything to suggest that Sainte-Croix was producing poison. Without further evidence he could not be convicted of involvement in Sainte-Croix’s crimes but he was not completely cleared, for there were better grounds for suspecting that he and Sainte-Croix had been jointly involved in a counterfeiting racket. The judges were satisfied that he had handled fake silver coins and accordingly they banished him from France for the period of three years, three months and three days.
* * *
The Brinvilliers murder case had been resolved but it had caused a lingering unease. Poisoning, which had previously been dismissed as the province of foreigners, no longer seemed an impossibly remote threat. Indeed, the danger it posed had penetrated the national consciousness to such an extent that it was close to becoming an obsession with the French. In one of the pamphlets written in his defence Pennautier had recalled how, after the execution of La Chausée, ‘All the public was stirred up; in Paris all the talk was of bizarre deaths that had been witnessed. Everyone … went over the circumstances in their mind, everything dreadful that happened was attributed to poison.’ In her pursuit of Pennautier, Mme de Saint-Laurens had done her best to exploit such fears, for she maintained that poisoners had claimed many victims without the cause of death being recognised. She confidently pronounced, ‘Between 1667 and 1672 poison, disguised under the name of apoplexy, ravaged the whole of France with sudden deaths.’75
It was not just that poisoning was now supposed to be more commonplace than previously imagined. Mme de Brinvilliers’s involvement meant that henceforth no one could be above suspicion, for her social position and female sex had not precluded her from committing the most iniquitous acts. While Mme de Brinvilliers was awaiting trial a lawyer named Maître Nivelle had written a pamphlet seeking to defend her; he had begun by urging that she must be innocent because her ‘advantages of birth, rank and fortune’ rendered it unthinkable that she could be ‘capable of the horrible and cowardly crimes of which she is accused’.76 The outcome of the trial, and Mme de Brinvilliers’s subsequent confession, meant that such comforting assumptions could no longer be sustained.
This gave rise to the nagging fear that other outwardly respectable persons were engaged in equally despicable deeds. Some years later Louis XIV’s Chief of Police in Paris, M. de La Reynie, would even claim that Mme de Brinvilliers had herself acknowledged this. He alleged that ‘she was the first to say … during the confrontations with witnesses and at other times, that there were many people engaged in this wretched trade of poison, including persons of high station’. La Reynie’s statements about the Brinvilliers case are not always reliable, but there were other reports of her making similar comments. It was rumoured, for example, that when she realised, just before her execution, that she would not be reprieved, she had exclaimed, ‘Out of so many guilty people must I be the only one to be put to death?’ Her confessor Pirot insisted there was no truth in the story but it continued to be widely believed. The gaoler who had tricked Mme de Brinvilliers into writing to Pennautier added his contribution: he said she had boasted that if she chose, she could ‘ruin half the people in town’, but that she was ‘too generous’ to betray them.77
If it was true that such wicked people were still at large, not even the King could regard himself as invulnerable to their machinations. The Brinvilliers case itself had raised concerns about his safety. Christophe Glaser had, of course, been the royal apothecary and it was undeniably frightening that a man alleged to have supplied Sainte-Croix with poisons should have been responsible for preparing drugs for the King. Furthermore, it had been reported that towards the end of his life Sainte-Croix had boasted that he had plans to
become one of the King’s cabinet secretaries or, still more alarmingly, a royal cupbearer, serving the King drinks at meals. In her petition to the King Mme de Saint-Laurens implored him to consider the dangers he would have faced if such a sensitive position had been entrusted to a criminal of his calibre.78 To obtain one of these posts Sainte-Croix would have needed the support of an influential person at court and, predictably, Mme de Saint-Laurens was sure this had been Pennautier. Once Pennautier had been acquitted this theory no longer seemed tenable, but there was still a possibility that Sainte-Croix had had other powerful protectors within the court. If so, the King might even now be nurturing monsters who were plotting to destroy him. All this gave rise to fear and suspicion, and ensured that the satisfactory resolution of the Brinvilliers case was not looked on as a cause for congratulation. Instead, it created the perception that French society was menaced by hidden dangers, all the more perilous for being unfathomable.
TWO
LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT
In July 1676, a week after she had seen the Marquise de Brinvilliers go to her execution (or rather, after waiting for hours on the Pont Notre-Dame in order to glimpse the tip of the condemned woman’s hood) Mme de Sévigné paid a visit to Versailles. Despite the fact that France was at war, she found the court immersed in pleasure. Although his armies remained in the field against the Dutch and their allies, at the beginning of July King Louis XIV had taken a break from campaigning in order to enjoy a summer holiday at his favourite residence, Versailles. To mark his return, a succession of entertainments were devised, in which his courtiers enthusiastically participated. Every evening there were plays, concerts or carriage rides or, alternatively, a nocturnal gondola trip on the newly enlarged canal to the palace’s western side might be followed by a torchlight picnic supper. In the afternoons the courtiers were kept amused by gambling sessions in the King’s upper apartment, an imposing suite of rooms, which had only recently been completed. In these ornate surroundings they hazarded their luck at the newly fashionable game of reversis and, since the minimum stake was 500 louis, huge sums were won and lost.
The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV Page 7