Prominent at the gaming tables was the Marquise de Montespan, who had been the King’s mistress for the past nine years and had already borne Louis five children. She was universally agreed to be a great beauty, but Mme de Sévigné noted that she had never seen her look better. She had recently lost weight after a visit to the spa town of Bourbon and was dressed in the height of fashion, wearing a gown lavishly adorned with exquisite lace. Her blond hair was arranged in a mass of curls, becomingly topped by black ribbons, and at her throat she wore jewels that might have been borrowed from the Maréchale de l’Hôpital, but which were finer than any the Queen possessed. ‘In a word, a triumphant beauty’ was Mme de Sévigné’s admiring verdict. Concluding her description of her visit Mme de Sévigné reported, ‘The court has never been so agreeable and everyone very much wants this to continue.’1
Seemingly, at least, the scene could not have been further removed from the grisly events enacted a few days earlier in the Place de Grève. Mme de Sévigné certainly had no inkling that within four years a significant number of the elegant and well-connected figures who graced the afternoon reception would face disgrace and ruin following allegations of poisoning. Still less did she imagine that the radiant and resplendent Mme de Montespan would herself be touched by the same scandal after she too was accused not just of poisoning but also of sacrilege, Satanism and infanticide.
* * *
In some ways the France of Louis XIV was an unlikely setting for the events that form the subject of this book. At the time, France was an assertive, self-confident nation, proud of its status as a great power and convinced of its superiority to its neighbours. The Affair of the Poisons challenged these assumptions and proved a humbling experience for a country accustomed to being the focus of envy and admiration.
It would also undermine the prestige of the court, which hitherto had been famed for its splendour and sophistication. The shocking and distasteful revelations that were a feature of the affair stripped the court of some of its lustre and made it seem decadent and tawdry. Members of the French aristocracy, proverbially arrogant and assured, were accused of terrible crimes and depicted as twisted and perverted. Even when it was impossible to prove that these people were truly wicked, the affair exposed them as being superstitious, backward and deluded. The story of the Affair of the Poisons is strange by any standard, but it becomes still more bizarre when placed in context.
* * *
In August 1678 the war with Holland, which had lasted six years, was ended by the signing of the Treaty of Nymwegen. With hindsight people saw this as the apogee of Louis XIV’s reign. Abbé Choisy declared in his memoirs, ‘In making the Peace of Nymwegen King Louis the Great had attained the summit of human glory.’ Another courtier described Louis as ‘master in Europe … the arbiter of all in this part of our hemisphere’. After Louis’s death Voltaire would echo this assessment, identifying this as the moment when ‘the king was … at the height of his grandeur’ and noting that having been ‘the terror of Europe for six years running’, Louis had now established himself as the most commanding figure on the continent.2
The King could justly pride himself on having transformed France in less than twenty years, for it was only in 1661, following the death of Cardinal Mazarin, that he had assumed personal direction of his affairs. Since that time he had been aided in his task by a group of powerful and capable ministers, but though much responsibility was delegated to these individuals, final decisions rested with the King. By the end of the Dutch War, France possessed the most powerful army to have been seen in Europe since Roman times, numbering 200,000 men even in peacetime. The navy, which had been negligible in 1661, had been fashioned into a formidable fighting force. Between 1661–72 the King’s net revenues had more than doubled, thanks largely to the efforts of his Controller-General of Finance, Colbert, although not even the crippling taxation imposed on France’s peasant population had been able to prevent debts accumulating during the Dutch War. Colbert had also worked tirelessly to improve communications within France, to promote foreign trade and encourage manufacturing. Particular importance had been attached to the production of luxury goods for the court, partly because Colbert wanted to reduce imports but also because he believed that in themselves these high-quality goods promoted the ‘grandeur and magnificence’ of France.
The arts, too, were cultivated assiduously. The written word flourished to such a degree that Voltaire could declare of the period, ‘In eloquence [and] in … literature … the French were the legislators of Europe.’ As well as being a generous patron to artists and composers within France, the King signalled his devotion to the arts by conferring pensions on distinguished writers throughout Europe, establishing himself as the Maecenas of his age. However, art was not merely valued for its own sake, for it was expected to serve the purposes of the state by reminding observers of the King’s power and prestige. When the King set up a school in Paris to provide instruction in painting and sculpture he did so not merely because he held both disciplines in ‘singular esteem’ but also because he believed that these were ‘two arts which should pre-eminently contribute to the establishment of his fame and the transmission of his name to posterity’. Those who received royal patronage were mindful of their obligations. In 1677, when touring the workshops set up for the manufacture of Gobelins tapestries, John Locke was impressed by the ‘very rich and good figures’ in the designs, but he noted ‘in every piece Louis le grand was the hero, and [in] the rest the marks of some conquest etc.’.3
As befitted a monarch who prided himself on ruling a modern and progressive state, the King took an interest in promoting science. At a time when the mysteries of the universe were being shown to operate in conformity with the laws of geometry and mathematics, it was feasible to assume that a similar logic and consistency underlay much of human existence. The results that could be attained through observation and experimentation were incalculable, and the King was determined that France would be well placed both to take advantage of recent scientific advances and to make new discoveries. In 1666 the Royal Academy of Sciences was founded in Paris with the aid of generous financial support from the Crown. The previous year the world’s first scientific journal, the Journal des Savants, had appeared, enhancing the claim of Paris to be regarded as the scientific capital of the world. In 1667 work was started on a magnificent observatory, equipped at royal expense with a superlative telescope and other intruments designed to facilitate the study of astronomy and cartography. The King’s personal enthusiasm for scientific enquiry was demonstrated in 1681 when the elephant in the menagerie at Versailles died and Louis was present when its vast corpse was dissected by the Academy of Sciences.4
According to Voltaire it was under Louis XIV that ‘human reason in general was perfected’, and the King himself was sure that his conduct as a ruler was consistently shaped by rational thought. He told his son that in discharging his responsibilities ‘I … governed myself in accordance with reason’, ‘using good sense’ to resolve problems.5 The Affair of the Poisons would nevertheless demonstrate that despite Louis’s enthusiasm for technological progress and his avowed espousal of modernity, Reason was not so firmly in the ascendant in seventeenth-century France as its King liked to think.
* * *
The King believed that the enhancement of his ‘gloire’ – a potent word which encompassed ‘reputation’ as well as its literal translation of ‘glory’ – was his overriding priority. He told his son that all else must be subordinated to this, for the acquisition of gloire was rightfully ‘the governing and dominant passion’ of all princes. In his eyes it was not enough merely to maintain France’s position in the world; instead, it was incumbent on him to take every opportunity to increase his kingdom’s power and prestige. As he explained, ‘A reputation cannot be preserved without adding to it every day. Glory, finally, is not a mistress who can be neglected, nor is one ever worthy of her first favours if he is not always wishing for new ones.’ This c
onviction had grave implications for the stability of Europe, for Louis was clear that ‘war is undoubtedly the most brilliant way to acquire glory’. Because of Louis’s ‘thirst for gloire’, France enjoyed only fleeting interludes of peace between 1661 and the King’s death in 1715. A German diplomat would indeed claim that it was this ‘boundless and inordinate passion for glory … which dominates and possesses him even to excess’ that lay at the root of ‘the fatal events of our times’.6
The first war the King embarked on was a relatively painless affair, for after his 1667 declaration of hostilities against Spain the campaigns that followed in Flanders and Franche-Comté bore more resemblance to triumphal progresses than bitter conflict. Peace was restored in 1668 but the war against Holland, which broke out in 1672, was an altogether more formidable undertaking. At the outset it seemed that the French would win easily and in the summer of 1672 the Dutch sued for peace, offering exceptionally generous terms. However, when these were rejected the Dutch concluded that France was set on their annihilation, leaving them with no alternative but to resume the struggle. By cutting the dykes and flooding the land around Amsterdam the Dutch halted the French advance, but the country had been saved at a terrible cost. As the war dragged on, other European powers allied with the Dutch, concerned that if France crushed Holland her power would become overwhelming. In the course of the savage struggle that ensued the civilian population of Holland suffered terrible cruelties at the hands of French troops and though Louis XIV’s Minister of War, Louvois, has customarily been blamed for this policy of ‘frightfulness’, Louis himself must bear the ultimate responsibility.7
When the war finally came to an end in 1678 the French could reasonably claim to be the victors, even though the terms obtained at Nymwegen were less favourable than those proposed by the Dutch six years earlier. Yet the victory had been costly, for casualties on all sides had been high. In September 1674, when France was celebrating its success at the battle of Senef, Mme de Sévigné noted ruefully, ‘We lost so many at this victory that without the Te Deum and a few standards carried to Notre-Dame we would have believed that we had lost the fight.’ More serious, however, was the fact that France had come to be viewed throughout Europe as an arrogant and exorbitant predator whose ambitions must be curbed. When Louis began exploiting legal ambiguities in Nymwegen and earlier treaties to lay claim to further territories, his determination to make ‘peace a time of conquest’ only reinforced the perception that France was a dangerous bully.8
* * *
A king so obsessed with his prestige required a fitting setting to emphasise his majesty, for Louis fully concurred with Colbert’s dictum that apart from ‘striking actions of war, nothing indicates the grandeur and spirit of princes more than buildings’. The King was particularly well endowed in this respect, for the wonderful palaces and chateaux he had inherited included Saint-Germain, Chambord, Fontainebleau, Vincennes and, in Paris, the Tuileries and the Louvre. The King used all these as temporary residences, and made significant alterations and improvements to many of them. His real passion, however, was Versailles and it was here that Louis indulged his love of building to transform an unassuming house originally used by his father as a hunting lodge into one of the most stupendous palaces in the world. Despite the unsatisfactory nature of the terrain and the lack of an abundant water supply, the King engaged the landscape designer André Le Notre to create the extraordinary gardens and park, with features that included a cruciform canal broad enough to accommodate a flotilla of sailing ships, and 1400 fountains. Well might the Duc de Saint-Simon write of Louis, ‘It diverted him to ride roughshod over nature and to use his money and ingenuity to subdue it to his will.’9
In 1668 the King embarked on a major programme of construction, commissioning the architect Louis Le Vau to enlarge the original building. Le Vau’s additions included a grandiose suite on the ground floor for the King’s private use with rooms adorned by columns and statuary, culminating in a magnificent bathroom, whose centrepiece was a massive octagonal tub carved from a single block of marble. The King’s upper apartment, which overlooked the gardens, was sited above these rooms and it was here that he entertained the court. ‘Everything is furnished divinely; everything is magnificent,’ Mme de Sévigné wrote appreciatively on first seeing it. In each room the door surrounds and window embrasures were enriched with a different coloured marble ‘as fine as those formerly brought over from Italy or Greece’, hewn from French quarries which had only recently been opened and exploited. As one passed in succession through the Salon of Venus, the Salon of Abundance, the Salon of Diana, the Salon of Mars, the Salon of Mercury and the Salon of Apollo, the interiors became progressively more elaborate and the decorative scheme was completed by ceilings ‘enriched by paintings by the best painters of the Royal Academy’.10
By 1678 the King had resolved to make Versailles the permanent seat of court and government, and he addressed himself to beautifying it still further. The conclusion of the Dutch War meant that he could allocate twice the amount of money that had been spent at Versailles during the previous year to effect more improvements. Since Le Vau was now dead, Jules Hardouin Mansart was engaged to construct the Salons of Peace and War, and the monumental Hall of Mirrors, a dazzling conception which overwhelmed the senses as much by its sheer scale as by its visual splendour. Following its completion in 1684 a court lady confidently proclaimed this to be ‘without doubt … the finest thing of its kind in the universe’.11
It is a truism that life at Versailles, so grand in many ways, was also pervaded by squalor. In an age of primitive sanitation this was, of course, a problem common to all large buildings where many people congregated. When touring Fontainebleau in 1677, John Locke noted that the back stairs leading to the apartments of the King’s brother smelt like an urinal. In 1675 a report on the Louvre claimed that ‘on the grand staircases … behind the doors and almost everywhere one sees there a mass of excrement, one smells a thousand unbearable stenches caused by calls of nature which everyone goes to do there every day’. As the description was penned by a man who was bidding for a contract to supply the Louvre with close stools and to dispose of their contents, he may have exaggerated. However, at Versailles problems of this sort were particularly acute. Once the court settled there permanently after 1682 it became more difficult to arrange for a palace which was so rarely left unoccupied to be thoroughly cleansed and aired. Sewage disposal was made more challenging because the building was not situated on a river. Courtiers also frequently referred to the ‘bad air’ of Versailles, which they generally blamed on the ‘exhalations’ that emanated from the vast masses of earth that were moved by hundreds of labourers during the landscaping of the gardens.12
Anecdotal evidence also suggests that some individuals at court were remarkably casual about the performance of natural functions. The King’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d’Orléans complained in 1702 that ‘the people stationed in the galleries in front of our room piss in all the corners. It is impossible to leave one’s apartments without seeing somebody pissing.’ It is true she was apt to exaggerate but other stories go some way to bearing out her claims. The Duc de Saint-Simon described an occasion when the eccentric Bishop of Noyon was overcome by such ‘a great desire to piss’ as he passed the chapel at Versailles that he entered the King’s tribune and urinated over the balustrade, splattering the floor below. Some years earlier a correspondent of the Comte de Bussy reported that Mmes de Saulx and de Tremouille had caused outrage when they defecated in their box at the theatre ‘and then, to remove the evil smell, threw everything into the pit’. Not unnaturally the audience shrieked abuse, obliging the two ladies to withdraw, but while the response makes it plain that such behaviour was considered neither normal nor acceptable, the incident helps explain how Versailles could have acquired its insalubrious reputation.13
* * *
The King had been supremely successful in ensuring that the life of the French aristocr
acy revolved around the court, even while he denied them a role in central government. Despite their effective exclusion from political power, other forms of advancement were open to the nobility and they pursued these assiduously. They came to court to negotiate advantageous marriages, or in hopes of obtaining preferment in the army and Church. Others craved positions in the royal household, which not only conferred prestige on the holder but brought with it tangible benefits. The King might reward loyal servants with financial favours such as pensions or grants of monopoly: during his visit to Paris in 1679, for example, John Locke noticed that bills had been pasted all over the city ‘with a privilege for a receipt to kill lice whereof the Duke of Bouillon has the monopoly’.14 Contact with the King afforded opportunities to present him with direct requests, as well as to intercede for others who did not enjoy such close proximity to the monarch. It was, of course, understood that if this was successful, the person who had approached the King would be rewarded for his efforts by the benefiting party. Others who did not have access to the King and who had devised money-making schemes that required his approval, found it impossible to implement them directly. Instead, they sold their ideas to more privileged courtiers who were better placed to exploit them.
The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV Page 8