City of Light, City of Poison

by Holly Tucker

  Louis XIV continued his military conquests in the Low Countries, which he undertook in the name of his Spanish queen. He also spent as much time as possible with Athénaïs. The princess of Montpensier, Louis XIV’s cousin, recalled suggestively that she and others in the court noticed that “the King was often alone in his quarters, and that [during those moments] Madame de Montespan was not with the Queen.” On days when the troops remained at camp, the king instructed Marie-Thérèse to visit the newly conquered towns, villages, churches, and convents. Her lady-in-waiting, Athénaïs, often pleaded fatigue and preferred to stay in her quarters. In the evenings Montespan claimed disingenuously that she had “slept all day long.”

  Montpensier also remembered that, while dining with the royal couple one evening, the queen turned to her and said, “The King did not go to bed until four o’clock. It was already light out. I do not know what he could have been doing.”

  “I was reading dispatches,” Louis explained, turning his head toward his cousin with a sly smile. Montpensier found the exchange entertaining but, out of respect for the queen, lowered her eyes and stared silently at the plate in front of her. Montpensier remarked that the king appeared to be in an “admirably good mood” after the meal as he set out on his evening walk in the company of his wife—and his lover, Madame de Montespan. If Marie-Thérèse was aware of the affair, she chose not to confront the king. “I see many things,” the queen later explained to a confidante. “I am not the dupe that everyone thinks I am, but I am prudent.”

  On September 3, after three months of military action and travel in the company of his court, the king declared victory over Spain in the Dutch provinces. Four days later he returned to his château in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Now back at home, Louis quickly returned to his regular activities: dancing, horseback riding, hunting, parties, and other sensual pleasures.

  Louis found ways to see Montespan alone at Saint-Germain, sometimes more than once a day. He visited her quarters, and especially her bed, every afternoon. They danced together publicly at the court’s many evening balls lasting well into early morning. Montespan also joined the king, along with the queen and La Vallière, at the royal table for dinner every night.

  Although Louis’s timid mistress Louise de La Vallière had fallen out of favor with the king, Louis needed to make a show of still being in love with her in order to distract attention from his relationship with the lively but married Montespan. However, the king’s feigned love extended only so far. While La Vallière gave birth to their fourth child one night in early October, Louis attended a ballet in the company of Athénaïs. The infant was immediately whisked away as maids tidied the room and La Vallière rushed to make herself presentable for the medianoche, the midnight meal, which the king had decided to take in her quarters. The ruse fooled no one.

  As much as Louis enjoyed life at Saint-Germain, the king set his sights on constructing a larger residence more fitting for a valiant and virile king. Three years earlier, in 1664, Louis undertook a massive expansion of the gardens at Versailles, his father’s former hunting lodge. He did so in anticipation of the seven-day celebration, which he called the “Island of Pleasure,” of his love for Louise. Another wave of construction came in the fall of 1667, in anticipation of another, even more elaborate celebration—this time for Athénaïs.

  Louis instructed his architects to expand the view from the palace’s windows. To this effect, they widened and lengthened the Allée Royale (Royal Path) behind the château, adding more fountains, statues, and perfectly sculpted trees and bushes. Still not satisfied with the view, the king consulted members of the Academy of Sciences to study whether it would be possible to create a canal at the end of the Allée Royale. The canal would serve two purposes. First, tapering ever so slightly and appearing much longer than it actually was, the canal would trick the eye into believing the king’s gardens were infinite. Second, through an ingenious system of aqueducts, the canal would collect water from a distance in order to feed Louis’s growing collection of fountains. A massive army of laborers moved earth and lifted stones as big as buildings to make the king’s wishes come to fruition. Each day Louis inspected their work. During visits, he often stopped for a quick ride on the rustic wooden roller coaster—one of the first of its kind.

  Viewing Versailles as little more than a place for the king’s pleasure, Colbert lamented—as he often did—that the massive expenditures involved were a missed opportunity to move the court back to Paris and the Louvre. Colbert’s preference for the Louvre over Versailles was not at all surprising given his ongoing desire to turn Paris from a crime capital into the jewel of the Crown. “Your Majesty has spent such huge sums on this house [Versailles],” Colbert told the king, “that the Louvre, which is assuredly the most superb palace in the world and most dignified for the grandeur of Your Majesty, has been neglected.” Fueling the conflict between domestic and military affairs, Colbert complained, “Your Majesty knows that, in addition to stunning successes on the battlefield, nothing marks more the grandeur and the spirit of princes than buildings. . . . Oh what a pity, that the greatest and most virtuous king would be measured by Versailles!”

  Ignoring Colbert, the king forged ahead on construction at Versailles. By mid-July 1668, the palace hosted a “great royal entertainment” like none ever seen before to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which heralded still more success in the Low Countries and netted France both Wallonia and Flanders (more or less the equivalent of modern-day Belgium). However, all who attended knew that the elaborately choreographed fete served mostly as a joyful acknowledgment of the one-year anniversary of the king’s relationship with Madame de Montespan.

  At precisely six o’clock Louis invited his guests—fifteen hundred in all—to experience the “pleasures of the walk” with him. On cue hundreds of engineers lying in wait in bushes and behind statues had inserted heavy metal T-bars in the deep holes where the valves for the palace’s many fountains lay. When opened, the valves sent jets of water soaring toward the late-evening sun.

  Accompanied at every step by the music of the court composer Lully, the king strolled down the long path behind the château toward another fountain, surrounded by a grove of shady trees. Around the fountain stood an immense and edible “mountain” made of cured cold meats. A palace-shaped sculpture made entirely of marzipan and sugar cakes sat next to it. Vases contained live trees from whose branches hung brightly colored candied and real fruit. The court stood entranced as they watched the king and the queen delight in the whimsical yet impeccably presented buffet. The king then invited his subjects to “pillage” the beautiful arrangements that had been prepared for them. Mountains toppled, and the châteaux fell. Noblemen and -women laughed with delight as they nibbled sweets and threw candied fruit at one another.

  Supper took place inside a tent that soared fifty feet in the air and had been embellished to look like an ancient temple. Sitting proudly at the table of honor, the king surrounded himself with forty-eight of the most notable ladies in his kingdom, with Montespan proudly holding court next to him.

  Sitting among the ladies was La Reynie’s new bride, Gabrielle de Garibal. In the twenty years since the death of his beloved Antoinette, the police chief had not considered remarriage. However, he knew that having a widower at the helm of the police force would only be a distraction to the court, inclined to gossip as it was. Less than a year after his appointment, he married the wealthy daughter of the late Jean de Garibal, a former president of the Parlement, in a perfunctory ceremony and got back to work clearing the way for law and order in his city of light.

  Louis, on the other hand, relished the pleasures of his new love. After an evening of dance lasting into the wee hours of the morning, guests marveled at a fireworks display that “filled the air with a thousand twinkles brighter than the stars.” For the grand finale, two intertwined L’s—Louis’s insignia—lit up the night. Montespan by his side, the king was in love.

  8


  “He Will . . . Strangle Me”

  When Monsieur de Montespan heard rumors of his wife’s infidelities, he exploded with outrage. Leaving his military post in the South of France, Montespan returned to Paris, where he launched into a vitriolic and public campaign against his wife and the king. He began by showing the king’s cousin and court gossip, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, a written diatribe that he intended to read aloud to the king. In it he demanded that Louis return his wife to him or “suffer the punishment of God.” Montpensier counseled him to desist in his protestations, but to no avail.

  The next day Montespan showed up unannounced at the Château of Saint-Germain. Resting in her quarters, Athénaïs could hear her estranged husband yelling and cursing as he approached the room. Witnessing the exchange, Montpensier reported that Athénaïs was “nearly speechless.” Monsieur de Montespan entered his wife’s chambers “in a fury” and spewed “every insolence imaginable.” He boasted that he frequented brothels just so he could catch a disease and have his wife “spoil” the king with it. The king’s guards scuffled with Montespan, stopping him before he forced himself on Athénaïs.

  Furious, Louis signed a lettre de cachet instructing the Paris police to throw the belligerent husband in jail, where he remained for a week. In a show of public “kindness,” Louis allowed the cuckolded husband to depart to his home in the provinces with the agreement that he would never be seen or heard from again. Montespan announced to family, friends, and the couple’s five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son that the marquise was dead and, following a symbolic funeral at the local church, ordered the household to wear black in a gesture of mourning.

  While the matter with her husband had been resolved quickly, Athénaïs had lingering concerns about her position at court and, more specifically, in the king’s heart. At best her husband’s behavior caused annoyance for Louis and at worst, embarrassment. To complicate matters, she had just learned that she was pregnant with the king’s child. In a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable scandal her pregnancy would cause, she inaugurated a new dress style at court, la robe battante, for the purpose. The royal mistress’s loose, flowing dresses fooled no one, and the style was soon christened, tongue-in-cheek, “L’Innocente.”

  Athénaïs worried Louis might go looking for other ways to fulfill his passions during her pregnancy. Seventeenth-century doctors and midwives considered sex during pregnancy dangerous for the developing child and therefore to be avoided by couples. Her rival, Louise de La Vallière, was still the official maîtresse-en-titre at Saint-Germain. As always, Athénaïs feared that if she made one false step, La Vallière could find a way back into the king’s bed and heart.

  Athénaïs was not the only one with marital problems. The marriage between the king’s former love, Henrietta Anne, and his younger brother had been fraught for years. Their troubles began with Philippe’s festering outrage at his wife’s antics with his brother early in their marriage. Tensions intensified as rumors spread of his predilection for men.

  The marriage became an arena where each partner fought bitterly for power and control over the other. The duke of Orléans’s latest strategy involved treating his wife’s most loyal friends and supporters inhospitably at the couple’s home at the Château of Saint-Cloud, in an obvious effort to humiliate his spouse and isolate her from the rest of the court.

  At a ball at the couple’s home, Philippe appeared in a dress and joined a cluster of women who stood nervously waiting for an invitation to dance. A smartly dressed man approached and bowed to the group. Henrietta Anne’s husband lifted the sides of his dress demurely and curtsied to the chevalier of Lorraine. Penniless but handsome and of high birth, the chevalier of Lorraine had become a fixture in Philippe’s household. Philippe provided him with luxurious apartments in the Palais-Royal and the Château of Saint-Cloud, along with expensive gifts of jewels and art. Now, in the presence of Henrietta Anne and others, Philippe accepted the offer to dance. The two men glided into the center of the ballroom and performed a perfectly choreographed minuet.

  Fortunately for Henrietta Anne, Philippe’s blind affection for the chevalier had not been lost on the king, who refused to allow the chevalier to receive income from the lands given to him by his lover. In turn the chevalier directed loud complaints and insults in Louis’s direction. It was a fatal misstep.

  In early January 1670, the duke of Orléans and the chevalier of Lorraine were asleep in bed together in the prince’s quarters. Between three and four in the morning, a team of musketeers burst into the room. Rustling the two men out of bed, the guards grabbed Philippe’s lover. Howling loudly, Philippe protested as they forced Lorraine down the stairs, out of the palace, and into a waiting carriage. Soon the chevalier was en route to a prison outside Lyon, two hundred miles away.

  Sobbing and distraught with grief, Philippe threw himself at his brother’s feet begging him to return the chevalier. Louis refused. In a flurry of rage, Philippe stormed out of the king’s chambers, spewing threats of leaving the court for good. Hours later and somewhat calmer, he tried to persuade Colbert to intercede on his behalf. “What [would] the world think of me if it saw me merrily enjoying the pleasures of Carnival while an innocent prince and the best friend that I have on earth for the love of me languishes in a wretched prison far away?” he wrote. Philippe pleaded that he was being forced to choose between his brother and the man he loved. “I ask you to inform the king that, in an extremity of grief, I am required to either leave his presence or to remain in his court in shame.” When no response came, Louis’s younger brother gathered up his household and left Paris, without the approval of the king, for his home in Villers-Cotterêts, northeast of Paris—taking Henrietta Anne with him.

  Brotherly connections or not, angry outbursts and threats rarely worked, if ever, with the Sun King. Louis demanded that Philippe return to the court, or else he would move the chevalier from the Pierre-Encise Prison in Lyon to the isolated Château d’If, an abysmal fortress on a desolate island off the coast of Marseille. Philippe refused.

  More than three weeks into the standoff, Colbert traveled to Villers-Cotterêts to meet with Philippe. They struck a deal: Shortly after the visit the monarchy announced Monsieur decided of his own accord to return to court. In return, Louis released Lorraine from prison. In a cruel twist, however, Louis also banned him and forbade him ever to return. The chevalier settled in Rome after his release. The two lovers never saw each other again.

  Angry and brokenhearted, Philippe was convinced that his wife used her influence on the king to separate him from the man he loved. Mademoiselle de Montpensier confirmed his suspicions. After a friendly chat with Henrietta Anne, she reported that Philippe’s wife seemed to show sympathy for his plight. “I have no reason to love the Chevalier de Lorraine,” Henrietta Anne told her, “yet I pity him, and I am heartily sorry for Monsieur’s vexation.” Montpensier, however, saw right through her. “In her secret heart,” the court chronicler claimed, “she was very glad of it; she was in complete union with the king, and no one doubts that she had a share in his disgrace.”

  Philippe’s anger reached new heights when Louis enlisted Henrietta Anne in his war efforts. For years following France’s annexation of Spanish-occupied portions of the Low Countries, Louis had been waiting for an opportunity to wage war against the Dutch and seize the rest of the territories. It had been a long wait; the alliance between Holland, England, and Sweden was too strong. But now England suffered a financial crisis that put Charles II at odds with Parliament. Money could tempt the English king to break the alliance, but Louis needed someone Charles II trusted to help broker the deal. There was no better person for the job than Henrietta Anne, the king’s own sister.

  Henrietta Anne was happy to lend a hand. Her role as a high-stakes intermediary between two kings would enhance her reputation at court. The negotiations were initially kept from Philippe, but when he learned of the secret, he boiled over with rage. Philippe had long been upset a
bout his exclusion from significant state matters. The king’s decision to include his wife, and not him, in the treaty negotiations proved more than he could take. For two weeks Henrietta Anne helped craft a treaty on which the “fate of Europe had depended,” while her husband seethed. When she returned from England, the halls of Versailles echoed with recriminations as Philippe seethed at her successful efforts to an agreement on which “the fate of Eurpe had depended.” Frustrated and now clearly fearful, Henrietta Anne confided in a friend: “If I make one misstep, he will likely strangle me, all the while saying that he missed me.”

  PART

  III

  “She Will Turn Us

  All into Poisoners”

  9

  The Golden Viper

  For more than a decade Moyse Charas and his wife had been owners of the Golden Viper, a well-known apothecary shop in the Latin Quarter. The fifty-eight-year-old Charas had made a name for himself in Paris by embarking on a well-publicized study on snakes—their anatomy, physiology, behavior, and toxicology—as well as their pharmacological uses. He ordered upwards of five or six dozen snakes delivered to his home, located just above his apothecary shop. For weeks a multitude of visitors streamed through his apartment to witness the sight of so many vipers in one small space.

  Delighting his curious guests, Charas pulled large snakes from wide barrels in which he kept his new pets. When a foreign tourist asked Charas if he might hold one, Charas watched appreciatively as the reptile wrapped itself around the young man’s limbs for nearly a quarter hour without showing any sign of wanting to bite him. The next day the newly emboldened man reached for a snake as it slithered on Charas’s dining-room table. The apothecary shouted at him to stop, but it was too late. The snake, irritated from having been picked up with metal tongs moments earlier, raised its head, bared its fangs and with lightning speed, bit the tourist on his thumb.