by Holly Tucker
56“will serve as her closet”: Rousset 1: 311, n. 2.
56“as much to complain about”: Lair, 172.
56“slept all day long”: Petitfils, Montespan, 41.
56his lover, Madame de Montespan: Montpensier, 4: 55, cited in Lair, 202–203.
57“I am prudent”: Ibid., 52, cited in ibid., 204.
57in her quarters: Ibid., 62.
58end of the Allée Royale: P. de Nolhac, Histoire du château de Versailles: Versailles sous Louis XIV, vol. 2 (Paris: Chez Émile-Paul, 1911), 64.
58rustic wooden roller coaster: Ibid., 61.
58“measured by Versailles”: Cited in R. W. Berger, “The Chronology of the Envelope of Versailles,” Architectura 10, no. 2 (1980): 117. Scholars debate whether the letter was written in 1663 or 1665; regardless of the date, it is a plea that Colbert made with each phase of Versailles construction.
59king’s relationship with Madame de Montespan: Details of the party are drawn from Félibien, the programs distributed to guests, and accounts by Scudéry and Sévigné, as well as Nolhac’s Histoire du Château de Versailles.
60in his city of light: See Le Blant “Notes,” 441–465. The couple had two children, Gabriel-Jean Nicolas and Gabrielle Nicolas.
60the king was in love: Bluche, 190.
CHAPTER 8
“He Will . . . Strangle Me”
61“spoil” the king with it: Petitfils, Montespan 56, quoting Saint-Simon and Madame Dunoyer.
62in a gesture of mourning: Petitfils, Montespan, 59; Clément, Montespan, 15. While some historians have doubted whether this actually occurred, given Montespan’s eccentricities and passionate outbursts, it is not unlikely. In the summer of 1669, Monsieur de Montespan’s indignation once again attracted the attention of the Crown. The company of guards for which Montespan served as captain assaulted a visiting dignitary in the small southern village of Roussillon. When word of the confrontation reached Louvois, he resolved that it was time for the Crown to be done with Montespan once and for all. Louvois wrote to the judge reviewing the case that he must “attempt, in one way or another, to implicate Montespan so that he can be charged without suspicion.” Louvois concluded his letter: “You can guess the reason for it” (cited in Lair, 274). Charged with insubordination, Montespan fled to Spain immediately afterward.
62“L’Innocente”: Montespan had seven children in all with the king; each time she wore a robe battante, the court knew she was pregnant, Franklin, 15: 240.
64“his court in shame”: Cited in Barker, 106.
64“share in his disgrace”: Montpensier, 8: 250, translation in M. A. E. Green, Lives of the Princesses of England: From the Norman Conquest, vol. 6 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1854), 531.
65“while saying that he missed me”: La Fayette, Histoire d’Henriette d’Angleterre, 119.
CHAPTER 9
The Golden Viper
69their pharmacological uses: Recounted by Charas in Nouvelles expériences sur la vipère, 63–75.
70snake flesh: A trace amount of dried snake flesh was key to the preparation of theriac. Believing in the idea that like-cures-like (simila similibus curantur), doctors and apothecaries also recommended small amounts of theriac—and the toxins it contained—as a preventive measure to reduce the effects of an eventual poisoning (Nockels Fabbri, 252).
70“so quickly and efficiently”: Ibid., 70.
72highest quality possible: Ibid., 8.
72“best pharmaceutical rules”: “Certificat de Messieurs les Docteurs de la Faculté de Medecine de Paris” 10–12.
CHAPTER 10
“Madame Is Dying, Madame Is Dead!”
This chapter draws from Madame de La Fayette’s Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre, contemporary correspondence (4: 23–47), memoirs (Mémoires de Madame de Montpensier, Journal d’Olivier Ormesson), references by Bossuet and Primi Visconti, and a number of biograp`hies (Baillon, Henriette-Anne d’Angleterre, Duchesse d’Orléans, sa vie et sa correspondence; Nancy Barker, Brother to the Sun King: Philippe, Duke d’Orléans; Jacqueline Duchêne, Henriette d’Angleterre, duchesse d’Orléans; Mary-Anne Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, vol. 6.; Claude Saint-André, Henriette d’Angleterre et la cour de Louis XIV). I have discounted Saint-Simon’s much-later account of Henrietta Anne’s death, which makes detailed claims about the chevalier of Lorraine’s involvement. It is not certain that Henrietta Anne died of poison, but if she did, either Philippe, the chevalier, or both could have been responsible.
73“on whom someone had put on some rouge”: Montpensier, Mémoires, 4: 137.
73gave her away: Ibid.
73“I cannot bear it”: La Fayette, 128.
74contained poison: Chicory was often administered for digestive problems as well as liver concerns, including jaundice, see L. Bourgeois, Receuil des Secrets 1, 5: 57–58.
74“this is unjust”: La Fayette, 129.
74“nor embarrassed by Madame’s opinion”: La Fayette, 130.
74“I shall not be alive tomorrow”: La Fayette, 136.
74“I have been poisoned”: Ibid., 130.
75through to the stomach: M. Boscher, “Mémoire d’un chirurgien du roy d’Angleterre qui a esté present à l’ouverture du corps de Madame royale de France,” Lives of the Princesses of England, vol. 6 (London: Henry Colburn, 1855), 586.
75like “breadcrumbs”: Ibid.
75“an extraordinary quantity of bile”: Ibid.
75“or lesions of any part”: Ibid.
75“very boiling bile”: Ormesson, 594.
75“pierced and rotten”: Ibid.
76“Madame is dead!”: Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV, trans. in L. Hilton, Athénaïs: The Life of Louis XIV’s Mistress, the Real Queen of France (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2002), 81.
CHAPTER 11
Poison in the Pie
These accounts are drawn from Mémoire du process extraordinaire contre Madame de Brinvilliers & de la Chausée Valet de Monsieur Sainte-Croix (1676); Mémoire du procèz extraordinaire contre la Dame de Brinvilliers (1676); Arrest de Parlement . . . contre Dame Marie Marguerite d’Aubray espouse du Sieur Marquis de Brinvilliers (16 July 1676); Factum pour Dame Marie Madeleine d’Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers accusée (1676); Factum du procèz extraordinairement fait à La Chaussée Valet de Sainte-Croix, pour raison des empoisonnemens des Sieurs d’Aubray Lieutenants Civils; A Narrative Of the Process Against Madam Brinvilliers; and Of Her Condemnation and Execution for Having Poisoned Her Father and Two Brothers (1676). Secondary sources include Erika Carroll, “Potions, Poisons, and ‘Inheritance Powders’: How Chemical Discourses Entangled 17th Century France in the Brinvilliers Trial and Poison Affair”; Jacques Saint-Germain, Madame de Brinvilliers; Clara de Milt, “Christopher Glaser”; Paul Friedland, Seeing Justice Done: The Age of Spectacular Capital Punishment in France; Edward Peters, Torture; Lisa Silverman, Tortured Subjects: Pain, Truth, and the Body in Early-Modern France. Details of Brinvilliers’s imprisonment at the Conciergerie and her execution are drawn from the priest Pirot’s account, La Marquise de Brinvilliers, récits de ses derniers moments.
77both highly respected lawyers: The eldest son, Antoine, had inherited the position of civil lieutenant following his father’s death. Tensions between the criminal and civil domains of Châtelet had diminished following the edict of 1667 that named La Reynie as police lieutenant. La Reynie clearly had the upper hand in all matters but maintained cordial relations with the civil lieutenant. François d’Aubray lived just a few doors down from La Reynie on the rue du Bouloi, near the Louvre.
78“your men would poison me!”: A Narrative of the Process Against Madam Brinvilliers, and Her Condemnation and Execution For Having Poisoned Her Father And Two Brothers: Translated out of French (London: Jonathan Edwyn, 1676), 7.
79possibility of poisoning: Ibid.
CHAPTER 12
An Alchemist’s Last Words
80witnesses to the process: French law required tha
t, immediately after a person’s death, surviving family members to arrange for a postmortem inventory of the deceased’s belongings.
81most precious possessions: My account of the key is from Picard’s testimony of July 21, 1677 (4: 299–301). This conflicts with the evidence presented in the court case against Madame de Brinvilliers (Mémoire du procez extraordinaire contre la Dame de Brinvilliers), in which the prosecuting attorney explains that the key was found simply on a bookshelf in Sainte-Croix’s home.
81in May 1670: Narrative, 9.
82“without opening the packet”: Ibid., 10.
CHAPTER 13
The Faithful Servant
84to avoid detection: Factum du procez extraordinairement fait à La Chaussée, 3.
85box’s contents: Lebel confirmed that La Reynie was part of the process and that it was La Reynie who provided him with the items found on La Chaussée during his arrest. Archives de la Bastille, ms. 10336, fol. 8.
85“nothing that one could have used as poison”: Archives de la Bastille, ms. 10338, fol. 5.
85no further tests were necessary: Ibid., fol. 8.
86damage to its organs: Ibid., fol. 4.
86“curdled blood”: Ibid., 10338 fol. 8.
86“as if it had been burned”: Ibid., 10338, fol. 8.
87“contained in the case described above”: See ibid., 10338 fols. 8 and 9, for the underlined portions of Lebel’s report.
87pain to be inflicted: During the Affair of the Poisons, few if any orders for the Preliminary Question (Question préparatoire) were imposed pretrial. Moreover, criminals sentenced to death also received the more intense Extraordinary Question (Question extraordinaire) rather than the Ordinary Question (Question ordinaire). To minimize potential confusion between these different forms of “questions,” I refer to postsentencing torture as the Question.
87“rendered useless for life”: T. Smollett, Travels through France and Italy (1766), cited by L. Silverman, Tortured Subjects: Pain, Truth, and the Body in Early Modern France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 96.
88“affrighted to see it”: Evelyn, Diary, 3: 28–29, cited by Silverman, 97.
88increased the water’s pressure on the stomach: Gibson, 219. The Question of Madame Chanfrain, a minor player in the Affair of the Poisons, confirms this. The two questioners explicitly warn the accused that water torture would most certainly “run the risk of suffocating her, given the weight of her body and the effect of her chest [on her stomach]” (5: 481).
88to dull the pain: Silverman, 94, 145.
88“last minutes of a wretched life”: Narrative, 11. See also “Extrait du procès-verbal de la question de La Chaussée,” 24 March 1676 (4: 67–69).
89“great mind to poison” her as well: Narrative, 13.
CHAPTER 14
“Brinvilliers Is in the Air”
90much less romantic: Narrative; Sévigné, May 1, 1678, 2: 281; L. W. Mollenauer, Strange Revelations: Magic, Passion, and Sacrilege in Louis XIV’s France (University Park: Pennsylvania State Press, 2007), 12; “Mémoire de M. de la Reynie,” n.d. (6: 396).
91“that person should be arrested”: Louvois de M. Descarrières, 16 March 1676.
92wrapped with cords and hairpins: Jacques, 141–142.
92bitter rivals: For rivalries between Colbert and Louvois, see Farrère, 71–93, and Mongrédien, Madame de Montespan et l’affaire des poisons (Paris: Fayard, 1953), 161–168.
93needed to push water through them: Visconti, 68.
93“who wants to save it”: “Mémoire au roi,” 22 July 1666. Clément, Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert, Vol. 7, ccxxii.
93“not because of favoritism”: Louis XIV, Mémoires, cited in P. Sonnino, Louis XIV and the Origins of the Dutch War (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 17.
94“satisfy the king and the public”: Colbert to Harlay, 9 April 1679 (4: 174). While other scholars have not insisted on the jurisdictional debates between Louvois and Colbert in the Brinvilliers case, the extant correspondence is telling. Louvois dominates the correspondence from mid-March until the second week of April 1676, at which point Colbert takes over.
94“such an extraordinary matter”: Cited in P. Friedland, Seeing Justice Done: The Age of Spectacular Capital Punishment (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2012), 147. Primi Visconti also fueled rumors that Brinvilliers had tested her poison by tainting sweets and giving them to hospital patients and the homeless (279).
94“you have been able to find out”: Clément, Affaire des Poisons 114–115.
95“heart was pricked”: Narrative, 18.
95The references to Glaser: Glaser’s name also remains eponymous for potassium salt, called “Glaser’s salt,” as well as for the mineral Glaserite, a naturally occurring crystalline potassium sulfate. C. de Milt, “Christopher Glaser,” Journal of Chemical Education 19, no. 2 (1942): 53.
95He wrote the first textbook: Glaser’s Treatise included a preparation for “Infernal stone or perpetual caustic” (fused nitrate sticks). “’Tis called Infernalis, partly from its black color, and partly from its caustic burning quality” as well as other substances that could prove deadly to humans. To the magistrates’ frustration, however, Glaser had returned to his native Switzerland and could not be extradited. Glaser, Traité de la chimie, cited in de Milt, 54.
95the marquise’s lawyer asserted: Mémoire du procès extraordinaire contre Madame de Brinvilliers & de La Chaussée Valet de Monsr. Sainte-Croix. Pour raison des empoisonmens des diverses personnes . . . et l’Arrest de la Cour donné contre la dite Dame, 16 juillet 1676 (Amsterdam: Henry & Theodore Boom, 1676), 63.
95“is not one to be trusted”: Plumitif de la Tournelle, 26 June 1676 (4: 227).
95“She disgusts us”: Pirot, 45.
96“the salvation of her soul”: Ibid., 30.
96“her poisons will outlive her”: Pirot, 46.
96“who your accomplices are”: Ibid., 59.
97“what I will do, Messieurs”: P. Pirot, La Marquise de Brinvilliers: Récit de ses derniers moments, edited by G. Rouiller (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1883), 2: 160.
97“my husband five times”: Plumitif de la Tournelle, n.d. (4: 243).
98“made me shiver”: Cited in Friedland, 147.
99“or a pearl necklace”: Mongrédien, 32–33.
99could have hoped for her: Pirot, 2: 172.
99“‘turn us all into poisoners’”: Sévigné, 2: 342–343.
99“I’d ruin them all”: Mongrédien, 34; Somerset, 44; Mollenauer, 16–17.
100found by the authorities: “Mémoire de M. de la Reynie sur le fait touchant les abominations, le sacrifice de l’enfant pour La des Oeillets et pour l’étranger prétendu Milord Anglais,” n.d. (6: 396).
CHAPTER 15
House of Porcelain
104by potential suitors: Clément, Montespan 79–80, 82. Petitfils, Montespan, 151.
104again in 1672 and 1673: Montespan had seven children in all with the king, four boys and three girls, born in 1669, 1670, 1672, 1673, 1677, 1678. With the exception of Françoise Marie, all were named Louis or Louise.
104“her powder lights very quickly”: Saint-Maurice, cited in Fraser, 119.
104legitimized their three children: December 1673. This was not first time he had bestowed such status on the children he fathered outside of marriage. To soften the blow of his rejection of La Vallière, he legitimized the couple’s first daughter in 1667.
104“augment considerably his sentiments”: Cited in Clément, Montespan, 44.
104caught his eye: As Mademoiselle des Oeillets was one of Madame de Montespan’s personal attendants, it is entirely possible that the ever-practical Athénaïs put her maid in the king’s way in order to assert some control over his dalliances.
105found her fortune at court: J. Lemoine, Madame de Montespan et la légende des poisons (Paris: Leclerc, 1908), 39.
105true to its name: Description of the Trianon de Porcelain is from Cowen, Jones, and F
élibien.
106at Françoise’s feigned ignorance: Petifils, Montespan, 157.
107stones of all colors: Clément, Montespan, 47–48.
107“fit for a chorus girl”: Mémoires de Luynes, 9: 255–256; see also Bonnassieux, Clagny, 50.
107“nothing is impossible”: Clément, Montespan, 51.
107“one can ever imagine”: 4: 21.
107“to better her reign”: Petitfils, Montespan, 163.
108“why God would make me suffer”: Maintenon, Correspondence générale 1: 221, cited in Clément, Montespan.
108“good friends”: Sévigné, 2: 878, 982.
108the king’s future: Clément, Montespan 82–83.
108“the ministers of Jesus Christ”: Riley, Lust, 88.
109being refused communion: Clément, Montespan, 57.
109“like a man who had been crying”: See C. Adams, “‘Belle comme le jour’: Beauty, Power, and the King’s Mistress,” French History 29 (2015): 170.
109“love will have the upper hand”: Madame de Scudéry to Bussy-Rabutin, Correspondance de Bussy-Rabutin, 3: 34.
109“pensive and sighing”: Lemoine, 33.
109eclipsed the queen’s eleven on the second: Clément, Montespan, 46. In a later confirmation of her decline in status, Montespan moved to smaller quarters in 1680.
110“grown to formidable proportions”: Maintenon, Lettres, 2: 389.
110appear slimmer than she actually was: Gibson, “Attitudes Toward Obesity in 17th-Century France” 224; see also Clément, Montespan, 429.
CHAPTER 16
Offering
111the man frightened her: Confrontation of Lesage and Voisin, 19 May 1670 (5: 369).
111spun around and ran: Interrogation of Voisin’s daughter, 5 July 1680 (6: 237).
111also in her house: To her later recollection, his first visit was sometime in 1672 or 1673 (6: 294–298).
112dramatic flair about her: Madame des Oeillets, Voisin arrest, 12 March 1679 (6: 244); La Reynie, “Observations à mettre sur la liasse des actes envoyés suivant l’ordre du roi.” (6: 420–421).
113than to make the journey again: Declaration de la fille de la Voisin, 12 July 1680, BNF, mss. français 7608, fol. 170 (6: 24–246).