 Section 13 of Princes and Poisoners Studies of the Court of Louis XIV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jane Bennett, Melbourne, Australia. Princes and Poisoners Studies of the Court of Louis XIV by Franz Funk Brentano. Translated by George Maidman. Section 13. The Poison Drama at the Court of Louis II. Madame de Montespain Part II. Madame de Sévigny thus tells us what was passing at court. Marguerite Montvoison will tell us what was going on among the sorceresses. The daughter of Lavoisin writes La Rénie. Says that she had seen this sort of mass celebrated over the body by Jouibor in her mother's house. She helped her mother to get things ready. A mattress on seeds, two stools at the sides on which were candle sticks with candles, after which Jouibor came out of the little side chamber clothed in his chassable, white spotted with black fur cones, and after that Lavoisin brought in the woman on whose body the mass was to be set. Madame de Montespain had this sort of mass said three years ago, i.e. in 1676, at her mother's house where she came about ten o'clock and only left at midnight. And when Lavoisin told her that it was necessary for her to fix a time when the other two masses might be said, which were necessary of her affair was to be successful, Madame de Montespain said that she could not find time, that Lavoisin would have to do what was necessary to assure success, which she promised her and did. And the masses were said on Lavoisin herself by Jouibor. This again shows the sincerity of the sorceress in the carrying out of these practices. The girl of Lavoisin, having notified all the circumstances of the proceedings, the arrangement of the place, that of the person, she knew Madame de Montespain. The preparations of the priest clothed in his sacerdotal vestments, in terms of the incantation, in which the documents show that the names of Louis de Bourbon and Madame de Montespain were mentioned. The girl of Lavoisin adds that a child had its throat cut at the mass, said for Madame de Montespain at her mother's. When I was growing up, said Marguerite Montvoisin, my mother was no longer reluctant to trust me, and I was present at this sort of mass, and saw that the lady was stark naked on the mattress with her head hanging down, supported by a pillow on an overturned chair, the legs too hanging over, a napkin on the belly, a cross on the napkin, and the chalice on the belly. She adds that this lady was Madame de Montespain. At the mass of Madame de Montespain, said Marguerite in the course of another examination, a child was presented, which apparently had been prematurely born, and it was put into a basin. Chouibourg cut its throat, poured the blood into a chalice, and consecrated it with the wafer, finished his mass, then proceeded to take the child's entrails. My mother next day carried the blood and wafer to Jumeilil to be distilled in a glass vessel, which Madame de Montespain took away. These facts were confirmed on October the 23rd, 1680, by the confrontation of Marguerite Montvoisin with Chouibourg, with this variation, that Chouibourg tried to shuffle onto Lavoisin, the butchery of the child. Chouibourg said that it was not true that he had opened the child, because it would have stained his alb. He found the child already opened. The girl Voisin, on the contrary, declared that he cut open the heart himself, took out some clotted blood, and put it into the vessel into which the other blood and the rest had been put, which Madame de Montespain took away. And that to make the clotted blood go in, a common glass was broken, which, with its foot knocked off, was made to act as a funnel. Chouibourg said that he did not open the child's stomach, but that having found it open, he did in fact draw out the entrails and open the heart to get out the blood that was in it, and that he put it into a crystal vase with some portions of the consecrated wafer. The hole was carried off by the lady on whose body he had said mass, and that he always believed the lady was Madame de Montespain. This picture is fraught with so much horror that we could not bring ourselves to admit its authenticity if the evidence of Marguerite Mont-Voisin and the Abbey Chouibourg were not corroborated by confessions, extorted from other accomplices of these crimes, who were arrested at different dates and examined separately. Lesages, La Coudre de la Porte, Vertement, François's Filastre, the Abbey Coton, confirmed by the declarations of several witnesses who had picked up before the trial fragments of talk which escaped the accuser. La Réigny emphasises the fact that the declarations of Lesage and the girl Mont-Voisin were made at an interval of 16 months, and without there having had any opportunity during those months of communicating with each other. On October 11, 1680, La Réigny writes to Louvoir, who wished to save Madame de Montespain while prosecuting the charges against the other persons, and proposed with that end to withdraw from the case the declarations made under torture by Filastre and the Abbey which contained the gravest charges against the favourite. It is certain, even if we found a legitimate expedient for concealing from the judges for the present, the facts which it would be well to keep secret, even for the sake of justice itself, that these very facts would crop up again, from the woman Chapellein, from Jouibourg, Galais, Pelletier, Dellapeau, and perhaps from several more when under trial. On the subject of the deposition made by Jouibourg, La Réigny writes, it is morally impossible that Jouibourg has deceived us in his declaration, and that he invented what he tells about the incantations said in course of the masses on the women's bodies. His mind is not active or consistent enough for such continuous thought as would have been necessary to invent what he had said on this subject. Because even supposing he were capable of such application, he has not enough acquaintance with what goes on in the world, and could not have devised so consistent a story in regard to Madame de Montespain. Elsewhere, he writes, Jouibourg and the girl Montvoison have corroborated one another about circumstances so particular and so horrible that it is difficult to conceive two persons, being able to imagine and fabricate them, unknown to each other. It seems that these things must have occurred, or they could not have been described. The illustrious magistrate adds the following reflections. One, the time of the relations of La Voison with Latour, the journeys to Saint-Germain, and the powders which he made him work at was the year 1676. Two, the time of the abominations described by Jouibourg and the girl Montvoison fits the same period. Three, two years ago, Lassage spoke of Latour, the Poisons, DSVA, and the journeys of La Voison in 1676. Four, it was established at the trial the two or three years before Lassage was taken. He testified that he feared the business would ruin him. They said at the time that the king had the vapours. He declared that he wished to leave La Voison on that account, and because of the dealings she had with DSVA. From the beginning of these inquiries these same facts have been spoken of. La Boss, the first to be tried, gave the first inkling of them. She spoke of them under torture, but because the king had not yet allowed these sort of facts to be collected in regard to persons of consideration, and because there was nothing to make us pay the least attention to them, no mention was made in the report of the torture of La Boss of what she had said about Madame de Montesban. In this year, 1676, Madame de Montesban not only had recourse to the incantations of the Black Mass, at her instigation the Sorceresses sent La Boisier and François's Philastre to Normandy to a certain Louis Gallet, who had fine secrets in regard to poison and love. Gallet gave them powders. As soon as his name was uttered by the prisoner before the chambre à dents, an order was given for his arrest. He was flung into prison at Caen on February 23, 1680. While still far away from the other prisoners, detained of Vincent de Bastille, he was put through interrogations, and the depositions made by him and the others coincided with remarkable accuracy. And La Caenille's conclusion is, Chouis-Baud and Gallet, having confessed after the torture of La Philastre, they gave between them a complete proof of these facts. It must be confessed that Madame de Montesban would have been of a singularly incredulous nature if she had not retained a blind confidence in the influence of the devil, as invoked by the magicians and sorceresses. Madame de Loutre was discarded, and Louis fell at Madame de Montesban's feet again. On June 11, 1677, Madame de Sévigny wrote to Madame de Grignan, Oh my daughter, what a triumph at Versailles! What redoubled pride! What a re-entry into possession! I was in the room for an hour. She was in bed decked out with her hair done. She was resting for the Medianoche supper about midnight. She launched shafts of contented poor ill, Madame de Loutre, and laughed at her for having the audacity to complain of her. Imagine all that an ungenerous pride could make her say in triumph, and you will get near the truth, if he said that the little woman, Madame de Loutre, will resume her ordinary duties about Madame. She went off to walk in perfect solitude with La Maurie in the garden of the Marchel du Plessis. On June 18, Madame de Sévigny wrote to Boussy Raboutin, Madame de Montesban wanted to strangle her, Madame de Loutre, and makes her life terrible. On July 7 to Madame de Grignan, poor Isis, Madame de Loutre, has not been to Versailles. She has remained in her solitude. When a certain person, Madame de Montesban, speaks of her, she says, that rag! The event makes everything permissible. Quanto and her friend Louis XIV are together longer and more eagerly than ever they were. The ardour of the first years has returned, and all fears are banished, all restraint removed, which persuades us that never was empire seen more firmly established. And a little later, Madame de Montesban was the other day covered with diamonds. The brilliance of so blazing a divinity was more than one could bear. The attachment seems greater than ever. They are all eyes for one another. Never has love been seen to resume its sway like this. Yet, courted and victorious as she was, the favourite appeared a prey to torment. She was agitated in a terrible fever. On January 13, 1678, the cop de Rabigny wrote to the Marquis de Fouquier, Madame de Montesban's gumbling has reached such a pitch that losses of 100,000 crowns, 60,000 pounds today, are common. On Christmas day, she lost 700,000 crowns. She staked 150,000 pistoles, 280,000 at the present day, on three cards and one. She lost her head in her triumph, her last triumph, dazzling but ephemeral, and about to be followed by days of cruel language. In March 1679, Madame de Montesban asked the Abbe Gaubelin to pray and to have prayers said for the King, who is on the brink of a deep precipice. This precipice was the heart of Marie Angelique de Scoray, de Moiselle de Fontage. She was 18 years old, fair with glossy, flecks and hair, her large eyes, with their look of childish wonderment, were a light grey, deep and limpid. Her skin was white as milk, her cheeks a lovely rose pink, and in disposition, said her contemporaries, she was a genuine heroine of romance. She lived a court in the capacity of made of honour to Madame, as Madame de Loutre and mademoiselle de la Valière had done before her. Mademoiselle de Fontage, says Madame Palatine, is lovely as an angel from head to foot. If we may trust Boussy-Rapultin, her relatives seeing her beauty and grace, and having more love for their fortune than for their honour, clubbed together to fit her out for court, and to provide her with means corresponding to the position she was entering. This was a thunderbolt for Louis XIV, and Madame de Montespain. We read in the Précy Historie de Saint-Jean-Main-en-Lez, by Loroan Cibri. Madame de Montespain left Saint-Jean-Main suddenly, because of the jealousy she has conceived for mademoiselle de Fontage. But the royal lover did not allow his mistresses to leave him at their own whim. He had imposed on Louise de la Valière the bitter martyrdom, of following as an expiatory victim, the triumph of Madame de Montespain. He now compelled Madame de Montespain to witness the triumph of mademoiselle de Fontage. The proud marquise resigned herself to it, at least in appearance. On March 30, 1679, she wrote to the duke de Noailles. All is very quiet here. The king only comes into my room after mass and after supper. It is much better to see each other seldom but pleasantly than often with embarrassment. Soon even this apparent satisfaction was withdrawn from her. The desertion was public and complete. On March 30, 1679, she wrote to the duke de Noailles. According to Madame de Seigne, there was a ball at Villiers-Cotteray, at Monsieur's place. There were masks. Mademoiselle de Fontage appeared there in great brilliance and adorned by the hands of Madame de Montespain. Busse rejoiced at the disgrace. Madame de Montespain has fallen. The king regards her no more and you may be sure the courtiers follow his example. On April 6, Madame de Seigne wrote, Madame de Montespain is enraged. She cried a good deal yesterday and you may guess the martyrdom her pride is suffering. On June 15, she replies to her daughter, It is an infernal position, as you say, that of her who goes four paces ahead, alluding to Madame de Montespain. She launched out into epigrams against her fortunate rival, just as she had satirised Louise de la Vallière. Madame de Montespain writes Bussie Raboutin, seeing that the great alcantre, Louis XIV, was drifting away from her more and more every day, became so caloric that she began publicly to abuse Mademoiselle de Fontage. She told everyone that the great alcantre was surely not very fastidious to love a creature who had had her little love affairs in the country, that she had neither wit nor education, and that, properly speaking, she was only a beautiful painting. She said a thousand other things about her, equally irritating. Indeed, she always displayed the same proud spirit which nothing had been able to quell. Mademoiselle de Fontage responded by loading her predecessor and all her children with costly presents. She had just been proclaimed a duchess with an annuity of twenty thousand crowns. The fury of Madame de Montespain broke out. She had a violent scene with Louis, and when the king reproached her with her pride, her domineering spirit and other defects, she replied with haughty scorn, concentrating all the violence of her wrath in one of those hard and bitter words which had made her so much feared in the time of her reign. She answered that if she had the imperfections of which he accused her, at any rate she did not smell worse than he, my mother, said the girl Montvoison, told me that Madame de Montespain wanted at that time to go to extremities, and tried to induce her to do things for which she had much repugnance. My mother gave me to understand that it was against the king, and after hearing what had passed at the house of Trianon, a sorceress, partner of Lavoisin, I could not doubt it. The deserted mistress resolved to put an end to Louis and Mademoiselle de Fontage. She applied to the sorceress of Villeneuve-sur-Gravois, and had no difficulty in getting together four accomplices in the terrible room in the rue Beauregard. These four were Lavoisin and Trianon, who undertook to put Louis out of the way, and Romani and Bertrand, artists in poisons, who promised to kill Mademoiselle de Fontage. Madame de Montespain gave them money. The king was to be poisoned first. Lavoisin and her associates intended at first to put magic powders, prepared according to the formulae of the conjuring books, on the clothes of the king, or in some place where he was to pass. Which Madame de Montespain said could be done easily. The king would die of decline. But after reflection, Lavoisin decided on means the execution of which struck her as more certain. In conformity with the ancient custom of the kings of France, Louis XIV used to receive in person on certain days the petitions presented by his subjects. Everybody was introduced to his presence without distinction of rank or condition. It was resolved to prepare a petition, and steeped in powders that had gone under the chalice. The king would take it in his hands, and get his death blow. Trianon undertook the preparation of the paper, and Lavoisin to place it in the hands of the king. The petition was drawn up. The king's intervention was asked in favour of a certain blessi, an alchemist whom the Marquis de Térum was keeping confined in his château. Lavoisin betook herself to her friend Léger, a valet de chambre of Montosier, and asked of him a letter of recommendation to one of his friends at Saint-Germain, who would get her past in among the first to an audience with the king, so that she might herself hand him her petition. Léger replied that it was unnecessary for her to go to Saint-Germain, as he would undertake to forward the petition by a sure route, but the sorceress insisted on presenting it herself. The boldness of Lavoisin terrified the most courageous of her companions. The majority of them feared not death, but the horrible tortures reserved by the law for regicides. In order to frighten her, La Trianon cast her horoscope. This document was found among the papers seized on the sorceress by the chambre attendant. La Trianon foretold that Lavoisin would be implicated in a trial for a crime against the state. Bah! she replied, there are a hundred thousand crowns to be gained. That was the price agreed upon by Lavoisin and mad arm de Montespa for the poisoning of Louis XIV. Lavoisin set out for Saint-Germain on Sunday, March 5th, 1679, accompanied by Romani and Bertin. She returned on Thursday, March 9th, very much put out. She had not been able to approach the king so as to give him the petition. She could have put it on the table placed near the king for that purpose, but the paper was useless unless it were placed in the king's own hands. She said that she would return to Saint-Germain, and when her husband asked her what the urgency was, she replied, I must accomplish my design or perish in the attempt. What? Parish? exclaimed Mont-Voison. That's a good deal for a piece of paper. On Friday, March 10, the missionaries, priests of a community founded by Saint-Voison de Paul, which has already been mentioned, paid a visit to the sorceress. Lavoisin took fright and gave the petition to her daughter to burn, which Marguerite did at dawn on Saturday morning. It is needless to say that the paper had always been kept in an envelope, for to touch it, said the sorceresses, would be certain death. On Sunday, March 12, Lavoisin was arrested. It was on Monday, the 13th, that she had meant to return to Saint-Germain. News of the arrest got abroad, and on Wednesday, March 15, Madame de Montesparte fled from court. In a succession of hasty notes, the sentences are not even completed, and we have filled them out for greater clearness. La Régnée builds up a proof of the attempt on the life of Louis XIV, planned by Lavoisin as the instrument of Madame de Montesparte. By the depositions of the girls-voison, Romani and Bertrand, it is proved that the journey of Lavoisin de Saint-Germain was to present the petition. Bertrand wrote it out, went to learn from Lavoisin what she had done, learnt that she had been there since Sunday without being able to present it, had brought it back and was going to return. From this, it is evident that the ultimate object of the journey of Lavoisin de Saint-Germain was to present the petition. La Triennon à la Vautier agree as to the journey. La Triennon noted in her horoscope the State Affair, the crime of high treason. When questioned, she gave bad answers. Among the facts confessed to, denies the petition. If it were an important matter, would have no interest in denying it. Must have had an object, which can be nothing else than what the girl-voison says. The journey de Saint-Germain is the more suspicious in that Lavoisin, questioned as to her various journeys, has never mentioned that one, and would have made no adieu about mentioning it if there were nothing in it. To which must be added, the confession made by Lavoisin to her guards in prison about the fear she had that she would be asked to explain her journey. She said, God has protected the King. La Reilly adds, La Triennon agrees that she told the girl-voison that the journey to Saint-Germain was the cause of her mother's arrest, that this journey would do her harm, that she would be involved in some affair of state. At the same time, Lavoisin did not appear to be pleased with Blessy, and consequently had no reason to make any efforts to secure his liberty. What is still more considerable, La Triennon and the girl-voison agree that the state crime mentioned in the horoscope was the journey to Saint-Germain. Finally, observes La Reilly. This petition has been mentioned at the trial, long before the girl-voison was arrested. On September 27, 1679, Louvoir wrote to Louis XIV, Your Majesty will find in this packet what Lassage has said about the journey of La Poison to Saint-Germain. He cites so many people as witnesses to his allegations that it is difficult to believe he invented them, and La Reilly gives confirmation. Before making her declaration, the girl-voison said something about it to two prisoners who are with her. Finally, she tried to do away with herself by strangling, before making these same declarations. The assassination of the Duchess de Fontange was intended to crown the vengeance of Madame de Montespain. La-voison exclaimed, in regard to this, when dining with La Triennon, Oh, what a fine thing is a lover's spite. Romani and Bertrand were engaged to poison the young lady at the same time that La-voison was killing Louis XIV. But the poison's employed against her would be less rapid, so that she might die a lingering death, said the accomplices, and that it might be said that she had died of grief at the death of the king. Romani had planned to disguise himself as a cloth merchant. Bertrand was to follow him as a valet. They were to present their wares to the Duchess. And even if she did not take any cloth, she would not refrain from taking gloves, said Romani, because those he would bring from Grenoble would be very well made, and ladies never fail to take some of them when they were well made, and the gloves would have the same effect as the piece of cloth. They actually sent to Rome and Grenoble for gloves of the finest quality, and Romani prepared them according to the recipes of the magicians. End of section 13, Louis XIV and the Poison Affair. Section 14 of Princes and Poisoners' Studies of the Court of Louis XIV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jane Bennett, Melbourne, Australia. Princes and Poisoners' Studies of the Court of Louis XIV by Franz Funk Brentano. Translated by George Matement. Section 14, The Poison Drama at the Court of Louis XIV. Three, A Magistrate, Part One. Lieutenant of Police Gabrielle Nicolás de la Rény was the mainspring of the proceedings against the Poisoners. He alone carried through the vast operations, bristling with difficulties, and it would be impossible to find any point of his administration in which his genius and his character appear in a more striking or complete manner. It is thanks to him and to the careful notes he took daily on the cases of the prisoners that we have been able to discover the facts of which Louis XIV believed he had destroyed every trace when he ordered the burning of the various documents in his private room. Saint-Sémons, who has utterly shattered reputations which seemed firm as rock, pauses with respect before Nicolás de la Rény, though the functions with which he was endowed were a subject of genuine abhorrence to him. La Rény, Councilor of State, he writes, so well known for having been the first to lift the office of Lieutenant of Police from its natural lower state, and for making it a sort of ministerial office. A man of great importance, too, because of the King's direct confidence in him, his constant relations with the court, and the number of things in which he is concerned, and in which he has infinite powers of serving or harming in innumerable ways people of the greatest importance, obtained at length in 1697, at the age of 80, permission to resign so arduous an employment which he had for the first time ennobled by the equity, moderation, and disinterestedness with which he had fulfilled it, without swerving from the greatest scrupulousness, and doing the least possible injury as seldom as possible. He was, moreover, a man of great virtue and capacity, who in an office which he had, so to speak, created, and in which he was bound to draw upon him the hatred of the public, nevertheless one universal esteem. We have a portrait of La Rény by his friend Mignard, and an admirable etching of the painting by Van Schopen. Engraving has never reproduced human features with more clearness, colour, and lifelightness. The faceless speaks a clear, powerful, and well-balanced intelligence. The eyes express a firm and thoughtful kindliness. Such was the La Rény, who investigated the great poison cases. Though Bazaar de Bison of the French Academy had been associated with him in the Chambre à Dantes as Examin Commissioner, it was the lieutenant of police who did all the work. The number of depositions in interrogatories, confrontations, pleadings, and other documents which he collected is enormous, and we see the magistrate with sure hand cutting away through this tangled forest, guided by his experience, his knowledge of the human soul, and his clear intellect. The memorials he has left on questions of the greatest difficulty are useful and interesting to study because of the method of work they reveal. It is exactly the method which our old professors of rhetoric used to teach, for the orderly arrangement of a French dissertation or an historical essay. The principle and fundamental fact is noted down about the middle of the left-hand page, with a large bracket embracing subdivisions. Each of these subdivisions is in turn accompanied by a bracket embracing subdivisions of these subdivisions, and so on to the end of the right-hand page, which is filled from top to bottom with minute and close writing. There you have a multitude of slight facts following one another in methodical order, all focusing on the principle fact found as we have set in the middle of the left-hand page. There is no college student but has built up his schemes for French essays on this model. But there is no question in La Renice portfolios of rhetorical dissertations or Latin compositions. He deals there with irrevocable sentences about to be pronounced, on the flesh and blood of men, to use his own phrase. And if we go from these bracketed plans to the memoirs and reports to which they guided the magistrate's thoughts, we find ourselves in position of marvels of clear thinking and judging. During the Long Poison case, La Renice showed himself indefatigable in work. He had no other concern than right and the triumph of justice. And in proportion as the number of criminals increased, and the greatest names in the French nobility and Parlement were found to be compromised by his inquiries, in proportion as relatives, friends, all who feared for themselves, and nobility and Parlement fearing for their honour and their privileges, were up in arms against him. His courage grew. His activity redoubled. He pushed on his inquiries, urging the king, urging the ministers, demanding new warrants, fresh arrests, seeking permission to extend his formidable investigations over an ever-widening circle. Sorceresses and magicians thronged about the royal court like swarms of wasps about a hive of honey. In this monstrous hive were concentrated the wealth and honours, which awoke and stimulated the ambitions and passions in which the sorceresses found their booty. The sorceresses had little lodgings at Saint-Germain, Fontainebleu, Versailles, around the palaces. They won admission to the court as fruitsellers or dealers in perfumes distilled by the magicians. They offered pastes for softening the skin and waters for improving the complexion. They allied themselves with the domestics of great houses, and domiciled themselves with the lawn-dressers connected with them. They were intimates of those persons who hung about the court with the curious profession of presenters of petitions. They sometimes even entered the service of a duke or a machinese. La chérant was with Monsieur de Noir and Monsieur du Rabatant in succession. La vigoureuse was actively engaged in finding places for serving maids and lackeys. We have seen the relations between the fortune tellers and Leroy, governor of the pages of the Petit-et-Couris. Girardin, governor of the Dauphin's pages, was connected with the magician Bello. Blessie, a crony of l'Aboisin, was presented to the Queen by Madame de Bethune, by the Queen to the Dauphin, and by the Dauphin to the King. Among the bourgeoises of Paris who were struck at by the depositions of the fortune tellers, we have indicated the principal ones, and then, coming to the court ladies, the most illustrious of all, Madame de Montespan. But how many others La Reignée had to deal with? The beautiful duchess of all they are, Henrietta of England, was accused, not without the greatest probability, of having had a mass said against her husband with the incantations of sorcery in the Palais Royal itself. Madame de Polignin and Madame de Grammont tried to get Louise de la Ballyere poisoned. The Countess de Soissant, Olympe Montigny, who had inspired Louis XIV with his first passion, was compromised so deeply that, warned by the King, she fled into the Netherlands. Louis XIV said to the Princess de Carignin, Madame de Soissant's mother, I was determined that the Countess should escape. Perhaps someday I shall render an account therefore to God and my people. When Madame de Montespan was at the height of her power, rivals jealous of her good fortune, applied to the sorceresses for formulae and powders to send her packing, just as she had done with the idea of getting rid of la Ballyere. These were the duchess of Angoulême, Madame de Vitry, and her own sister-in-law, Antoinette de Mesne, Duchess de Vibon. The practices to which this last had recourse were precisely the same as those with which the secret life of Madame de Montespan has acquainted us. She applied to La Filastre and La Chapelle, who were also employed by the dazzling mistress of the King. The sorceresses did not hesitate between the two sisters-in-law, thinking to come off well either way. If the one wished to retain the affection of the King, the other sought to possess herself of it, and in either case money would fall into their purses. Louis did not allow the duchess de Vibon to be preceded against, related so closely as she was to Madame de Montespan. It is probable also that he was dissuaded from it by Colbert, who had married one of his daughters to the duke de Montemar, son of the duchess. We may imagine the emotions, agitation and anxieties aroused at court and in Paris by the prosecutions directed by the chambre à dents, against so large a number of persons belonging to the most distinguished families. The arrests of Madame de Dreux and Le Ferron, of Poulain and the Abbe Mariette, relatives of the chief magistrates. The warrants issued against the duchess de Bouillon, the princess de Tangry, the wife of Marchel de Laferte, the countess de Rouen, the hasty flight out of the kingdom of the Marchionnés de Louis, the vicontesse de Polignac, the count Clermont-Lodeuve, the marquis de César, the countess de Soissons, the imprisonment in the bustier of the famous Marchel de Luxembourg, who had employed magicians to beg the devil to remove his wife. Everyone is agitated, wrote Madame de Sevigny on January 26, 1680. Everyone is sending for news and going into houses to pick them up. Further, the public imagination was impressed. Crimes were the stock topic of conversation. The most trifling accidents were attributed to poison. Every husband was accused of poisoning his mother-in-law. Terror reigned in Paris. Then there was a reaction. Nobles and lawyers displayed equal irritation at the chambers, daring to push its investigations the length of them. Were rank and name no longer a rampart high enough against the inquisitions of a lieutenant of police? There was an end to society. The result was that Erlon, the only person in the whole matter who appeared really criminal in the eyes of people of importance, was La Régnée himself. Today, says Madame de Sevigny, the cry is, the innocence of the accused and the horrid scandal. You know this sort of parrot cry, nothing else is talked about in any company. There is scarcely another example of such a scandal in any Christian court. And some days later, playing Sedgillus' echo to the general gossip, charming Marchionette said it was a shame to haul up people of position for such a pack of nonsense. The reputation of Monsieur de La Régnée is abominable, she wrote to her daughter on May 31st, 1680. What you say is exactly to the point. His being La Régnée proves that there are no poisoners in France. La Régnée had just discovered indeed a plot to murder him. The reader will remember the demonstration organised against the lieutenant of police at the time of the liberation of Madame de Dre, who was carried off in triumph between her husband, the maître de Régnée and her lover, Monsieur de Régnée. The nobility got up a similar demonstration when Marie-Anne Marchini, Duchesse de Bouillon, appeared before the chambre à dent. She had done her best to find means of quickly ridding herself of her husband, so that she might marry the duke de Vendon. The duke de Bouillon was informed of it by Louis himself. Yet the duke accompanied his wife on January 29, 1680 to the arsenal, giving her his right hand, while the duke de Vendon gave her his left. An exact repetition of the scene when Madame de Dre left the chambre à dent between her husband and Monsieur de Régnée. Madame de Régnée has noted down the details of this merry frolic. Madame de Bouillon arrived in a coach drawn by six horses, seated between her husband and her lover, followed by 20 other coaches, packed full of the smartest noblemen and daintiest ladies of the court. The Marquis de la Faire confirms this account. The Duchesse de Bouillon made a proud and confident appearance before the judges, accompanied by all her friends who were in large numbers and a most distinguished crowd. Madame de Bouillon entered the chambre like a little queen, says Madame de Sévigny. She sat down on a chair prepared for her, and instead of replying to the first question, she asked that what she wanted to say might be written down, which was that she only came there out of respect for the king. She had none at all for the chambre, which she did not recognise, and that she did not mean to allow any derogation to the duke's privilege. This privilege consisted in the right of not being tried, except by all the courts united in Parlement. She would not say a word till that was written down, and then she took off her glove and showed a very beautiful hand. She replied honestly enough until her age was asked. Do you know Lavigreux? No. Do you know Lavoisin? Yes. Why do you wish to do away with your husband? I do away with him? Why you have only to ask him if he thinks so? He gave me his hand to this very door. But why did you go so often to Lavoisin's house? I wanted to see the sable she promised to show me. That company would be well worth all my journeys. She was asked if she had not shown the woman a bag of money. She said no, and for more than one reason, and this she said with a very mocking and disdainful air. Well, gentlemen, is that all you have to say to me? Yes, madame. She rose and said aloud as she went out. Really, I should never have believed that clever men could ask so many silly questions. She was received by all her friends and relatives with adoration. She was so pretty, naive, natural, bold, so pleasant in appearance, and so quiet in mind. One of the replies she made to La Renée, who asked her if she had really seen the devil at the sorceresses, was, I see him now. He is ugly, old and disguised as a counsellor of state. This soon got abroad outside the chambre and set all Paris and the court in great good humor. The charges against the duchess de Bouillon were nevertheless very serious. It was proved to the commissioners that she had asked the sorceresses to poison the duke de Bouillon or to procure his death by witchcraft. Madame de Sevinier thought the matter of little importance. The duchess de Bouillon, she wrote to her daughter, went and asked la voisin for a little poison to get rid of an old husband who was boring her to death, and an invention to marry a young man who wanted her, without anyone knowing it. This young fellow was Monsieur de Vendorme, who took her to the arsenal holding one hand, Monsieur de Bouillon holding the other. When a manchini only commits a folly like that, it is winked at. These sorceresses do the things seriously and horrify all Europe about a trifle. Louis XIV took a more severe view of it and decided that Madame de Bouillon should be confronted with la voisin. The pretty face of the young duchess became graver when she heard this, and she begged to be spared this indignity. The king complied, but exiled her to Nérac, whence he would not allow her to return in spite of the entreaties of her many friends. The revelations which ensued before the chambre struck a more cruel blow at la reine's soul than the anger of the world. Wrapped in his consciousness of rectitude, he heard cries and threats only as the faint murmurs of a distant mob. Three sentiments dominated him and guided his whole life. The religious sentiment, which declared itself in a strong, sane, simple piety. The piety of a man possessing a quiet conviction of the truth of his faith. Love for his king, a love composed of respect and admiration, with shades of affection like that of a son for a father, and allied also to a religious veneration. Finally, a high sentiment of his judicial office with an immovable respect for justice. His worship of the king extended to all that concerned and surrounded him, to all that he loved and honoured. The greatness of Louis XIV is easily explained, in spite of his personal mediocrity, when we see with what passion and by what men he was served. The revelations about Madame de Montesment, the mother of the king's children, the woman who had almost won at seat on the throne of France, were anguished to la reine. It is touching to see his grief becoming more keen, more poignant, as evidence accumulated, and conviction forced itself upon his mind. Private facts, he writes at the head of a memorandum, in which the charges against Madame de Montesment are summed up, which were painful to listen to, the idea of which is so grievous to recall, and which are still more difficult to relate. In the light of these revelations, his judgment, usually so clear, precise and sure, became confused, and being unable to believe what he saw, he fancied that his own vision was becoming imperfect. I recognise my weakness. In spite of myself the nature of these private circumstances, those concerning Madame de Montesment, impresses my mind with more fear than is reasonable. These crimes scare me. Then he recurs to the documents with judicial composure. These are the very deeds we must look upon and draw our inferences from. But it was just the inferences deduced from these actions that his mind could not admit. I recognise that I cannot pierce the thick darkness with which I am surrounded. I ask for time to think more about it, and perhaps it will happen that, after much thinking, I shall see even less than I see now. After well considering everything, I have found no other cause to survive. I have to seek for further enlightenment, and to await the aid of providence, which has drawn from the feeblest imaginable beginnings the knowledge of this infinite number of strange things it was so necessary to know. All that has happened hitherto leads us to hope, and I do hope with great confidence that God will at length reveal this abyss of crime, that he will at the same time show the means to escape from it, and inspire the king with all that he ought to do in a matter of such importance. In studying these reports of la reine to l'ouvre, we discover a circumstance as impressive as Curia's. In the course of his memoranda, the magistrate clearly and logically unfolds the reality of the charges against the favourite, but when enclosing it falls upon him to draw practical conclusions, his mind shrinks from the task, his thought takes fright like a horse shying before an unexpected obstacle. I have done what I could when I examined the proofs and the presumptions. To assure myself and remain convinced that the facts are genuine, and I could not succeed. I have sought on the other hand everything that might persuade me that they are false, and that too has been impossible. His distress was augmented by the conflict which arose in his conscience between the duties he owed to justice and those he owed his king. At that time when my mind was so cast down, he wrote, I besought God in his mercy to permit me to preserve the fidelity I owed to my office, and to enable me to walk sincerely in all that pleased the king to command me. Louis XIV ordered that a portion of the case should be withdrawn from the cognizance of the judges. The blow was so hard to la reine that his strength of mind well-knife failed under it. I hope, he wrote to Louis Voix on October 17, 1681, that his majesty in his favour and goodness will have compassion on my weakness. When he considers that, with the fear and respect I could not fail to be in, occupied moreover and filled with the idea of a judge who in giving a decision contrary to the truth should judge and be a party to a judgment involving the life of men, I could not at the moment recognise the false position in which I was, nor represent to his majesty that the affair in question was in the nature of the case, not susceptible of the proposed expedient. For a moment his resolution seems to have been taken. He would put himself blindly and unreservedly in the hands of the king, who had received from God, he writes, higher likes than those of other men. But the next instant the judge reappears in him and determines him, alone, unaided, subordinate official as he was, to enter into a struggle against the powerful ministers supported by the will and favour of the king. At this moment his character reveals itself in all its greatness. He went straight to Louis XIV and laid before him the charges against his mistress. Then he wrote energetically to Louis Voix, in spite of all the care that has been taken, all these facts, against Madame de Montespan, have cropped up so often in so many different quarters and with so many details that the king has been obliged to allow the interrogation of the prisoners about the favourite, but in private. Louis Voix, one of the most intimate and well liked friends of Madame de Montespan, did everything he could to save her. Madame de Montespan indeed was hostile to her, and he feared her growing favour. He cites as the Venetian ambassador observes, Louis Voix worshipped the French monarchy, to which everything seemed to him subordinate. He felt bound to protect the prestige of the crown against the injury which the condemnation of the favourite would do to it. Finally, in defending her, he thought he would ingratiate himself with Louis. Louis Voix endeavoured to bring La Réignée over to his views, to persuade him, at first gently, that it was important that the examining judge should find Madame de Montespan innocent. Louis Voix spoke, urged, demonstrated. La Réignée listened, but did not heed. The minister then changed his tone. He sought to prove to the magistrate that Madame de Montespan must really be innocent. He went to Paris on February 15, 1681, to explain the matter to him. Had not Mlle de Suyer the favourites made, written that she was not guilty, and that what he, La Réignée, had been told about her dealings with Lavoisin could not be true, that there were twenty women about Madame de Montespan, of whom eighteen hated her, and that they might be asked for information about her, but she thought that the Countess de Soissant had two maids, one of whom was almost her own height, and that the Countess might well have taken her name, the name of Mlle de Suyer, to injure both her and Madame de Montespan, whom she hated. La Réignée replied that all that was wanted was to confront the young lady with the prisoners at Montesan. We have already shown that the confrontation took place, and that Mlle de Suyer was recognised. Louvoir had perforced to devise another defence, to which the inflexible La Réignée made answer. After reflecting on what Mlle de Suyer said to Mlle de Louvoir at Montesan about her having a niece who was very often with the sorceresses, and who might easily have been mistaken for her, I think it doubtful, because she only said so after having been recognised by the prisoners, and because Mlle de Villiers, her good friend, who is at Montesan and has had warnings, tried to mislead us in the same way. It appears a concerted plan, and when I asked her what Mlle de Suyer was like, she told me that she was small, short and well-developed, which is a false description, and exactly fits the niece. When it was pointed out to La Réignée that Lavoisin had denied all knowledge of Mlle de Suyer, he replied, The denial of Lavoisin persisted until her death must be the more suspicious in that it was so obstinately kept up, because it is now proved that they had dealings together. If Mlle de Suyer herself denies these dealings, that itself can only increase the suspicion. Lavois also dwelt on a retraction made by La Filastre after her conversation with her confessor at the moment of going to execution, but the lieutenant of police replied, The declaration made by La Filastre exonerating Mlle de Montespan applies solely to the poisoning of Mlle de Fontange. There are two other facts. That of the mass said over her by Chouibourg, and further the agreement between them in regard to the powders prepared by Gallet for the king, in which Mlle de Montespan was named, and the charges founded on these two facts do not depend wholly on what was said under torture, but were confirmed afresh by the same declaration in which La Filastre retracted the first charge. End of Magistrate Part 1 Section 15 of Princes and Poisonates, Studies of the Court of Louis XIV This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Regarding by Jane Bennett, Melbourne, Australia Princes and Poisoners, Studies of the Court of Louis XIV by Franz Funk Prentano Translated by George Maidment Section 15 The Death of Madame Who has not read Bossouet's funeral oration on Henrietta Anne of England, Duchess of Orléans? Who has not thrilled at the echo of that powerful and poignant apostrophe? Oh woeful night! Oh woeful night! When there rang through the air like a sudden thunderclap, the amazing tidings, Madame is dying, Madame is dead. Madame passed from morn to eve like the grass of the field. In the morning she flourished with what graces you know. In the evening we saw her cut down. What awful speed! In nine hours the work is accomplished. Bossouet's masterpiece has crowned the memory of Madame with an immortal halo in which the charms, the quick and exquisite imagination of the young princess who enchanted her contemporaries, the lady who set the tone for taste and wit in the midst of the wittiest and most brilliant court the world has ever known, will shine resplendent through the ages. The circumstances in which this startling death occur it have aroused the attention of historians. Madame has returned from England where she had succeeded in getting the Treaty of Dover signed on June 1st 1670 by the ministers of her brother Charles II. The treaty assuring Louis XIV of the Alliance of England against Holland and permitting him to conquer Flanders and Franche Comté for France. Madame remained at Dover from May 24th to June 12th. She then re-embarced for France happy in the successful result of her mission and she arrived at Saint-Chamar on the 18th. At the age of 26 says Madame de Lafayette. She saw herself the link between the two greatest kings of the century. She had in her hands a treaty on which depended the fate of a part of Europe, the pleasure and the importance given by affairs of moment being joined in her with the attractions bestowed by youth and beauty. There was a grace and a sweetness enveloping her whole person, that one for her a kind of homage, which must have been the more pleasant in that it was rendered rather to her personality than to her rank. Need anything be said of the manners of monsieur? The miracle of firing the heart of this prince, says Madame de Lafayette, was reserved for no woman in the world. And yet his heart was wonderfully tender. Madame had definitively secured the exile of the Chevalier de Lorraine, the infamous friend of her husband. Madame died suddenly at Saint-Clu, a prayer to the most cruel anguish on the night of the 29th of June 1670, about three o'clock in the morning. Rumours of poison were instantly set afloat, which were not long in gaining strength and currency. They formed the general opinion at court in Paris, in the whole of France, in England, Holland and Spain, where Madame's daughter became queen. Charles II refused to receive the letter in which the Duke of Orléans informed him of his sister's death. The Duke of Buckingham, the English ambassador, wrote Colbert de Quassie, is in transports of rage. The people of London were hardly restrained from violent outbursts against the Frenchmen residing there. The streets rang with the cry of down with the French. The French embassy had to be protected. Monsieur's second wife, Madame Palatine, was always convinced that Madame had died of poison, and everything tends to show that Louis XIV had all events in the first moments shared these suspicions. In regard to the possible authors of the crime, some accused the Dutch, against whom the Treaty of Dover was directed, others accused Monsieur himself and the Chevalier de Lorraine. In either case, the historical interest of the problem is very great. The popular imagination heightened it through the magnificent commentary with which Bossouet embroidered the death of the beautiful princess, and it has been enhanced by all the efforts made for more than a century past to solve it. For fifty years and more, writes one of the masters of modern era edition, Monsieur Arthur de Bois-Lille, the question has been more closely studied and the evidence weighed with more care, at least by impartial and serious writers, familiar with the documents of Louis XIV's reign, or with scientific problems. But it happens that some have abstained from giving a decisive verdict, and others have varied between poison, in which Walcenaire, Paul Lacroix, and François Raveson very firmly believed, and death by accident or disease, accepted by Mignet, Loiseleur and Littré, with the result that the question has become darkened rather than illuminated between conclusions diametrically opposed by coming from men of equal authority. Monsieur de Bois-Lille himself refrains from stating any conclusion, and recently we have Dr Légué, a specialist in his interesting book, devoting a new study to the question, and endeavouring to prove that Madame was poisoned by corrosive sublimate. Thanks to a minute study of the documents, guided by the work of Monsieur de Bois-Lille, we have just quoted, thanks above all to the skillful guidance of two masters of modern science, we arrive, as will be seen by and by, at an indisputable solution. 1. In accordance with the first principle of historical criticism, it's important at the outset to determine exactly the value of the sources, since we may derive particulars serviceable to our investigation. The sources are divided into three well-marked categories. 1. The reports of the physicians and surgeons. 2. The accounts of the persons who were able to approach Madame in her last moments, or were in a position to hear authoritative descriptions. 3. The official correspondence of the courts of London and Paris. The first category presents to us five reports of the post-mortem examination. A. The official report, signed by the fifteen physicians and surgeons, French and English, who were present at the autopsy. B. The account of the illness, death and autopsy of Madame, by the Abbe Bourdelot physician. Bourdelot was one of the French physicians present at the post-mortem. C. The report of Valot, physician to the late Queen Mother. Valot was regarded as one of the most imminent physicians of his time. He was present among the French doctors at the autopsy. His report was officially carried to London by the Marshal de Belfort. D. The memoir of a surgeon of the King of England who was present at the opening of the body. This surgeon's name was Alexander Boshe. E. The account of Hugh Chamberlain, physician in ordinary to the King of England, also present at the operation. This document, like the proceeding, is exceedingly useful for checking the official report and the report of the French physicians. Some writers have believed that Louis XIV, fearing a rupture with England, dictated the opinion the French physicians were to give. Boshe and Chamberlain were absolutely independent representatives of the English government. To these five documents of unquestionable authenticity, maybe added the notice inserted in the Gazette of July 5th, 1670, which was officially inspired by the court physicians, and the opinion of the famous Guy Patin, Dean of the Medical School of Paris, though he was not actually present at the autopsy. In our second category, the narratives of persons who approached Madame in her last moments or heard authoritative accounts. We must mention prominently the account written by the charming Count Estela Fayette, the history of Madame Henrietta of England, first wife of Philip of France, Duke of Orléans. The Count Estela Fayette was attached to the suite of Madame. She never left her during the day on which she died. She has left a simple, precise and sober account of the short illness in which every line bears the stamp of truth. Next to this valuable document must be cited the letter of Bosue, who was present at the final scene, and the story of Fouillet, cannot of Saint Clue, who was with Madame before Bosue arrived. The third category comprises the correspondence exchanged between the courts of England and France and their representative. These would be documents of the greatest value if their official and diplomatic character had not imposed the greatest reserve on the writers, and even dictated their sentiments. There are first of all the letters of Louis XIV, and Hube de Leon to Charles II and to Colbert de Quasi, ambassador at London. Then the dispatchers of Louis and of Hube de Leon to Monsieur de Pompom, ambassador at the Hague. On the English side, five letters addressed by Lord Montague, ambassador at the French court, to Lord Arlington, Secretary of State Charles II, and the letters of Lord Arlington to Sir William Temple. Such are the only documents worthy of credence we have at our disposal, for studying the circumstances of the death of Madame. For it is necessary to reject, in the most absolute manner, the accounts of Saint-Simo, and of Monsieur's second wife, Madame Palatine. C'est roul, and more especially Monsieur de Bois-Lisle, have shown the improbabilities and absurdities of these, and we shall not refer to them again. The work of Monsieur de Bois-Lisle is particularly interesting, in showing that these two famous narratives had a common source. As to the testimony of D'Argançon, Voltaire and others, destitute in the nature of the case of any authority comparable to that of the authors we have mentioned above, it is unnecessary in the points where it confirms the others. On the points where it contradicts them, it cannot prevail, and on the points where it contains new information, it is dangerous to follow, for we lack any evidence by which to check it. Litre acted judiciously in neglecting these writers when compiling his study on the death of Madame, and the approach levelled against him by Lois-Lisle is without justification. On the contrary, it is perhaps to this happy stroke of criticism that Litre owed the success of his argument. Two, we proceed to recount, in the simplest and most precise manner in our power, the circumstances of the death of Madame, and from this narrative alone we shall see emerge one of the facts we intend to establish, namely that Madame could not have been poisoned. Henrietta of England, more comparable to the jasmine than to the rose, very slender, delicate, slightly round-shouldered, not less pleasing for that, exhausted not only by four acushions in rapid succession, but by the fast life then led at court, was only kept up, says Monsieur de Bois-Lisle, by that sanguine temperament sanguine temperament which is the prerogative of high-strung women. In 1664, Guy Patin wrote, The Duchess of Orleans was taken ill at Ville-Côte-tre, and her physicians have prescribed asses milk. The presumption is then that she suffered from some stomach disorder. The king, wrote Hugh de Lyon to Colbert de Quassie, tells us that more than three years ago she complained of a pain in the side, which compelled her to lie flat for three or four hours, without finding ease in any posture. Madame was constantly afflicted with a pain at one fixed spot in the breast. She further used to complain, wrote the Abbe Bourdele, of a cruel burning pain, not in the abdomen, but in the chest. She was always wanting to vomit. Most often she could take only milk for food, and remained in bed for days together. These facts indicate, as Dr. Le Gendre tells us, that Madame suffered from a chronic inflammation of the stomach, a form of gastritis. The reports of the autopsy show, further, that Madame was afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis, and it is not rare for these two morbid conditions to coexist. During the journey she made in Flanders with the king and monsieur before her departure for England, the appearance of the young princess caused much alarm. She was reduced to living on milk, writes Madame de La Fayette, and retired to her own room as soon as she got out of the coach, and as a rule she went to bed. One day when the talk fell on astrology, monsieur said that it had been foretold that he would have several wives, and judging from the state Madame was in, he was beginning to believe it. Madame returned from England on June 18th. Her condition had become very much worse. Next day she kept her bed. She went into the queen's room, wrote mademoiselle de Montpensier, like a dressed up corpse with rouge on its cheeks. And when she went out, everybody, including the queen, said that she had death written on her face. On June 24th 1670, writes Madame de La Fayette, a week after her return from England, monsieur and she went to Sainte Clue. The first day she went there she complained of pains in the side and abdomen to which she was subject. Nevertheless as it was extremely hot she desired to bathe in the river. Monsieur Evelyn, her chief physician, did all he could to prevent her. But in spite of all he said, she bathed on Friday the 27th, and on Saturday she was so ill that she did not bathe. I arrived at Sainte Clue on Saturday at six o'clock in the evening. I found her in the gardens. She told me that I should think her looking cross, and that she was not at all well. She had sucked as usual, and she walked in the moonlight till midnight. The preceding lines, every detail of which is of great importance, have been neglected by the historians who have concluded she was poisoned. On Sunday the 29th at dinner Madame ate as usual, and after dinner she lay down on some cushions, as she often did when she was at liberty. She had made me place myself near her, says Madame de Lafayette, so that her head was almost on me. An English painter was painting Monsieur's portrait. We were talking about all sorts of things, and meanwhile she fell asleep. During her nap she changed so considerably, that after watching her for a long time I was surprised at it, and thought that her spirit must do a great deal towards adorning her countenance, since it was so pleasant when she was awake, and so little attractive when she was asleep. But I was wrong in this reflection, for I had several times seen her sleeping, and had never yet seen her less lovely. When she awoke she arose from the place where she had been lying, but with so haggard a face that Monsieur was surprised, and called my attention to it. She then went away into the drawing-room, where she walked up and down for some time with Bois-Fonc, Monsieur's treasurer, and while talking to him complained several times of the pain at her side. We are coming to the moment when any poisoning must have taken place. We see already that the mischief was done. Monsieur went downstairs to return to Paris. He found Madame de Mechelburg on the steps, and came up again with her. Madame left Bois-Fonc, and came to Madame de Mechelburg. As she was speaking to her, Madame de Garmache brought to her, as well as to me, a glass of chicory water that she had asked for some time before. Madame de Goudon, her tired woman, gave it to her. She drank it, and then, replacing the cup on the salver with one hand, she pressed her side with the other, saying in a tone that betokened severe pain, Oh, what a dreadful twinge! Oh, what a pain! I can bear it no longer! She reddened in uttering these words, and the next moment turned a livert pallor, which surprised us all. She continued to cry out, and told us to take her away as she could no longer stand. We took her in our arms. She tottered along half doubled up. I held her while someone unleashed her. She moaned all the time, and I noticed that she had tears in her eyes. I was amazed and affected by it, for I knew that she was the most patient creature in the world. Kissing the arms I was holding, I said that she was evidently in great pain. And she told me I could not imagine how great. She was put to bed, and as soon as she was there she cried out more loudly than she had yet done, and threw herself from one side to the other, like a person in infinite agony. Someone went off to find her chief physician, Mr. S. B. He came, said it was colic, and prescribed the ordinary remedies for such ailments. All the time the pain was dreadful. Madame said that it was much worse than we thought, and that she was dying, and begged someone to go in search of a confessor for her. The young princess believed that she was poisoned. A sort of antidote was brought her in the shape of oil and powdered which made her vomit. After some hours of frightful agony, Henrietta of England expired, while Bossouet was reciting the last exhortations. Face to face with death, Madame displayed a greatness of soul to which all who approached her have borne touching testimony. Madame was gentle towards death, said Bossouet, as she had been with all the world. Her great heart was neither embittered nor rothful against the dread foe. Nor did she face him with proud disdain, but was content to look him in the face without emotion, and to welcome him without distress. 3. This bear narrative of the facts would be sufficient to weaken the opinion of those who believe that the princess Henrietta died of poison. The following observations will continue to deprive it of all credit. Writers are unanimously agreed about the fact that Madame could only have been poisoned by the glass of chicory water given her by Madame de Gamache. Now, as soon as suspicions awoke in the mind of Madame and her circle, that is to say, the moment after the drink had been taken, Monsieur ordered some of the water to be given to a dog. Madame de Bourg, the princesses maid who was heartily devoted to her, told her that she had made the drink and had herself drunk some of it, and Madame de Mechelborg also drank some. We are thus bound to acknowledge that the famous chicory water could not have been poisoned. Monsieur J. Léa, with his clear and vigorous mind, has well analysed the scene. The decoction of which so many persons had drunk was harmless. It was the cup that ought to have been examined. The details given by Madame de Lafayette and others, writes Monsieur de Bois-Lisle, exclude the idea of poison poured into the glass itself. And indeed Madame Palatine says that what was poisoned was not the water itself, nor the vessel in which it was made, but the cup, which was reserved for the princess, and which no one else would have dared to use. It is a fact that the 17th century poisonous sought to prepare goblets and silver cups in such a way as to poison the persons who were afterwards to use them. Among the constant friends of la voisin, la boss, la chéron, and la vigueur, the most renowned sorceresses of the period, we find a certain Francois Bello, one of the king's bodyguard, making a specialty of this, and deriving a comfortable income from it, until the day when this trade led him to the Place de Grève, where he was broken on the wheel on June 10th, 1679. His method of procedure was as follows. He crammed a toad with arsenic, placed it in a silver goblet, and then, pricking its head, made it urinate, and finally crushed it in the goblet. During this pleasant operation he mumbled his wicked charms. I know a secret, said Bello, such that in doctoring a cup with a toad and what I put into it, if fifty persons chance to drink from it afterwards, even if it were washed and rinsed, they would all be done for, and the cup could only be disinfected by throwing it into a hot fire. After having thus poisoned the cup, I should not try it upon a human being, but upon a dog, and I should entrust the cup to nobody. But it happened that a client of Bello's, being somewhat sceptical, got a dog to drink out of the doctored cup, and found that the animal was not harmed in the least. He even picked a violent quarrel with the magician about the matter, taunting him with the worthlessness of his words. Bello spoke frankly to the commissioners of the Chambre d'Ot. I know that the toad cannot do anybody any harm, what I did with the silver cups and trenches was done solely to get hold of such cups and trenches. His skill nevertheless enjoyed a very substantial reputation. At the same date the magician Blessie was believed to know how to manipulate mirrors in such a way that anyone who looked in them received his death blow. These facts seem mere childish folly under scientific investigation. The knowledge people had of poisons in the 18th century was limited to arsenic, antimony, and sublimate. It did not enable them so to poison a cup as to cause sudden death to the person using it, without his being aware of the poison at the moment of drinking it. The opinion of Professor Browardell on this point is explicit, and Dr Lagaye, convinced as he is of the poisoning of Madame, admits that the story of the cup can only make any well-informed man smile. The conclusion is that as Madame could not have been poisoned by the water she drank, or by the cup containing the water, she could not have been poisoned at all. 4. Her body was opened, writes Bossouet, among a large concourse of physicians and surgeons, and all sorts of people, because, having begun to feel extreme pain when drinking three mouthfuls of jiggery water, given her by the dearest and most intimate of her women, she said at once that she was poisoned. It was with the same idea that the English ambassador attended the operation along with an English physician and surgeon. After having shown that Madame could not have been poisoned, it remains to settle what disease it was of which she died. A task is simplified by the marvellous study in which Lytre proved that she succumbed to an acute peritonitis, the immediate and inevitable result of the perforation of the stomach by an ulcer. This study, Dr Paul Legendre tells us, is the finest extant example of a retrospective medical demonstration. We have it now under our eyes, but we find it condensed by the pen of the most elegant writer of our time, Monsieur Anatole France, who will allow us to borrow this quotation. Lytre, an expert in medical observation, does not hesitate to diagnose a simple ulceration of the stomach, which Professor Cruvelier was the first to describe, and which Madame's physicians could not recognise because they knew nothing about it. It is unquestionable that for some time Madame had been suffering from abdominal pains after her meals. The liquid she took on June 29th brought about the perforation of the ulcerated wall, and this caused the terrible pain in her side and the peritonitis which we have mentioned. The physicians who opened the body found, indeed, that the stomach was pierced with a little hole, but as they could not account for the pathological origin of this hole, they fancied after the event that it had been made inadvertently during the autopsy. Upon which, says the surgeon of the King of England, I was the only one to insist. The incident is reported as follows by the Abbe Bourdeleau. It happened by misadventure during the dissection that the point of the scalpel made an opening at the top of the ventricle, and many of the gentlemen asked how it came about. The surgeon said that he had done it by accident, and Monsieur Valleux said that he had seen when the cut was made. Litre objects with reason that it is difficult to make inadvertently an incision with the point of a pair of scissors, there's no question of a scalpel, in a tough and distended membrane like the stomach during an autopsy. The illusion of the physicians present at the operation is the more easily explained, because in that legion as it is now known, the edges of the opening are perfectly clean and sharp, very regular, so that the hole seems to have been made artificially. Jacou points out the very sharp delimitation of the ulcer, the absence of inflammation and of peripheral separation. The section of the tissues, writes Monsieur Bourdele, is so clean that to adopt a classical comparison, the ulcer appears as though cut out with a punch. It varies in dimensions, from the size of a lentil to that of a five franc piece. Monsieur Anatole France admirably explains the state of mind of the physicians who drew up the report of the autopsy. The French physicians were afraid of finding in the viscera of the princess indications of a crime which might throw suspicion on the royal family. They dreaded even everything which lent itself to doubt and thereby to malevolence. Knowing that the least uncertainty as to the cause of death or the condition of the corpse would be interpreted by the public in a sense that would ruin them, they had reasons of self-interest and the zeal of fear to urge them to explain everything. Now in their inability to connect with a normal pathological type, a legion unknown to them all and perhaps suspicious to some, it was much to their advantage to explain this enigmatic wound as an accident during the autopsy and we can understand their believing what they wish to believe. The English surgeons, as ignorant as they, accepted their conclusion in default of a better. The fact is, says LaTrey in conclusion, that they were bound to find a hole and they did find it. All dispute was silenced in the presence of three things, the sudden attack, the peritonitis, and the presence of oil, and a bile, adds Dr. Le Gentre, which the reports of the autopsy show to have been in the lower bowel. In the lower bowel was found indeed, a substance which the reports of the French physicians describe as fat like oil. It was in fact oil, the oil which Madame had drunk as an antidote and which had been discharged from the stomach. Further, even supposing against all probability that the hole had actually been made accidentally by young Felix, who was the operator, all the details of Madame's health known before death, and the details revealed by the autopsy, are so conclusive in favour of the diagnosis of a simple ulcer ending in perforation, that we should be led to the admission that the must have existed in another part of the wall of the stomach. Another small hole, which escaped the notice of the physicians and surgeons present at the autopsy. There would have been nothing surprising in this, for their attention was not directed to this point. It might even be supposed that the scissors of Felix, if they had really cut the wall of the stomach by inadvertence, only increased the size of the natural perforation already existing. Allowance must indeed be made for the state of putrid softening in which the organs are bound to have been, the corpse having remained exposed all through a day of intense heat. To sum up, before June 29th, there were gastric pains caused by ulceration. On the 29th, bursting of the ulcer and acute peritonitis, peritonitis is distinctly indicated by the reports. Such are the conclusions of Lytre. Dr Paul Le Gentre, a most competent authority, unhesitatingly confirms them, as also does Professor Bruadel, who writes as follows, admitting ulceration of the stomach, all the phenomena superveen with classic exactitude. If we refer to the works of the celebrated cruvetier, who was the first to describe simple ulcers, we find by an interesting coincidence, in the very case he presents as a type, the closest correspondence with the illness of madame, and a fresh proof of the soundness of Lytre's opinion. Now since the complications following perforation of the stomach and rapidly causing death, writes cruvetier, superveen suddenly, and sometimes directly after taking food or drink, the question of poison has been raised pretty often. I have never seen a more remarkable case in this respect than that of a Coleman, aged 23, and of an athletic vigor, who, carrying a sack of coal, stopped at an inn and drank a glass of wine. He went on his way, but a few minutes afterwards was seized with horrible pains, was attended first at his own house, then carried dying to the hospital of the full book, Fandene. His case showed every indication of peritonitis through perforation, and he died three hours after his admission to the hospital in full consciousness. I was able to get from his own lips the valuable information that he had been suffering from his stomach for several months, and that digesting his food was always painful. The Coal Dealers Society, convinced that their comrade was the victim of poison, and that the agent of the poisoning was the glass of wine taken immediately before he was attacked by these symptoms, decided to bring an indictment against the wine merchant, and with this end required the autopsy to be made in presence of a deputation from their body. It was a case of spontaneous perforation through a simple ulcer in the stomach. The estimate of Le Tre, to use the phrase he himself uses to describe his work, is thus confirmed in every way. Lois Allure thought fit to object the rarity of the case. That is no argument, the case may be rare, and yet have been that of Madame. And besides, Lois Allure makes too much of its rarity. Brenton estimates that perforation of the stomach in cases of simple ulcer occurs in 13%, and that it is most common in women under 30. Madame was 26th. Lois Allure admits peritonitis, but thinks it was inflammation supervening on a chill. Why, he writes, does Le Tre pass by in absolute silence the last words in the statement of Madame de la Fait, quite as grave and significant as the first? As it was extremely warm, she wished to bathe in the river. Monsieur Yvelin, her chief physician, did all he could to prevent her, but in spite of all he said, she bathed on Friday, and on Saturday was so ill that she did not bathe. And further on, she walked in the moonlight until midnight. There is only one drawback to Monsieur Lois Allure's theory, but that is a serious one. Peritonitis as an original melody, and especially peritonitis through chill, which Lois Allure wishes to substitute for the disease diagnosed by Crouvellier and Le Tre, is no longer recognised by modern science. The last cases which were thought to be of this kind, says Dr Paul Jean, were perforations of the appendix. Let us come lastly to the work of Dr Le Gey, made a science say empoisonne, the most important part of which is occupied with a minute study of the circumstances surrounding the death of Madame. Monsieur Le Gey's conclusion is poisoning by sublimate poured into the famous jiggery water. His study is interesting, like the whole book, but his conclusions crumble away under the following considerations. One, Professor Bruade writes, if the jiggery water had contained the smallest dose of sublimate, Madame would have pushed the glass from her after the first sip. Sublimate has a revolting taste. In the medicinal dose, one gram to a litre, the taste is atrocious. Madame had been taking jiggery water for several days in the evening, and this evening she drank it as usual. Two, to kill a person, adds Professor Bruadell, at least 10 or 15 centigrams are necessary. This dose corresponds to a quantity of solution representing about 200 grams of liquid. It seems impossible for anyone to imbibe that without being stopped by its horrid taste. Madame certainly did not drink 200 grams of her jiggery water. She took a few sips only. Three, poisoning by sublimate, writes the Professor, produces lesions of the abdominal mucus membrane, which could not have escaped the notice of the physicians who made the autopsy. We have five accounts of the autopsy, which are unanimous in stating that the stomach, except for the little hole of which we have spoken, was in a good condition. Four, the facts on which Dr. Legey relies for his diagnosis of poison by sublimate, and which he borrows from the account of the abbey Burdolo, occurred not after the drinking of the cup of jiggery water, but before. In transcribing the account in question, Monsieur Legey has inadvertently omitted the passage, there is indication of the bile having been accumulating for a long time, where it may be clearly seen from the following lines that the author is speaking of a state long before the fatal attack. Thus Monsieur Legey's argument is in no way sustained. The historian may remark finally that Madame's daughter, Marie-Louise, the young Queen of Spain, died in 1689, almost at the same age as her mother, after drinking a glass of iced milk. And on this occasion also, rumours of poison spread abroad. When Charles II, Madame's brother, died somewhat suddenly, there was more talk of poison. And when the granddaughter of Madame, the young and charming Duchess of Burgundy, was stricken with the disease which carried her off, people believed that she too had been poisoned. In earlier days when Madame's mother, Henrietta Maria at France, widow of Charles I, died on September 10, 1669, at her country house of Cologne. Her physician, Valio, had been accused of accidentally poisoning her, by giving her pills chiefly composed of opium. Thanks to the assistance of eminent masters like Professor Bruadel and Dr Paul Legendre, and armed historically with the learned investigations of Monsieur Arthur de Bois-Lille, we have been fortunate in resuscitating the admirable study of Le Tre in all its striking accuracy. The great writer concludes with an eloquent page, a hymn of triumph in honour of modern science, which might perhaps have kept Madame in that great place she filled so well. We will end with the same observation that will be placed at the end of our study of the iron mask, in which we showed how the solution was indicated at least a century ago, and remarked that, in these very problems which are regarded as insoluble, history handled with rigor and precision, gives conclusions as certain as those of the exact sciences. End of section 15, The Death of Madame