The Affair of the Poisons

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke, listener discretion advised. In one of the earliest episodes of this podcast, episode nine to be exact, I told you the story of Marie-Madeleine d 'Aubray, the Marquise de Brunvilliers, and her collection of poisons. As a refresher, the Marquise learned the art of poison from her lover, Gaudine de Saint-Croix, who had himself been taught by a fellow prisoner during a three-month stay in the Bastille, an imprisonment which had been thanks to Marie's angry, powerful father.

0:49It was a little twisty and complicated. Upon the death of Saint-Croix, police found a collection of incriminating letters and notes that gave them reason to believe that the deaths of Marie's father and her two brothers may not have been as natural as the coroners had concluded at the time. The Marquise fled the country, but was soon captured and arrested. Under the threat of torture, she admitted to having poisoned her father and brothers, as well as having attempted to poison her sister-in-law and her husband. Her motive? Well, possibly revenge, but also she claimed she had done it to ensure the futures of herself and her children after her father only left the family fortune to the male line of succession.

1:44Three deaths and two attempts were confirmed, but it's of the popular belief that Marie initially tested her poisons on the patients at the hospital where she regularly volunteered, potentially leaving a trail of countless unfortunate victims. The Marquise de Brunvilliers was publicly beheaded and burned on July 16, 1676. A contemporary account reads, Never has Paris seen such crowds of people. Never has the city been so aroused, so intent on a spectacle. If it was a spectacle Paris wanted from the execution, it was a spectacle Paris would get. Quote, Out of so many guilty people, must I be the only one put to death?

2:38The Marquise ominously asked before her execution. Quote, Half the well-born people are involved, and I could ruin them if I were to talk. The trial and beheading of the Marquise was, as she implied, only the beginning. the first domino to fall in a brief but fascinating period of French history known as the Affair of the Poisons. As summed up a little glibly by the famed memoirist Saint-Simon, quote, It seems that there are, at certain moments, crimes which become the fashion, like clothes. Poisoning was a la mode at the time. Despite the Marquise's oblique reference, she refused to name names before her death.

3:33The nobility, including Louis XIV himself, quickly realized they had cause to fear. After all, if a noble and a noble woman at that was capable of murder using such methods, who else among them had dirtied their hands? In the words of the Parisian chief of police Gabriel Nicolas de Larreni, quote, Who could have predicted that a woman raised in an honorable family with a seemingly gentle nature was capable of such premeditation and such a litany of crimes? The king appointed Larreni to uncover the Parisian underbelly of black magic and poisons, but King Louis would be surprised to learn just how close to home the investigation would take the chief.

4:31Today, six years later, oh my goodness, I would like to pick up where we left off in the affair of the poisons after the death of the Marquise de Brinvilliers. I would like to tell you the story of the sorceress known as La Vosan and the king's mistress, Madame de Montespan. The story of their lives, their crimes, and the very different outcomes of their unmaskings. This is the story of black masses, of love potions, of literal witch hunts, of court intrigue, and, of course, of poisons. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. The arrest and execution of the Marquise de Brunvilliers in 1676 was an omen of what was to come, but it was the following year, marked by the 1677 arrest of a far less powerful woman named Madelaine de Lagrange, that historians consider the true beginning of the affair of the poisons.

5:45Though she would be La Rénie's first lead into the dark underground of Parisian poisoners, she was initially arrested in a scheme that can only be described as harebrained. Unlike the Marquise, La Grange was not a noblewoman by any means. She was instead the 36-year-old widow of a Parisian tax collector, who had himself been hanged for accepting stolen goods. Following her husband's death, LaGrange worked as a fortune teller or divineress who made most of her money by suggesting to clients in poor health that they had actually been poisoned. And luckily for them, she could sell an antidote. She attempted a larger grift when she decided to, quote, Mary, an elderly lawyer she knew by the name of Foray.

6:42In August of 1676, LaGrange and a man who identified himself as Foray visited a notary's office, showing him their certificate of marriage, and they ordered the notary to draw up a marriage contract that left Foray's wealth to his new wife upon his death. Foray, perhaps not shockingly, was an old man who died soon after, and his confused relatives, upon learning they would receive nothing, lodged a formal complaint. The criminal lieutenant of Paris followed the paper trail back to LaGrange and concluded that not only had the marriage certificate been a forgery, the man who had accompanied her to the notary wasn't foray at all.

7:33He was, in fact, a priest, the very priest who had, quote, conducted the marriage in the first place. The pair, LaGrange and the priest, were arrested on charges of forgery and murder, as there was now reason to believe the real foray had been poisoned. I must admit the specific details of this case are not particularly relevant to the larger story here, but how could I resist telling you about such an amazing inheritance scam conducted by a fortune teller and a priest? It's in the aftermath of her arrest that Lagrange becomes a relevant player in the affair of the poisons that would captivate France.

8:18In February of 1677, from prison, she boldly wrote a letter to the Marquise of Louvois, the king's secretary of state. Louvois was a big deal, but the contents of Lagrange's letter, which implied that she had uncovered an espionage ring from one of her fellow prisoners that threatened national security was enough of a threat for him to want to investigate personally. He arranged for Lagrange to be taken to his home so that she could be questioned. We don't know the details of that meeting, but while Lavoie acknowledged the very real possibility that the prisoner could just be lying to delay her forthcoming trial, he declared that one could not be too careful with an allegation as serious as hers.

9:12Lagrange was transferred to the Bastille for further questioning, and Lavoie put the investigation in the hands of the chief of police, Gabriel Nicolas de Lorainy. Laurainy had been appointed the Parisian chief of police a decade earlier by the king himself, who chose him because, as he declared, he did not know, quote, a better man or a more hardworking magistrate. It's hard to doubt Laurainy's dedication or efficiency, but his character earned him a fair share of detractors. As the chief of police, his work extended far beyond today's understanding of the position. In fact, his responsibilities were arguably more aligned with the role of a modern mayor.

10:03Some of his most well-regarded achievements included installing an extensive system of street lighting that improved pedestrian life and reduced late-night crime, as well as measures to improve Paris' cleanliness, turning around its reputation as the then filthiest city in the world. When he wasn't improving infrastructure, Larraigny was leading high-profile investigations, usually at the behest of the king himself, uncovering a different kind of filth in the city. As instructed by Lavoie, Larraigny questioned Lagrange at the Bastille, about this alleged espionage ring. This time, she not only spoke of the espionage ring, but she insinuated there was a plot in motion to assassinate both the king and the Dauphin, the prince.

11:00After she provided weak evidence and refused to speak further, she was transferred back to her original prison to await trial. However, things took a turn for the dramatic when an anonymous letter was found in a Paris church. Depending on the level of drama in the account you read, some say the letter was slipped directly to a priest through the confessional window by a mysterious woman. However it got there, the letter was ostensibly written by a widow who had been told by an admirer of his intent to place a white powder on the napkin of a person so powerful his name could not be mentioned. The writer of the letter feared for her own safety, as she would be considered a responsible party for merely possessing knowledge of the act, the standard in cases of treason.

12:00The letter put Larraigny on alert, but what he truly sought was from where and from whom this alleged poison was coming from. Could this all be connected to the claims of a larger ring that Lagrange had been making? Larraigny gathered further insight when a nobleman and his entourage were arrested for fraud, and as it turned out, they may have been involved in the international poison market. When taken into custody, the girlfriend of one of these men quoted her paramour as often declaring, quote, Madame de Brinvilliers was not dead, she had left behind heirs. La Rémy gained his in with those poisoning heirs in late 1678.

12:54In December, Marie Vigoreau, a former wet nurse to the aristocracy and present-day fortune teller, yes, another fortune teller, was hosting a small dinner party. Guests included a lawyer, Monsieur Perrin, and a wealthy widow, Marie Boss. Boss evidently overindulged on Vigoreau's wine, declared to the table that things were going so well for her that once she had poisoned three more people, she would be able to retire. A deeply unsettled Monsieur Perrin reported Boss's words to the police, and both she and her host, Marie Vigoreau, were arrested in January. They were taken to a prison where all suspected poisoners were kept over the following three years.

13:50Through his questioning, Laréné soon learned that Labosse and Vigoreau shared clients, and even Lagrange and Labosse sometimes worked together. After countless vague allusions and dead leads, This was enough confirmation for Larraigny to seriously believe that there was an active network of poisoners in Paris, somehow connected to the world of fortune tellers. The homes of both La Boss and Vigoreau were searched, and a casket belonging to La Boss was found to contain nail clippings and samples of, apologies, menstrual blood. as well as arsenic and nitric acid. You know, classic girl stuff. From that point on, La Réigny's investigation focused on the fortune tellers and divineresses of Paris.

14:51By one estimation, there were at least 400 active practitioners in the city, the vast majority of them women. Clients came to these women for an extensive variety of reasons. A year before the investigation began, the poet Jean de la Fontaine wrote this handy verse, Lost a hanky? Lost a lover? Your husband living too long for your taste? A tiresome mother? A jealous wife? Off you go to the sorceress to get the news you want to hear. Such a client might have wanted to know their future through palm reading, or a horoscope reading, or even a reading of their facial features. I see three children in your cheekbones.

15:38Perhaps these clients were seeking minor remedies for ailments such as toothaches or herbal creams to improve their complexions. Some clients, if they knew the right fortune tellers to go to, sought abortions. Perhaps the largest number of these clients needed assistance in their love lives, and most of them were struggling in unhappy marriages. Some wanted their abusive or neglectful husbands to treat them better. Some wanted predictions on when their husbands would die. The divineresses, therefore, served a fascinating role in the lives of Parisian women. The fortune teller was at once a woman's pharmacist, healthcare provider, emotional support, therapist, soothsayer, and sometimes best weapon.

16:33But divineresses were, importantly, first and foremost, businesswomen. As interrogations would prove, many were exceptionally cold-hearted towards their clients, exploiting their pain for money. They did not see themselves as the just liberators of downtrodden women, rather just women who had also been dealt poor hands, trying to survive and thrive for themselves, same as everyone. Business thrived because their network filled a void in society where women in distress often had few other options. It is a grim truth to acknowledge that while a number of women turned to poison to gain power or marry a younger lover, many other women, especially those who were not nobility, sought poison as their last resource to escape an abusive marriage or to gain financial independence.

17:35The connection between women and poison predates the Old Testament, and by the 17th century, it was widely stereotyped as a woman's weapon. Much of the reason the more outlandish claims made during the Affair of the Poisons were even acknowledged by quote, sensible men, like Larraigny, was the existing cultural anxiety surrounding the gender dynamics of the crimes of poisoning and witchcraft. Many divineresses also practiced forms of witchcraft and turned to spells for their most troubling cases. La Boss believed rituals involving menstrual blood were good for strengthening love, while those involving urine were used for harm.

18:29Pro tip. La Voison, the most infamous divineress in Paris, the most infamous fortune teller of them all, Agreed. When a client asked to get rid of her husband, la voisin asked for a sample of his urine and the shell of eggs he had eaten. When spells didn't work, la voisin had other tricks up her sleeve. As she once supposedly told another client, quote, Suffice to say that for me, nothing is impossible. I've made other women happy. Just bring the money. On paper, the practice of magic was punishable by law. But at this point in Parisian history, it was not actively persecuted. 1625 had been the last time a, quote, was executed by the Parisian parliament.

19:27As the historian Alfred Soman has argued, quote, Quote, Witchcraft trials came to an early end in France not because people stopped believing in witches, but because the central authorities considered the trials scandalous and unbefitting the dignity of the king's justice. La Rény's investigation, in turn, became an unusual kind of witch hunt. He was far more interested in the very practical side of a sorceress's business than the magical doings. Though these women would not be tried as witches, they would often meet similar ends as if they had been. Look at the fate of Lagrange, the woman who, if you'll recall, kick-started this investigation.

20:19Despite pressure from Parliament, the King and La Rénie fought to delay her execution in the hopes of extracting more information from her. But further torture yielded no valuable intel. La Grange and her priest-accomplice, remember from the inheritance scam, were ultimately executed on the evening of February 8, 1679, and any of their remaining secrets or lies died with them. But the interrogations of the fortune teller Labosse and Vigoreau did prove fruitful. For example, Larraigny quickly learned that the women shared a client, Madame de Poulion, who had recently been put in a convent by her husband after he had been warned that she was trying to kill him.

21:16While many women throughout history have been sent to convents or institutionalized under fabricated pretenses by the men in their lives, Madame Despouillant was, in fact, actually attempting to do what she had been accused of. She had worked with both Labosse and Vigoreau on multiple failed attempts to poison her husband after the charming scammer that she was having an affair with kept demanding more and more money from her. Turns out, Boss and Vigoreau knew a lot of would-be poisoners. The more that the two women talked, the more divineresses and their clients end up in prison alongside them.

22:01A number of the prisoners, especially La Boss, spoke at length and in detail about that one notorious sorceress in particular, la voisin. La voisin was a rival of Boss's. Quote, all of the world came to see her, reported one prisoner. Most of the ladies in Paris have been to see her, claimed another. One divineress, when asked about her business with pregnant women, diverted suspicion by claiming that la voisin was Paris's go-to abortion provider. Boss, estimated that Lavoisin made 100 ,000 livres a year from her, quote, evil dealings, while another put the figure more reasonably close to 10 ,000.

22:54Larraigny was particularly interested in Lavois's divulgence that an unnamed lady of rank had offered Lavoisin 6 ,000 livres if she could bring about the death of her husband. On March 12, 1679, La Voisin, real name Catherine Montvoisin, was arrested leaving her local parish, where she regularly attended Mass. Though this may seem at odds with everything else we know about that woman, La Voisin did not believe her faith was in conflict with her practice of alleged magic. At this point in her life, she was somewhere between her late 30s and early 40s, but young Catherine began honing her divining skills, or as she phrased it, cultivating the knowledge God had given her, since she was nine years old.

23:53Part of the reason she was so popular was that many clients were comforted by her pious religious nature. An anecdote goes that once, Having performed an abortion with a midwife she employed, she wept with joy as the fetus was baptized, believing that she had been its salvation rather than its damnation. Yes, she was, as she had been accused of being, Paris' go-to abortion provider. At the time, abortion was a capital offense, and both the mother and the midwife were liable to the death penalty. Still, in 1660, Parliament had been informed by churchmen that in the past year alone, 600 women in Paris had confessed to aborting pregnancies.

24:48When later put on the stand, La Voison's midwife argued that she was preserving the honor of ladies of rank when she terminated their unwanted, perhaps embarrassing, pregnancies. La Voisin ran her business out of the garden of her home in the suburbs of Paris. One colleague enviously described a typical day in La Voisin's life. Quote, before she got up every morning, there were folk waiting to see her, and throughout the rest of the day, she was with more people. After that, she kept open house in the evening, with violins playing, and was always making merry. End quote. The ideal work-from-home situation.

25:35But despite the merrymaking, La Voisin was extremely serious about her work, both out of pride and necessity. Her husband, Antoine Montvezan, was a failed silk merchant and jeweler, all of his businesses having gone bankrupt. It was up to his wife, then, to feed the couple and their many children. Antoine did not really seem like the grateful type. Catherine Lavoisin complained that he would often get drunk and treat her badly. When a client or a colleague encountered Lavoisin, the standard, polite way to greet her was to inquire whether her husband had died yet. During her interrogation, she told Laurini that she never attempted to kill her husband, but evidence would suggest otherwise.

26:28While her marriage was unhappy, she still maintained an active love life through numerous affairs with magicians, alchemists, and even a nobleman to whom she had taught palmistry. La Voisin was first interrogated on March 17th. Her initial strategy was the same as her rival, La Vosse's, to turn all accusations back toward her rival. It appears that in earlier years, the two had actually had a professional partnership with Voisin sending clients to Vosse. But a fight over their share of profits turned the relationship bitter. It later came to light that Voisin believed Boss had denied her her fair share of profits from a poison job, despite the widow's generous payout.

27:20When asked about that widow, La Voisin answered that she had known of Madame Brunet's hatred for her husband, but had few interactions with the woman. She had instead discussed the situation with La Boss and urged her fellow divineress to do nothing detrimental to, quote, the glory of God in their salvation. La Rénie, understanding the dynamic between these two women, devised a setup so devious it has only been used since by housewives producers. The following day, Voisin and Boss were brought together for a confrontation. La Boss, having learned what Voisin had claimed the day before, launched into her own series of accusations.

28:08She claimed that Voisin tried to sell that widow a powder allegedly consisting of finely ground diamonds that would shred her husband's intestines when ingested. The widow declined to purchase the expensive, and likely falsely advertised, powder, but ultimately paid Voisin for her services in 400 livres cash and a diamond cross. La Boss didn't stop with her accusations there. She repeated her claim about the Lady of Rank and the 6 ,000 livres offer, adding that the woman had asked her to poison a bouquet of flowers. La Boss additionally alleged that Voisin had been involved with another high-born woman who had gifted La Voisin her mourning clothes to thank her for dealing with her husband.

29:03Still not finished, Labasse purported that Lavoisin had in fact tried to kill her hated husband multiple times, once with the aid of her lover, a magician who intended to bury a sheep's heart in the backyard as part of a spell. Another time, Labasse herself had been enlisted to poison Montvoison's wine, but she added only a few drops. La Voson denied her dealings with that first widow, but ultimately conceded to some of the other claims. Yes, her magician lover had buried the sheep's heart, but when her husband began to have stomach pains, she was so overcome with guilt that she went to confession and, after having received absolution, instructed her lover to undo the spell.

29:57And yes, she had been approached by one lady of rank who wanted a poisonous bouquet, as well as another who gave her her mourning clothes. Those, she claimed, were not gifted for performing a service, but instead accompanied by a note reading, Madame Voisin, perhaps this will bring you luck, and if God permits that your husband dies, you can use them. Further into interrogations, Labosse admitted that, with the encouragement of Lavoisin, it was she who supplied that first widow with the liquid she used to poison her husband. Labosse had received the liquid from none other than, remember her, Lagrange, thus confirming La Rénie's long-held suspicions that this poison web was all connected.

30:54Voisin would go on to name the mourning clothes client as the wealthy, respected Madame Lefranc, and the bouquet client as the society figure Madame de Joux. The king was shocked to hear these women named, but Voisin's testimony was substantial enough for him to order their arrests. By this point, it was early April, and the arrests were beginning to cause quite the stir. Quote, the multitude of distinguished people arrested for poison grows every day, the English ambassador to France reported to the Secretary of State. The first trials of the Affair of the Poisons began in May, but they would not be conducted through the regular courts.

31:46Back in March, when it became clear that numerous trials would be necessary, the king formed a special committee to hear the cases. Fourteen commissioners were chosen by the king to serve as judges, including La Reynie. Additionally, Larraini was appointed rapporteur to the commission, which meant it was his job to outline the evidence to his fellow commissioners, all while still being in charge of the investigation. In effect, the historian Ann Somerset writes, he acted as a detective, prosecutor, and judge. One reason for forming the commission was that the king did not want the regular courts overwhelmed with poisoning cases.

32:33But another, perhaps more relevant, reason was that the king anticipated numerous high-ranking people would be implicated, so he preferred to handpick commissioners who could maintain discretion. The committee became known as, in English, The Burning Chamber. On May 7th, Labos and Madame Vigoreau were the first accused to stand trial. Two days later, they were sentenced to death, with the chamber ordering their torture before their execution. The executions took place on May 10th and also included LaBosse's son, who was hanged for admitting to helping his mother prepare her poisons. Boss was not afforded such a simple death.

33:27For the extent of her crimes, the commission sentenced her to be burnt at the stake. It was on their order that Boss's 14-year-old daughter be brought to watch her mother burn alive in an attempt to deter the girl from following in her mother's footsteps. Vigoreau would have met with the exact same fate had she not died during the torture. Deaths continued throughout the summer. That widow, aided by both Boss and Voisin, possibly, was hanged in June for the murder of her husband. The midwife that Voisin had employed met the same fate in August. La Voisin survived longer than her contemporaries, if only because La Guigny believed she had more to say.

34:20On September 16th, Louvois excitedly informed the king that, quote, la voisin's really beginning to talk. Though she claimed it pained her, she began to name names of her clients, including a countess and her sister, a duchess. The king, growing concerned about the direction the investigation was now taking, began to make contingency plans. He ordered that when certain prisoners were interrogated, their answers be recorded on separate sheets of paper rather than the usual bound volumes, easier to erase from the record should the need arise. On January 23, 1680, arrest warrants were issued for four nobles, including the Countess, Comtesse de Sasson, and the Duke of Luxembourg.

35:19On the same day, five other nobles received lesser forms of summons. The court and Paris at large were abuzz with the news. In Paris, a play called The Divineress was so popular that it had to turn away around 400 eager theatergoers each night and ended up making more money than any previous French production. It was rumored that Larraigny himself had advised the playwrights on its accuracy, but that was almost certainly untrue. Though many fashionable nobles were now caught up in the scandal, two names uncovered in the interrogation remained concealed. They were the Duchess de Vivon and her sister-in-law, Madame de Montespan, a.k.a.