In Paris a woman named Des Hayes Voisin, a widow who had taken up the
business of a midwife, towards the end of the seventeenth century
made herself notorious by the telling of fortunes. Such at least
was the manifest occupation of the worthy lady, and as she did not
flaunt herself unduly, her existence was rather a retired one. Few who
did not seek her services knew of her existence, fewer still of her
residence. The life of a professor of such mysteries as the doings of
Fate--so-called--is prolonged and sweetened by seclusion. But there
is always an “underground” way of obtaining information for such as
really desire it; and Madame Voisin, for all her evasive retirement,
was always to be found when wanted--which means when she herself wanted
to be found. She was certainly a marvellous prophet, within a certain
range of that occult art. Like all clever people she fixed limitations
for herself; which was wise of her, for to prophesy on behalf of every
one who may yearn for a raising of the curtain, be it of never so small
a corner, on all possible subjects, is to usurp the general functions
of the Almighty. Wisely therefore, Madame Voisin became a specialist.
Her subject was husbands; her chief theme their longevity. Naturally
such women as were unsatisfied with the personality, circumstances,
or fortunes of their partners, joined the mass of her _clientèle_, a
mass which taking it “bye and large” maintained a strange exactness
of dimensions. This did not much trouble the public, or even the body
of her clients, for no one except Madame herself knew their numbers.
It was certainly a strange thing how accurately Madame guessed, for
she had seemingly no data to go on--the longevity of the husbands were
never taken into the confidence of the prophet. She took care to keep
almost to herself the rare good fortune, in a sense, which attended her
divination; for ever since the misfortune which had attended the late
Marquise de Brinvilliers became public, the powers of the law had taken
a quite unnecessary interest in the proceedings of all of her cult.
Longevity is quite a one-sided arrangement of nature; we can only be
sure of its accuracy when it is too late to help in its accomplishment.
In such a game there is only one throw of the dice, so that it behoves
anyone who would wager successfully to be very sure that the chances
are in his--or her--favour.
Madame Voisin’s clients were generally in a hurry, and so were willing
to take any little trouble or responsibility necessary to ensure
success. They had two qualities which endear customers to those of La
Voisin’s trade; they were grateful and they were silent. That they
were of cheery and hopeful spirit was shown by the fact that as a rule
they married again soon after the dark cloud of bereavement had fallen
on them. When the funeral baked meats have coldly furnished forth the
marriage tables, it is better to remain as inconspicuous as possible;
friends and onlookers will take notice, and, when they notice, they
will talk. Moreover the new partner is often suspicious and apt to be a
little jealous of his predecessor in title. Thus, Madame Voisin being
clever and discreet, and her clients being--or at any rate appearing
to be--happy in their new relations and silent to the world at large,
all went prosperously with the kindly-hearted prophet. No trouble rose
as to testamentary dispositions. Men who are the subjects of prophecy
have usually excellently-drawn wills. This is especially the case with
husbands who are no longer young. Young husbands are as a rule not made
the subjects of prophecy.
Madame Voisin’s great accuracy of prediction did not excite at the
time so much public admiration as it might have done if she or her
clients had taken the public more into their confidence; but it was
noted afterwards that in most cases the male individual who retired
early from the scene was the senior partner in that _congeries_ of
three which has come to be known as “the eternal triangle.” In later
conversations, following in the wake of the completed prophecy,
confidences were exchanged as to the studies in certain matters
of science in which Madame Voisin seemed to have attained a rare
proficiency.
The late Mr. Charles Peace, an adventurous if acquisitive spirit, who
gave up his life in the same manner as the deceased Mr. Haman, worked
alone during the long period of his professional existence, and with
misleading safety. The illustrious French lady-prophet unwisely did
not value this form of security, and so multiplied opportunities of
failure. She followed an entirely opposite policy, one which though it
doubtless stood by her on many occasions had a fatal weakness. In some
ways it may facilitate matters if one is one’s own Providence; such
a course avoids temporarily errors of miscalculation or deduction of
probable results. And just as the roulette table has certain chances
in favour of Zero, there is for the practical prophet a large hazard
in that the dead are unable to speak or to renew effort on a more
favourable basis. La Voisin, probably through some unfavourable or
threatening experiences, saw the wisdom of associating the forces of
prediction and accomplishment, and with the readiness of an active
personality effected the junction. For this she was already fairly
well equipped with experiences. Both as a wife and a lover of warm
and voluptuous nature she understood something of the passions of
humanity, on both the female and the male side; and being a woman she
knew perhaps better of the two the potency of feminine longing. This
did not act so strongly in the lesser and more directly commercial,
if less uncertain, phases of her art, such as finding lost property,
divining the result of hazards, effecting immunity from danger, or the
preserving indefinitely the more pleasing qualities of youth. But in
sterner matters, when the issue was of life or death, the masculine
tendency towards recklessness kicked the beam. As a nurse in active
touch with both medical and surgical wants, aims, and achievements,
she was at ease in the larger risks of daily life. And after all, her
own ambitions, aided by the compelling of her own natural demands
for physical luxury, were quite independent, only seeking through
exiguous means a way of achievement. In secret she studied the mystery
of a toxicologist; and, probably by cautious experiment, satisfied
herself of her proficiency in that little-known science. That she had
other aims, more or less dependent on this or the feelings which its
knowledge superinduced, can be satisfactorily guessed from some of her
attendant labours which declared themselves later.
After a time La Voisin’s vogue as a sorceress brought her into
certain high society where freedom of action was unhampered by moral
restraints. The very rich, the leaders of society and fashion of the
time, the unscrupulous whose ambitious efforts had been crowned with
success of a kind, leaders of Court life, those in high military
command, mistresses of royalty and high aristocracy--all became
companions and clients in one or more of her mysterious arts. Amongst
them were the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Comtesse de Soissons, Madame
de Montespan, Olympe de Mancini, Marshal de Luxembourg, the Duc de
Vendôme, Prince de Clermont-Lodeve. It was not altogether fashionable
not to be in touch with Madame Voisin. Undeterred by the lessons of
history, La Voisin went on her way, forced as is usual in such cases by
the circumstances which grow around the criminal and prove infinitely
the stronger. She was at the height of her success when the public
suspicion, followed by action, revealed the terrible crimes of the
Marquise de Brinvilliers; and she was caught in the tail of the tempest
thus created.
This case of Madame de Brinvilliers is a typical one of how a human
being, goaded by passion and lured by opportunity, may fall swiftly
from any estate. It is so closely in touch with that of Madame Voisin
that the two have almost to be considered together. They began with the
desire for dabbling in forbidden mysteries. Three men--two Italians
and one German, all men of some ability--were violent searchers for
the mythical “philosopher’s stone” which was to fulfil the dream of
the mediæval alchemist by turning at will all things into gold. In the
search they all gravitated to Paris. There the usual thing happened.
Money ran short and foolish hoping had to be supplemented by crime.
In the whirling world of the time there was always a ready sale for
means to an end, however nefarious either might be. The easy morality
of the time allowed opportunity for all means, with the result that
there was an almost open dealing in poisons. The soubriquet which stole
into existence--it dared not proclaim itself--is a self-explanatory
historical lesson. The _poudre de succession_ marks an epoch which,
for sheer, regardless, remorseless, profligate wickedness is almost
without peer in history, and this is said without forgetting the time
of the Borgias. Not even natural affection or family life or individual
relationship or friendliness was afforded any consideration. This phase
of crime, which was one almost confined to the upper and wealthier
classes, depended on wealth and laws of heredity and entail. Those who
benefited by it salved what remnants of conscience still remained to
them with the thought that they were but helping the natural process of
waste and recuperation. The old and feeble were removed, with as little
coil as might be necessary, in order that the young and lusty might
benefit. As the change was a form of plunder, which had to be paid
for in a degree in some way approximate to results, prices ran high.
Poisoning on a successful scale requires skilful and daring agents,
whose after secrecy as well as whose present aid has to be secured.
Exili and Glasser--one of the Italians and the German--did a thriving
trade. As usual in such illicit traffic, the possibility of purchase
under effective conditions made a market. There is every reason to
believe from after results that La Voisin was one such agent. The cause
of La Brinvilliers entering the market was the purely personal one of
an affair of sensual passion. Death is an informative circumstance.
Suspicion began to leak out that the polyglot firm of needy foreigners
had dark dealings. Two of them--the Italians--were arrested and sent to
the Bastille where one of them died. By unhappy chance the other was
given as cell-companion Captain Sainte-Croix, who was a lover of the
Marquise de Brinvilliers. Sainte-Croix as a Captain in the regiment
of the Marquis had become intimate in his house. Brinvilliers was a
fatuous person and of imperfect moral vision. The Captain was handsome,
and Madame la Marquise amorous. Behold then all the usual _personnel_
of a tragedy of three. After a while the intrigue became a matter of
family concern. The lady’s father,--the Civil Lieutenant d’Aulroy,
procured a _lettre de cachet_, and had the erring lover immured in the
Bastille as the easiest and least public way out of the difficulty.
“Evil communications corrupt good manners,” says the proverb. The
proverbial philosopher understated the danger of such juxtaposition.
Evil manners added corruption even to their kind. In the Bastille the
exasperated lover listened to the wiles of Exili; and another stage
of misdoing began. The Marquise determined on revenge, and be sure
that in such a case in such a period even the massive walls of the
Bastille could not prevent the secret whisper of a means of effecting
it. D’Aulroy, his two sons, and another sister perished. Brinvilliers
himself was spared through some bizarre freak of his wife’s conscience.
Then the secret began to be whispered--first, it was said, through
the confessional; and the _Chambre Ardente_, analogous to the British
Star Chamber, instituted for such purposes, took the case in hand. The
result might have been doubtful, for great social forces were at work
to hush up such a scandal, but that, with a truly seventeenth century
candour, the prisoner had written an elaborate confession of her guilt,
which if it did not directly assure condemnation at least put justice
on the right track.
The trial was a celebrated one, and involved incidentally many
illustrious persons as well as others of lesser note. In the end, in
1676, Madame la Marquise de Brinvilliers was burned--that is, what was
left of her was burned after her head had been cut off, a matter of
grace in consideration of her rank. It is soothing to the feelings of
many relatives and friends--not to mention those of the principal--in
such a case when “great command o’ersways the order” of purgation by
fire.
Before the eddy of the Brinvilliers’ criminal scandal reached to the
lower level of Madame Voisin, a good many scandals were aired; though
again “great command” seems to have been operative, so far as human
power availed, in minimising both scandals and punishments. Amongst
those cited to the _Chambre Ardente_ were two nieces of Cardinal
Mazarin, the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Comtesse de Soissons, and
Marshal de Luxembourg. In some of these cases that which in theatrical
parlance is called “comic relief” was not wanting. It was a witty if
impertinent answer of the Duchesse de Bouillon to one of her judges,
La Reyne, an ill-favoured man, who asked, apropos of a statement made
at the trial that she had taken part in an alleged invocation of
Beelzebub, “and did you ever see the Devil?”--
“Yes, I am looking at him now. He is ugly, and is disguised as a
Councillor of State!”
The King, Louis XIV, took much interest in the trial and even tried
now and again to smooth matters. He even went so far as to advise
the Comtesse de Soissons who was treated by the Court rather as a
foolish than a guilty woman, to keep out of the way if she were really
guilty. In answer she said with the haughtiness of her time that
though she was innocent she did not care to appear in a Law Court. She
withdrew to Brussels where she died some twenty years later. Marshal
de Luxembourg--François Henri de Montmorenci-Boutteville, duke, peer,
Marshal of France to give his full titles--was shown to have engaged in
an attempt to recover lost property by occult means. On which basis
and for having once asked Madame Voisin to produce his Satanic Majesty,
he was alleged to have sold himself to the Devil. But his occult
adventures did not stand in the way of his promotion as a soldier
though he had to stand a trial of over a year long; he was made Captain
of the Guard and finally given command of the Army.
La Voisin with her accomplices--a woman named Vigoureux and Le Sage,
a priest--were with a couple of score of others arrested in 1679, and
were, after a spell of imprisonment in the Bastille, tried. As a result
Voisin, Vigoureux and her brother, and Le Sage were burned early in
1680. In Voisin’s case the mercy of previous decapitation, which had
been accorded to her guilty sister Brinvilliers, was not extended to
her. Perhaps this was partly because of the attitude which she had
taken up with regard to religious matters. Amongst other unforgivable
acts she had repelled the Crucifix--a terrible thing to do according to
the ideas of that superstitious age.