happiness so long desired. Mariette and Lesage owed to La Voisin the
lucrative connection with Madame de Montespan. But they showed base
ingratitude, and proceeded to perform incantations for the marquise, no
longer with the assistance of La Voisin, but with that of a rival
sorceress, La Duverger. La Voisin was indignant, and as La Reynie says,
'made a to-do about it. The matter became known, and the king, having
learnt that these people were accustomed to perform impious and
sacrilegious rites, ordered the arrest of Mariette and Dubuisson (the
name taken by Lesage at this period), and they were sent to the Bastille
in March 1668.' From the Bastille they were brought before the Châtelet
on the charge of sorcery. The court chroniclers, though ignorant of her
reasons for so doing, note that Madame de Montespan at this time
suddenly left Paris. But Mariette and Lesage had too much interest in
holding their tongues to inform against her. 'Besides,' writes La
Reynie, 'the first judge who heard the case being a cousin-german of
Mariette through his wife, La Voisin being at large on the credit of
interested persons with whom she had dealings, and these wretched
practices being then unknown, investigation was not carried very far. It
was solely a question of seeing how the matter could be dealt with in
such a way as to save Mariette on account of his family.' The little
that could not be concealed brought Lesage condemnation to the galleys
and Mariette banishment. The king increased the sentence of the latter
to imprisonment; but the prisoner escaped from St. Lazare, where he had
been confined. As to Lesage, La Voisin, thanks to her connections, was
not long in getting him set at liberty. In a memorandum addressed to
Louvois, La Reynie exhibits the conclusions to be drawn from the trial
of 1668. After very appositely calling attention to the fact that the
statements of the accused were the less suspicious because, dating from
a period when as yet there could be no question of the scarcely dawning
relations between Louis and Madame de Montespan, the lieutenant of
police says that Mariette and Lesage could only have known of those
relations through Madame de Montespan herself, and adds: 'It appears
from the trial of Lesage and Mariette in 1668, that Madame de Montespan
had been dealing with La Voisin at any rate since 1667, and that about
that time she was by her introduced to Lesage and Mariette; that
Mariette, in his room and in the presence of Lesage, used to read the
Gospels over the head of Madame de Montespan.
'So early as that, then, a scheme was on foot.
'When I questioned the two surviving accomplices on the matter, they
said, separately, that this scheme was to secure the favour of the king;
that for that purpose La Voisin then gave some powders which were placed
under the chalice given to Madame de Montespan, and that she recited an
incantation in which her own name and the king's occurred; that she
performed other ceremonies at Saint-Germain; that she had masses said on
the hearts of pigeons at St. Séverin, and other impious and sacrilegious
rites performed in Mariette's room, for this purpose, and as the one
says, to slay, the other merely to get rid of, Madame de la Vallière.'
(These enchantments to procure the death of Mademoiselle de la Vallière
were made upon human bones.)
'Lesage and Mariette said nothing about it until the former, urged by
explicit commands to tell the truth, and Mariette, impelled by the
facts themselves to reveal them, both, separately, established these
facts.'
La Reynie observes further that Lesage and Mariette mentioned certain
details, afterwards proved to be accurate, of which they could have got
information from Madame de Montespan alone.
We have already mentioned the reasons why the declarations of Marguerite
Monvoisin inspired confidence; the corresponding depositions of Lesage
deserve equal attention. On October 8, 1679, Louvois wrote to Louis
_XIV_: 'Monsieur de la Reynie showed me his conviction that, if I spoke
to Lesage, he would in the end make up his mind to tell me all he knew,
and he believed this to be the more important because this man has not
up to the present been convicted himself of poisoning any one, but has a
perfect knowledge of all the poisonings effected in Paris for the last
seven or eight years. I went yesterday to Vincennes, and spoke to him in
the way Monsieur de la Reynie desired, giving him to hope that your
Majesty would pardon him provided he made the declarations necessary for
bringing to the knowledge of justice all that has happened in regard to
the poisons. He promised to do so, and told me that he was much
surprised at my urging him to tell all he knew.' In a letter of October
11, 1679, Louvois renewed his pressure on Lesage to induce him to speak
fully and in entire frankness. The magician hesitated, tried to
dissimulate, repeating to all who urged him how vastly he was astonished
at their persistence; but this reluctance only stimulated the ardour of
La Reynie. He returned to the charge; like Louvois, he gave hints of a
royal pardon. At last Lesage spoke. His principal declarations were
written among the papers which Louis had burnt in the fireplace of his
study, as we have said; hence we no longer possess them in their
entirety; but from the notes left by La Reynie, as well as from the
fragments of the magisterial examination which were preserved and will
be found in part reproduced below, we know that the revelations of
Lesage entirely confirmed those of Marguerite Monvoisin.
The scandal of the amours of Louis XIV was only the more intense because
the young Marquis de Montespan was by no means a complaisant husband, a
singular fact at that period and in that society. 'He was an extravagant
and extraordinary man,' says Mademoiselle de Montpensier, 'who
complained to everybody of the friendship of the king for his wife.'
There were scenes between the spouses, and he struck her. He provoked
scenes with the king. 'When Montespan went to Saint-Germain sermonising
thus, Madame de Montespan was in despair. He used to come to see me very
often,' says Mademoiselle de Montpensier; 'he is a relative of mine, and
I scolded him. He came one evening and repeated to me an harangue he had
delivered to the king, in which he quoted innumerable passages of
Scripture, about David, for instance, and finally used strong terms to
induce him to give back his wife and fear the judgment of God. I said to
him, "You are mad!" I was at Saint-Germain next day and said to Madame
de Montespan: "I have seen your husband in Paris, and he is madder than
ever; I sharply scolded him and told him that if he didn't hold his
tongue he would deserve to be locked up." She said to me: "He is here
telling his tales at court; I am ashamed to see that my parrot and he
are amusing the mob."'
Louis XIV was naturally irritated by the attitude of this surprising
husband. Almighty as he was, he resorted to the tricks and subterfuges
of a vulgar lover. His anxiety was redoubled when his mistress became a
mother. The king was very fond of his children, particularly those he
had by Madame de Montespan. In the eyes of the law these children
belonged to the husband; and Louis trembled with fear lest Montespan,
out of vengeance or irony, should come and take from him his son and
daughter.
Montespan found a supporter in his uncle the Archbishop of Sens. 'When
the king's passion was known,' says the Abbé Boileau, brother of the
poet, 'the archbishop sentenced to public penance a woman of the town
who lived as the marchioness, his niece, was living, in open
concubinage, and he caused the publication in his diocese of the old
canons against the violation of the religious law.' The diocese of Sens
included Fontainebleau, where the court was then held. Madame de
Montespan was compelled to take her departure in confusion. She felt
that it was she who was being pointed at. She dared not return into the
jurisdiction of the archbishop until after the prelate's death in 1674.
When the Marquis understood that his efforts were vain, and that from
the height of his throne Louis would reply only with _lettres de
cachet_, he put on mourning, clothed all his household in black, and
drove to the court in a coach draped in black, to take leave in great
ceremony of his relatives, friends, and acquaintances. On that day the
husband in his costume of black was not the butt of ridicule; jests were
silenced, and the king on the throne was scorned and despised. A man of
genius lent the monarch his aid. Molière wrote his _Amphitryon_. The
play was represented in this year 1668, and the mockers resumed their
places in the royal camp.
'Un partage avec Jupiter
N'a rien du tout qui déshonore.'[10]
Viscounts and marquises on gilded benches applauded the taunt and
punctuated the cruel railleries with bursts of laughter. Yet the king
was injured, especially in the opinion of the Parisian middle class. He
was conscious of it; and one day said himself to his mistress that if
she had left house, children, and husband to follow him, he had
neglected the care of his reputation, which was much blighted through
his having loved a woman whom he had such good reasons for not regarding
as he had done.
Montespan set out for his country seat. Some men of the company he
commanded fell a-quarrelling with the under-bailiff of Perpignan; the
fact was of no importance, but it came to the knowledge of the
ministers, and Louvois wrote at once to the Lord Lieutenant: 'September
21, 1669. I cannot express my surprise that a thing of the nature of
that which Monsieur de Montespan has done should have passed without my
learning of it. I send you a despatch from the king for the supreme
council of Roussillon, in which His Majesty commands the council to hold
an inquiry. In whatever manner you may employ it, it must not be
forgotten, whether in the informations of the sub-bailiff of Perpignan
or in that about the disorders that occurred at Illes, to implicate the
commander of the company (Montespan) and the largest possible number of
cavaliers, so that they may take fright and the majority desert,
especially the commander; after which it would not be a difficult matter
to bring about the ruin of the company. If you have the names of the
cavaliers who insulted the sub-bailiff, they must be arrested at once,
to make an example of them, and so that you may have, from their
depositions at the time of their execution, more proof against the
captain--to try in some way or other to implicate him in the
informations, so that he may be cashiered with an appearance of justice.
If you could manage that he is accused sufficiently for the supreme
council to have grounds for pronouncing some condemnation on him, it
would be a very good thing; you will guess the reasons well enough,
however little you may be informed of what is going on in this part of
the world.' The cynicism of Louis and his minister passes all bounds.
Montespan had to flee for refuge to Spain; but from that day Louis'
position in regard to the injured husband, so far from improving, became
sensibly worse. Abroad, Montespan could more boldly and independently
press his claims on the children of the king, and provoke a scandal in
the eyes of all Europe.
Louis got a demand for separation _a mensa et thoro_, formulated by
Madame de Montespan, brought before the Châtelet. Notwithstanding the
pressure exerted by king and ministers, who bullied the judges, the
matter remained in suspense. The judges could not bring themselves to
commit the iniquity demanded of them. They gave way at last, partly
under pressure from the First President de Novion, who had been won by a
promise of the Great Seal. The separation was declared on July 7, 1674,
by Procureur-Général Achille de Harlay, assisted by six judges. The
judgment adduced the wasting of the property of the commonalty by the
Marquis de Montespan, the domestic discord between the marquis and his
wife, and the ill-treatment of which the marchioness complained on the
part of her husband. This decree pronounced against Montespan was a
monstrous proceeding. After having dishonoured his crown, Louis
dishonoured justice; but there was a higher justice which, as we shall
see, he was not to escape.
The decree of July 7, 1674, did not assure the king peace of mind. In
1678 Montespan had to return for a short time to Paris on account of a
lawsuit. Louis XIV wrote to Colbert (June 15): 'I understand that
Montespan is indulging in indiscreet talk; he is a madman whom you will
do me the pleasure to have closely watched; and so that he may have no
pretext for remaining in Paris, see Novion so that the Parlement may
hurry. I know that Montespan has threatened to see his wife, and that he
is capable of it, and that the consequences might be formidable (the
question of the children again); I rely on you to prevent him speaking.
Do not forget the details of this matter, and especially see to it that
he leaves Paris at the earliest moment.' Such were the jobs to which the
Colberts and the Louvois had to stoop; but such also were the annoyances
and troubles beneath which Louis bent his brow--a brow already reddened
with shame, and soon to be furrowed with grief.
* * * * *
Louis XIV loved his mistresses, not for their own sakes, but for his.
The new passion lasted three years. Perhaps some one will say that that
is a good while. In 1672, jealousy, which perpetually ravaged the proud
soul of Madame de Montespan, burst out in storms of which Madame de
Sévigné speaks thus: 'She is in inexpressible rages; she has seen no one
for a fortnight; she writes from morning till night, and when she goes
to bed tears it all up. Her state makes me quite sorry. No one pities
her, though she has done good turns to many people.' Madame de Montespan
returned to La Voisin; and it is not without emotion that we see this
wonderful woman, with her matchless grace and her superior intelligence,
after having stepped into crime, sinking into it lower and lower. From
the hands of the Abbé Mariette, who recited the Gospels over her head
and made incantations on the hearts of pigeons, she comes into those of
the Abbé Guibourg, who said the black mass.
Guibourg claimed to be an illegitimate member of the family of
Montmorency. He was seventy years old; his complexion was that of a
confirmed toper. He had a horrible squint. In these monstrous ceremonies
he cut the throats of his own children by his mistress, a fat ruddy
wench named Chanfrain.
To obtain the desired result from the black mass, it was necessary that
it should be celebrated three times in succession. The three masses were
said in 1673, at intervals of a fortnight or three weeks--the first in
the chapel of the Château of Villebousin, in the village of Mesnil, near
Montlhéry. Mademoiselle Desoeillets, the maid of Madame de Montespan,
was intimately connected with Leroy, governor of the pages of the Petite
Ecurie, who owned a house at Mesnil. Guibourg had lived in the château
as almoner of the Montgommerys. It has been described by M. J. Lair: 'A
building of the fourteenth century, and well chosen for sinister
incantations, the château, situated half a league from the road from
Paris to Orleans, was surrounded by deep moats, filled with running
water.' Leroy betook himself to St. Denis, where he saw the Abbé
Guibourg. He promised fifty pistoles, that is, about £20, and a living
worth 2000 livres. At the day fixed there met at Villebousin Madame de
Montespan, the Abbé Guibourg, Leroy, 'a tall person' who was certainly
Mademoiselle Desoeillets, and a person of name unknown who is said to
have been a retainer of the Archbishop of Sens. In the chapel of the
chateau the priest said mass on the bare body of the favourite as she
lay across the altar. At the consecration, he recited his incantation,
the words of which he gave later to the commissaries of the Chambre
Ardente: 'Ashtaroth, Asmodeus, Princes of Affection, I conjure you to
accept the sacrifice I present to you of this child for the things I ask
of you, which are that the affection of the king and my lord the dauphin
for me may be continued; and that, honoured by the princes and
princesses of the court, nothing be denied me of all that I shall ask
the king, as well for my relatives as my servitors.' 'Guibourg had
bought for a crown (12s. 6d. to-day) the child who was sacrificed at
this mass,' writes La Reynie, 'and who was offered to him by a fine
girl; and having drawn blood from the child, whom he stabbed in the
throat with a penknife, he poured it into the chalice, after which the
child was taken away and carried to another place.'
The details of the mass at Mesnil were revealed by Guibourg, and further
confirmed by the deposition of La Chanfrain, his mistress.
The second mass on the body of Madame de Montespan took place a
fortnight or three weeks after the first, at St. Denis, in a tumbledown
hut. The third took place in a house at Paris, whither Guibourg was
conducted blindfold, and from which he was brought back in the same way
as far as the arcade of the Hôtel de Ville.
At this time the journal of the health of the king, drawn up by D'Aquin,
the chief physician, states that Louis suffered from violent headaches.
Towards the end of this year, 1673, he was attacked by dizziness of such
a kind that at times his sight became clouded and he felt on the point
of collapse. 'Is it rash,' observes Monsieur Loiseleur very justly, 'to
see in these headaches and faintnesses the effect of powders provided by
La Voisin?' The hypothesis of Monsieur Loiseleur will be sustained in
detail by a declaration of the magician Lesage which will be found
below.
It remains to inquire how Madame de Montespan contrived to get the
powders prepared by the sorceress into the food of the king, surrounded
as he was by officers of the buttery. Two revelations, both of November
8, 1680, made, the first by Lemaire, locked up at Vincennes with the
Abbé Guibourg, the second by Lesage, will give the indication we desire.
We read in the notes La Reynie took for his personal guidance by way of
memoranda: 'November 8, 1680, Lemaire asked to speak to me; told me that
being in the same room with Guibourg and another man, Guibourg told them
such strange things, especially in regard to Madame de Montespan, that
he does not know what to make of it, and that if there was any officer
who ought to be suspected, it would be Duchesne, the butler; that
Duchesne was a footman in the house of Madame d'Aubray, that he has
since served Monsieur Bontemps, and then Madame de Montespan, who was
very kind to him, and made him officer of the buttery, and that he is
always at Madame de Montespan's service.' Further: 'From the last
examinations of Lesage, and that of November 8 particularly, it appears
that Gilot, also an officer of the buttery, was involved in the impious
trade in 1668, and that he sought Lesage's assistance for the designs of
Madame de Montespan.'
The crisis of the year 1675 was more serious. Louis XIV suddenly had
great fits of devotion. People with their eyes open saw that he was
tiring of his mistress. Madame de Montespan, on the Thursday in Holy
Week, had been refused absolution by a priest of her parish. Much put
out, she hastened to the curé of Versailles, and spoke to him hotly, but
the curé approved of his subordinate's action. And the great voice of
Bossuet, which had consistently been upraised against the double
adultery, resounded with a new force. 'When we were at Versailles, one
fast day, about Easter, Madame de Montespan went away,' writes
Mademoiselle de Montpensier. 'Every one was vastly astonished at this
retreat. I went to Paris, and saw her in the house where her children
were. Madame de Maintenon was with her. She saw nobody. As everybody was
on the alert about her return, although nobody seemed to pay any
attention to it, it was known that M. Bossuet, then tutor to the
dauphin, and at present bishop of Meaux, went there every day muffled in
a grey cloak.' We have other information from Bossuet's private
secretary, the Abbé Le Dieu. Louis XIV ordered his mistress to retire.
When Bossuet went to see the exiled lady, she 'loaded him with
reproaches; she told him that his pride had urged him to get her driven
away, that he wanted to make himself sole master of the king's mind.'
Then, when she understood that her wrath smote in vain against the
serene firmness of the prelate, 'she sought to win him by flatteries and
promises; she dangled before his eyes the chief dignities in Church and
State.'
This exile lasted from April 14 to May 11. On the other hand, the
magician Lesage, in an examination held on November 16, 1680, declared
that 'if he were in the last torments, he could tell nothing except that
in 1675, at the beginning of summer (the exact date), when Madame de
Montespan was trying to maintain her position, La Voisin and La
Desoeillets worked or pretended to work for her; but in reality,
powerless to keep for her the love of the king, they merely gave her
powders which, taken in certain doses, would have acted as poison.' So
Lesage said; and the declarations of the girl Monvoisin, summed up by La
Reynie, are identical: 'The powders her mother sent to Madame de
Montespan were love powders to be given to the king. Once when her
mother took some powders to Clagny she was accompanied by the magician
Latour, her eldest brother, a servant named Marie, since dead, and
Fernand, a good friend of Latour, and La Vautier; but these did not
enter Clagny. She could not say if Latour went in with her mother, but
they all came back together, and had lunch at the sign of the _Heaume_,
near the Bois de Boulogne, with violins; they made some noise among
them. Her brother, who told her about it, told her that her mother
brought back fifty louis-d'or. Her mother, besides the powders she gave
to Madame de Montespan, did not send any except by Mademoiselle
Desoeillets, who was the go-between for that purpose. As to the
powders which had passed beneath the chalice, they came from a priest
called the Prior (the Abbé Guibourg). As to the others which had not
been under the chalice, her mother kept them in the drawer of a cabinet
of which she had the key. There were black ones, white, and grey, which
she mixed in the presence of Desoeillets. Her father once wanted to
break the cabinet where the powders were kept, saying that some harm
would come of it.' And the result of these practices was, once more, of
such a nature as to give confidence in the power of sorcery: Madame de
Montespan regained her position with the king. It is true that Madame de
Richelieu said, 'I am always there as a third party.' In spite of this
'third party,' Madame de Montespan became the mother of the Comte de
Toulouse and Mademoiselle de Blois. Madame de Sévigné writes to her
daughter on June 28, 1675: 'Your idea about _Quantova_ (Madame de
Montespan) is very good; if she cannot recover the old ground, she will
push her authority and her greatness beyond the clouds; but she must
make sure of being loved all the year round without scruple. Meanwhile
her house is filled with the whole court, and her consideration is
unbounded.' On July 31, Madame de Sévigné writes again: 'The attachment
for _Quantova_ is always extreme: it's pretty much in order to vex the
curé and everybody else.'
In 1675 Madame de Montespan had been dismissed, from religious scruples;
in 1676 she was to be sent away for reasons which furnished her with
quite another ground for irritation. The king was then suddenly seized
with a terrible hunger for a multiplicity of amours, soon over, sudden,
and varied. Madame de Sévigné characterises this strange condition in a
picturesque phrase: 'There's a scent of new game in the land of
_Quanto_.'[11] At short intervals the Princess de Soubise, Madame de
Louvigny, Mademoiselle de Rochefort-Théobon, Madame de Ludres, and no
doubt others, succeeded one another in the affections and the bed of the
king.
Madame de Soubise makes an amusing appearance in the gallery of royal
mistresses. She loved Louis out of love for her husband. After
collecting for him all the honours and dignities, the offices and the
hard cash that he desired, Madame de Soubise struck her tents and
retired in good order. She had made the least possible stir and went
back to her husband, who was enchanted with the adventure. The Prince of
Soubise thought, with the poet, that a share with Jupiter had no
dishonour so long as Jupiter could pay a good price.