Versailles, around the palaces. They won admission to the Court as
fruit-sellers 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 laundresses 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 marchioness. La Chéron was with
Monsieur de Noailles and Monsieur de Rabaton in succession. La Vigoureux
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 Petite Ecurie. Girardin, governor of the dauphin's
pages, was connected with the magician Belot. Blessis, a crony of La
Voisin, was presented to the queen by Madame de Béthune, 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 Reynie had to deal with! The beautiful
Duchess of Orleans, 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
Polignac and Madame de Gramont tried to get Louise de la Vallière
poisoned. The Countess de Soissons, Olympe Mancini, 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 Carignan, Madame de Soissons' mother: 'I was determined
that the countess should escape; perhaps some day I shall render an
account therefor 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 Vallière. These were the Duchess of Angoulême, Madame de Vitry,
and her own sister-in-law, Antoinette de Mesmes, Duchess de Vivonne. 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 Chappelain, 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 Vivonne to be proceeded
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 Mortemart, son of the duchess.
We may imagine the emotion, agitation, and anxieties aroused at Court
and in Paris by the prosecutions directed by the Chambre Ardente against
so large a number of persons belonging to the most distinguished
families: the arrests of Mesdames de Dreux and Leféron, of Poulaillon
and the Abbé Mariette, relatives of the chief magistrates; the warrants
issued against the Duchess de Bouillon, the Princess de Tingry, the wife
of Marshal la Ferté, the Countess de Roure; the hasty flight out of the
kingdom of the Marchioness d'Alluye, the Viscountess de Polignac, the
Count Clermont-Lodève, the Marquis de Cessac, the Countess de Soissons;
the imprisonment in the Bastille of the famous Marshal de Luxembourg,
who had employed magicians to beg the devil to remove his wife. 'Every
one is agitated,' wrote Madame de Sévigné, on January 26, 1680, 'every
one 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 Chamber's 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 ere long the only person in the whole matter who
appeared really criminal in the eyes of people of importance was La
Reynie himself. 'To-day,' says Madame de Sévigné, '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 sedulous echo to the general gossip, the
charming marchioness said it was a shame to haul up people of position
for such a pack of nonsense. 'The reputation of Monsieur de la Reynie
is abominable,' she wrote to her daughter on May 31, 1680; 'what you say
is exactly to the point; his being alive proves that there are no
poisoners in France.' La Reynie 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 Dreux,
who was carried off in triumph between her husband, the _maître des
requêtes_, and her lover, Monsieur de Richelieu. The nobility got up a
similar demonstration when Marie Anne Mancini, Duchess de Bouillon,
appeared before the Chambre Ardente. She had done her best to find means
of quickly ridding herself of her husband, so that she might marry the
Duke de Vendôme. 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 Vendôme gave her
his left: an exact repetition of the scene when Madame de Dreux left the
Chambre Ardente between her husband and Monsieur de Richelieu.
Madame de Sévigné 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 twenty other coaches,
packed full of the smartest noblemen and daintiest ladies of the Court.
The Marquis de la Fare confirms this account: 'The Duchess 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 Sévigné; '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 ducal 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 La Vigoureux?"
'"No."
'"Do you know La Voisin?"
'"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 La Voisin's house?"
'"I wanted to see the Sibyls 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, madam."
'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, naïve, natural, bold, so pleasant in appearance and so
quiet in mind.' One of the replies she made to La Reynie, who asked her
if she had really seen the devil at the sorceress's, was: 'I see him
now: he is ugly, old, and disguised as a councillor of state.' This soon
got abroad outside the Chambre, and set all Paris and the Court in good
humour.
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 Sévigné 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 any one knowing it. This young fellow was Monsieur de Vendôme,
who took her to the Arsenal holding one hand, Monsieur de Bouillon
holding the other. When a Mancini only commits a folly like that, it is
winked at; these sorceresses do the thing 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 Reynie'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 Montespan, the mother of
the king's children, the woman who had almost won a seat on the throne
of France, were anguish to La Reynie. 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
Montespan 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 Montespan) 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 course to
suggest than 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 Reynie to Louvois, we discover a
circumstance as impressive as curious. In the course of his memoranda,
the magistrate clearly and logically unfolds the reality of the charges
against the favourite, but when in closing 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 were 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 it pleased
the king to command me.' Louis XIV ordered that a portion of the case
should be withdrawn from the cognisance of the judges. The blow was so
hard to La Reynie that his strength of mind wellnigh failed under it. 'I
hope,' he wrote to Louvois 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 lights 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 Louvois: '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.'
Louvois, one of the most intimate and well-liked friends of Madame de
Montespan, did everything he could to save her. Madame de Maintenon,
indeed, was hostile to her, and he feared her growing favour. Besides,
as the Venetian ambassador observes, Louvois '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 it. Finally, in defending her, he
thought he would ingratiate himself with Louis.
Louvois endeavoured to bring La Reynie over to his views, to persuade
him, at first gently, that it was important that the examining judge
should find Madame de Montespan innocent. Louvois spoke, urged,
demonstrated: La Reynie 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 Mademoiselle Desoeillets,
the favourite's maid, written that 'she was not guilty, and that what he
(La Reynie) had been told about her dealings with La Voisin 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 Soissons had two maids, one of
whom was almost her own height, and that the countess might well have
taken her name (the name of Mademoiselle Desoeillets), to injure both
her and Madame de Montespan, whom she hated.'
La Reynie replied that all that was wanted was to confront the young
lady with the prisoners at Vincennes. We have already shown that the
confrontation took place and that Mademoiselle Desoeillets was
recognised. Louvois had perforce to devise another defence, to which the
inflexible La Reynie made answer: 'After reflecting on what Mademoiselle
Desoeillets said to Monsieur de Louvois at Vincennes, 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 Madame de
Villedieu her good friend, who is at Vincennes, and had had warnings,
tried to mislead us in the same way; it appears a concerted plan; and
when I asked her what Mademoiselle Desoeillets 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 Reynie that La Voisin had denied all
knowledge of Mademoiselle Desoeillets, he replied: 'The denial of La
Voisin, persisted in till 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 Mademoiselle Desoeillets herself denies these
dealings, that itself can only increase the suspicion.'
Louvois dwelt also on a retractation 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 Madame de Montespan applies solely to the poisoning of
Mademoiselle de Fontanges. There are two other facts: that of the mass
said over her by Guibourg, and further, the agreement between them in
regard to the powders prepared by Galet for the king, in which Madame
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.'
La Reynie thus defended himself and justice, and soon, strong in the
rights of the law, he went on from defence to attack. He revealed to the
minister the relations which several of the Vincennes prisoners who were
mixed up in Madame de Montespan's affair had had with persons of the
Court.
These had given instruction and counsel. La Reynie condemned these
manoeuvres before the very minister who, at the instigation of the
king, had been their author.
'And several of these prisoners of rank,' he added courageously, 'have
found means of having some of the charges brought against them
withdrawn.'
La Reynie was not satisfied with denying the innocence of Mademoiselle
Desoeillets; he told Louvois: 'It is difficult for her to be left at
liberty after such charges. Apprised of all that has been said against
her, she is busy taking measures to render her conviction impossible,
and she will take these measures along with other ill-disposed persons.'
In case he should not be authorised to arrest her, La Reynie asks that
he may at least be permitted to proceed to her examination; and he
sketches for Louvois a very skilful plan, showing the ingenious and
subtle means by which, without violence or scandal, the confidante might
be induced to reveal the truth.
It is hardly necessary to say that these propositions were rejected by
Louis and his minister. The magistrate, nevertheless, persevered in the
path he had marked out for himself, even after Louvois, to overcome his
scruples, had enlisted the assistance of Colbert, the second of the
all-powerful ministers.
Boileau once said: 'I admire Monsieur Colbert's inability to endure
Suetonius because Suetonius had revealed the infamy of the emperors.'
There we have the explanation of his conduct, apart from the personal
interest he had in the innocence of Madame de Montespan.
Colbert had only followed at a distance the work of the commissioners of
the Chambre Ardente, and he knew only vaguely the charges brought
against the king's mistress. He applied to a celebrated advocate of the
time, Maître Duplessis, for a statement establishing the innocence of
Madame de Montespan, and indicating means of quashing the unhappy
proceedings. Colbert even did his best to supply him with arguments.
Duplessis drew up the statement desired. Colbert acknowledged its
receipt on February 25, 1681: 'I have seen and examined with care the
memorandum you have sent me; I have to receive another to-morrow on the
second charge (the attempted poisoning of Mademoiselle de Fontanges),
which is no less serious than the first (the attempt on Louis XIV by
means of the petition), and the disproof of which is, in my opinion,
more complete and perfect.' And Duplessis sent him a second statement
with these words: 'Have the goodness to look at the general observation
at the beginning, because it may provide answers to many things which
appear sufficiently well proved.' The memorials of Duplessis, backed up
by Colbert, had no more effect on La Reynie than the arguments of
Louvois. The advocate and the minister asked that the prisoners should
be dealt with summarily by the Chambre, that torture should not be
applied so that they might not reveal the gravest facts, and that as
soon as the case had been rapidly despatched, all the documents should
be burnt forthwith. But La Reynie said that it was impossible not to
follow the rules of justice, and that the Chambre could only judge
according to custom and law.
* * * * *
The Chambre Ardente was in a quandary. On the one hand it saw the
necessity of yielding to the absolute refusal of Louis to authorise the
reading in court of the documents in which Madame de Montespan was
concerned; on the other, there was the no less absolute refusal of La
Reynie to allow the judges to pronounce a sentence in which all the
guarantees custom gave the accused were not respected. It seemed a
complete deadlock. The king had gradually allowed himself to be led very
far from the resolutions of rigorous equity which he had at first
displayed. He had violated the secrets of the documents so far as to
communicate to persons of note such parts of the reports of the
investigations as concerned them; he had connived at the flight of the
Prince de Clermont-Lodève, the Countess de Soissons, and many others. He
had trembled at the thought of what revelations La Voisin might make: 'I
explained to the king,' wrote Louvois to Bazin de Bezons on December 3,
1679, 'of the reasons you and the commissioners have for beginning the
investigation of La Voisin's case, but his Majesty did not give his
approval; and this evening I shall give orders to Boucherat and La
Reynie not to bring it into court.'
On July 18, 1680, Louvois wrote to La Reynie from Montreuil-sur-Mer:
'The king has not thought fit to give the order you request that the
commissioners may be authorised to give judgment in case of necessity,
his Majesty not regarding it as seemly that the Chambre should judge
prisoners in his absence.' In spite of the efforts made to enwrap the
sittings at the Arsenal in impenetrable secrecy, public opinion was not
deceived, and we find evidence in many private letters that the king was
preventing the prosecution of 'people of the Court.' 'You are aiming at
riff-raff,' exclaimed Lalande, one of the prisoners, in open court on
July 31, 1681, 'and you ought to aim higher.'
At length, as we have seen, after the declaration of La Filastre on
October 1, 1680, the sittings of the Chambre were suddenly suspended.