rapidly causing death,' writes Cruveilhier, 'supervene 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 coalman, aged twenty-three, and of an
athletic vigour, 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 Faubourg Saint-Denis; 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 Littré (to use the phrase he himself uses to describe
his work) is thus confirmed in every way. Loiseleur 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, Loiseleur makes too much
of its rarity. Brinton estimates that perforation of the stomach in
cases of simple ulcer occurs in thirteen per cent., and that it is most
common in women under thirty. Madame was twenty-six.
Loiseleur admits peritonitis, but thinks it was inflammation supervening
on a chill. 'Why,' he writes, 'does Littré pass by in absolute silence
the last words in the statement of Madame de la Fayette, 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 Loiseleur's theory, but that is a serious one: peritonitis as
an original malady, and especially peritonitis through chill, which
Loiseleur wishes to substitute for the disease diagnosed by Cruveilhier
and Littré, is no longer recognised by modern science. 'The last cases
which were thought to be of this kind,' says Dr. Paul Le Gendre, 'were
perforations of the appendix.'
Let us come lastly to the work of Dr. Legué, _Médecins et
Empoisonneurs_, the most important part of which is occupied with a
minute study of the circumstances surrounding the death of Madame.
Monsieur Legué's conclusion is, poisoning by sublimate poured into the
famous chicory water. His study is interesting, like the whole book, but
his conclusions crumble away under the following considerations:--
1. Professor Brouardel writes: 'If the chicory 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 gramme to a litre) the taste is atrocious.'
Madame had been taking chicory water for several days in the evening,
and this evening she drank it as usual.
2. 'To kill a person,' adds Professor Brouardel, 'at least ten or
fifteen centigrammes are necessary. This dose corresponds to a quantity
of solution representing about 200 grammes of liquid. It seems
impossible for any one to imbibe that without being stopped by its
horrid taste.'
Madame certainly did not drink 200 grammes of her chicory water; she
took a few sips only.
3. 'Poisoning by sublimate,' writes the professor, 'produces lesions of
the abdominal mucous 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.
4. The facts on which Dr. Legué relies for his diagnosis of poison by
sublimate, and which he borrows from the account of the Abbé Bourdelot,
occurred, not after the drinking of the cup of chicory water, but
before. In transcribing the account in question, Monsieur Legué 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 Legué'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 of France, widow of Charles I, died on September 10,
1669, at her country house of Colombes, her physician Vallot had been
accused of accidentally poisoning her by giving her pills chiefly
composed of opium.
* * * * *
Thanks to the assistance of eminent masters like Professor Brouardel and
Dr. Paul Le Gendre, and armed historically with the learned
investigations of M. Arthur de Boislisle, we have been fortunate in
resuscitating the admirable study of Littré 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 we placed at the end of our study of the Iron
Mask,[14] 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 rigour and precision, gives
conclusions as certain as those of the exact sciences.
RACINE AND THE POISONS QUESTION
Monsieur Larroumet's book on Racine in the _Grands Ecrivains Français_
series is a charming little work. In the first part he studies the
poet's life, and shows very accurately the influence exercised on his
art by the _milieu_ in which he lived. In the second part he studies
Racine's poetics with great ingenuity. The very style of M. Larroumet,
eminently refined and sober--we might call it pearl-grey in tone--with
little flaws here and there which, to our mind, enhance its piquancy, is
perfectly adapted to the author he is analysing. We get a clear picture
of what manner of man Racine was--sensitive and refined, all delicacy
and decorum. M. Larroumet, it is well known, excels in bringing vividly
before us the dwellings and the furniture of our great writers,
according to inventories made after their decease. In the case of
Racine he achieves another success, in the happiest manner. His picture
of the famous poet's family life, after he had renounced the stage, is
delightful:--
'In the midst of this family, which reproduced in charming variety the
traits of his own sensitive and restless nature, Racine practised all
the virtues of a good father. He became a child again with his Babet,
Fanchon, Madelon, Nanette, and Lionval; the two eldest alone, boy and
girl, did not bear these diminutives, out of respect for the rights of
seniority. He preferred the happiness springing from their society to
courting the great.
'One day he had returned from Versailles, where he had gone to pay his
respects, when a squire of the Duke's brought him an invitation to
dinner for the same evening. "I shall not have the honour of dining with
him," he said; "I have not seen my wife and children for more than a
week, and they are looking forward to a treat in eating a very fine carp
with me to-day; I cannot give up my dinner with them." And he had the
carp brought up, adding: "Decide yourself if I can help dining to-day
with these poor children, who have made up their minds to regale me
to-day, and would have no more pleasure if they ate this dish without
me. I beg you to plead this reason forcibly with his Serene Highness."'
Racine, as we know, after giving up writing for the theatre, subsided
into the most remarkable piety. But here again is a charming trait: 'I
remember,' says Louis Racine, 'processions in which my sisters were the
clergy, I was the rector, and the author of _Athalie_, singing with us,
carried the cross.' And the inseparable figure of the excellent Boileau,
who had then become as deaf as a post, appears close by: 'Monsieur
Despréaux,'[15] writes Racine to his son Jean Baptiste, 'entertained us
in the best of fashions; then he took Lionval and Madelon to the Bois de
Boulogne, joking with them, and telling them that he meant to lose them.
He did not hear a word of what the poor children said to him.'
But before becoming this model paterfamilias, this pattern of piety and
virtue, Racine had spent an eminently brilliant and passionate youth.
Everybody knows that Du Parc and Champmeslé[16] were not content with
merely playing in his pieces.
The amours of Racine and Mademoiselle Du Parc had a terrible development
in 1679, which was one of the reasons, if not the principal and the
determining reason, of the resolution then taken by the poet to abandon
the career of dramatic author. M. Larroumet recalls this page in his
life in the following terms:--
'The mysterious poison affair was being unravelled before the Chambre
Ardente. On November 21, 1679, one of the prisoners, La Voisin, brought
Racine into the case. She declared that "Racine, having secretly
espoused Du Parc, was jealous of everybody, and particularly of her, La
Voisin, with whom he was much offended, and that he had made away with
her by poison on account of his extreme jealousy; and that during Du
Parc's illness, Racine never left her bedside, that he drew a valuable
diamond from her finger, and had also stolen the jewels and principal
effects of Du Parc, which were worth a great deal of money." This is
assuredly nothing but the abominable invention of a ruined woman,' adds
M. Larroumet, 'one of those calumnies which malice, corruption, and
greed give rise to in the entourage of women of gallantry. Racine had
been compelled to forbid his mistress to receive La Voisin. From this
arose her furious wrath, and, eleven years afterwards, she tried to
avenge herself by implicating the poet in a formidable accusation.
Proofs she gave none, and the proceedings of the affair, published in
the _Archives de la Bastille_, contain no trace of any. However, a
letter written on January 11, 1680, by Louvois to Bazin de Bezons, ends
thus: "The orders of the king necessary for the arrest of Racine will be
sent to you whenever you ask for them." It is impossible to doubt that
the Racine in question was the poet. But no arrest was made. Racine had
been able to clear himself in the eyes of Louvois and the king.'
This episode in the life of the great poet is worthy of arresting our
attention, so much the more because it was perhaps the cause of his
abandonment, to be for ever regretted, of a career on which he had
thrown the brightest lustre.
It was neither Louvois nor Louis XIV who suppressed the _lettre de
cachet_ with which the deposition of La Voisin had threatened Racine.
Bazin de Bezons, a commissioner of the Chambre Ardente and member of the
Academy, determined to spare his colleague the affront of an arrest in
such circumstances, and thought he might well wait until the
denunciations of La Voisin were confirmed from another source.
Racine, as a matter of fact, had been the lover of Du Parc, whose maiden
name was Marguerite Thérèse de Gorla, daughter of a surgeon of Lyons. La
Voisin knew her very intimately, and called her her 'gossip.'
Here follows, word for word, the part of the celebrated examination of
La Voisin on November 21, 1679, so far as it relates to Racine:--
'Who made her acquainted with Du Parc, comedian?
'She had known her for fourteen years. They were very good friends
together, and she knew all her affairs during that time. She had for
some time had the intention of declaring to us that Du Parc must have
been poisoned, and that Jean Racine was suspected. The rumour was
strong. What more especially gave rise to the presumption was that
Racine had always prevented her, who was the good friend of Du Parc,
from seeing her during the whole course of the illness of which she
died, although Du Parc constantly asked for her; but although she went
to see her, they had never been willing to let her in, and this was by
order of Racine, as she learnt from the stepmother of Du Parc, whose
name was Mademoiselle de Gorla, and from Du Parc's daughters, who are at
the Hôtel de Soissons, and informed her that Racine was the cause of
their misfortune.
'Asked if he had ever proposed to her to do away with Du Parc by poison.
'The proposal would have been well received.
'Asked if she was not aware that application had been made to Delagrange
for the same purpose.
'She knew nothing about that.
'Asked if she did not know a lame actor.
'Yes, Béjart, whom she had only seen twice.
'Asked if Béjart had not some spite against Du Parc.
'No; and what she knew about Racine she obtained first from Mademoiselle
de Gorla.
'Asked what De Gorla said to her, and strictly cross-examined.
'De Gorla told her that Racine, having secretly espoused Du Parc [here
follows a repetition of the statement already made]; that she (Du Parc)
had not even been allowed to speak to Manon, her maid, who is a midwife,
though she asked for Manon and got some one to write asking her to come
to Paris to see her, as well as La Voisin herself.
'Asked if De Gorla told her the manner in which the poisoning had been
carried out, and who had been made use of in the matter.
'No.'
Such were the declarations of La Voisin before the commissioners of the
Chambre Ardente. She repeated them exactly in her final examination
before the judges: 'She had known Mademoiselle Du Parc, the actress; had
been a friend of hers for fourteen years; her stepmother, named De
Gorla, had told her that Racine had poisoned her, and she only knew of
Du Parc's death when she saw the body at the door on the way to burial.'
Finally, in the anguish of torture, La Voisin maintained her
declarations.
'Asked if she knew nothing more concerning what she had said at the
trial about the poisoning of Du Parc.
'She had told the truth in all that she had said on the subject.'
M. Larroumet gaily and gracefully flings these declarations overboard as
'an abominable invention of a ruined woman.' We know La Voisin from what
has already been said about her above. It is inconceivable that such a
creature should have nursed a grievance against Racine for not having
allowed her to reach his sick mistress, to such an extent as to
fabricate against him, eleven years later, so monstrous an accusation.
This hypothesis is so much the more unlikely in that, if La Voisin had
wanted to ruin Racine by her charges, she would have formulated precise
and direct complaints against him; while she, as a matter of fact, only
repeated gossip she had heard. Then, too, Du Parc's daughters were still
alive, and it would have been easy to confront them with the sorceress.
The examinations to which La Voisin was subjected were very numerous.
They brought out innumerable details on a multitude of crimes, in which
a very large number of people was implicated. There were many
confrontations. The declarations of the terrible sorceress were
submitted to careful investigation by examining magistrates like Nicolas
de la Reynie. All her declarations were found to be accurate.
We have seen that, far from inventing imaginary charges for the purpose
of implicating in her own case people of high position, and so saving
herself (as some historians have insinuated), La Voisin endeavoured to
keep silence about the crimes of her clients--a curious piece of
professional discretion. And we venture to say that if she had declared
before the judges that she had given Racine poison to get rid of Du
Parc, we should have unhesitatingly believed her. But she did not say
anything of the kind. She declared simply that, in Du Parc's immediate
circle, it was the conviction that the actress had been poisoned by her
lover, and that, throughout her illness, he had prevented La Voisin from
approaching the bed, as well as Manon, her maid, 'who was a midwife.'
It is further important to note--and this observation has not been made
by any historian--that the belief in Racine's having poisoned Du Parc
was shared by more than one prisoner before the Chambre Ardente. La
Voisin was not the only one to make the accusation before the judges, as
the following question put by one of the magistrates clearly shows:
'Asked if she was not aware that application had been made to Delagrange
(a sorceress and poisoner like herself) for the same purpose (the
poisoning of Du Parc by Racine).'
A great part of the records of the Chambre Ardente having been
destroyed, as we have shown, we have no trace of the examination to
which the magistrate here alluded. Nevertheless it is testimony which
cannot be gainsaid.
Such are the only documents in the great poison case in which Racine is
mentioned. Is it possible to derive any positive conclusions from them?
The circumstances surrounding the death certainly appeared suspicious to
the family of the actress, and Racine was pointed at. The poet had
stationed himself at the bedside as a custodian rather than a nurse. He
prevented La Voisin, the sorceress, midwife, and procurer of abortion,
from approaching, and likewise Manon, also a midwife, and this in
defiance of the desire formally expressed by Du Parc. Why did the poet,
contrary to the wishes of the sick woman, prevent these women from
attending her? Du Parc was his mistress. Dr. Legué quotes the testimony
of Boileau, who was closely connected with Du Parc, stating that she
died as a result of childbirth. The chronicler Robinet describes Racine
as following 'more dead than alive' in the funeral procession. The
opinion expressed by Dr. Legué that Du Parc died through an illegal
operation is not unlikely. In such matters it is never possible to speak
with assurance, and when so great a personality as Racine is concerned,
one is bound to maintain the greatest reserve. This operation, if it
took place, brought on peritonitis, which, as in the case of Henrietta
of England, gave rise to suspicions of poison. We have seen that
abortions were at that time of frequent occurrence in Paris.
Remorse for this crime would explain the amazing resolution to renounce
the theatre taken by Racine at the age of thirty-eight, in the fulness
of strength, at the height of his talent, in the heyday of success. It
would explain also the austerity and excess of his devoutness after this
singular conversion, and the horror he conceived for an art to which he
owed his glory and his fortune.
Another question suggests itself, which we should like equally to be
able to solve with more certainty. Racine had the most intimate
relations with Du Parc, as the latter had with La Voisin. In 1679, the
year in which the great poisoning matter came to light, _Phèdre_
appeared. Is it rash to suppose that, through his conversations with Du
Parc, La Voisin's confidante, the poet with his keen observation had
seen the features of the passion-tost marchionesses, criminals for love,
who had been the clients of the sorceresses, and that from these
fleeting suggestions he had succeeded in reconstructing their whole
characters?
'Imagine,' writes Monsieur Brunetière, 'Racine's agitation when this
case became public. At Paris, in the heart of Paris--the Paris of Louis
XIV--in the Rue Verdelet or the Rue Michel-Lecomte, Orestes was
assassinating Pyrrhus, Roxane was selling herself to some witch to
secure the love of Bajazet or the death of Attalide; the famous Locusta
was not an invention of Tacitus, and every day some Phèdre was poisoning
some Hippolyte. And all these horrors were what he, Racine, had been for
ten years toiling to envelop and to disguise, as it were, with the charm
of his verse--murder and lust! adultery and incest! the delirium of the
senses! the madness of homicide! This was what for ten years he had been
endeavouring to win plaudits for, and when a Hermione or a Nero issued
from the Hôtel de Bourgogne[17] intent on committing the crime they had
seen glorified under their eyes--what, was it this that he called his
glory! O shame and agony and remorse! And from the moment that such a
question started up before the conscience of such a man, how think you
he could have answered but by quitting the stage? The truth even of his
own art rose up against him. What brought his pictures into condemnation
was just their accent of truth!'
THE 'DEVINERESSE'
_La Devineresse_, a fairy comedy by Donneau de Visé and Thomas
Corneille--the latter is usually called by his contemporaries Corneille
de Lisle--was represented at Paris in 1679, the year of the great poison
case.
In his reports to the king and the Secretaries of State Nicolas de la
Reynie insisted on the necessity, not only of punishing the guilty, but
of preventing the spread and, if possible, the recurrence of crimes like
those which had been brought to light. We have shown how he had drawn
up, in collaboration with Colbert, the decree registered in the
Parlement on August 31, 1682, by which the magicians were expelled from
France, and by which, more especially, the making and the sale of
poisons necessary in medicine and in trade were placed under rigorous
regulations. This was a masterly work: as we have mentioned, these
regulations are in force to this day, after the lapse of two centuries.
La Reynie thought that it was advisable, apart from these preventive
measures, to put the public on their guard against the dangerous
infatuation which had thrown so many pretty and passionate women body
and soul into the hands of the fortune-tellers. Let us recall the
declarations of one of the latter: 'Persons who look into the hand are
the ruin of all women, women of quality as well as others, because their
weakness is soon found out, and when discovered is taken advantage of,
and they are driven to whatever length the witches please.' As
lieutenant of police La Reynie had a general control of the theatres; he
revised and censored the manuscripts of the playwrights; he was in
constant touch with them. He was the friend of more than one writer of
talent, for the magistrate was doubled in him with the refined and
delightful man of letters, who had both delicate taste and an excellent
library. In this year 1679 he had particularly close relations with
Donneau de Visé, founder and editor of the _Mercure galant_, and
assuredly one of the most curious figures in our literary history.
Boursault had just written his witty comedy, also entitled the _Mercure
galant_, in which he directed lively and incisive satire upon the
journalism then at its dawn, which had already taken, under the
influence of Donneau de Visé, many of the characteristics of modern
journalism.
The _Mercure_, said Boursault, is a delightful thing:--
'On y trouve de tout, fable, histoire, vers, prose,
Sièges, combats, procès, mort, mariage, amour,
Nouvelles de Province et nouvelles de Cour.'
Visé begged La Reynie not to authorise the representation of the piece
under the same title as the journal; La Reynie acquiesced, and
Boursault, putting a good face on the matter, called his piece _La
Comédie sans titre_. Moreover, Visé was in high favour at Court. When
Louis XIV saw the success of the _Mercure_, he hastened to award the
editor-in-chief a pension of 500 crowns, gave him apartments in the
Louvre, and appointed him his historiographer. Visé's pen became an
accommodating tool.