The determination so vigorously expressed by the king filled La Reynie with confidence and zeal; it encouraged him in the accomplishment of the arduous task imposed on him. And such courage was necessary: what frightful revelations he heard! Was it due to these revelations that, suddenly, the intentions of the court of Versailles underwent modification? La Voisin had just been condemned to suffer torture. She was subjected to it, but only as a matter of form. ‘La Voisin was not tortured at all,’ writes La Reynie in indignation, ‘and this means not having been applied, has naturally produced no effect.’ It was feared that the sorceress, whose discretion had been so remarkable hitherto, might say too much in the agony of torture, and, independently of La Reynie, the torturers had received their orders. The judges had also received independent orders, and their reluctance to interrogate the accused woman was such that, at the moment of her execution, La Voisin, struck with remorse, conceived it her duty to confess spontaneously before being handed over to the confessor: ‘She felt obliged to say, to ease her conscience, that a large number of persons of all ranks and conditions had applied to her for means to procure the death of many persons, and that debauchery was the chief motive of all these crimes.’
But after the execution of La Voisin, the examinations of her partner Lesage, of her accomplice the Abbé Guibourg, and of her daughter, Marguerite Monvoisin, were proceeded with. On August 2, 1680, Louis XIV wrote from Lille to La Reynie:—
‘Having seen the declaration made on the 12th of last month by Marguerite Monvoisin, prisoner at my castle of Vincennes, I write you this letter to inform you of my intention that you should devote all possible care to elucidate the facts contained in the said declaration—that you should take care to have written down in separate reports the examinations, confrontations, and everything concerning the inquiry that may be made of the said declaration, and that meanwhile you defer reporting to my royal Chamber sitting at the Arsenal the depositions of Romani and Bertrand.’
Romani and Bertrand were two prisoners with whom we shall have a good deal to do by and by.
Thus Louis XIV gave orders for the declarations of the girl Monvoisin, and those of Romani and Bertrand, to be detached from the documents submitted to the court. On the other hand, Louvois had had the imprudence to promise Lesage his life if he revealed all he knew. Lesage related most horrible things. Word then went round not to listen to any more; he was a liar. But on September 30 and October 1, 1680, these narratives were confirmed in the most precise manner by the sorceress Françoise Filastre while under torture. The declarations of Filastre struck on the ears of Louis XIV like a clap of thunder. In the registers of the royal council we read as follows:—
‘The king, having had shown to him the official report of the torture of Françoise Filastre, being unwilling to permit, for good and just considerations important to his service, that certain facts should be inserted in the copies made for the convenience of the Court of the Arsenal, His Majesty in Council has commanded that the minutes and originals of the said proceedings be laid before the chancellor by the clerk to the commission, and that the said clerk draw up in his presence a summary of the said proceedings, in which the said facts shall not be inserted. Given by His Majesty in Council held at Versailles, May 14, 1681.
(Signed) Le Tellier.’
Thus the king for the second time intervened, and withdrew from the court certain documents containing new declarations. He saw now, moreover, that these were in accordance with the truth, and that if the examinations were continued, it would be impossible to prevent them from being divulged. On October 1, 1680, the sittings of the court were suspended.
The documents which the king had thus caused to be separated from the rest were locked and sealed up in a casket, which was deposited with Sagot, the clerk, who lived in the Rue Quincampoix. When Sagot died, on October 10, 1680, the casket was removed to Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, to the house of his successor in the clerkship to the Châtelet and the Chambre Ardente, Nicolas Gaudion. On July 13, 1709, the casket was taken to the king’s private room, where, in the presence of Chancellor Pontchartrain, Louis XIV burnt the papers in his grate: ‘His Majesty in Council, after having looked through and examined the minutes and proceedings laid before him by the chancellor, and having had them burnt in his presence, commanded that Gaudion should then be wholly and formally discharged of the same.’
Louis XIV had just suffered a cruel blow, not only in his deepest affections, but in his dignity as sovereign, by the declarations of obscure and infamous criminals made before the Chambre Ardente. The very throne of France was befouled by them. Colbert and Louvois were for a moment in dire alarm. The all-powerful monarch, aided by his two great ministers, believed that he had buried in unfathomable darkness the terrible story of his shame and grief. But one flame had not been extinguished. It had not been noticed. But it has continued to burn, and grown larger, and thrown its blaze widely around. It is in the full daylight glare that the facts are about to appear before our eyes.