‘3. Two years ago Lesage spoke of Latour, the poisons, Desœillets, and the journeys of La Voisin in 1676.
‘4. It was established at the trial that two or three years before Lesage was taken, he testified that he feared the business would ruin him. They said at that time that the king had the vapours. He declared that he wished to leave La Voisin on that account, and because of the dealings she had with Desœillets.
‘From the beginning of these inquiries, these same facts have been spoken of; La Bosse, the first to be tried, gave the first inkling of them; she spoke of them under torture; but, because the king had not yet allowed this sort of facts to be collected in regard to persons of consideration, and because there was nothing to make us pay the least attention to them, no mention was made in the report of the torture of La Bosse of what she had said about Madame de Montespan.’
In this year 1676, Madame de Montespan not only had recourse to the incantations of the black mass; at her instigation, the sorceresses sent La Boissière and Françoise Filastre to Normandy to a certain Louis Galet, who had ‘fine secrets’ in regard to poison and love. Galet gave them powders. As soon as his name was uttered by the prisoner before the Chambre Ardente, an order was given for his arrest. He was flung into prison at Caen on February 23, 1680. While still far away from the other prisoners, detained at Vincennes or the Bastille, he was put through interrogations, and the depositions made by him and the others coincided with remarkable accuracy. And La Reynie’s conclusion is: ‘Guibourg and Galet having confessed after the torture of La Filastre, they gave between them a complete proof of these facts.’
It must be confessed that Madame de Montespan would have been of a singularly incredulous nature if she had not retained a blind confidence in the influence of the devil as invoked by the magicians and sorceresses. Madame de Ludres was discarded, and Louis fell at Madame de Montespan’s feet again. On June 11, 1677, Madame de Sévigné wrote to Madame de Grignan: ‘Oh, my daughter, what a triumph at Versailles! what redoubled pride! what a re-entry into possession! I was in the room for an hour. She was in bed, decked out, with her hair done: she was resting for the medianoche (supper about midnight). She launched shafts of contempt at poor Io (Madame de Ludres), and laughed at her having the audacity to complain of her. Imagine all that an ungenerous pride could make her say in triumph, and you will get near the truth. It is said that the little woman (Madame de Ludres) will resume her ordinary duties about Madame. She went off to walk in perfect solitude with La Moreuil in the garden of the Marshal Du Plessis.’ On June 18, Madame de Sévigné wrote to Bussy-Rabutin: ‘Madame de Montespan wanted to strangle her (Madame de Ludres), and makes her life terrible.’ On July 7, to Madame de Grignan: ‘Poor Isis (Madame de Ludres) has not been to Versailles. She has remained in her solitude. When a certain person (Madame de Montespan) speaks of her, she says, “that rag.” The event makes everything permissible.’
‘Quanto and her friend Louis XIV are together longer and more eagerly than ever they were. The ardour of the first years has returned, and all fears are banished, all restraint removed, which persuades us that never was empire seen more firmly established.’ And a little later: ‘Madame de Montespan was the other day covered with diamonds; the brilliance of so blazing a divinity was more than one could bear. The attachment seems greater than ever: they are all eyes for one another: never has love been seen to resume its sway like this.’
Yet, courted and victorious as she was, the favourite appeared a prey to torment; she was agitated, in a terrible fever. On January 13, 1678, the Comte de Rébenac wrote to the Marquis de Feuquières: ‘Madame de Montespan’s gambling has reached such a pitch that losses of 100,000 crowns (£60,000 to-day) are common. On Christmas Day she lost 700,000 crowns; she staked 150,000 pistoles (£280,000 at the present day) on three cards, and won.’ She lost her head in her triumph—her last triumph, dazzling but ephemeral, and about to be followed by days of cruel anguish.
In March 1679, Madame de Maintenon asked the Abbé Gobelin ‘to pray and to have prayers said for the king, who is on the brink of a deep precipice.’ This ‘precipice’ was the heart of Marie Angélique de Scoraille, demoiselle de Fontanges. She was eighteen years old, fair, with glossy flaxen hair; her large eyes, with their look of childish wonderment, were a light grey, deep and limpid; her skin was white as milk, her cheeks a lovely rose-pink; and in disposition, said her contemporaries, she was a genuine heroine of romance. She lived at Court in the capacity of maid of honour to Madame, as Madame de Ludres and Mademoiselle de la Vallière had done before her. ‘Mademoiselle de Fontanges,’ says Madame Palatine, ‘is lovely as an angel, from head to foot.’ If we may trust Bussy-Rabutin, ‘her relatives, seeing her beauty and grace, and having more love for their fortune than for their honour, clubbed together to fit her out for Court, and to provide her with means corresponding to the position she was entering.’
This was a thunderbolt for Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. We read in the Précis historique de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, by Lorot and Sivry: ‘Madame de Montespan left Saint-Germain suddenly because of the jealousy she has conceived for Mademoiselle de Fontanges.’ But the royal lover did not allow his mistresses to leave him at their own whim. He had imposed on Louise de la Vallière the bitter martyrdom of following as an expiatory victim the triumph of Madame de Montespan; he now compelled Madame de Montespan to witness the triumph of Mademoiselle de Fontanges. The proud marquise resigned herself to it, at least in appearance. On March 30, 1679, she wrote to the Duke de Noailles: ‘All is very quiet here; the king only comes into my room after mass and after supper. It is much better to see each other seldom but pleasantly, than often with embarrassment,’ Soon even this apparent satisfaction was withdrawn from her. The desertion was public and complete.
According to Madame de Sévigné, ‘there was a ball at Villers-Cotterets, at Monsieur’s place. There were masques. Mademoiselle de Fontanges appeared there in great brilliance, and adorned by the hands of Madame de Montespan.’ Bussy rejoiced at the disgrace. ‘Madame de Montespan has fallen, the king regards her no more, and you may be sure the courtiers follow his example.’