Nature gave to Madame de Montespan the terrible satisfaction she had sought to obtain from magic and poison. On June 28, 1681, the Duchess de Fontanges died at the age of twenty-two, in the abbey of Port Royal. She was carried off by pleuro-pneumonia, tubercular in origin, the action of which was hastened by loss of blood following an accouchement. The young woman died convinced that she had been poisoned, and suspecting her rival. Louis XIV, who had the same idea, feared that the autopsy might reveal the crime, and sought to prevent it; but the relatives insisted on it. The physicians concluded that it was a natural death. But the opinion was still held that Madame de Fontanges had succumbed to poison administered by Madame de Montespan, an opinion echoed by Madame de Caylus, Madame de Maintenon, Madame Palatine, and Bussy-Rabutin.
Before the commissioners of the Chambre Ardente the magician Lesage had allowed the following remark to escape him: ‘If Filastre were captured, they would learn some strange things.’ She was taken: she denied everything before the commissioners; but on October 1, 1680, while under torture, she confirmed in the most precise manner the revelations made by the prisoners at the Bastille and Vincennes; and on that very day Louis XIV in terror ordered the sittings of the Chambre Ardente to be suspended. On October 17, 1680, Louvois wrote to La Reynie: ‘I have received the letters you have done me the honour to write to me, and the king heard them read with pain.’ Louis, then, ordered the closing of the Chambre Ardente, and when on May 19, 1681, the sittings were resumed at the entreaty of La Reynie, the judges were forbidden ‘to take any steps in regard to the declarations contained in the reports of the torture and execution of La Filastre.’ From that day Louis had no further doubts as to the guilt of his mistress. One more proof was to be furnished him.
The name of Mademoiselle Desœillets, Madame de Montespan’s maid, recurs on every page of the proceedings. She was continually going backwards and forwards between her mistress and the sorceresses. The prisoners almost all knew her: they spoke of her in the most positive manner. The girl Monvoisin pointed out her house, where she had been several times. Mademoiselle Desœillets had a friend named Madame de Villedieu, who frequently visited the sorceresses, but for her own private ends. When La Voisin was arrested, the two friends talked about the incident.
‘How can you be easy in mind when you have been so often to the sorceress?’ asked Madame de Villedieu.
‘The king will not allow me to be arrested.’
The remark was voluntarily reported by Madame de Villedieu to the detective Desgrez. And, in fact, when La Reynie on October 22, 1680, wrote to Louvois: ‘What has been said in regard to Mademoiselle Desœillets at the beginning and repeated at the end is so strong that it is impossible to prevent her from being confronted with the people who have spoken about her,’ his words fell on deaf ears at Versailles. When Madame de Villedieu was taken to Vincennes, she said: ‘It is astonishing that I am being imprisoned when I went only once to La Voisin, while you leave Mademoiselle Desœillets at liberty, who has been there more than fifty times.’
Louvois at last decided to order Mademoiselle Desœillets to appear, not before the judges, but before himself in his private room. On November 18, 1680, he wrote to La Reynie:—
‘Mademoiselle Desœillets declares with marvellous assurance that not one of those who have named her know her, and, to assure me of her innocence, she charged me to urge the king to allow her to be taken to the place where those who have deposed against her are confined. She stakes her life that no one will be able to tell who she is. His Majesty has therefore been pleased to decide that I shall take her to Vincennes next Friday, and bring down Lesage, the girl Voisin, Guibourg, and the other persons who, as you inform me, have spoken of her. The person of whom I have just spoken will enter and show herself to them, and I will ask them if they know her, without naming her to them.’
The result did not justify Louvois’ hopes. La Reynie showed at that time that, unknown to him and in spite of his vigilance, some one was holding communication with the prisoners in Vincennes, who were receiving information from without. This ‘some one’ was Madame de Montespan. No doubt the lieutenant of police took greater precautions on this occasion. The prisoners were not able to receive preliminary coaching, with the result that one and all immediately recognised the favourite’s maid.
Mademoiselle Desœillets, moreover, was under great illusions as to the impunity that would be assured to her. Louis XIV did not allow her to appear before the judges, nor even to be confronted with the prisoners, but he had her shut up for the rest of her days in close confinement. The wretched woman died on September 8, 1686, in the general hospital of Tours. And poor Madame de Villedieu, whose only crime was that she was for a moment in the confidence of Mademoiselle Desœillets, was visited with the same fate, because of the necessity of keeping the great secret.