The sorceresses had little lodgings at Saint-Germain, Fontainebleau, 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.”