Princes and Poisoners: Studies of the Court of Louis XIV

by Frantz Funck-Brentano

Boileau once said: ‘I admire Monsieur Colbert’s inability to endure Suetonius because Suetonius had revealed the infamy of the emperors.’ There we have the explanation of his conduct, apart from the personal interest he had in the innocence of Madame de Montespan.

Colbert had only followed at a distance the work of the commissioners of the Chambre Ardente, and he knew only vaguely the charges brought against the king’s mistress. He applied to a celebrated advocate of the time, Maître Duplessis, for a statement establishing the innocence of Madame de Montespan, and indicating means of quashing the unhappy proceedings. Colbert even did his best to supply him with arguments.

Duplessis drew up the statement desired. Colbert acknowledged its receipt on February 25, 1681: ‘I have seen and examined with care the memorandum you have sent me; I have to receive another to-morrow on the second charge (the attempted poisoning of Mademoiselle de Fontanges), which is no less serious than the first (the attempt on Louis XIV by means of the petition), and the disproof of which is, in my opinion, more complete and perfect.’ And Duplessis sent him a second statement with these words: ‘Have the goodness to look at the general observation at the beginning, because it may provide answers to many things which appear sufficiently well proved.’ The memorials of Duplessis, backed up by Colbert, had no more effect on La Reynie than the arguments of Louvois. The advocate and the minister asked that the prisoners should be dealt with summarily by the Chambre, that torture should not be applied so that they might not reveal the gravest facts, and that as soon as the case had been rapidly despatched, all the documents should be burnt forthwith. But La Reynie said that it was impossible not to follow the rules of justice, and that the Chambre could only judge according to custom and law.

The Chambre Ardente was in a quandary. On the one hand it saw the necessity of yielding to the absolute refusal of Louis to authorise the reading in court of the documents in which Madame de Montespan was concerned; on the other, there was the no less absolute refusal of La Reynie to allow the judges to pronounce a sentence in which all the guarantees custom gave the accused were not respected. It seemed a complete deadlock. The king had gradually allowed himself to be led very far from the resolutions of rigorous equity which he had at first displayed. He had violated the secrets of the documents so far as to communicate to persons of note such parts of the reports of the investigations as concerned them; he had connived at the flight of the Prince de Clermont-Lodève, the Countess de Soissons, and many others. He had trembled at the thought of what revelations La Voisin might make: ‘I explained to the king,’ wrote Louvois to Bazin de Bezons on December 3, 1679, ‘of the reasons you and the commissioners have for beginning the investigation of La Voisin’s case, but his Majesty did not give his approval; and this evening I shall give orders to Boucherat and La Reynie not to bring it into court.’

On July 18, 1680, Louvois wrote to La Reynie from Montreuil-sur-Mer: ‘The king has not thought fit to give the order you request that the commissioners may be authorised to give judgment in case of necessity, his Majesty not regarding it as seemly that the Chambre should judge prisoners in his absence.’ In spite of the efforts made to enwrap the sittings at the Arsenal in impenetrable secrecy, public opinion was not deceived, and we find evidence in many private letters that the king was preventing the prosecution of ‘people of the Court.’ ‘You are aiming at riff-raff,’ exclaimed Lalande, one of the prisoners, in open court on July 31, 1681, ‘and you ought to aim higher.’

At length, as we have seen, after the declaration of La Filastre on October 1, 1680, the sittings of the Chambre were suddenly suspended.

‘This day, October 1, 1680, in execution of the decree of September 30 of the said year, which condemned Françoise Filastre and Jacques Joseph Cotton to death, they have been put to torture ordinary and extraordinary; but the said Filastre having made, both at and apart from torture, declarations of great importance, and the king having seen the report containing fresh declarations made by her in the chapel of the said château of the Bastille before going to execution, his Majesty, for considerations important to his service, was unwilling that the said matters should be laid in gross before the Chambre, and gave orders to Monsieur Boucherat, President of the said court, to close the sittings.’

From that day there was open conflict between the lieutenant of police on the one hand and the ministers supported by all the ladies and courtiers on the other. ‘The king,’ wrote La Reynie’s secretaries, ‘was strongly urged by the courtiers, and even by persons in high places, to close the Chambre entirely, under various pretexts, the most specious of which was that a longer investigation of the poisoning cases would bring the nation into discredit abroad.’ La Reynie pleaded in answer the respect due to justice, the duty incumbent on the king to have the greatest criminals who had ever appeared in his kingdom brought to trial and punished, and finally, the necessity of purging France of these appalling practices in poison and sacrilege, which had taken in a few years proportions that no one would have conceived possible. He went to Versailles and talked to the king for four days in succession, and for four hours each day. It is a pity that we have no record of the words he addressed to the king and his ministers. Single-handed, he vanquished them all.

‘Monsieur de la Reynie having been heard by the king in his cabinet, in presence of the Chancellor and Monsieur de Colbert and the Marquis de Louvois, on four different days, and for four hours each day, his Majesty at length resolved on the continuation of the Chambre, and ordered Monsieur de la Reynie to continue his ordinary investigations; nevertheless, to take no steps on any of the declarations contained in the reports of the torture and execution of La Filastre, which his Majesty, for considerations relating to his service, does not wish to be divulged.’

The court sitting at the Arsenal resumed its labours on May 19, 1681, but on the condition laid down by the king that nothing further should be done in regard to the declarations in which Madame de Montespan had been involved. On December 17, the facts which he had wished to keep from the knowledge of the judges reappeared with new force at the examination of La Joly. Louvois at once wrote to Bazin de Bezons, the fellow-commissioner of La Reynie, instructing him to be careful to put all these declarations into separate portfolios not to be shown to the judges. La Reynie in fact perceived that the difficulties of the Court, in regard to a regular performance of its duties, were increasing from day to day, and it was not long before he understood, and made his colleagues see also, that the mere fact of the suppression of the report containing the replies of Filastre under torture rendered it impossible to investigate legally the cases of the principal prisoners. This he clearly demonstrated in notes really admirable in their outspokenness and sound judgment. And to measure their dignity and courage, we must remember that his words were addressed directly to Louvois and Louis XIV. But Louis’ character was not great enough to allow him to sacrifice his pride to the public good, to consent to such a humiliation in the eyes of his subjects and of Europe. He adhered to his veto on the communication of the Montespan documents to the Chambre. On his part, La Reynie remained inflexible, refusing to allow a case to be tried in which the whole of the documents were not submitted to the court. Yet something had to be done: a Chamber must be either open or shut.