The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV FROM THE PUBLISHER
The Affair of the Poisons, as it became known, was an extraordinary episode that took place in France during the reign of Louis XIV. When poisoning and black magic became widespread, arrests followed. Suspects included those among the highest ranks of society. Many were tortured and numerous executions resulted. The 1676 torture and execution of the Marquise de Brinvilliers marked the start of the scandal that rocked the foundations of French society and sent shock waves through all of Europe. Convicted of conspiring with her adulterous lover to poison her father and brothers in order to secure the family fortune, the marquise was the first member of the noble class to fall.
In the French court of the period, where sexual affairs were numerous, ladies were not shy of seeking help from the murkier elements of the Parisian underworld, and fortune-tellers supplemented their dubious trade by selling poison. It was not long before the authorities were led to believe that Louis XIV himself was at risk. With the chief of Paris police alerted, every hint of danger was investigated. Rumors abounded, and it was not long before the king ordered the setting up of a special commission to investigate the poisonings and bring offenders to justice. No one, the king decreed, no matter how grand, would be spared having to account for his or her conduct.
The royal court was soon thrown into disarray. The Mistress of the Robes and a distinguished general were among the early suspects. But they paled into insignificance when the king's mistress was incriminated. If, as was said, she had engaged in vile satanic rituals and had sought to poison a rival for the king's affections, what was Louis XIV to do? Anne Somerset has gone back to original sources, letters, and earlier accounts of the affair. By the end of her retailing, she reaches firm conclusions on various crucial matters. The Affair of the Poisons is an enthralling account of a sometimes bizarre period in French history.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
In 1676, a seemingly devoted daughter and wife, Madame de Brinvilliers, shocked all of France with the heinous murder of her father and brothers. Furious that the family disapproved of her taking a lover, she and her scurrilous paramour poisoned them out of a desire for revenge and greed for her anticipated inheritance. The ensuing scandal, skillfully recounted by noted British historian Somerset (Elizabeth I), inflamed the nation's fears that the decadent nobles at the Sun King's court were caught up in a clandestine world of sex, witchcraft and murder. Every untimely death and peculiar illness, including Louis XIV's chronic vapors, suddenly appeared to be the nefarious work of an unwholesome network of princesses, dukes and fortunetellers. As panic ballooned, even the king's mistress, Mme de Montespan, fell under suspicion (and was eventually banished from the king's bed), and many of France's most distinguished personages were sent to trial, jail and, in several cases, the scaffold. Somerset reconstructs this macabre history from surviving public documents, enlivened with contemporary gossip and wit from letters between the French elite. Her arch prose sometimes stalls amid the intricacies of myriad minor characters' histories, but overall, she offers an intelligent review of a darkly fascinating affair. 8 pages of color illus. not seen by PW. Agent, Ed Victor. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
London-based historian Somerset has written a gripping account of the dark side of French court life in the 17th century. This broad-based inquiry into the underworld use of poison and the occult stems from the 1676 Brinvilliers case, which saw the execution of the Marquise de Brinvilliers for using poison to murder three members of her own family. The case led to a national sense of unease and ultimately to a widening probe into the activities of the more than 400 Parisian fortune-tellers and "divineresses" suspected of supplying poison to wealthy clients. At the peak of the affair, many came to believe that the king himself was threatened. Recognizing the limitations of the evidence presented, Somerset concludes that the atmosphere of "lies, intrigues and exaggerated fears" reached epidemic proportions and created an irrational mood of hysteria. Her story provides a window into the sybaritic and debauched nature of court life in the period, as well as the persistence of beliefs in the occult, astrology, palmistry, and black magic. Historians and informed lay readers, especially those interested in tales of monarchical intrigue, will appreciate this little-known story.-Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Recounting truly baroque French doings in the last quarter of the 17th century, as well as the story of the special royal commission appointed to investigate the wickedness, Somerset (Elizabeth I, 1991) offers some dish about liaisons that were truly dangerous. It was good to be the Sun King at Versailles-except for all the poisonings, necromancy, and related bad behavior that seemed to be gaining ascendancy. During the raunchy reign of Louis XIV there was rampant fooling around, though apparently in every reign a little high life must fall. The intricate Affair of the Poisons began with alarming rumors flying about fortunetellers, alchemists, astrologers, abortionists, black magicians, and Satanists plying their occult trades in the employ of aristocrats and courtiers. Most frightening among these tales of rank people working for people of rank were the accounts of death by poison. The weapons of individual destruction included powdered glass, orpiment, realgar, white arsenic, and disgusting special formulations designed to effect widowhood at a time when divorce wasn't available. Potions were available to produce advantageous connections for ardent admirers of those who were otherwise coupled. There were, patently, killers in lace and decolletage and murderers in silk breeches. It was feared the web of intrigue might even reach the King's person, since among diverse suspects was his favorite mistress. But Louis was oddly merciful to Mme. de Montespan in a day when even the most innocent of inconvenient women might simply be packed off to a convent forever. More plebian "divineresses" didn't get off so lightly. Before the furor abated, there were 104 trials and 34 executions, "withoffenders being variously burnt alive, decapitated, hanged, strangled or broken on the wheel." Thereafter, the King's behavior noticeably improved. Satan was no longer popular in France. Though Somerset doesn't speculate, apparently the Evil One moved on to New England, where the Salem witchcraft trials began shortly thereafter. Superior history, wonderfully complex and colorful, about the dark side of the Sun King's court. (8-page color insert, not seen)
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