II.3.4. A HINTERLAND FOR CRIMINALS, NOBLES AND THE GARMENT DISTRICT

MENU: 2.3.4. Crime. Nobles. Garment district

WHEN THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR UNLEASHED TERRIFYING BANDS THAT ROAMED THE COUNTRYSIDE, AUTHORITIES BUILT A NEW WALL TO PROTECT THE CITY 

(WAR, 1337-1453. WALL BEGUN, 1359) 

Assassination of an English knight, "Chronicles of English history"  toward 1450 / zoom 

   Paris in 1530 / zoom

With peace the Church established convents, and criminals arrived to avoid authorities.

That back country would be on the way to Versailles... .

Energies evolve

• Poisons and black masses

• Crime that shook the Sun King's court

• Nobles take over

• The garment district, offspring of The Boulevards and nobles 

• A seedy neighborhood gentrifies with character

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Next,

Poisons and black masses

POISONS AND BLACK MASSES

 

BEYOND THE COURT OF MIRACLES "RUE DU BOUT DU MONDE" SHOWS THAT OUTSKIRT'S DISTANCE 

*The street at the end of the world 

The area was more sinister than even that of the Court of Miracles: "To get rid of your husband, give him bouillon of Saint-Denis," was a 1670's rumor.

-- L'Affaire des poisons by Arlette Lebigre, 1989

Adapted from a map of 1676 / zoom

Users of dangerous substances — counterfeiters and alchemists — settled there (toward 1660):

    An Alchemist's family by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1558 / zoom

Marginal wives of former craftsmen* joined them. 

*At least that is what we know of two women mentioned on the next page: Marie Bosse, whose drunken boasting triggered the police inquiry, was the spouse of a counterfeiter sent to the galleys and La Voisin's husband was a failed craftsman.

They told fortunes and sold aphrodisiacs. Proximity to the alchemists / counterfeiters led to making poisons, which did not require strength and needed only a kitchen to produce.

Black masses came next. The next page says more.

# # #

At the same time Louis XIV imposed a stifling ceremonial: A courtier said he loved watching dogs fight over a bone, because they were spontaneous. 

-- The court society by Norbert Elias, 1969

Louis XIV grants the Cross of Saint Louis in 1693 (detail) by François Marot, 1709, zoom

Courtiers depended on royal gifts to hold their rank. The immutable court ballet became both a necessity and a source of endless expense.* 

*It required constant changes of exceptional outfits, an overpriced rental in Versailles or an impressive residence in Paris, a coach, horses, servants, liveries, sumptuous dinners to become part of a clan, gambling for the high stakes that the king encouraged... .

# # #

At about the same time Louis had the ramparts demolished (in 1674). The vast boulevards that replaced them were a prerequisite to moving the court and seat of government to Versailles (in 1682), because they allowed a to and fro that skipped the center city's maze of streets. 

Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle by Edouard Leon Cortes, toward 1900 / zoom 

Bored courtiers came to the edgy hinterland to slum, have their fortunes told, obtain aphrodisiacs and for the thrill of danger.

They learned that the fortune tellers could provide "succession powders" that hastened obtaining inheritances, disposed of jealous husbands or rivals, allowed bribes... .

Priests whispered that they heard of terrible crimes at confession.

For a drama that is still remembered, 

please click on.

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Next,

Crime that shook the Sun King's court

CRIME THAT SHOOK THE SUN KING'S COURT

BELIEF IN THE DEVIL AND BLACK MAGIC DROVE COURTIERS...

"to run to a rogue priest for a mass to the Devil with slaughter of child. Sales of poison usually followed those rites: What the Devil had not managed, arsenic would." 

-- The King's Way, historical novel by Françoise Chandeneggor, 1981

Main sources:

             --L'Affaire des poisons: alchemists et sorciers sous Louis XIV by J-C. Petitfils, 1977

-- Louis XIV et l'affaire des poisons: les grands scandales de l'histoire Scandals /You/Tube (with English translation), 2020

Madame de Montespan, le grand amour du roi "Secrets d'histoire," YouTube 

Babies or small children were baptized before being slaughtered. Their blood was poured into a chalice and from it over the client's nude abdomen.

French texts use feminine forms to say "client" or "sponsor," which suggests that they were women. 

The priest who practiced these masses with La Voisin (mentioned below) butchered his own children. 

# # #

The most famous criminal was "La Voisin," one of France's rare serial killers. She lived on rue Beauregard, in the slum that edged up to the rampart before it was destroyed (click back to the map):

 Catherine Deshayes, Veuve Monvoisin, connue sous le nom de La Voisin, by Antoine Coypel, 1680-1682

Carolyn Ristau

La Voisin lived at n° 24.

She bragged of committing 2500 murders through abortions,* poisonings and black masses. Her estimate is an exaggeration, but she remains the most notorious of France's rare serial killers.

*Criminalized until 1975.

A spy employed by the Sun King's new police force was invited to a neighborhood dinner, where a drunken woman boasted of a clientele of "duchesses, marquises, lords and princes." An investigation found poisons in her dwelling and 200 people were rounded up.

La Voisin was arrested on the steps of her parish church when leaving mass:

Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle

The medieval church burned (in 1821). This is its replacement.

Why the witch went to mass: 

Black magic is a sacrilege, whose power depends on belief.

# # #

An enigmatic death 

  -- Correspondence of Madame de Sévigny, February 23, 1680 (translation and italics mine)

 

• Between sessions of having water forced down her throat La Voisin sang and drank with her guards, and the night before being burned alive, "broken as she was, continued her scandalous debauchery."

• At the scaffold she spurned the usual speech of penitence and praise of the king, although that might have encouraged leniency to her imprisoned daughter.

She even refused confession to a priest, so choosing, as a believer, to damn her soul or eternity. She screamed and kicked at the hay until the end.

(Catherine Deshayes: La Voisin's maiden name)

 

Another woman's story,

and another glimpse into those times:

"One of those miserable creatures, 

who was hanged the other day...

told M. de Louvois [the minister in charge of executions] that if her life were spared she would say strange things; she was refused. 'Well!' 'said she, 'be assured that no pain will cause me to say a single word.' She was given the questions ordinary, extraordinary and so extraordinary that she thought she would die, as another had, let me say in passing, as a doctor took her pulse. That woman suffered extreme martyrdom without talking. When she was taken to City Hall [next to the execution site], she said she wanted to speak: Gentlemen, she said, assure M. de Louvois that I am his servant [a common figure of speech] and that I have kept my word; let's get on with it.'  She was sent off in an instant. What do you say to that sort of courage? I have a thousand more agreeable little tales like that; but how say it all? "

# # #

"It is thought that there will be great sequels that surprise us," the narrative continues, and after La Voisin's death a crime that has never been solved led the king to stop the inquiry: Some of the arrested charged Madame de Montespan, the royal favorite, with sponsoring black masses and trying to poison Louis and his new mistress.

Portrait of a lady said to be Madame de Montespan by a follower of Pierre Mignard, 17th century / zoom 

Gorgeous, fiery and caustic, of a lineage superior to Louis's (his grandmother was the daughter of an upstart Medici banker), she added to the éclat of the court.

"But seriously, her beauty is astonishing [...] She was dressed completely in French point lace; her hair was dressed in a thousand curls ; two on her temples fell to her cheeks ; black ribbons on her head, pearls [...] diamond pendants of the greatest beauty [...] in a word, a triumphant beauty for all ambassadors to admire."  

-- Madame de Sévigny, July 29, 1676 

But she had visited La Voisin for aphrodisiacs.

• To keep crime from spattering the throne Louis stopped the inquest and burned the records, not knowing that the police chief had kept detailed notes. They seem to inculpate the marquise's lady-in-waiting, who had had an affair with the king and was furious that he refuse to recognize their child. 

One understands her anger: He recognized 22 other bastards.

#  #  #

Destinies 

• Louis did nothing to the mother of four of his legitimized children, but the marquise lost all influence and after a few years the king let her know that it would be best if she left Versailles. She lived in the château he had given her and would quite often return, "like those unfortunate souls who come back to the places they have lived to atone for their faults."
-- Les souvenirs de Madame de Caylus, 1770, Mercure de France, ed. 1986, p.99

A decade later she retired to a convent. When she spread out the jewels that the king had given her and could not recall the circumstances, she said that her life had made no sense.

• The lady-in-waiting retired with a pension. Her daughter knew she was of royal blood and even resembled the king, but had to accept a mediocre marriage.

• When in memory of a long-standing friendship Louis sent Olympe Mancini a message warning of her coming arrest, she put down her gambling cards, went straight to her coach and fled abroad, never to return. Other courtiers were banished (a gentle fate for murder, especially since the king might forgive).  

• A few underclass prisoners were freed, but 68 spent the rest of their lives chained to dungeons' walls. The last died in 1725.

# # #

Those dramas...

• Brought the first law regulating the sale of toxic products (in 1682). It is still on the books. 

That was one reason why mass poisonings ceased. Other reasons: The removal of many criminals, their horrific punishment and especially, medical advances that made it easier to identify poison during autopsies.  

• Show the nightmarish underside of the time when France's classic culture, supposed to be one of glory, equilibrium and reason, took its lasting shape.

Jean Prevost Hida, Canalblog

•  Must have added to tales of the witch in Snow White.

The Disney movie

Fairy tales express psychological realities, and Snow White is a much older tale. Still, the scandal was so notorious that throughout Europe all French people were believed to be poisoners. Narrators must have thought of La Voisin in fleshing out the story.

-- All French believed poisoners: Petitfils

Internet, source not said

# # #

 The tea shop facing the church

suggests a reassuring present.

Les 2 au Coin

 7 rue Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle

Or so we hope.

*    *    *

Next,

Nobles take over

NOBLES TAKE OVER

THE SINISTER BACKWATER BECOMES UPSCALE WHEN NOBLES SETTLE NEAR THE BOULEVARDS TO REACH VERSAILLES MORE EASILY*

*The southwestern 7th district, where antiquarians cluster now and that is nearer Versailles, was already occupied.

Those vast arteries on the city's edge allow skipping the traffic of the center and makes Versailles only three hours away by coach, one hour on horseback. 

     Parisian Congestion as Seen from Pont Neuf, engraving by Nicolas Guerard, toward 1700 / zoom

Plan of 1576 / zoom

Yellow arrows show location, red ones show a walk.

Eliminating the Court of Miracles and the criminals near the wall announces the court's move to Versailles.

 

# # #

Examples of the new population:

• The Sisters of Saint-Chaumont settle on rue Saint-Denis in 1683. One can still glimpse their former establishment behind the buildings: It covers a full block, across rue Saint-Denis from rue Beauregard, where La Voisin had lived.

The convent lies behind the buildings, from this corner to the Saint-Denis gate.

Noblewomen would retire to convents like this one, to leave the concerns of the world and prepare salvation. 

Corner next to the Saint-Denis gate

• In the decades before the Revolution the father of portraitist Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun lived on rue de Cléry, just below rue Beauregard. She did too as an adult, and a woman she did not like held a salon there.

-- Les Libertines; plaisir et liberté à l'époque des Lumières by Olivier Blanc, 1997

 

One of her 20 portraits of Marie-Antoinette and self-portrait / zoom 

Those nobles are at the origin of the Boulevard's 

19th-century fame for elegance,

and of the neighborhood

east of the Saint-Denis gate.

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Next,

The garment district,

 offspring of the Boulevards and nobles