2.3.4. A HINTERLAND FOR CRIMINALS, NOBLES AND THE GARMENT DISTRICT

MENU: 2.3.4. Crime. Nobles. Garment district

 

WHEN THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR UNLEASHED BANDS THAT ROAMED THE COUNTRYSIDE, A NEW WALL WAS BUILT 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 came to avoid authorities.

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

In brief

• Poisons and black masses

• Crime that shook the Sun King's court

• Nobles take over

• The garment district, heir to the Boulevards and nobles 

• A seedy neighborhood gentrifies with character

*    *    *

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

Women whose husbands had run into trouble* joined them. 

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

They told fortunes and sold aphrodisiacs. Proximity to the alchemists / counterfeiters led to making poisons, an activity that  did not require strength and required only pots and pans.   

Black masses came next. 

*      *

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

-- The Court Society by Norbert Elias, 1969

Louis XIV offers 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 going to and fro without passing through the maze of streets in the city's center.  

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

                                                                      A Paris Street Scene by Eugène Galien-Laloue, 1930's / zoom

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

Secrets d'histoire, a televised program on French history

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

Priests whispered that at confession they heard of terrible crimes.

Zoom

The poisons led to a scandal

that is still remembered.

*    *    *

Next,

Crime that shook the Sun King's court

CRIME THAT SHOOK THE SUN KING'S COURT

BELIEF IN THE DEVIL AND BLACK MAGIC LED 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:

                      -- The Affaire of the Poisons: alchemists and sorciers under Louis XIV by J-C. Petitfils, 1977

-- Louis XIV and the Affaire of the Poisons: Great Scandals of Histoire, You/Tube, 2020 (in French)

Madame de Montespan, the King's Great Love "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 butchered his own children. 

     Secrets of History, video (in French) / zoom

*      *

The most famous is La Voisin. She lived on rue Beauregard, in the slum that edged up to the rampart before it was destroyed (map).

 Catherine Deshayes, La Widow Monvoisin, known as 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. That was an exaggeration, but she remains the most notorious of France's rare serial killers.

*Criminalized in France until 1975.

A spy employed by the police force Louis XIV had just created  was invited to a neighborhood dinner, where drunken Marie Bosse 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 on leaving mass:

Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle

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

Why a 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, she 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 for 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 great sequels will 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 maintain power over the king.

• 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. She lived in the château Louis had given her near the palace, to which she and would often return, "like those unfortunate souls who come back to the places they have lived to atone for their faults." After a few years the king had an acolyte tell her that it would be best if she left Versailles.
-- The Souvenirs of Madame de Caylus, 1770, Mercure de France, ed. 1986, p.99

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.

Vidéo (source not said)

Jean Prevost Hida, Canalblog

•  May have fleshed out the witch in Snow White.

The Disney movie

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 telling the story.

-- All French believed poisoners: Petitfils

*      *

 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