(dramatic orchestral music)
It's one of the darkest pages
in the history of the French capital of Paris.
A scandal that erupted during the reign of Louis XIV.
A mixture of plots, murders,
an attempt on the king's life,
poisonings, Black Masses, and sacrificed children.
It's called the Affair of the Poisons.
The Affair of the Poisons is probably one
of the biggest criminal cases of all time.
With this case,
did Louis XIV's kingdom plunge into murderous madness?
How can we distinguish between truth and legend?
To find out, it's here in Paris that we must investigate.
(dramatic orchestral music)
I'm Jean-Marc Leri.
I've devoted my life to understanding Paris' history,
studying its secrets, and wandering its maze of streets.
The city holds many centuries-old mysteries.
Often these cases are dismissed as occult phenomena,
myths, legends, or popular beliefs.
Things have happened here, though.
There are facts, consistencies,
and bonafide witnesses.
Historians, scientists, and investigators
of all sorts have been unable to solve them.
It is time to reveal the most plausible theories,
and to get as close as possible to the truth.
Here's Paris as you've never seen it before.
(soft piano music)
January 1681, the height of Louis XIV's reign.
Paris was going through
one of the most disconcerting episodes in its history.
One of the darkest too.
One which would send an unprecedented shockwave
through society, the Affair of the Poisons.
The great letter writer of the day, the Marquis de Sevigne,
described the French court as being
in stupefaction, turmoil, and chaos.
The Affair of the Poisons was a series of scandals
and poisonings that turned the court
of the Sun King upside down.
Many died in terrifying conditions.
Black Masses were held invoking Satan.
Rites were carried out on human bodies,
and young children were sacrificed.
The king himself was forced to intervene.
This Affair was a thriller,
a real-life historical game of Cluedo,
but with even more characters.
One of the biggest criminal cases of all time,
but what or who was behind it?
However dark the truth is,
the veil of mystery needs to be lifted.
(soft music)
The Affair of the Poisons started with the uncovering
of a first poisoner,
and she wasn't just anyone.
On July 17th 1676, at six in the evening,
hundreds of Parisians lined the streets
to watch the passing of a cart which from Chatelet jail
via Notre Dame Cathedral
took the Marquise de Brinvilliers
to the scaffold on the Place de Greve
where Paris' city hall stands today.
The Marquise de Brinvilliers
was the daughter of nobles on both sides.
She was accused of poisoning her father and brothers,
and attempting to poison her sister and niece,
along with other victims,
the number of whom remains unknown.
The Marquise never confessed as to why.
Nobody could've imagined a woman of the nobility
behaving in such a way.
It came as a massive shock to society of the day
and questioned its very foundations.
A line had been crossed,
but this was only the start,
heralding an even more terrible period to come.
(intense orchestral music)
During the second half of the 17th century,
Paris was gripped by psychosis.
All kinds of new rogues abounded within the French capital.
Charlatans, poisoners, alchemists,
love potion sellers, fortune tellers,
gold diggers, phony priests,
and real priests who officiated at Black Masses.
And they all offered their services
to a society with two faces.
On one side, the pomp and radiance of Louis XIV's reign.
On the other, darkness and evil.
The world of the forces of evil
grew to match in strength the forces of good.
Black magic and sorcery blighted people of all backgrounds,
from the common people to aristocrats, and the court.
Anxiety reigned in every household.
Fathers distrusted their children,
wives their husbands,
grandmothers their grandchildren.
People were living in high anxiety and complete turmoil.
There was a real psychosis about poison.
Despite the flourishing arts, literature,
and the radiance of French culture,
in the back alleys of Paris it was still the Middle Ages.
There were about 400 witches and warlocks
active in the capital,
which has a population of 600,000.
(soft piano music)
Hundreds of witches and warlocks
would help to launch a new deadly fashion
in the streets of Paris.
The concocting of poisons with various substances
and different properties.
In the 17th century when looking for poisons,
you could choose substances
either of plant origin or mineral origin.
Among the plants were aconite,
an excellent, very strong poison.
Belladonna and mane,
nightshade and Devil's Trumpet.
Not forgetting hemlock,
which has been known since antiquity.
And among the minerals were arsenic,
and of course corrosive sublimate,
the favorite poison of the Marquise de Brinvilliers.
Other poisons were concocted
to act as aphrodisiacs.
These were made with urine, sperm, menstrual blood,
nail clippings, toad spittle, and cantharides,
commonly known as Spanish fly.
The Spanish fly isn't a fly at all,
but the beautiful green beetle cantharides.
It was used to provoke an erection,
but an erection which was very painful,
and which caused blood in the urine as a side effect.
So, it was extremely toxic,
and overuse led to a very painful death.
But you could obtain this dramatic poison anywhere,
because in the country,
peasants could find the beetles very easily.
(church bell chiming)
This host of poisons freely on sale
came to the attention of the Paris chief of police,
Gabriel Nicolas de La Reynie,
who would become one of the key figures
in the Affair of the Poisons.
Louis XIV trusted him entirely,
and placed him in charge of the investigation
into the Marquise de Brinvilliers.
La Reynie was a precursor
of all the famous policemen who followed him,
like Foucher, Vidocq, and the mobile police unit.
In fact, La Reynie was the founding father
of the modern police force
as the first lieutenant general of police.
He was the first lieutenant of police of Paris,
and he organized an office which was the ancestor
of today's prefecture of police.
There's even a plaque to commemorate him
at the main entrance of the prefecture of the police
facing Notre Dame Cathedral.
He had to deal with both crime and the city itself,
its supplies, policing, markets,
fairs, traffic, fighting epidemics, and fires.
That's why he was so different from his successors,
who only had to deal with crime.
He wasn't only the police chief,
but a kind of governor of the city,
and that's why he stands out.
Before that, Paris' back streets were like cutthroat alleys,
and going out at night in Paris was suicide.
Street lighting is essential for a city's security,
so he had Paris lit up correctly and regularly,
which is what earned it the name of the City of Light.
He was active in all areas of the city's management,
and not just in the police.
In September 1677,
an anonymous letter describing a plot
to kill the king with white powder
was left in a confessional
at the Jesuit abbey on the Rue Saint-Antoine.
La Reynie smelled a rat.
For several months, he sent his detectives
into the notorious district of Saint-Denis,
where the poison's trade was plied.
They made arrests, interrogated suspects and tortured them.
The king's ministers, followed by the king himself,
were stunned to learn that several hundred people in Paris
were making and selling deadly poisons with impunity.
They realized the cases of poisoning
hadn't stopped with the execution
of the Marquise de Brinvilliers.
La Reynie's investigation would eventually lead to
one of the worst serial killers in French history.
(church bell chiming)
Catherine Deshayes, aka La Voisin,
lived and worked in her store at 23 to 25 Rue Beauregard
in the capital's second arrondissement.
La Voisin presented herself as a former midwife,
but she also practiced abortions,
read cards, and told fortunes.
At the same time, as a good Christian,
she would dedicate herself to novenas,
devotional prayers repeated for nine consecutive days.
La Voisin also sold lotions, potions,
ointments, and poisons of all sorts.
Members of the Paris upper class,
mostly ladies, visited her dispensary
to get rid of an overbearing husband,
a bothersome lover, or a rival in love.
It was a real business.
La Voisin was a businesswoman,
she ran a company with employees, mostly women.
She made money, and she had few morals or scruples.
She also carried out serial abortions,
she burned 2,500 fetuses in an oven.
When she was asked why she had that oven,
she said to make my little pates.
La Voisin was a vile creature.
It's not caricaturing.
She was an abominable person.
From then on, every death was suspicious.
The affair grew to such a scale
that on April the seventh, 1679,
Louis XIV asked La Reynie to reopen the Chambres Ardente,
the burning chamber, an exceptional court
created a century earlier to judge crimes of state.
The burning chamber tried 442 people,
issued 319 arrest warrants,
and made 104 judgments, including 30 acquittals,
36 death sentences, 34 banishments from the kingdom,
and four sentences to the galleys.
Arrested in 1679,
La Voisin was burned at the stake two years later
on the Place de Greve.
Everyone thought the case was closed,
but far from it.
La Voisin's daughter, also interrogated by La Reynie's men,
made some sensational revelations.
She accused a number of figures in the king's entourage,
but one name stood out,
Madame de Montespan.
Françoise-Athenais de Rochechouart de Mortemart,
Marquise of Montespan,
was one of the most beautiful women at court.
Intelligent, cultured, spiritual,
she had been born into
one of France's most illustrious families.
She was Louis XIV's royal mistress,
and mother to seven of his children.
A young woman in her service, Mademoiselle des Oeillets,
was said to have made numerous visits
to La Voisin's dispensary.
Madame de Montespan was believed by some
to be behind the suspicious death
of the king's new young mistress, Mademoiselle de Fontanges.
Even worse, Madame de Montespan apparently wanted
to poison the king himself for breaking her heart.
She was also suspected of being
the instigator of Black Masses
in connivance with Etienne Guibourg, a defrocked priest.
Women lay naked, a black candle in each hand,
on what constituted the altar of these macabre masses.
Babies had their throats slit on these women's stomachs.
Their blood was poured into a chalice.
Satan was then invoked so that a good deed or bad deed
towards another be fulfilled.
It's said that next, the babies entrails and heart
were collected for the making of poisons.
As crazy as it might sound or read,
these Black Masses did exist,
and undoubtedly so did trafficking in abandoned newborns,
destined for these unimaginable rituals.
In June of 1681,
La Reynie had had Etienne Guibourg arrested.
He was interrogated and tortured.
Several of his statements pointed to Madame de Montespan.
Important figures were worried.
The affair fanned the flames of rivalry
between two famous ministers of the king,
the Marquis de Louvois, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
It was then that Louis XIV
brought an abrupt end to proceedings.
He closed the burning chamber,
and gave the order for everything to disappear.
Hundreds of pages of court records,
correspondence, statements, and reports.
Was Louis XIV trying to protect his mistress?
The truth would come out by chance years later.
In about 1850, the chief librarian
at the Bibliotheque de L'Arsenal, Francois Ravissant,
decided to have his parquet renewed.
And when the boards were removed,
he discovered part of the archives of the Bastille,
and notably the personal notes of La Reynie,
which he had written outside of the proceedings.
For historians, this was a treasure trove.
We owe Ravissant our gratitude,
because as all the court paperwork had been burned
by order of Louis XIV and under his strict control,
if historians and archivists didn't have at their disposal
the private notes of La Reynie,
we would know a whole lot less about this affair
that has such an important place in the history of France.
I think we can sum up what he did
as that of a serious public servant
keeping very precise records
of a crucial episode in history.
Louis XIV wanted to hush up the affair.
Under his orders, those who had mentioned
Madame de Montespan in their statements
were never brought to trial.
Likewise, those who had spoken of Black Masses and spells.
They were locked in towers in the provinces
so they would be simply forgotten.
But a big question remains:
what was the extent of Madame de Montespan's guilt?
Could she had attempted to poison
Mademoiselle de Fontanges, the king's new mistress?
Or even the king himself?
The Affair of the Poisons did indeed reveal
Mademoiselle de Fontanges had been the victim
of attempted poisonings.
The trouble is, after studying the timeline of events,
when La Voisin's accomplices went to the apartment
of Mademoiselle de Fontanges with poisoned fabrics,
at that moment in time, Madame de Montespan didn't know yet
that the young Fontanges was the king's mistress.
So, chronologically, the case against her doesn't hold up.
There was an attempted poisoning,
but Madame de Montespan wasn't involved in it.
The accusations of buying love potions and other things
so as to keep the king's love are well founded.
But wanting to poison the king?
That's a ridiculous hypothesis.
It's like biting the hand that feeds you.
Did Madame de Montespan take part in Black Masses?
It's possible.
Etienne Guibourg said I set a mass over the body
of a young woman I was told was Madame de Montespan.
Her face was covered in veils.
Was it her? Did she commission the masses?
Here there's some doubt,
the benefit of which goes to Madame de Montespan.
The role of Madame de Montespan's chambermaid,
Mademoiselle des Oeillets,
is much less clearcut.
She undoubtedly visited La Voisin.
It was even said that the mysterious English lord
had given her money to pay for a Black Mass
officiated by Guibourg.
But trying to poison Louis XIV
when she was in fact his secret mistress,
and mother to a daughter by him?
She wanted the king to recognize her daughter,
to have her legitimized, but the king refused.
So, one might suppose that Mademoiselle des Oeillets,
who knew of her mistress' dealings with La Voisin,
continued buying love potions and aphrodisiacs
for her own purposes,
which were then given to the king unwittingly
by Madame de Montespan.
And perhaps instead of an aphrodisiac, it was poison.
The complex investigation
that was the Affair of the Poisons,
this huge historical criminal case is now partly solved.
Madame de Montespan dabbled in the world
of spells and aphrodisiacs,
but never set out to assassinate Louis XIV.
However, Mademoiselle des Oeillets'
involvement seems real enough.
The entire network of witches and poisoners was wiped out,
even though numerous important figures
slipped through the net.
But at least one benefit was to come of the affair.
On July 31st 1682, the French parliament issued
an epoch making edict.
All magical practices would be severely punished,
and only scientists had the right to run a laboratory.
The page of the poisons had turned,
even though this mystery will forever had its gray areas.
While we are still terrified today of this affair,
with the long line of witches, warlocks,
Black Masses, and so on,
you must remember that these practices
didn't disappear with the reign of Louis XIV,
and that they still exist today.
We don't live in an entirely rational era.
However much technology there is,
there is still practices today
which go back to ancient times,
in which in our eyes are totally reprehensible,
and so we need to ask questions.
The Affair of the Poisons
will always be a blot of the shimmering reign
of Louis XIV, the sun and its eclipse.
The glory and the folly.
It also revealed another face of France's capital city,
and its taste for the world of darkness and the occult.
But Paris has other mysteries.
The clues and keys to these enigmas
are to be found in old books,
lost in the capital's libraries, in the city's streets,
or beneath its buildings, by the light of a candle,
or in the dead of night,
by cross checking documents, archives, and records.
Paris has not yet revealed all of its secrets.
(somber organ music)