The Marais area is divided into two parts by the Rue Saint-Antoine. The northern part is better known for sites such as the Place de la Vosges and the Carnival Museum, but it is in the southern part that you can find several buildings that are related to the more “juicy” history of Paris. The first building I wrote about in the past is Hotel de Beauvais It was won by the woman who took Louis XIV's virginity, while the second building is Hotel des Sens Where Queen Margot's last love affair ended tragically. Today we will walk a short distance from the Hôtel de Sens to the Hôtel de Brinvillier, located at 12 rue Charles V. Don't let its beauty and grandeur fool you, for within its walls dark murders were committed and the most famous scandal of the XNUMXth century was born. Louis XIV.
The house was built in 1620 by Antoine de Gobelin (a descendant of Jean Gobelin, inventor of the tapestries that bear his name) and his wife Marie Madeleine d'Ouvre, Marquise de Baranvilliers. Because her husband could not keep up with his wife's sexual prowess, their marriage deteriorated and the Marquise took many lovers, the last of whom was the cavalry officer Godin de St. Croix. When her father heard of this, he had the officer imprisoned in the Bastille, where he met Exili, a chemist with whom he shared a cell during his imprisonment.
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The Marquise poisons her family
Exili, who had studied the art of poison in Italy, had served a long line of famous people, including Olimpia Maidalchini, the all-powerful mistress of Pope Innocent X, and Christina, Queen of Sweden. After they were both released from prison, they opened a secret poison laboratory together in the Impasse Maubert and, after concocting several types of poison, they told the Marquise about it. This news could not have come at a better time, as the Marquise had just finished spending the generous dowry she had received from her father and was looking for a way to take control of the family fortune to avoid bankruptcy.
In order to test the effectiveness of poisons, the Marquise began volunteering at the famous Hotel Dieu hospital, where she tried the poisons on the most seriously ill patients without arousing suspicion. After thinking she had found the right dose, she tried to poison her father, but it was not easy for her, and it took 10 attempts before she succeeded in 1666. With her two brothers, it was easier, and they died shortly after each other. Encouraged by her success, the Marquise turned to poisoning her husband, but to her surprise, he showed no signs of poisoning, even though she gradually increased the dose of poison in his food. The reason for this was that her partner in crime, Officer Sainte-Croix, would throw away the poisoned foods because he had no interest in marrying the Marquise after her husband's death.
The whole affair exploded when the Chevalier de Sainte-Croix died (of natural causes) in 1672, leaving behind a pile of incriminating letters that miraculously reached the authorities. The Marquise fled France to a convent near Liège, where she hid until the French police found her and brought her back to Paris. On July 17, 1676, the Marquise was taken to the Place de Gare (now the Place de la Ville) and, in front of a huge crowd of spectators, she was beheaded and her body burned (her high status saved her from death at the stake). “At last all this is behind us. It seems to me that the affair is over,” Madame de Savignier wrote to her daughter, but in truth, the real big affair had only just begun.
witch hunt
The trial of the Marquise brought to mind a series of suspicious deaths that had occurred among the courtiers of Louis XIV, and rumors began that they too had been poisoned. The king, who feared that he was the next victim, appointed the police chief La Reynie as an investigating judge and gave him full authority to arrest and interrogate anyone suspected of poisoning, including the highest nobility. Soon, a witch hunt began in Paris, and many women who were engaged in fortune-telling, abortions, and the sale of aphrodisiacs were arrested.
After torture, they confessed to supplying not only the 17th-century equivalent of Viagra to many high-society women but also “inheritance powder,” a poison used to get rid of troublesome relatives. As the investigation progressed, more and more high-society women were arrested, and the fire began to reach the top of Louis XIV’s court. The investigation reached its peak in 14, when evidence emerged that the royal mistress, the Marquise de Montespan, had attended black masses, laced the king’s food with aphrodisiacs, and poisoned his young mistress, the Duchesse de Fontenage (1681-1661).
Just before the police chief was forced to arrest the royal mistress for questioning, the king decided France To stop the witch hunt, in order to avoid a scandal, the investigation team was disbanded. During the years that the investigation was conducted, 367 suspects were arrested and of them 36 were executed on charges of poisoning and witchcraft (some of them at least for crimes they did not commit after severe torture and died for no wrong they had committed). As a result, it is not surprising that to this day the French refer to this affair as one of the darkest periods of their history. And to all the married men who read this blog, learn a lesson and check your cup of coffee carefully if you have upset your wives…
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