Madame de Montespan and the Affair of the Poisons

Behind the gilded ballrooms, heaving bosoms and candlelit shenanigans of late 17th century Versailles lay something much darker. Nobles were mysteriously dying and rumours of murder and witchcraft were swirling. The Affair of the Poisons, as it became known, is a story of sex, sorcery, and superstition. By the time it was over, around 2,500 people had been murdered and 34 people executed. Among the guilty parties was Louis XIV’s favourite mistress, Madame de Montespan. She was accused of using black magic to win the king’s heart and then conspiring to poison him and his new lover when his affections waned.

To catch a king

Athénaïs de Montespan was the epitome of 17th century beauty so when she set her sights on the king, she expected an easy conquest. People raved about her luxurious blonde hair, her banging body, and flawless complexion, as well as her quick wit and her fierce intellect. Christened Françoise, she changed her name to Athénaïs after the goddess Athena and seemingly no-one thought that naming herself after a literal goddess was a bit much. Despite all these obvious charms, however, Louis XIV wasn’t biting.

And Athénaïs needed him to bite. She’d married a compulsive gambler who had racked up substantial debts. Athénaïs, who had been born into a noble family, had a position in the queen’s household but that wasn’t enough for the woman who was eventually nicknamed ‘Quanto’ due to her grasping nature. She saw how the king’s maȋtresse-en-titre was showered with wealth and she wanted a piece of that action. But Athénaïs’s looks alone weren’t enough to woo the king away from his current favourite, Louise de La Vallière. After all, he was surrounded by beautiful women for a quick shag. Fortunately, Athénaïs was prepared to play the long game.

Louise de Vallière - too skinny to be sexy, apparently

She cultivated friendships with the queen and Louise de La Vallière, giving both the impression she was their best mate, while taking advantage of their closeness to the king to worm her way into his affections. It’s safe to say Athénaïs was not a believer in ‘sisters before misters’. When Louise complained that the king was starting to lose interest, Athénaïs “kindly” agreed to help keep him entertained. While pretending to support her friend, she instead focused her attention on charming the king.

With Louis’s interest finally piqued, Athénaïs seduced him the old fashioned way. The story goes that the king spied on her as she was about to take a bath. Knowing he was watching, Athénaïs dropped her towel and flashed the goods. Louis must have been impressed because she became his lover soon after. For someone who’d been totally uninterested, Louis was now sexually obsessed with Athénaïs. He’d visit her three times a day and couldn’t even wait until they were alone before he’d drop his pants.

Have you ever been publicly shamed?

Louise was still officially maȋtresse-en-titre though and one reason for this was Athénaïs’s husband. The Marquis de Montespan was furious to learn he was being cuckolded by the king and made no secret about it. He attempted to publicly shame Louis for banging his wife, even threatening to catch an STD and pass it on to Louis via Athénaïs. In one particularly insane move, he announced that Athénaïs was dead and held a mock funeral for her. 

However, the presence of Athénaïs’s husband caused another issue for Louis, one that was more than just embarrassment. Despite his reputation as a top shagger, Louis ruled over a country that frowned upon adultery. Double adultery - where both parties were married - was a huge sin, for which the woman could spend the rest of her life locked in a convent. Louise was kept around to deflect attention away from Athénaïs and even had to suffer the indignity of sharing the king’s fuckpad with her replacement.

Satanic panic

Athénaïs may have been a sexual goddess but she was also massive pain in the ass. Her quick wit was cruel, she was demanding, greedy, and generally hard work. Louis grew fed up with her diva antics and began to see other, less difficult, women. But Athénaïs wasn’t prepared to give up her position without a fight and she was willing to go down an extremely dark path to hang onto the king.

Marie Angelique de Scorailles - stupid as a basket

Knowing Louis’s eye was wandering, Athénaïs orchestrated a suitable mistress to occupy him, one who was meek, malleable and unlikely to topple Athénaïs. She chose Marie Angelique de Scorailles, a beautiful teenager who was also “as stupid as a basket”. Her plan backfired, however. Louis fell head over heels for the sweet young girl and before long she was pregnant. She was now a serious rival to Athénaïs. 

Then she died.

Marie Angelique’s death occurred during the Affair of the Poisons, the ‘satanic panic’ that had whipped France’s nobility into a frenzy. It started with the arrest of the aristocratic Marie de Brinvilliers, who had conspired with her lover to poison her family. The pair had developed an untraceable substance (possibly arsenic) which put the fear of god into people. To make it worse, just before she was executed, de Brinvilliers said “Half the people in town are involved in this sort of thing, and I could ruin them if I were to talk.” Suddenly “mysterious” deaths like that of Marie Angelique de Scorailles were looked at in a new, suspicious, light.

Louis was super paranoid about being poisoned so he opened an official investigation, ominously known as the Chambre Ardente or ‘burning room’. The Parisian underworld was full of soothsayers and apothecaries who plied their trade to the wealthy. Sometimes their services crossed over into black magic and poisoning. As the arrests and torture began, one practitioner stood out: Catherine Monvoisin, also known as La Voisin. She was popular among France’s aristocratic ladies and provided anything from fortune telling and aphrodisiacs to sorcery and abortions. One of her clients was Athénaïs de Montespan.

La Voisin confessed that she supplied Athénaïs with love potions to win the king’s heart. But then it got worse. She’d also held black masses with Athénaïs and defrocked priests, during which Athénaïs stripped naked and acted as a human altar. Most shocking of all, these dark rituals usually involved the sacrifice of a baby, the blood of which was poured over Athénaïs’s nude body and used in the the love potions. One of these took place when Athénaïs was trying to seduce the king, others when she felt he was losing interest. 

The allegations continued. La Voisin’s own daughter accused her of poisoning Marie Angelique de Scorailles on Athénaïs’s instructions, although she most likely died of natural causes. As if all of this wasn’t already bad enough, it was revealed that Athénaïs had threatened to poison the king if he ever left her. Interestingly, Louis would suffer from mysterious headaches which disappeared when he stopped dining with Athénaïs. It didn’t matter whether any of these accusations were true, however. Athénaïs was finished. 

Louis XIV - the Sun King

In some ways she got off lightly. She was the mother of the king’s children which made the whole situation so incredibly scandalous, there was no choice but to brush it under the carpet. She even remained at court for a few more years to save face but Louis was done with her. He was already sick of her prima donna shit, now he could never trust her again and, like a true cliche, he’d fallen for his childrens’ nanny, the puritanical Madame de Maintenon. A new era lay ahead for Louis, one where he shunned the extravagances of his old life.

In 1691, Athénaïs finally left the splendour of Versailles and retired to a convent. Louis married Madame de Maintenon, which was a scandal of a different kind due to her lower social status. Athénaïs devoted the rest of her life to charity. When she died in 1707, Louis was unmoved. He refused to allow her children to wear mourning clothes and said: “Since I had dismissed her, I had planned on never seeing her again.”