Vulgar History - La Voisin, The French Abortionist Tried As A Witch

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00:00:16.740 ETF investing IQ. Hey, so before we get into today's episode, I wanted to let you know about

00:00:23.000 a podcast that I'm pretty sure you're going to like that is called Bad Women, hosted by historian

00:00:28.580 Hallie Rubenhold. And if you're like, I recognize that name. That's because I recommended her book 0.97

00:00:33.320 a few episodes ago. She wrote a book called The Five that was about five of the women who were 0.97

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00:01:08.660 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is ann 1.00

00:01:29.880 foster and this is a third halloween super special and the topic for today the the tits

00:01:38.600 out brigade on the patreon oh i haven't said this in the podcast yet but i did an official poll

00:01:46.380 and i say official because i think it was official so on the instagram page for vulgar history which

00:01:54.340 is at vulgar history pod on instagram i did in the stories a bit ago uh i thought it was time

00:02:02.040 we've done however many episodes of this show like 30 or whatever and i decided i wanted to

00:02:07.600 have a name for all of you the listeners so i asked people on instagram for suggestions and i

00:02:13.920 got conveniently 16 different suggestions and then we had a tournament where it was like a march

00:02:19.480 madness style tournament where people would vote for one against the other and the one that won

00:02:22.840 eventually is the tits out brigade so just so you know that's what i'm gonna call you you can of 0.61

00:02:29.500 course define yourself however you want but the tits out brigade you're welcome and thank you to

00:02:36.640 the people who helped vote for that i've actually added stuff to the store vulgar history dot store 0.96

00:02:41.980 vulgar history dot s-t-o-r-e there's merch there now that says tits out brigade if you want everyone

00:02:46.360 to know that you're part of that squad i've got a cropped hoodie got a mug sticker tote bag 0.93

00:02:53.100 various things anyway that's my little commercial for my own thing so the members of the tits out

00:03:00.900 brigade who are on patreon i gave them a poll of various witches from history who do you want me

00:03:07.600 to do an episode about and they voted for la voisin which is who we're going to talk about

00:03:12.740 Her name is Catherine Mauvoison, but she was known as Lavoisin.

00:03:18.340 And I guess, content warning, this story takes place in France.

00:03:22.340 So I'm going to be using my René Aubergenois as the French chef in Disney's Little Mermaid type accent uncontrollably.

00:03:31.220 So be prepared for that.

00:03:33.640 There's like actual content warnings, though, although that that is one because maybe that's annoying to some people.

00:03:38.720 let's see in this episode we're going to be talking about Satanism we're going to be talking

00:03:45.440 about the murder of babies infanticide we're going to be talking about I guess those are 0.83

00:03:52.540 kind of the big ones we're going to talk about the Catholic Church we're going to be talking about 0.78

00:03:56.420 I guess those those are the biggest ones infanticide Catholic Church Satanism it gets

00:04:04.120 pretty dark this story so when i put the pull-up in the patreon for for the patreons to vote on

00:04:11.920 i honestly was just like i want to do a halloween super special like who are some famous witches and

00:04:15.980 i just kind of found a couple articles that were like here's some famous real life witches from

00:04:19.120 history one of them was la voisin and i'm like okay you know i sort of scrolled quickly just

00:04:24.720 to see like is there enough content here to do a little episode there seemed to be that's who went

00:04:29.080 and so then i started researching and that's why this episode is arriving if everything goes

00:04:34.100 according to plan one day after i usually plan to the episodes come out on wednesdays i think

00:04:40.820 you're listening to this on a thursday it could be a friday frankly who knows what the future will

00:04:46.140 hold but the thing is so la voisin is a notorious figure in history and she's part of a larger thing

00:04:54.660 called The Affair of the Poisons, and there's quite a bit written about the affair of the

00:04:59.820 poisons, but not a lot about her. So I ended up doing a bit more digging than I realized I was

00:05:05.260 going to need to do. She has a Wikipedia page. It's not, I'm going to say, super helpful, but

00:05:12.200 it's a good little starting point, and I got definitely some information from there just to

00:05:16.040 get me started. There's an article on sci-fi.com by Jessica Toomer, which is really good in the

00:05:23.080 sense of it makes her the main character and looks at her life and who is she rather than just her as

00:05:27.920 one part of this larger thing there was an article on a website called historyofyesterday.com which

00:05:34.800 I think was written in another language and then translated into English but I got some facts there

00:05:39.080 I hadn't seen elsewhere ultimately I was just like this is not enough for me to talk for you know 45

00:05:45.480 minutes about I need to learn more and so I went to books there's two books both of them out of print

00:05:52.000 and that's again why this is coming out a little late because I had to order them

00:05:55.900 from online used bookstores and wait for them to arrive where I live in Saskatoon which is

00:06:02.640 I think you get things a lot faster if you live in like London England or like Toronto anyway

00:06:10.000 takes a bit longer to get here also there's these supply chain issues this is not an excuse this is

00:06:16.780 just explaining the lengths i went to to try and learn about this woman because when i started

00:06:22.160 learning i'm like i want to know more there's so many holes i need filled in so the first book i

00:06:26.380 got is called the affair of the poisons murder infanticide and satanism at the court of louis

00:06:32.240 the 14th by ann somerset it's a very good book it's uh really goes over the whole affair of the

00:06:39.520 poisons and there's quite a bit i wouldn't say quite a bit in there about la voisin but a good

00:06:45.860 amount but the best book i found the best source full stop about this whole thing like i was like

00:06:50.820 can i even do this podcast i don't know if i can put this together into a story until i got this

00:06:55.680 other book also out of print it's called strange revelations magic poison and sacrilege in louis

00:07:02.260 the 14th france by lynn wood molenauer and bless you lynn wood molenauer because she really gets

00:07:07.880 into the the nitty-gritty that I wanted to know because again I'm in Saskatoon Canada

00:07:14.460 my comprehension of the French language is not great and I'm really not able to dive in myself

00:07:24.740 to the like first what's it called the primary source materials so I'm really just depending

00:07:32.140 on other people having done a lot of research and written about it and thank god Lynn Wood

00:07:36.460 Molenauer did as much as she did because I really want to show you this story but I really couldn't

00:07:41.800 until I had more details to tell you so there's going to be a lot of place setting because la

00:07:49.480 voisin was involved in this thing the affair of the poisons a lot of people were involved in that

00:07:53.800 so you really need to understand that to get to like what is her story but then also because she's

00:07:59.020 like not a super rich woman and even if she was a super rich woman we still might not know a lot

00:08:04.300 about her her early years but most of the information that we know about her was from

00:08:11.640 she was spoiler arrested for the affair of the poisons when she was in her 40s and this is kind

00:08:18.220 of what she said about herself what other people said about her so just kind of piecing it all

00:08:22.840 together here's here's as much of a biography as I have been able to provide so she's born

00:08:30.660 Catherine de Shea around she's born around 1640 in Paris probably she certainly lived in Paris

00:08:38.300 chances are she grew up poor I mean she certainly didn't grow up rich so she clearly developed

00:08:46.820 street smarts a strong desire to succeed ambition um a sort of ruthlessness what we're going to see 0.85

00:08:54.940 about her like she clearly had really good um emotional intelligence she was really able to 1.00

00:09:00.020 manipulate people around her and she find ways to turn what she was doing into various businesses

00:09:06.260 when she was around 20 years old she married a man called Antoine Monvoisin who was a jeweler

00:09:12.640 and a silk merchant and then she became Catherine Monvoisin aka Lavoisin she is I'm not going to say

00:09:20.280 that as her name the whole time I'm just going to call her Catherine because otherwise I'm going

00:09:23.220 to annoy even myself so her husband Antoine not a great guy and not only was he abusive to her

00:09:30.980 and mean he was also bad at business he was incompetent and unreliable um the two of them

00:09:39.500 had several children and they were also supporting I think her mother and other family members and so

00:09:45.640 with him not doing a great job but being a family provider Catherine was like well I'm just gonna

00:09:50.680 figure something out and provide for this family myself so she already had been doing the informal

00:09:57.240 business of fortune telling so they lived in a house with a sort of little shack in the backyard

00:10:02.860 garden of their home in the sort of paris suburbs and so she met with clients there in the sort of

00:10:07.880 little shack in the garden which offered them privacy so she would do palm reading which you

00:10:14.600 probably know about face reading which is similar it's I don't want to say everyone who does it

00:10:20.920 is a grifter but I think it's a skill that you people who are really good at manipulating other

00:10:28.360 people can do very well because you can like watch for the body language or you can even

00:10:32.540 there wasn't the internet then but she could learn from like gossip whisper networks who this person

00:10:37.920 is what they're up to so she could tell them kind of what they wanted to hear so she's very skilled

00:10:42.360 at palm reading and face reading um she was able to offer them advice of the sort that kept them

00:10:48.820 coming back for more because she seemed to like really get them she would tell them what they

00:10:52.700 wanted to hear i almost picture it partially maybe as almost like a therapy session like if

00:10:57.560 she just told them like you know what you deserve better in life they'd be like i do you know like

00:11:02.320 who else is telling you that when you're like struggling in paris in the 17th century her

00:11:09.120 fortune telling became so popular um word of mouth spread and she became the one of the go-to

00:11:15.660 fortune tellers for the elite of the french aristocracy so i also want to say i came to her

00:11:20.680 story thinking like i want to find a real life witch and she's not referred to as a witch really

00:11:26.480 well okay spoiler she's eventually executed for witchcraft but she's more of a fortune teller

00:11:35.740 slash sorceress slash entrepreneur i would say so where is she living what's the world like so

00:11:43.280 what was happening in the culture at this time and era so first of all everyone was catholic

00:11:52.700 because they had been forced to become catholic do you remember if this is not your first episode

00:11:59.860 of this podcast the whole queen margot situation where it was like the protestants and the catholics

00:12:05.720 and the massacre and like what religion is the country going to have so they had sort settled

00:12:10.740 into like our country france is going to be a catholic country so people were familiar with

00:12:18.000 catholic mass now because they all had to attend it but they came to some of the people would be

00:12:25.760 coming to this mass with a previous understanding of sort of paganism and those sorts of customs so

00:12:32.640 when they saw people in church being like okay this is the blood of christ this is the body of

00:12:37.000 christ people be like i guess that guy's a magician and i guess he literally just

00:12:40.580 turned wine into blood so the line between what is catholic religion and what is sort of like

00:12:48.440 magic was very thin slash non-existent so people were very into magic they were very into the dark

00:12:56.460 arts um they're also very into poisoning each other so this is an era this is a post catherine

00:13:03.800 dimidici era so she had come over from italy and was really knowledgeable about poisons and now

00:13:09.520 lots of other people were too so it was a time where people you couldn't like test if someone

00:13:16.920 had died of poisoning like the only way you could definitely tell that someone was poisoned was to

00:13:21.360 be like okay well this guy like he drank from this cup and then he died and there's still some stuff

00:13:25.400 left in the cup so let's feed that to like a rat and if the rat dies then it probably was poison

00:13:31.020 like there's there wasn't really ways to figure out if people being poisoned so just a lot of

00:13:34.900 people poisoning was just like the cool thing people are doing a lot versailles was the thing

00:13:42.680 that was happening they're like fancy french court there's that tv show maybe you watched

00:13:47.860 all the men with the nice hair so there was a french court at versailles so there's all these

00:13:53.880 courtiers who were there it was really cutthroat because everybody it was the sun king levy the

00:14:00.160 14th right he was like super important king and everybody wanted to be his to be in with him they

00:14:07.660 wanted to have the king's favor uh women wanted to be the king's mistress so just to get ahead

00:14:14.700 people are also poisoning each other a lot there as well slash doing magic spells to try and do

00:14:20.720 better in court so it's just sort of like a place where casual use of poison and magic were both

00:14:27.520 happening a lot especially among more wealthy people and so when you're someone like Catherine

00:14:33.880 who's like well what if I just expand my business from face and palm reading to also providing

00:14:39.660 poisons and magic spells so she really saw an opportunity and went for it in a way that reminds

00:14:48.080 me of go with me here don't be mad at me j-lo of j-lo who was jennifer lopez the first celebrity

00:14:56.900 of kind of the current era to be like famous as an actress and then be like you know what i'm

00:15:02.800 gonna do also be like release some albums you know i'm also gonna do jeans and also perfume

00:15:09.480 like i feel like j-lo was the first celebrity ever modern era to come out with a perfume and

00:15:13.800 now everybody halsey selena gomez rihanna like people have their skincare lines they have their

00:15:19.120 makeup like people have clothing lines like just doing lots of different things and that's what

00:15:24.440 katherine was doing in france she was just like i'm gonna do face reading i'm gonna give people

00:15:32.080 potions to help with her aches and pains i'm gonna give people poison to like kill other people i'm

00:15:38.260 gonna we'll see what she does but she really her portfolio was vast so it's basically when someone

00:15:44.760 came to her wanting something if that wasn't a service she already offered she'd be like you

00:15:48.480 know what now i do offer that service and i will do that for you so she actually became so

00:15:54.160 overwhelmed with clients that she started working sort of so there's sort of like this magical

00:15:59.480 underground of people doing stuff like this there was midwives oh abortion did i say that that's

00:16:08.020 another trigger warning abortions abortionists um there was renegade priests there was just kind

00:16:15.660 of a lot of there was this whole black market of like people doing magic related stuff around

00:16:20.680 paris and so she they really referred people to each other a lot um so it's not like she set up

00:16:25.480 franchises or satellite locations but she really would sort of get other people to help her out

00:16:31.000 because she was just one person and she could only do so much so the clients who were able to 0.76

00:16:38.360 pay for this were super rich aristocrats poor people would do things too but just they could 0.99

00:16:43.980 afford less stuff like maybe you could get a potion you wouldn't be able to get a magic spell

00:16:49.660 that a priest said at a mass you know so it's just kind of like a sliding scale sort of thing

00:16:56.820 but also Catherine and other people like her seemed to have used this sort of like literally

00:17:02.020 a sliding scale so the very wealthy people they would charge so much money to them because those

00:17:06.840 people could pay it kind of they were all sort of wildly in debt but technically they could pay it

00:17:12.940 and that way they were able to Catherine was able to provide services to people who didn't have as

00:17:17.140 much money so it all kind of balanced out in this kind of cool way but remember country France super

00:17:24.720 Catholic at the time so although this was all happening and like everyone was doing it everyone

00:17:29.040 had to pretend like it wasn't happening and they weren't doing it so in 1665 or 1666

00:17:35.400 when she would have been in her 20s she was questioned by some people some Catholic type

00:17:43.960 authorities who were just like are you doing magic and things but she explained towards the

00:17:50.840 professors at the Sorbonne University again I don't know the details of this because there's

00:17:55.920 not a lot written about her but her defense is basically all of her powers are given to her by

00:18:01.140 God so actually she's being like a really especially good Catholic by doing what God

00:18:06.020 wants her to do which is tell fortunes and sell potions and they were like that's a great point

00:18:13.360 so go ahead and do it they likely also gave her a pass for what she's doing because she was friendly 0.94

00:18:18.760 with lots of super important people um one might assume she may have also been blackmailing people 0.61

00:18:26.660 like there was priests she was dealing with and maybe the priest didn't want her to out them

00:18:30.420 so yeah so she but she like in her testimony and stuff when she's arrested later it's all really

00:18:38.520 wrapped up together in this fascinating way the whole being a catholic but also doing magic and

00:18:45.000 all in one sort of thing to her is how she saw it maybe that's how she portrayed herself as seeing

00:18:51.700 it so she just kept expanding her business where she saw opportunities um as i mentioned there was

00:19:00.220 overlap between people wanting magic potions and people who need midwife care and people seeking 1.00

00:19:05.340 abortions because a lot of her business was women and so women who for whatever reason you know if

00:19:13.160 they wanted a man to fall in love with them if they wanted their husband to die if they wanted 1.00

00:19:18.260 to have a baby if they want to not have a baby like there's overlap right like there's a potion

00:19:23.480 but also maybe like a midwife could help you with these things so katherine from what i can tell 0.80

00:19:29.360 she didn't herself like she didn't perform abortions herself but she would refer them 1.00

00:19:35.340 to one of her colleagues people like a woman called katherine bellow known as la la pair 1.00

00:19:41.800 and her daughter everybody's got a cool name in this like love it so abortionists were known as 1.00

00:19:50.100 angel makers due to how they offered women of all classes a means of escaping the relentless cycle 0.71

00:19:55.700 of pregnancy and childbirth so abortionists were usually midwives as well their methods

00:20:02.620 included herbs that would cause abortions they would also perform surgical procedures or simply

00:20:11.420 took away an unwanted infant after delivery allegedly some of these angel makers hid the

00:20:18.220 evidence of their work by bringing it to katherine to destroy now this is no one knows this for sure

00:20:24.020 katherine liked to brag and to self-promote like any good entrepreneur so also when she was drinking

00:20:30.980 she just like got the loose lips like she would just say a little bit too much and so allegedly

00:20:35.940 she bragged that she had burned the bodies of 2500 infants in the little stove in her garden

00:20:41.400 consulting room which is a huge number even considering she's doing this for like 20 years

00:20:46.740 that's like elizabeth bathory level really huge number so i think she said that to try and

00:20:54.860 someone said she said that a person who was arrested and who's trying to make katherine

00:21:00.320 look bad was like oh but Catherine once said that she burned 2500 infants in her stove so this is

00:21:07.260 where a lot of this there's a I'm dubious about some of the facts especially kind of the most

00:21:14.560 dramatic ones like at first I'm like is this an Elizabeth Bathory thing like did she actually do

00:21:18.820 anything because a lot of the claims are so wild like 2500 infants but Catherine did do a lot of

00:21:26.200 stuff we just don't know if she did that what we do know is that several of her potions the

00:21:31.540 love potions or potions for people who want babies or whatever um did require as some of

00:21:36.720 their ingredients they needed things that emerged in the childbirth experience like

00:21:42.140 the afterbirth so i think she might have had some sort of arrangement with some of the

00:21:46.100 midwives slash abortionists to get i don't know not like stem cells but what's it called the

00:21:52.340 umbilical cord and things so all of this keep in mind is happening but abortion was a capital

00:22:01.460 offense at the time so if someone was found to have had an abortion both the mother of the

00:22:06.640 aborted child and the midwife who performed the abortion were both liable to be sentenced to the

00:22:12.200 death penalty so this was also like a thing a lot of people did but uh you didn't want to

00:22:18.660 brag about it although apparently katherine did like to brag about it so um let's see so some of 1.00

00:22:26.920 the other things that katherine and other sorceresses slash entrepreneurs like her they

00:22:32.500 provided remedies not just for like love potions not just midwife referrals but they also provided 1.00

00:22:39.200 remedies to cure headaches leprosy pimples bad breath labor pains um she also sold cosmetics

00:22:47.020 products to whiten the complexion, powders to whiten the teeth, and dyes to cover the gray

00:22:53.200 in your hair. So she was just like a one-woman Sephora slash, I don't know, like new age

00:23:01.860 essential oil center. She would sell people a substance called potable gold, which was believed 0.99

00:23:09.540 to cure almost any malady. So when she was arrested, they seized a grimoire from her book,

00:23:15.860 like literally a grimoire which if you don't know is like recipe book for witchcraft um and so there

00:23:22.580 were ingredients like for all her potions listed in there and so the recipe that she has for potable

00:23:28.440 gold is basically identical to ones found in documents from the middle ages so she wasn't

00:23:33.040 just making this stuff up like she found what the spells ingredients were and then she did them

00:23:38.700 herself according to her notes in her grimoire potable gold could relieve lethargy pleurisy

00:23:46.520 ulcers gangrene and rabies among numerous other afflictions so she dispensed this at great expense

00:23:52.540 to her wealthiest clients so again she was charging the most money to the people who could

00:23:56.800 afford it so yeah so she provided amulets and charms but even the most innocuous of these like

00:24:04.480 you know just like a little a little pendant would technically violate the catholic church's

00:24:09.580 prohibition against superstition which is a wild thing to prohibit like you just can't be

00:24:14.540 superstitious like to tell someone you can't be superstitious it doesn't stop someone from you

00:24:19.820 know and someone sneezes from saying god bless you like it's so and this is a period where people

00:24:24.280 just really believed literally in magic um there's a lot of wars going on so there were some men

00:24:29.900 clients of hers they wanted her to cast a spell that rendered its user invulnerable to sword

00:24:36.640 wounds according to Catherine's grimoire okay this is an interesting one because it's not like

00:24:44.140 you know get an after birth and mix it with potable gold it's like it's basically just a

00:24:49.000 mantra so the spell quote-unquote is just every day so three times every let me see every morning

00:24:57.960 three times while still in bed and three times after getting under the bed you just kind of said

00:25:01.860 this phrase which is i arise in the name of jesus christ please govern me well and guide me to

00:25:07.500 eternal life in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit so that's literally just a prayer

00:25:12.740 slash mantra slash just you know positive self-talk like that so people would pay her and

00:25:19.460 she would tell them that like amazing so this doesn't seem specifically you know satanic it

00:25:28.680 literally is a prayer but this was written in her grimoire like here's how you make people not die

00:25:34.440 in combat and she wrote it in her grimoire so it just kind of shows again that sort of like

00:25:39.100 mixed up or just blended gray area between what is religion and what is magic and how did she

00:25:46.920 interpret that so let's see she also sold items that promised to make their clients wealthy

00:25:51.960 because people were ambitious um so there were some charms or spells to make people you know do

00:25:58.980 well at playing cards or other sorts of gambling let's see oh okay so there's a thing some babies

00:26:07.160 are born with a thing called a call c-a-u-l so like literally when a baby is born some babies

00:26:14.120 have a piece of membrane covering the newborn's head and face uh this is rare occurring in fewer

00:26:19.920 than one in 80 000 births the call is harmless and immediately removed like this still happens

00:26:25.340 this happened back then but it was believed back then that anyone who's born with a call meant that

00:26:30.080 that was a lucky person and then they sort of extended that to be like so if anyone owned a

00:26:35.920 call even if it wasn't the one they were born with then that would make them lucky too so again she

00:26:40.420 would work alongside the midwives and the abortionists and get people calls or you know

00:26:46.660 what i'm gonna guess other things that they just kind of claimed were calls because who's gonna

00:26:51.620 know really so there's two things that were like if someone was in serious financial trouble

00:26:57.400 slash but still able to pay for catherine to help them out there's two things that they could get

00:27:02.680 there was a magic coin called the pistol volant which was a allegedly a magical coin that could

00:27:08.860 be spent repeatedly no matter how many times the owner exchanged the coin it would always reappear

00:27:12.840 in his or her pocket how did Catherine do that I don't know um but for it's it's a two-part thing

00:27:22.180 so you get the magic coin but then to make it work especially good you wanted to combine it

00:27:27.820 with a thing called Amanda Glor which I think is the hand of glory

00:27:31.700 oh my god so amanda glore mega expensive katherine who also kept very careful record 1.00

00:27:40.580 keeping of how much money she made doing different things she once sold one for 50 gold coins and an 0.79

00:27:46.240 amethyst ring so amanda glore i'm not gonna it's a really basically by the time you give it to a

00:27:53.440 person she's basically giving them a box but the backstory for what she would say had happened to

00:28:00.120 it before you get a a mare in heat and you strip the hide hair and everything off of it while

00:28:07.540 seeing a specific chant then you conceal the skin in a safe place then you set off and purchase a

00:28:12.460 new earthenware pot without bargaining over its price these are all the instructions upon returning

00:28:17.040 from getting your earthenware pot you fill the pot with water from a fountain submerge the hair

00:28:22.300 the mare hide in it i wrote mare but i think it's hair i think i did a typo there because a mare

00:28:29.140 that's like a horse right so anyway cover the pot place the pot with the hide in it somewhere no one

00:28:36.120 could see it after nine days open the pot and there will be a serpent inside of it okay um the

00:28:42.700 skin of the hair and heat has turned into a serpent and then you are to tell the serpent

00:28:48.440 accept this pact then you put this serpent inside a new box with gold coins and then you're supposed

00:28:53.360 to sleep with the serpent box next to you for three to four hours and you're anyway this is

00:28:57.400 wild but basically just be like here's a box trust made it all this stuff to it please pay me 50 gold

00:29:03.540 coins and amethyst ring and people would because she was good at convincing them that her stuff

00:29:09.340 worked and those are kind of like the things that some men would be looking for but most of her 0.61

00:29:17.000 clients seem to have been women and the women also had a desire for power but for them that was 0.99

00:29:25.020 procured through love and or sex and or both a lot of this had to do with an advantageous marriage

00:29:33.040 so men for instance like and i'm talking like men and women because this is a very

00:29:37.460 gender binary type world that everyone is living in here where it's like marriage is between a man

00:29:44.960 and a woman and um because the marriages were financial things that were all about like

00:29:52.040 conceiving children so men in general um would use love magic to find financially advantageous

00:30:00.060 marriages so like get rich quick sort of spell so it's about money even though the love magic

00:30:05.320 would be to make a woman a wealthy woman fall in love with you oh no sorry because it's not just

00:30:11.740 between the man the woman to get married relatives had to consent to the marriages especially if

00:30:15.520 you're a rich young woman so the spells men would ask for would be ones that focus on the relatives

00:30:21.020 of the woman who they want to marry to manipulate them into consenting that he could marry this 1.00

00:30:27.120 person women in general um would come to her for spells to provide financial security 1.00

00:30:35.740 so Catherine provided things like a powder a powdered herb that would inspire a man to fall 1.00

00:30:42.660 in love with you if he came in contact with a powder um one client Catherine advised to put

00:30:47.280 the powder in a drawer through which the man was likely to search because then he would come into

00:30:50.500 contact with it she also had a substance you could rub into your own hands and then you touch the man

00:30:55.620 with your hands with the stuff on it and that would make him fall in love with you powdered

00:31:00.720 pigeon hearts were also often used for love spells those would be maybe slipped into the

00:31:07.860 food of the man you wanted to fall in love with you and then you could also we're going to get

00:31:13.680 into the renegade priests in detail but you could also katherine could arrange for people

00:31:18.640 to get a renegade priest to say a special series of prayers at various churches because again

00:31:24.920 the line between like magic and priests and being a catholic were very blurred um

00:31:32.020 what's interesting at least one of catherine's clients was in love with a man but it's not just

00:31:43.020 like i want to be with this man it's like this woman was a widow she had five young children

00:31:47.020 and needed a husband for financial support so she just like set her sights on this guy and like was

00:31:51.100 going after it now there's all these herbs spells and things going on so what I think it's like if

00:31:58.680 you really set your heart on something and just like really isn't that the secret by Rhonda Byrne

00:32:04.300 to just like manifest things so maybe that was happening a bit too so she's a picture of a woman 0.94

00:32:10.120 who wanted to make a man fall in love with them as well as women who wanted to try to make an

00:32:15.460 abusive spouse kinder which is so heartbreaking where it's like women were so powerless it's like

00:32:23.300 well i'm in this horrible marriage to this abusive man but like instead of being like so can you help

00:32:28.040 me kill him it's like can you just make him be nicer to me it's heartbreaking so as per this 1.00

00:32:35.480 book i read by lynn wood mollenauer women's use of love magic during this era undermined the social 0.93

00:32:41.340 and spiritual order love magic is if successful is intended to bind another's will influence over 0.99

00:32:47.420 a man's emotions threatened to become command over his reason which would consequently allow 0.91

00:32:52.480 an unruly woman to overturn the natural patriarchal order so women going to katherine to get these 0.89

00:33:00.200 spells was like challenging to all of society uh some of the situations where it's complicated 1.00

00:33:06.980 so one of her clients also wanted uh some potions to make her husband love her better but that

00:33:15.160 wasn't because she wanted the husband to be nicer to her it's because she wanted to have lovers

00:33:18.580 but she thought if the husband loved her then he would let her have lovers so katherine was just

00:33:23.840 like seeing it all people were just coming to her and just talking to her like a bartender slash

00:33:27.960 life coach and she would just be like wow what a serious problem can you just like pay me you know 0.98

00:33:33.720 59.99 for this potion that will fix it all for you great uh there's also of course lovers who 0.99

00:33:40.400 sought themselves to rid to get rid of rivals or spouses who stood in the way of them being together

00:33:46.080 so love magic was often well i don't know if you can say often sometimes used also for murder

00:33:57.040 reasons in fact Catherine herself remember her husband who is like not great bad at business

00:34:05.100 mean to her etc she had in fact on more than one occasion tried to kill her husband but had not

00:34:12.540 been successful so it was widely known that she didn't care much for Antoine she herself had

00:34:19.120 numerous lovers including magicians alchemists an executioner a tavern keeper

00:34:24.160 um a member of the aristocracy who she'd met when she was like giving him palm reading lessons like

00:34:30.460 she clearly she had admirers and they were all knew that her husband is terrible so one of her

00:34:38.440 lovers actually recalled that the standard form of greeting her was just to be like is your husband

00:34:43.460 dead yet it was like how you said bonjour because it was just so widely known that she hated her

00:34:47.660 husband but the thing is Antoine her husband was friends with a public executioner and he knew what

00:34:54.440 she was up to and he said if he died he'd already left instructions to have an autopsy done in his

00:34:58.940 body so if he was murdered then she would be arrested for murdering him so it's this like 0.76

00:35:02.740 stalemate horrible marriage situation the reason why she would try to kill her husband why so many 1.00

00:35:10.700 other women might want to do that is again it's a powerlessness thing like getting a divorce was 0.98

00:35:15.940 basically impossible in this in 17th century catholic france like basically it was so hard 0.94

00:35:22.400 to get a divorce like so many people had to okay it who would never okay it like killing your

00:35:27.140 husband just seemed like easier so and this was because the marriages were again were arranged

00:35:34.100 by these powerful families for reasons where they wanted the alliance between the two families so

00:35:40.380 they would never want the marriage to end because it's like a business decision

00:35:44.800 for an aristocrat to marry for love would undermine everything about just the way the

00:35:48.600 society was functioning again this is from lynn wood molinauer's book so love magic sold by 1.00

00:35:58.040 katherine promised women the opportunity to defy patriarchal authority by ridding themselves of

00:36:03.340 their husbands and marrying lovers of their own choosing the use of magic proved highly subversive

00:36:07.960 of the social order as well as on religious orthodoxy by undermining the limits imposed

00:36:12.760 on women's behavior and thus threaten the institution of the family the doctrine of 0.99

00:36:16.360 the catholic church and by extension the state itself by helping women try to achieve control 1.00

00:36:21.500 over men's passions through charms potions and rituals catherine was corrupting the social order 0.91

00:36:27.340 so it's not just like we're catholic so we don't like witches it's like she was everything she was 0.98

00:36:34.440 doing would upend just the way that the patriarchal society was understood to function so

00:36:40.880 if somebody tried like a potion a hand cream pigeon hearts like and it still wasn't working

00:36:48.400 the person still hadn't fallen in love with them like the next most extreme thing you could do

00:36:53.180 is to have catherine arrange for you a sacrilegious ritual and this required the assistance of an

00:36:59.960 ordained priest so like a literal priest not just a guy in a robe like you need an actual priest

00:37:05.160 because priests are considered to be among the most powerful magicians of all

00:37:10.880 because of what i said like how at church they would sort of be like now the the bread and the

00:37:18.500 wine turns into the body and blood so everyone's like great priests clearly like have a connection

00:37:23.080 between like our world and like the underworld like so they are magicians so priests are considered

00:37:29.400 should be the most powerful magicians of all and so if they did a spell or ritual then the spell

00:37:35.300 ritual would have extra power because they were the one doing it which would make it more likely

00:37:39.860 to work whatever you're trying to make the ritual achieve making someone love you or whatever

00:37:46.840 in fact the priests were at the center of the criminal magical underworld of paris

00:37:53.520 because their activities placed them at the center of this informal network linking

00:37:59.280 practitioners of almost every sort of nefarious activity in the city so they not only acted as

00:38:04.020 sorceress as suppliers and assistants but functioned as magicians and necromancers in their

00:38:08.840 own right too this is priests so when i say supplies like they could supply say catherine

00:38:16.540 needed holy water for a ritual or something or if she needed like the priest needed to like bless

00:38:22.740 the pigeon hearts or whatever like she needed their assistance so also just fyi these renegade 0.94

00:38:28.740 priests were fully dirtbags like they were awful people like even though they were doing similar 0.85

00:38:35.540 stuff to catherine in the sense of like potentially ripping people off and grifting them they had a 0.97

00:38:41.980 lot more political and institutional power as men and being involved with the catholic church so

00:38:47.960 they weren't they were at risk obviously like if the like catholic authorities found the priests

00:38:52.840 were doing this they would be in trouble but they didn't have to be doing this like they were doing

00:38:57.980 okay themselves being wealthy priests where Catherine kind of if she didn't do this like

00:39:03.080 she would have no money so like Catherine and her colleagues were people like poor people doing the

00:39:09.240 best they could the renegade priests were just like already kind of wealthy people who just like

00:39:13.380 got a side hustle because they could so they were normal priests by day admired by the community

00:39:19.800 and presenting themselves as being like you know holy etc by night they not only were like running

00:39:26.680 around doing like secret evil masses and like you know blessing calls but they also had mistresses

00:39:34.740 and secret babies and then at least this one guy it said like his he maybe like sacrificed like he

00:39:41.680 had babies with his mistresses and then he would like when the baby is born he would like use the

00:39:45.280 baby as a human sacrifice for like an evil ritual and stuff and i was being like oh did catherine do

00:39:49.960 that and i don't know but did the priest do that that this one guy did for sure so they're all just

00:39:55.000 like lecherous breaking all their priestly vows so they were just kind of awful and very powerful

00:40:02.080 and what they did part of what they did as well the renegade priests was sort of like privatized

00:40:08.040 church services so like someone could go to church and like see a priest like do confession whatever

00:40:15.100 um but these priests would be like do you want to have like an on-demand special

00:40:21.080 mass just for you like okay pay me and then i'll do that or they could also do things within the

00:40:27.040 church so for instance in this era and time in order to be allowed to take communion at easter

00:40:32.300 mass so like the little flat bread thing that catholics have you had to first confess your

00:40:37.800 sins to be eligible to like get one of those but one client of i think of catherine's or maybe just

00:40:44.340 of one of the priests i was reading about she didn't want to confess her sins because they

00:40:47.920 her so bad she didn't want anyone to know about them so she paid a priest to make a special

00:40:52.060 communion wafer just for her so she could go up for communion and it looks like she was getting

00:40:56.640 communion like everybody else but really it was like a special not um blessed communion host so

00:41:03.020 it looked like she was a good person but really she just paid him to do that for her um the priests

00:41:10.080 would also bless the calls and after births and other ingredients for the love potions that

00:41:14.340 catherine would prepare for wealthy women so necromancy which i had thought meant things with

00:41:22.780 dead people but in this era and place necromancy meant magic to summon evil demons and get them

00:41:30.740 to do your bidding so not bringing dead bodies to life but summoning evil demons getting them

00:41:36.300 to do your bidding and the majority of necromancers in this time and place were also

00:41:42.700 priests and they would the culmination of like their necromancy like summoning forth demons to

00:41:51.500 do your bidding was a thing called the amatory mass an amatory mass is a catholic style mass so

00:42:03.340 a catholic mass which you might have seen in midnight mass on netflix or in the exorcist or

00:42:11.720 in your life at some point usually there's an altar which is sort of like a long table and then

00:42:19.720 the priest lays all the stuff on the table it's like here's the goblet of the wine here's the

00:42:24.240 hosts um he lays up various things on the altar for an amatory mass um being done by an ordained

00:42:32.940 priest to summon a demon to do your bidding uh you would instead of having an altar you would

00:42:39.600 have a naked lady being your altar so i don't know if she would be lying on the altar itself

00:42:45.520 or just like lying on the ground and you sort of like crouch around her so also i just want to

00:42:51.700 also note that this is not the same thing as i think i called it a black mass before but this

00:42:58.740 is an amatory mass so a black mass which this is not is a form of satan worship an amatory mass

00:43:06.240 being done by catherine's priest colleagues were being done as a sort of intersection between

00:43:11.780 demon summoning and love magic and they were paid for and done for women who were really

00:43:17.720 intent on making a man fall in love with them or fall back in love with them yeah so similar 0.51

00:43:22.740 to a catholic mass but with a naked woman as your altar often the woman who wanted the man to fall

00:43:30.860 in love with her would herself be the altar so i guess the demon i don't know a naked woman either

00:43:38.040 the person who paid for it or a stand-in um another difference from a regular catholic mass

00:43:43.200 was need to have candles made from the fat of a hanged man which is very specific um and you also

00:43:50.560 maybe needed a baby so remember when i said trigger warning infanticide that's this part

00:43:58.120 the thing about infanticide is that once katherine is arrested again spoiler that's how we know all 1.00

00:44:08.180 this from various people being questioned so this is one of the main crimes that she's charged with 0.72

00:44:16.180 eventually and she always denied having done this even though in public apparently she would brag

00:44:23.400 about having buried or burned so many babies here's the things this was one of the reasons

00:44:29.260 why i really wanted to dive into this story more so than just like skimming a few articles

00:44:34.000 baby murder it's such a thing so it's such a thing that people accuse their enemies of doing but like

00:44:42.280 because i think it gets this visceral response from people being like oh my god that person

00:44:47.480 like they're killing babies like well that must mean they're evil so i will villainize them also

00:44:52.520 so there's a long history um of people being accused of killing babies including ancient 0.85

00:45:00.320 christians were accused of it um jewish people in the medieval times witches in the renaissance era

00:45:07.360 um daycare operators in the 1980s during the satanic panic lots of people lately with

00:45:15.680 pizzagate and q anon it's sort of like a go-to thing so just when i hear like someone is killing

00:45:22.160 babies. Not that that could never happen, but it just makes me think like, is this just someone

00:45:29.120 trying to villainize them in sort of like a really gross, but also easy way. So we do not

00:45:35.500 know for sure if living babies were literally killed at these amatory masses held by Catherine's

00:45:41.380 friends. Given that Catherine had inns with midwives and abortionists, it's possible that

00:45:48.300 maybe a stillborn baby or a baby who was born early and didn't survive um or maybe like a fetus

00:45:56.800 might have been used in place of like actually slitting the throat of a living baby there were

00:46:03.760 some some of the priests some of the renegade priests did later confess to doing all of this

00:46:07.660 but it's sort of like in the salem witch trials situation which i assume we all know about

00:46:12.880 or like if you're tortured enough like people will say anything really so it's like is this true

00:46:19.220 so to quote ann somerset from my source the affair of the poisons that book it is impossible

00:46:27.420 to know whether children had really been sacrificed in black magic ceremonies in paris

00:46:32.200 obviously at a time when poverty and lack of contraception ensured there were many unwanted

00:46:36.800 babies finding infant victims would not have presented an insurmountable problem and one

00:46:42.500 cannot rule out that such horrors took place one must however be wary of being too credulous

00:46:47.500 history abounds with cases where witches have confessed to participating in atrocities and

00:46:52.240 abominations which we know to be fictitious this is continuing on quoting Ann Somerset a recent

00:46:58.480 recent authority has suggested that under relentless interrogation which is engaged in a peculiar kind

00:47:03.880 of dialogue with their interlocutors adapting their responses to meet expectations and it is

00:47:09.480 now recognized that under extreme stress individuals will mingle themes from their

00:47:13.260 cultural milieu with elements derived from dream and fantasy to generate self-incriminating

00:47:18.060 narratives which have their own psychological significance so i'm just gonna like set the

00:47:25.620 whole like infanticide thing aside because it's just like we don't know for sure and it's such a

00:47:32.540 horrible major thing to accuse somebody of doing so it's like it is possible this happened

00:47:39.060 but also we don't know that for sure and i don't want to dwell on it so basically what we do know

00:47:45.660 is that these renegade priests um sometimes catherine would hire them to do this they 0.77

00:47:51.960 would do these amatory masses so naked lady lying there who had paid for this mass to be said

00:47:57.660 the priest would say various things do various things um to allegedly summon the demon power

00:48:03.800 and at the end of some of the masses the priest would then make love to the woman which

00:48:09.940 and so Catherine just with this diverse portfolio of products and services cosmetics

00:48:18.420 poisons arranging murders amatory masses um grimoire referring people to abortionists

00:48:28.380 she was never short on business she was flourishing according to one account before she got up every

00:48:36.180 morning there were folk waiting to see her and throughout the rest of the day she was with more

00:48:39.840 people after that she kept open house in the evening with a violin playing and was always

00:48:44.560 making merry which this is also again the thing she liked to drink and when she drank she liked

00:48:52.760 to say more than maybe she should be saying so she just entertained people in her garden in the 0.97

00:48:58.780 evening like she was just like living her life if I might say tits out speaking of so one of

00:49:07.340 Catherine's long time and eventually most important and clients and also an incredibly 1.00

00:49:15.320 important person in the whole the affair of the poisons was a woman named Françoise

00:49:22.220 the rocherchoir de mortemart marquise of montespan aka madame montespan who was the mistress of the

00:49:33.560 king for 12 years from 1667 to 1679 and we need to kind of explain her rise to power and what that

00:49:42.480 has to do with catherine to understand what happens next so well i'll first i'll tell you that

00:49:50.100 the king louis the 14th was married to maria theresa of spain and maria theresa of spain

00:49:56.580 had just kind of pieced out entirely of court life she was not into it she's doing her own thing i

00:50:00.680 didn't read up on her very much but i assume she was a cool person and so louis was just living it

00:50:06.340 up with his various mistresses just like living that versailles life whoever his main mistress

00:50:11.700 was because he had like it's like sister wives there's like mistress number one mistress number

00:50:16.760 two so it's like who's the most powerful and whoever the number one most powerful mistress was

00:50:21.360 was effectively the shadow queen she did all the queen things because the queen was not there had 0.99

00:50:26.920 wild amounts of power and that's why a lot of women like this woman turned to magic to try and

00:50:34.240 get that job so the person i'm talking about she was born francoise she was born october 1640 which

00:50:41.800 is the same year as when Catherine was born same age so she was born Francoise but then in a very

00:50:51.380 Claire Claremont proto Claire Claremont type moment she changed her name to Atanaise which

00:50:58.340 frankly and this is not just because you know Claire Claremont is my girl and as a person

00:51:06.680 growing up named ann like the most boring name in existence ann like not even ann with an e just

00:51:18.280 ann i always wanted to change my name to something cool and my parents would not let me change my

00:51:23.500 name to something cool and i've come around and i'm okay with my name but if i was growing up and

00:51:29.960 my name was francoise and i could become a tanais like of course i would do that so she just

00:51:35.480 rebranded herself she became a tanaise um her family was very well connected she was very rich

00:51:42.540 she was married when she was 23 years old she married louis henry de pardell de gondrin

00:51:50.280 the marquise of montespan who was about her same age although she was in love with another man

00:51:55.640 because her life is real scandalous we're not going to be scoring her but i think if we did

00:52:02.780 she get high marks so they had two children together her and her husband and she got a job

00:52:08.820 as the a lady-in-waiting to the duchess of orleans at royal court so that got her on the scene and

00:52:14.920 she became known as the reigning beauty of the court and she was very beautiful everybody said

00:52:19.420 so when you look at portraits of her of a tanais you see that she honestly i'm just like did

00:52:27.100 everybody back then have the same face or were the painters just only capable of drawing

00:52:32.260 one face because she looks just kind of a lot like everybody else from the same time but i think it's

00:52:37.980 probably a cleopatra thing where it's like when you saw her in person like the power of her charisma

00:52:43.560 would just make her the most beautiful person in the room she was also very cultured she was a good

00:52:51.120 conversationalist she kept on top of political news and events and this made her even more

00:52:56.120 appealing to men of intellect and power because she could keep up with them in conversations

00:52:59.460 she was courted by a number of suitors but had her sights set on the king because this is a

00:53:04.080 situation where like like the debauchery like i really hope i'm setting the scene of just

00:53:08.480 the country was ostensibly a catholic country where you're supposed to like follow all the

00:53:14.360 bible rules but in versailles anything goes and then in like the magical underworld of paris

00:53:19.980 anything goes like people were just secretly living life tits out while pretending to be 0.95

00:53:24.380 tits in sort of moment. And so Montesbon, we'll just call her that. So she first visited Catherine 0.95

00:53:34.320 Montvoisard in 1665 for love magic to help her win the heart of the king. And so this is when

00:53:41.260 she was like, they were both like 25 years old. Yeah. So they're both 25 years old. So even by

00:53:48.580 age 25 katherine was already like the go-to for ambitious young aristocrats now i'm not sure if

00:53:56.380 this becomes a whole thing and i won't get into it because i honestly can't keep track of it

00:54:00.140 but madame de montespan didn't necessarily go to katherine herself but she sent like

00:54:05.600 her lady in waiting like she sent her companion to go and do these errands and like pick up you

00:54:12.060 know the potions and whatever but they seem to have had some sort of business relationship

00:54:18.500 so allegedly Catherine and Madame de Montesbon well Madame de Montesbon got Catherine to call

00:54:26.880 on the devil and pray to him for the king's love so she provided Madame de Montesbon with

00:54:33.480 a potion that she would use for the duration of her relationship with the king 0.73

00:54:38.400 so because spoiler the king fell in love with her so she once she was in with the king she like 0.97

00:54:47.560 catherine like a subscription service like catherine would just keep her with this potion 1.00

00:54:51.920 to keep putting in the king's food to like keep the king staying in love with her was the potion

00:54:56.800 doing anything or was the king just actually in love with her you know who's to say again it's

00:55:01.420 the secret by rhonda byrne manifesting so madame de montesbonne so she was rich enough to get all 0.77

00:55:09.220 all the things i'm sure she got the powders she got the hand cream she got the amatory masses 0.56

00:55:15.860 she she did literally everything she could because she wanted to be the king's mistress and she was 1.00

00:55:21.560 also beautiful and smart and caught the king's attention through all of this stuff and she 0.99

00:55:28.080 became the king's new mistress even though the mistress before her louise de la valière was

00:55:34.360 literally pregnant with his child and the king left louise to be with madame de montespan who

00:55:41.080 side note i feel like do you need love magic when you do things like this which is apparently

00:55:46.080 she is said to have seduced the king by dropping her towel when she was getting out of the shower

00:55:52.860 and he was walking by like i don't know if she needed magic but if it gave her a little bit more

00:55:57.780 confidence good for her so the king was not strictly monogamous to her because that's not

00:56:04.880 the deal but she was the main mistress so again for like 12 years she was effectively the shadow 0.99

00:56:11.820 queen like the most powerful woman around but when she felt threatened like another mistress was 1.00

00:56:17.120 maybe getting too powerful she would send her maid to see Catherine again to arrange more

00:56:21.720 amatory masses which she felt like were helpful so she did this in 1676 so that's like 10 years in

00:56:29.640 on her relationship with the king she also had like seven children with the king and because

00:56:33.720 of how france worked the children were all legitimized so they weren't like considered 0.97

00:56:37.680 illegitimate children so which is notable for later anyway so 1676 she turned to catherine

00:56:44.600 again and it worked the other person um did not win the king's heart and then three years later

00:56:52.260 1679 she turned to catherine again but this time she was unsuccessful sort of so the king had moved

00:56:58.760 on to a new hot young mistress named the duchess of fontange who actually died before she could

00:57:04.340 officially become his mistress and this is the thing where it's like did madame de modespain

00:57:10.100 poison her with the help of Catherine like to me sounds like pretty possible because again like

00:57:18.120 everyone's just poisoning everyone all the time it's just this that's just what you do which 0.94

00:57:23.900 brings us to the affair of the poisons which is which is the thing so a woman named Madame de

00:57:31.820 brinvilliers in 1676 she was accused and went to trial for having conspired with her lover to

00:57:41.240 poison her father and two of her brothers for inheritance reasons and she was in fact herself

00:57:46.760 an accomplished poisoner she had practiced and honed her poisoning skills by being sort of like

00:57:51.580 a candy striper of evil in a hospital where a lot of people died so like she tried different

00:57:56.780 poisons on the different patients and be like oh no all the patients keep dying and then like 0.79

00:58:01.260 note to self that poison works well she was tortured and confessed and was sentenced to 0.90

00:58:06.100 death she was beheaded and her body was burned at the stake so like r.i.p madame de brevilliers

00:58:12.460 this sensational trial like this trial caused a sensation because it's got everything and this

00:58:20.440 kind of brought the king's attention and other people's attention to the fact they're like

00:58:24.260 haven't there been other mysterious deaths that all have to maybe also to do with like

00:58:30.100 inheritances or like people keep dying could everyone be poisoning each other so then the

00:58:37.700 king himself started to worry that he might be poisoned so he got well first of all a taste

00:58:42.420 tester if he didn't already and then he got he hired a guy to start investigating what's going

00:58:47.680 on with all these poisonings you know where's the poison coming from is there potentially

00:58:51.960 a secret underground magical community in the catacombs of paris and this brought to light

00:58:58.380 yes there is and katherine is like the main character of that basically what happened is

00:59:04.880 just people were brought in and to save themselves the people would blab on other people you know

00:59:10.920 when sorceress was brought in and that sorceress was like uh no i didn't do anything it was this

00:59:14.600 person and that person's like it wasn't me it was this person and so eventually there was somebody

00:59:18.380 named marie boss so marie boss was a former colleague of katherine's but they had

00:59:24.120 they'd work together to help this client murder a man because this woman wanted to murder her 0.95

00:59:32.500 husband so she could marry someone else so they had like teamed up to just like co-poison this

00:59:36.240 man but then they had a falling out when catherine felt marie hadn't paid her as much as she'd 1.00

00:59:41.240 promised to like help out with this poison situation marie still mad at catherine but

00:59:46.660 like squealed on her so then catherine herself was arrested as she left her parish parish church

00:59:52.200 after sunday mass so she was now and so is madame de montespan uh 42 years old catherine was so 0.97

00:59:59.920 successful from her many enterprises her many businesses that she was set to fling handfuls

01:00:06.220 of coins from her carriage as she drove around the city baller move and so the thing with catherine 1.00

01:00:12.200 as i mentioned before when she was drunk she was known to just like get a bit too chatty chatty so 1.00

01:00:18.580 when she was first arrested they didn't even torture her they just like kept her constantly

01:00:22.500 drunk to get her talking and in fact she did so she revealed the names of several important

01:00:27.380 courtiers who were her clients which was a main domino in the whole affair of the poisons thing

01:00:35.060 happening because the king was like find out who's doing the poisonings and it turns out it's like

01:00:38.580 guess who's doing the poisonings like all of your friends and your mistress and the king was like

01:00:43.340 that's not what i wanted you to find out so but she denied having anything to do with madame de

01:00:49.320 montespan or even with madame de montespan's maid but the names of the aristocrats she did

01:00:55.660 mention and maybe she mentioned their names hoping that her connection to them would like help save

01:01:00.520 her or something it was so problematic that the king just kind of sealed all the records to be

01:01:06.220 like let's just not let anyone know that literally everyone i know is involved in sorcery and poison

01:01:13.320 listenings oh and so it was this so when she was arrested the renegade priests were also arrested

01:01:19.440 um her ex-lover was arrested who was a magician and he was the one it was at this point he claimed

01:01:25.340 that she had the remains of 2,500 aborted infants in her garden which he was just trying to make

01:01:31.000 her look bad like everyone was just trying to make everyone else look bad so that they themselves

01:01:34.240 would not be executed Catherine denied having 2,500 aborted infants in her garden and the garden

01:01:40.940 was never searched so either the king didn't want to investigate this abortions angle or just

01:01:46.640 everyone was like that's too big a number we're just gonna assume you're lying there's even one

01:01:53.000 point where Catherine and her rival Marie were like brought into a room together I guess to try

01:01:59.320 and see if they could make each other talk and it was this classic like I'm gonna say like dynasty

01:02:06.560 slash days of her life slash moment where just these two women who hated each other but were so 0.95

01:02:14.140 cool were just were like well you did this and then the other one's like no i didn't and you 0.70

01:02:18.180 did this and they were just like flinging accusations at each other while the king's

01:02:22.260 investigator just like wrote it all down being like oh wow look at all these things that are

01:02:24.980 true where it's like are these things true are these women just trying to like tell each other

01:02:29.160 off and sort of know what it is is it's like a reading it's like a rupaul's drag race moment

01:02:34.260 basically so like that's the sort of context in which some of the stuff about katherine

01:02:38.380 is found where they're just not even torturing people but just like everyone was desperately

01:02:45.740 saying horrible things about other people so that they themselves would seem less bad

01:02:50.920 so yeah katherine was put on trial she was found guilty and was sentenced to be burnt alive for

01:02:58.920 witchcraft and poisoning under quest she was questioned again so even after she had been

01:03:04.620 sentenced to be executed she's tortured again because they're like can we get anything else

01:03:09.680 out of her which i feel like at this point they should be like let's make her stop talking because 1.00

01:03:13.600 this is everything she says just makes more important people be in trouble so even under

01:03:19.940 torture she continued to deny having anything to do with madame de montespan or her maid

01:03:24.200 and to not know anything about priests conducting amatory masses even though she's already going to

01:03:29.120 be executed prior to her execution she was taken for one final confession at which she because she 0.98

01:03:36.780 just like is a showman show woman above anything else one less final twist she at her confession 0.99

01:03:44.560 she requested to retract one of her allegations and everyone was just like what a twist um but i 1.00

01:03:51.080 don't think they let her do that so her execution she was dressed in white because that is what

01:03:57.280 people wore when they were being executed apparently the descriptions i read just said

01:04:02.420 she's wearing a white gown and her face was very red and i you know what i have a pale complexion

01:04:07.600 when i'm feeling heightened emotions my face gets red too understandable to me also she'd just been

01:04:13.260 tortured so red face she's taken to the scaffold and i guess some sort of like cart or something

01:04:20.960 the streets of paris filled with people wishing to catch a glimpse of her because she was so

01:04:25.240 famous like i think she'd been famous as a business person before like people recommending

01:04:31.280 each other to see her but now she'd been arrested i'm sure there was you know lots of pamphlets and

01:04:35.480 things about her so she was super famous everybody wanted to see her passing by um when they got to

01:04:42.540 the place where she was being executed she refused to get out of the cart so would i 0.75

01:04:46.440 understandable she had to be dragged out by force apparently she was swearing dreadful oaths as they

01:04:52.600 did that good for her again then she was chained to the stake upon which she was going to be burned

01:04:59.360 but she was still desperate to save herself which you know there's been other stories about people

01:05:03.660 being executed who are so like poised and graceful and like you know willing to do it but she was 0.98

01:05:09.520 just like fuck no i don't want to be i don't want to die so they started like heaping straw around 0.98

01:05:15.440 her so that she would like burn more easily and she like kicked the straw away like she was not 1.00

01:05:19.480 going down without a fight Catherine Mauvoise legend she was burned at the stake and died on

01:05:27.040 February 22nd 1680 one month before her execution Catherine so she remember she had children so she

01:05:35.900 had a daughter named Marie Marguerite who was her oldest daughter and I guess she sort of 0.85

01:05:40.520 she had been her assistant against her will Marie Marguerite didn't want to do this 0.99

01:05:45.220 but i guess katherine treated her pretty poorly marie marguerite was arrested and brought her

01:05:50.040 questioning before katherine was executed she didn't say anything but then after her mother

01:05:54.360 was executed marie marguerite was like well you know she maybe wanted to like help her mother by

01:06:00.460 not talking but then her mother's executed so she's like might as well tell them what i'm here

01:06:04.380 to say i don't think she was tortured i think she just like offered up information like as a witness

01:06:08.960 so she said she hadn't um wanted to help her mother but her mother had said she would like

01:06:15.240 poison her if she didn't which so just abused her to make her help out with various things 0.95

01:06:21.720 but marie marguerite didn't know exactly what was going on like she would just see bits and 1.00

01:06:24.600 pieces of things or maybe she'd help you know like sun dry the pigeon hearts or whatever so

01:06:30.720 she didn't she was not like katherine was not her mentor she didn't like show her the grimoire and

01:06:36.640 teacher the spells marie marguerite was just sort of like helping out in an assisting capacity

01:06:41.240 but it's from marie marguerite that we learn that catherine probably did have dealings with

01:06:46.500 madame de montespan's maid um it was also marie marguerite so i don't know if this was just like

01:06:53.380 her wanting to tell a good story or if this is true but she said that madame de montespan had

01:06:58.560 in fact poisoned that her rival remember the other mistress who died marie marguerite also 0.99

01:07:03.700 alleged that Madame de Montesbon had wanted Catherine to help with the plot to poison the

01:07:08.260 king himself kind of so she explained that before Catherine was arrested Catherine had tried to

01:07:14.860 present a petition to the king and the questioners were really like why did she want to present a

01:07:19.100 petition to the king like what was in that so I guess it's a thing where like you know the king

01:07:23.520 sits at a table and people can come in and be like I want more sheep or whatever so she wanted to see

01:07:29.080 the king and they were like was it because she wanted to poison the king was there poison on

01:07:34.420 the letter and even marie marguerite was like that's not how poison works you can't like put

01:07:39.300 poison on paper but they were like okay marie marguerite said that catherine wanted to poison

01:07:45.640 the king this is a case of regicide and they just kind of got carried away with it but

01:07:51.940 eventually like from what marie marguerite said the involvement of madame de montespan

01:07:59.000 even at an arm's length in like any of this was just more than the king had wanted to know

01:08:04.740 especially because remember madame de montespan had like seven children with him and they had

01:08:09.920 been legitimized oh no she was the mother of three of his legitimized children and so this

01:08:14.980 would threaten those children and it kind of makes the king look dumb if his mistress is like 0.50

01:08:19.580 doing all this stuff so the king was just like let's just stop this investigation and pretend 0.63

01:08:25.520 like it never happened all told the affair of the poisons implicated 442 suspects of whom 218 were

01:08:32.680 arrested of these 36 including catherine were executed and 23 were sent to exile many of the

01:08:39.680 accused were never brought to trial but because they were too important or something but they

01:08:44.660 were placed outside the justice system and imprisoned for life like on the down low the

01:08:49.680 whole thing ended in 1682 when the king abolished the whole situation because it was becoming

01:08:56.360 obvious literally everyone important was involved in all of this and it might taint his own reputation

01:09:01.040 understandably from all this madame de montespan fell out of royal favor she was no longer a number

01:09:07.940 mistress and she retired herself to a convent she had a lengthy retirement period in the convent i

01:09:15.800 hope she had a nice time she donated lots of money to hospitals and charities she was a generous

01:09:21.100 patron of the arts and the letters uh she also gave devoted these final years of her life to a 0.64

01:09:27.440 very severe penance maybe for having i don't know i guess for like poisoning people allegedly

01:09:35.700 her three youngest children were very sad about her death but the king forbade them to wear

01:09:42.860 mourning for her because he wanted to just like pretend she never existed she died may 27 1707

01:09:49.820 aged 66 and actually she died while taking the waters so like you know bathing herself at a

01:09:58.740 place where there's supposed to be um healing waters to try and heal an illness so you know

01:10:03.260 what she's still into like i'm gonna say superstition based medicine catherine's daughter

01:10:08.620 marie marguerite along with five other associates of catherine's so even though they were not i

01:10:15.580 don't think charged with anything they were just for being involved generally they were imprisoned

01:10:19.620 at a women's prison and marie marguerite's date of death is unknown and that is the saga of catherine

01:10:30.520 mon voisin aka la voisin and the affair of the poisons so for a minute it seemed like i was

01:10:39.360 going to have to like score the affair of the poisons and not her until i found that second

01:10:43.380 book that had so much good information and so now i feel comfortable scoring so

01:10:47.300 we turn now to the fredigand memorial scandalicious scale

01:10:51.280 katherine so scandaliciousness i think is inarguably a 10 based on all of it like even 0.64

01:11:03.220 even though not everything that she was accused of necessarily happened the fact that she was

01:11:09.280 accused of it is scandalousness she was involved in the affair of the poisons like a literal scandal 0.93

01:11:15.000 she liked to brag about doing all this wild stuff even if she didn't do it which is just 0.99

01:11:21.280 like the scandalousness is very high like that's there's just a 10 i don't think 1.00

01:11:26.400 it could be anything less her scheminess i think is also quite high because 1.00

01:11:31.500 scheminess in terms of just like finding this business developing her business like finding 1.00

01:11:37.940 people when she couldn't do a thing finding someone else who could do that thing like 0.93

01:11:41.400 being able to be this like sorceress entrepreneur for 20 years and not get in trouble even though 0.98

01:11:47.640 it was like everything she did was very against the law i think her scheminess is also very high

01:11:53.000 i'm gonna give her i don't know you know i feel like madame de montespan is like a 10 scheminess

01:11:59.540 because she's the one who like hired her for the amatory masses katherine is more just like

01:12:05.580 did what she did practical choices i'm gonna give her

01:12:09.080 7.5 for scheminess her significance is so this is the thing this is where i think her score may

01:12:20.760 not be super high because she was certainly a major figure in the affair of the poisons

01:12:27.340 she was the linchpin of this kind of like secret paris underground magical community

01:12:32.900 she really made that all happen and then the further poisons was investigating that

01:12:37.500 but the fact that it's so hard to find information about her like she was implicated she was involved

01:12:42.940 but like if she hadn't been there doing as much as she did i feel like someone else would have

01:12:50.720 been there being maybe not as talented like marie boss or whatever like the whole thing wasn't

01:12:56.580 investigated because of her she didn't make them investigate she wasn't even the first person they 1.00

01:13:01.160 investigated. She was very famous. I feel that she's a significant role model to people who 0.95

01:13:07.240 want to be grifters and or women entrepreneurs in an era where that's hard. But I have to say

01:13:17.440 her significance is pretty low. I'm going to give her five for significance. And then the sexism

01:13:27.880 bonus so in the sense of living in a situation where women had no power at all she was able to 1.00

01:13:37.060 use that to her advantage in some ways like she wasn't able to leave her husband and that's 1.00

01:13:43.080 sucks and the patriarchy she helped out women despite the sexism of the era i don't know i

01:13:50.860 think like she was arrested for all this stuff she was executed but like so were men also like 0.97

01:13:57.600 i don't think she was specifically villainized herself like she was treated very badly because

01:14:03.180 she was a poor woman i mean i'm gonna give her the the default five like it's not like there

01:14:11.340 wasn't sexism was part of her story but i feel like it wasn't a major part of her story so what

01:14:17.180 does that that's a 20 27.5 for let's see oh you know who else is a 27.5 mary tudor

01:14:27.580 um is the only one with a 27.5 as well people with 27s francis gray catherine parr jean de

01:14:36.820 lamotte who i feel like spiritually the story is very similar isabelle of castile margaret pole

01:14:43.300 anna de mendoza also the eye patch how cool is she isabelle of portugal 27 so this 27 is like

01:14:52.580 a pretty average score which i think is good and i'm again extremely grateful for the the books

01:15:00.560 that i found so i was able to find enough information about her to actually give her a

01:15:04.380 score and talk about her life there a little bit so yeah i'm just going to mention them again

01:15:11.000 because the books were like challenging to find but they can be found so the affair of the poisons

01:15:17.700 murder infanticide and satanism at the court of louis the 14th by ann somerset and then strange

01:15:22.780 revelations magic poison and sacrilege and louis the 14th france by lynn wood molenauer i will not

01:15:28.740 put i can't i would i can't put links to them in the show notes because these books are literally

01:15:33.740 not available to buy um except for from used stores but i'll put their titles there so you

01:15:39.060 can find them if you want to really dig into all this stuff and thank you so much for listening

01:15:45.280 to this podcast you can let's see all the things so i have a patreon patreon.com slash ann foster

01:15:54.280 writer that is where so for instance it was from patreon that it was decided they voted and chose

01:16:00.800 la voisin as a subject for this episode and i feel like thank you patreons great choice i learned a

01:16:08.020 lot from researching it and it's i'm excited to learn more about the affair of the poisons i'm

01:16:13.100 I'm excited to read the rest of these books, not just the love of that part.

01:16:18.600 Anyway, so if you join the Patreon for as little as $1 a month,

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01:16:34.400 Even when the podcast isn't on, I do a special bonus episode called 0.96

01:16:37.420 So This Asshole about some man who is awful. 0.99

01:16:40.400 and after all of this i feel like louis the 14th might pop up and sew this asshole so that's all 1.00

01:16:46.380 on patreon uh there's also the store vulgar history dot store vulgar history dot s-t-o-r-e 0.99

01:16:52.320 if you buy anything from there like for instance the new tits out brigade 0.91

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01:17:22.040 and don't despair there's not going to be vulgar history for a minute but then in mid-november

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01:17:54.320 Chew on this bold question from Dentine Gum. Is it ever okay to compliment a millennial 0.99

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01:18:03.140 in

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Vulgar History - October 28, 2021

La Voisin, The French Abortionist Tried As A Witch

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