After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - The Murder Network That Terrified Versailles

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

In 17th century France, Louis XIV's court sparkled with luxury. It also teemed with poison, occult rituals and aristocrats trying to murder their way up the social ladder.What started with one poisoned Easter pie uncovered a criminal network stretching from the backstreets of Paris to the bedchamber of the Sun King himself.Joining Anthony to uncover this criminal underworld is special guest co-host, and host of our sister podcast Betwixt the Sheets, Dr. Kate Lister!Edited by Anna Brant. Researched by Phoebe Joyce. Produced by Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's 1663. Beautiful and wealthy Marie Dobre has been experimenting with the dosage of her poison for months. She leans over a patient at the hospital in Paris. Two deadly drops find their way into the water on the bedside table. Marie is a serial killer in 17th century France. She murdered her father and her brother, her servants, and more. But when her crimes were exposed, they uncovered and... network of poisoners across Paris that reached all the way to the court of Louis XIV. Even his mistress, Madame de Montespan, was implicated in what became known as the affair of the poisons. More than 400 people were investigated and dozens were executed. So now, from the poisonous world of 17th century Paris, this is After Dark.

Well, hello and welcome to After Dark. I am. I'm Anthony, and of course I'm not joined by Maddie because she is currently trying to investigate the inclusion of fluoride for Key Stage 1 children all across the north of England. Once she's that solved, she will be back. But for now, we've been joined by a plethora of guest co-hosts. And I'm going to wait for just a second to reveal who my current guest co-host is, because you may have noticed that over my left shoulder, there is a charming addition to the After Dark family. And this is Teresa. and Teresa has been sent to us by a listener called Shannon and she lives in Canada and she sent this to us all on her own back

and it is, I mean not physically she didn't actually carry it on her back there is post nowadays and it is from Shan's creepy creations go and check her out we've also have like a hand and a skull thing over there you'll see that in a minute in another shot when we reveal the co-host but it is so brilliant we are so grateful for this Shannon thank you so much for sending it in it's so perfect for After Dark and now she has pride of place in the shot on YouTube. So if you're not watching on YouTube and you're just listening on the podcast,

go and watch on YouTube and you'll see our new Teresa Doll in the background. Right. Guest co-host reveal time. A few weeks ago, I was teasing who we might have come in to After Dark as the guest co-host. And I felt a little bit bad because I posted a picture going, who do you think this might be? Now, it was a brilliant co-host that went down an absolute storm with all of you guys. But everybody guessed wrong and they guessed consistently wrong

and the same person the entire time. And that was who the guest co-host is this month, the one and only, Dr. Kate Lister. Hello. Hello, After Darkers. I have blackmailed her into joining the Dark Side and now here she is that she has no choice but to be here. She is, of course, as you bloody well know,

the host of Betwixt the Sheets. Also here on After Dark was going to say, no, history hit. We don't own the whole network. It's our own podcast, that's it. but she also has a really incredible new book out called Flick, A History of Female Pleasure. Have I said the whole title correctly? Yep.

Yes. And I know you're going to be so excited that Kate is here for the next four episodes. And we're going to be discussing all kinds of sex history, yes, but also dark history. We're going to be melding. It's the perfect crossover episode between After Dark and Betwixt. Thanks for coming, babe. Any time. It's a pleasure to be here.

I was frankly a little insulted. I wasn't invited earlier. Well, I was just about to say, well, we saved the best to last. because you are the last one before Maddie comes back. But then if I say that, that's insulting to everybody else. So we saved the best for now. No, we saved the... Yeah, everyone's the best.

Everyone's the best. And you're here now. That's how that's going to work. Nicely handled. Thank you. I think I should have been a politician. That's just that. Let's move past this.

That's what politicians say. We want to move past this now. And this one. Always with this hand, whatever that is, the thumb on the hand. Camere, I was nearly going to wear what you wore. A very similar outfit. And in other YouTube episodes, you'll see,

even the red tie. That's a weird coincidence. But just, I went for this instead. I went for like just, you know, old historian. That would have freaked people out if we were twinning. It would be too weird. But actually, that was a missed opportunity. You should have coordinated to be like exactly the same.

Not even just kind of. Right. Okay. Enough preamble, tittle, tittle, Poison. Poison is a foot. Now, give me a little bit of an introduction as to what I can expect from this episode

because I was looking over the briefing notes last. night and it is twists turns ins out loads of names and I was surprised at you because the last time we did something on betwixt together you did not like having to use the French names there's a lot of French names no that's something I need to apologize to apologize to everybody at the start of this is I am going to butcher the French language it's my Achilles heel I'm better with Icelandic than I am with French also coming up by the way also coming up it just you know like that episode of Friends with Joey's trying to speak French I'm so sorry

You don't need to correct me in the comments I know I'm awful at it I was just about to say we're showing a rage by referencing friends but actually loads of everyone watches friends now because it's on whatever I mean I haven't seen it in years but it was sad when it ended

I was there for the original ending of that as well right 17th century Europe we are in an age of poisons I am going to throw back to another after dark episode which I never remember any of them. But my notes tell me that Julia Tafana is also an after dark episode. Afro Tafana. Yeah, the woman who is selling poisons in Italy. That's her. For wives to get out

of unhappy marriages quite conveniently. You'd go to her say, could you give me something? Yeah. And then suddenly you're free of all of your problems. It was an after dark episode. I don't remember, but she, that's now that you've said that, I remember it. But yeah, that was it. Then we also did an episode with Blessing Adams. A poisoned fish episode. I can't help you with that. I don't know what that is. I know who Blessen Adams is.

She's great. I know she is, yeah. But Poison Fish. I would say it's probably great and you should go and listen to it. Okay. And then, oh, poison in the Tower of London with Misha You. And yes, I do remember that one because we love Misha and After Dark. We've had her back a couple of times.

But we're not talking about any of those things today. Those are some old episodes. And thank God, because we don't remember any of them. I don't know what you're about to talk about either. I just wing my way through these things, Kate. It just comes to me as it happens. But we are talking about poison. Yep.

We are talking about women and poison and why there is such a historical link between those. Like why is it when we think about historical female murderers, poison really comes into the frame pretty quickly? I think it was Agatha Christie who coined the phrase that poison is a woman's weapon. And I don't think that's actually borne out by the evidence. Criminologists can weigh in. I think that it's very much an accessible. inclusive murder weapon is poison, but it's known as being a woman's weapon

for a few reasons. I think that number one, there is this really, really long history of women getting out of terrible, terrible marriages by poisoning their husbands. You see that cropping up all over the place. In fact, poisoning syndicates

were discovered all over Europe right up into the 20th century. They were big in Hungary. What's a poisoning syndicates? A poisoning syndicates. That's where there would be a central poisoner, like Juliana Tafana, who would sell poison

for women to kill their husbands. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah, so it's not like they're all colluding together. No. It's coming from this. It's like a pyramid scheme. Yeah, it's like, yeah, basically,

a weird poisoning pyramid scheme. Yeah. And it was big in Hungary, and you've got them cropping up well into the 20th century and they were known as angel makers. Ooh, that's a good movie. But like that, not that I would advocate

poisoning anybody. Please don't do that. It's a bad idea. But you can kind of see how that would happen in a system where women have to get married. There's security and financial security is dependent on them getting married. And there's no way of getting divorced. And you're going to lose all of your rights, all of your money,

your access to your children, everything as soon as that's happened. There is no way out or is there? And I do think that's really, that's such a good point because it is your entire life. And if you were in 17th century England or Italy or Hungary, as you're saying there, it's like, well, do I sit here again, not advocating that anybody's doing this, but I'm just like, you can kind of see the mindset. We're going, do I just sit here and accept this for literally the rest of my life?

Or if he dies, I would get all of the money. I would get everything and then I would be a widow and I don't have to deal with this. So you can see how that rather horrendous trade in poisons arose. And there is a really long history of women poisoning their husband. Then you've got the fact that poison is quite an intimate method of killing and it's put in food, which is historically read as being a feminine thing. the preparing of food, the cooking of food, the serving of food. And there's something particularly nasty about like the weapon is striking right at that place

where you should feel the most comfortable and the most trusting because we eat food from people that we trust. So I think that's where it comes from. And also you don't have to use physical strength to be able to use poison. You can do it and then you can run away. So if I was going to have to murder somebody, it would be poison because I am very physically weak. I don't think you as weak as you think you are. I think you could smother somebody. if you really wanted to.

I mean, maybe. Maybe at some point we should have an arm wrestle and I can show you how weak I am. Okay. That's fine. Right. We'll come back after the break. I'll just be like, no, it would be poison. That was awful.

No, he actually fell on the ground as soon as I touched him. He was gone. That was it. So I'm going to introduce now one of the main protagonists for this episode. It is Marie Madelan Marguerite Dobre. She is born in 1630. I know that to the Dobre family. Tell me why she is important in this episode.

All right. So this is all leading up to the infamous. It was called The Affair of the Poisons, and it was this huge scandal that rocked French society, right from the very, very top, down to the absolute bottom. Marie Di Aubrey wasn't in that scandal. She was the precursor to it. She lit the touch paper. What was particularly shocking about her is that she was an aristocrat. She was born to wealth.

She was born to money. Her father was like the prefect of Paris. He's really high up in the law courts. He's got loads of money. And she would marry a guy who became a marquise. And she becomes the marquis to brand villiers. And she, there was not a lot of love. There was not a lot of love in this marriage.

It was set up for a financial convenience. The guy's name was Goblin, Goblin. Antoine. Antoine, Gobelan, yes. Again, sorry, French people. But listen, Goblin's in there. Let's be honest. Goblin is in there.

His name is Goblin, right? So she has typically well-to-do childhood. Later on, things come out that suggest that she was being sexually abused from about the age of seven. She never says who's done it. She's also accused of incest with her brothers. So there's some weird stuff going on. She marries this guy. He's awful with money.

He's terrible with money. And he's having a fair. So he's spending all of her money. She starts an affair as well with a soldier with a handsome young soldier. Fair play. Fair play. By the name of San Quat, his name is, right? I'm not too bad.

on that one. So Sankoir is also not good with money. And Maville, Marie realizes one thing very, very quickly, which is that a sugar baby is quite expensive. Yeah, they cost a lot of money. It's why I don't have one. The only reason. Maxed out, quite frankly.

More of a splendor infant. No, that sounded awful. Sorry, I didn't know where that went. Leave it in, but nothing got to do with me. I mean, it's like, Shane is four years younger than me. So, you know. Oh, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. Okay, okay. A splendid teenager. So anyway. There's no way to redeem that. No, it's not. We'll just leave that and move on. Moving on. We're moving on. Right.

So she's got this expensive lover. She looks around her family and she thinks, I need more money. Yeah. I need more money. Like I've got this loser husband who's spending all my money and is spending frittling her and his mistresses. I've got this sugar baby who's spending everything. Where can I get money from?

I'm only a woman. Only a woman. Only a woman. And then she thinks, hang on. Hang on. If my dad died. Oh, she's going after her dad. I thought you were going to say she was going to go after Antoine, Goblin.

No. If my dad dies, I'll inherit. So she'll know brothers. Oh, she has brothers. We'll get to them. Okay, go on. Right, okay. Oh, she'll inherit something, though.

Yeah. She'll inherit something. So the money will come down to her. She'll get something, right? Yeah. And this is a really weird quirk of the French. I'm going to Stokes it this time, is they're so rich and they're so dependent on servants. They don't seem to poison people themselves.

They hire servants to do it, which seems like a real weak link in this chain. Telling somebody you're going to, it's like hiring somebody. But that's what she does. She hires a servant and places the servant, and his name is Gascon, and places him in her father's house, and he slowly poisons him. Now, I will say, it does say something about, because we talked at the outside of this, about women and access to domestic goods. but actually although she would have had access to those domestic goods

it also says something about her status as an aristocrat she's going yeah I mean sure there's access to food here but I ain't prepping the food I'm not going to do it just go and get Gaston it would look very weird if I suddenly started cooking quite frankly but Gaston's in there with his kneading all the dough and whatever people do and then so if we get him although I mean you talked about affairs and that she was taking lovers as well she would need to have been trusting Gaston very explicitly

in order to be like, here, Kill, who is essentially your master as well. Yeah, she would have done. But that's what happens. And he poisons the father over a long period of time. He dies. Oh, I should probably say that the father did know about her affair with Sancroix.

And at one point, he has him arrested and put into the Bastille to try and stop the affair. So she was also, it might have been motivated by revenge as well. She was really angry at him. Dad dies. She gets a bit of money. Because of the poisoning. Because of the poisoning.

Right. Okay. And I think it's like they say that he died of gout. I think that that's what's written. That kind of normal 17th century where they're like, I don't know, gout. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Consumption. Could be anything.

Could be anything. Poisoned. So she gets some money but burns through it pretty quick. And then she realizes the reason she hasn't got all the money is because she has two brothers. Oh, now I see where this is going. Just see. And then she goes, God, damn it. I need more money.

I need more money. If only they were dead, then I would get the rest of it. So she now hires more servants. Not Gaston again. I think it is Gaston, but there's another guy called Hamlin who goes and she's got two brothers, one's called Anton and one's called Francois. And she places a servant in their house

and again poisons them. Can I just say the most stereotypically French names? Really, that's how I remember them. Anton, Caston, Francois. Pierre is going to make an appearance very shortly. Good, I'm delighted, yeah, yeah. Right, so she's going after the brothers. They die, but now it looks a bit weird.

Now, even by the standards of the time, and people are going, I don't think that's gout, right? Jesus, gout is running through that family like I never saw before. It's weird. Like, they've all died really close together. I don't think it's gout. Like, especially the brothers, because they had this really long drawn out and like all the symptoms are really similar.

And they're probably not that old, right? Not that old. Yeah. She was 24. And she's sort of sat there just like, what? What? It's gout. It's terrible.

It's plagued to the family for generations. So now people are starting to ask questions and they arrest the servant, Hamlin, who cracks. There's a lot of torture in this story. Oh, okay. Okay. So the French don't fuck about. Like here, no, they don't. Like in this country it was like torture is sanctioned only in very, very particular cases. And then it's like to try and extract information, which is dodgy

anyway. The French just go, let's torture everyone. They, they torch. But they do. And they, they torture people as punishment as well. So you can't even tell them something to stop. They just go for it. Right. So Hamlin cracks and explains that he was hired to poison people eventually.

And the other thing that happens around this time is Sankhua ups and dies. The sugar baby, right? Is that suspicious? It's weird, but it doesn't seem to be that suspicious, right? It seems like he might have died fucking about with his own poisons. But we don't know.

It's just one of those many, he died. Yeah. And she's not going to benefit from him dying because they're legally not tied. She liked him. So we don't think there's anything suspicious about that. but he just does the dumbest thing. She must have just been sat there just like,

you had one job. He was horribly in debt. The bailiffs go around to the house. Things were already a bit hot because of all these brothers and people dying. They find a case that he is written on. If I die, this has to go to Madeline da Aubrey. It belongs to her.

Don't look in it. That's basically what it says. Don't look in it. The bailiffs do look at it and find it's full of poison. Oh, jeez. Right? And like basically like notes and instructions. Of how to poison your dad.

You absolute idiot. So now it's completely linked to her. And I think this was the point that they started to torture Hamlin and he just gives up everything. And she's legged it. Maria Madeline is legged it. Where she gone? She goes to England at one point.

And then she's moving around Europe. They catch her eventually when she's hiding out in a convent. So she's kind of like in England terms, she's coming in the restoration kind of time, 1660s. This is when there's a royal family back in, in England and she's just plodding around doing... She's on the run. She is getting money from her sister.

She comes back to France and they do finally get her and arrest her. And then they torture her as well and it's really nasty. They basically do like water torture and they like strap her down and they force it and drink buckets and buckets of water with like a fun. It's awful. It's horrible. And so she does confess, but the confession is sort of like, well, you'd say anything, wouldn't you? Really at this point. And then we get all of these crazy rumours that start to swirl around that she was actually

trying to poison her children, is she trying to poison her actual husband? And then stories emerged that she was volunteering at the hospital and she was experimenting on the patients there. Stop. We don't know if that's true, but it's definitely a rumor at the time. Tabloid journalism. It could, it, it seems like she was working at the hospital and I don't know, I don't know. That's what, like a kind of a patrony nurse type thing, aristocratic. Yeah, like I'm being a benevolent person here. Sure, sure, but also it may be poisoning. But also, I might be testing the poisons. I don't know if that's true, but it's certainly a rumor that was flying around at the time. She confesses, the story gets way out of control, she's sentenced to be tortured and then executed.

She's going to be be be be beheaded in public and then her body's going to be burnt. And she goes to her death basically saying, I don't know why I'm in trouble. Everybody does this is one of the things that she says. And she alludes to the fact that the poisoning is a much, much bigger issue than just her. Like she's kind of genuinely perplexed of just like, but everybody's doing this. Why am I in so much trouble. But the whole of Paris is scandalised because she's rich. This is a rich woman, a member of the aristocracy, poor people, they just do this shit all the time. We don't really care about them.

But a rich person doing it, that was so, so shocking. And watching a Marquise be beheaded and then publicly burnt, it was absolutely people were terrified. So then it starts off this fear that poisoning is widespread in Paris.

And they've always thought of it as more of an Italian thing. That's what the Italians did. It's told what we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it goes away after she's executed, but it doesn't go all the way away. I love this because basically, I love a bit of a camp bitch in one sense because she gives a spoiler before she dies

going, as you just said, you think this is bad. Yeah. Will you see what everybody else is doing? Yeah. Now take the head. Thanks very much. That's pretty camp.

Like, that is, she is giving you story. She's giving you backstory. She's giving you backstory. and then she's giving you death and I'm like, I'm here for it all. But what is fascinating about this is that this is only the tip of a very dark iceboard.

That could be the episode in itself. That could be it, couldn't it? But it's not. So join us after this break where we'll talk about the affair of the poisons. Right, so you mentioned there that it kind of dies away for a little bit after she's, you know, she leaves this cliffhanger.

Yeah. And then it's like, okay, she mentioned something is a bit weird. but then some of those things start to percolate a little bit and start to come to the surface. Talk us through what happens there. Right. So the first thing that you need to know is that this is Paris, France, 1670. And if you are, in many ways, it is a place of culture and it is the Enlightenment. And we've got philosophers coming in and artists and moving.

But there are a very small percentage of it. By the time you get to how actually people live their lives in the slums of Paris, there is a lot of superstition. There's a lot of belief in magic and witchcraft and potions and so it's not everybody was having an enlightenment moment. These kind of beliefs are still absolutely there. So this all comes crashing down. So a woman called Magdalene de la Sange gets busted having faked a marriage and then poisoned the guy she said that she was married to.

Oh, for money? For money. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely for money. For poison. And she gets arrested and this should just be a sort of an open and shutcase. of just it's somebody doing something crap. She's not particularly rich, but she is a fortune tell. She makes her money, as lots of people do at this time,

telling fortunes, predicting the future, a bit of herbalism on the side, all that kind of stuff. She gets arrested, and the problem that the French authorities have, in fact, anyone that uses this kind of method of torture, is that people will say anything to stop you doing that or to delay their execution. So she starts to say that, no, no, don't kill me, I can tell you things. I've got more things.

And then she says that there's a plot, there's a big poisoner plot to kill the king. And then the chief of the police, a guy called Larini, who is really interested in this. And he's like, oh, my God. Like there's a huge, huge plot. And that seems to corroborate an anonymous letter that has been found that said that there was a poisonous plot, a random letter. So to him, he's like, oh, my God, this is it. So she's talking all kinds of crap to try and save her skin. And she starts mentioning other fortune tellers and other, they're like, they're abortionists,

and they are wise women. and they are magicians, people that you would go to if you wanted a love spell or like your palm red. She starts to mention all of these names. And then it starts to sound like there is a real network in Paris. And the one that's really central to this is a woman who's called Catherine Monvehasa, but she's known as Lavoisan. And she is at the centre of it.

And she's somebody that you would go to if you wanted a love spell, or if you wanted an abortion or your palm red, or all this kind of stuff. And this kind of thing has been going on in Paris. and indeed Europe for hundreds, hundreds of years. It's almost like a trade. Yeah, and for the longest time, it was just like, it's not, it's nothing harmful. It's just, you know, people, folklore magic, that kind of stuff.

But now in the grip of this, it starts to seem like it's a poisoning syndicate and worse than that, witchcraft. And women. And women, right? So there's another woman called Marie Bosse and another one called Marie Vigero. And they're also brought in. They're sort of in the same trade as Lavois. And now all these women are being pitted against one another and they start blaming each other. She did it.

She did it. She did it. She did it. And the stories are getting madder and madder. There's stories about how, like, Lavoisana's got a thousand aborted fetuses buried in her garden and that she would burn children alive and that there was satanistic ritual sacrifices and that baby's blood was drunk and that people would, people wanted to poison. People go to her wanting poisons and like the stories are getting madder and madder and madder. And all these women are saying this. It's very Salem witch trials.

It is, isn't it? It is. It is more dramatic. More dramatic. But the thing is, like, you know that when, and they will find you guilty of this, you're going to be sentenced to be horrendously tortured and then burnt to death. That's what you know. But you also know that if you keep giving them information, it'll probably delay your trial

date. It might make you useful to them. And also, you want to blame other people. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. It's Lavoisin. She was the worst of the worst. And then things start, so it's kind of contained at this point of like, oh my God, we've got

this poisoned syndicate in the slums of people. Paris. It's terrible. And the police guy, Lorraine-Aldant, the burning chamber. And it's... Bloody now. Yeah, well, ba-bom. And it's like this court that's specially set up to deal with this situation. So at the moment, they think that it's just fortune tellers in Paris. Now they start rounding up everybody who is involved in that trade. And as these things happen, to begin with, it was fortune tellers. But then by the time we got to the end of it, it's like somebody who saw somebody

who might have had their palms read at one time. It's like getting increasingly. And it might have been contained except for the fact that these women realized if they start dropping big names, now we're going to start getting some attention. So when they were going, it was Stacey down the road or, you know, it was John that I knew from school. That's no good. But now they start dropping names Marquis, Duchesses, countesses, really, really big names. And now it's freaking Lerini out.

Can I ask? Yes. They start? Yes. You can. You're allowed. When they start dropping these names, are they saying they're the targets or that they're doing the poisoning? Both. Both. So they're saying that really, really influential people at court are coming to them asking for spells, charms, sometimes asking to kill people, asking for love powder. The biggest name that gets dropped into this is Madame de Montespan.

Okay. She is the favourite mistress of Louis XIV. So we've gone right to the top. To the top of this. To give her her full name. Are you ready for this? Go on. Francois attinaise de Rocheswa de Montemar de Macchis de Montesan.

Ooh. Don't tell me I got that wrong. Don't tell me I got that wrong. Just clap me and be on you, A. Here, can I tell you a little anecdote about Frenchness? Yes. So again, yes. We are in 2001.

I started university. And I was doing history, but my minor degree was French, right? And you only do it for a year and I nearly failed it I passed it by 1% or something because I was good at the literature and history bit of it but I was really bad at the grammar

really really bad at the grammar anyway but on day one you have to introduce yourself and you're in a small class and blah blah blah blah and I was like everyone was going around introducing themselves

and I was like okay I'm ready I'm ready for this I'll do my introduction and I thought I was being like immersive in the world of what I was doing here and I introduced myself as Antoine rather than Anthony

now I wasn't trying to make people think my name was Antoine. I just was like, that's the French of my name. Baring one, I'm 17 years old. Okay? Just bear that in mind. And then I had to spend the rest of that year in French class just going along with the idea that my name was Antoine and not Antony. I know. I know. It was embarrassing. And you didn't correct anybody. I didn't really. Do you just not know the French to be able to collect any? Excuse me more. Actuale moment. I'm about Antoine. Or English.

came in there. Yeah, I was like, but so mortified, even thinking about it now, I'm sweating, you know, that kind of way where you're just like, oh, Jesus, Anthony, you could have just said what your actual name was. But I thought I was being, you know, like really dedicated to the, to the French tongue. Yeah, I couldn't understand that. So there's still people wandering around that think that you're called Antoine. I can't imagine. They think much about me. I was there for a year. If they do, they need to have a word with themselves. I have an image of Lavoso. And if I remember correctly, I think Lavosson means the neighbor, maybe. Or something like that.

What does it mean? I think it might mean the neighbour. Right. Again, you can tell me if I'm wrong about that because I'm not fluent in French. But so here we have her in this picture from the time. And she is centered in the image. We'll put this on social media. And she's a very homely looking woman.

She doesn't look particularly dangerous. She looks like she's, you know, a kind of a working woman. She's dressed very simply. Her face looks kind of very penitent, actually. But she's surrounded by what looks like devils and serpents and dragons and all this kind of thing. And there it has it down at the end, almost handwritten it looks like. Catherine de Hayes. That was her real name.

That's a real name. Known as Lavosant. Okay, yeah. So what we have here is this idea of, and there's a winged kind of devil holding up her image. So we have this idea that darkness, devildom, witchcraft, as you're kind of describing there, is taking shape in these everyday women and that they're just walking amongst us, but actually they're trying to bring down the whole system. This was a witch hunt. Yeah. This absolutely was.

At one point, the king allows them to be interrogated for witchcraft. So it's brought in, and that's what they're prosecuted with. And Lavoisin really gets all of the heat on her. She's the one that's blamed for absolutely everything. and she's held up as this awful, despicable, horrendous creature who's doing all of these terrible things and is threatening everyone. I don't know, maybe she wasn't very nice, but I don't think she was doing the things that she was accused of doing it.

I could nearly guarantee you she didn't know a fella with leather-looking wings. No, no, almost certainly. Almost certainly. Okay, before we get to the trial or tribunal more probably specifically, let's talk a little bit about the French royalty, because you were making a case there before I went off and told you about my French first-year lessons, that it was. starting to reach royalty aristocrats. And so that starts to change things.

How does the scandal got to do with these poisons start to impact that level of society? Right. So the thing is, the scandal is already big. People are being rounded up and arrested. And Lorini is taking this really, really seriously and is making a big deal about how he's going to purge Paris of all of these horrendous poisoners and witches. Now they start naming big names, big names,

like right up to Madame de Montespan and kind of everybody underneath that as well. And that poses a big problem because he has to go after them as well. He can't not do that. He can't just say, well, because they're rich, I'm going to let you go. You can't do that.

So he starts having to bring them in. Now, this is very different because they can hire lawyers and things to defend themselves. Some of them freak out. Some of them do stand their ground. And it's like, I absolutely... What the hell are you talking about?

And that makes the court look faintly ridiculous. But once they've got onto Madame de Monta, Montespan, the favourite mistress of Louis the 14th, now all hell breaks loose because they've got their big name now and they start to say things like she was involved in a ritual sacrifice, that there was a magician, a defrocked priest who cut babies' throats open over her naked body. And that it was like it's as extreme as it possibly can be. And obviously, Louis is being told all of this.

He knows all of this. And as soon as it hits Montespan, he shuts it down. What he tries to do is he tries to get all records relating to her name taken out, like redacted. And it's very difficult for us to imagine today. But imagine that there is a huge scandal in which children are being hurt and very, very rich people are at the heart of this. And then it goes right up to the very top of government. And instead of releasing all of the information, they release heavily redacted files and then just try to move on. Don't know what you're talking about.

No. It's very, very difficult for us to imagine how hard. that would be. And then imagine like some big cultural names are being implicated in this as well. People you never thought would be involved in it. Yes. It's very much like that. So now Lough Lerini is, angry as well because he can't properly investigate this if he can't refer to Montespan. Yeah. He can't. And it may have been one of the reasons why these women keep saying her name, because they kind of know that is that he's not going to prosecute them because it's too close to the king. And eventually the king shuts it all down and eventually,

all the files are burnt, but not before, like 37 people are burnt to death. Okay. As witches. We're going to come to how that process comes about. I think where we find ourselves now is such a pivotal point in this history because we are essentially at Versailles, not just Versailles, but we have penetrated the walls of Versailles now. And of course, in that atmosphere, we have people vying for position

to get as close as possible to the absolute monarch, by the way. This is also, you know, you talk about that idea of belief and superstition and witchcraft, but like, they believed the king was divinely appointed by God. So it's not that weird to think that actually somebody might have other powers elsewhere. And so now they're all vying for these positions. The king is upset that Montespan has been implicated here. When we come back after the break, we're going to talk about how those executions came about and what exactly it did to power structures in 17th century France.

Right, so you said Louis moves to shut this shit down. Yep. but at the same time we know that there are executions afoot. So between the shutting down and making this go away, someone, quite a few people, are going to pay a price here. So how does that come about? How do we get investigations even if it's not into Montespan? So it's mostly poor people that are investigated.

It's fortune tellers. Anyone who has any connection with that, like I said, by the end of it, the accusations getting increasingly tenuous. At the center of this is Lavoy. Mouré Boise and Marie Vigorue and a few other magicians who were in this as well. All women? No, no. There were men involved.

There was one guy, his name escapes me, and there was another one who was a defrocked priest. But they're all kind of being lumped in together, so it isn't just all women. They are all executed quite horribly as well. They are burnt alive. Some of the methods are really nasty. Hamlin, the servant who kind of kicked this all off with Madame de Aubrey, he got broken on the wheel. It's really, really nasty way to go. So people are paying the price.

And then there's people that are just locked in prison, just awaiting trial, hundreds of them. Due process isn't a great thing at this point. So they're just kind of languishing in jails, wondering what the hell is going on. The king moves to shut this down. But now he has to also distance himself from Montespan. Right, because the name has been solid. We can see how this stuff works today. I alluded to the Epstein list, but like look at how that taint works.

Even people, like, how many pictures do you see circulating of like, oh, you met Jeffrey Epstein? It's like they may have just met him apart and shaking his hand, but that pitch is there. The name is there. Absolutely. And now there's a taint to it, isn't there? It's so true. People, it doesn't matter if like maybe that was the only time you met him is if your name is in that file, then there is a mark on you. We are recording this in May 20 something of May 26.

And at this moment in time, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is clinging on for dear life. For various and many reasons. But central to that is his quite tenuous links to the Epstein files because he's not in the Epstein files. No. But somebody he appointed to his government was quite a lot. And so this is the change you're talking about. It undermines authority. You make that mistake.

You hang out with that person. That's it. That's not. And you don't distance yourself. yourself enough from that, then you kind of get to understand the position that Louis, even as an absolute monarch, he is surrounded by these powerful aristocrats and you can understand the tenuous position. It puts him in. I love this. I have some stats here from what you're talking about about court life at this time and what's going on in terms of the numbers. And one of the things that's talking about during these investigations is that the court was hung in black, lit by torches. It's so dramatic. But here's some numbers. They had 442 suspects overall. 367 orders of arrest, about, as you're saying, 30 odd people were sentenced to death for witchcraft and poisoning. Two additionally died during torture. Shitload, I think that's the official numerical gauge.

A shitload of courtiers flee into exile. Loads of other people are sentenced to hard labor. And the numbers, it's not exactly, as with all of these things, it's hard to know the exact numbers of all of the things that are being. really impacted by it. But certainly the point being with all of these numbers and allusions to numbers is this is widespread. Yeah. This is, this is, it's all people are talking about across French high society, low and high.

It's huge. And also there's a culture of fear now as well of like, like do you believe what's happening? And suddenly it just seemed like that anybody could be poisoned, anybody could be a victim. Who is this mysterious cabal of poisoners who go all the way up to high society? And people are believing the worst. conspiracy theories. It's a really, really frightening and scary time. We can be very blasé about when we're talking about history, but to watch them are being burnt to death, holy fuck. It would have been terrifying then, it'd be terrifying now. And they're watching that,

like, quite regularly happen. And these people, and of course they're admitting it as well. That's the, that's the really scary thing. It's like they go, yep, yep, definitely I did that. Please don't torch me anymore. But they did and they do. And it wrecks French society. And then it just it has to get shut down by the king. It has to, he can't let this get to him. Montespan is accused of going to buy love spells to keep the king's interest, but also of trying to poison his new favourite mistress.

There's always a new favourite mistress. Now, what is the impact of this, do you think? What does it tell us about that society, courtly society and wider society, in the mid to late 17th century in France? What is this letting us see about that period of time? How fragile it is, I suppose, is that it can be very, it can crumble very easily. And also that this is a time that's supposed to be of enlightenment and reason and thought.

And then just everything comes crashing down with these accusations of witchcraft and poison. So the thing is, I think that some of it might have been true. Yeah. Because it's very easy for it to look back and go, it was all complete nonsense. That never happened. But you do have to remember that they had a really strong belief in magic and potions and that you could affect the future. They would have been going to palm readers.

They would have been going to fortune tellers. It was very fashionable. You might go and get somebody to brew you a love spell if you wanted to keep the king's attention. People might do that. They might go to somebody to say, could you give me some poison? We know that poisoning syndicates existed. I mean, it was all, I don't think that there were black masses and babies being sacrificed over the king's mistress. But I wouldn't put it past her to have paid for a love potion.

Can I ask as well, just as a way of closing the conversation out, we started talking about Marie Dobre. Yeah. And then we're finishing with Lavosan and the King and all that. Is there ever a direct that we know of, a direct illusion back to Marie Dobry? Do they ever go, well, she said this. She kept saying there was a network or is it just used afterwards as a, oh, yeah, she actually. And she happened to say this.

Is it kind of coincidental link or do they refer back? It was the same police officer, Lereney, who is investigating all of this. So he would have been, I don't think there's anything on record of him going, look, see, she said that. But he investigated all of this. So he'd been hot on the trail right from the beginning from the early days of this. And there's no doubt that the Marquis de Bram Villiers case influenced what went on. And as you said, set the stage for this. Look, there's more people doing this.

I thought there probably was. Life was cheap And as we said right at the beginning poison is a horrendously effective way to get rid of a lot of problems for it. It was called inheritance powder at the time. There's something in that. People were doing this.

So you've got this half mixture of truth but also like nonsense and paranoia and fear but a culture of palmistry and like folkloric stuff that people have been doing for centuries which now all of a sudden looks like witchcraft. It's very easy, I think, as well, to forget the difference in 17th century France between how we view the correspondence between life and death now and how they viewed it then

and how murder and killing, and killing they wouldn't always have associated with murder, how those things were more part of everyday life. People are armed, people are wearing their swords for a reason. There are different expectations of what taking a life could mean than we have today. So we do see this thing of going, oh my God, but you have to sit down and plot the demise, the murderous demise of somebody else. That's a very 21st century mindset on the ending of one's life in many ways.

And we, we, I think, is what, that's one of the things that we would find difficult to put ourselves in that mindset and we can't of going how we as humans could have manipulated the life's span in the 17th century, there were different parameters. Yeah. Murder was still murder. It was still illegal. Don't get me wrong.

There were still laws in place. But the ways in which we were late to death in the 17th century, it's not the same. It's not the same at all. You would have been surrounded by death. You would certainly have known people that died. Siblings probably would have died. It would be absolutely everywhere. And now today we are much more compassionate.

And we have, you know, like all lives matter and all lives are important. Not in 17th century, frankly. No. Talk to an aristocrats. They couldn't give a shit about you. Yeah. They would unplug your life support machine to charge their phone. They could not give two stuff.

And famously, they had phones and life support machines in 17th century France. Like, life is cheap. And as we said right at the beginning is that there are systems set up where the only way that you might be able to get out of something is to kill somebody. Don't do it. No, again, I think we've set that quite a lot. Divorce is a wonderful thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great.

It's a great. Like, I haven't availed of it myself, but at least. I don't know it's there. Don't be like going to find fortune tellers and palmists in the Yorkshire area. Have you ever been to an Etsy Witch? Not been to. Have you ever employed a employee? I have never employed.

Sometimes when I get a bad review, I think about doing it. Because you can't reply publicly, but you can't curse people privately. I've never done it. But I hear people all the time now are like a go to an Etsy Witch. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you want to be careful because if there's another brew ha-ha-ha, they'll be the first people called in. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Can't be cursing people. We're on very shaky ground at the minute. But then things, you'd have to admit it. And then, like, maybe this podcast would be played back of like, you were laughing there. You were talking about going to see an Etsy witch. Is that something that could be evidence. And you can see how this just all snowballs ridiculously.

Listen, they'll go for you before they go for me. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. There is no way that they can. You'll be. Do you reckon? Yeah. And I'll just kind of disappear.

You'll just play the male privilege card. Just be like, excuse me, patriarchy. She's a woman over there. There is no way that I. She talks about sex get her. Yeah. Have you listened to her podcast? The filth.

I would stand a chance. No, it's not doing it. Right, that's enough of us for this episode. Thank you for joining us on After Dark. If you are not already joining us on YouTube, we now film and broadcast all of these episodes. So if you're only listening on podcast platforms, go over to our YouTube channel and you can find us there.

If you have an idea for an episode, you can email us on AfterDark at Historyhit.com. You can find me at Anthony Delaney History. Kate, where can they find you? Oh, they can find me at at Dr. Kate Lister. On TikTok and? Definitely on Instagram. I think TikTok is slightly different. I think it's just K8 Lister, but it's got the blue tick, so you'll know me.

Find her. She's there. I'm there. And it is the first of four episodes that we're going to be doing with Kate. You're going to find far more sexy dark histories in the coming weeks. Leave us a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. It helps other people to discover us as well. And if you're in the mood to discover, have you heard of

Twix the sheets. Okay, tell them what they can find on your very own podcast. They can find a lot of sex, scandal and the history of society. We have a bit of a giggle rooting around in the pants of history. Oh, that's good.

You've said that thing, isn't it? I've said that before. Yeah, yeah. I said that before. And also award winning, if you don't mind. I am award winning. Yes, yes.

Finally, not award nominated. Endlessly award nominated. We're still award nominated. We're still in that record. She broke through. She's the pioneer. It's the one. worse. It's just I got, we never won.

But you have now? I have now. Yep, award winning. Right, go and listen to Petricks the Sheets. Listen to us and watch us on YouTube and I'll see you next time. Thank you.