La Voisin facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Catherine Montvoisin
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Catherine Deshayes, "La Voisin".
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| Born |
Catherine Deshayes
c. 1640 |
| Died | 22 February 1680 (aged 39–40) Paris, France
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| Occupation | French fortune teller · Sorceress · Poisoner |
| Spouse(s) | Antoine Monvoisin |
| Criminal status | Executed |
| Children | Marguerite Monvoisin |
| Motive | Profit |
| Criminal charge | Witchcraft |
| Penalty | execution by burning |
| Details | |
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Span of crimes
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1660–1679 |
| Country | France |
| Location(s) | Paris |
| Weapons | Poison |
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Date apprehended
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12 March 1679 |
| Imprisoned at | Vincennes |
Catherine Monvoisin, or Montvoisin, née Deshayes, known as "La Voisin" (c. 1640 – 22 February 1680), was a French fortune teller, commissioned poisoner, and professional provider of alleged sorcery. She was the head of a network of fortune tellers in Paris providing purported magical services, with clients among the aristocracy and became the central figure in the famous affaire des poisons.
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Life
Little is known of Catherine Deshayes' early life. She learned fortune telling as a child and later married Antoine Monvoisin, who was active as a jeweller and silk merchant with a shop at Pont-Marie in Paris.
When her husband's trade business led to bankruptcy, La Voisin supported the family by practising chiromancy and face-reading. In addition to being a fortune teller, she was also active as a midwife. Her business as a fortune teller gradually developed into manufacturing and selling purported magical objects and potions, and selling poison to profit from her clients' wishes upon their future.
From the late 1660s, La Voisin had become a wealthy and famous fortune teller with clients among the highest aristocracy of France. Among her clients were Olympia Mancini, comtesse de Soissons; Marie Anne Mancini, duchess de Bouillon; Elizabeth, comtesse de Gramont, and François-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Luxembourg.
She resided at Villeneuve-sur-Gravois, where she received her clients all day, and entertained the Parisian upper-class society at parties with violin music in her garden at night. La Voisin regularly attended service at the church of the Jansenist abbé de Sant-Amour, principal of the Paris University, and the godmother of her daughter was the noblewoman Mme de la Roche-Guyon.
She supported a family of six, including her husband, her mother and her children.
La Voisin was interested in science and alchemy and financed several private projects and enterprises, some of them concocted by con artists who tried to swindle her.
Fortune telling
La Voisin later said that as a fortune teller, she had merely used and developed what God had given her. She stated that she was taught the art of fortune telling at the age of nine, and that after her husband became ruined, she decided to profit by it.
She developed her art by studying the modern methods of physiology, and the art of reading the client's future by studying their face and hands.
She spent a great deal of money in order to provide an atmosphere which would make her clients more inclined to believe her prophecies: for example, she had a special robe of crimson red velvet embroidered with eagles in gold made for a price of 1,500 livres to perform in.
In 1665 or 1666, her divination was questioned by the Congregation of the Mission at the Saint Vincent de Paul's order and she was called for questioning, but La Voisin defended herself successfully before the professors at Sorbonne University and was allowed to continue her business as a fortune teller.
Professional sorcery
Her business as a fortune teller gradually developed into a business of professional alleged black magic.
La Voisin decided to profit financially from her clients' wishes by offering services of purported magic to make their wishes come true. Initially, she told her clients that their wish would come true if it was also the will of God. Secondly, she started to recommend to her clients some actions that would make their dreams come true. These actions were initially to visit the church of some particular saint; then she started to sell amulets, and gradually, she recommended more and more alleged magical objects or rituals of various kinds.
She had several associates working for her arranging and participating in her professional magic services, notably Adam Lesage, who performed alleged magical tasks; and the priest Étienne Guibourg and abbé Mariotte.
Connection to Madame de Montespan
The most important client of La Voisin was Madame de Montespan, the official royal mistress to King Louis XIV of France. When the King entered into a relationship with Angélique de Fontanges in 1679, Montespan called for La Voisin and asked her to have both the King and Fontanges killed. La Voisin hesitated but was eventually convinced to agree. At the house of her colleague, Catherine Trianon, La Voisin constructed a plan to kill the King together with the poisoners Trianon, Bertrand and Romani, the last being the fiancé of her daughter. Trianon was unwilling to participate and tried to make her change her mind by constructing an ill-fated fortune for her, but Voisin refused to change her mind. The group decided to murder the King by poisoning a petition, to be delivered to his own hands.
On 5 March 1679, La Voisin visited the royal court in Saint-Germain to deliver the petition. That day, however, there were too many petitioners and the King did not take their petitions, which foiled her plan. Upon her return to her home in Paris, she was castigated by a group of monks. She handed the petition to her daughter Marguerite Montvoisin and asked her to burn it, which she also did. The next day, she made plans to visit Catherine Trianon after mass, to plan the next murder attempt upon Louis XIV.
Arrest, investigation and trial
On 12 March 1679, La Voisin was arrested outside Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle after having heard mass, just before her meeting with Catherine Trianon. In April 1679, a commission appointed to inquire into the subject and to prosecute the offenders met for the first time. Its proceedings, including some suppressed in the official records, are preserved in the notes of one of the official court reporters, Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie.
At the arrest of La Voisin, her maid Margot stated that the arrest would mean the end of a number of people at all levels of society. La Voisin was imprisoned at Vincennes, where she was subjected to questioning. On 27 December 1679, Louis XIV issued an order that the whole network should be exterminated by all methods regardless of rank, sex, or age. The arrest of La Voisin was followed by the arrest of her daughter Marguerite Monvoisin, Guibourg, Lesage, Bertrand, Romani and the rest of her network of associates.
On 17 February 1680, La Voisin was put on trial, and was convicted of witchcraft. She was executed in public on the Place de Grève in Paris on 22 February 1680.
In July, her daughter Marguerite Monvoisin revealed her connection to Montespan, which was confirmed by the statements of the other accused. This caused the monarch to eventually close the investigation, seal the testimonies and place the remaining accused outside of the public justice system by imprisoning them under a lettre de cachet.
See also
- Giulia Tofana, another female poisoner, in Italy, only a decade before La Voisin
- Gironima Spana, another female manager of a net of female poisoners who were the central figure of another poison affair, the Spana Prosecution.
- Marie-Anne de La Ville; in October 1702, this person was arrested for having created a new organisation similar to the one of la Voisin, but because of Affair of the Poisons, she and her colleagues were never brought to trial, but imprisoned without trial on a lettre du cachet.
- Marie-Josephte Corriveau, a Canadian woman convicted of murder in 1763, later acquiring a legend and comparison to La Voisin.
- List of French serial killers
