Ep. 51: La Voisin
Kathryn (00:11)
Alright, hello everybody and welcome to I Scream You Scream. My name is Kathryn
Gina (00:18)
I'm Gina.
Kathryn (00:19)
And the topic for October is witches. And while we're talking about witches, we have been enjoying some very delectable ice cream cake in celebration of our first birthday.
As a reminder, if you love bonus content, exclusive merch, and you want a chance to vote on which topics we cover in the future, join the cool kids over on Patreon. We will always have link in our show notes. So grab a spoon and let's dig in.
And while we're digging in, am going to, I do have to acknowledge I am sick again. I feel like I've been sick on this podcast, like very regularly. So I'm just going to call it out at the beginning because I struggled through that intro. So I will stop talking soon,
Gina (00:53)
Hmm.
Hahaha
Kathryn (01:01)
I'm going give Gina a chance to finish her ice cream cake while I do some housekeeping. We are super excited. We've got a lot of really fun collabs coming up. October has been a really fun month. Tis the season, as they say. ⁓ Back in April, as a reminder, I joined the Twats and Gina's spirit joined the Twats at our first paranormal investigation at the Roff House.
Kathryn (01:31)The hosts over at Total Conundrum podcast also recently checked out the Roff House. So they invited all of us on those of us whose physical bodies were there. Unfortunately, Gina's spirit was not. But yeah, they just wanted to have a sign and talk about our experiences. So that is over at Total Conundrum. If you follow us on social, we've probably already posted about it.
⁓ But yeah, go check that out. Love them. It was a great conversation. It was so much fun. And speaking of great conversations, we just very recently met with Courtney from Jaunty Haunts podcast, another podcast that I love. She's so much fun. We had a great conversation,
were very excited to chat with her. We've been trying to meet with her for months and months, but we are, what did we decide? We're like, we span eight different time zones.
Gina (02:29)
Probably 50 million.
Kathryn (02:31)
Yeah, like all the time zones. We account for like half the globe's worth of time zones. So it has taken us literally like, I think six to eight months to find time to chat with her. ⁓ And we were so excited to do so and it still was just so much fun. It blew our expectations out of the water. Not to gas our own selves up too much, but it was so much fun and you all should listen.
⁓ Yeah, we loved it. We'll also obviously share that in our social and we'll share links to both of those in the show notes here. And yeah, I'm gonna keep talking until, are you still eating your cake?
Gina (03:11)
I'm all good. I'm good to go.
Kathryn (03:13)
Alright I'm gonna pass the last announcement over to you.
Gina (03:17)
Hey. So
So as I speak, we are in the middle of a very exciting week because it is the week of Kathryn's mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Mrs. Kathryn's mom!
Kathryn (03:29)
Yay! So we had an episode that came out on her birthday that, which is like in the future, right now as we record. So as all of you can understand based on what I just said, our time is messed up. Time's not real over here at I Scream You Scream. So we're wishing my mother very happy birthday now, X number of weeks later. I don't, I really don't even know. I don't know when this is coming out, so.
Hopefully we've not missed another important day. We still didn't look at the calendar.
Gina (04:00)
I'm so sorry if we have. Oh Jesus Christ.
Well, happy birthday. I don't know if we're allowed to say your mom's name on the podcast, but happy birthday, Kathryn's mom.
Kathryn (04:07)
Yes.
I mean, yeah, she would be so upset if we didn't. Her name is Jean. Hi Jean, hi Jeannie Bainey. What do you call her? J-beeps.
Gina (04:16)
Janini Banini.
JBeebs yeah.
I still think of her as JBeebs
Kathryn (04:27)
Yes, as you should. So happy birthday, JBeebs, and we hope it's wonderful. All right. With all of those very, very important announcements out of the way, I would love to hear a story. We're just jumping right in. We're not even bantering or anything today because I'm dying to hear the story.
Introduction to La Voisin
Gina (04:34)
I do.
Mmm.
And I think we will use the time that we save by not bantering because this is a chunky fucking story. So today I'm gonna be telling you about woman who led a double life. She was by day a charming, charismatic fixture of Paris's wealthy elite. But by night, she was a notorious sorceress, poisoner, and practitioner of black magic said to be responsible for the deaths of thousands. And her name was Catherine.
Yeah, she spells it differently than you do, it's Catherine nonetheless. Catherine all the same. So as I'm sure you can already imagine, this story is fucking great. Not only because it has a Catherine in it, but also because I think if I'm not wrong, this is the first story during which month where we're digging into kind of the dark arts of it all.
Kathryn (05:29)
That's okay. Yes.
Yeah, I would say so. mean, they're all very different thus far. And this is definitely gonna be our darkest one. Yeah.
Gina (05:51)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Which I personally am very excited about. Anyway, before I get going, quick content warning for a wide variety of things. I will be mentioning murder, domestic abuse, corpse abuse, infant death, and torture. I don't go into a lot of detail on any of those things, but just a heads up, I will be mentioning them. Anyway, let's get going.
La Voisin’s early life
Not much is known about the early years of Catherine Deshayes but we do know that she was born in 1940. 1940. 1640. What the fuck?
Kathryn (06:31)
I was
like, what? Where is she now? This is different than I was expecting already. I was like, what the F? That's like, that old. What? OK, yes. So 16, is that what you said? OK, OK.
Gina (06:36)
Yeah, this is my grandma, Catherine. No. Nah, she was born centuries. Yeah, 1640s-ish.
We believe that she grew up in poverty and she had to find ways to make her own money very quickly and very early in life.
She would later claim that by the time she was nine years old, she had learned how to tell people's fortunes as a way to make some cash. So kind of like an enterprising young lass from a very early age. And when she was around 20, she married a jeweler and a silk merchant named Antoine Montvoison, which made her Catherine Montvoison. I apologize in advance for my French pronunciation. I did take French lessons in high school, but I didn't pay attention. So sorry, I'm going to do my best.
Kathryn (07:29)
I was going to say, yeah, I technically, I technically took Spanish but we're all just out here. That's fantastic. You're doing great.
Gina (07:33)
Like, was I in the classroom? Yes. Did I succeed? No. Anyway, merci beaucoup. Anyways, I can't, every time I do a fucking French episode, it's just this. I'm so sorry, France. Okay.
Kathryn (07:45)
Yeah
No, she's not.
Gina (07:54)
I'm not, I'm not, not really. So Catherine and Antoine, the early years of their marriage are a little bit murky. We don't know too much about that time, but there are strong suspicions that Antoine was physically abusive towards Catherine. And it also came very quickly to light that Antoine was not a great businessman. Actually, he was pretty shit at business. And that combined with
Kathryn (07:57)
You're doing great.
Gina (08:23)
a fuckton of existing debt that he already had caused his business to fail, bankrupting the young family. And this had kind of a two-fold impact. number one, it caused Antoine to just collapse into alcoholism. So like goodbye, any chance of him cleaning up his own mess was gone. He was just unavailable for things. And two, it meant that Catherine once again
had to take care of things by herself. So to support her family, she fell back on how she learned to make money as a child. Fortune telling. She began by offering palm and face reading services, which I did not realize face reading was a fucking thing. That is so cool.
Kathryn (09:12)
heard of it, I've never seen anyone doing it or like experienced it in real if you are a face reader, let us know. I would love to have it done because I'm like, what are you reading? Like, and also not to be obnoxious, but does it work if you've like had work done? Like I have a lot of questions on face reading. Yeah. Yeah.
Gina (09:19)
Yeah.
Yeah. That is such a good point. I didn't even think about that. But yeah, iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com. Fucking tell us if you can read faces, please. But yeah, so Catherine was one of them. If only we could speak to her today. But her service portfolio didn't stop there. Like any good businesswoman, she diversified. She also offered services as a herbalist.
Kathryn (09:37)
I don't know. Truly. Yes.
Gina (09:57)
but more notably as a midwife and an abortion provider. And the reason why I say notably here is because France was and is still very Catholic, which meant particularly back then very anti-abortion. So she was providing an illegal service. And this is really the first time we see Catherine kind of sticking her neck out to help other women in ways that could have gotten her into very big trouble. And this became a very very large part of her business. Eventually she wound up having like a whole network of abortion providers working for her and with her to basically help the women of France. But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself there. At this point she's still just like a small startup business owner. But her business did grow and it grew fast. And of course a very large part of that is because she was really fucking smart.
La Voisin’s brand
She knew that rich clients meant bigger margins. So she made a point to market herself towards well-to-do women within French society. And she did it by building what we might now call a personal brand. So she was very intentional about making herself look like somebody that rich people would want to buy from. So for example, there's a very famous account of a red velvet robe that she would wear while divining for someone. So even though she didn't come from money, you wouldn't necessarily know that just by looking at her. She seemed opulent. She seemed mysterious. And this is something that we see over and over again with Catherine. She's very careful about her image. And she made sure that she wasn't seen as just a wise woman. She was seen as a rich woman's wise woman.
Church intervention
So her business grew kind of along with that brand she was building and word of her talents began to spread like wildfire. But they didn't always fall on sympathetic ears. Within a few years, the church got wind of her fortune telling practice and they thought, hmm, this is a woman, so already negative points, telling people's futures. But that power belongs to God. So maybe this is heresy. We better bring her in for some questioning, see what's going on. So they bring her in and they basically put her in front of a panel of theology professors. And when it was Kathryn's turn to talk, she managed to convince them that her abilities were not heresy. In fact, they were actually a gift from God.
And it was God's will that she used this gift to help people. So she kind of turned the whole discussion on its head. It went from like, you doing this goes against God's will to if we don't let you do this, we are going against God's will. So ultimately, panel was concluded and Catherine was allowed to continue telling fortunes. And I do want to land on that for a second because it's a big fucking deal and massively impressive that she was able to do this.
She didn't just convince like one little village priest, which would still be impressive. She convinced an entire panel of fucking theology professors. And you know that those guys were like snooty as fuck and also probably sexist as fuck. So this is a perfect example of the power of Catherine. Like she was so good at what she did. She was a great talker. People wanted to listen to her, even the men. And that was saying something back then.
And now, to be fair.
Kathryn (13:41)
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. feel like you don't... This is already kind of an unheard of thing, you know, I'm like understanding. You're painting a picture of what, like the power that she has, not just paranormal or whatever you want to call it, but that's, that's a specific type of person that can do something like that.
Gina (13:54)
Good.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Catherine’s popularity grows
Yeah, yeah, Catherine was a fucking badass. And taking it like one step further, this was also significant because it was seen as like just as good as an endorsement from the church. And that was a huge business asset because it made the wealthy elite feel very fucking comfortable going to Catherine for help. So within a decade of her starting out, Catherine kind of transformed into this incredibly respected figure within the French elite. She had this reputation as being kind of the person to go to when you had a problem, when you needed advice, when you discretion, any of those things. she lived not like far away, but far-ish away from the royal palace. They were all at Versailles. She was in Paris.
So it was really easy for members of the court to kind of lie and say like, oh, I have an appointment in the city. I need to go see my doctor or whatever, and then just go sneak off into Paris and see Catherine away from prying eyes. So money is rolling in. Kathryn's doing very well. She moved into this fancy new house where she started receiving clients all day long. And she also started throwing these really gorgeous garden parties for the upper class where she would keep kind of networking and hearing the gossip and basically just keep working under the guise of like having a social event. And droves of highborn ladies and the occasional dude would come to her for help.
La Voisin’s services
The problem with working with the upper class is that they have all tasted power. And when you taste power, you tend to be a little bit of a shithead and you also tend to crave more of it. The higher up her clients got in the food chain, the more she noticed that they weren't really looking for advice anymore. They were looking for results. They wanted someone to fix their lives for them, like typical rich people shit. And after years of doing this and working with these people, Catherine noticed that most of her clients within this kind of group fell into one of three categories.
So the first one was someone who wanted to get pregnant because having an heir was a big fucking deal back then.
Second category was they wanted someone to fall in love with them.
And the third category is that they wanted someone to die either so that they could marry someone else or so they could get their inheritance early.
Kathryn (16:50)
I have to, like, have to comment on this because I did just laugh. So for everyone watching, let me explain. ⁓ You literally just rolled through the list of things you're like not allowed to or supposed to use like magic for. Like these are the things that like every movie with a genie in a lamp or whatever, these are the things you're not allowed to ask for. That's funny. That, yes, yeah. That's like bang bang boom. That's right. I knew, like I knew you were going to say that because I was like, all right, we already got one, there's two, I guarantee it's going to be death. That's wild.
Gina (17:16)
Mm-hmm.
These are the things, these are the things.
I know.
Yep, yeah. So there was a lot of demand for all of these things. And where there was demand, of course, Catherine obviously followed. So she began offering more alternative solutions to these problems. When someone would come to her, she would start with little things, ⁓ an amulet, a charm, telling someone to say a specific prayer at a specific shrine. But over time, she would slowly start offering them different methods. So when it was a problem of the heart, she would sell them love potions, which we actually have, like we think we know what some of the ingredients were for these. So I'm going to tell them to you because they're fucking wild. So ingredients for a love potion. Toad bones, mole teeth, Spanish flies, human blood.
Kathryn (18:27)
Eww.
Gina (18:28)
and the dust of human remains.
Kathryn (18:31)
Ew. I love it though. Sorry. Yeah, no. Listen, I have to be honest with myself. I kind of only just said, ew, for show. I'm trying to like, be chill. No, that sounds like horrendous and fantastic. My biggest issue is the mole teeth. I don't know why. That's the only one that I'm like, ew, I don't want do that.
Gina (18:32)
I know. Isn't it sexy? Doesn't it just make you want to fall in love?
Yeah.
Kathryn (18:55)
I do, I am like determined to get some for magic. But I don't want to source them.
Gina (19:02)
What kind of teeth?
Kathryn (19:05)
What kind you got?
Gina (19:06)
I open my trench coat and baggies of little teeth. ⁓
Kathryn (19:12)
I think for me it's just the thought of being the one to source the magical teeth. I don't want to do that. I don't mind using them. I'm just imagining a sad little like toothless mole running around which I'm assuming is not the case. I'm assuming they are deceased but still. Anyway. Anyway. You can continue.
Gina (19:17)
Yeah.
Why was she called La Voisin?
I'd hope so. Anyway, yeah, I hope it's like an after they die of natural causes thing. Anyway, okay, so yes, mole teeth aphrodisiac, very hot. And for problems that would be solved with just one little death, she also started offering poison.
Kathryn (19:34)
Yes.
Gina (19:53)
And we think this is where Catherine got her now famous nickname, La Voison. Voisin translates to neighbor. So La Voisin just means the neighbor because she was basically like the witch next door or the Poisoner or the Sorceress or like whatever you wanted to call it. She was always just a knock away. So That's La Voisin. That's how she gets the name. That's what most people know her by.
Kathryn (20:12)
It's less ominous than I was expecting, if I'm gonna be honest. Yeah, the neighbor, that's... Seems kinda friendly. Yeah.
Black masses
Gina (20:15)
I know, yeah.
Yeah, yes. ⁓
yes, we will talk more about that. Definitely, yes. OK. And for Kathryn's richest clients, she would offer her most expensive service of all, a black mass. I feel like we've talked about black masses in previous episodes, but if you are unfamiliar with the term, it's basically just like a satanic version of a Catholic mass. There's more to it than that, but for the purposes of this, that's really all you need to know.
Kathryn (20:24)
Okay.
Gina (20:48)
And for a pretty penny, Catherine would use her now huge network of connections to hold one for you. would usually go something like this. I'm going to describe one of her black masses to you.
What were the black masses like?
So it was usually in a secret location, ⁓ sometimes in the cellar of her house with black candles kind of outfitting the room. A naked woman would be led in. Often that was Kathryn's client.
and then the woman would lay down at the front and she would serve as the altar for the ceremony. They would put a chalice on her stomach and then Catherine would pray to the devil to help her client while an ex-priest stood above the woman as an infant's blood would be drained into the cup. Immediately pause, because we do need to talk about the infant blood situation.
Kathryn (21:37)
Is this real?
Gina (21:38)
that's part of it, we don't know. I'll talk more about it later, but it's all witness testimony and the people who were witnessing this may have had a good reason to embellish the truth, is all I'll say for now. But we don't know, basically.
Kathryn (21:40)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
could also have been part of either just straight-up rumor or also just part of this facade. Could have been like her blood that she said was infant's blood. You know what I mean? To like create that mystique. Interesting.
Gina (22:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, especially like the, we don't know if any of the black mass stuff is true. We know there are reports that she held them. So it's all debatable, but especially the infant part of it is a very hot debate. Like whether that's real, whether the baby was alive or like already dead, whether it was tied to her abortion practice. Like there are tons of theories about what that might've been and we will sadly never know.
Kathryn (22:11)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (22:32)
was at very least what people were hearing about Catherine. So again, it contributed to her image as this mysterious, dark practitioner.
Another thing you may have picked up on is that she wasn't the only person involved in running these black masses. So by this point in her life, she had built a very extensive network of accomplices. So she worked with like renegade priests. She worked with other practitioners, other sorcerers, but she was always kind of the top of the food chain or at least one of the major players. And so she became known as the queen of black magic in Paris.
Coolest fucking title ever. And yeah, like I said, like she wasn't the only one. She did have competitors, but she was kind of like the the first thing that came to my head was like the Steve Jobs of black magic, but I fucking hate that. So I'm going to take that back. I don't like that at all. I'm sure she actually took showers.
Kathryn (23:32)
That's so funny. I'm sorry. I just was not expecting that. You could have said to anybody else and I would be less astonished. my god. Yeah. I was gonna say for ⁓ societally, culturally, that that paints, again, it paints a great picture. It was just not what I was expecting you to say. That's so funny. No, I think it's great.
Gina (23:39)
Hahahaha
I know, I know. I was trying to think of like, like big within a sphere, like a name that everyone would know.
It's not the best comparison. Forgive me.
Once again, sorry, France.
Kathryn (24:05)
Sorry everybody, we're doing our okay-est right now. No, I think that's great. That is a good comparison. I just was genuinely surprised that that's the name that came out of your mouth. Wow, that was great. No, I love it. Don't be sorry. Perfect.
La Voisin’s poison
Gina (24:08)
Yeah, our okay-est.
I don't fucking know, man. I don't know. But yes, so she's practicing black magic. She's into these black masses. But through it all, even as her services started to get even deeper into the occult, she still kept kind of her more grounded services running as well. In particular, the poison part of her business was really fucking lucrative. It was in very high demand. And the reason why… We talked about this a lot in the episode we did on Giulia Tofana but basically divorce was essentially unheard of back then, like just did not happen. So women rarely had a way to escape spousal abuse. And even beyond that, inheritances and the lines of succession were everything. Like your entire position in society and your life could change with one well-timed death.
So whether it was like killing an abusive husband or just for cash flow, poison went like fucking hotcakes. People wanted it and they were using it and they were getting it from Catherine. And just like Giulia Tofana, Catherine also, like I said, worked with a whole network of people to run the poisoning game.
She would recruit women to make the poisons on her behalf. And I have one side note about this because I fucking love it. One of the women that she hired was originally her rival, like big competition. It was a woman named Marie Bosse which I just, think that's such a fucking power move. Like you hate me, I will fucking hire you.
Kathryn (25:53)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's great.
Gina (25:58)
Yeah, anyway, so she really started to live like a full on double life. Like by day she was this charming, charismatic fortune teller for rich ladies hosting parties. She went to church every single Sunday. But by night she was like lording over black magic rituals and concocting poisons and helping people assassinate other people and shit like that. And this double life.
even stretched into her romantic relationships. She's known to have had a very wide variety of lovers throughout her life, even though she was still married. Antoine fucking sucks, so she did take lovers. And even in this, she was incredibly strategic. So she got together with people who would help her on kind of either end of her business. Like she had lovers who were aristocrats and architects.
But also she had ones that were like alchemists or occultists or executioners, like anyone who might come in handy. I shouldn't say anyone because she wasn't sleeping with the entirety of Paris. But she was strategic in the romantic relationships that she embarked on is what I'm trying to say.
Madame de Montespan
But Catherine’s most famous relationship was with a woman named Madame de Montespan
And it wasn't a romantic relationship. It was a very lucrative client relationship. was a lady-in-waiting at the French royal court. And she was known as being just like this really beautiful, brilliant, clever young woman. Her nickname was literally the Queen of Wit. Like she was just fucking, she was smart, gorgeous, tens all around.
But she was not content to just have a good reputation. She had ambitions. She wanted to become the king's official mistress. Now you might be saying, why? That sounds like a whole lot of fucking work. And it was, but it did come with a big payoff if you were the right person. So being ⁓ the king's official mistress back then is just what it sounds like. It was official. It was a role within court.
You got a fuck ton of money, you got special treatment, but it also meant that you had the king's ear, which was a lot of power, especially for women back then who never had any power. This was pretty much as high as you could go without actually being the queen. So it was a very big deal. And Montespan wanted it for herself. she went to the woman who was known for discretion and results, Catherine.
And I do, I wanna just pause for a second to talk about where they were both at in their lives and what their relationship was like when they met because it's really fucking interesting. So Montespan and Catherine were both around the same age. We don't have an exact birth year for Catherine, but by the time they met and started working together, they would have been around our age, like late 20s, early 30s, which kind of puts it into perspective for me. I think that's kind of wild. And they both... were motivated by power in a time when, like I said, women had very little. So Montespan wanted power in court. Catherine wanted financial stability and influence. And it was kind of the perfect storm each woman had what the other one needed right when they were both hitting their strides in society. So when they came together, supernova of fucking awesomeness, except for all the bad shit that happens. Anyway.
Catherine could help Montespan rise in station. Montespan would give Catherine a direct line into the court. So this wasn't just like a high priority client relationship for Catherine. This was the client relationship, like the make it or break it moment. So the rumor is that Catherine helped Montespan by giving her those love potions we were talking about earlier. And wouldn't you know it, they fucking worked.
Within a year of first engaging with Catherine, Montespan began as the king's official mistress, which kickstarted a years long relationship that resulted in seven children. So pretty big win for Catherine. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Did a great job. So not only had Catherine made good on her promise to her client, but now one of the most powerful women in the country fucking loved her.
Kathryn (30:17)
What the F? Damn. Okay.
Yeah, holy crap.
Gina (30:34)
So from then on Montespan would come to Catherine whenever she had relationship problems with the King. Which shocker, did not take an incredibly long time. Within a few years, the King's eye had already started to wander and he became fixated on a younger woman named Marie. And this caused Montespan to kind of freak out a little bit. She became desperate. She was really terrified that she would lose her position.
And that anxiety sent her straight to Catherine. I should note that what happens next is up for debate. This is another one of those like based on testimony that might not be the most valid kind of situation. But here's what we think or what the rumor is. So we think that Catherine started by giving Montespan aphrodisiacs to give to the king, similar to how she had done before. But Montespan wanted more. So Catherine started holding black masses for her with Montespan acting as the altar, begging Satan for the King's love and all that. And still it wasn't enough.
Alleged assassination attempt
Montespan wanted Marie out of the picture entirely and she did not want to leave it up to chance. So allegedly she asked Catherine to make her some poison. And at first the plan was to poison Marie.
But pretty quickly, Montespan decided that they should poison the king instead. It was kind of like a, if I can't have him, no one can thing. But it was also more complicated than that because the French court operated in little degrees of influence. It was so strict and so rigid that King Louis, it was King Louis XIV at the time, him dying was less embarrassing than him leaving her. And so that's the route that she wanted to go down.
Her motivations for this are, I think, weird and contested. I shouldn't say weird. They're very layered and complex. lot of things at play that I could spend hours talking about. anyway, Wanted the King Dead. That's pretty much it. Yeah.
Kathryn (32:40)
Yeah, I was gonna say this is like a whole, yeah, I have so
many questions on this that is gonna derail us too far, but maybe we'll talk about it someday because that is interesting. Yeah.
Gina (32:49)
I would love that.
And as the story goes, Catherine was more than willing to help. It's said that she created ⁓ what's called a poison petition, which is basically just a document that's coated in a poisonous powder that will kill you if you touch it. It's like ingested through your skin. I can't remember what those types of poisons are called. And Catherine planned to hand this document directly to the king herself. We will never know for sure what really happened, but we do know that Catherine went to the palace on March 5th, 1679, around the time this is rumored that she was trying to assassinate the king. And the day that she went there, the king was accepting petitions that day. But if you believe the rumors, that day was also particularly busy in the palace, like a very high number of people trying to see the king for one reason or another. And Catherine was unable to physically get close enough to him to hand him anything. So instead she was like, you know what, plan's shot, I'm gonna go home, we'll reconvene, we'll try this again later, don't worry about it.
The affair of poisons
Now at this point, we're gonna zoom out a little bit and talk about what was going on in France in general at the time, because things are about to start happening really quickly and the context is important. French authorities knew that something was up. There had been scores of unexplained deaths over the last few years, particularly in the aristocracy, and a lot of them seemed to have died by poison. And it was starting to get a little bit too close to home.
The King's sister-in-law, her death was attributed to poison. we actually think that she died from a ruptured ulcer, but right before she kicked it, she said that she felt like she had been poisoned. Which is what made everyone go, okay, you must have been poisoned, this has to be true. So people are kind of freaking out about it. But most recently, a member of the aristocracy had actually been arrested for poisoning her own dad and brothers. She does have the most French name of all time, so I am gonna tell it to you, because I think it's kind of funny. Her name was Marie-Madeleine Marguerite d’Aubray. Yeah. Yeah, and she poisoned her family. Not sweet, no, that's bad.
Kathryn (35:18)
Sweet. Perfect.
Not, not sweet. Or perfect.
Gina (35:27)
But yes, she was accused of poisoning her father and brothers so that she could inherit their estate. She was found guilty, sentenced to death, but authorities knew that she couldn't have been the one behind all of the poisonings. Like there was something bigger here, there were too many bodies, it was too kind of well done for it to just be a one person operation.
Her trial and execution is also kind of what made something click in the king's head. Like he had a, ⁓ it's like possible to poison rich people moment. Who would have fucking thunk? And so he started getting super paranoid that he was gonna be next. He started keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior in court, like everyone was under a microscope. He brought in food tasters to sample his food. And this time, when someone came to him with a rumor about fortune tellers moonlighting as poisoners, he took them very seriously. He issued an order to investigate any and all rumors of poison plots, like a no stone left unturned situation.
And in March 1679, the same month that Catherine allegedly attempted to assassinate the king, another fortune teller named Magdelaine de La Grance was arrested. And while she was imprisoned, likely during torture or under the threat of being tortured, she claimed that she could give them information about poisoners who worked with the upper class. and she pointed the finger at Catherine’s old rival. Incidentally, the same one that Catherine had hired for her poisoning ring. Her name was Marie. she was brought in for questioning, she told them fucking everything about Kathryn's poisoning racket anyway. But more importantly, she gave them Kathryn's name. So while I think it's awesome she hired a rival, also a good lesson to not hire a rival.
Kathryn (37:27)
See, honestly, was wondering where that was gonna go because that is one of the things I was gonna say but I was like, hold on because this could shift and it did. ⁓ yes. That's the risk.
Gina (37:35)
yeah, yeah. Yeah,
That's the risk. That's the business risk.
La Voisin’s arrest
So on March 12th, 1679, Catherine was leaving church when she was arrested by the Kings guards. Allegedly, she was on her way from church to plan yet another assassination attempt because this is like the week after the alleged first one, but again, we don't know for sure. All of this is like rumor and conjecture and untrustworthy testimony.
But anyway, over the course of this Inquisition, which is now known as the Affair of Poisons or the Poison Affair, tons and tons of people got picked up. Like it wasn't just Catherine and the people they arrested all stood to gain by telling the authorities whatever they wanted to hear.
And if the authorities wanted to hear that Catherine Montvoisin was guilty of attempted assassination, that's what they would tell them, whether or not it was true. Anything to avoid the torture. We see this time and time again. It's a shitty interview technique. And this is how we get most of our information about her business dealings. So like I mentioned, this wasn't a one-off thing. It was part of a series of investigations and it was held by a tribunal called the Chambre Ardent which translates to the burning court. So fucking dramatic, France, but love the name. Yeah.
Kathryn (39:02)
Yeah, my goodness. I was going to say no notes, but wow.
Gina (39:06)
Yeah, powerful, powerful.
And over the next three years, the burning court would hold 210 sessions, issue 319 arrest warrants, and it heard testimony that, like it sounds almost cliche, but it turned Paris's dark underbelly right side up. Like they unearthed everything that they could. that like people knew were happening on the down low, and I shouldn't even just say it was Paris because it was other parts of France too.
But now it was being examined and picked apart in a court where people were held to a higher standard than you might be if you just got picked up casually on the street. So they picked up Catherine like I said. They picked up the priests that she worked with during Black Masses. They picked up her lovers, her rivals, anyone they could hands on that knew Katherine. All of them were questioned. And pretty much all of them painted a very colorful picture of her operations, again in part to protect themselves.
But their claims were backed up by the evidence they found at Catherine’s house. They searched it a few days after she was arrested, and when they did so, they found potions, found grimoires, they found packages of weird unlabeled powders, occult symbols, human remains, all sorts of wacky shit, which we actually, like especially the human remains part, we actually think that was from the abortion side of her business, but the French court didn't really differentiate between that and murder. So it kind of got brought up in a like, she's killing people way.
And actually fun fact, not fun, but interesting fact. The King himself ordered investigators to not dig too deep into Kathryn's abortion services and her history with providing abortions.
Kathryn (40:44)
Why ever not, Gina?
Gina (41:01)
We don't know for sure. I would love to say it was because he was pro-choice, but I think more likely than not, he just wanted to avoid any evidence that would implicate him or his friends. Because this was a really big thing, was like reputation and protecting the reputation of the French court.
Kathryn (41:14)
This is
Yeah.
This is a classic we don't know for sure, but yes we do actually. Yeah.
Catherine’s interrogation
Gina (41:25)
We can use our brains, yeah.
Yeah. And as for Catherine herself, they had her right where they wanted her, in custody, in prison, with scores of evidence and testimony against her. But they had a problem. They needed answers from Catherine, but they couldn't torture her. Not outright, not in the traditional ways. And the reason why is because they knew how influential her circle was. And they were scared that if they tortured her, she would basically start name dropping like a bunch of nobles and then it would turn into an even bigger scandal.
So they're like, shit, how are we going to get the information that we need out of Catherine? Okay, we can't torture her, but we can still prey on her weaknesses. And Catherine loved drinking. So while she was in prison, they pretty much just like gave her a bunch of booze and let her get
super drunk and then she was more accommodating with their questions. Which to be fair, I do think that that is still a form of torture, especially if she was an alcoholic, but it's not the type of torture we think about.
Kathryn (42:33)
I was gonna say how, yeah. I was gonna say how much did she like drinking? Was this just like she was getting loosey goosey or was this like, yeah, I agree with that. Cause I'm also like, man, I'm realizing that's something you gotta watch out for. That would work on me like a charm. Like, my God, we're a lot more vulnerable than I thought we were.
Gina (42:53)
I know, right? Me too. I know. I'll tell you anything for a Negroni, Jesus Christ.
But yes, Catherine also fell victim to the very same thing that would bring us tumbling down, a nice crisp cocktail. It's probably wine. And they wound up holding her in custody for about a year, give or take.
And for a very long time, to her credit, she held out. She denied selling poison, she denied the witchcraft allegations, and initially she only admitted to fortune telling. after long enough though, she did start to crack a little bit. She started saying that she didn't poison people, but she referred people to poisoners.
And she also started naming some lower-level names of her clients. She was incredibly, in fucking credibly careful to never point the finger at Montespan. By this point, just for context, Montespan was definitely suspected of being involved in something, somehow. They just didn't have proof of what she was actually involved in.
So like suspish, but Catherine was doing her a huge solid by not throwing her under the bus. largely responsible for Montespan like never actually being directly implicated in the poison affair, which is a big deal because a lot of people were. ⁓ Eventually Montespan did fall out of royal favor and she left the king's service, but she ultimately died a wealthy, privileged woman, just like she had lived. Anyway, the same could not be said for her protector, Catherine.
La Voisin’s trial
When her trial took place on February 17th, 1680, almost a year after she was arrested, the evidence was just too compelling for them to ignore. The court heard from the witnesses. They saw what they had found in her house. They heard her excuses and explanations, but ultimately they convicted her of witchcraft and they sentenced her to burn at the stake.
And just a few days later, on February 22nd, when Catherine was around 40 years old, she was led to a public square in the center of Paris where she was burned alive. And according to onlookers, she did not go gentle into that good night. Reportedly, she kicked, she screamed, and when the flames were being lit, she died cursing her accusers. Respect. Yeah. I respect.
Kathryn (45:33)
That's valid. Yeah.
Jesus.
Gina (45:37)
Yeah, after her death, her ashes were likely thrown into the Seine River, which was customary at the time. So sadly, I don't think there's an actual grave you can go visit. But even though they had gotten Catherine, they had gotten like one of the big kahunas in this whole affair, wasn't over just yet.
The affair of poisons went on for about another two years before the tribunal was dissolved. And one of the biggest reasons it was called off is because so many high ranking individuals had been implicated that basically the king was like scared of getting made fun of by other courts and other countries and shit. He did wind up banning, I know, eye roll. He did wind up banning fortune telling and potion selling. But at the end of the day, hundreds of people were arrested, likely tortured, and 36 people were executed for a role in a poison plot that may never have even fucking existed, just because he felt like having a big old thing.
Kathryn (46:37)
My god, that's a lot of people.
Gina (46:39)
And there were a lot of people that probably would have been arrested if they didn't have the title that they had. There was a lot of politicking that went into all of this shit. It's actually really fascinating to read about the affair of poisons. I do recommend it.
La Voisin’s legacy
These days, though, in more modern times, when we talk about Catherine, like I said, she's most often referred to by her nickname, La Voisin. And she's mainly remembered for the poisonings.
Kathryn (46:47)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (47:06)
Not so much like the witchy stuff, not so much like the providing healthcare to women thing. It's really just the poisons that people talk about. And it kind of makes sense because there are estimates that she was responsible for the deaths of over a thousand people. Some say up to 2,500. But those numbers come from way back when, when they would have included abortions in the quote murder count. So take it with a grain of salt.
She definitely was responsible for some people dying, but the numbers might not be as high as we all think. even in artistic portrayals of her, she's often accompanied with symbols like the Grim Reaper, demons, angry gods, that kind of thing. A very negative image in contrast to the image that she worked so hard to cultivate in life. But I was able to find a more modern depiction of Catherine that has become my favorite. And I'm gonna tell you about it. She was included in a tarot deck that I believe came out in 2023. It was created by a guy named Travis McHenry. It's the Magicians, Martyrs and Madmen tarot deck. And it features Catherine as the queen of cups.
Kathryn (48:22)
Cool, I've heard of this deck, I've never seen it though. Do you have it? ⁓ cool, okay. That's exciting, you'll have to show me when you get it.
Gina (48:25)
I bought it. It hasn't arrived yet, but I bought it because of this. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I was hoping it was gonna be here in time for us to record so I could show it to you, but I don't have it.
Kathryn (48:41)
That's okay, it'll be here by the time we publish probably, right?
Gina (48:44)
Yeah, yeah. But yes, real quick, if you're not familiar with tarot, it's completely okay. I'll explain what the Queen of Cups means to me and why it's significant to me. ⁓ Because the Queen of Cups is a fucking beautiful card. It's actually my favorite card. I love it very much. It tends to represent things like intuition, empathy, being in touch with the way that your emotions interact with your intellect.
Kathryn (48:46)
better.
Yeah.
Gina (49:13)
⁓ A lot of people see her as kind of a mother figure, especially in my interpretation of it. That's how I see the Queen of Cups. Like she's caring, supportive, ⁓ values, relationships. And I think that choosing Catherine to represent the Queen of Cups is a brilliant fucking choice.
Because if we look at not just what she was doing, but why she was doing it, she was all of those things that I just said. Like in a court that was built on extremely rigid and restrictive social protocol, Catherine helped so many women find their independence in whatever ways they could be that through reproductive health care, getting out of abusive relationships, or just like being someone that they could go to for advice and direction that wouldn't go blabbing their secrets all around town. And you know, like I do have to say, I'm not saying everything she did was okay, I'm not defending the whole you know, killing people thing. But I do think there can be multiple truths. And I think that one of them is that Catherine was doing what she could to survive in a world that left women with very few options. And I do respect her for that. And that's my story.
Kathryn (50:28)
Yeah.
Man, see, I have so many things to say, but one of the things that I think jumps out to me the most about her is that idea of she was taking care of people, maybe not in the most traditional sense or the sense that people would ordinarily expect. I also feel like you hear so much about, people who were accused of witchcraft being, you know, healthcare providers to women. But you don't ever, I don't think I've ever heard an actual story about someone who did that. You know what I mean? Like you hear about that as a concept of, you know, the types of women who were accused of witchcraft. But I've never gotten a specific story or a name associated with any of the healthcare providers. So...
Gina (51:08)
Mmm.
Kathryn (51:23)
That's cool. That was actually part of it's cool that there is someone that I can like put a, you know, a story to a name.
Gina (51:32)
Yeah.
Kathryn (51:33)
Yeah, that's interesting.
Gina (51:36)
Yeah, I really very much enjoyed researching Catherine.
Kathryn (51:40)
I'm also still hung up on the baby's blood. I do want to come back to that because this is another one of those things that after hearing I was getting a lot of Elizabeth Bathory vibes at the in the second half of this story because, you know, that was very common. A lot of the information we have on things women did and the way women were convicted are a result of
Gina (51:44)
Mmm.
Kathryn (52:09)
like torturous testimony. I wonder if that was a rumor born out of, no pun intended, sorry, weird phrasing, born out of the fact that she provided abortions. Like that would be a very easy thing for, you know, people to accuse her of. Whether she did or not, you know, that would be an easy thing for people to latch on to.
Gina (52:32)
One thing I will say that I didn't include it in the episode because there's so fucking much to this story. I had to cut a lot out.
Kathryn (52:38)
It feels like
I know I figured as much.
Gina (52:42)
one of the women who gave testimony against Catherine was her own daughter, who, yeah, who, but you know, because she was her daughter, kind of had like an insider's perspective on what was going on. I know that she did give testimony on the black masses. I can't off the top of my head remember if she explicitly referenced the infant blood. But that would be interesting to go back and see because there's a certain layer of like
Kathryn (52:49)
⁓ interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (53:11)
additional credibility that gets added when it's the person. mean, not, you know, they're telling the truth because they're related to that person, but it changes the context a little bit.
Kathryn (53:19)
Mm-hmm.
And that's the thing, like, what you just said, it doesn't necessarily mean that that's true. Like, they could have had a weird thing going on, too, or she could have been tortured, too, or whatever, you know what I mean? And I'm not disagreeing with you. I do think that that adds, like, a layer that wouldn't be there if it was just some random person. But it's still...
Gina (53:30)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (53:45)
these stories, this is why I don't do these super old stories because there's so many question marks that I'm like, I just need to know though. Like I want answers so bad and I know we're never gonna have them but I choose to just make them up in my head because I can't not have answers to these types of things. Yeah, I know you do.
Gina (53:50)
Hmm. ⁓
Yeah, I love stories like this. I like not having answers, because then I get to create a version of them in my own head. Yeah.
Kathryn (54:13)
See, I was thinking of this the other day, because we've been in, we've been part of a lot of conversations where we've been talking about our complementary personalities. And I keep saying we have opposite strengths and interests and stuff. And that's not true. I should start saying complementary. But one of the things that is very different about us is just that I feel like you are curious in a way that you want to be able to like create this world and you're curious about the things that can create an even bigger like story and more things to be curious about, I'm curious in the way that I'm like I better leave this curiosity behind me and like have answers at the end of this exploration. Like I'm so curious and I love chasing that curiosity but I also want it to be gone eventually. We're, yeah.
Gina (55:06)
Well, you never know. mean, there might be answers out there to some of these things. There is just physically so much material about La Voisin, Montespan, The Affair of Poisons, King Louis XIV. I mean, are mountains and mountains and mountains of things that we can sift through. So if you have some time and you're feeling like it, you might be able to get some answers.
Kathryn (55:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I don't, but I'm going to have to now.
See, but here's the thing with a story like this, at a certain point, what actually happened kind of ceases to exist and it turns into what people actually say happened, you know, because, you know, you can go for centuries with one reputation. And even if someone comes out and says, that's actually not true,
Gina (55:37)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Kathryn (55:51)
can't undo centuries worth of rumors as, you know, no matter how hard you try, that's just, that can't really be done. Not to the extent that it should.
Gina (55:55)
Yeah.
100 %
Yeah, and especially when it's coming from a monarchy that was so controlling of its own narrative. Like King Louis XIV's court, that's the one where he had like crazy social protocols for everything. Like if you were a member of his court, like if you got to stand behind him and watch him eat dinner, it was seen as like a great honor. And he had a guy that would like dress him for bed and a guy that would like do this and that and trim his beard. But all of them were like nobles and he did that to control them. And so he was just so, he was such a control freak.
Kathryn (56:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
⁓
Gina (56:32)
that there is no way that what actually happened back then has not been filtered through that. And so yeah, like you were saying, the information that we have now, it's all through that lens. Like history is told by the victors, you know what I mean?
Kathryn (56:46)
Mm-hmm. yeah, for sure.
Gina (56:48)
But I digress. ⁓ Do you have something for me? Pour moi?
Scary on top
Kathryn (56:49)
Interesting.
I do have something very exciting for you. I had a whole ass scary on top planned, which I also was very excited about. But then we got an email just this morning. So I had to bump it up on the schedule because this is our first, hey, I have some additional context on an episode type of email. So I was very excited about
Gina (57:18)
Okay, sweet.
Kathryn (57:22)
got this email from a woman named Philippa East, who is an author and psychologist. And she sent this in response to the Warrens episode, the Ed and Lorraine Warren. What is that? 48, I think, just a few back. ⁓ So if you haven't listened to it yet,
Gina (57:37)
Okay.
Yeah.
Kathryn (57:44)
Go listen to it because it will make this make more sense, obviously. Okay. I'm going to read the whole thing because I love when you all gas us up. Okay. It says, I just listened to your fabulous episode about the Warrens. I loved it as I have loved all of your episodes. know, I loved that.
Gina (58:01)
Aww.
Kathryn (58:04)
Then she says, I was just thinking with my background in psychology, dot, dot, dot,
After learning about the really messed up situation that was going on in the Warren household with young Judith in the basement, the sexual relationships, use of birth control, and the coerced abortion, all of which would have gone against the Warren's strict Catholic beliefs, is it so much of a surprise that everywhere the Warrens went
they were convinced that they were encountering houses infested by malevolent demons. It sounds like it might have been a bit of a projection of their own terrible guilt about the evil that they were perpetuating within their own home. Anyway, thank you so much for the great work that you do. I can't wait to listen to your next episode. All the very best from a big fan, Philippa East. And come on, like, is that not
Gina (58:56)
Bye!
Kathryn (59:00)
Listen, you guys, this is like the exact kind of thing that we like want to be talking about on this podcast that was so validating to hear that from someone who like actually knows what they're talking about because I had something like that in my notes and I left it out because I'm not a psychologist. I don't know. I felt like I like went a little hard on the Warrens in that episode. So was like, I got to protect myself a little bit from the army. So I left that out.
Gina (59:27)
You
Kathryn (59:30)
But I do think that there's a lot to that. think that we've talked so much about the psychology of hauntings without necessarily saying that outright. And I think this is probably a really good example of that. ⁓ And I just, love, I love this email. Isn't that so great? I know.
Gina (59:51)
That's a great fucking email. That's so fucking
incite- like that's one of the things when you hear it and you're like, my god, yeah! It's like that idea is so- and it makes so much sense. I completely see it. I completely believe it. God damn.
Kathryn (59:58)
It's so straightforward.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, me too.
I think that had a lot to do with it. And that goes into our whole disclaimer, not to defend anybody. I always have to say this, but that goes into the whole like, what else was contributing to the things that they like said and did and saw? Like, we don't know like what else was going on and not even things they were doing, but like Ed was from a crazy religious family as well. Like maybe they...
Gina (1:00:32)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (1:00:33)
had weird shit going on, you know what I mean? Like, there's so many layers to that and it could go so much deeper than any of us will ever know. And I was thinking about this email as you were telling your story today because I think they're very different stories, but I think the sentiment is very similar in that, like, you could be peeling back layers for eons to come, you know?
Gina (1:00:59)
Yeah,
my god, yeah. know what I want? I want to go back and re-listen to the Warrens episode while having that in my mind. Because I feel like that, yeah, it adds like another layer. Like we've been talking about, today is just like a buttermilk biscuit of layered shit. I don't know. I don't know why, why this, like today is the layer theme. But it's all happening and I like it.
Kathryn (1:01:09)
I know.
and
Podcast rebrand, we're an onion podcast now. Dude, I fucking love onions so much.
Gina (1:01:24)
HA HA!
I mean...
Kathryn (1:01:29)
I don't know. just, knew you were going to love this email. I love it. So yes. Thank you, Philippa, for sending this to us. I'm very happy you did when you, or I'm very happy that you sent it when you did because I was full on ready to talk about something else. And this was just pristine for this episode. Yeah. So thank you. Appreciate it.
Gina (1:01:31)
I do.
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (1:01:55)
So yeah, before we wrap up, just friendly reminder that if you have any additional information or questions or thoughts on any of our episodes, feel free to send an email, iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com. We also would love your stories. As per usual, you know the drill. ⁓ Otherwise, please join us on Patreon. All of our social links and Patreon website, etc. is going to be in the show notes. And yeah, until next time, little spoons, keep it cool.
Gina (1:02:24)
Keep it creepy.
