Episode 118: Ambition

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The treaty was supposed to fix everything, but that was a lie.

In August of 1678, France signed the Treaty of Nijmehen to end the Dutch War.

On the surface, it put all the broken pieces back together, but France's King Louis XIV wasn't a big fan of following the rules.

If the six-year-long conflict hadn't solidified King Louis's reputation as the bully in Europe, the way he exploited the treaty over the next few years certainly did.

And it was a mantle that he wore with pride.

He was rich and powerful, and stood at the very pinnacle of French society's cutthroat world of upward mobility and social status.

The same year he signed the treaty, he wrapped up construction on Versailles.

It had taken 17 years, but when it was completed, his old hunting lodge had become the centerpiece of royal life and the stage upon which countless dramas were played out.

We have records of women in the court literally breaking out into fights and screaming matches to decide who would get to sit closest to the queen.

Courtiers would stay at the palace for months at a time, afraid to leave and let some competitor take their place, even if that meant allowing their property back home to fall into ruin and lose all value.

It was a world full of rivalries and failure, hungry ambition and painful sacrifices.

For those closest to the king and queen, every waking moment felt as if their happiness and good fortune hung in the balance.

Everyone was desperate for a leg up over their rivals, and many were known to pay for help.

Astrologers, mediums, and fortune-tellers were all common straws that these desperate socialites grasped for.

As hyperbolic as it might sound to us today, each of them felt that their every decision, no matter how big or small, had somehow become a matter of life and death.

And for a while, at least, everyone was right.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this

is Lore.

Catherine was born in Paris, France, around 1640, but that's about all we know.

Her exact date of birth is still a mystery, as are the names of her parents.

Like a lot of the lower class of her day, she came into the world unnoticed, but she wasn't about to stay that way.

You see, there was a world of difference between the social elites that swarmed around the royal court, like flies on a carcass, and the filthy underbelly of the French working class.

But one thing Catherine did have in common with them was ambition.

She was born to wield power and had the tenacity to reach for it.

By the age of nine, she was learning the art and secrets of fortune-telling.

And I can't help but imagine Catherine plying those skills on the streets of Paris, drawing in crowds crowds who were just as interested in the child prodigy as they were in details of their own futures.

But like a lot of young women of that era, she hoped for a marriage that would provide for her and get her off the streets.

For Catherine, that man was Antoine, a silk merchant who ran a shop out of a building on the Pont-Marie Bridge.

Today the bridge is a beautiful stretch of open space and ancient stone.

But in the late 1600s, it was lined on both sides by buildings where merchants sold their wares.

and for a time I imagine life was relatively good for Catherine and Antoine.

But at some point early in their marriage Antoine's business failed and so Catherine had to step in and help support their household.

She worked as a midwife but it was her fortune-telling that pulled in the bigger clients, the aristocrats looking for an edge over their rivals or peace of mind amidst a sea of anxiety.

Whatever it was, Catherine Monvoisin was there to give them exactly what they needed.

Things were looking up for Catherine, but Antoine's failure had hit him hard.

He began to drown himself in alcohol, making it impossible for him to contribute to the family income.

And eventually, Catherine was the only adult supporting herself, Antoine, and their four children.

And this apparently frustrated her beyond belief.

It was said that one of the most respectful ways to greet Catherine in private was to ask whether or not her husband had died yet.

It's what she wanted, and most people knew that, even Antoine himself.

In fact, they apparently lived near one of the local executioners, and it's said that Antoine approached him more than once to request an autopsy should he ever drop dead unexpectedly.

Catherine filled her time with a lot of hard work.

Her network was growing, and that meant more and more people knew of her services.

And she began to get so busy that she started referring clients to other fortune-tellers, taking a large cut of the fee as a commission, of course.

But in her spare time, she maintained a steady flow of lovers.

One of them was a young magician named Adam Lesage, who was more than a little interested in removing Catherine's husband from the picture.

He even convinced her to participate in a ritual that would set dark powers in motion to kill him, part of which involved burying the heart of a sheep in her backyard.

At the last moment, though, Catherine backed out and dug the organ back up, which might have been the most perfect illustration illustration of the phrase change of heart in all of history.

But that didn't mean that she was any less interested in being rid of her husband.

She just had a lot of other things on her mind, and a career that was exploding in popularity.

By some accounts, she was earning the modern equivalent of nearly $200,000 annually, which shows just how important her services were to the people of Paris.

And she spent it lavishly too, throwing regular celebrations and gatherings at her stylish home.

One record even suggests that she spent roughly $25,000 on a single dress.

Business, as they say, was very, very good.

More and more people were interested in learning about their future, what decisions to make, and how they might avoid failure in the middle of a competitive society.

Rich or poor, day laborer or aristocrat, it didn't matter.

Catherine Monvoisin would sit down with them, provide them answers, and sometimes even solutions.

She used chiromancy, otherwise known as palm reading, as well as physiognomy, the art of reading another person's face.

Many were sent away with instructions to pray to certain saints.

Some were prescribed specific rituals, while others were given potions that included toad bones, mole teeth, and powdered human remains.

She would later say that there were three major requests that brought people to her over and over again throughout the years.

Love was always on the forefront of people's minds, and she fielded countless requests for help in securing a spouse.

Another big topic was money, and many of her clients came looking for help in growing their personal fortunes.

But right up there with love and money was another request, although this one was a bit less traditional.

Many of the individuals who came to her were women looking for freedom from their husbands, and they were willing to do whatever it took to make it happen.

And as it turns out, so was Catherine.

The end began with an arrest.

One of Catherine's peers, a fortune-teller named Magdalene de Lagrange, was arrested in February of 1677.

She was accused of forgery, which was bad enough.

but she was also guilty of killing her own husband with poison.

While she sat in prison awaiting her execution, Delagrange decided to help the authorities out.

She told them that she was a small fish in a much bigger pond.

Others just like her were out there performing the same services for their clients, selling what they coily referred to as inheritance powders, an herbal remedy meant to speed up the process of inheriting wealth from a loved one, a fancy term for poison.

She also told them that these other people were part of a larger plot, one to assassinate the king.

But it seems that while the authorities listened, they didn't act right away.

It wasn't until an anonymous letter detailing the plot to kill the king was discovered inside a Paris church that things really heated up.

In late 1678, another well-off fortune-teller hosted a large party at her house, and a number of influential people were there.

One of them, a power-hungry lawyer named Perron, overheard another of the guests comment that all she needed to do was poison three more people and then she'd she'd be able to retire.

Perron immediately went to the police and turned the woman in.

Her name was Marie Beauz, but like a lot of women from the lower ranks of society, she was known by her surname, so everyone simply called her Le Beaux.

She was arrested on January 4th of 1679 and taken to a fort just outside of Paris called Château du Vincena, where she was held for questioning.

With a new lead in their possession, Lagrange was executed to tie up loose ends and and also provide a bit more pressure on LeBose, who would certainly want to avoid the same ending.

Her home was searched, and the investigators discovered ample quantities of cantherides, otherwise known as Spanish fly.

In small doses, it could serve as an aphrodisiac, but could be highly toxic if too much was taken.

LeBose quickly rolled on her clients.

Over the next two months, she named dozens of women who had all come looking for poisons with the intention of killing their husbands, running the spectrum from working-class wives to well-known aristocrats.

But Le Beaux refused to admit selling the poisons to them herself.

The main source of it all, she told them, was one woman, Catherine Montvoisen.

On Sunday, March 12th, 1679, Catherine, known by everyone around Paris as La Voisin, stepped out of church to find the authorities waiting for her.

and she was immediately taken into custody.

Back at the chateau, she and Le Beaux were separately interrogated, and each woman did her best to pin the blame on her rival.

It seems that even among those who served the social elites, competition was a way of life.

Roughly two months later, though, the French authorities had reached the frustrating end of their rope.

Sure, La Beauz had pointed them to La Voisine, as well as confess enough to have herself sentenced to death.

But La Voisine had somehow managed to keep herself silent through it all, refusing to admit to any wrongdoing.

So the authorities turned up the heat.

On May 10th of 1697, La Beaux was tortured one last time.

I imagine her screams would have been heard all throughout the fortress, including the cell of La Voisin.

Then she was taken outside, along with her son and daughter, for their final punishment.

Her son was hanged for the crime of helping his mother prepare her poisons, and then La Beauz herself was burned alive while her daughter was forced to watch.

It must have been a horrific scene, and one that would have left an impression on everyone who heard it.

And that included La Voisin.

She held on for a few more months, but on September 16th, she called for one of her interrogators and told him that she was ready to talk.

Maybe it was the terror she felt at the notion of burning alive as Le Bose had done, or perhaps it was the liberal supply of alcohol they'd been giving her.

Either way, she was ready to give them information.

The first thing she did, though, wasn't confess.

No, she pointed the finger at yet one more person: her old lover, the magician, the one who had asked her to bury the sheep's heart in her back garden, Adam Lesage.

It was her last attempt to slip through the net and avoid the consequences of her actions.

But plans, as they say, are meant to be broken.

Lesange was already on the authorities' radar, so to speak.

He'd been arrested a decade earlier and served five years on a French prison ship before earning his freedom by serving in the military.

Yes, he had a checkered past full of black magic and dark rituals, but he was a reformed man now, and he was also desperate to not lose his freedom again.

When he and Lavoisine had parted ways back in 1667, he immediately set up shop as a direct competitor to her, which didn't go over very well.

She had a lot of rivals around Paris, as most upwardly mobile people had at the time, but Lesage was different.

He had been her lover and business partner.

He had learned things from her that she shared with few other people, and not all of it was good.

In the end, Lavoisin's distraction backfired.

When Lesage was brought in, rather than being an easy target, he brought all of that new evidence with him.

He told them that Lavoisin was guilty of murders that had slipped past the authorities and that she had a long list of well-known clients.

It was she who supplied the entire network of fortune-tellers with the deadly poisons that were being used across the city.

But there was more.

According to Lesage, Lavoisine was also directly directly involved in a plot against the king.

In fact, one of her clients, he told them, was one of the king's mistresses.

Unfortunately, that was news that the interrogators took directly to the king rather than through the usual channels.

And when he caught wind of what was happening, he panicked.

Someone close to the king was attempting to plot his death, and I have to imagine he began to wonder who, of all the people at court around him, could actually be trusted.

Even his own mistresses were suspected at this point, and I'm betting he felt more than a little trapped, so he began to lock the investigation down and take control.

One of the first things he did was order that the written records from the interrogations at the chateau not be bound in a book.

Which sounds like an odd request, I know, until you realize that this was essentially a request to keep the records as deletable as possible.

Without binding, anyone could slip a dangerous page of notes out of the official records and make them disappear.

Next, the king instructed the investigators to make no exceptions in their future arrests.

They were to ignore rank, wealth, and gender.

Everyone who was a suspect should be arrested no matter who they were, so long as there was sufficient evidence to support it.

And among them were the Duke of Luxembourg and the Comtesse de Soisson, both of whom had hired Lavoisin to help them move up the ranks in the court.

But it's impossible to keep rumors like this under wraps for long.

In a volatile environment like the Royal Court of Louis XIV, when every single person was grasping for an advantage over their rival, this was juicy information.

The court was filled with murderous traitors who were hiring Lavoisine to poison their way to success.

So naturally, word spread.

From the court of the socialites, the rumors trickled down to the streets of Paris.

Suddenly, everyone was obsessed with Lavoisine and her her network of poisoners.

But inside her prison cell in the château, she continued to deny all of it.

Some historians think that's because the rumors and accusations of her plot to kill the king, if proven true, would lead to instant death.

Keeping silent was Lavoisine's way of staying alive.

It didn't work, though.

On February 22nd of 1680, After a brief trial and quicker conviction, a carriage arrived at the château to transport her to her execution.

She was driven to the square in front of Paris City Hall, but when the carriage stopped to let her out, she refused to exit.

After a moment of struggle, she was dragged out of the car by a pair of guards, kicking and screaming the entire time.

A priest was given a moment to serve as her confessor, but she was said to have pushed his crucifix away and refused to speak with him.

And then she was led to the square, where a large wooden stake awaited her, surrounded by straw and dry kindling, oh, and thousands of eager onlookers.

After tying her to the stake, the fire was lit.

Legend says that she tried putting out the flames by kicking at them, but eventually gave up and waited for death.

She burned alive, and the infamous affair of the poisons was finally brought to an end.

Ambition can be a dangerous thing.

Yes, it drives talented people to claw their way through barriers of self-doubt and social norms.

Yes, it empowers those with enough courage to strive for success.

But ambition has a darker side as well.

Ambition was one of the driving forces behind westward expansion, which displaced millions of Native Americans in a bloody land grab.

Ambition drove H.H.

Holmes to build an entire apartment complex filled with trapdoors, secret rooms, and gas chambers, all for the purpose of killing for money.

Ambition can be wonderful, yes, but it can also be horribly ugly.

And while the list of crimes against Catherine Mavoisen was long and included activities like deception, attempted regicide, and even murder, it might be simpler to boil it all down to one basic fault.

La Voisin was ambitious, and in the end, that came with a heavy price.

Historians today believe that Lavoisin was responsible, either directly or through a third party, for the murder of over 1,000 individuals, although some estimates place that number as high as 2,500.

She was the perfect example of what can happen when an ambitious person has the right skills, the right access, and a complete lack of morals.

She took what she wanted, regardless of the cost it inflicted on those around her.

That cost went beyond lost lives, too.

Because an event like the affair of the poisons, as it's become known by historians, was guaranteed to leave a mark on French history in multiple ways.

Yes, there were deaths, but there were also a great number of reputations destroyed in the short time it took place.

And one of those was the woman I mentioned earlier, the Comtesse du Soisson.

She herself had a lot to lose.

She had wanted to become the king's new mistress and had tried poisoning her way into that role.

When she was caught by the authorities, the king was presented with a dilemma, imprison her and draw a massive scandal from across Europe, or turn a blind eye and let her escape.

Louis chose the latter, and the Comtesse fled France in the dead of night.

She died in Belgium 30 years later, never able to return to Paris.

But she left behind a son, Eugene of Savoy.

He was an ambitious teenager with visions of glory, but he found the royal court had become frustratingly inhospitable to him because of what happened to his mother.

He tried asking the king for a position in the French army, but he was turned away from that as well.

So he followed his mother's lead and left France.

Instead of Belgium, Eugene traveled to Austria, where he pledged his allegiance to the Habsburgs and Leopold I, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.

There he entered the military, and he served the empire for decades with great success.

Today, he's considered one of the most successful military commanders in modern European history.

His list of accomplishments is long, and it wouldn't be fair to boil his achievements down to one event.

But it is fair to say that his power as a general was a major reason why the Holy Roman Empire and her allies defeated France in the Nine Years' War, crushing France's aggressive expansion into Europe.

Oh, and putting an end to the plans of the one man he hated more than anyone else-the man who turned him away after ruining his mother's life-a man he couldn't help but view as his biggest rival,

King Louis XIV.

The story of Catherine Mavoisin is one of political intrigue and deadly ambition, but that's nothing new to those familiar with the history of France.

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So, what do this animal

and this animal

and this animal

have in common?

They all live on an organic valley farm.

Organic valley dairy comes from small organic family farms that protect the land and the plants and animals that live on it from toxic pesticides, which leads to a thriving ecosystem and delicious, nutritious milk and cheese.

Learn more at ov.coop and taste the difference.

One of my jobs as an executive producer for iHeart podcasts is that I get to help shepherd and build new podcasts that deserve to see the light of day.

Last year, that opportunity allowed me to bring you two new hit shows, Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, but I'm not slowing down.

Tomorrow, we'll be releasing a brand new podcast called Noble Blood, and I think you're going to love it.

It's a narrative exploration of history's most fascinating monarchs and nobles, both the infamous and the overlooked.

Each episode of Noble Blood focuses on a single subject and a story from their life, ranging from the final days of Marie Antoinette to the cockney butcher who convinced the world he was a long-lost baronet.

It's written and hosted by author Dana Schwartz and produced in a style that will be very familiar to fans of lore.

As you might expect, these stories aren't for the faint of heart.

But if you're up for it, I want to share a clip from the first episode with you right here, right now.

So sit back, make yourself comfortable and enjoy this taste of Noble Blood.

And when you're done, be sure to subscribe to Noble Blood on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

She was the 15th child of the Empress Maria Theresa and was only gifted with the prize role of Dauphine of France thanks to random happenstance, an unlikely circumstance befalling her older sisters.

Her education up until that last-minute betrothal had been minimal.

But even if she wasn't studious, she was beautiful and charming and agreeable.

She would be happy in France, marrying the awkward young prince, only a few months her senior.

But even if she wasn't, her happiness wasn't the point.

She was a pawn to secure an alliance between Austria and France.

22 years after she became a French princess, after two decades of decadence in the most cultured and luxurious palace in the world, Marie Antoinette was alone in a cell in the heart of Paris, with mobs outside calling for her head to join that of her husband and her friends in the guillotine.

Marie Antoinette's prison cell at the Conciergerie was not a place of warmth and kindness, but the jailkeeper, Madame Richard, tried to make the woman who had once lived in a palace comfortable.

Madame Richard, who ran the conciergerie with her husband, had watched the queen hang a small golden watch on the wall of her cell, the only bit of adornment in the dark room where the walls dripped and moaning could be heard from all hours of the night.

It was a gift from long ago from her mother, the Empress Maria Therese.

Madame Richard had also watched the guards confiscate the watch five days later.

The queen was mostly quiet after that.

Her hands stayed in her laps.

She thanked the guards when they brought her food and thanked Madame Richard when the jailer brought fresh flowers to the cell before those two were banned.

One afternoon, to try to cheer up the queen, Madame Richard brought her own son to the prison.

Marie Antoinette had always famously loved children.

She once stopped her carriage to help a poor boy on the street, paying for his boarding and education.

She had clutched her own children to her so tightly and for so long that Versailles had wagged their tongues at her overindulgence.

When Madame Richard's son, Fanfan, arrived at the conciergerie, Marie Antoinette burst into tears.

For the first time in weeks, her voice rose above a whisper.

She wailed while hugging the boy, pulling her arms tighter and tighter around him.

It was a cry of misery.

Fanfen was seven at the time, the same age as Marie Antoinette's son, Louis Charles, imprisoned somewhere far away, being re-educated by revolutionaries.

When Madame Richard took her son's hand and led him back into the hall, she confessed to a maid that she had made a mistake and she would never again bring Fanfant to visit Marie Antoinette.

Six months prior, Marie Antoinette's family had all been together for what would be the last time.

It was the night before the former King Louis XVI's execution and the man, now called Louis Capet, was permitted one last meal.

Marie Antoinette and Louis's younger sister Elizabeth cried the entire evening while the children, a boy and a girl, looked up at their stoic father with wide, watery eyes.

Promise me, the once-king said to his children, that you will not seek revenge for those who do this to me.

Little Louis Charles nodded his head.

Marie Antoinette would not stop her weeping.

She and her husband had been married for 23 years.

Louis XVI had never taken a mistress.

Perhaps if he had, things would have been easier for his queen, someone else to deflect the gossip and attention.

But it was far too late to try to imagine how things might have been different.

Louis XVI had been sentenced to death and his head would be on the guillotine the next morning.

To stop his wife and his sister and his children from crying, Louis promised that he would see them tomorrow morning, that he would say one final goodbye.

This was just good night.

We'll say goodbye tomorrow morning, he lied.

The next morning, Marie Antoinette, now called the widow Capet, was taken to a new prison cell.

This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Marcette Crockett and music by Chad Lawson.

If you love today's story and want to dive deeper, I highly recommend a book called The Affair of the Poisons, written by Anne Somerset.

It's readily available on Amazon, and if you want to learn more about Lavoisin's story, you really need to grab this book.

Lore is much more than just a podcast.

There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video.

Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.

I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both of them.

Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.

You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place: theworldoflore.com/slash now.

And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Just search for lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button.

When you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi.

And as always,

thanks for listening.

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