ILLUSTRATIONS: David Augustus
Catherine Deshayes (1640-1680) was a central figure in a scandal involving murders, baby sacrifices and black masses among the nobility of Louis XIV’s France
1. Catherine Deshayes was born into a poor family in Paris around 1640. Possibly the daughter of a witch, Catherine herself began to practice palmistry, face reading and astrology at the age of 9. At 20, she married an unsuccessful jeweler and needed to expand her business to support her family.
two. It was the preparation of aphrodisiac potions and amulets for clients that earned him a ticket into noble circles in Paris. Men sought it out to increase their sexual vigor, and women went after potions and aesthetic treatments that “made the breasts fuller and the mouth smaller”, as noted by a marquis of the time.
3. Eventually, Deshayes noticed that the most common craving among customers was the so-called “heirloom powder”, i.e. poison. Seeing opportunity on the macabre side of sorcery, the quiet seer began to concoct poisons and perform satanic rituals in her hut on the outskirts of the capital. Thus, she earned the nickname La Voisin («the neighbor» in French)
4. His most important client was the Marquise de Montespan, one of King Louis XIV’s most temperamental mistresses. The noblewoman’s involvement with La Voisin went far beyond aphrodisiacs and black masses: Montespan used the sorceress’s poisons against a rival lover and possibly conspired with La Voisin to poison the king himself.
5. Between 1660 and 1680, the number of “natural” deaths among members of the nobility, especially wealthy elderly people and women passed over by lovers, became alarming. After the scandal reached the royal circle, an investigative commission opened wide the underworld of witchcraft in Paris. In the “Case of the Poisons”, Catherine Deshayes ended up imprisoned in 1679
6. A search of La Voisin’s residence revealed not only gruesome ingredients such as the fat of hanged men, excrement, human blood and semen, but also a furnace with the remains of newborn babies and fetuses. It was discovered that, in addition to performing abortions, Deshayes also sacrificed babies in black masses, cremating the remains in the oven.
7. At first, La Voisin denied all allegations. But after a cruel interrogation that involved 24 hours of torture, Deshayes pleaded guilty to the deaths of 2,000 newborns and fetuses and to providing poisons for hundreds of murders. According to official documents, she never revealed the names of her clients, and the Marquise de Montespan was merely exiled
WHAT END DID IT TAKE? Madame Catherine Deshayes was burned alive in the public square in 1680. There are reports that she left ranting and singing lewd songs
SOURCES Books Legends, Monsters, or Serial Murderers?by Dirk C. Gibson, and Female Executions – Martyrs, Murderesses and Madwomen, by Geoffrey Abbott; article Women and Poisons in 17th Century Franceby Benedetta Faedy Duramy
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