Perhaps that wasn’t surprising though when the French court at Versailles was a site of such intense competition among the courtiers. At the centre of this web of potions was Catherine Voisin, “palm reader, fortune-teller, and poison maker.” She sold to every social class and scandalously, some of her customers were from the French elite. In the Montorgueil district, spells, love potions and poisons abounded, with arsenic the “poison of choice”. So, what was this Affair of the Poisons? When La Reynie started investigations into a potential conspiracy against the French king in 1678, he was astonished to discover a dark-magic underworld operating in central Paris. However, beneath that new light lay Parisian darkness and the author skilfully takes the reader on a tour of an almost medieval world of witchcraft and poisoning an Affair of the Poisons that would soon reach right into Louis’s boudoir.
It was said that he “cleaned the streets he conquered the night”. The king created the position of Lieutenant General of Police for him and La Reynie filled that role very effectively.
La Reynie, a principled, dedicated but utterly ruthless man was above all completely loyal to Louis. Tucker anchors City of Light, City of Poison around Nicholas de La Reynie, a relatively obscure lawyer from Limoges, using his personal notes to recreate a compelling character. In her new non-fiction book, City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris, Holly Tucker tells the story of how that criminal darkness spread from the centre of Paris to the epicentre of power. Paris was such a city of darkness in fact that it was in danger of becoming “an embarrassment” to the Sun King. Despite the frightening ease with which you could be imprisoned without trial on the king’s command, the infamous lettre de cachet, crime, particularly at night, was rampant in the city. Paris in the late 17 th century was not a place for the faint of heart.
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