Chapter 5 Unceasing Vigilance -- The Price of Success Continued from page 2 Some courtiers, at least, were authentic about their inauthenticity. One wrote, “It is a country where the joys are visible but false, and the sorrows are hidden but real.” And a visitor to Versailles remarked, “A genuine sentiment is so rare, that when I leave Versailles, I sometimes stand still in the street to see a dog gnaw a bone.” Black Magic The royal mistress who went to the greatest lengths to obtain and then retain her position against rivals was Athénaïs de Montespan. Ravishingly beautiful, venomously cunning, Madame de Montespan hoped for several years to replace Louis XIV’s maîtresse-en-titre Louise de La Vallière. But the King was unmoved by Madame de Montespan’s flirtation. “She tries hard,” he told his brother, “but I’m not interested.” In 1667, hoping to break up the relationship, Madame de Montespan visited a witch for assistance. La Voisin, as she was called, looked much older than her 35 years. She lived in a dark and crumbling house on the outskirts of Paris, surrounded by a large unkempt garden. Garbed in flowing robes embroidered with ancient symbols, La Voisin and her colleagues performed magic tricks, read palms and tarot cards, cast horoscopes, babbled in tongues and held seances for a steep fee. Her more innocuous services included offering lotions to beautify the skin and spells to increase breast size or firm up sagging thighs. Her more sinister services included sticking pins in voodoo dolls to incapacitate and kill an enemy, performing abortions, providing poison to slip to annoying husbands, and celebrating Black Masses with dead baby’s blood while preparing her magic potions. For years the carriages of the rich and famous lined up outside her house as her patrons vied with each other for her services, offering her rich rewards. But Madame de Montespan had no need of potions to improve her breasts or thighs. She wanted the King to forsake Louise and fall in love with her. Louise de La Vallière was an unlikely object of black magic. Extremely religious, she came from a noble but obscure family and by a stroke of good fortune, found herself at Versailles and soon after in the young King’s arms. The Abbé de Choisy reported that Louise … “had an exquisite complexion, blond hair, blue eyes, a sweet smile … an expression once tender and modest.” Though all agreed she was a lovely girl, tenderness and modesty did not fare well on the bloody battlefield of Versailles, a Court where a healthy slathering of etiquette and a splash of perfume barely disguised savage ambition and vicious greed. There is so much more to read, please follow this link to purchase... Page < 1 | 2 | 3