Episode 9 Inside Versailles

Bonjour, and welcome to Inside Versailles, episode nine.

It's been pretty tragic for poor old Liselotte.

A terrible tragedy happened in the Palatinate,

and that did really happen.

So, Linda, you came to talk to us earlier about Liselotte

and when she'd just joined the court.

Now she's established, but she's in this awful position in which

her countrymen have all died at the hands of Louis' men.

That's true. The Palatinate has been razed by Louis XIV's troops,

and it just shows that, despite the good relationship

that the two enjoy, Louis XIV

never lets personal affection get in the way of political advantage.

So she writes in her letters that she is distraught,

and yet is powerless, really, to do anything about it.

So we've got scandal brewing at court.

Not just murders and poisons, but also witchcraft.

We can see in this painting here, which is phenomenally lurid

and ridiculous, you've got the 17th century as a time

of real witch crazes, even.

We're coming to the end of a period of time in France from about

1580 to 1680 where there had been a real kind of glut of witchcraft,

and it seems utterly mystifying to the 21st-century mind

that people could believe in black magic,

that they could believe in the Devil present and at work in the world.

But we have to remember that this is a culture of belief

and a system of looking at the world that relies upon God,

and also that relies upon white magic in order to, say,

protect crops, livestock, for their children's health,

for their own health.

And it's no coincidence, then,

the witchcraft craze of the Medieval Period really gets

off and running around the same time as the Black Death.

So, again, you know, a disease that is inexplicable in its own time,

apart from saying, "The Devil is to blame," or, "God is punishing."

And then we've got these amatory black masses.

So that's what we see going on in the show.

What exactly happened in a black mass and then what do I get for it?

Well, ideally speaking, you get your heart's desire.

Whatever it is that you crave, be it favour at court,

the love of the King, in the case of de Montespan.

Others get started on a much smaller scale.

So you have different counts, for instance, at the court,

the Count de Cessac, I think, who starts off by going to

someone like Etienne Guibourg and looking for help

with his gambling debt.

So, I want a black mass for my heart's desire,

and I go to Father Guibourg. Who is this man?

Well, he's a Catholic priest, and he has a very respectable day job.

And he does occupy some fairly lucrative positions,

let's say, in Paris at this time.

-But obviously not lucrative enough.

-No.

Because this is a very good sideline, and one that you

can weave in with your everyday duties, if you're careful enough.

This whole craze for witches and craze for black masses does

testify to how religious the French people really were.

Well, there's, I suppose, a crossover in terms of belief,

and the faith that is put in certain things.

But to directly compare the magic that is performed in black masses

with that performed in Catholic mass,

that's the type of thing that will get you into big trouble

and into the Bastille very, very...

So, that's heresy.

Yes. There's a very fine line between orthodoxy and heresy.

-OK.

-Yeah.

-So we see Father Guibourg in the drama,

-and he's a real guy, is what you're saying.

-Yes, that's right.

He's also implicated in some pretty horrible stuff.

-Basically, the sacrifice of babies.

-Mm-hm.

Is that also grounded in some reality?

Well, in this so-called magical underworld,

especially within Paris, there would be very close links between

women who would supply poisons, midwives, and abortionists.

So, it is true that a lot of reproductive material,

for instance, like the caul or the afterbirth,

would've been used as substances that would be magical, basically.

But it's a stretch to say that babies were killed...

I mean, that's the accusation made, isn't it?

But perhaps that's made by people who are being tortured, or who are,

sort of, you know, making stuff up in order to save their skins.

That's true. I mean, we are reliant upon testimony drawn out of torture,

and that obviously has its problems.

But it falls in with traditional beliefs about Satanic masses,

and that newborn babies are involved then, in part of their sacrifices.

So why would someone like Montespan bother with this?

Well, she seems to have used it for the first time in 1667,

and, given that date,

that indicates that she had met with a great level of success.

-Later on...

-So she gets Louis...

-Mm-hm.

But she has to keep him then, and that's the tricky part.

So by the end of the 1670s, she's had several children,

she's rumoured at the Court to have lost her looks, lost her figure,

she wears long, flowing gowns in order to hide the growing waistline.

I mean, like anyone else who goes to a tarot reader

or fortune-teller at the time,

trying to make connection with the afterlife,

she is doing everything she possibly can in order

to keep the attention of the King.

Well, we've seen Father Guibourg get his comeuppance in the drama,

and we've got one more episode to see

what happens to Athenais, as well.

So it's going to be pretty exciting. But, unfortunately, we've run out of

time for tonight, so thank you so much for joining us, Linda,

and I hope you'll join us for the big finale next week.

-Until then, bon soir.

-Bon soir.