Скачать или смотреть The Poisoned Court: France’s Hidden Scandals

🕯️ The Dark Secrets of 17th Century France: Poison, Power, and the Occult
Beneath the glittering chandeliers of Versailles and the grandeur of Louis XIV’s court, 17th-century France harbored a sinister underworld of poisoners, witches, and secret rituals. This was the age of the Affair of the Poisons—a sprawling scandal that exposed the darkest corners of aristocratic ambition and occult obsession.

Between 1677 and 1682, hundreds of nobles, fortune-tellers, and alchemists were implicated in a network of murder-for-hire, black magic, and satanic rites. At the heart of the scandal was Catherine Monvoisin, known as La Voisin, a midwife and sorceress who sold poisons and performed black masses for desperate clients—including members of the royal court. Her services promised love, power, and inheritance… at a deadly cost.

The affair began with the trial of Marquise de Brinvilliers, a noblewoman who poisoned her own family to secure wealth. Her arrest and execution opened the floodgates to a wave of paranoia and investigation. King Louis XIV, alarmed by the reach of the conspiracy, created a special tribunal—the Chambre Ardente—to root out the culprits. Over 300 people were arrested, dozens executed, and many more vanished into exile or prison2.

This scandal didn’t just shake the monarchy—it revealed the fragility of power, the desperation of the elite, and the terrifying lengths people would go to in pursuit of control. Behind the powdered wigs and velvet drapes, 17th-century France was a realm where superstition met science, and ambition danced with death.