Madame de Montespan | The King's Dark Mistress

Jinkies! When you think royal mistresses had it easy, think again. The story of Madame de Montespan reads like something the gang would uncover in a crumbling French castle, complete with accusations of satanic rituals, infant sacrifices, and poisoned gowns.

Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart came from one of the oldest noble houses in France. Beautiful, ambitious, and cunning, she caught the eye of King Louis XIV and became his official mistress, bearing him seven children. Her entire world revolved around keeping the king's attention. But as the years passed and her beauty began to fade, desperation set in.

The trail leads to some of the darkest accusations in French royal history. According to testimony, Montespan allegedly collaborated with a sorcerer named Lazen to perform black masses. Witnesses claimed she lay upon an altar while a rogue priest performed forbidden rituals over her. The allegations only got worse from there. She was accused of using blood from sacrificed infants and other gruesome ingredients to craft love potions and powders designed to keep the king obsessed with her. But as Josh points out, the timing of these accusations is suspicious. Why did these so-called witnesses wait until she fell from favor to come forward?

The accusations didn't stop at dark magic. She was also accused of attempting to poison both the king himself and her rival mistress, Madame de la Valliere, using poisoned clothing. The method was chilling. Fabric would be soaked in poison, and as the wearer's body heat activated it through sweat, the toxin would absorb through the skin. Trapped inside the tightly laced corsets of the era, victims couldn't simply tear the garments off. It was a calculated, horrifying way to kill someone.

Meanwhile, her husband had reached his breaking point. When word reached him about the dark accusations surrounding his wife, the Marquis de Montespan got rip-roaring drunk and allegedly drove a carriage topped with antlers straight to Versailles, a bold public symbol of his wife's adultery. He also draped his carriage in black to symbolize her death. The king despised scandal, and this very public display sealed Montespan's fate.

Rather than risk a public trial that would expose the king's connection to a supposed witch, the court quietly arranged her exile. She departed with half a million francs and retreated first to a convent, then to her late sister's chateau. In her final years, she donated generously to hospitals and charities, devoted herself to religious observance, and became a patron of the arts. She died in 1707 at the age of 66. As a final act of rejection, the king forbade all seven of their children from wearing mourning attire for her.

Was the king ashamed that rumors made him turn on someone he once loved? Or was Madame de Montespan truly the baby-killing, poison-brewing, satanic-ritual-performing royal mistress that history painted her to be? The gang digs into a mystery where power, beauty, and dark magic collide in the court of the Sun King.

What you'll hear in this episode:

The rise and fall of France's most infamous royal mistress

Accusations of black masses, love potions, and infant sacrifices

The terrifying history of poisoned clothing in royal courts

A drunk husband's antler-topped protest carriage at Versailles

Josh's verdict on whether any of it actually happened

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