Catherine Monvoisin, or Montvoisin, née Deshayes, known as "La Voisin" (c. 1640 – February 22, 1680), was a French fortune teller, commissioned poisoner, and professional provider of alleged sorcery. She was the head of a network of fortune tellers in Paris providing poison, purported magical services and the arranging of black masses, with clients among the aristocracy, and became the central figure in the famous affaire des poisons. Her purported organization of commissioned black magic and poison murder was suspected to have killed 1,000 people, but it is believed that upwards of 2,500 people might have been murdered.
Catherine Deshayes married Antoine Monvoisin, who was active as a jeweller and silk merchant with a shop at Pont-Marie in Paris.
When her husband's trade business led to bankruptcy, La Voisin supported the family by practising chiromancy and face-reading. In addition to being a fortune teller, she was also active as a midwife. Her business as a fortune teller gradually developed into manufacturing and selling purported magical objects and potions, arranging black masses and poison to profit from her clients' wishes upon their future.
From the late 1660s, La Voisin had become a wealthy and famous fortune teller with clients among the highest aristocracy of France. Among her clients where Olympia Mancini, comtesse de Soissons; Marie Anne Mancini, duchess de Bouillon; Elizabeth, comtesse de Gramont, and François-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Luxembourg.
She resided at Villeneuve-sur-Gravois, where she received her clients all day, and entertained the Parisian upper class society at parties with violin music in her garden at night. La Voisin regularly attended service at the church of the Jansenist abbé de Sant-Amour, principal of the Paris University, and the godmother of her daughter was the noblewoman Mme de la Roche-Guyon.
She supported a family of six, including her husband, her mother and her children
La Voisin later said that as a fortune teller she had merely used and developed what God had given her. She stated that she was taught the art of fortune telling at the age of nine, and that after her husband became ruined, she decided to profit by it.
She developed her art by studying the modern methods of physiology, and the art of reading the client's future by studying their face and hands.
She spent a great deal of money in order to provide an atmosphere which would make her clients more inclined to believe her prophecies: for example, she had a special robe of crimson red velvet embroidered with eagles in gold made for a price of 1,500 livres to perform in.
In 1665 or 1666, her divination was questioned by the Congregation of the Mission at the Saint Vincent de Paul's order and she was called for questioning, but La Voisin defended herself successfully before the professors at Sorbonne University and was allowed to continue her business as a fortune teller.
La Voisin decided to profit financially from her clients' wishes by offering services of purported magic to make their wishes come true. Initially, she told her clients that their wish would come true if it was also the will of God. Secondly, she started to recommend to her clients some action that would make their dreams come true. These actions were initially to visit the church of some particular saint; then she started to sell amulets, and gradually, she recommended more and more alleged magical objects or rituals of various kinds.
For those clients who wished for someone to fall in love with them, she manufactured love powders: the bones of toads, the teeth of moles, Spanish fly, iron filings, human blood and mummy, and the dust of human remains were among the alleged ingredients of the love powders concocted by La Voisin.
On 12 March 1679, La Voisin was arrested outside Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle after having heard mass, just before her meeting with Catherine Trianon. In April 1679, a commission appointed to inquire into the subject and to prosecute the offenders met for the first time. Its proceedings, including some suppressed in the official records, are preserved in the notes of one of the official court reporters, Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie.
On 17 February 1680, La Voisin was put on trial, and was convicted of witchcraft to execution by burning two days later. In the days following her verdict until her execution, she was formally interrogated under torture, and the official document stated that she was tortured enough to beg for mercy. However, while an official permit of torture was issued, the police were given to understand that the permit was not to be used, and Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie stated that La Voisin was in reality never subjected to torture. Madame de Sevigne, who observed La Voisin shortly before her execution, described her to be able to move so freely and so seemingly healthy that it did not seem possible for her to have been subjected to torture. These final interrogations did not reveal anything new.
La Voisin was executed in public on the Place de Grève in Paris on 22 February 1680. On her way to her execution, she reportedly pushed away the priest, and when fastened on the stake, she desperately pushed away the hay which was piled up around her.
In July, her daughter Marguerite Monvoisin revealed her connection to Montespan, which was confirmed by the statements of the other accused. This caused the monarch to eventually close the investigation, seal the testimonies and place the remaining accused outside of the public justice system by imprisoning them under a lettre de cachet.
All the information you need to solve this puzzle is on this page. Enjoy
N43 30.ABC W71 29.DEF
A=Year of Death 16A0
B=Year put on trial 16B0
C=Age first taught fortune telling
D=She supported a family of D
E=Believed she killed upwards of 2E00
F=Month of death plus 1=F