The Affair Of The Poisons
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An Affair of Poisons
No one looks kindly on the killer of a king. “Fast-paced and refreshing.” – SLJ, starred review “The perfect blend of history and dark fantasy.” – Mary Taranta, author of Shimmer and Burn “Thrilling, romantic, and addictive.” – Rosalyn Eves, author of Blood Rose Rebellion “The only cure is to finish it.” – Lyndsay Ely, author of Gunslinger Girl After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, seventeen-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin is forced to see her mother’s Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: they’re not heroes of the people, as they’ve always claimed to be, but murderers. Herself included. Mira tries to ease her guilt by brewing helpful curatives, but her hunger tonics and headache remedies cannot right past wrongs or save the dissenters her mother vows to purge. Royal bastard Josse de Bourbon is more kitchen boy than fils de France. But when the Shadow Society assassinates the Sun King and half of the royal court, he must become the prince he was never meant to be in order to save his injured sisters and the petulant dauphin. Forced to hide in the sewers beneath the city, Josse’s hope of reclaiming Paris seems impossible—until his path collides with Mirabelle’s. She’s a deadly poisoner. He’s a bastard prince. They are sworn enemies, yet they form a tenuous pact to unite the commoners and former nobility against the Shadow Society. But can a rebellion built on mistrust ever hope to succeed?
The Affair of the Poisons
From the acclaimed author of "Elizabeth I" comes a look into the glittering court of France's Sun King, Louis XIV, and one of the most sensational crimes of all time. 12-page full-color insert.
Strange Revelations
Author: Lynn Wood Mollenauer
language: en
Publisher: Penn State Press
Release Date: 2007-01-03
The Affair of the Poisons was the greatest court scandal of the seventeenth century. From 1679 to 1682 the French crown investigated more than 400 people—including Louis XIV’s official mistress and members of the highest-ranking circles at court—for sensational crimes. In Strange Revelations, Lynn Mollenauer brings this bizarre story to life, exposing a criminal magical underworld thriving in the heart of the Sun King’s capital. The macabre details of the Affair of the Poisons read like a gothic novel. In the fall of 1678, Nicolas de la Reynie, head of the Paris police, uncovered a plot to poison Louis XIV. La Reynie’s subsequent investigation unveiled a loosely knit community of sorceresses, magicians, and renegade priests who offered for sale an array of services and products ranging from abortions to love magic to poisons known as “inheritance powders.” It was the inheritance powders (usually made from powdered toads steeped in arsenic) that lent the Affair of the Poisons its name. The purchasers of the powders gave the affair its notoriety, for the scandal extended into the most exalted ranks of the French court. Mollenauer adroitly uses the Affair of the Poisons to uncover the hidden forms of power that men and women of all social classes invoked to achieve their goals. While the exercise of state power during the ancien régime was quintessentially visible—ritually displayed through public ceremonies—the affair exposes the simultaneous presence of other imagined and real sources of power available to the Sun King’s subjects: magic, poison, and the manipulation of sexual passions. Highly entertaining yet deeply researched, Strange Revelations will appeal to anyone interested in the history of court society, gender, magic, or crime in early modern Europe.