Article: The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV.(Book review)

The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV. By Anne Somerset. (New York: St Martin's Press, 2003. Pp. xxi, 377. $27.95.)

Francois Ravaisson, the editor of Les Archives de la Bastille, insisted that Louis XIV was the first French king expressly concerned with the morality of his subjects. Ravaisson attributes this interest to Louis XIV's voracious curiosity as evinced in the marginal notes the royal secretaries penned on the memoranda sent to the lieutenants of police in Paris demanding "[t]he King wishes to know more." To be sure, Louis XIV was a curious king who carefully read the weekly Paris police reports. Not ...

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