On a cold day in February 1680, a woman in her early forties was driven through the streets of Paris to the Place de Grève. A huge crowd had gathered to witness the spectacle to come. A priest stood to one side, a prayerbook in his hand, his voice silenced by the roar of the crowd. The executioner, his face concealed within a leather mask, ordered the woman to be brought forward. Her drunken state dulled some of her terror as she was tied to the stake, seated and bound with iron. Wood and straw were piled up around her. The fire was lit. After some time, her screams were ceased as her earthly agonies came to an end.
The woman’s name was Catherine Deshayes Monvoisin, known as La Voisin. She was arrested, tried and executed during the Affair of the Poisons, among the most sensational crime scandals in French history, one that saw everyone from anonymous peasants to members of the nobility accused of necromancy and murder.
By the time of her death, La Voisin had enjoyed a long and successful career as a fortune-teller, sorcerer, poisoner and abortionist. While she catered to a wide clientele, most of her patrons were ladies from the court of King Louis XIV, to whom she would supply love potions, creams to enhance beauty, or the means to free themselves from an unwanted pregnancy. Mistresses consulted her to learn when their lovers would leave their wives – or, if they would not, to find a way to relieve them of their spouses. Others were impatient to rid themselves of a rich father, so they could get their hands on the family fortune.
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The Long Road Back - The Election Was Tough for the Conservatives but the Past Holds Clues on How Parties Can Return From the Brink
Itâs election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson. âYouâre the chairman of a fertiliser firm,â the famously pugnacious broadcaster asked Parkinson. âHow deep is the mess youâre in?â Twenty-seven years later, as the Conservative party comes to terms with another landslide defeat, itâs worth applying the same question to the present day. How does this result compare with previous devastating losses â not only those suffered by the Tories themselves, but also those experienced by the other major parties? And what can history teach us about the tools that politicians use to dig themselves out of the dung heap and set themselves back on the road to power?
"We Need a Meaningful Story for the New Generation - Our Composite Union"- There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course we'll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed.
What a summer itâs been so far, with an astonishing election result. There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course weâll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed. The new prime ministerâs dad was a toolmaker, his mum a nurse; the cabinet is majority comprehensive-educated, with more alumni of Parrs Wood High School than of Eton. Among commentators â not just on the left â thereâs been a growing feeling that 14 years of Tory rule, compounded by Brexit, have undermined what the great medieval historian Ibn Khaldun called asabiyyah: group feeling â the glue that makes societies work. And watching TV on election night, I found myself wondering whether, like sediment settling in a glass, the time has finally arrived for a new national narrative
Parthian Chicken - Eleanor Barnett recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East
According to ancient Roman natural philosopher Pliny the Elder, Apicius was âthe most gluttonous gorger of all spendthriftsâ. The cookbook attributed to him, known simply as Apicius or as De Re Coquinaria (On the Art of Cooking), is one of the oldest collections of recipes surviving from antiquity. Its author may have been Marcus Gavius Apicius, a Roman gourmet of the first century AD who reputedly travelled all the way from Campania to Libya on the hunt for the largest, juiciest prawns.
Eastern Promises- Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China
Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China sometimes successfully, but often disastrously. Kerry Brown explores the troubled but ultimately vital links between two ambitious realms
The King They Couldn't Kill -Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power
Henryâs wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth â a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henryâs background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs â one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.
The Spy Who Hoodwinked Hitler - Dummy tanks at El Alamein. Bogus generals in Algiers. Sham armies on D-Day. All were ruses masterminded by Dudley Clarke. Robert Hutton tells the story of the British soldier who made an art form of duping the Nazis
Examining the reconnaissance photos, Behrendt was convinced that the Allies werenât in any hurry. They were constructing some kind of pipeline towards the southern end of their line, probably to carry water, which was barely halfway completed. There were supply dumps appearing in the south as well â always a telltale clue about where an attack would come. True, a large number of trucks were parked at the northern end of the line, about 25 miles back from the front, but they hadnât moved for weeks.
"People have achieved all kinds of crazy things at the age of 18â³
ALICE LOXTON talks to Danny Bird about her book on 18 individuals who left an indelible mark on British history before they were out of their teens
A Pole apart
ROGER MOORHOUSE is absorbed by a little-known but politically significant Polish princess whose life encompassed the major events of the later 18th and 19th centuries
Medieval England's p olitical miracle
From Magna Carta to parliament, taxation to the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries laid the foundations for the modern British state
THE GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS
Ãthelstan is one of the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon monarchs. So why, asks Michael Wood, does the first king of the English remain so fiendishly elusive?
