Avon Modern Short Story Monthly #36 — page 39: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HISTORICAL NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENT Her brutal answer bludgeoned that high divinity to earth. “With all my imperfections,” she sneered, “at least I do not smell as badly as you do!” It was an answer that extinguished her last chance. It was fatal to the dignity, to the “terrible majesty” of Louis. It stripped him of all divinity, and revealed him authoritatively as intensely and even un- pleasantly human. It was beyond hope of pardon. His face turned the colour of wax. A glacial silence hung over the agonized witnesses of that royal humiliation. Then, without a word, in a vain attempt to rescue the dignity she had so cruelly mauled, he turned, his red heels clicked rapidly and unsteadily across the polished 3 floor, and he was gone. When Madame de Montespan realized exactly what she had done, - nothing but rage remained to her—rage and its offspring, vindictive- ness. The Duchess of Fontanges must not enjoy her victory, nor must Louis escape punishment for his faithlessness. La Voisin should afford her the means to accomplish this. And so she goes once more to the Rue de la Tannerie. Now, the matter of Madame de Montespan’s present needs was one in which the witches were particularly expert. Were you trou- bled with a rival, did your husband persist in surviving your aftec- tion for him, did those from whom you had expectations cling ob- stinately and inconsiderately to life, the witches by incantations and the use of powders—in which arsenic was the dominant charm— could usually put the matter right for you. Indeed, so wide and general was the practice of poisoning become, that the authorities, lately aroused to the fact by the sensational revelations of the Mar- chioness de Brinvilliers, had set up in this year 1670 the tribunal known as the Chambre Ardente to inquire into the matter, and to conduct prosecutions, La Voisin promised help to the Marchioness. She called in another witch of horrible repute, named La Filastre, her coadjutor Lesage, and two expert poisoners, Romani and Bertrand, who devised an ingenious plot for the murder of the Duchess of Fontanges. They were to visit her, Romani as a cloth merchant, and Bertrand as his servant, to offer her their wares, including some Grenoble gloves, which were the most beautiful gloves in the world and unfailingly Gcomichooks (Eo)