Marie Bosse

Marie Bosse, also known as La Bosse (died 8 May 1679), was a French poisoner, fortune teller and alleged witch. She was one of the
accused in the famousPoison affair. It was Marie Bosse who pointed out the central figureLa Voisin.

Bosse, the widow of a horse trader, was one of the most successful fortune tellers in Paris. Unofficially, she was also a poisoner, who
provided poison to people who wished to commit murder. By the end of 1678, Bosse attended a party held by her friend Marie
Vigoreaux, the wife of a dressmaker, in the Rue Courtauvilain. During the party, she became drunk and boasted freely that she had
become so wealthy by selling deadly poisons to members of the aristocracy that she would soon be able to retire. At the time, the
Paris police was investigating poison sales in Paris. A guest at the party, the lawyer Maitre Perrin, reported the conversation to the
police. The police sent the wife of a police officer to Bosse to ask for poison to murder her husband, and Bosse provided her with
what proved to be deadly poison.

On the morning 4 January 1679, Marie Bosse was arrested with her daughter Manon and her sons, Francois and Guillame. Her older
son was a soldier in the royal guard, the younger one was recently released from a working house. According to the report, when the
family was arrested they were found in the only bed in the house and had committed incest. Marie Vigoreaux was arrested the same
day, and was found to have close ties to the family, as she had sexual relations with all of the members of the family. Their
confessions revealed that the illegal sale of poison in the capital was handled by a network of fortune tellers. This led to the arrest of
the central figure La Voisin and the opening of the Poison affair. Marie Bosse confessed of having provided the poison used by
Marguerite de Poulaillon in her murder attempt on her husband. Marie V
igoreux died during interrogation under torture 9 May 1679.

Marie Bosse was condemned to death by burning and executed in Paris on 8 May 1679. Her children and associates were also
sentenced to death.

In fiction
Marie Bosse is portrayed in a novel byJudith Merkle Riley: The Oracle Glass (1994)

References
William E. Burns: Witch hunts in Europe and America: an encyclopedia (2003)
William R. Cullen: Is arsenic an aphrodisiac?: the sociochemistry of an element
H Noel Williams: Madame de Montespan and Louis XIV
Nigel Cawthorne: Witches: History of Persecution(2006)
Frantz Funck-Brentano: Princes and Poisoners Or Studies of the Court of Louis XIV
Frantz Funck-Brentano: Princes and Poisoners Or Studies of the Court of Louis XIV
Frances Mossiker: The affair of the poisons: Louis XIV, Madame de Montespan, and one of history's great unsolved
mysteries (1970)
Marie Cher: Poison at Court; Certain Figures of the Reign of Louis the Fourteenth
Thérèse Louis Latour: Princesses, ladies & adventuresses of the reign of Louis XIV (1924)
Arlette Lebigre: 1679-1682, l'affaire des poisons

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