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Un empoisonnement à Paris : l'empoisonnement du sieur de Vaux (1742)

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  • Frédéric Jacquin

Abstract

[fre] Résumé L'historiographie des XIXe et XXe siècles s'est essentiellement attachée à l'étude des empoisonnements des xvr et XVIIe siècles. Des sondages réalisés dans les archives criminelles du Châtelet de Paris ont permis de mettre en évidence l'existence de nombreuses affaires d'empoisonnement au XVIIIe siècle. C'est à ces affaires criminelles qu'appartient l'empoisonnement du sieur de Vaux. Cet officier de la Reine, malade depuis longtemps, mourut violemment à Paris le jeudi 22 novembre de l'année 1742. S'est-il empoisonné lui même après avoir ingéré des remèdes traditionnels qu'il avait l'habitude de se confectionner? A-t-il été victime d'une intoxication alimentaire? A-t-il été victime d'un véritable empoisonnement? L'étude des pièces de ce dossier criminel ne permet pas vraiment de conclure sur ce fait. Elle permet cependant de reconstituer les différentes étapes de sa mort et les logiques de désignation d'un coupable idéal, en la personne de Marie Marguerite Gamier, sa maîtresse. L'analyse des interrogatoires des nombreux témoins de cette affaire qui ont considéré cette mort violente comme la conséquence de l'action d'un poison administré par une femme, révèle en fait, tout un contexte de phobies nées de la réactivation d'un imaginaire ancestral associant le poison à l'image de la femme. La méfiance par rapport à la nature féminine semble apparaître comme le fait de peurs très anciennes. Le stéréotype de l'empoisonneuse qui a participé à ces peurs et qui a été associé pendant longtemps à l'image de la sorcière semble, au XVIIIe siècle, s'en être détaché afin de constituer un modèle à part entière dont il ne serait en fait que le surgeon. [eng] Abstract The historiography of th 19th and 20th centuries was mainly associated with the study of poisonings in the 16th and 17th centuries. Inquiries made in the criminal records of the Châtelet in Paris showed the existence of numerous cases of poisonings in the 18th century. The poisoning of Mr De Vaux is one of those cases. He was a royal officer and had been ill for a long time when he met with a violent death in Paris on Thursday, November 22nd 1742. Did he poison himself after ingesting traditional remedies he used to prepare ? Was he the victim of food poisonning ? Did he die of a real poisoning ? The documents about this criminal case allow no clear conclusion. However, they allow to pièce together the different stages of his death and show the logical principles leading to the ideal culpit, his mistress M.M Gamier. Actually, the analysis of the interrogations of the numerous witnesses of this case, who considered this violent death as the consequence of a poison administrated by a woman, revaels a background of phobias arising froin the revival of an ancestral imaginative world linking poison with the picture of woman. The mistrust of women's nature seems to come from very old fears. In the 18th century, the stereotype of the poisonor involved in those fears seems to have developed separately from the picture of the sorceress it had been associated with a long time, to form a momdel of its own.

Suggested Citation

  • Frédéric Jacquin, 2001. "Un empoisonnement à Paris : l'empoisonnement du sieur de Vaux (1742)," Histoire, économie & société, Programme National Persée, vol. 20(1), pages 23-36.
  • Handle: RePEc:prs:hiseco:hes_0752-5702_2001_num_20_1_2251
    DOI: 10.3406/hes.2001.2251
    Note: DOI:10.3406/hes.2001.2251
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