In 1665 and 1666 Jacques Tardieu, criminal lieutenant of Paris, and Dreux d'Aubray, civil lieutenant of Paris under Louis XIV were murdered. They were two of Louis's principal advisers.

As a result, Louis appointed one of his most trusted advisers, Nicolas de La Reynie, as the first police chief of Paris. At the time Paris was known as the “crime capital of the world.” De La Reynie set to work installing gas lights in the city, hence the moniker “City of Lights.” The streets were also muddy and mixed with animal refuse as beef cattle were regularly herded through the city on their way to the slaughter house. De La Reynie required that shopkeepers and home owners get up early in the morning to sweep the mud and refuse into the middle of the streets so that street cleaners could collect it more readily.

Still, Montorgeuil neighborhood, the center of crime and poverty, remained a nuisance and the murders kept happening, particularly poisonings. But that's where de La Reynie centered his investigation, rooting out apothecaries, pick pockets, rogue priests, witches, and poisoners. It was here he found his most reliable witnesses, women who cast spells and made love potions or poisons to attain revenge. Ultimately de La Reynie questioned 442 people, put 218 in prison, executed 34, and sentenced another 28 to life in prison or the galleys. Nothing much has changed since the late 17th century. If you were found guilty and were a nobleman or woman, you were decapitated; an ordinary citizen was either hanged or burned alive.

De La Reynie acquired so much evidence he couldn't make sense of it. Eventually King Louis called a tribunal to sift through the evidence. De La Reynie also gave the king a black box with evidence that pertained to his former mistresses. The king was adamant they should be left alone. His second mistress, the marquis of Montespan, had been mentioned by numerous witnesses as participating in rituals, asking for potions to make the king love her and perhaps even murder. She remained at Versailles for ten years after the poisoning scourge ended, then retired to the south of France.

This is a hard book to read. There are so many poisoners, rogue priests, relatives of amateur apothecaries who testified, that when author, Holly Tucker, mentions them, the reader can't remember who they are. This book definitely needs a glossary. It does have a very nice picture segment. What is rather surprising is how essentially decent Louis XIV was. Yes, de La Reynie practiced torture that would make Dick Cheney look like a boy scout, but this happened everywhere. The king was faithful to his wife, in his way, throughout their marriage. When she died, he married the former governess, because she was pious and easy to talk to.