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 The Poison Drama. only sorceries whose rites required the sac rifice of children. La Voisin and her con federates perpetrated a terrible slaughter of them. Children deserted by unnatural mothers, others bought from poor women, did not suffice; several of the sorceresses

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and did not return until she had been able to place her infant in a safe place of refuge. The Marquise Francoise Athenais de Rochechouart de Mortimast, the second daughter of Gabriel de Rochechouart, Duke

1 LOUIS XIV. were accused of killing their own children, and the Abbe Guibourg cut the throats of his two children by his mistress, Chanfrain. Children were stolen from nurses in the streets and never again heard of, and a fear took possession of young mothers that their children might be spirited away. La Voisin's own daughter fled from her mother's house on the eve of her accouchement,

de Mortimast, and Lord of Vivonne, and of his wife Diane de Granseigne, was born in 1 64 1. She received a good education in a convent, and appeared in society first under the name of Mile, de Tonnay-Charente, the name of the chateau where she was born. In her early youth she was distinguished for her great piety, her rigorous fasts and abstinences and her devotion to the church.