Black Masses of the Sun King

Paris in the 1670s had just earned its fame as the “City of Lights”. Louis XIV, the Sun King, sat upon the throne and the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment promised a future free from the superstitions of the Dark Ages. Then came the Affair of the Poisons. And the brilliant illusion was shattered. For more than a decade, a hidden cabal of occultists, poisoners, abortionists and diabolists had been operating from the shadows, selling its services to the most illustrious lords and ladies of the kingdom. Black Masses were commissioned from rogue priests by nobles who sought to secure the Sun King’s favour; newborn infants were sacrificed to the Devil and, when all else failed, consecrated hosts were defiled in blasphemous pacts with the Evil One to bring about the King’s demise. Even Madame de Montespan, the king’s official mistress, was no stranger to these unholy ways. Revisit some of the most chilling crimes of the seventeenth century, as told by the perpetrators themselves. This scandalous volume contains a curated selection of testimonies and interrogation transcripts from the Archives of the Bastille, Illustrated with original and explicitly erotic photography.