'Asked if De Gorla told her the manner in which the poisoning had been carried out, and who had been made use of in the matter.
Such were the declarations of La Voisin before the commissioners of the Chambre Ardente. She repeated them exactly in her final examination before the judges: 'She had known Mademoiselle Du Parc, the actress; had been a friend of hers for fourteen years; her stepmother, named De Gorla, had told her that Racine had poisoned her, and she only knew of Du Parc's death when she saw the body at the door on the way to burial.'
Finally, in the anguish of torture, La Voisin maintained her declarations.
'Asked if she knew nothing more concerning what she had said at the trial about the poisoning of Du Parc.
'She had told the truth in all that she had said on the subject.'
M. Larroumet gaily and gracefully flings these declarations overboard as 'an abominable invention of a ruined woman.' We know La Voisin from what has already been said about her above. It is inconceivable that such a creature should have nursed a grievance against Racine for not having allowed her to reach his sick mistress, to such an extent as to fabricate against him, eleven years later, so monstrous an accusation. This hypothesis is so much the more unlikely in that, if La Voisin had wanted to ruin Racine by her charges, she would have formulated precise and direct complaints against him; while she, as a matter of fact, only repeated gossip she had heard. Then, too, Du Parc's daughters were still alive, and it would have been easy to confront them with the sorceress.
The examinations to which La Voisin was subjected were very numerous. They brought out innumerable details on a multitude of crimes, in which a very large number of people was implicated. There were many confrontations. The declarations of the terrible sorceress were submitted to careful investigation by examining magistrates like Nicolas de la Reynie. All her declarations were found to be accurate.
We have seen that, far from inventing imaginary charges for the purpose of implicating in her own case people of high position, and so saving herself (as some historians have insinuated), La Voisin endeavoured to keep silence about the crimes of her clients--a curious piece of professional discretion. And we venture to say that if she had declared before the judges that she had given Racine poison to get rid of Du Parc, we should have unhesitatingly believed her. But she did not say anything of the kind. She declared simply that, in Du Parc's immediate circle, it was the conviction that the actress had been poisoned by her lover, and that, throughout her illness, he had prevented La Voisin from approaching the bed, as well as Manon, her maid, 'who was a midwife.'