Madame Agathe

**Madame Agathe** is the leader of a satanic coven who are behind the Affair of the Poisons. She is a witch and a tarot reader with a large clientele among the nobles of Versailles, particularly her old friend Madame de Montespan.

Her character based on the famous French fortune teller **Catherine Monvoisin** who is known as ”**La Voisin**“.

## *Related Pages*

* **Madame Agathe/Gallery**
* **Kingdom of France**
* **Affair of the Poisons**
* **The Book of Clients**

## Personality

Madame Agathe is an intelligent, cunning, and clever woman as evidenced by the successful business she runs and her excellent connections to some of the leading aristocrats of France. Though a pauper by birth, she is relatively informed in various topics like the occult, contemporary court politics, and theology. A cruel and scheming figure, she readily engages in treachery and heresy to help her clients. She is loyal to her friends and is determined to see their plans brought to fruition.

## Biography

### **Early Life**

Catherine Deshayes married Antoine Monvoisin, who was active as a jeweler and a silk merchant with a shop at Pont-Marie in Paris.

When her husband's trade business led to bankruptcy, La Voisin supported the family by practicing chiromancy and face-reading. In addition to being a fortune teller, she was also active as a midwife, which developed into providing abortions. Her business as a fortune teller gradually developed into manufacturing and selling purported magical objects and potions, arranging black masses and selling aphrodisiacs and poison to profit from her clients' wishes upon their future.

From the late 1660s, La Voisin had became a wealthy and famous fortune teller with clients among the highest aristocracy of France. Among her clients where Olympia Mancini, comtesse de Soissons; Marie Anne Mancini, duchess de Bouillon; Elizabeth, comtesse de Gramont, and François-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Luxembourg.

### Season Two

Madame Agathe is first shown providing Montespan and King Louis XIV a tarot reading consultation. After Madeleine de Foix, another client, is arrested and fatally poisons herself, Agathe promises Madeleine's son Gaston revenge against the King and has him help Montespan stay in the King's favor. Agathe supplies Sophie de Clermont with a poison that slowly kills the latter's abusive husband, the Duc de Cassel. Madame Agathe progressively provides more drastic measures to Montespan (and Gaston) as Montespan begins struggling to keep the King's attention, including poisons that kill opponents like Father Pascal and Minister Colbert's niece, Isabelle. When Montespan falls out of favor with the King, Madame Agathe offers increasingly dangerous measures, including a black mass officiated by Father Etienne and eventually poison intended for the king himself. However, Madame Agathe is found to be behind all of the poisonings at Versailles - she is arrested, and a book she used to document every client she had is found. After being brought before the King, Madame Agathe is burned at the stake.

## Relationships

### Montespan and Madame Agathe

The two have been close friends for some time, with Montespan relying on Agathe for her services and Agathe depending on Montespan's loyalty and connections. This mutual benefit strengthens their personal bond, even if their intrigues place stress on the friendship from time to time.

## Gallery

Madame Agathe hands a client a vial.Promotional photo for the Versailles series showing Madame Agathe in the Hall of Mirrors.