Paris in the late 1600s was a far different place from the city of today. The streets looked nothing like they do now. When it rained, they were bogs of mud and blood, filth and garbage, with no sidewalks. Travel on foot was precarious at best, made even more dangerous by heavy traffic. Along with the muck underfoot, there lurked the constant danger from overhead of a tenant chucking his chamber pot contents out the window. Or, just as unpleasant, coming across a drunken townsman relieving himself against the side of a building. Parisians of the day were loud, brash and lawless. Too many people lived too close together, creating foul odors and fouler tempers.

"CITY OF LIGHT, CITY OF POISON is a fascinating history of how a brilliant policeman brought light and law to Paris."

All of these conditions made Paris ripe for rampant crime. The city’s reputation begged for a change. The streets were scary enough for a man, but women hardly dared to go out at all. They were safest home with their husbands. It was a time when, if a woman lost her husband, she faced a hard life indeed. In that case, it almost seemed a wiser choice to abandon one’s scruples and try to catch the eye of the king, for Louis XIV had a lusty appetite. Given a choice, he’d have devoted nearly all of his attentions to the ladies, but even a king as preoccupied with his royal playmates as Louis XIV had to acknowledge the stunning crime rate. By 1667, his city had reached a crisis point. The king needed help. So he entrusted the monumental job of regaining control to a man with an impressive background in law, Gabriel Nicolas de La Reynie. The new policeman began by literally cleaning up the streets.

Over the course of the three decades La Reynie was head of law enforcement in Paris, he made sure justice was swift and harsh. Too often, people thought they could get away with murder, thievery and assaults --- and, in fact, for too long they had been. Nights proved especially deadly in the city. The streets were narrow and dark, breeding grounds for crime. So La Reynie brought light to them in the form of street lanterns, and an ordinance requiring a candle in every window. But the citizens found new and creative ways to kill. When guns and knives proved too obvious, people turned to silent, deadly poison. Fortunetellers and shopkeepers had back rooms where potions were mixed, vials dispensed. If one wanted a toxic elixir, one only had to ask. It was a time of witchcraft and spellcasting, all too often paired with horrific rituals. Cleaning up the streets took time and vigilance, but the dogged La Reynie was not one to waver.

With his police chief working to make Paris safe, Louis XIV turned his attentions back to the ladies. He sought more and more lavish ways to shower his mistresses with affection. Such extravagances naturally spurred competition among the women, bringing out their darker natures. The more brazen their tactics became, the more La Reynie began to wonder about their possible complicity in deadly plots. How far would one of them go to protect her position? The problem was that using torture to “question” the accused didn’t always achieve the desired results. Pain can make people say anything, make them stray from the truth. How many innocents went to their deaths because of false accusations? Holly Tucker’s in-depth research gives us a pretty fair idea.

CITY OF LIGHT, CITY OF POISON is a fascinating history of how a brilliant policeman brought light and law to Paris.