Throughout the book, Mollenauer references the connections …show more content…
Women within the court used whatever tools they had access to in order to defeat rivals and achieve a higher status than the other women of the court. Madame de Montespan is a prime example of this kind of woman, who used both poison and magic to keep the king romantically interested in her. Magical women did not appear to be as interested in the rise to political power, but were content in their small fortunes and mystical power. The exception to this is clearly the Marquise de Brinvillers, who murdered her father and both of her brothers (and attempted to murder her husband and daughter) in order to become more wealthy, and thus more powerful. It is incredibly clear from Mollenauer’s inclusion of so many women in her study that she believes they were the most influential with regards to magic during this