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This chapter highlights the recently-discovered story of a woman called Paupertas, who came from Metz to Lille and gained the trust of King Philip IV and Jeanne of Navarre during peace-making activities at Philip’s siege of Lille. But in 1302, when Philip IV marched north to try to avenge the catastrophic defeat of French forces at the Battle of Courtrai, Paupertas reported a prophecy by which God warned the king of France not to attack the Flemings. After Philip’s embarrassing retreat, his brother, Charles of Valois, had Paupertas arrested and tortured into confessing that she had sought to poison him.

The prologue to part three surveys the reign of Philip IV, focusing in particular on his marriage to Jeanne of Navarre, his military confrontation with Edward I of England, and the string of attacks he launched against French bishops, Pope Boniface VIII, and the Templars.

After 1314 new scandals at the Capetian court focused on women as dangers, including Philip IV’s attack on his own daughters-in-law but also charges of sorcery against the royal cousin Mahaut of Artois. Most dramatically, Margueronne of Bellevillette emerged from prison with new self-accusations of sorcery and poisoning. After the death of the last Capetian king in 1328, chroniclers worked to re-imagine earlier female figures either as holy voices or dark forces. In the case of Isabelle of France, such chroniclers created the false impression that she had been a nun of Longchamp. Elizabeth of Spalbeek was given a more positive spin in a new French translation of William of Nangis’s earlier account. And Paupertas of Metz’s story was shortened in such a way as to make her into a more diabolical figure, while Marguerite Porete was represented in ways that made her seem like a more obvious threat to the kingdom.

In 1308 two women faced ecclesiastical questioning in Paris. The first, Marguerite Porete, was from Hainaut. Her offense was possessing or recopying her book, which had been condemned already in Cambrai. She remained imprisoned in Paris for a year and a half, refusing to swear an oath and respond to questions posed by her inquisitor, William of Paris. The other woman, Margueronne of Bellevillette, was arrested in Champagne as part of the group around bishop Guichard of Troyes that was accused of having used sorcery to murder Queen Jeanne of Navarre. These two women were caught up on the edges of larger ecclesiastical processes against the Order of the Temple and Bishop Guichard, entangled Philip IV’s relentless drive to consolidate political and religious power. Marguerite Porete was ultimately burned at the stake, while Margueronne of Bellevillette was locked away and seemingly forgotten once her usefulness as a witness against Guichard of Troyes had expired.