On October 11, 1680, La Reynie writes to Louvois, who wished to save Madame de Montespan while prosecuting the charges against the other persons, and proposed, with that end, to withdraw from the case the declarations made under torture by Filastre and the Abbé Cotton, which contained the gravest charges against the favourite: 'It is certain, even if we found a legitimate expedient for concealing from the judges for the present the facts which it would be well to keep secret, even for the sake of justice itself, that these very facts would crop up again from the woman Chappelain, from Guibourg, Galet, Pelletier, Delaporte, and perhaps from several more when under trial.' On the subject of the deposition made by Guibourg, La Reynie writes: 'It is morally impossible that Guibourg has deceived us in his declaration, and that he invented what he tells about the incantations said in course of the masses on the women's bodies. His mind is not active or consistent enough for such continuous thought as would have been necessary to invent what he had said on this subject, because, even supposing he were capable of such application, he has not enough acquaintance with what goes on in the world, and could not have devised so consistent a story in regard to Madame de Montespan.' Elsewhere he writes: 'Guibourg and the girl Monvoisin have corroborated one another about circumstances so particular and so horrible that it is difficult to conceive two persons being able to imagine and fabricate them unknown to each other. It seems that these things must have occurred, or they could not have been described.' The illustrious magistrate adds the following reflections:-- '1. The time of the relations of La Voisin with Latour, the journeys to Saint-Germain, and the powders which she made him work at, was the year 1676. '2. The time of the abominations described by Guibourg and the girl Monvoisin fits the same period. '3. Two years ago Lesage spoke of Latour, the poisons, Desoeillets, and the journeys of La Voisin in 1676. '4. It was established at the trial that two or three years before Lesage was taken, he testified that he feared the business would ruin him. They said at that time that the king had the vapours. He declared that he wished to leave La Voisin on that account, and because of the dealings she had with Desoeillets. 'From the beginning of these inquiries, these same facts have been spoken of; La Bosse, the first to be tried, gave the first inkling of them; she spoke of them under torture; but, because the king had not yet allowed this sort of facts to be collected in regard to persons of consideration, and because there was nothing to make us pay the least attention to them, no mention was made in the report of the torture of La Bosse of what she had said about Madame de Montespan.'