Episode 158 - Three Years of Paris History Avec a Hemingway

Three years have passed so quickly. On May 20, 2020, we debuted the first episode of the Paris History Avec a Hemingway podcast as a part of La Vie Creative. It was two months into the pandemic, and now we are still going strong three years later. In this week’s special episode, we chat about our favorite and most surprising episodes we have done. 

Krystal Kenney and I picked our favorite and surprising episodes; a few were even the same. Check each of them out and let us know which were your top episodes. 

I could pick every single one as a favorite but was forced to narrow it down to just three favorites and the three most surprising. Let us know if you had a few favorites. 

Saving the Louvre, episodes 307 & 309, debuted April 3 & 10, 2023. Picked by both Krystal and myself. The heroic acts that were taken in 1939 to move the art from the Louvre in order to outrun the Nazi’s path to Paris were orchestrated by Jacques Jaujard and his staff. However, this wasn’t the first time. The act of saving the Louvre went back to 1830 with the Three Glorious Days, captured on canvas by Eugene Delacroix. In World War One the most important pieces were moved or hidden. Veronese’s Wedding Feast of Cana was hidden behind a wall  The brave men and women spent the years of World War II hidden away with the art they guarded so every single piece could be returned to the walls of the Louvre. 

Listen to the episodes here and here. 

Notre Dame Four Years Later, episode 183, debuted April 17, 2023. It’s hard to imagine that it’s been four years since the fire that came close to destroying Notre Dame de Paris.  Today, Notre Dame is ahead of schedule and just this last week the rafters of the roof began to be dropped into place. With a planned opening of December 8, 2024, the next year will bring a growing spire and roof that will once again get us closer to being back inside. 

Listen to the episode here and watch the YouTube video here 

Rose Valland, episode 24 debuted, July 20, 2020. It could never be a list of favorites for me without Rose on it. The greatest woman in French history, Rose Valland was an integral part of the puzzle of the looted art by the Nazis in WWII. The actions that Rose took during the war saved more than 60,000 pieces of art that were returned to their rightful owners. Without the Rose Valland the Monuments Men would never accomplish what they were tasked to complete. 

Listen to her story here.

The Flooding of the Seine, episodes 289 & 290, debuted January 30 & February 6, 2023. Records going back to the 6th century have tracked the height of the Seine in Paris.  In 1910 the Seine rose to one of its highest points in history. Months of rain and snow that were greeted with higher-than-normal temperatures in December became the perfect storm that forced thousands from their homes. Since then the Seine has come close, most recently in 2016 & 2018 which caused the Louvre to build an entire structure outside of Paris to hold the overflow of art. 

Listen to the episode here & here 

Other favorites include: 

The Palais Garnier, episode 257, October 10, 2022

Montmartre and It’s Artists, episode 233, July 18, 2022

Widows of Champagne, episode 197, May 14, 2022 

The Steinheil Affair, episode 305 March 27, 2023 

Henri Landru, the French blue beard, episodes 293 & 295, February 13 & 20, 2023

Women of Monet, episode 143, September 6, 2021 

Women of Manet, episode 127, July 12, 2021 

Episode 157 - The Destruction of Degenerate Art

On May 28, 1943, 80 years ago a large pile of a few hundred paintings considered “Degenerate” was set ablaze just outside the Jeu de Paume in the Jardin des Tuileries. Our heroine Rose Valland could do nothing but watch in horror as the canvases of Picasso, van Gogh, Chagall, Matisse, and more burned. 

Degenerate art was anything Hitler deemed to “insult German feelings” and was created by immoral artists. To Hitler and the Nazi officials “pleasing” art consisted of landscapes, still lives, and appropriate portraits. Fauvism, Surrealism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Post-Impressionism, and the biggest of all ism’s, Impressionism was thought immoral. 

In 1937 the museums and galleries of Germany were cleaned of all degenerate art, more than 20,000 works, and in July a small and crowded exhibition opened with over 600 works on display. The exhibit was deliberately put together haphazardly. Small rooms, art hanging from ropes from the ceiling without frames, incorrect info, and Nazi propaganda scribed on the wall. Nazi officials wanted to unnerve the viewer but instead, it saw over 2 million visitors and in the final month the exhibit was open 24 hours a day to accommodate people. 

The objection to rid Europe of degenerate swept across the continent. Hermann Goring arrived in Paris in 1941 with one thing on his mind, stealing all the art he could for Hitler and himself. Goring didn’t have the same hatred for degenerate art and kept some for himself but not all the art could be saved from ruin. 

As crates of looted art arrived, those unacceptable were placed aside. As Goring made his choices the others were piled in a back room. Rose Valland, the amazing woman who watched it all unfold, stood helplessly, unable to do anything. When we think of what was lost that day, it’s unimaginable but in the larger picture, the lives of the owners were also extinguished during WWII due to hatred and cleansing of what the Nazis thought was acceptable. 

Today, when you visit the Jardin des Tuileries pop up to the northern corner and give a moment of thought to Rose Valland and what was lost.  Listen to the newest episode of the podcast to learn more about this dark period. 

Episode 156 - Buildings Lost to the Commune

On this week’s newest episode of the La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec a Hemingway podcast we venture into an event that happened 152 years ago this week. The Bloody Week as it is called began on Sunday, May 21, 1871, and resulted in more than 10,000 deaths and destroyed close to 600 buildings including 32 public offices in Paris. 

Today, only a few vestiges remain of the structures destroyed in the battle between the National Guard of Paris and the Army of Versailles. The Palais des Tuileries, Hotel de Ville, and Palais d’Orsay are just a few that have been lost forever. 

Hôtel de Ville, the stunning Neo-Renaissance building covered with statues and the roof guarded by soldiers isn’t the first rendition of the building.  The seat of the mayor of Paris since 1357 stood until 1589 when François I decided a much more opulent building was needed. He tapped Italian architect La Boccador who had also been the man behind his Blois and Amboise chateaux in the Loire. Between 1535-1551 the south side facing the Sein was completed. Construction was put on hold for the Wars of Religion and finally picked up again in 1605 by Henri IV and finished in 1628 by Louis XIII. From 1836-1850 the building was expanded, the facade updated and the interior given a lavish polish including frescos by Delacroix and Ingres in the Salon de la Paix. 

However, just a few years later it would all be lost. As the Bloody Week burned their way through Paris, they stopped in the Place de Greve. The Hôtel de Ville was the seat of the Commune Council and on May 24, 1871, they gathered at the door with torches. Evacuating the building in the early morning, they would set it ablaze, and by 11 am it was engulfed in flames, burning for days. 

Everything was lost including the archives of the city. They decided to bring it back to its former grandeur in less than a year. Architect Eduardo Deperthes, using the original plans, had the bones of the exterior rebuilt. The 19th C version would include more than 338 statues of famous French men and a lady or two. Even Rodin did one. Delacroix’s frescos may be gone, but on the south end, he stands looking towards Notre Dame. 

It is one of the most beautiful buildings in Paris, and hours can be spent walking around it, looking for your favorite artists. Today you can find a few of the ruins in Parc Monceau, Trocadero, and  Square Paul-Langevin. 

For the Palais d’Orsay, we have to go back to the 16th century when it was once the garden of Marguerite de Valois first wife of Henri IV until her death when they turned the property into elegant homes. In 1810 under Napoleon a building was ordered for his expanding government and architect Jacques-Charles Bonnard who had restored the Tuileries was tapped with the project. The first stone was laid on April 4, 1810, but the fall of Napoleon would delay the finish until 1838. 

The Council d’Etat decided to move in to finally complete the building in 1842. 

In 1845 the young painter Thédore Chassériau was asked to complete a series of paintings to decorate the Cour de Comptes stairwell. Chassériau had a gift for drawing as a child. In 1830 at just eleven years old he joined the atelier of Jean-Auguste Ingres, the great French classical painter. He immediately struck at his talent and told everyone about his young protege. Working with him for four years until Ingres left for Rome, he would find another amazing instructor, Eugene Delacroix. The leader of the Romantic movement was the opposite of Ingres. With Delacroix, he discovered the magic of the Orient, the use of color, and the large sweeping murals. Chassériau was the bridge between the classical and romantic styles and it fit him perfectly. 

Chassériau’s paintings lined the stairwell and were partially destroyed that horrible night on May 23, 1871. However, it wasn’t the fire that did most of the damage. For 27 years the burned-out remains of the Palais d’Orsay and the paintings stood through the wind, rain, and sun damaging them further. 

In 1898 it was finally demolished and thankfully the paintings were saved. What is left of them can be found in the Musée du Louvre hanging high above Salle 225 of the Richelieu wing. A few are painted in the grisaille fashion of shades of grey, those are more complete the paintings that are torn and worn away. Chassériau died far too early at just 37 years old but lives on forever on the walls of the Louvre. 

Less than three decades later the beautiful building would be destroyed. On the night of May 23, 1871, the fires of the Commune engulfed the building and for 27 years the burnt-out remains of the Palais d’Orsay remained. 

Maybe the Palais des Tuileries was the most notorious of all these buildings.

Once upon a time in the center of Paris at the end of the Palais du Louvre sat a mythical palace. Built by Catherine de Medici after the death of her husband Henri II, it stretched across and through what today is the Jardin des Tuileries. 

Working with architect Philibert de l’Orme in 1564 she designed a Renaissance palace covered in her iconography that would eventually connect and enclose the western end of the Louvre. Three hundred years of royalty would use the palace including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette who would spend more than two years under supervision after they were removed from Versailles. 

Napoleon I used the Palais des Tuileries as his official residence and spent each night with a certain lady of the Louvre in his bedroom, the Mona Lisa.  However, the grandness of the palace ended on 23 May 1871. 

It was the days of the Paris Commune and a dozen men set out, torches and gas in hand, and set the Tuileries on fire.  The fire would rage for two days and would destroy the historic palace, thankfully stopping before reaching too far into the Louvre and damaging any art. The ruins of the palace would stand for over 12 years and finally be torn down 140 years ago in 1883. 

We can still find a bit of the palace sprinkled throughout the city. You may never even know you walked past or sat on a bench on a lovely summer day in front of these historic remnants. On the southern side of the Jardin des Tuileries is a former arch, partially rebuilt that rises over the terrace that few people even notice. Inside the Musée du Louvre in the Cour Marly is another large window archway. 

The fun really starts when you venture out to the many Paris parks. Just behind the Musée Carnavalet in the Square Georges Cain are the pavilion's remains that once included a clock. You can see the visible black damage from the flames, a slice of history in an often overlooked park. Columns can be found in the courtyard of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and an archway in the side garden of the Trocadero far away from the hordes of people.

Episode 155 - The Last Moments of Henri IV

King of France Henri IV was born on December 13, 1553, although at his birth he was known as Henri III, and how this story gets a bit confusing. Henri’s mother Jeanne d’Albert was the queen of Navarre and married Antoine de Bourbon, the first monarch of the Bourbon dynasty who died in 1572. 

That same year just after his father’s death Jeanne and regent to Henri III of France, Catherine de Medici struck a deal when it was apparent that Henri IV was next in line for the throne of France. Catherine’s sons, including three kings, Francis I, Charles IX, and Henri III, died before they could have an heir. Henri IV was a descendant of Louis IX and a Bourbon and next in line and Catherine was always the scheming lady that she knew she should align her daughter to the man that could next be king. 

A deal was reached and Jeanne, the leader of the Huguenots had to agree that she would not convert her future daughter-in-law, Marguerite de Valois, and the wedding must take place by August 18, 1572. By the beginning of June, the deal was done. As a thank you, Catherine offered to gift Jeanne a pair of custom leather gloves. On June 9, 1572, Jeanne died, from what many believe was the gloves laced with poison. 

The grand wedding on the Parvis of Notre Dame de Paris was held on August 18, 1572, and just six days later, many Protestant guests were killed in the middle of the night. The Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre of August 24, 1572, ordered at midnight from the Louvre by Catherine and her son Charles IX would result in the killing of thousands of Huguenots and the Seine running red from blood. 

Henri III of Navarre became king of France, Henri IV after the death of Henri III on August 2, 1589. Coronated in the Cathedral of Chartres as he was still a Protestant and they wouldn’t allow the event in Notre Dame de Reims. Marriage with Marguerite was difficult, they both had many lovers and the kiss of death was Marguerite not giving the throne the all-important heir. Their marriage was annulled by the Pope in 1599 and Henri IV planned to wed his mistress Gabrielle d’Estrées who had already given him three children with one on the one. 

Henri met Gabrielle in November of 1590 through her cousin who was a nun and mistress of the king. The Vert Galant as he was known for his high sex drive was deeply in love with the blonde beauty and planned to marry her although all his advisors cautioned against it. Just as his marriage to Marguerite was annulled, Gabrielle died. (For more on Gabrielle, listen to a favorite past episode) 

A legitimate heir to the throne was needed and a solution to the debt France was carrying was also solved. The French state owed the Medici banking family more than 600,000 écus. A proposal of marriage between Marie de Medici and the French king would erase the debt as well as come with a dowry of a million écus. A contract was signed in April and on October 5, 1600, the wedding by proxy took place in Florence. Marie’s uncle stood in for the king and a month later she was on the way to meet her new husband. The two wouldn’t meet until December 9, 1600, Henri was busy with a mistress or two for a week in Lyon while Marie waited. 

On September 27, 1601, Louis XIII was born, the first of six children and the next king of France. Henri continued his cavorting ways and Marie was a distant mother leaving the children with others to be raised. Ten years after their wedding on May 13. 1610 Marie de Medici has finally crowned the queen of France after urging Henri to set a date for over nine years. 

In the Basilique Saint-Denis, as Henri IV looked on his wife was crowned, their eight-year-old sold looked on. They could never imagine how quickly everything would change. 

The next afternoon Henri IV left the Palais du Louvre to see his old friend Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de Sully who was ill and at his home in Arsenal. The two men met before the Saint Barthélemy massacre in 1572, Sully was just 13. The two would be close friends and trusted advisor until that fateful day in May. Henri left the Louvre in his carriage and made his way down Rue Saint Honoré. The streets were filled with people and traffic. As the carriage turned onto the Rue de la Ferronnerie, two wagons, one filled with wine and the other with hay blocked the way forcing them to stop. 

At 4 pm on May 14, 1610, François Ravaillac, a Catholic zealot jumped onto the step and reached into the king's carriage with a knife, stabbing him three times between the 2nd and 3rd ribs piercing his heart. The attacker was captured immediately and the king returned to the Louvre. Henri IV died quickly after the attack and was rushed into his bedroom in the Louvre. 

Louis XIII had been at the Order of the Knights of the Holy Spirit at the edge of the left bank on the Rue des Grands Augustens and advisors rushed to his side as he was now the king of France, even if he was still a child. 

A few days after his death, a wax effigy of the king was created. The life-like image of the king would lay on his bed, wearing a white satin vest and a red velvet nightcap and tucked in like he was simply taking an afternoon nap. The real Henri IV lay beneath the bed in his casket. Twice a day meals would be served before him, at times large tables were set up and the court sat and ate their meals alongside him. The faithful would visit the king in the Salles des Caryatides for three weeks. On July 1, he would finally be interred in the Basilique Saint-Denis, where he had been just the day before his death.  Henri IV was the second king of France in succession to be assassinated. At that moment his son Louis XIII became king, and Marie de Medici was regent until he came of age, or so he thought. 

As for Ravaillac, he was taken to the Conciergerie interrogated and tortured and on May 27, on the Place de Grève, in front of the Hotel de Ville, killed.  Tying each of his limbs to a horse, they would take off and tear him apart. 

Listen to the new episode out now. For more on Marie de Medici, Catherine de Medici, and Gabrielle d’Estrées click on their name to hear each of their specific episodes about their lives. 

Have a person from French history you want to know more about, let me know.

Episode 154- The Cardinals, Playwright and and English King

This week’s episode visits the northern side of the Palais Royal on Rue de Beaujolais, named for the count, not the wine. The son of Louis-Philippe d’Orleans and in the line of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan.  The two had seven children that were later legitimized.  Check out the podcast next week for a bit more on Montespan and her role in the Poisson Affair, but you can also hear her life story in a past episode. 

At no 5 from 1949 to 1965 was the Milord l’Arsouille club that first saw Serge Gainsbourg on stage and later was a song Edith Piaf covered. 

No 9 Colette lived until her death and was often seen being carried down to the Grand Vefour for dinner. 

No 15 Jean Cocteau lived and was often seen in the garden with Edith. 

For Napoleon fans check out the official Napoleon store at number 10 

Right on Rue Vivienne and a short quick left onto rue des Petits Champs is Willi’s Wine Bar, a favorite restaurant that is always fantastic check out their large collection of posters created each year. The first-of-its-kind wine bar that served food opened in 1980 and still going strong. 

The rue Vivien was named for Louis Vivien mayor of Paris in 1599 and the family that owned the portion of land to the east of the Bibliotheque Nationale. Rue Viviene was the first Roman road that went through Paris to Saint-Denis and would have seen the king venturing past from the Palais du Louvre. 

To the left on Rue Viviene was the home of Cardinal Mazarin and just a bit farther Jean-Baptiste Colbert also lived. The original Palais Royal was built by Cardinal Richelieu so the entire area was filled with powerful men steps away from Louis XIII and XIV in the Louvre. Mazarin built the large palace in 1635 to hold his art and books that went to Louis XIV after his death. His book collection is just over the Seine in the Institut de France.  In 1721 the building was turned into the national collection of books and other treasures in the French state. The museum just reopened this last fall after more than 7 years and is fantastic to see. 

At the end of the BNF building is a plaque for Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville who died April 26, 1879 and invented the typographer and invented the first machine that could record sound 17 years before Edison. His bookshop and home were once on this corner. 

At no 17  Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville was the founder of New Orleans Louisianna and died here on March 7, 1767, 

At the intersection of Vivien and Rue de Quatre-Septembre is the former stock exchange, the Borse which was built in 1808 under Napoleon by Alexandre-Theodore Brongniart. Prior to this, the stock exchange moved around to multiple locations including 7 months from May 10 to December 13, 1795, in the Palais du Louvre.  The stock exchange lasted from November 6, 1826, to November 6 1998, before it moved to just one European location in Belgium. Now it is a rental event space for tradeshows and weddings. 

Just off the side street is a rare example of Revolutionary construction. The Rue des Colonnes was built in 1792 on what was a private road. The 36 doric columns were inspired by the temple of Poseidonia in Greece. In 1826 the Rue de la Bourse cut through and one of the buildings was rebuilt in 1996 but the columns were saved. 

After the Rue de Quatre-Septembre named after the start of the third republic on September 4, 1870, take a left on the Rue de Gramont. 

In 1779 Marin Kreenfelt de Storcks was working on the Almanac of Paris and was frustrated that he couldn’t give a more pinpointed idea of location. At first, he counted street lamps to note an address. When that didn’t work under the dark of night he went out and painted numbers on doors. On Rue de Gramont in the 2e he started on the left side, 1, 2, etc,  and then came back around so the 1 was straight across from the last number on the street 

Gramont changes into Rue Sainte Anne named not for the Sainte and mother of the Virgin Mary but for Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV. The best Asian restaurants in Paris are found on this street and where I stayed on my first trip in 2016. 

Left on Rue de Louvois was named for Francois Michel de Tellier de Louvois minister under Louis XIV who opposed Colbert on many things including how the Affair of the Poisons was handled. 

The square also holds the same name, the Square Louvois which is where the Richelieu opera house once stood from 1794. In 1820 it was the sight of the stabbing and death of the Duc de Berry, son of Charles X who had the opera house destroyed following his beloved son’s death. In 1830 Louis-Philippe commissioned Louis Visconti to create a fountain for the square. Built-in 1844 it represents the four major rivers of France. The Seine, Garonne, Loire, and Saone with each of its own allegory standing over the signs of the zodiac. 

Just around the corner at number 12 rue Chabannais was the Chabannais brothel that was open from 1878 to 1946. Madame Kelly and Alexandre Joannet ruled the street and decorated each room with a different theme. Japanese, Hindu, Louis XV, and Pompeii as well as the large custom copper tub created for Edward VII of England, known in Paris as Dirty Bertie. Bertie even had a custom chair created when he became a bit too large to maneuver relations shall we say?  

The Rue de Richelieu was of course named for the Cardinal, the arch-nemesis of Marie de Medici and who controlled the court of Louis XIII. The street runs to the Louvre and has seen no 92 the first bakery opened by August Zang serving croissants. 

No 56 on the corner of Richelieu and Petite Champs is the oldest building that dates back to 1655. 

At no 50 a young Madame de Pompadour and future love of Louis XV grew up and just down the street at no 40, Moliere died 350 years ago on February 17. 1673. The building that stands dates to 1769 but a plaque marks the spot where the great playwright lived in his final years. 

liere in his signature chair that he sat in on stage in the Comedie Francais. Below are two allegories of La Comedie Serieuse and La Comedie Légère by Jean-Jacques Pradier. Each of the parchments has the full list of the great playwright’s writings. 

At no 26 was the home of Rose Bertin, the first major designer that called Marie Antoinette her number one client. Under MA she even had the first fashion magazine and store just a few steps away in the Passage Potier. 

Click on any of the links to learn more about many of these great women we have covered on the podcast.

Episode 153 - The Bazar of the Charities

For years, a group of charities came together, known as the Bazaar de la Charité. Attracting the elites of society, many of which were women, would end in disaster in 1897. 

Henri Blount, the wealthy son of Edward Charles Blount a former member of Parliament and banker who later invested in the railway which brought them a fortune. Along with Baron de Mackau, son of the Minister of the Navy-owned land around Paris that he would donate for the use of the fateful charity event in 1897. 

The first Bazar was held from 1885 to 1887 on the Rue du Faubourg Saint Honorè. In 1888 and 1890 to 1896 on the Rue de la Boétie and in 1889 at the Place Vendome. On March 20, 1897, Baron Armand de Mackau gave a 263 feet long pine structure on the Rue Jean-Goujon in the 8th arrondissement.

On April 6, 1897 leaders of the charities included the Duchesses of Alençon & Bavaria, and Henriette of Belgium, niece of King Leopold II, and the Duchess of Uzés. Gathering 22 charities the inside of the structure was created with a large central area surrounded by smaller counters for each organization most of which were run by women. Each booth was large enough to hold a dozen ladies 

The 1897 event was going to include the new technology of a Cinematograph by Auguste and Louis Lumière. The first film, 50 seconds in length, debuted on March 22, 1885, but was not seen by the public until December before the brothers took their movies on tour around Europe, New York, London, and Beaunos Aries causing an international sensation. 

Three very short films were shorn on repeat including La Sortie de l’Usine Lumiere de Lyon, L’Arrivée d’un Train et la Ciotat Gare, and L’Arrouser Arrosé. 

On May 3, 1897, the Bazaar de la Charitiés opened its doors. At 4 pm Monseigneor Eugenio Ciari blessed the event and 1600 people flooded into the space. The first day was crowded but the attendees were having a lovely time enjoying the fun, games, and movie. 

On May 4, 1897, 1200 people mostly women and a few men and children filled the event. 

When the projector was installed it was placed in a small room with little ventilation. This was the 19th century and the 35 mm projectors were far more primitive and needed ether to operate the Molteni lamp and burned through it rather quickly. After an hour it needed to be refilled. Surrounding the camera were curtains and were instructed to leave them closed. In the dark M.  Bellac asked for some light to pour the ether. At 4:15 pm Grégoire Bagrachow used a match to give Bellac a bit of light. As soon as the match was lit, the vapers caught fire and ignited the canvas curtains. 

Moments later the Duchess d’Alencon began to cough and could smell smoke in the air. The pine structure with canvas walls and thin wooden tables was a tinder box that burned quickly. Small explosions were heard as the gas lights ignited. Within 12 minutes the entire structure was engulfed in flames. 

There were only two doors leading to the street and women and children were crawling over each other trying to exit. The few men that were there were reported later by eyewitnesses to have pushed women aside in a panic to exit. When the pompiers arrived, 425 in total there was little they could do as the entrances were jammed with people including those that died before they made it out the door. 

This was 1897 when the style of clothing included hoops, petticoats, and endless ruffles all very easy to ignite and engulf a victim in flames. Out the back side of the building, a few small windows led to a courtyard. Women were crawling out the back window where a cook from the Hotel du Palais assisted in pulling 150 victims through the kitchen windows while the screams were heard. Over the next hour, brave souls tried to enter the building to save people but the swift fire was no match. 

The Duchess d’Alencon, one of the event's main organizers and married to the grandson of Louis-Philippe former king of France, remained inside trying to save the ladies. A nun had fallen and was helped by the Duchesse and was heard saying “Oh Madame, what a death” and the Duchesse responded, “Yes, but in a few minutes we will see God”. They were her last words. 

Sophie-Charlotte en Bavière, Duchess d’Alencon was born on February 23, 1847. Her father Maximillian en Bavière & Duchesses Ludovica de Bavière of the House of Wittelsbach in Germany. On September 22, 1868, she married Ferdinand d’Orleans, Duke of Allençon the youngest son of the Duc de Nemours.  Prior to the duke she was engaged to King Louis II of Bavaria in 1867 she discovered he was gay and postponed the wedding. When the war began in 1870 she and her husband and family moved to Paris to 32 Avenue de Frieldlane near the Arc du Triomphe. 

After it was discovered she had a steamy affair with Edgar Hanfstaengl she was sent to a sanatorium in Austria to tackle her sexual desires. For 5 months she was left alone to become the lady she was supposed to be. She returned to Paris in January 1897 just a few months before her death. 

Once the fire was controlled the grisly job of moving and identifying the victims began. The nearby Palis de l’Industrie off the Champs Elysees was used for the 126 bodies recovered, 118 of which were women. Another 250 were injured, many with disfiguring burns. 

The Duchess d’Alencon was found burned in the arms of the Viscountess de Beauchamp. She was identified by the gold bridge in her mouth. Many families weren’t as lucky. A majority of the victims were burned beyond identification. Among the wealthy elite women mostly there were also six nuns. Six children between the ages of 4 and 10, and five men and many young girls not even 20 years old. 

Other notable victims included Camille Moreau-Nelaton. Camille was an artist that began by taking drawing lessons from Auguste Bonheur, brother of Rosa. She went on to become a ceramic artist and painter and exhibited at the Salon numerous times between 1865 to 1881. In 1858 she married Adolphe Moreau-Nelaton, the son of the personal surgeon to Napoleon III. Adolphe was an avid collector of art and passed the love to their son, Etienne Moreau-Nelaton who had one of the most important collections in the Louvre and Orsay today.

Camille was attending with her daughter-in-law and wife of Etienne, Edmée Braun Moreau-Nelaton. Both women were killed in the fire. Etienne never married again and mourned his mother and wife for the rest of his life. 

The Viscountess Bonneval, Marie du Quesne was able to escape the fire but ran back inside to save her friend but was overpowered by the flames and died. Her husband was able to identify her body by her jewelry. 

Jeanne de Kergorlay, Countess de Saint-Périer helped other women escape through a high window until the floor collapsed below her and her instant death, but after she saved a dozen women including her niece. 

Librarian Ellen Blonska was identified by her orthopedic corset under her layers of fabric. 

On May 8, 1897, a national funeral was held in Notre Dame de Paris presided over by Cardinal François Richard de La Vergne. President Felix Faure was in attendance who had thought he lost his mistress Marguerite Steinhal in the fire but she ended up not attending that day.
Around Paris, the endless stream of funerals and processions to the many cemeteries were held in every corner of the city for a week. 

Days after the fire the Baron bought the property and gave it to the city with the intention of building a memorial for the victims. Cardinal Richard began a fund to erect a chapel at the sight and one year later on May 4, 1898, the first stone was laid and two years later on the same day in 1900, the Chapel of Atonement was inaugurated in memory of the victims. More than 86,000 items were pulled from the burned remains and added to the chapel, including a private space reserved for the family alone. 

On February 28, 1899, the city of Paris also created a monument to the “unrecognized victims” in the 92nd division of Pere Lachaise.

The funeral for the Duchess d’Alençon was held in the Saint-Philippe du Roule church on the Rue de Faubourg Saint Honoré. Her coffin was taken to the Chapel Saint Louis in Dreux where members of the Orleans family are buried. 

A lavish tomb in marble of the Duchess created by Louis-Ernest Barrias depicts her after her death laying next to burnt beams in full dress. A little too shocking to visitors it was moved to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dreux and replaced with a new tomb by Charles-Albert Walham in 1912. A few beams are still visible but the Duchess is now laid to rest clutching a cross. 

In 2019 Netflix premiered an eight-episode series, The Bazaar of the Charity, The Bonfire of Destiny in the US featuring Audrey Fleurot. The characters are fictional but the event itself in the first episode is historically accurate. 

Episode 152 - Eugene Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix, the leader of the Romantic Movement was born on  April 26 in 1798. His use of color and light was unnerving to the French artists when he first began but he went on to inspire the Impressionists. 

Born to Victoire Œben who came from a line of cabinetmakers on both sides of her family. Her father Jean-Francois Œben was the favorite cabinetmaker to Louis XV, XVI, and Marie Antoinette. Lawyer and politician Charles Delacroix moved the family from outside of Paris to Bordeaux where he served as Prefect until his early death in 1805. 

Eugène, the family's fourth child, would be just five when he lost his father. Older sister Henriette was born in 1782, brother Charles Henri was born in 1779, and another brother,  Henri, was killed at 23 in Napoleon’s Battle of Friedland. After the early death of his father young Eugène and his mother moved to Paris to live with his sister who had married Raymond de Verninac, a Swedish diplomat who later sat for Jacques-Louis David. 

Eugène attended the Lycee Imperial in Paris, now named the Lycee Louis-le-Grand in the Latin Quarter. His cousin and artist Henri Riesener introduced him to Neo-classical artist Pierre Narcisse Guerin in 1815 who he began to study under. Alongside artists Ary & Henry Scheffer, Léon Cogniet and Théodore Géricault. The next year in March 1816 he enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, still studying under Guerin and also as a copiest in the Musée du Louvre. 

Not the most patient of artists when it came time to wait for the paint to dry before applying the varnish he was often criticized by most of the serious artists of the time. In 1825 a visit to England opened up his creativity with the inspiration of the stage and the written word. Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Faust’s Goethe as well as Lord Byron found their way into his art and even gave him opportunities to illustrate books and sheet music. 

While he may have been trained by a Neo-Classical artist he retained little of the values of the style and forged his own path that was also inspired by Géricault, the first king of the Romantic period. 

When Delacroix saw Géricault’s masterpiece Raft of the Medus and even posed for one of the figures he ran through the streets yelling in excitement at what he had seen. It was 1918 and at just 20 years old he had a long career ahead of him.  Ingres who was holding the reins of the Academy tightly clashed with Delacroix and these artists with these nutty ideas that were starting to spread through Paris. Although Romanticism was seen long ago in the 16th century and influenced by Ruebens. 

Like Géricault, Delacroix was painting horses in the 1920s although his paintings of large wild cats are more well-known now. In 1824 his first painting to be submitted to the Salon was a scene of the April 1822 Scene of the Massacre of Scio of the Turks killing the inhabitants of Scio and a major moment in the fight for Greek independence. Since he had not been there he spent his time in the National Library researching Greek costumes to set the scene as accurately as possible. 

His most recognized painting is La Liberté Guidant le Peuple, painted in 1830 for the Salon of 1831 and is now proudly on display in the Musée du Louvre. But let’s rewind quite a bit and see what this painting is all about. 

The timeline of France is marked by more than one Revolution. Most know of the big one that resulted in the beheading of Marie Antoinette & Louis XVI which began in 1789. Four decades later the people would rise up again against the brother of Louis XVI. Charles X had taken the throne after the death of his brother Louis XVIII on September 16, 1824. Things would get worse for Charles in 1830 when on March 18 he dissolved the Parliament and as the press spoke up against him he censored them on July 25. 

On Monday, July 26 more than 50 newspapers were forced to stop the presses. The next morning the owners gathered and vowed to fight back. As the police arrived at the offices of the newspapers to take their presses and newspapers they found the workers waiting and screaming. By the afternoon one by one the editors, owners, journalists, and printers began to march into the center of Paris. The Place Vendome, Place de la Bastille, and the Place du Carrousel saw large crowds of outraged citizens whom the police were no match for. 

On July 28 in front of the Hotel de Ville, the Garde Royal were quickly outnumbered. The angry crowd gathered every cobblestone and projectile to build barricades and also tossed them at the police force. It was at this moment that 32-year-old Eugene Delacroix was just down the way at his studio at 15 Quai Voltaire and was moved to capture this penultimate moment of the Trois Glorieuses Jours. 

Delacroix’s good friend Théodore Gericault just three years earlier painted the monument Raft of the Medusa. The current event painting won plenty of fans and skeptics. History paintings in the lexicon of art were deemed the pinnacle of all art styles but rarely were painted so close to the moment of the event. Delacroix said “If I can’t fight for my country, I will paint for it”, and he did just that. 

For three months he sketched and painted from September 20 to mid-December 1830. An astonishingly quick period to create such a large piece and brought the entire moment to life. Displayed in the Salon of 1831, under the title Scenes de Barricades, it was met with a wide mix of criticism. Many thought the allegorical woman was dirty, displaying her hairy armpit and filthy feet while the nude man and his visible pubic hair were right at eye level. 

The entire scene was one of the lower and upper classes as well as men of all ages united. This was exactly why the Three-day Revolution is marked as such a defining moment in French history as told in art and also remembered by the July Column in the Place de la Bastille. It was the mix of all classes that stood up against the monarchy. While the first Revolution began with the poor vs the monarchy, the July Revolution saw all classes in arms together. 

At the Salon of 1831, the painting was purchased by the State for 3000 francs but it was only briefly displayed in the Musée du Luxembourg. Adolphe Thiers was worried it would inspire another uprising and had it removed and returned to Delacroix in 1832. The painting hid away in the Val d’Oise with his aunt Felicité Riesener until 1848 when it returned to the Luxembourg but hidden away until the 1855 Universal Exhibition when he also had to darken her cap. Special permission had to be obtained for the exhibition and after the painting went back into storage. In 1863 when it was finally returned to the public it was too late for the master to see it hung, the father of the Romantic movement was gone. In 1874 it finally moved to the Salle Mollier of the Louvre where you can still see it today. 

One day another artist, Frederic Bartholdi visited the Louvre and saw our lovely Delacroix Liberty which inspired the design of his very own. Today Delacroix’s well-known painting has been copied onto clothes, reimagined in billboards, inspired other artists to adopt it as their own, and projected onto the side of a plane, and even my beloved Swatch watch. She is brought out every 14 juillet and any other moment of immense French pride and I always smile when I see her. 

In 1832, Delacroix was one of the very few artists invited to visit Morocco and Northern Africa where he had a chance to see firsthand the Orient that would inspire his next period. Most artists were recreating the stories on canvas without every setting foot on the continent but Delacroix was able to even be invited into a harem to sketch the scene few men were able to see. He filed numerous journals and created over 80 paintings including the Women of Algiers in the Apartment that hangs in the Louvre. Picasso went on to coping it numerous times. 

Well known for his large murals in churches, and government buildings he believed artists should devote their time to the large tableaux in public places as that was the way to be remembered. His frescos would be added to the Assemblie National, Palais du Luxembourg, and of course Eglise Saint Sulpice. 

 In 1850 architect Félix Duban who was restoring the Galerie d’Apollon asked Delacroix to paint the center of this grand room. At the time, the only way for an artist to hang in the Louvre was ten years after their death. Delacroix loved the Louvre and dreamed of seeing his paintings hung there; with the paintings of the Galerie d’Apollon, he would fulfill that wish. Friend and author Charles Baudelaire said, “Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible” after seeing his finished painting on the ceiling in the Louvre. 

In 1849 he was commissioned to paint the baptismal chapel of Saint Sulpice, before he even started it was changed to the Chapel of the Angels, and given free rein to paint anything he wanted as long as it included angels. The two frescos were painted with the addition of wax added in so that the colors would remain vibrant even a hundred years later. On the left of the chapel Jacob Wrestling the Angel and on the right is Heliodore Expelled from the Temple each was painted directly on the wall and took over ten years to complete from the time it was commissioned. High above is Saint Michel painted on a canvas and added when the frescos were complete. 

Delacroix was never married but he did have a few relationships with married women over the years, many of which were also artists including Eugenie Daltin and Elisa Boulanger. He did have a loyal companion and friend Jenny Le Guillon who he hired in 1835 and she would remain with him until the end of his life. Cooking, cleaning, and caring for the artist who was happiest in front of his easel. 

While painting the frescoes of Saint Sulpice he sent a letter to a friend saying this project would kill him. Sadly he would die after a long illness within two years on August 13, 1863. His funeral was held on 17 August at the St-Germain des Pres church and buried at Père-Lachaise.

 In his will he asked to be buried in the heights of Père-Lachaise in a place somewhat removed, “there will be neither emblem, bust or statue”. The subtle dark volcanic tomb in the shape of a sarcophagus, like the one of Scipio the Roman general and bearing only his name, is understated much like the man.

 In the Jardin du Luxembourg under the shade of the trees pull up one of those green chairs to Jules Dalou’s Monument a Eugene Delacroix dedicated by his supporters in 1890. Topped with a bust of the great artist a short walk from his beautiful work in Saint Sulpice.

Episode 151 - The Restoration of Notre Dame

This past Saturday, April 15 we were able to stand in the shadow of Notre Dame and reflect on the last 860 and also 4 years since a fire threatened to destroy the beloved cathedral. In this week's newest episode of the La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec a Hemingway podcast we share the history as well as the details on the restoration and where we are today. 

When the fire raged 4 years ago, President Macron vowed to have it reopened in just 5 years. While it gave hope to many it was also met with a ton of naysayers that said it couldn’t be done. Well, as we watch today the spire is being rebuilt and we are projected to be back inside on December 8, 2024. 

Let’s venture back to the start first. The birth of Notre Dame de Paris can go back to just one man, Bishop Maurice de Sully. He wanted to create an immense church that would be a gift back to the faithful. The building began in 1161 but the first stone wasn’t laid until 1163. Sometime between March 24 and April 25, 1163, in the presence of Pope Alexander III and Louis VII, 860 years ago. The church was built to be 416 feet long, 131 feet wide, and 109 feet high and today is still the largest in Paris. 

The building continued after Bishop Sully died in 1196. Leaving a large sum of money to finish the roof including 43,000 sheets of lead that melted away on that April evening four years ago. It took until 1345 for the cathedral to be finished and she stood for many years holding mass and events until the Revolution. As the churches were taken over the cathedral became the Temple of Reason and a depot it fell into disrepair. 

On April 18, 1802, Napoleon gave it back to the church and followed it with his coronation but the church was falling apart. Years of neglect had the old girl not looking so great and a Parisian writer decided something should be done about it. Victor Hugo walked over the island regularly and always past the doors of Notre Dame. In 1831 Notre Dame de Paris was released and an outpouring of support rallied around the cathedral. Leaders couldn't turn away and a competition was held for the next architect of Notre Dame. 

Eugene Viollet-le Duc and Jean-Baptiste Antoine Lassus had just finished the restoration of Sainte Chapelle including a complicated spire. When the original plans were revealed Viollet-le-Duc proposed adding two spires to the roof but in the end, only one was created. The spire replaced an original one that stood from the 13th century to 1786, over 500 years. After it was damaged by lightning and a later storm almost destroyed it the spire was removed in 1786. 

The Viollet-le-Duc spire began construction on May 4, 1858, and a year later on June 29, 1859, the rooster was placed on top marking the end of construction. In 1935 the rooster was removed for re-gilding and Cardinal Verdier placed the three precious relics of Paris. A relic of Sainte Genevieve, Saint-Denis, and a piece of the Crown of Thorns, all of which were saved after the rooster fell from the top of the spire in the fire. 

On April 15, 2023, the 4-year anniversary the base of the new spire was put in place and the beginning of the spire will grow from the roof and is projected to be finished by the end of the year. 

The roof was known as the “forest” as it was made up of over 1300 trees, the equivalent of 52 acres. All of them were lost in the fire and within a few weeks 273 donations rolled in for more than enough timber coming from around France. Half of the donations came from private land and the other half from public forests. A team of devoted lumberjacks that know their land well we’re able to quickly find the perfect trees. They needed to be 4 feet wide and at least 88 feet high. Harvesting began within a year with the first tree cut on March 5, 2020, by Daniel Pichon of Pichon Freres. 

One thousand people work on-site every day with one goal in mind. When they are finished a cleaned and shiny version of Notre Dame will return for another 860 years. 

Listen to the newest episode for even more goodies about the beloved cathedral and check out a live video record on April 15, 2023, the anniversary of the fire. 

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Episode 150 - Saving the Louvre Part 2

At first, many pieces were thought to be too fragile to move. Pastel paintings by Boucher and Degas found their way to the vaults of the Banque de France. Winged Victory, Venus, Diane de Versailles, and Michel-Ange’s Slaves stayed in the Louvre under arches and piled with sandbags. 

At the start of September, the Germans moved into Poland and the workers were told to move faster. This time the Wedding Feast of Cana needed to be removed. Taken out of its frame and off its backing the immense canvas was rolled onto a large oak log, longer than the 20-foot tall painting. David’s Sacre was rolled once more but the huge paintings wouldn’t fit in any of the trucks they had on hand. The Comedie Francaise came to the rescue with the large scenery moving trucks. 

The next issue was Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa. Theodore Gericault used Bitumen, the tarry substance added to paint to deepen dark colors but since it never fully dries Huyghé was worried the painting would be ruined if rolled.  The painting was left on its stretcher, carried out of the Louvre, and placed on a truck along with a few other large works. Slowly making its way through the streets a large pole was used to lift wires so the paintings could easily move through.

Once the caravan reached Versailles they forgot the trolley lines that are fixed in place. As the painting slid through a loud crack was heard and sparks flew the truck was moved sideways and the electricity to the entire city was cut causing many to panic that the Germans had arrived. Magdeleine Hours, a curator at the Louvre rushed to the Chateau and banged on the door until a pajama-clad curator found the door in the dark.  The Raft and the other pieces were left at Versailles for a few days before they checked the rest of the route. 

On September 1, 1939, World War II began and the rest of the art that was deemed too fragile in the Louvre needed to be better protected. 

The most precious and beautiful, Winged Victory of Samothrace stands at the top of the Daru staircase. Her 9-foot figure that ways 3 and a half tons was the biggest challenge. On September 2 she was tied up inside an open crate with a system of pulleys, chains, and ropes and was slowly lowered down the 53 steps covered with a few boards as everyone stood by holding their breath. That same day 95 trucks of 120 crates left but Victory, Venus, and the Slaves remained. 

On September 3, 1939, England delivered an order to Hitler to stop and leave Poland within two hours. At 5 pm France declared war on Germany. 90% of the Louvre was empty by September 3 and things quickly stopped. Officials were worried the Germans would be on the cobblestones of Paris in days but by the 6th when nothing had happened the project was resumed and convoys continued to move. Jaujard decided at the end of the month that the remaining art wasn’t safe and also needed to be removed.

It took until the end of October on the 29th when Victory, Venus, and the Slaves left in a convoy of 29 trucks to the Chateau de Valencay in the Loire. Delacroix’s ceiling in the Gallerie d’Apollon was rolled and just behind Victory on its way to safety. 

In just over 5 weeks, 2000 crates in more than 200 truckloads left the Louvre filled with 3,691 paintings and thousands of objets, furniture, and sculptures from not only the Louvre but the Cluny and Carnavalet as well as some high-value personal collections given to the Louvre for safekeeping. 599 crates from Versailles, 1400 from the Musée des Arts Decoartifs, and 6000 crates of private collections.

The Chateau de Chambord dates back to 1519 when Francois I wanted a hunting lodge on the edge of the forest. He intended to live there but in the end, he only spent 42 days in 35 years. The immense size, the largest in the Loire would play a key role in the evacuation of the Louvre. As the art left the Louvre, all convoys stopped at Chambord to be inventoried and then transferred to their final destination.

Chambord did have its drawbacks due to its size. It was very visible from above and its double staircase designed by Leonardo da Vinci made it very difficult to move crates of art. The doorways were also quite low and many were damaged in the process. The Apollo ceiling by Delacroix remained as well as the depart of drawing collection and the prints given by Edmond de Rothschild. Archivist Lucie Mazauric came along with the thousands of books and files in the archive collection, many of which I benefit from today. 

In the Musée de l’Armée are models of French cities, many created under Louis XIV. These also found their way to protection in Chambord. 

Other chateaus include Fougères-sur-Bievre, Chevrnay, Valencay, Louvigny, Courtalain, Chereperrine, Le Pelice, and Ailleres. Everything was thought out in the process. Curators and guards traveled with the caravan. When the first convoy rolled through the small towns the tarped-covered trucks got lots of looks. Many thought the circus was coming to town, little did they know it was the Winged Victory flying through. 

The painting department consisted of 3,691 pieces and had to be split out into multiple locations. They needed to be near each other so curators and restorers could travel quickly as they worked. At the Abbaye de La Pelice and the Chateau de Louvigny the majority of paintings were hidden away. Louvigny also had the other large framed paintings. The Chateau de Chèreperrine held the large rolled paintings including the Sacre de Napoleon, Wedding Feast of Cana and Gros’ Napoleon in Jaffa. 

The Raft of the Medusa had to stay in Versailles a bit longer until they were sure it could make the trip safely to Chambord. On the back of an open scenery truck, it garnered attention wherever it went. While the other trucks in the convoy traveled to Chambord they did it in the dark without the use of lights. Upon arriving at the chateau they realized a truck was missing filled with Watteau paintings. They found it the next morning as the sun came up on the banks of the river Loire. The driver mistook the lights on a bicycle for another truck. 

When the Mona Lisa was packed she was wrapped in special paper to absorb any humidity and then set in a red silk-lined box. When she left Paris she left in a hermetically sealed truck. When she arrived in Chambord, National Museum officer  Pierre Schommer was passed out due to a lack of air but was thankfully revived. She moved on to the Chateau de Louvigny along with curator Andre Chamsen. Chamsen was the assistant curator at Versaille just before the war began. Born on June 6, 1900, in Nimes he began his job at the Louvre just weeks before the war was a whisper.

Chamsen met Lucie Mazauric and the two married on July 26, 1924. When the art moved so did they along with their daughter Frederique.  As an archivist, her collection and job were just as important as the art that hung on the walls and what they held in their armoire the most important piece in the Louvre collection. 

In the Petit Salon of the Chateau de Louvigny, La Jaconde was hidden away and brought out every week to check for any moisture. Daughter Frederique said in the amazing documentary and started me on my own journey, the Rape of Europa that she remembered her father opening it and pulling back the red silk. 

As the war raged on, the locations of the art hung in the balance, and decisions along the way had to be made. In the spring of 1940, the Germans closed in getting closer and closer. On May 16, 1940, a large plume of smoke could be seen from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d’Orsay as they tossed archives out the window into a burning pile to destroy before the Germans arrived. Jaujard knew the art wasn’t safe and needed to be moved. The isolated Abbaye de Loc-Dieu was chosen as it was 80 miles NE of Toulouse and farther into the country. The threat of being seen moving was far greater than the first time. There also was fewer staff, trucks, fuel, and time to make the move. 

Four paintings were excluded from the move. The Wedding Feast of Cana, Sacre de Napoleon, Napoleon visiting Jaffa, and the Battle of Eylau. It was thought that three paintings depicting Napoleon and the Wedding Feast, being the  one he stole may have a high value to Hitler and the Germans. The one place Hitler had to visit on his one day in Paris was the tomb of Napoleon.

On May 29, 1940, Jaujaurd and Germain Bazin, assistant curators of paintings built a timeline for the movement of all the art. A few curators refused to be a part of it as it was sure to be a dangerous undertaking. Once the movement began it took three days due to the crowded and horrible roads, but everything moved in time. 

During the next 5 years much of the art would move three times before it finally returned to Paris. The Mona Lisa moved six times with her caretaker and family moving right along with her. At each location, she had her own room and guards 

On December 26, 1944, the last German bomb was dropped on France, but the art stayed put. On April 30, 1945, Hitler killed himself and a week later on May 7, the Germans surrendered to the Allies. 

Now a new obstacle was in the way for curators. The cold and lack of coal in Paris made it almost impossible to heat the large galleries. The cold and rising temperatures from visitors would cause humidity which is one of the worst enemies of the art.  

On June 15, 1945, at 5 am the first convoy of art left the Chateau de Montal. Two hours later all 3 and a half tons of Winged Victory left for Paris on a truck provided by the British army. It took 9 hours to go the 150 miles back to Paris. 

The next day Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People as well as Boucher and Watteau paintings. At the time of the war, there was not a Musée d’Orsay. The collection you see in the Orsay today was once in the Louvre. Along with the French and Italian masters the evacuation of the Louvre also included van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, and all the Impressionists.

On June 21, Winged Victory was back at the base of the Daru Staircase. The entire staff of the Louvre stood by to watch her make the slow push up the steps that would take over two hours. Of course, they stopped to have lunch for 90 minutes before they completed her move and she was once again sitting on top of her ship. 

On June 30, Venus and Michel Ange’s Slaves returned. It had been 6 years since they had last seen the inside of the Louvre.  In the following weeks the rest of the art, antiquities, crown jewels, furniture, and more made their return to Paris. Since the Louvre wasn’t ready yet they held a special exhibition in the smaller rooms off of Winged Victory beginning on July 10, 1945, where 83 paintings including the Mona Lisa could finally be seen again. 

While the art was gone, curators worked to restore and conserve many of the most important pieces, although the Mona Lisa was never touched. 

The larger paintings didn’t return until February 1946 and the Belle Allemande came into the Louvre collection after Gorring had “traded” for her. Today she is down on the ground level in a side room just off the Cour Leuffel without a mention of her travels

One of the last pieces to return was the one that made the greatest exit. Gericault’s Raft of the Medus which had such a sparkling start finally returned on July 9, 1946, from the Chateau de Sourches with 8 other large paintings. 

On October 17, 1947, after  8 years the Louvre was finally fully open to the public. 

While it was closed a new strategy for hanging the art was also worked out. Before the war, the paintings were much closer to each other and on top of each other. Now after the remaining workers that stayed behind inventoried the frames and the chalk marks on the wall a new more spacious layout we see today was planned.

Episode 149 - Saving the Louvre Part 1

On August 25, 1939, Hitler came knocking on the door of France and the keepers of the great art of Paris sprang into action. Jacques Jaujard the director of France’s National Museum and René Huyghé, saved the art of the Louvre and had it planned for over a year. This is the evacuation that many have heard about but it wasn’t the first.

In July 1830, the famous Revolution captured by Eugene Delacroix put the Louvre in its first spot of trouble. The Louvre opened in 1793 in the midst of the Revolution and survived unscathed since it was given to the people.  On those three Glorious Days in July 1830 Vicomte de Cailleux, a 93-year-old security guard began to remove the paintings from the walls of the Grande Gallerie that hung floor to ceiling. Working through the night it took dozens of people on tall ladders to move them away from the wall of the Seine. 

Cailleux created a quick sign “Respect the National Property”. As the rioters entered and fired their way through door locks they didn’t touch a thing. Five months later on December 21 they pushed their way in again but left the Louvre as it was. In February 1848, as the next king woke the Revolutionists again a sign was again placed at the entrance and the Louvre was bypassed. 

In 1870, the Louvre came the closest to disaster. On July 18, Napoleon III declares war on Prussia. As troops moved closer to Paris the first evacuation of the Louvre and what would lay the path for the future began. On August 30, 1870, they quickly worked for 4 days to pack the most precious of pieces away and send them to a military fortification in Brest. On September 1 the Mona Lisa and Wedding Feast of Cana left the Louvre. Over the next two weeks 123 crates of paintings, sculptures, and objets d’art would join them. 

On January 6, 1871, the Venus de Milo was moved to a nearby Prefecture and hidden behind a brick wall and covered with sandbags. The Prefecture was destroyed but Venus survived without a scratch. A month later after a treaty was signed the end was in sight, or so they thought. In the coming months, it was the Revolution within the country again and one that would destroy many of the historic buildings of Paris. 

In May for two straight days in 1871, the Palais des Tuileries burned. Flames ravaged through each historic wall, painting, and piece of furniture.  Connected to what we now know as the Musée du Louvre, flames threatened to travel through the Grand Gallery and the national art collection. However, there was a group of men that would do all they could to save what we now hold so dear. Henri Babet de Jouy was a curator of the national museum and would later become curator of the Louvre. While buckets of oil were thrown on from the Pavillon de Flore to the Pavillon de Marsan and the entire Palais des Tuileries in between. Jouy with the help of Antoine Heron de Villefosse, curator of antiquities, and administrator Leon Morand on the days and nights of 23 & 24 of May 1871 did all they could to save the collections.

 The Louvre curators were aided by the other real hero of the moment. Martian de Bernardy de Sigoyer was the commander of the 26th Battaillon de Chasseurs à Pied and was called to the Tuileries the night of the 24 May.  As the flames grew closer, he ordered his men to do everything they could to save the Louvre and the art it held. Using any weapon they had they began to break down doors and windows and even the roof to cut holes for the flames to escape. With his men, he would save the Louvre but his own life would be lost that night. 

 Today a plaque is on the wall above the stairs that lead to the Daru Gallery that commemorates these great men.  Jouy is buried in the Pére Lachaise and with Sigoyer they will forever be known as the saviors of the Louvre.  Most people walk right past and never even notice or know their story. 

The next challenge would come in 1914. On August 1 a few weeks after the start of World War I items in the Louvre were moved yet again. In the afternoon of August 24 the Germans began to advance and by noon the next day, August 25 which would be a significant day 25 years later the curators were told to quickly bring down the art. In those days the art was attached to hooks in order for a quick exit. Three days later they were told to pick up the pace. Large paintings like David’s Sacre de Napoleon were removed from the frames and rolled onto large cylinders. Along with Venus many of the treasures were put on a train in the dark of night and sent to Toulouse. The largest painting in the Louvre, Vernonese’s Wedding Feast of Cana remained and a faux wall was created to cover it. 

Wooden crates became scares and worried curators packed the paintings directly onto the back of trucks and covered them with a tarp. 720 paintings were removed along with a handful of objets d’art and sculptures. Over the next four years, more and more art was evacuated but the Louvre remained open to the public, although only a few rooms were in the Denon wing. At the end of November 1918, five weeks after the war the art slowly returned to Paris and by mid-February 1919 the Louvre was back to normal, although only for the next twenty years. 

The end of the War to End All Wars also had the curators and museum officials on edge and began to compose a plan if this was ever to happen again. Members of the National Museum including Deputy Director Jaques Jaujard looked at the worst-case scenario, a full evacuation of the museums of Paris. 

Jacques Jaujard was born on December 3, 1985, and served in WWI for one year before he had to leave the war due to Tuberculose. After the war, he became a journalist and then a secretary to Paul Painlevé and eventually to the Ministry of War which got him the attention of the National Museum in 1925. 

In 1938 the Spanish Civil War raged in Madrid, and the Prado Museum and a committee of high-ranking and notable officials asked Jaujard to assist with saving their art. Seventy-one trucks packed with crates of the Prado collection traveled to Switzerland for safekeeping. It was the perfect trial run that Jaujard didn’t know he would need. 

In August 1938, the Musee Nationaux leased two very large vaults at the Banque de France headquarters and began to look at what other places in France they could utilize to hold art. A few chateaux were owned by the State but many more would be needed. Each needed to be secluded but also close to the water in case of fire and they would shortly learn they also needed to be outside the Occupied zone. 

Hitler had taken power and his plans were beginning to come to light. The frustrated artist that wasn’t allowed into art school coveted the best pieces in Europe. He brought in all the best art experts who amassed large books filled with pages of art by country on what he should take. A few of these books remain and his path through Europe can be traced through each page. 

On September 22 Hitler took Sudetenland and the plan was moved to the top of the pile. On Monday, September 26, the Louvre received its official order. The next morning at 6 am several trucks left the Louvre headed to Chambord filled with the most important paintings, the crown jewels, and the Rubens Medici cycle. For the next four days, more pieces left until September 30 when the Munich Agreement was signed and everyone took a breath. The war was over, or at least they thought it was. Quickly the trucks returned to Paris. The Mona Lisa found her home again on the wall and things were calm for almost 11 months. 

On August 23, 1939, Germany and Russia signed a non-aggression pact. On August 24 the museums of London closed and on August 25th the Louvre began its biggest evacuation yet.

On August 25, the Louvre was closed for “cleaning” for three days. However, what really happened on those three days would alter the plans of the dictator and his greedy looting. On those three days, the staff of the Louvre, volunteers, and students worked around the clock removing paintings from their frames, rolled and placed in crates. 

Jaques Jaujard worked closely with Rene Huyghé, the curator of paintings. Huyghe was a French writer, art historian, and curator of the Musée du Louvre. Born on May 3, 1906, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne before attending the École du Louvre. Now he may not be a household name, but he was a part of one of the greatest moments in the history of the Musée du Louvre.  Named the curator of paintings in the 1930 and a professor at the Ecole du Louvre, Huyghe’s life was all about art. 

On August 26 by 1 am the 50 most important paintings were in crates once again. Jaujard and Hughé needed more help and students from the Ecole du Louvre and theater employees were called in. Gabriel Cognacq, nephew of Marie-Louis Jay-Cognacq and owner of the Samaritaine also served on the national museum council and brought in all his trucks, crates and employees to assist. 

Early Sunday morning on August 27 the Cour Carrée was closed after an endless stream of trucks in the dark hours arrived. 

When the art was packed a system of codes and stickers was utilized. For the national collection, MN, Huyghé’s painting department LP, and antiquities LR. Red stickers were added to the top-priority pieces. Two red dots for the most important, green for the most significant, and yellow for lower significance. For the most famous of paintings, Madame Lisa was given three stickers, her own crate labeled MN. She was then strapped to a gurney and rolled into a truck labeled 2162RM2 that Jacques would then write ahead to the depot to know what to look for.  

On August 28, 1939, at 6 am when all of Paris was asleep out of the Cour Carrée and onto the Quai were the first 8 trucks including the Mona Lisa, Seated Scribe, the Crown Jewels again, and 225 other crates. The entire Quai along the Louvre was lined with trucks and drivers waiting for their loads. That same day at 2 pm, six more crates left. 

On August 29 the next  23 trucks left. As soon as they reached their destination they quickly returned to Paris for more precious cargo. Twice a day until September 2, two convoys a day of 9 trucks left the Louvre. Each driver puts his life in danger with each mile. 

Episode 148 - Marguerite Steinheil

Marguerite’s father Edouard Louis Frédéric Japy was an industrialist who descended from the important Japy family. The Japy and Peugeot families were at the forefront of the industrialization of France.  Her mother Emilie was an innkeeper’s daughter who found it very important to raise her daughter with the finest in education, manners, and arts.

The town of Beaucourt in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté was built around the Japy factory created in 1777 by Edouard’s grandfather.  First focusing on watchmaking he also made machinery that helped create ironwork, locks, pumps, utensils, and later typewriters. Japy purchased the land and real estate and built a working-class city. The factory remained into the 19th century when pieces were sold off however the city is still vibrant today. 

At 17 Marguerite was presented at the balls and quickly fell in love with a young officer, Pascal Sheffer. Her father didn’t feel he was good enough for her and quickly ended the relationship. In 1889, Marguerite visited her sister in Bayonne and met her future husband Adolphe Steinheil a young artist and nephew of historical artist Ernest Meissonier. 

Adolphe was born on March 10, 1850, in Paris. His father Louis was a stained glass artist and worked on the restoration of the glass in Sainte Chapelle and for a short time Adolphe followed in his footsteps.   

Adolphe and Marguerite married on July 9, 1890, in Beaucourt. The trio moved to Paris into a home her parents purchased in Montparnasse at 6 bis Impasse Ronsin. Marguerite was well connected in the capital and attracted all of the high and intellectual society including Emile Zola. 

On June 25, 1891 daughter Marthe was born in Paris, The birth almost killed Marguerite and she wanted to end her marriage before it really got started. Consulting a friend of her husband’s, the attorney general of France. Who advised her to stay for her daughter’s sake. Her mother had divorced her father and his very wealthy family and had a horrific experience. The couple came to an understanding that they would stay together and live separate lives. Any requests that need to be made had to be in written form. They didn’t like each other very much and would end terribly. 

Marguerite soon started an affair with the attorney general and many other men. Reading her memoirs is a who’s who of France that includes composers, generals, and diplomats. 

In January of 1897, a trip to Chamonix brought a meeting between the President of France, Felix Faure, and the Steinheils. Adolphe was commissioned to do a portrait of the president which would result in numerous meetings back in Paris. At the Impasse Ronsin, President Faure arrived many times to sit for Adolphe but was also impressed with Marguerite. 

The two began a close friendship which led to an affair that resulted in many private visits to Elysees Palace. She became the closest confidant of the president and he trusted her with everything including important papers. Meg as she was called was met by a private secretary and would enter through a back garden gate on the corner of Rue du Collisée and Champs Elysees and be taken to the Salon Bleu to meet with Felix. 

According to her own memoirs, she was there to help the president with his biography. Faure showered her with gifts including a Lalique broach and comb. In 1898 he gave her a very expensive three-strand pearl necklace. Shortly after Faure learned the necklace had been stolen although he purchased it from a reputable seller. Faure asked her to hide it away and even break up the pearls and keep them apart from each other. 

On February 16, 1899, Faure asked his secretary to invite Meg to Elysees for an important matter. She wasn’t feeling well that day and replied that she would the next day, Hours later Faure called on her himself and told her he needed her immediately.  Upon her arrival, she met with Faure who had been complaining for days that he felt a bit off. Laying on the chaise he removed his pants and allowed Meg to pleasure him. Within a few moments the president in what she thought was a fit of ecstasy began to scream. He was in fact having a cerebral hemorrhage. When Meg realized she cried out for help but the doors were locked and she was trapped in his hands. When they finally entered the president was dead. Her hair had to be cut away to release his hand. 

The entire matter was kept quiet and few outside the inner circle were aware of the exact manner of his death until years later. 

Marguerite was heartbroken but quickly moved to other gentlemen that found her just as captivating. Cambodia’s king Sisowath and Parisian singer and the subject of Toulouse-Lautrec paintings Aristide Briand was often seen at her side. Just the popularity of being the mistress to the president had all of the town talking and watching to know more. A 1908 exhibition of her husband’s work in a gallery in the Marais drew such a crowd on the opening night that people were turned away. They were all there to catch a glimpse of Marguerite, not as much about the art itself. 

In the early years, Adolphe painted his wife and the president even commissioned a painting for himself but after that, the two could rarely spend any amount of time together. It didn’t stop other artists including Jean-Baptiste Hugues (OOG) who used her as the model for Muse de la Source which is in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay but not on display. 

On May 31, 1908, Marguerite’s mother came for a visit. She intended to arrive the day before but pushed it off a day. That evening they all went to bed, Marguerite slept in her daughter Marthe’s bedroom who was away, and her mother slept in her room. 

The next morning when Rémy Couillard came down from his servant’s quarters in the attic he noticed the front door was open. Marguerite’s muffled screams were heard and Rémy discovered her tied to her bed with a rag in her mouth. Then the ghastly discovery was next. Adolphe was in the bathroom and had been strangled and the cord was still around his neck. In her own bedroom, they found her mother tied up and had died of a heart attack after being choked and strangled.

The police arrived and Marguerite told them it was four people, three men all dressed in black, one with a red beard. A woman in red stood in the back as they asked her where her mother’s money was.  The police thought she had something to do with it at first but little evidence at the scene pointed in her direction. It was her actions after the event that caused more issues. 

Frustrated the police hadn’t made any arrests she decided to float theories to them herself. At first, she thought it was Rémy and even hid one of those expensive pearls in his wallet. They quickly saw through that story. The son of her former cook Mariette, Alexandre Wolff was next but he wasn’t even there that evening. 

On November 8, 1908, Marguerite was arrested and sent to Saint Lazarre prison for 352 days while they investigated her role in the crime. And it was then that the relationship with President Felix Faure was uncovered. 

One year later on November 3, 1909, the trial began at the Assize court. While in prison Marguerite was telling anyone that would listen to her many versions of the event including the fact that she had killed them. At trial, she was also blamed for the death of the president suggesting that she had poisoned him during their act of passion. 

On November 14 after a seven-hour deliberation, the jury came back and announced that she was not guilty. The judge remarked that they may have acquitted her but she was “full of lies”. Some suggest that it was from influence much higher up in Elysees palace that helped in her verdict. 

Following the trial, Marguerite moved to London and changed her name to Madame de Serignac. Spending the first year writing her memoirs telling her side of the story of her life. You can find it online here but be prepared as it is pretty indulgent and full of name-dropping and a very guarded view of events. Author Hargrave Adams also published a book about the Steinheil case and under his investigation, Marguerite was guilty and lied under oath. 

Marguerite petitioned to have the court interview and was able to have the book banned and removed in England. 

She did find love again and was married on June 26, 1917, to Lord Robert Scarlett who was also the 6th Baron Abinger making Meg an official Lady. Their marriage lasted just 10 years until he died in 1927. 

Margerite and her daughter Marthe had a very strained relationship after the death of her father and grandmother. Once her mother was arrested the other sides of her life were made public.  Marthe never knew about her mother’s affair with the president or the lavish gifts he gave her. She also never knew of all the other men and had to see their photos and stories on the front of the paper each day. 

In 1908 Marthe was engaged to Pierre Buisson. After the murder and press attention Marthe broke off the engagement in hopes he would avoid any embarrassment to his family.  As her mom was taken away, Marthe broke off all contact with her until many years later after she left for London. 

On July 25, 1911 Marthe married Italian Raphael Séraphin del Perugia. She had to give up her French heritage to marry him. 

On December 2, 1912, a newspaper, it said she asked to be separated by the Italian government. 

Raphael died on May 7, 1915

In Marguerite’s memoir, she notes that they had repaired their relationship and at the time of writing Marthe was sitting with her and pregnant. No info could be found after that or a death date for Marthe, 

Marguerite died alone in a retirement home on July 18, 1954

Episode 147- Violette Nozière - Part 2

When we last left Violette in Part 1 she had just killed her father and attempted to kill her mother. After a 48-hour spending spree without little to no remorse, she was about to face the music but she wasn’t finished manipulating everyone in her path.

Police commissioner Guedet knew this was a crime scene the moment they came across it and after discovering the past of the teenage Viollet, she was suspect number 1. Her mother was taken to the hospital and as soon as she was able to speak that same day the police took Violette to visit her. Realizing her mother was about to spill the entire history she fled the hospital. 

The story was all anyone in Paris was talking about and just like the Landru case it was on the front page of every paper in France with a photo of the “black angel” or the “monster in petticoats”. For five days she outran the law, spending money as fast as she could and even dating a few men whom she hoped would take care of her, but that was to be her mistake. One of the men recognized her from her photo in the paper and called the police. 

On August 24 an autopsy on her father performed by Dr. Charles Paul discovered that he had a large amount of Somenal in his system which resulted in his death, but his fall the month before also weakened his system. 

On August 28 in the 7e she was arrested and charged with intentional homicide and taken to the Quai des Orfèvres (OR-fev-ra) on the Ile de la Cite. Under interrogation, commissioner Marcel Guillaume who was also involved in the Landru case asked where she got the money to fund her newfound lavish lifestyle, Violette said it was a Monsieur Pepin that was buying her whatever she wanted and giving her 3000 francs a month, but  M. Pepin never existed. Breaking down into tears she said her mother was away often and her father had been raping her for 6 years. Some days even took her to work with him and raped her in a small cabin near the tracks and threatened to kill her if she told her mother. 

Realizing that her own daughter tried to kill her and successfully killed her husband and held little remorse, Germaine gave the police everything they could have wanted.

After the Landru case, the public was obsessed, much like today, with every small detail they could get. They crowded on the street below their Rue de Madagascar address at the scene of the crime and lined up outside the police station hoping to see her. Henri Géraud was a powerful criminal attorney that had defended other criminals, albeit not successfully used the press to their advantage. 

Violette was claiming that it was an act of self-defense after years of physical abuse by her father, although the press would not use the term rape or incest, the public was able to figure it out. Influential supporters came to her defense including Marcel Aymé who wrote the story of the man who walked through walls. Her lawyer also mounted a defense that other men including, her boyfriend Jean Dabin took advantage of her and forced her to steal for him. After all, how could a teenager kill her own parents? 

On August 31, Benoite in the presence of his wife and father was buried in Neuvy-sur-Loire in a family plot. The entire town was there and muttered in disbelief that this could have happened. 

Back in Paris, Viollete’s stories went on and on. Describing suggestive photos her father had hidden he would look at and even the cloth he would you as contraceptives. Full searches were held and nothing was recovered to back up her story. Taken to the Petite Roquette prison she stood by her tale and told everyone who would listen. 

The first part of the case went to court at the start of October. Her mother got her own lawyer and mounted her case against her. Every seat was filled and the day Jean Dabin walked in everyone sat a little taller to hear his recount of their relationship. Looking down at his hand Germaine noticed a ring on his finger. The court stopped as Germaine screamed that the ring belonged to her husband. Asked where it was from he said Violette had given it to him as a gift. It was quickly returned to Germaine. 

The judge ordered the lawyers and defendants to return to the crime scene and walk through the events. Germaine wouldn’t even look at her daughter. In December, judge Lanoire finished ruled that on January 5, 1934, the case would go to the attorney general and she would face trial and be indicted for murder. 

The official trial started on October 10, 1934, in the Assize court of the Seine. The details of the first attempt on March 23 and the final blow on August 21 were brought up but never the suggestion of rape. Her biggest strike against her was the day the doctor came to court and told the story of her diagnosis of syphilis and her behavior. Her parents had both been tested and neither had it. So how could she have been raped for 6 years at the same time as having the virus of the times? 

On October 12, 1934, at 7 pm the jury deliberated for just one hour and returned with a unanimous guilty verdict and sentenced to death at 19 years old. In 1934 women were no longer killed by the guillotine but they would be covered in black cloth as the charges were read and then shot. She had enough time to file an appeal that was quickly tossed out. On December 6 her attorney reached out to the President of France Albert Lebrun who overturned the death penalty in exchange for sending her to a forced labor camp for the rest of her life.  At the start of 1935, she left for Alsace with 14 other women. Isolated she couldn’t have contact with anyone else. 

Once there she rediscovered her Catholic faith and became a model prisoner. In October of 1937, she took back the allegations she made against her father in a letter sent to her mother who then gave it to the press. The two had reconciled over the years and Germaine was now doing all she could to get her daughter’s sentence shortened. 

In May 1940, she was moved to a prison in Rennes. Due to her high notoriety, multiple guards surrounded her in case, the Germans had the idea of kidnapping her. The Vichy government was filling the prisons with resistance fighters and Jews under the orders of the German officers and Violette tried to keep to herself.  

In 1942 the Catholic church reached out the Marshal Philippe Petain and pleaded for a reduced sentence showing how she had turned her entire life around. On August 6, 1942, 9 years after the crime her sentence was reduced from life to 12 years counting the years served. A few weeks later she was given a job with the prison accountant which she would hold until her release and would change the rest of her life. 

On February 24, 1944, her parol was denied but she took it in stride and stayed for another year until August 29, 1945, when she was finally released. On November 17, Charles de Gaulle, the third head of the state to help her canceled the two-decade ban, essentially house arrest against her and she was able to return to Paris. 

Now taking her mother’s name Germaine (Violette) was living in the 14th and working as an accountant for a Catholic charity. Back in prison the accounting clerk who took her under his week, Eugene Garnier was a very kind gentleman and the two grew close. A widow with 5 children his oldest son Pierre and Violette became quite close. 

Shortly after her return to Paris, Pierre who was divorcing his wife moved to Batignole and worked as a cook to be closer to Violette. On December 16, 1946, the two married back in her hometown of Neuvy-sur-Loire. Her grandfather had passed away but never forgive and neither did most of the town but Violette was a changed person now and she and her mother were very close. 

Over the years the couple purchased a hotel and restaurant near Rouen and had five children, Her mother lived with them and helped with the grandkids. Violette’s lawyer never stopped and in 1953 he was able to get her entire conviction tossed out with the help of the testimony of her mother. 

They had a happy life until June 30, 1961, when Pierre died after a horrific car accident. Two years later Violette was diagnosed with breast cancer. Surgery successfully removed it and she opened a new hotel and restaurant she would run until 1963 when cancer returned, this time in her bones. On November 26, 1966, in Petit-Quevilly she died surrounded by her mother and children. 

Her mother lived until September 5, 1968, outliving both her daughter and husband. 

The story captivated France for years and has been made into numerous movies and documentaries. In 1977 Isabelle Huppert played the black angel and some clips can be found on you tube, 

Episode 146 - Violette Nozière -Part 1

Parents Baptiste Nozière was a mechanic for the railroad and met  Germaine Josephine Hézard in Paris in June 1913 at 10 bis rue Montgallet in the 12e. Germaine had been married before but her husband had died before the war started. Baptiste & Germaine married on August 17, 1914, she was already 4 months pregnant with Violette. 

Returning to Neuvy-Sur-Loire during the war years, Baptiste became a driver moving troops and equipment during the war and Germaine became a mechanic as the war began as many men were sent out to the front. At the end of the war, the trio returned to Paris in the 12e to 9 Rue de Madagascar to a very small 2-room apartment on the 6th floor near the Gare de Lyon. 

The first signs of trouble came when Violette had to bounce around from one school to another. From the 12th to the 4th and ended at the 6th at the Fénelon school where Simone de Beauvoir had also been a teacher until she was fired for having relations with the young girls. Violette had outbursts and was critical of classmates that looked down on her so she began to make up grand stories about her family, 

Violette started to make more friends including Madeline Georgette Debrize, Maddy who lived around the corner, and Jean Guillard.  Many of the kids that were more in the years of the Great War were a bit lost. And for girls, they were able to work but were still limited to two goals, marriage, and motherhood, neither appealed to Violette. The free-thinking, a bit too free teenager realized early how to get what she wanted.  

She liked the finer things like clothes and sitting in cafes for hours with friends drinking but her parents did have that kind of money. At 15 she started to steal things and when she needed more money became a prostitute. She was very selective and would only sleep with older men that had a lot of money and she normally found around the business district of the 1e & 2e.

Her promiscuity also came with the disease of the day, syphilis in April of 1932. Dr. Henri Déron was no match for her manipulation and she convinced him to not tell her parents. At home, there were constant battles between the three and questioning everything she was doing. She also invented a new friend, a sister of Dr. Henri Déron that she used as a cover for the time she was spending out at bars. A few months later on December 14, 1932, she was arrested for shoplifting for stealing a dictionary. Her parents had enough and locked her in the house for days. 

Sneaking out overnight, Violette left a note that she was going to go and kill herself by jumping into the Seine. Her parents notified the police and found her sitting in a bar on the Boulevard Saint Michel with friends without a care in the world. 

Violette’s stories to friends became taller and taller. She said her father was an executive with the railroad and her mother was the lead salesperson at the Maison Paquin. However, they also became darker. Viollet implied that her father took “liberties” with her to friends in passing but always laughed it off. 

Left untreated her syphilis began to take its toll on her body and a return visit to the gullible Dr. Déron was in order. This time she convinced him to write a note to her parents that she was still a virgin and the only way she was able to catch the sexual virus was from them, through birth. On March 19, 1933, the family went to the hospital where the doctor shared the news. Her parents were shocked and embarrassed and knew this could be true as neither one of them was positive for the disease. Returning home another large argument ensued, this time she would take things up a notch. 

Four days later on March 23, 1933, she returned home with a bottle of Somenal sleeping pills and passed them off as a prescription from Dr. Déron for their “hereditary syphilis”. In order to really sell it she took some herself but far less than she gave her parents. In the middle of the night, her parents woke up to a banging on the door and the smell of smoke. A fire had broken out in the kitchen and the neighbor alerted them just in time. Taken to the hospital their lethargic symptoms were blamed on the smoke they ingested and they returned home that same day. 

Baptiste and Germaine were suspicious that their daughter may have been behind this and left Paris for a month to visit family in Neuvy-sur-Loire.  Grandfather Félix kept a keen eye on Violette but she still managed to sneak out and disappear for days at a time after her parents went back to Paris for work and a new promotion for Baptiste. Reporting back to Paris, grandpa Félix was not fooled by the headstrong young lady and suggested they send to her a school but Baptiste and Germaine still didn’t want to see who she really was becoming. 

On June 30 Violette was back in Paris and a few days later met a young law student Jean Dabin. Infatuated with this boy she offered to pay for everything and even gave him money that she was stealing from her parents and through prostitution. On July 2 her father was given the honor of conducting the train for the President of France, Albert Lebrun. For his service, he was given a raise and a medal, and even a bonus. A few days later on the platform of the Gare de Lyon, he fell injuring his leg and landing him in the hospital for over a month. 

Poor Germaine was no match for Violette who was now head over heels in love with Jean. When Jean told her that he was going to leave to visit his family in the south of France she panicked and tried a find a way to go with him. She had a brilliant idea to offer up a Bugatti that the two could drive through the south of France on a romantic vacation. How could she pay for it was the big question. Back at home, she knew her parents had kept some of the money from his new promotion and even more in the bank. 

On August 21, 1933, Violette went to the local pharmacy and purchased three bottles of the same Somenal sleeping pills with a forged prescription from Dr. Déron. Grinding them all up she placed them in three separate envelopes. One marked with a cross. When her parents returned home Violette was away but the money was missing. When she returned their biggest fight yet occurred and now she knew this was the time. Mixing the two packages into the water and a third for herself from the envelope with the cross which was harmless she gave the glasses to her parents with dinner. 

Her father drank all of his but Germaine thought it was too bitter and only drank half. This choice saved her life. After dinner, her father stumbled around and collapsed on the bed. Checking on him Germaine fell and hit her head and was knocked unconscious. Violette thought she had succeeded, She took all the money she could find and quietly snuck out of the building in the middle of the night.  

For over 48  hours Violette hit the town going on spending sprees and buying her friends drinks and anything they wanted. At 1 am on August 23, she snuck back into the apartment and turned on the gas hoping to create the scene of a double suicide. A few hours later the same neighbor that alerted them of the fire back in March noticed the smell of gas and called the fire department. Upon their arrival, they discovered Baptise dead and her mother barely alive, and Violette nowhere to be seen. 

Episode 145 - L'Affaire des Poisons - Part 2

Reynie first went to every alchemist in and around Paris which led him to poisoners and in no time was at the door of Catherine Deshayes Montvoisin. 

Catherine was born in 1640 and married Antoine Montvoisin, a Parisian jeweler. They had one daughter, Marie-Marguerite that would later turn against her mother. Catherine was first just a palm reader and fortune teller but that quickly led to being a potion and poison maker and performing abortions. 

One of the most horrific acts during this time was the Black Mass a practice that had been around for centuries but was given a dark name in the 17th century. Another woman who loved to dapple in the occult world Catherine de Medici was known to hold a Black Mass on May 28, 1574. In the time of Poison Affairs, a defunct priest Etienne Guibourg resurrected the practice in Paris with Catherine in 1673. It is not for the faint of heart to hear and the practice involves the killing of a baby which Catherine was never short of. 

In 1658 Montespan was lady-in-waiting to Henriette of England, the young Francoise was now close to king Louis XIV who later died from suspicious causes. Montespan had her eyes on the king but needed to befriend  Louise de la Valliere the current headmistress. When Louise and the queen were pregnant by the king at the same time, she asked Montespan to dine with the king each evening. It was sending the fox into the hen house and after the birth of the illegitimate child of the king, Louise left the court as Montespan had moved into her place. 

La Voisin and Montespan first met in 1665 when she had asked for a love potion to use on the king to keep his attention on her. The mother of seven children with the king was a little rounder around the edges and he had his eyes on some of the younger members on the edges of the court. 

The Black Mass became well known in every corner of Paris after the arrest of Catherine and everyone would learn the truth of her most famous client. In 1672 Guibourg et La Voisin as she came to be known found an empty chateau near Orleans and François de Rochechouart de Mortemart, the Marquise de Montespan. The Marquis laid on a stone slab completely naked with her arms out like a cross and holding a candle in each hand. Guibourg placed a silver chalice on her belly and above her held a baby that would bleed into the chalice. 

Montespan had to chant “Asmodée, prince of love, I beg you to accept the sacrifice of this child in exchange I would keep the king’s affection, the favor of the princesses of the court, and the satisfaction of all desires.”  The ritual was held three times, in 1673, 1673, and lastly in 1679. Her sexual relationship with the king ended in 1678 and she remained at court for her children until it all came crashing down after March 17, 1769. 

On a sunny afternoon, La Voisin was walking out of the church and was arrested by Reynie. Although she was quite adept at the dark arts she was also a very devoted member of the church and a high priestess. Believing her powers and actions were bestowed upon her by God she easily walked away with the Lieutenant thinking she had done nothing wrong. Her abilities were widely known and every morning people lined up outside her door to see her for one of many reasons.  

At the time women had little to no rights, especially over their own bodies, and were happy to pay her for fortunes or alleviate a pregnancy making her a very wealthy woman. 

An inspection of her home on Rue Beauregard in the 2nd authorized by her daughter found more than 2500 babies buried in her backyard. 

The court of the Chambre Ardente was held in the Arsenal in front of 13 magistrates interrogating hundreds of prisoners. Experts including doctors were on hand to help delve into the chemistry and poison terms and evidence. The windows were covered with dark cloth as all of Paris was watching day and night to catch a glimpse of the men and women being brought in. 

In the years of the investigation, the Chambre Ardente as they were called over three years resulted in quite a large outcome. 442 people were accused of which 319 were subpoenaed and 194 were arrested and 36 were executed and twice as many committed suicides. 

Of these were a few closely associated with La Voisin.  Françoise Filastre was arrested in 1680 and confirmed the involvment of Etienne Guibourg and the Black Masses. Francoise was sentenced to life in prison and died in 1686 but her testimony would lead to the incrimination of Montespan. After Voisin’s arrest, Montespan had contacted Filastre to supply her with poison to use at court. 

Françoise de Dreux was of noble birth and married to a high-ranking member of the Parliament of Paris. However, she was in love with Armand Jean de VIgnerot du Plesses and she killed her husband so she could be with her lover.  Arrested and brought to trial for another man M. Pajot she was accused of also ordering the poison to kill her lover’s wife Anne de Richelieu. She was later acquitted but another woman would bring it all back to light. 

Margurite Joly was just as skilled and successful as La Voisin. Arrested she was subject to water torture and gave up the names of many of her clients including François de Dreux who thought she was in the clear, Dreux was going to be arrested but managed to flee France before she could be found. 

Marguerite Leféron was the wife of a judge whom she didn’t like very much. She like Dreux killed her husband so she could marry her lover De Prade. De Prade was only after her money and so she needed to kill him as well.  She was arrested and exiled, not everyone went to the stake. 

Marie Brosse, La Brosse as was known as the first poisoner arrested in the roundup and pointed her finger at La Voisin. One night at a party after a bit too much wine La Brosse bragged to everyone how much money she had due to ceiling poison to many women in Paris that wanted to kill their husbands or lovers. Someone at the party reported it back to Reynie and Brosse was arrested as well as her daughter and sons. Marie met her fate on the Place de Greve on May 8, 1679. 

Marguerite de Poulaillon obtained poison from Marie Brosse to kill her husband Alexandre de Pouaillon but he survived and was able to hand her over to the police. Her beauty saved her from the same fate as many of the other women and when Reynie heard of her lenient sentence of exile he stepped in and had her sent to work at a holding house for former prostitutes in Angers where she would spend the rest of her life. 

The court of the Chambre 

In 1678 the investigation was pointing in many directions to Louis XIV and the court of Versailles. Evidence mounted and it was discovered that Louis XIV had been poisoned for 13 years. The Sun King ordered Reynie to only make notes on unattached paper so it could be destroyed.  

On July 13, 1709, had 29 volumes of evidence were destroyed in a fire. Much of it against Montespan was destroyed in a fire but we have all the notes of Madame de Sévignè and the files of Reynie are still held in the Prefecture of Paris. 

In the end, 3 times the arrested were made and would come 10 years before the Salem witch trials in the US. 

Versailles season 2 all about Poison Affair and episode 9 features the horrific act of the Black Mass 

Episode 144 - L'Affaire des Poisons-Part 1

L’Affaire des Poisons

In the late 17th century all of Paris and the court of Versailles were embroiled in the Poison Affairs and not many were immune from its reaches including the Sun King.

It all began in 1662 when a gentleman named Godin de Sainte-Croix began an affair with Marie-Madeline Dreux d’Aubray Marquise de Brinvillers. The Marquise was born on July 2, 1630, in Paris. Her father served in the military and her mother Marie Olier was the brother of Jean-Jacques Olier who created the Society of Saint Sulpice. 

The oldest of five children her mother would die shortly after giving birth to her youngest brother. As the oldest her father expected her to help with her siblings and be in charge of the house. At just 7 years old she was raped by a neighbor and at 10 she began to have sexual relations with her two younger brothers up to three times a week. 

At the old age of 21 on December 20, 1651, in the Eglise Saint Eustache Marie-Madeline married Antoine Gobelin, Marquis de Brinvilliers. The marriage resulted in three children,   Antoine already had 4 illegitimate ones that she was to care for when he was away as commander of the Regime of Auvergne.  They had a high standing in the Marais where they lived, holding parties and salons that everyone wanted to attend. 

In 1662 Marie-Madeline met Godin de Saint-Croix who began quite the affair. When her husband learned of the relationship he had Godin locked up in the Bastille for three months in 1663. While there Godin met Egidio Exili who was in the Bastille for poisoning the sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X, Olimpia Maidalchinin Rome. 

Godin was already fascinated with chemistry and poisons and Exili taught him all he needed to know about creating tasteless, odorless poisons that could not be detected. Exili told him upon his release to visit Christopher Glasser, a master chemist at the Jardin Royale des Plantes to get everything he needed. 

A prison stint couldn’t keep these two apart and as soon as he was released he was once again at her side and teaching her everything he had learned in the Bastille. 

Godin lived at no 5 Rue Hautefeuille, the Hotel des Abbes de Fécamp they were a short walk to the garden to get their supplies. The two would test out their poisons mixed in with sweet cakes and take them to the patients of the Hotel Dieu where they would track the symptoms, dosage, and length of discomfort before their victim’s death. Killing numerous people in their research just for the thrill of it. It is not known just how many were killed but the list could be quite long. 

Marie-Madeline took what she learned and tried it out on her father on September 10, 1666, killing him, and a few years later in 1670 her two brothers Antoine and Francois, and a sister were also victims of her potions as a way to knock out all obstructions to get to her inheritance. 

Fearing for his own life her husband Antoine fled Paris with their children.

Saint-Crox also became concerned for his own life and began to document and make note of her actions and even take evidence of her crimes and lock it all away in a red leather box. A note was left that if anything was ever to happen to him before she herself died to go look inside the red box. Unfortunately for Marie-Madeleine, he died of natural causes on July 31, 1672, and it set off the Affair of the Poisons. 

Upon his death, he had a long list of creditors looking to be paid and demanded that the king intervene. A search was authorized of his property and the note was discovered a week after his death on August 8. His trusted valet Jean Amilin de La Chaussée was brought in for questioning and he backed up all of the mystery evidence in the red box. 

Upon the discovery, Marie quickly left for London and eventually hit out at the Benedictine convent in Avray where she managed to hide for three years. Charged with murder even though she was nowhere to be found a few determined investigators kept looking for her. One investigator even dressed up as a priest and intragretiated himself with the convent and waited for his moment to arrest her and bring her back to Paris on April 17, 1676.

On April 26 the questioning and torture began that lasted weeks. she admitted to killing her brother and father 

A second trial began on April 29 and culminated on July 14 with Madame de Sévigné in the front row noting everything that was said. Sevigne, the lady of letters we covered before was born in 1626 in the Place des Vosges. Spending time at the court of Versailles her daughter Francoise could have been a victim if she spent any more time under the watchful gaze of Louis XIV. Francoise married Francoise de Grignan and left Paris on April 19, 1678, and thus began the letters that would document all of Parisian society. 

It was discovered in 1669 that Marie-Madeliene attempted to kill Jean-Baptiste Colbert twice on February 18 and again on May 5. He was a close member of the court of Louis XIV and chief minister of State but this was nothing compared to what his court of Versailles would soon go through. 

When Henriette of England, wife of Philippe I, Duc d’Orleans, and brother of Louis XIV died on June 30, 1670, it is believed that the poison came from Marie-Madeline. A glass of Chicory was given to Henriette by the Knight of Lorraine that was also the lover of her husband and wanted her out of the way. Later that day she died at just 26 years old. Upon her death, her autopsy revealed that she died from suspicious causes. 

The entire ordeal captured the attention of all of Paris. The documenter of the day Madame de Sévigné gives us the strongest account of the details. “Assassination is the safest, it is a trifle compared to the eight months of  killing her father and receiving all his caresses and sweetness where she always responds with doubling the dose.” Alexander Dumas also noted all the details of the trial and used them in his books. 

On July 16, 1676, she met her final fate on the Place de Grève, now Place de Hotel de Ville. Beheaded and burned on a stake her ashes were tossed into the Paris wind. Sévigné said that “Never has the city been so aroused, so intent on a spectacle”. She also remarked that Paris had now inhaled her evil and it was to return in the next seven years. 

As Marie-Madeline was taken the short way to her death she said “Out of so many people, must I be the only one to be put to death? Half the people in Paris are involved in this sort of thing and I could ruin them if I were to talk”.   When news reached the king he ordered an investigation. Louis XIV appointed Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie the lieutenant general of the police to create a group to look into the allegations. He never knew how close to home it would get

Stay tuned next week for part 2

Episode 143- Henri Désiré Landry - Part 2

Detectives went to Gambais where a pile of remains was found in the ashes of the fireplace and stove. Combined it was more than 9,000 pounds of charred debris of which 3,300 was thought to be human remains as well as 47 teeth. The equivalent of three heads, five feet, and six hands. 

In the back yard detectives found three dead dogs with a rope around their necks under a pile of papers in a shed at the far edge of his home. They belonged to his last victim, Marie-Therese Marchandier. Landru told the authorities that he was asked to kill them 

It was all very calculated. After he killed them he would return to Paris to their home and clean it out with the help of his son Maurice. Filling two storage units with everything they owned until he could sell everything. Landru took exacting notes of everything. He noted each and every piece he sold, the date, and how much he was paid. Also noting when he bought saws and coal. All of this today would be a slam dunk but this was over 100 years ago and forensic science wasn’t quite as advanced. 

At his arrest, he had two small black notebooks on hand. One hidden in his coat's lining documents the names of all the women he met. 

His notes were incredibly detailed, like this example from May 19, 1915 

9:30 cigarette kiosk, gare de Lyon Mademoissle Lydie

10:30 Cafe Place St Georges Mme Ho…

11:30 metro Laundry Mme Le C…

14:30 Concorde north Mme Le…

15:30 Tour St Jacques Mme du 

17:30 Mme Va…

20:15 Saint Lazare Mme Le… 

He kept every single piece of paper and receipt and it was the train tickets that broke down his entire case.  

Courtship with Landru always had the same timeline. They would meet and have a few simple dates and once he realized they had means he would propose, visit the bank then go away for the weekend together to his country house, and never return.  Landru would buy two tickets in one direction but only a return for himself. As investigators went through box after box they found the single train ticket over and over. He clearly intended to return to Paris alone and his excuse was rather flimsy. 

It was now the spring of 1919. World War I was behind us for five months now and the press now had a new tool at their disposal, photography. As soon as the story hit the papers with photos of Landru more families wondered if he could be the reason for the disappearance of their loved ones. 

Mademoiselle Freedman on April 16, 1919, contacted the police to say she recognized him and that he dated her sister whom she hadn’t heard from in four years. And this was just the start. 

Newsstands couldn’t stack the issues fast enough and Le Matin named him the Le Barbe-Bleue de Gambais,  (the Blue Beard of Gambais) based on the 17th-century story by Charles Perrault  

TRIAL 

On August 18, 1920, a year and a half after his arrest Judge Bonin filed charges. The supporting documents were over 7,000 pages and the evidence was close to 5,000 pieces. 

On November 7, 1921, his trial began in the Assize Court in Versailles. After 2 and a half years of coverage daily in the newspaper it was the place to be. All of society wanted a seat including Maurice Chevalier and Colette who was dispatched from Le Matin. Colette covered many of the high-profile murder cases and we have another one coming up soon. Bien Sur, Colette couldn’t tell the story like anyone else and always gave a little extra empathy to her subjects and their life. 

Regarding Landru, she wrote: “Did he kill? Then it is while whistling a little tune, and wearing an apron for fear of stains. . . . We remain stunned in front of the tranquil and gentle murderer, who keeps a diary of his victims and rested, perhaps, while at work, with his elbow on the window and feeding the birds some bread.”

His popularity and obsession resulted in over 800 proposals for marriage and close to 5000 fan and love letters. 

For twenty days the train from Paris to Versaille was filled and as the trial came to a close the public hung on every detail. On November 21 the courthouse was filled for the testimony of Fernand Segret, his one-time lover who was a lucky survivor of Landru. She couldn’t get through her first day on the stand and return on the 22nd. She told the story of how they met on the tram one day and he followed her until she acknowledged him. 

On November 30, 1921, at 6:40 pm the jury was sent to deliberate. At 9:10 pm the jury returned with a guilty conviction, although there had never been a body to prove he had killed a single one of these ladies. 

On February 25, 1922, Landru was led to his death in front of the courthouse of Versaille. Sentenced to death by guillotine his lawyer asked him once more if he wanted to confess anything. Landru told him it was a suitcase he was taking with him. Also asked if he wanted a shot of rum and a cigarette but replied they were bad for his health. 

 At 6:10 am on February 25, Anatole Deibler dropped the blade and the life of Landru ended like his victims, without a head. Deibler was a third-generation executioner 

After his family declined burial he was added to the death row cemetery near the courthouse. Years later his family moved him to a hidden location.  In Hollywood, the Museum of Death has on display the head of Landru, or so they say. Much like the penis of Napoleon, can we really know for sure it is his? 

Where was his family?   

His wife/cousin Marie Catherine Rémy Landru tried at first to plead ignorance but during the investigation, another side was discovered. At first, Landru had fooled his family into thinking he was a traveling antique salesman and that is partially correct. Checking back in every few months until their assistance was needed. 

His son Maurice was arrested when he had been found with jewelry that belonged to a few of the victims that his father gave him. After serving two years in prison he was released and went back to helping his father clear out the apartments and selling the belongings of his victims. 

His wife Catherine, would dress up in the clothes of the missing woman and accompany her husband to the bank pretending to be the missing woman and cleaning out her accounts. 

His daughters at first pleaded their innocence but records found that they would rent buildings and homes under other names for their father. 

Fernande Segret never really recovered after the trial. She moved to Lebanon to be a teacher but returned to Paris and sued the director Claude Chabrol for her depiction in his movie on the killer. On January 21, 1968, the anniversary of the day she met Landru she killed herself by jumping into the moat of the Cathedral de Flers. 

The Blue Beard of Gambais continues to inspire. Charlie Chaplin made Monsieur Verdoux in 1947 and countless movies and documentaries come out every other year. 

As for the oven that was the scene of so much horror and brought to the trial of November 1921 it was auctioned off not long after. On January 23, 1932, the director of the Musée Grevin, the Paris wax museum was the winning bidder with 4200 francs. Later it was sold to Laurent Ruquier who wrote a play inspired by the story in 2005. 

And on a more touching note, the French doctor that was called to inspect the pile of ashes later buried a box of bones and remains silently under a weeping willow in the Jardin des Plantes. I will be sure to find that tree and give a little prayer to those victims of the Bleue Bearde of Gambais. 

The house of horrors in Gambais is still there. The Villa Tric was sold and became a restaurant for a few decades and now it is a private residence. Not sure I would want any food from that kitchen or to live there but maybe they got a good deal. Neighbors say people are always stopping to look and walk around the property that so many horrific acts occurred. 

Recently in 2018 RF1 and a team of investigators believes from looking through all the documents that he may have had more victims. Of the 283 names in his journals 72 of the women were never looked into. A few more victims could have died at his hands, but we may never know. 

Victims 

February 1915: Jeanne Cuchet 39 missing in Vernouillet

February 1915: André Cuchet, son of Jeanne Cuchet, 17 disappeared in Vernouillet

June 26, 1915: Thérèse Laborde-Line, born on August 12, 1868 in Chascomús, Argentina missing in Vernouillet;

August 3, 1915: Marie-Angélique Guillin, bornn April 15, 1863 in Bellavilliers, Orne 52, missing in Vernouillet 

December 8, 1915: Berthe-Anna Héon, 55, born in Le Havre missing in Gambais

December 27, 1916: Anna Collomb, 44, widow, missing in Gambais

April 12, 1917: Andrée-Anne Babelay 19 disappeared in Gambais

September 1, 1917: Célestine Buisson missing in Gambais

November 26, 1917: Louise-Joséphine Jaume, 38 , disappeared in Gambais

April 5, 1918: Anne-Marie Pascal, born on November 5, 1880 missing in Gambais

January 13, 1919: Marie-Thérèse Marchadier, born on October 27, 1881 in Bordeaux, former prostitute owner of a passing house on rue Saint-Jacques, in Paris, known as the beautiful Mytèse, 37, who disappeared in Gambais 

Episode 142 - Henri Désiré Landru - Part 1

Henri Désiré Landru was born on April 12, 1869, in Paris.  At first, his path looked to be in the church, and he was an active member of the Église Saint Louis en l’Île on the tiny Île Saint Louis where he lived. After marrying his cousin (as one did back then) and 4 children quickly followed he needed to make a bit more money.

Grew up on the Rue du Cloitre Notre Dame and was a member of the choir of the Eglise Saint Louis en l’ile and even served as a sub-decan in 1888. His parents wanted him to follow the path to the seminary but he had other ideas. 

Henri and his cousin Marie Catherine Rémy began a relationship in 1889. Rémy lived close by on the Rue Saint Louis en l’Ile. Their first child Marie-Henriette in 1891 and the two were married after his return from his mandatory 3-year military service in the 87th Infantry on October 7, 1893. 

Three more kids followed with Maurice Alexander in 1894, Suzanne in 1896, and Charles in 1900. During this time Henri had over fifteen different jobs everything from contractor to cartographer but none gave him the money he needed to take care of his large family.  

His first scam was obtaining a patent for the “Landru with a Renouard engine” oil bicycle, He rented multiple offices and a factory and took out ads offering a special intro price by putting a third of the money down.  As the orders came in he took all the money and disappeared. 

One fake name after another and more scams would result in his arrest and sentencing to prison three times between 1904 and 1906. A psychiatrist confirmed he was in a “sick mental state” and could sidestep being sent to Guyana where many prisoners died. Evading the law again and another name change he purchased a garage and then quickly resold it but never paid the original owner. As the first World War started, he was sentenced to 4 more years in prison in absentia. 

He rarely served any of his terms and evade capture outsmarting and changing his name and the last sentence inspired him to take his criminal activity up a notch. 

It was the start of the Great War and the men were dying on the battlefield leaving women behind in Paris in need of new companions. The war also opened up a woman’s right to work in France as well as dabbling in prostitution. 

Henri used this to his advantage. In 1914 he posted his first ad. “Widow with two children, 43 years old with a comfortable income, serious and moving in good society with a desire to meet a widow with a view of matrimony.” 

He first rented a house in La Chaussée-pres-Gouvieux near Chantilly but quickly moved to a more remote location in Vernouillet. Renting under an alias and keeping to himself the neighbors at first thought he was a German spy. 

His first victim or victims as it was a package deal was Jeanne Cuchet and her son. Jeanne was a 39-year-old widow and worked as a laundress in Paris. The two met by chance in the Jardin du Luxembourg in February 1914

283 women answered his ad and we know of 10 victims but many believe now examing the police documents that there were far more.  The women needed to be lonely and without a circle of friends or family that may miss them as well as having money. 

Meeting them he would size them up and decide if they had the money he wanted. The short man with a pointy scraggly beard had a way with the ladies and could be very charming when he needed to be. A proposal of marriage quickly came, a trip to the bank to add Henri to their bank accounts, and a power of attorney.  

Gambais was even more remote, the Villa Tric was almost 1,000 feet from his nearest neighbor. Just after he moved in one day the neighbors noticed a very large stove being delivered. The town thought he was rather odd and never saw the same woman with him twice. For weeks there was nothing and then Landru appeared with a woman on his arm and for a few days they would be seen in the garden then nothing except for a horrid odor coming from the chimney. 

In the small town of Gambais years before Father Thibaud lived alone and liked to have endless glasses of wine sitting in front of his large fireplace.  One night he had a bit too much and he passed out and fell into the lit fire. Father Thibaud burned to death and the horrific smell spread through the village.  The people of Gambais sadly knew the smell had returned once more. 

Worried his victims could identify Landru, he cut their bodies up, burned their heads, hands, and feet in the oven, and tossed the rest of their bodies in a nearby lake. 

World War I allowed him to sneak through the law as the focus was on the war and the amount of police available was more than three-quarters less than normal. Gambais had only 1 man on their police force. 

In 1918 Mrs. Pellat sent a letter to the mayor of Gambais asking about her friend Mademoiselle  Anne Collonb who had become engaged to a Monsieur Dupont and moved with him to Gambais. They had no record of Dupont and replied that he didn’t know of either one. 

Months later another letter arrived this time from Mademoiselle Lacoste looking for her sister Celestine Buisson who had moved there with Monsieur  Frémyet. 

Now the mayor thought this was odd, he didn’t know of any of these people so he put the families in touch with each other. They learned that their loved ones had answered an ad in Le Journal on March 16 and May 1, 1915. Too many things began to add up and they filed an official complaint with the prosecutor’s office of the Seine. 

The prosecutor’s office appointed the “Tiger Brigade” to the case. Created under Le Tigre, Clemenceau was a squad comprised of police that had spent their career working the streets of the Ile de France.

Inspector Jules Belin visited the home “l’Ermitage” that was owned by Mr. Tric and rented to M. Frémyet. Frémyet hadn’t been seen in weeks even though neighbors rarely saw him. The first break came when Belin learned that Frémyet’s mail had been forwarded to a Paris address, Boulevard Ney in the 18e. The address belonged to Celestine Buissons, who would be another victim. 

On April 8, 1919, Mademoiselle Lacoste was walking down the Rue de Rivoli and noticed Landru and a woman coming out of Le Lion de Faience tableware store.  Calling the police right away Jules Belin went to the store but it had already closed. Finding the name of the clerk they went to the suburbs and woke him up and asked if they kept any records. Sure enough, Lucien Guillet had purchased two sets of dishes to be delivered to his address at 76 rue de Rocherchouart in the 9e. 

It was late at night so Belin waited on the street for two days with no sight of Henri. In the early hours of April 12, 1919, Belin decided to wait on the landing outside his apartment. Just after 8  am on April 12, he knocked on the door. Through the door, Landru told him to come back as he wasn’t dressed but Belin wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Persisting Landru finally let him in. Standing in his pajamas Belin and his men interrogated him and the young woman that was with him. Fernande Segret was distraught at the questions and fainted in the kitchen. The man she knew was lovely although he did try to poison her twice. 

It was his 50th birthday. 

During a search of his apartment and storage units piles of women’s clothes, wigs, and even dentures were found. However, the most damaging piece was the locked trunk with business logs and all the details of his crimes. 

At the central police station on the Ile de la Cité when he was questioned for 24 hours he would not offer up any information. Day turned into night and still nothing. Back at his apartment detectives found some ideas and a photo of Henri Landru and brought the info to the investigator. When confronted Landru finally admitted that was his real name. A search found that he had eight convictions against him and an endless list of crimes he was wanted for. 

On April 14, 1919, Belin charged him with murder.

More next week

Episode 141 - The Floods of the Seine part 2

Along the Seine, in central Paris, the walls of the quais were doing their best under the pressure of the water on both sides. The ground was saturated and pushing out as the Seine speed and waves bashed against it. 

The last flood in recent memory was in 1896 and on the second night, the flood was already exceeding that level with many more days to go. 

On January 23, Parisians began to flee their homes especially those that lived at ground level. It was an exodus that wouldn’t be seen again until the early days of the Occupation of Paris in WWII. Head of police  Louis Lepine tasked all departments to use boats to help save those that were stranded and boards and chairs were constructed to create makeshift walkways. 

The Seine was up to the thighs of Zouave, twelve feet over the normal level. The left bank was hit hard due to another river that still flows today but can not be seen. The Biévre river once cut through the eastern side of the Latin Quarter and was once lined with tanneries and other crafts that disposed of waste and chemicals into the river. For decades the river made people sick and they decided to cover it over. It was still somewhat open at the time of the flood but either way, it wouldn’t matter. Underground it was filling and seeping into the ground further and further and above it was far over its banks on the 22nd. 

Boulevard Saint Germain was buckling and stones were breaking away. The metros were filling and the line ended at Odeon, past that there was no way to navigate the tunnels or pass under the Seine. 

January 24 the city was shutting down more and more with each day. Garbage plants could no longer process or even pick up debris and much of it was now floating down the Seine. In Issy in the early hours of the 24th, the banks of the Seine were now gone and within an hour the water rose six feet while people slept. 

It wasn’t just the Seine, it was also the Marne that ran just outside the city that had lept its banks and flooded everything in its path. 

The islands were in even worse shape. The Ile Saint Louis was created centuries ago by joining two small islands and was at a point of collapse on the eastern side. The junction of the two was filled in with debris and landfill and a road was built over it in the 17th century. With water beating against it on both sides and now rolling over the top the walls were at risk of breaking and falling into the Seine. 

On January 25 Zouave was now covered up to his waist, 14.5 feet over the normal level. Shelters had been set up all over Paris out of the reach of the Seine. Inside the Eglise Saint Sulpice in Saint Germain over 650 people crowded in from all stages of life. The Bon Marche and BHV donated mattresses and blankets and the Croix Rouge was doing all they could. Just like today, the news of Paris always drew international attention and money was coming from all corners of the world to help. 

January 26 saw the entire mail system in the main post office near the Louvre halted. The main telegraph of the city was also located in the basement which also included the international telegraph wires. If they failed, the city was cut off from the world. In the end, all 760 wires failed but ONE. 

Outside the city soldiers and anyone with boats moved in and a full-scale effort to save people began. Hundred were pulled from higher windows and what once seemed like all hope was lost was now returning. 

At the Jardin des Plantes the animals struggled with the water. Polar bears tried to climb a wall and a makeshift, Noah’s Ark created a giraffe that died before it could be saved. 

January 27, Zouave was now covered up to his shoulders. The nearby Assembly saw the water filling in the central meeting room and the officers were trying to quickly pass laws to keep the people safe.

The Louvre sits up a bit higher along that portion of the Seine than most buildings but on the 7th day, it looked as if it may not withstand the water’s force. Workers quickly sprung into action with sandbags and cement to strengthen the walls of the quay to keep the reserves in the basement safe. Cobblestones that were used as weapons and to build barricades during the Revolutions of the past were now used to save the Louvre filling in gaps and strengthening the sandbags. They worked through the night as the water rose higher and higher and over their heads in spots but by the time the sun came up, they had kept all the water from reaching inside the walls of the Louvre. 

January 28 as the day started the Seine was now at its highest point 27.9 feet and Zouave was buried to his neck in water. The lines of the metro that stretched over 2 miles from Austerlitz to the Orsay were now filled with water as well as the lower level of the Orsay itself. 

The Eiffel Tower even shifted ¾ of an inch from its base as it was set into sand. Gustave Eiffel was such an inventor that he had hydraulic pumps in place to move it back into place if that was ever to happen. 

 In the early morning of January 29, Parisians woke to a very welcome sight. Blue skies and sunshine. The rain stopped and the sun returned and people screamed with joy from their windows and danced in the streets where they could. 

The waters were now yellow and filled with garbage, and sewage and the smell were horrific and disease was a big concern now.  

On January 30 as the water slowly went down part so of the city couldn’t hold it together any longer. Near the Palais Royal, a wall collapsed sending sewage into a basement that eventually had to be demolished.  As the streets to Notre Dame could now be somewhat navigated, Archbishop Léon-Adolphe Anette held a mass in the cathedral at 3 pm. No doubt thanking Sainte Genevive who is high above in the rooster that topped the spire for looking after her city once again. 

In all 643 rescues were made and only 6 lives were lost. 

The water spread to the Gare Saint Lazare on the right bank. The central right bank of Paris faired better than anywhere in the city. 

The Eiffel Tower even shifted ¾ of an inch from its base as it was set into sand. Gustave Eiffel was such an inventor that he had hydraulic pumps in place to move it back into place if that was ever to happen. 

On the left bank, it made it up to Boulevard Saint Germain, covered in 2 feet of water.  Today there are reminders throughout the city. 

It took 10 days to rise and 35 to recede 

24,000 buildings were flooded, 14,000 people evacuated and 5,500 were hospitalized. The flood would impact the city for years to come as it also destroyed thousands of jobs. Entire industries were shut down for months if not years. From agriculture to river works and rail trade, 48,000 jobs were impacted.  The damage that would equate to two and a half billion dollars today 

In the first week of February, the water now fell down to the ankles of Zouave and on February 8 the city was quickly frightened when the water rose again a few feet. It would take 2 more months until April 8 for the Seine to return to its normal level. 

2016

May to June 3rd the Seine rose to its highest point in 34 years. 

Since the mid 20the century a level of alerts has been put in place as the water reaches higher. 

3.2 alters are triggered 

3.3 roads on the banks of the Seine are closed

4.3 navigation on the river is stopped

5.1 RER C is closed

6.0 the Neptune plan is triggered which is a city-wide alert and higher level of activity in the   area closest to the Seine 

6.1 all the banks of the Seine are closed

6.6 walls of the metro are enforced and protected 

7.2 the metro is flooded 

Episode 140 - The Floods of the Seine part 1

Floods on the Seine are documented as far back as the 4th century. The first noted flood was in 358 and a sizeable flood was measured in January of 583 as historian Gregoire de Tours mentioned in his 6th-century book on the history of the Franks. The landscape of Paris was far different back then but the buildings would not have withstood any sizeable flow of water. 

The river Seine is much more than what you see flowing down the center of Paris. Beginning in Burgundy it runs 485 miles to Le Havre where it empties into the English Channel. Four dams control the water and three other rivers feed into it including the Aube, Marne, and Yonne. 

In 1206 half of the city was under water and the shrine of Sainte Genevieve was brought in a procession to Notre Dame in hopes that the saint could once again save the city. After mass, she returned up the hill to Saint Etienne de Mont but not before crossing the Petit Pont and bidding adieu to the priests and relics of Saint Marcel. Just after she crossed, the bridge was struck and fell into the Seine. No one was hurt and within an hour the clouds cleared and the sun returned to Paris.  The Petit Pont was destroyed ten times between 886 and 1185 due to floods. 

1280 

The flood destroyed the Pont au Change 

December 1296 

All the bridges were marred or destroyed 

Adding to protecting the city streets of Paris in 1312 the walls of the Quai des Grands Augustin of the left bank were built up. In 1369 the Quai de la Mégisserie kept the center a little bit safer. In 1578 building of the Pont Neuf began and the walls were enforced to hold the new stone bridge. In the 1870s the renovation by Haussmann replaced and added 15 bridges; in the 1960s the expressway of the river bank opened. These measures were far better to control the water than the sandy water edges prior to the 14th century but would be no match for the floods of 1658 and 1910. 

Gaging of the level of the Seine began in 1649 from the Pont de la Tournell. The same bridge Sainte Genevive stands and guards the city she loves. Today it is measured from the Pont d’Austerlitz. Although most use the statue that stands in the water as the unofficial gage. 

Standing on the eastern side of the Pont de l’Alma that crosses the Seine closer to the Eiffel Tower is the Crimean War soldier Zouave by Georges Diebolt. Created in 1856 and modeled on soldier André-Louis Gody who Napoleon III personally selected.  When the Seine swelled in January 1910 it wasn’t just Zouave that stood submerged in the water. There were four statues, two on each side of the bridge when replaced in 1860 and they were actually placed closer to the normal water level of the Seine. If the same water measurements I mention per day were reached today we would be in a world of hurt as he sits almost 3 feet higher on the pilar than he did in 1910. 

In 1970 the bridge was restored and three of the statues were removed. The Hunter can now be found in the Bois de Vincennes, the Gunner in La Fère, and the Grenadier in Dijon. 

1658 

The Seine rose to 8.96m above normal and the highest the Seine has ever been and there were eight more floods that year. 

After the 1658 flood, a plan was put into place to protect Paris and was influenced by Louis XIV. A new canal from the Marne to Paris was planned and a river that would help alleviate some water was going to be dug from the Marne to the Seine but neither of these happened. In 1663 there were over 10,000 meters of drains and in less than 200 years it swelled to almost 80,000 meters. 

In 1879 it was another disaster that was created this time by ice. After a very cold November and the start of December, on the night of the 10th, the temperature dropped to a frigid negative 11 degrees Fahrenheit causing the Seine to freeze. In an attempt to break up the ice dynamite was used sending thick shards down the river and destroying everything in its path. Worried boatmen tried to unsuccessfully move their boats but the ice trapped their boats and barges and no match for the ice, wine barrels, and discarded furniture and wood from crashing into them. 

1910 

The summer of 1909 was a very wet one in France which led to a lot of snow in the mountains in November and December. New Year’s Day 1910 was quite warm in Paris. 43 degrees and sunny was quite odd, 103 years later, this year,  it was 59 degrees. While the warm temps and blue skies were lovely in Paris, off the coast of Brittany a low-pressure system with lots of rain was moving in.  The Seine had already risen three times since the start of December but had receded and was never in a dangerous state until the last week of January. 

The warmer temperatures held on the first two weeks of the new year and all the mountain snow and ice that arrived in November and December began to melt and flow into the rivers. While Parisians were going about their early January days the smaller villages up and down the river were starting to see the water rising higher and higher each day. 

On January 21, 50 miles SE of Paris the coal town of Lorry was in dire straits. The rain had been none stop but it wasn’t a flood of water that they needed to be afraid of. On this night as the miners returned home and were sitting with their families having dinner a loud noise erupted through the town and everything began to shake. On the nearby hillside, the ground gave way sending down tons of mud and debris and crushing homes and people. 

Further away in Troyes where Genevieve had gone to get grain to save the starving people of Paris the banks of the river were overflowing with water as it destroyed the homes and buildings in its path.  As the news spread back to Paris and the water rose, most people stood on one of the many bridges and didn’t think it could ever happen there. Just a few hours later they wouldn’t have the same cavalier thoughts. 

Back in Paris, it was the job of one man, Edmond Maillet to calculate and watch the water levels. In over twenty years he never saw a rise over 5 meters at the Pont d’Austerlitz. As early as January 16, the water was already getting higher but he didn’t alert anyone, and the next day he didn’t report to work for 2 weeks. The same 2 weeks that the Seine would rage. To this day it is unknown what happened to him. 

On January 21, at exactly 10:53 pm the clocks throughout the city stopped. Paris had many functions that ran on compressed air including the movement of mail by the postal service, elevators, ventilation, and factories. All of it came to a screeching halt at 10:53 pm on the dot. 

The water was rising to Zouave’s ankles and had now picked up speed. At over 15 mph, it was the fastest the Seine had been in centuries and nothing in its path was safe. From Troyes and farther the homes and furniture that once belonged to French families were now speeding into Paris. As had happened since the 9th-century bridges were struck and loud explosions could be heard. 

The next day, January 22, the people of Paris woke up to water in their basements but they didn’t see much out their windows in the streets. More than 10 feet flooded into the city through the series of underground tunnels, sewers, and metro lines, and the saturated soil allowed the water to move from below the city instead of over. They didn’t see that coming and Zouave was now up to his knees in the Seine. To make matters worse it was the snow that was now falling from the sky but eventually turned to more rain, the last thing they needed. 

The Bercy area was affected first and the streets were turned into wide waterways that saw the wine merchants trying to swim after their barrels of wine. The current was no match for them and the barrels floated down to the center of Paris. A few eager wine lovers risked life and limb on the bridges to catch a few but police quickly stopped them. The nearby power plant was short-circuiting and the metro lines were filling with water and coming to a halt. 

Make sure to tune in next week for part two

Episode 139 - The Hotel de Salm

The Passerelle Léopold Sédar Senghor was named for the Senegalese poet and politician on October 9, 2006, on what would have been his 100th birthday. The former member of the French Academy and promotor of all things French died on December 20, 2001. 

The life of the bridge first began in 1861 under Napoleon III when the Pont Solderino was built for cars, not just people as it is today.  A hundred years later in 1961, it was replaced with a metal frame bridge covered with wood from Africa. The bridge connecting the Seine's lower level to the upper quai has won numerous design awards. 

At the end of the bridge on the left bank side stands the Jean Cardot statue of Thomas Jefferson. The former ambassador to France whose love of Paris inspired two of his future homes. In his hand, the founding father holds Monticello's design, which was created to resemble the front of the Hotel de Salm that he is looking at. 

We are walking down the Rue de Solferino next to the Hotel de Salm, which was built in 1781 for Frederick III of Salm-Kyrburg. Designed by Pierre Rousseau they would later live there for a period when the owner sealed his fate during the Revolution and his life ended by the guillotine. In May of 1804, it was purchased by the state for the chancellor's office and the future home of the Legion d'honneur created under Napoleon Bonaparte. 

In 1871 just like its neighbor the Palais d’Orsay it was also partially destroyed by the Commune fires but much of it was able to be saved. The inner courtyard side with its tall columns also inspired the American White House. Today it is the Musée de Legion d’honneur and is free to visit and worth a stop. 

Opened Wednesday - Sunday 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm