WEBVTT - Domenica Guillaume Walter and l'Affaire Lacaze 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.560 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.759 Biegelson and I'm Holly Frye. We have come around to 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.959 yet another episode. Inspired by that trip I took to 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.439 Philadelphia to see the Marie Lawrence Sont exhibit at the 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:32.200 Barnes Foundation. One part of that exhibition focused on Marie 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:36.720 Lawrence Son's portraits, and there were these brief biographical sketches 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.839 of the people shown in those portraits, and one that 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:45.560 caught my eye was of Dominica Guilme. She was married 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.440 to Paul Guielme, who was a writer and an art 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.559 dealer who developed a substantial collection of artwork, and, in 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:58.160 the words of this brief biography quote, to ensure the 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.840 collection remained in her possession in the event of Paul's death. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:07.720 Dominica needed an air after an unsuccessful feigned pregnancy. She 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:13.040 adopted a child, also named Paul, who she abused and 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.040 whose murder she plotted twice after her husband died in 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:20.920 nineteen thirty four, which caused me to go, I'm sorry, 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.840 what like, there's a lot to unpack there. There's a 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:28.560 lot to unpack there and it's just, you know, two 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:33.080 entire sentences mentioned in this brief biography. So that's been 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.959 hanging out on my to do list since then, and 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:42.440 here we are today. So Dominica Guillome was born Juliette 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:47.360 Marie Leoni Lacaz on May nineteenth, eighteen ninety eight, in Avon, 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.560 in southern France. There's really very little documentation about her 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:55.360 early life, reportedly because she destroyed as much of it 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:59.280 as possible. There is some suggestion that the family was 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.680 financially comfortable but perhaps wound up losing their money. In 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.919 other accounts, her father was a notary. She had a brother, Jean, 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.400 who got a job working for Shell Oil, and she 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.560 eventually went to Paris where she was an art model, 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.359 and she also got a job working in the cloakroom 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.320 at a nightclub. We know a little bit more about 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.800 her first husband, Paul Guillome, who was born at November 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.520 twenty eighth, eighteen ninety one. His father was a tax collector, 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.959 and Paul seems to have wanted a more exciting life 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.520 for himself than that from a very early age. He 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.320 wound up getting a job at a garage, which does 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.240 not sound all that flashy, but this was a garage 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.000 that catered to wealthy clients and they imported their own 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:50.359 rubber for making tires. These rubber shipments sometimes included some 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.760 kind of African artwork or cultural object. One of them 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:59.800 was a mask from Gabon that sparked Guillaume's interest in 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.400 African art. So this isn't really what today's episode is about, 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:06.440 so we're not going to go into a ton of detail. 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.760 But people in Equatorial Africa were tapping rubber trees for 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.640 their sap and refining it into a usable material long 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:20.000 before European colonization. But in the nineteenth century, European efforts 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.359 to extract increasing amounts of rubber from parts of Africa 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:28.919 were both environmentally destructive and devastating from a human rights perspective. 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.120 This connects to King Leopold of Belgium's personal rule of 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.720 the Congo, which we talked about in our episode on 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.520 George Washington Williams that came out on February nineteenth of 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:45.800 this year. Europeans were also extracting artwork from Africa. These 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.280 objects that Paul Gielm was seeing in rubber shipments were 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.880 just a very few of the thousands of pieces that 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:58.560 Europeans took from Africa, mainly starting in about the eighteen seventies. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.760 At the same time time, though a lot of Europeans 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.600 did not really see these works as having much artistic 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.800 worth or value. To a lot of people, they were 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:13.680 more like trinkets or curiosities. Museums that held African works 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.599 in their collections often had them in ethnography, not in 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.000 their art collections. This is something that we also talked 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.000 about in more detail in our episode on the Putative 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:28.000 Expedition of eighteen ninety seven and the collection of artworks 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.440 known as the Benin Bronzes. That episode came out in 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:36.440 January of twenty twenty two. The European perception of these 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.360 objects was starting to shift when Guillume was working at 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:43.839 the garage. Artists like Pablo Picasso and Arima Tise saw 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:48.039 African sculptures in places like the Trocadero Ethnographic Museum in 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.200 Paris in the mid nineteen hundreds, and these more abstract 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:58.799 geometric pieces became a huge influence on their work. Cubism, Fauvism, Primitivism, 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:03.200 and other aesthetic movements were heavily influenced by African art, 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.839 sometimes without the artists really knowing much about the context 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:10.600 of the traditions that these sculptures had been made in. 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.760 At the same time, these artistic movements were also controversial. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.480 While these more avant garde artists saw African works as 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.960 a source of inspiration, the artistic establishment was initially hostile 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.880 to them and their work. Paul Gillo lived in molmart 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.120 and he became connected to a lot of the writers 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.599 and artists who lived there, including Pablo Picasso and poet 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:39.800 and playwright Guilloma Polonaire. Paulinaire was really influential to Paul 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:44.760 Gium's understanding of modern art in Europe, introducing him to 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:49.000 other artists and recommending that he buys specific people's works. 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.280 By February of nineteen fourteen, Paul Gium had developed a 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.279 large enough art collection to open a small gallery, one 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.320 that was focused mainly on the work of living artists. 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.599 He also became one of the first art dealers to 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:07.440 sell the work of the Cubists. Sometimes on his own 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.279 and sometimes advised by a Pollinaire, Paul Guilloum bought the 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:15.680 works of then unknown artists, often paying almost nothing for them. 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.680 This included buying paintings by Maurice U Trio from a 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.719 cabaret owner. Eu Trio had given him artwork in exchange 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:28.080 for meals. As Guillome started to build a reputation for himself, 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.720 Picasso and a pollinaire went to him to try to 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.040 launch the career of Giorgio de Quirico, who had moved 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.839 to Paris from Italy. Guillome bought all of his newly 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.600 created artwork on an ongoing basis for one hundred francs 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.279 a month. This reminds me a lot of what Gertrude 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.320 Stein and her brother were also doing, like buying up 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.440 the works of people who had no, you know, artistic 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:56.120 reputation yet who later became really famous and influential. In 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:00.960 nineteen fourteen, Guilloume loaned eighteen African works of art to 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:06.200 an exhibition that was called Statuary in Wood by African Savages, 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.240 the Root of Modern Art. This kind of language was 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.920 extremely common in descriptions of African art in the early 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:19.160 twentieth century. This exhibition was arranged by American photographer Alfred 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.080 Stieglitz and held at his gallery, and this was the 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:26.080 first exhibition in New York to treat African sculpture as 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.840 artwork in its own right. Gilm also started a magazine 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.840 called Lezard da Peri, doing a lot of the writing 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:38.080 himself under an assortment of different pen names. Gilm was 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.960 in his early twenties at the start of World War One, 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.440 but it doesn't appear that he served in the war. 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.440 One of the sources that Tracy used for this episode 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.200 said that he was exempted for medical reasons. By the 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.120 time the war was over, he had become extremely famous 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:57.160 and influential in the European art world. He held exhibitions 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:01.160 of European and African art, including one that included both, 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.960 highlighting the African influence on Cubism. He also became the 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:10.960 principal dealer of artists like Andrei Duran And In nineteen twenty, 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:13.560 when he was twenty eight, when she was twenty two, 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.520 Paul Gio married Juliette la Caz. He's the one that 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.880 gave her the nickname Dominica, reportedly because of her domineering personality, 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.560 and while we really don't know much about her life 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:27.920 before this point, it's clear that they had some things 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.520 in common. They were both from pretty modest backgrounds, and 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.360 they were largely self taught in terms of things like 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.760 art and culture. They both wanted lives that were more 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.160 colorful and exciting and affluent than the way they'd grown up, 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.240 and after they got married they got to work doing that. 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:48.360 They moved into a bigger, fancy or apartment. They hired 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:51.320 a staff of chambermaids and a chef and a chauffeur. 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:56.080 They socialized and through elegant parties and made lots of connections, 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.800 and they both had various affairs for Dominica. One of 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.920 the was with Andrea Durant, who painted a series of 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.960 portraits of her. After they were married and after the 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.840 end of World War One, Giem seems to have focused 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.040 more and more on the practical and commercial aspects of 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.520 being an art dealer, rather than seeking out and acquiring 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.840 the work of undiscovered, groundbreaking artists. He also boosted the 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.439 price by placing modern works of art in ornate seventeenth 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.880 and eighteenth century frames. This drew some criticism from other 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.120 art dealers, who saw it as artificially inflating the value 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.960 of works that were not as artistically notable. That he 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.480 was still building a collection and selling a lot of 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.160 works that were really influential, but there were people that 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.600 kind of thought he sold out. At this point. Paul 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.920 Gilm's relationship with one of his most important clients also 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.559 started around this same time. That was doctor Albert Barnes, 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.160 founder of the Barnes Foundation. To bring this back full circle, 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.959 Barnes was a chemist who made a fortune in pharmaceutical 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.959 and developed an enormous art collection. Works that Barnes acquired 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:09.400 through Guielm included more than one hundred African sculptures as 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:14.520 well as Impressionist paintings. Barnes really became Guilm's most important client. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.440 In nineteen thirty, Paul was awarded the French Legion of 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.160 Honor Order of Merit, and he tried to open a 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.160 London office, but that did not do well in the 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:28.199 wake of the Great Depression. Dominica and Paul also struggled 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.240 financially during these years, and they faced some struggles in 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.720 their relationship as well. And we're going to get to 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:46.160 all of that after a sponsor break. We said earlier 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:50.360 that Dominica and Paul Guilllme both had various relationships outside 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.720 their marriage. In nineteen thirty, Guillelm was reportedly seeing a 0:10:54.800 --> 0:11:00.240 fellow art dealer her name was Jeanne Castel. Dominica was 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.920 involved with architect Jean Walterire, who designed hospitals, public housing, 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:09.960 and luxury homes and apartments. These luxury apartments included the 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:13.679 building where Dominica and Paul lived, which is also where 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.840 Jean lived with his wife and three children. Living in 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.440 the same building with his wife's lover seems to have 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.240 been a little too much for Paul, and he started 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.679 trying to discourage that relationship, including dropping hints that Dominica 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.800 might face some kind of retribution if she didn't put 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.760 an end to it. After he caught Dominica and Jean 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:39.000 in a pantry together, Paul gave her an ultimatum. Either 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.960 she would have a child, thus giving him an air, 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:44.520 or he would write her out of his will and 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.760 instead leave all of his money and his art collection 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:53.000 to a foundation. According to various sources, Dominica had a 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.920 tuba lagation before they got married, so conceiving a child 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.120 with him was out of the question, but she was 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.040 not willing to lose out on this potential inheritance, so 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.760 she faked a pregnancy by stuffing pillows under her clothes, 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.160 something that was only remotely possible because she and Paul 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:16.079 were sleeping in separate bedrooms and he was often inebriated. 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.960 Well Jude the obscure moment. Then, in nineteen thirty four, 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.559 Paul became acutely ill and he was admitted to the hospital. 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.479 Various sources say this was because of a burst appendix. 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:32.640 He died not long after on October first, nineteen thirty four, 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.760 at the age of forty two. During his brief career, 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:41.200 he had sold and estimated thirteen hundred paintings. This made 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.520 Dominica a widow at the age of thirty six, and 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:49.000 a will eventually was found that left her Paul's entire 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.959 estate valued at six billion francs, and there were, of course, 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:59.680 some suspicions about where this discovered will was genuine or not. 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.800 Not long after, though, Dominica became mother to a boy 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.560 named Jean Pierre, who was also known as Paulo. According 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.280 to records. He was born in Paris on November thirtieth, 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.480 nineteen thirty four, and Dominica reportedly bought him for five 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:17.760 thousand francs, but she told people that he was Paul's child, 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:21.640 conceived before his death. There are actually some rumors that 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.520 he really was Paul's child, but with another woman that 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:26.840 he had been having an affair with, and then that 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:32.760 Dominica had arranged to take custody. Meanwhile, Jean Valtaire's wife 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:37.280 had learned of his affair with Dominica, but she refused 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:39.840 to divorce him over it, but then she died in 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.920 nineteen forty one, and on September fifth of that year, 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:47.160 Jean and Dominica got married. It seems like he had 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.080 not tried to interfere with her other relationships while he 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.680 was still married to somebody else, but once he was 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.880 married to Dominica, he wanted her to be faithful to him. 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.960 He also encouraged her to formally adopt Paulo, which she 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.840 did in nineteen forty one. At this point, of course, 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.560 World War II was under way and France was being 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.640 occupied by Germany. In addition to his work as an architect, 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.800 Jean morterire on a lad and zinc mine in Morocco. 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.000 He had gotten the rights to it as part of 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.320 a settlement for bad debt in nineteen twenty five. Initially, 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.320 this mine had not been financially successful and he had 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:28.160 closed it down, but he reopened it in nineteen thirty six, 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:31.840 as demand for those medals spiked in response to rising 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:37.000 international tensions. The mine had in the intervening years become 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.240 extremely lucrative and it was supplying materials needed for the war, 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.920 so Germany tried to force Jean to give up control. 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:50.680 He refused and was consequently arrested and imprisoned. He remained 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.160 in prison until the Allies liberated France, and there are 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.360 rumors that Dominica bribed a German official with sex to 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.960 keep Jean from being executed and to protect him while 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.560 he was in prison. Young Paulo spent most of World 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.640 War Two living in ken with a nanny. He returned 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.680 to Paris once the war was over, but Dominica really 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.680 seems to have barely tolerated his presence in her apartment. 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.200 He didn't have a bedroom and instead had to sleep 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.640 on a mattress under the dining table, and if she 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.080 was having a party, she made him sleep in the 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:29.280 bathtub instead. She had plenty of money, but she made 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.960 him wear various hand me downs from mostly Jane's side 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.760 of the family or old things of hers, and that 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.960 really embarrassed him because they were obviously women's clothes. She 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.320 had a reputation for being cruel and inflexible with the 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:47.960 household staff as well. All of this really raises some 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:52.920 questions about Waldair's relationship with Gyom. He had done things 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:57.120 like establishing a foundation to provide annual grants to disadvantage 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.000 young men with the most promising of them given life 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.440 larger grants, and eventually a job at the mine. A 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:08.800 lot of sources describe him as practical, philanthropically minded, and principled, 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:13.480 with the exception of his very public extramarital affair with 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.280 Dominica Gyllome. Not only did he have a public affair 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:19.760 well married to someone else, but it was also with 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:24.320 someone like Dominica. People did not understand his attraction to 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:28.440 her at all. He also stayed with her even as 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:33.680 her relationship with her adopted son became increasingly volatile. Paulo 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:37.080 apparently did not know he had been adopted until he 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.240 was a teenager and had been expelled from a series 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:44.560 of boarding schools for various misbehavior. It's been pretty common 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:47.400 at points in history to not tell people that they 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.560 were adopted, but during an argument over this, Dominica told 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.320 him he had been a foundling and that she had 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.200 no idea who his real parents were. This was clearly 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.560 something she said to him to hurt him. Although her 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.680 treatment of Polo wasn't enough for Jean Valterre to end 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.840 his relationship with her, it does seem like he tried 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:11.280 to protect and support Paolo where he could. After that argument, 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.240 Tracy just mentioned, Paolo left home and went to live 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.480 with Jean Saint Jacques. Paolo worked at a variety of 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.600 jobs before enlisting in the army in nineteen fifty five 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.280 at the age of twenty one as a paratrooper. Dominica 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.960 reportedly knew his commanding officer and told him to make 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:32.440 sure Paolo was sent into active combat, framing it as 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.160 wanting to make a man out of him, which has 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:38.840 its own problems, but based on her later behavior, perhaps 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.280 she was thinking it would be convenient if he were 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:46.080 killed in action. Around the same time, Dominica started seeing 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:51.639 doctor Maurice Laqueur for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Various sources 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:56.240 described Lequeur's practice as questionable. He had a reputation for 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:00.800 basically being a drug supplier for wealthy women. He claimed 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:05.520 to practice psychiatry. Home me off at the acupuncture hypnoanalysis 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.359 and a range of other specialties as well. Dominica started 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.919 having an affair with him, going so far as to 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:17.800 move him into the apartment with Jean's reluctant permission. LeCour 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:23.400 also treated John for some cardiovascular issues. Then came the deaths, 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.720 which started to seem suspicious. Dominica had become friends with 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:32.359 American writer and heiress Margaret Thompson Biddle. Margaret had become 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.359 Jean's business partner after her Neumont Mining Corporation bought forty 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:40.960 nine percent of Waldare's mines. Dominica and Margaret spent a 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:45.000 lot of time together and talked about embarking on various projects, 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:51.320 including starting a newspaper. On June eighth, nineteen fifty six, Dominica, Margaret, 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.760 Maurice Lequeur, and Dominica's brother Jean Lacaz all went to 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.560 the opera together for a gala performance celebrating the King 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.760 and Queen of Greece. Later that night, while getting ready 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.680 for bed, Margaret died suddenly of what was diagnosed as 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.360 a cerebral hemorrhage. According to one of the sources used 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.440 in this episode, her office was left in disarray and 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:18.440 a dossier had been stolen from it, but no autopsy 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.560 was conducted, and then she was buried in Fontainebleau A 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:28.000 year later. On June eleventh, nineteen fifty seven, Dominica, Jean, Walterer, 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.439 and Laqueur were driving in the countryside and stopped to 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.000 eat at a restaurant. Dominica and Lequeur went into the 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.080 restaurant while Jean crossed the street to buy a newspaper. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.399 He was hit by a speeding car, and he was 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.640 still alive when Dominica and Liqueur got to him. Liqueur 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.560 treated him as they waited for an ambulance, but Jean 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:53.000 Walter was dead by the time the ambulance arrived. Soon 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:57.880 after Jean's death, Dominica, her brother, and Maurice Lequeur started 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:02.080 making changes at his businesses. They removed his children from 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:05.560 his previous marriage from the board of his foundation, and 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:11.399 they installed LaCour instead. They claimed they had found paperwork 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.600 outlining these changes in Jean Walterire's office. Although Jean had 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.640 kind of tolerated LaCour's presence in their lives, he did 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.520 not like that man and family members did not think 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:27.760 this paperwork was genuine. Dominica also put her brother in 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:32.480 charge of the mine in Morocco. Her inheritances from both 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:37.760 Paul Guillaume and Jean Valtaire made Dominica Guilleumaltaire incredibly wealthy, 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.879 and under French law, on her death, she would have 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.280 to leave at least half of her estate to her 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:49.040 adopted son. Dominica seems to have found this entire idea intolerable, 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.880 so at least allegedly, she decided to try to do 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:55.520 something about it, and we will get into that after 0:20:55.560 --> 0:21:08.080 we pause for a sponsor break. I want to put 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.600 a caveat on the rest of this episode. Some of 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.359 the sources that I use make it sound as though 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:20.680 Dominica Guiel and members of her circle definitely did everything 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.800 they were accused of, and then others frame everything more 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:29.560 as allegations. Some of them make no reference to any 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.920 of this whatsoever. I only know of a couple of 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:37.160 books that talk about this in detail. They are both 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.920 in French, and one of them is also out of print. 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.480 A lot of the most detailed reporting in English at 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:49.560 the time was in the tabloids, maybe unsurprisingly, there were 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.720 newspapers that were offering shorter coverage that mostly focused on 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:58.000 things like the formal court proceedings and charges being filed 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:02.280 or dropped. But even if all the whole rest of 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.480 the episode needs the word allegedly in front of it, 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:09.240 it's still pretty wild. As we said before the break, 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:13.240 under French law, Dominica guilloum Waldere would have to leave 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:16.040 at least half of her estate to her adopted son, 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:20.240 Jean Pierre known as Paolo, upon her death. The only 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:22.800 way she could get out of this is if he died, 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.720 or if she had some legal justification for revoking his adoption, 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:30.920 like if he committed a serious enough crime. A lot 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:34.480 of accounts are not very kind to Paolo, suggesting that 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:36.879 he got in a lot of trouble and he couldn't 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:39.320 really stick with anything, and that he ran up debts 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.159 that had to be settled by Dominica's brother, and that 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:44.920 he stole from the regimental mess after he was basically 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:47.720 kicked out of the house and joined the army. But 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.159 none of those rose to the level of warranting a 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:57.800 revocation of his adoption, so allegedly Dominica hired a hitman 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:03.160 to kill him. Maurice Lequeur had previous connections to a 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:06.600 far right group known as Lacagour, which was known for 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:10.720 its ties to fascism and terrorism, and these far right 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:16.600 associates led Laqueur to Commandant Camille Rayon. Rayon did not 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:18.960 really run in these circles. He had been part of 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:21.560 the French resistance during World War II. He had been 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:24.760 part of Charles de Gaull's intelligence network. He was seen 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:30.879 as a war hero, not as right wing terrorists, so 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:33.400 it seems kind of weird that he would get caught 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:37.480 up in this at all. But according to Rayon, when 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:41.399 Liqueur came to him about this, Laqueur told him that 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.159 he was being hired to deal with somebody who was 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:49.000 bringing shame to his family and was a trader. Because 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:53.720 Liqueur alleged that Paulo was secretly working with the Algerian 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:58.040 resistance against the French military that he was serving in 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:03.479 again into the real account, he quickly realized that Paolo 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:07.200 wasn't some kind of double agent. He'd had various disputes 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:10.679 with fellow soldiers and local Algerians, but had a reputation 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:15.840 for bravery and combat. So Rayon decided to string LaCour along. 0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:20.520 He haggled over the fee, finally settling on thirty million francs. 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:23.359 Then he said it wouldn't be advisable to kill a 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:28.680 French paratrooper on Algerian soil. Paolo's enlistment was ending soon, though, 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:31.000 and Rayl said it would be better to kill him 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:35.760 after he returned to France. After leaving the military, Paulo 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:40.040 started training to be an airline steward. Rayon told the 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:43.080 cour that he would intercept Paulo on his way to 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:48.560 training and kill him. Rayon did intercept Paalo, but instead 0:24:48.560 --> 0:24:51.200 of killing him, took him to dinner and told him 0:24:51.240 --> 0:24:54.800 all about the murder plot. At first, Palo didn't really 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:58.760 believe him, but eventually Rayon persuaded him that the only 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:01.280 way to get out of danger was to fake his 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:05.560 own death. We said earlier that Jean Walterre had tried 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:08.639 to protect Paalo where he could, and Palou was still 0:25:08.680 --> 0:25:12.240 close to various members of the Waltaire family, so he 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:16.359 agreed to participate in this plan only if Jacques Walter 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:20.200 and Jacques's brother in law Philippe Lamour agreed to it, 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:23.720 which they did. They also all got some advice from 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:28.600 a lawyer named Reneme Wati. Paolou checked into a hotel 0:25:28.840 --> 0:25:32.600 under an assumed name, and Rayon took his identification papers 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:37.440 and revolver to Laqueur as proof that the job was done. 0:25:37.520 --> 0:25:40.959 He said that he had strangled Paolou, weighed his body 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:44.560 down with rocks and thrown it into the sin. LaCour 0:25:44.640 --> 0:25:47.520 gave reON part of his fee of thirty million francs 0:25:47.800 --> 0:25:52.600 and promised the rest in ten million franc installments. Although 0:25:52.680 --> 0:25:56.119 Palou had ultimately agreed with this plan, he still had 0:25:56.160 --> 0:26:01.000 not been entirely convinced by Rayon's whole story. But once 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:05.199 reON came back with this payment, Paolo believed him. They 0:26:05.280 --> 0:26:08.679 left Frontine on the coast northeast of Camp, where Reyon 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:12.240 had a home. Rayon wrote out a full account of 0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:15.199 everything that had happened and titled it quote to be 0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:18.000 given to the competent authorities in the event of my 0:26:18.119 --> 0:26:22.399 disappearance or death. He then gave this to his lawyer. 0:26:23.600 --> 0:26:26.160 His lawyer read it and just sent it directly to 0:26:26.200 --> 0:26:31.040