Speaker 1: Hey, and happy holidays. Before we get started with this episode,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to give a quick shout out to
Speaker 1: your miney that Noble Blood officially has merch. The link
Speaker 1: to the merch store will be in the description of
Speaker 1: the episode, and I also want to give a special
Speaker 1: shout out. I'm trying something new and hopefully exciting, a
Speaker 1: pamphlet club where if you subscribe, I send an annotated
Speaker 1: script from one of my favorite Noble Blood episodes with
Speaker 1: brand new context and information along once a month. But
Speaker 1: the thing with this club is if you want to
Speaker 1: get in, you gotta sign up now. Once it starts,
Speaker 1: you can't get in. You can always get up, but
Speaker 1: you can't get back in. That sounds like the Hotel California. Again,
Speaker 1: Happy holidays, and thank you so much to all of
Speaker 1: the support for Noble Blood. I hope you all stay
Speaker 1: safe and healthy and keep your heads literally and metaphorically.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky listener discretion as
Speaker 1: advised from the outside. Henriette de Luzy de port Field
Speaker 1: had a lovely life. She and her husband, the Minister
Speaker 1: Henry Field, were prominent figures in the high society of
Speaker 1: nineteenth century New York in Massachusetts, Henriette had emigrated from
Speaker 1: France before coming to America and working as the principal
Speaker 1: of a female art school. Her husband, Henry, was nine
Speaker 1: years her junior, and by all accounts, they were wildly
Speaker 1: in love. They were fixtures at parties and literary soirees.
Speaker 1: Henriette became personal friends with Harriet Beecher Stowe. The Fields
Speaker 1: were neighbors with Nathaniel Hawthorne. One evening, the Fields were
Speaker 1: attending a party at the Century Club in New York
Speaker 1: when Henriette heard someone hissing at her from across the room. Murderous,
Speaker 1: the voice said, murderous. It was an old man from
Speaker 1: the Continent, Count Garski, squinting at Henriette and hissing at
Speaker 1: her through his loose false teeth. Murderous. He called, she's
Speaker 1: a murderous It was a small scandal. The elderly man
Speaker 1: was escorted out of the club with murmurs of apology
Speaker 1: to Mr. And Mrs Field. The party continued, but with
Speaker 1: a strange tension in the air. The polite smiles of
Speaker 1: things not said most people in New York didn't know
Speaker 1: the rumors attached to Henriette de Lucy deport Field, the
Speaker 1: woman once known in France as Madame Delucy, But Count
Speaker 1: Gorsky did. There was a generation of nobles in Europe
Speaker 1: who hadn't forgotten what had happened to the beautiful Duchess
Speaker 1: de Proland, the only daughter of a noble family. Count
Speaker 1: Gorsky hadn't forgotten the gruesome tragedy that befell her, and
Speaker 1: there were pete that believed that Henriette de Lucy, the
Speaker 1: woman who once worked as a governess to the Duchess's children,
Speaker 1: got away with murder. I'm Dani Schwartz, and this is
Speaker 1: noble blood. The Duchess was having nightmares. She had been
Speaker 1: having nightmares for months, the same one every night that
Speaker 1: the devil, wearing a red brocade suit, was appearing to
Speaker 1: her in her bedchamber. By the time she woke up,
Speaker 1: he was gone. She told the servants about it and
Speaker 1: her friends. Everyone looked at her with sympathy. You're going
Speaker 1: through a challenging time, they reminded her. It's stress and worry.
Speaker 1: Things will get better soon. Recurring nightmares aside. Most people
Speaker 1: envaded the Duchess, nown to her friends as Fanny, she
Speaker 1: was the only daughter of a famous French general and politician,
Speaker 1: Horace Sebastiani. Fanny's mother had died in childbirth, but she
Speaker 1: was doated on by the rest of her family. She
Speaker 1: was their beautiful, shining jewel, a bona fide heiress, niece
Speaker 1: of the Duke of Colignier, and destined for a prominent
Speaker 1: place in French social circles. When Fanny was seventeen in
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty four, she married the dashing Charles Theobald, who
Speaker 1: went on to become a chevalier Donner and the Duke
Speaker 1: of Chasse Prelan and then a Peer of France. He
Speaker 1: was from an important family, related directly to the reigning
Speaker 1: king in France, Louis Philippe, But even more important than
Speaker 1: that to Fanny was that it was a love match.
Speaker 1: He was only two years older than her when they
Speaker 1: got married, and the pair went on to have ten children,
Speaker 1: although not all of them survived childhood. Fanny adored her husband.
Speaker 1: She even tolerated them splitting their time between her family's
Speaker 1: beautiful home in Paris and his fa his dank Ancestral
Speaker 1: de Praulon Castle, a dreary property in Milan. The pair
Speaker 1: had been married for over twenty three years, but that's
Speaker 1: when things were changing between them. It started with a governess.
Speaker 1: While they were staying in Paris, the Duchess hired a
Speaker 1: new governess for her brood of children, a pretty young
Speaker 1: woman named Henriette de Lucy. There were no complaints about
Speaker 1: her services or her performance as a governess. The children
Speaker 1: absolutely adored her, and they had never been better behaved.
Speaker 1: But that was the problem. The children adored Henriette de
Speaker 1: Lucy so much that they seemed to prefer her to
Speaker 1: their own mother. And then there was the Duchess's husband, Charles,
Speaker 1: the Duc de Pralan. He was becoming distant, kissing the
Speaker 1: Duchess on the cheek instead of the lips, rarely coming
Speaker 1: to her bed, ignoring her for most of the day.
Speaker 1: The pair lived in the same house like ghosts. The
Speaker 1: Duchess would hear him making a joke to Henriette from
Speaker 1: across the house and then listened to their laughter. She
Speaker 1: was nearing forty, it was true, and after ten children,
Speaker 1: her body had changed. But her husband was pulling away
Speaker 1: from her. Her children were pulling away from her. She
Speaker 1: didn't know what she could do about it. This is
Speaker 1: when the nightmares started. Fanny insisted that her husband fire
Speaker 1: Henriette Lucy, who by this point had been working for
Speaker 1: their family for six years. The Duke played dumb. Was
Speaker 1: there a problem with her service? The Duchess looked away.
Speaker 1: The rumors had become a standard topic of conversation in
Speaker 1: their social circles. Servants averted their eyes from the duchess
Speaker 1: and hallways. Everyone knew that the Duke and Henriette were
Speaker 1: having an affair, including the duchess. So the Duchess doubled down.
Speaker 1: She insisted that Charles fire the governess. Charles gave a
Speaker 1: miserable little laugh, my dear, he said, if she goes,
Speaker 1: then so do I. But the humiliation had become too
Speaker 1: much for the Duchess, and so she called her husband's
Speaker 1: bluff fine. She replied, we'll divorce. Scandal be damned matches
Speaker 1: for our daughters will suffer, but I don't care. I'll
Speaker 1: take my inheritance and my money. I'll take the children.
Speaker 1: The Duke backed down, all right, he said, I'll fire
Speaker 1: her for now. Why don't you and the children go
Speaker 1: stay at the castle and maloon and I'll stay in
Speaker 1: Paris to fire Henriette and make the appropriate arrangements. Pleased enough,
Speaker 1: the Duchess agreed and went to the country with the children.
Speaker 1: But as you might have suspected, while the Duke did
Speaker 1: dismiss the pretty Henriette de Lizzy, he also rented her
Speaker 1: a luxurious apartment, and the pair of them spent a
Speaker 1: full month together that summer while the Duchess and children
Speaker 1: were away. But at the end of that summer in August,
Speaker 1: the rest of the family returned to Paris on their
Speaker 1: way to spend the fall. Indeed, when the Duchess arrived
Speaker 1: back at their Paris home, she called out, but her
Speaker 1: husband wasn't there. Odd even otter, she noticed a few
Speaker 1: things wrong in her bed chamber. The hinges on her
Speaker 1: bedroom door were missing. No matter, she would tell the
Speaker 1: servant about it in the morning. Her husband returned that
Speaker 1: night before supper, and he reminded Fanny that he had
Speaker 1: fired Henriette like she had asked, that everything would be
Speaker 1: all right from then on. That night was the last
Speaker 1: time anyone saw the Duchess de Prelant alive. A small
Speaker 1: warning to younger listeners here, it's about now that the
Speaker 1: episode gets a little well bloody. On the morning of
Speaker 1: August seventeenth, eighteen forty seven, around five am, strange noises
Speaker 1: woke two of the servants in the prelaw house. Emma
Speaker 1: le Clerk was the Duchess's personal maid. She had served
Speaker 1: Fanny for over two decades since Fanny was sixteen and
Speaker 1: newly engaged to the Duke, bright eyed over her exciting future.
Speaker 1: That morning in August, Emma heard a crash and the
Speaker 1: sound of a struggle. There was an echo of a
Speaker 1: screen in the air. She and the Duke's valet, who
Speaker 1: had also woken up, raced to Fanny's bedroom, but they
Speaker 1: found that the door was locked from the inside. From
Speaker 1: the other side of the door, they could hear soft whimpering.
Speaker 1: The door to the Duchess's bathroom was also locked, as
Speaker 1: was the door into the Duchess's room from the garden,
Speaker 1: but the valet broke a pane of glass and forced
Speaker 1: his way in, but by the time they got there,
Speaker 1: the whimpering had stopped. Fanny, the Duchess de Proloan was dead.
Speaker 1: The Duchess's bedroom had been designed as a copy of
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette's chamber from Versailles, with a four poster bed
Speaker 1: on an elevated platform and furnishings in luxurious embroidered silk.
Speaker 1: But now the entire room was splashed with blood. A
Speaker 1: giant stain of blood spread across the bed, The chair
Speaker 1: was flipped over, blood trailed all over the room, like
Speaker 1: the duchess had been chased or tried to chase her attacker.
Speaker 1: But whatever had happened, the two servants could see the
Speaker 1: end result. The duchess was lying on the floor, her
Speaker 1: head resting on a couch. She had been stabbed over
Speaker 1: thirty times. Her skull had been bashed in, and her
Speaker 1: throat was slashed. Within moments, other servants of the household
Speaker 1: filed into the room and gasped. But strange july enough,
Speaker 1: it was another few minutes after that before the Duke
Speaker 1: himself appeared, even though his bedroom shared in the anti
Speaker 1: chamber with his wife's room. Hadn't he heard anything? Why
Speaker 1: hadn't he sent out the alarm? The doorway from the
Speaker 1: Duchess's room to the anti chamber was unlocked. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: the duke cried when he finally did come into the room.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, in heaven, some monster has murdered. Fanny
Speaker 1: get a doctor. The valet tried to comfort his master.
Speaker 1: It had probably been burglars after Fanny's famously valuable jewels.
Speaker 1: The duchess had a set of diamonds that had been
Speaker 1: gifted to her mother by Napoleon and Josephine themselves. Later, however,
Speaker 1: the police would discover that nothing was taken. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a robbery. Alas, alas, my poor Fanny, the duke shouted
Speaker 1: after his valet politely slipped away to get help. Would
Speaker 1: monster has done the thing? The Duke threw himself onto
Speaker 1: the blood stained bed, alas my motherless children. When the
Speaker 1: policeman arrived, he examined the scene carefully. The room was
Speaker 1: covered in blood, and it was also covered in strands
Speaker 1: of the Duchess's hair that seemed to have been ripped
Speaker 1: out of her head. The Duchess's fingernails were bloody, like
Speaker 1: there had been a struggle. The bell she could have
Speaker 1: used next to her bed to alert her servants had
Speaker 1: had its rope cut from underneath the divan. The policeman
Speaker 1: found a gun, but upon examining it, he found that
Speaker 1: it hadn't been fired. Instead, the gun was covered in
Speaker 1: blood and in Fanny's hair it looked as though it
Speaker 1: had been used to bashen her head. Sir, do you
Speaker 1: know who this weapon belongs to, the policeman asked the Duke.
Speaker 1: I do. The Duke replied, it's mine. The duke explained
Speaker 1: to the policeman that he actually had heard this struggle
Speaker 1: in his wife's chamber earlier in the morning, before even
Speaker 1: the servants came in, and he the duke had brought
Speaker 1: the gun to try to fight off his wife's attacker,
Speaker 1: but by the time he came in, the attacker was
Speaker 1: already gone, and when he went to hug his wife's
Speaker 1: dead body, he became covered in blood. So he had
Speaker 1: returned back to his room to change out of his
Speaker 1: bloody clothes so that he wouldn't frighten the children. That's
Speaker 1: when he came back into the room to find the
Speaker 1: servants there. The police didn't exactly buy it. The police
Speaker 1: searched charles room and found the bloody handle of a dagger,
Speaker 1: although the blade would never be found. They also found
Speaker 1: a bloodstained bathrobe that someone had tried to wash with soap,
Speaker 1: a leather sheets, and an assortment of other items that
Speaker 1: would be unidentifiable. Because someone had thrown them into the
Speaker 1: fire and tried to burn them. The Duke's sink was
Speaker 1: splattered with blood. The policeman politely asked if the Duke
Speaker 1: might undergo a physical examination. The Duke coughed and protested
Speaker 1: he was a peer of the realm, but eventually he agreed,
Speaker 1: and the police found him covered in scratches and bite marks.
Speaker 1: The Duke was also limping, and when the policeman asked
Speaker 1: what had happened to his leg, that's when the Duke exploded.
Speaker 1: I have no further explanations to make to you, he said.
Speaker 1: I am a peer of France and I do not
Speaker 1: need to account for myself to police officers. Arresting a
Speaker 1: duke would be incredibly controversial and politically dangerous for the policeman,
Speaker 1: but he had no choice. He sent all of the
Speaker 1: evidence he had to King Louis Philippe, who had to
Speaker 1: sign off personally on the orders for the Duke to arrest,
Speaker 1: which the King did reluctantly. The press and wealthy establishment
Speaker 1: power slandered the policeman, but his report was so meticulous
Speaker 1: that it was difficult to challenge him, especially once they
Speaker 1: all found Fanny's diaries which detailed her husband's violent temper
Speaker 1: and frequent threats. A trial, though, would be a scandal.
Speaker 1: The Duke was a member of the King's court. A
Speaker 1: trial would reflect terribly, not only on the King himself
Speaker 1: but on all of French nobility. But with all of
Speaker 1: this evidence, there would be no way of avoiding trial.
Speaker 1: But with all of this evidence that the police had
Speaker 1: seemed like there would be no way to avoid a trial,
Speaker 1: or was there. Charles the Duc de Preulant was put
Speaker 1: under house arrest and then transferred to the prison at
Speaker 1: Luxembourg Palace, where they scrambled to put together a jury
Speaker 1: of peers of the realm who could try such a
Speaker 1: high ranking nobleman. Basically, the only people they could get
Speaker 1: were childhood friends of the Duke. He had to be
Speaker 1: tried in the Court of Peers, which was a court
Speaker 1: exclusively for noblemen and pretty much known for its lenient
Speaker 1: sentencing when it had to convict. But before the trial
Speaker 1: took place, before any more scandal could be made of
Speaker 1: the death of the Duchess de Prelance, the Duke drank
Speaker 1: a vial of arsenic. The common people, when they heard
Speaker 1: about his death were outraged. Had there been no guards
Speaker 1: watching him. How did he get the poison to begin with.
Speaker 1: The common theory at the time was that the nobleman
Speaker 1: imprisoning him had actually given the arsenic to the Duke
Speaker 1: as a way of protecting their image, having him die
Speaker 1: before having to be scandalous. Lee found guilty. There was
Speaker 1: even a rumor that the King had self had sent
Speaker 1: the Duke the poison, along with a note saying that
Speaker 1: he should do the honorable thing. However he got it.
Speaker 1: After Charles drank the poison, he smashed the bottle and
Speaker 1: swallowed the shards of broken glass to leave no evidence.
Speaker 1: He died six days later in excruciating agony. For those
Speaker 1: six days, the Duke was repeatedly questioned interrogated, but he
Speaker 1: continued to maintain his innocence. You know the awful crime
Speaker 1: of which you are accused, the Lord Chancellor of the
Speaker 1: Kingdom said at Charles's bedside. You know all of the
Speaker 1: circumstances which have led to this accusation, and beg of you.
Speaker 1: I implore of you, Duke, do not tell a lie.
Speaker 1: Charles replied, I have not the strength to say anything.
Speaker 1: It would take a long time for me to tell
Speaker 1: you the truth. And nothing but the truth. What strength?
Speaker 1: Said the Lord Chancellor, clearly frustrated. We want a yes
Speaker 1: or no. It requires great strength of mind to be
Speaker 1: able to say yes or no to certain questions, and
Speaker 1: it is a strength which I do not now possess,
Speaker 1: the Duke said. The interrogation continued that way, with the
Speaker 1: Duke never confessing for the murder of his wife. The
Speaker 1: closest the Duke came to remorse was when the Duke said, quote,
Speaker 1: I wished to say how much I regret I cannot
Speaker 1: see my children before I die. I implore my family
Speaker 1: to be kind to them. Henriette de Lucy, the prey
Speaker 1: Law's former governess, was also imprisoned. She was arrested and
Speaker 1: kept for three months while she was interrogated, but there
Speaker 1: was no evidence that she had anything to do with
Speaker 1: the murder of the Duchess, and so the charges against
Speaker 1: her were dismissed. No trial continued against the Duke posthumously.
Speaker 1: Though his suicide had been an attempt to save face
Speaker 1: for the peers of the realm, public opinion rose up
Speaker 1: in a fury against the nobles. Here was a man
Speaker 1: who faced no justice, they believed, because he was rich
Speaker 1: and powerful nobles would rather have a murderer commit suicide
Speaker 1: rather than force them to have to condemn othellow elite.
Speaker 1: And that's if the Duke did kill himself. There were
Speaker 1: also rumors that the Duke managed to get away, that
Speaker 1: with the help of his powerful friends, he was able
Speaker 1: to fake his own death and escape to Nicaragua. One
Speaker 1: historian in Nicaragua alleged that Charles made his way across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic and lived out the rest of his life
Speaker 1: in Matagalpa, marrying another woman, fathering five children, growing out
Speaker 1: a beard to disguise his appearance, and keeping away from
Speaker 1: any French frigates containing people that might recognize him. The
Speaker 1: escape is actually a real possibility. There is even a
Speaker 1: paper trail, but a little more likely if a lot
Speaker 1: less exciting a servant probably stole some of the Duke's
Speaker 1: clothing and money and papers so that he could start
Speaker 1: a new life in Central America. As for Henriette, she
Speaker 1: escaped the scandal by moving to New York, where she
Speaker 1: became the principal of a girls school and married a
Speaker 1: prominent minister. When Henriette died, she was old and beloved
Speaker 1: by the literary community. Two of her casket bearers were
Speaker 1: the poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant and Peter Cooper
Speaker 1: of Cooper Union. The day of her funeral was marked
Speaker 1: by the famous diarist George Templeton Strong, who wrote, quote
Speaker 1: died Mrs Henry Field. I knew her at one time
Speaker 1: quite well, and she was universally like being uncommonly clever
Speaker 1: and cultivated. Her plainness made it incredible that the Duke
Speaker 1: d'aprell law should have been in love with her. A
Speaker 1: more glowing legacy, or at least a more romantic one,
Speaker 1: would come later. Henriette's grand niece became a writer named
Speaker 1: Rachel Field, and she wrote a novel based on her
Speaker 1: great aunt's life called All This and Heaven Too. It's
Speaker 1: a romantic story about a governess falling in love with
Speaker 1: a duke in a miserable marriage, who then must kill
Speaker 1: himself in order to protect his true love from the
Speaker 1: other nobles blaming her for the duchess's murder. It was
Speaker 1: made into a film starring Betty Davis and Charles Boyer.
Speaker 1: It really is all about perspective. When he tried to
Speaker 1: decide who the heroes are in any given story, that's
Speaker 1: the story of the murder of the Duchess de Prelan,
Speaker 1: but stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the skeletons lurking in the
Speaker 1: Duke's closet. It was months later that the children of
Speaker 1: the Duke and Duchess de Prela were clearing out their
Speaker 1: father's rooms at their parents home when they found a
Speaker 1: hidden trunk. It was stuck underneath a few shirts at
Speaker 1: the back of their father's closet. Inside the trunk was
Speaker 1: a bright red costume that they had never seen before.
Speaker 1: In red brocade, the type of costume that someone would
Speaker 1: wear two a masked ball. It was a Mephistopheles costume,
Speaker 1: a costume to look like the devil. If rumors are
Speaker 1: to be leaved, The Duke had put the costume on
Speaker 1: to sneak into his wife's room at night in the
Speaker 1: hopes of frightening her into insanity. In the century, an
Speaker 1: insane wife would have been easy enough to dispose of
Speaker 1: without having to resort to murder. Noble Blood is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Monkey. The show was written and hosted by Dani
Speaker 1: Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at
Speaker 1: Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the
Speaker 1: show over at Noble blood tails dot com. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.