WEBVTT - ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: The Tilly Cult 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.120 One quick note before we start. I have a brand 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.320 new podcast from my Heart Radio called Popcorn Book Club. 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:09.840 I invited four of my smartest and funniest friends to 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.760 join me discussing books that have gotten the Hollywood treatment. 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:15.480 So search for it now on I Heart Radio app 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.040 or wherever you get your podcasts. That's Popcorn Book Club. 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:23.400 Take a listen. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.800 I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:33.760 Listener discretion is advised for this episode of Noble Blood, 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.000 I'll be doing something a little bit different. Usually the 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.760 stories I tell are ones filtered through decades, if not 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.800 hundreds of years. But sometimes I come across the story 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:51.720 so bizarre, so fascinating, so well everything that I ever 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.800 want an episode of Noble Blood to be. That. Even 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:58.720 though we don't quite have the established consensus of history yet, 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:03.320 I can't us talking about it. And that's why today 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:08.080 we're talking about the strange and mysterious happenings that occurred 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:12.920 in southwest France when an aristocratic family fell under the 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:17.800 spell of a con man named Terry Tilly. But here's 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.520 the thing. This story is from two thousand one. This 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:25.600 is still technically with appeals an ongoing court case in France. 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.039 So take everything I say with the caveat that the 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.440 truth isn't yet available to us, or may never be 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:37.160 available to us. So rather than reading a normal episode 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.800 of Noble Blood, which I prefer to write from my 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:45.480 position of relative finality and comfortable hindsight, for this one, 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:49.040 I'll be talking with my wonderful research assistant, Hannah Johnston, 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.960 and together we will try our best to get to 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:59.280 the bottom of this strange, strange story. I'm Danish forts 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:08.280 and this is Noble Blood. So, Hannah, what did you 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:13.280 make of this story? From what what you read? Um? 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.639 What I made of the story, I think is just 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.840 that you know, I have been studying history for a 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:24.760 long time and have seen a lot of really absolutely bonkers, 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.760 you know, stories from history, and this really drove home 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:33.320 that people have always been and will always be, extremely strange. Um, 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.680 and some of them may be evil a little bit. 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.919 And of one thing that I found very compelling about 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.560 the story, which again we will get to in just 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:47.639 a moment, is I think there delusions of grandeur. Obviously, 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.840 being a Protestant noble in France doesn't mean much these days, 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.560 but I think a sense of self importance made them 0:02:55.600 --> 0:03:00.920 incredibly susceptible to falling into a cult a plot that 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.359 I think to anyone else would have sounded ridiculous. Absolutely, 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:06.760 that was something that I was thinking a lot about. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:08.920 I think I wrote in my notes that if someone 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.880 told me that there were forces in the world that 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.560 we're trying to destroy me and my family, I would 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.320 laugh in their face. There's nothing to make me believe 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:19.640 that I'm that important. But yeah, I think that like 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:24.280 the nostalgia of being a noble from a noble family 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.359 and having this big, long history, yeah, opens you up 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.840 to being believing that your actions have some like larger 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:36.960 global impact. So the two main sources that I came 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.280 to when I was trying to get to the bottom 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:45.960 of the story, we're first a Vanity Fair article by 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:50.680 Michael Joseph Gross called Aristocrats and Demons, that's very fascinating 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.520 and I think does a really good, in depth job 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.200 of getting to the bottom of the story. And a 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.240 memoir by one of the family members involved. But uh, 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.400 I just before we start, I just wanted to begin 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:06.200 with the caveat that we're not consulting a wide variety 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.600 of sources because I just I don't think they're available. No, 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:12.560 and whatever else beyond I think there are a couple 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.320 of Guardian articles too, is all in French, which I 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.640 do not read yet. Um, I have big dreams of 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:23.400 learning it. I started this quarantine with some Rosetta stone 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.280 that is still very much in early days. Yeah, my 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.839 dual lingo owl is very mad at me. Um. But yeah, 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:34.479 there is also another memoir I found. Um, I'm going 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.800 to really butcher her name. The Yeah, the aunt or 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:43.240 the sister Um wrote a memoir with her husband that 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.760 has yet to be translated. So there is more out 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.640 there that if if anyone reads French, I can't pronounce 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.400 the name, but it looks interesting. Well, I think that 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.240 is a great segue to who this family is. I 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.200 think we should give everyone a family trait of the oh, 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:02.440 my God and my French. I'm so sorry if my 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:08.160 pronunciation David family. I believe that I was saying vedrem 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:13.920 vejory that that seems if we say Davidori, is that 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:19.360 that sounds horrible. Apologies to anyone French. Yes, my deepest apology. 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:23.320 The Daviddori family, which uh is a as I mentioned, 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.920 Protestant nobles in the southwest France, which basically means they 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.840 have some established wealth, they live in a lovely chateau 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.320 or they lived in a lovely chateau with like a 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:38.159 turret and three stories. But the family are the major 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:42.320 players in this family again, Hannah, please correct my pronunciation. 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:48.120 The matriarch gi Met I believe that. Yeah, who's you know, 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.760 an eighty eight year old older woman, and Gimett has 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:56.600 three adult children. Three children. There's Philippe who is in 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:00.320 his sixties, who was a executive at Shell Oil. Her 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:05.560 daughter jes I ran it through a French textas speech, 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.679 and I think it's Guila Gila, thank you so much. 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.080 But that's just from like TTS dot com or something, 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:17.520 so maybe not accurate. So uh, Philippe gui La, who 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.400 was in her mid fifties and ran a secretarial school, 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:24.920 and then Charles Henry, who was fifty three early young, 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:27.360 you know, early fifties at the start of this story 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:32.560 and was an obstetrician. So these are all professional, wealthy, 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.920 established people in the world. Uh. And then the the 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:41.720 side characters will come in our the partners and children 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.400 of these three main siblings, and I think the dynamic 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:50.559 that we meet these siblings in is Charles Henry, who's 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.719 the youngest of the of the three, is the one 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:58.920 who lives at Chateau Martel, the family's estate, because he 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.880 has the income to supported and you know, as an obstetrician. 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:07.120 And Philippe the oldest, does feel like he's sort of 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.640 entitled to it or should be, but he's going through 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.920 a divorce at this moment. I don't really know how 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.320 successful he is at Shell Oil, but he he didn't 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.080 didn't have the income to sustain a massive estate, and 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.360 so it went to to his brother. I think Michael 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.200 Grows refers to him as a he exudes a stork 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.600 like bearing of wounded pride. Yeah, yeah, it seems I 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.360 don't know, as a in a noble family, being the 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:38.840 the oldest son and not getting the you know, the 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:43.160 big castle is probably a big blow, so I get it. Yeah. 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.760 And Geelong, the daughter, is married to a man named 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.280 Jean Marschauan and she runs, as we mentioned that a 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.280 secretarial school in Paris. And she also has a daughter 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.840 named gi Met also named after her grandmother, I assume, 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:05.120 who is twenty four and getting married to a concert pianist, 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.640 which I found was lovely until it all goes wrong. Yeah. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.440 I was so excited for her, I feel like, and 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.240 they had this beautiful wedding with all these you know, 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:19.240 Parisian performers, and then the next page everything went to 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.160 the garbage. That was very sad to read. So I 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.800 think that is probably where we meet. I've been saying 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.000 Terry Tilly, but is it? Is it? I don't think 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.200 that I could make my mouth make the sound. I 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.320 think the last name is like t or something like that, 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.640 but it's just impossible for me. We'll just have to 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:43.320 do the the bastardized American americanized version. But it's this 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:49.120 bespeckled con man, or maybe not just this, this bespeckled 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:56.320 gentleman who begins working at Gee Laws secretary school. He is, 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.360 begins as a night tea man and sort of works 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.960 his way up until he's the second in command, getting 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:07.160 paid the most, and befriending Galan to such a degree 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.080 that her husband is worried that she's having an affair. Yeah, 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.720 I would be worried. I'd be worried too if I 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.160 saw my wife, you know, paying these massive amounts of 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.520 money to some strange man who's sort of a jack 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.679 of all trades. Um. I believe he got the school 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.760 a whole new set of computers and nobody's really sure 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.800 where they came from or you know, where that money 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.800 came from. And then he's taking all these secret meetings 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:39.080 with her, So I absolutely get believing that there's an 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.880 affair going on. And then his behavior sort of starts 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:46.960 getting even weirder. At the school, he has large, imposing 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:52.040 Polish security guards and rott Wiler's patrolling. He sort of 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.440 takes over the school in a way that reminded me 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.079 a little bit of like Project Mayhem in Fight Club, 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.800 where you're like, who's running the ship? This former I 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:06.000 tamn now has Polish security guards and Rottweiler's patrolling the school. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.320 But I think even more threatening is this is where 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:16.440 he starts telling Gila that there's a Freemason conspiracy that's 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:21.080 out to get her family, that the Freemasons are trying 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.280 to get. First, he just says, are trying to get 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.600 property that the secretarial school is on that they you know, 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.480 will stop at nothing to get this property. But then 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:36.720 I think the the suspicions sort of widened too. There's 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:41.920 this massive worldwide conspiracy there are agents of evil everywhere, 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.440 and anyone can be a Freemason. So Gila starts seeing 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:52.880 Freemasons everywhere, and she starts getting incredibly paranoid. Yeah, and 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.920 in the I Think the Vanity Fair article, John is 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.880 mentioned noticing that you know, it's friends, it's family who 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:06.120 are suddenly agents of this freemasonic cult or conspiracy to 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.640 tear the family apart or destroy them somehow. And that's, 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:14.320 you know, in the con Man playbook, I suppose, is 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:18.280 just the the easiest, fastest way I can imagine to 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:23.719 isolate a family really quickly um an exert control paranoia, 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:28.160 and especially if someone is secretly believes all along that 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.800 they are special and that they are meant to hold 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:36.360 some significance in the world order, I can understand why 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.760 someone would be susceptible to that. But Terry Telly doesn't 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.920 end with his relationship with the law. I don't know 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.000 whether the wedding was where he met the rest of 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.080 the family, but I do like that sort of as 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.439 a set piece as the idea where this is sort 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.360 of where he infiltrate the rest of the family. So 0:11:54.440 --> 0:12:00.000 at Gila daughter, he met wedding where she's as we mentioned, 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:05.840 before marrying a he seems lovely a pianist named Sebastian Uh. 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:11.000 Terry begins befriending and flattering the other members of the family, 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.400 and they mentioned that he is an excellent flatterer, Like 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.160 I'll go up to Philippe, who's that shell oil executive, 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.280 and say, like, you should be running shell oil. He 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:24.320 appeals to that sense of grandeur in a way that 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.600 he's interesting to me because looking at pictures of Terry Tilly, 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:34.480 he's not a striking, conventionally attractive or imposing man. He's 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.720 he looks, you know, he's on the smaller side. He 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.640 wears glasses. He looks like a regular like I t guy, 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.720 And I wonder if because he doesn't seem as imposing, 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.600 it's almost more seductive in a way, Like he doesn't 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.640 look like a con man, right, he doesn't look like 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:56.840 a handsome, slick, greasy guy. Yeah. I remember Christine and 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:01.199 her memo're talking about she met him once before meeting 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.920 him officially, Like she met this guy who wasn't introduced 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:07.079 by name, and he looked slimy and greasy and disgusting. 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.600 And she remarks that if if she had known at 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.440 the time that this was Tilly. She would have never 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:20.520 gone near him. And he's never described as particularly handsome 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.640 or dashing or even very charming. He kind of starts 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.520 out very um and he's shaking hands so hard that 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:32.559 he's hurting people, and I, I don't know. Normally these 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:37.440 kinds of guys are very charismatic and often attractive, but 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.400 he does not fit the part perfectly. No, which is 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:46.560 you know, makes it a little chilling. You know, cult 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:48.920 I know is a loaded word, but it does seem, 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:54.480 especially with Gilan, that she becomes brainwashed with with paranoia 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.679 and really falls under Tilly spell to the degree at 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:05.000 which there's this bizarre incident where her husband, Jean Jean Marschand, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:09.120 who had been uh skeptical to say the least about 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:14.560 her paranoia about the Freemasons, she confronts him with a 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.359 wearing a cocktail dress with a fistful of dried flowers 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.880 and a gardening glove. She throws the flowers and gloves 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:27.440 in his face, tells him that he's an agent of evil. 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.360 I believe it was a part of an evil network. Rather, 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:33.720 it tells him that he has half an hour to pack, 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.240 and that she wanted divorce he's physically restrained by then 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:41.800 her two other brothers, Philippe and Charles Henry, and forced 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:47.360 to leave the the house. And then, in an incredibly 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.840 chilling moment, he sees an email from Tilly to his 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.720 now ex wife telling her to do exactly what she 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.640 said she was going to do, like telling her okay, 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.720 road dried flowers and a glove in his face and 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.280 tell him he's part of an evil network. So he 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.840 has infiltrated her to such a degree that he she's 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.680 obeying him in these bizarre instructions to throw her husband 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.720 out of the house, and it's really heartbreaking. John describes 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.720 it as as feeling like her brain had been replaced, 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.360 that Terry Tilly had stolen her brain. Yeah. I really 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:31.080 love the description of him as a brain burglar um, 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:36.760 which is a delightful, if upsetting phrase. Yeah, just wild. 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:39.720 It seems to me that the next few events that 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.960 happened with his family we have he's last stopped paying 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.400 teachers at her secretarial school, and they just kept teaching. Yeah, 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.560 they kept teaching. I guess they're you know, hoped that 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:55.360 it would stop eventually and she would start paying them again. 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.720 I imagine I guess so. But then she shut it down, right, 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.880 she just knows the whole thing shuts the school down, 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:07.120 stops paying electricity and power. Because then, for a brief 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.400 period after her divorce, which I could not make heads 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.680 or tales of, she her brother Philippe, the shell oil One, 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:19.760 and Philip's girlfriend Brigitte all live on the top floor 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:24.280 of this secretarial school with no power electricity. I mean, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.000 the only explanation I could have is that, you know, 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.240 Terry Tilly told them like your house is being watched 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.040 and you know, you need to live off the grid 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.800 for a little bit or something like that, because we 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.040 don't really get an explanation of that brief period now. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.280 And there are a couple of other episodes of various 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:47.800 members of the family being forced to or for some 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.400 reason choose who ever earn a cord live in abandoned buildings. 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:55.520 It seems like, um, the Christine and Charles and Rees's 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.960 son a Maori. Yeah, but the one of the younger 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.760 sons lived in an abandoned office building for several months 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:09.080 and that was that was played as some sort of punishment, 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.920 But glam was never really punished because she was so 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.520 close to Tilly um, she was sort of the central 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:22.480 point of contact between him and Gills. You know, family 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.840 and not friends, just family. Yeah, well, it's about this point. 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.399 I would imagine that basically the entire family now moves 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:37.440 in to the ancestral chateau and everyone becomes isolated from 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:42.359 their friends and the family that is not part of this. 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:47.120 The young bride he met leaves her new pianist husband 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.760 like like right away three months three months after the wedding, 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.760 leaves him, moves back in. Charles Henry, the obstetrician, just 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.159 leaves his practice without warning to his partners or patients. 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.760 Everyone just seems like leaves their jobs, leaves their significant others. 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:07.119 Charles Henry's wife, Christine, who becomes a major player in this, tells, 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.080 you know, cuts off contact with her friends and when 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:11.879 her friends try to reach out to where she's like that, 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.800 it's a family. It's a really important family thing that's 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:19.040 happening right now. So at this point, all of them 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:23.320 sell their external properties, the properties that aren't this house, 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:25.760 so all the places that they had been living and 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:28.480 all the savings and money they had, and they give 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:32.520 all of their money to Tilly. Yeah. So now it's 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:37.600 eleven people I think living at this of the castle. 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:42.200 I guess, yeah, I like this nice, medium sized state. 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:47.199 Three generations from he met the eight year old grandmother. 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.200 I think the youngest is Diane at sixteen, who is 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:55.080 Charles Henry and Christine's daughter. So the children in play. 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:59.440 We already talked about Gelon's daughter, the bride who leaves 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.680 her husband. She has a brother, Francois. But I think 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:07.960 that the main child who becomes a character in this 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:12.119 story for bizarre reasons is Um. And this is the 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.520 problem with aristocratic French families that they all name their 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:19.560 kids the exact same things. Right. Is that how you 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.320 would say it, I would suppose, so, I think so 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.800 that's how I've been pronouncing it in my head. So, Um, 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:30.040 who is Charles Henry the obstetrician, the oldest adult son 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.800 and Christine's oldest son. Yeah, he does a lot of 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.840 crazy stuff that I am very excited to get into. 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.119 So let's talk about this period where the family is 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:45.400 living at the estate together. Sure, yeah, I think I know. Yeah, 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:47.760 there are eleven of them living in the house. I 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.840 know at some point Diane was sent away. Um, she 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.119 went to boarding school, And I think this may have 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.840 been before Chasmrie was kind of back in the picture 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.840 for a while. He was in Bordeaux with I guess 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.760 still with his practice at the time, and then there 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:10.280 were eleven people at the estate at Martel. At some point, 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.320 I think in somewhere between two thousand two and two 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:18.880 thousand three, Tilly ordered everyone to banish clocks and calendars 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.239 from their chateau, which meant they had no reference of 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.119 time or what day it was, um, which is another 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:31.080 tried and true brainwashing tactic of just disorienting the people 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.040 that you're trying to manipulate. Um. So they're all living 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.480 sequestered in this house, no idea what day it is. 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.960 They're in the news for a while as like the 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:46.880 famous recluses of their town, which is I believe pronounced 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:51.119 mont Flancin. That seems right, but yeah, so basically the 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.520 only interest in them up until this point is sort 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:57.000 of tabloid interest where people are like, isn't it weird 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.960 that this you know, wealthy family is just also quest 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.240 stirred in their house and cut off contact with everyone. 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.720 It's sort of like a just a a weird bit 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.200 of news. But the true bizarre nature of the story 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.399 doesn't really unfold until later. I mean, they stopped, so 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:20.439 they stop paying taxes, and so the French government reclaims furniture, 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.359 just comes in and, you know, to start taking furniture repossessed. 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.320 That's the word, thank you, repossesses everything. And so then 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:32.760 you just imagine this, this family of eleven formerly wealthy 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:41.040 people living in creepy, abandoned squalor terrified that Freemasons are 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.879 going to kill them. And Terry Tilly sort of keeps 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.439 his leadership by saying that he's a member of this 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:53.800 organization and in touch with a character that I still 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.720 do not understand. And I think the main reason that 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.480 I'm very confused by this is he says that the 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:04.159 leader of this secretive organization is a man named Jacques Gonzalez. Oh, 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.640 I have no idea what to make of him. Christine 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.679 said talks about him like once in her book, and 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.040 the Vanity Fair article talks about him like once or twice. 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:19.800 He's an enigma, and Guillam will try to appear as 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.320 him later or try to pose as him, and I 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:27.639 think my favorite incident of the story. But so that's 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.600 I think part of the shadowy thing that Tilly does 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:34.080 is he just makes him feel like something much bigger 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:36.720 than them is going on, where he'll take calls from 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:40.359 like this mysterious leader Jacque Gonzalez, who he says is 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:44.240 connected to the Spanish king. So it doesn't seem like 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.399 Tilly is the head of this He's just the the 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:53.120 reliable go between between this family and some legitimate, terrifying organization. 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:56.720 But eventually, then this family moves to Oxford. Do you 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.720 want to take over and talk a bit about what, what, 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:04.280 how ths when this family moves to England. Sure? So 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:08.800 by my count, we're now in around two thousand five. 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:15.719 So at some point between two thousand three and two, um, 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:20.800 Till he moved his family, his his wife Jessica, and 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:23.600 you think he had a few children and someone had 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.720 a child from a previous manner marriage. Um, they moved 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:31.800 to Oxford mostly because till he was facing some legal 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:36.479 problems in France. I don't quite understand the French legal system, 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:39.680 but it looked sort of like embezzlement or something adjacent 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:42.320 to that. And it also seemed to me that Tilly 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:47.240 was getting a little nervous about the French tabloids interest 0:23:47.320 --> 0:23:50.400 in this family. I think that as a as an 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.640 organization or as a con It thrived in secrecy, absolutely, 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:57.520 and I don't think he wanted the you know, as 0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:01.920 a local rich family. They were. They were an object 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:05.760 of interest. And he moves them in various in drips 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:10.000 and drabs, both to his shabby apartment. And when I 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:13.560 say Oxford, we're not like, we're not at the university. 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:17.960 This is like the bleak suburbs of Oxford, the outskirts. 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:21.520 So he moves them in drips and drabs, and they've 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:27.840 always been civilians but become invisible working class people, deeply 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:30.720 embroiled in this cult. I mean, cult is so weird 0:24:30.760 --> 0:24:33.119 because it's one family. But I'm just trying to communicate, 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:37.679 like the the it seems the brainwashing and commitment to 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:40.960 this these beliefs. Yeah, I mean, I think a cult 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:44.639 is a reasonable way of describing it, or maybe a 0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:49.200 sect of some kind. They didn't have like a religious aspect, 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:52.560 which maybe makes it different from other kinds of cults. 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:56.040 But there are so few words to describe what was 0:24:56.119 --> 0:25:00.840 happening to this family. It's an era national set of 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:03.760 beliefs that they are so committed to that they forego 0:25:03.920 --> 0:25:06.120 the rest of their lives yeah, you know what I mean, 0:25:06.160 --> 0:25:08.439 like the outside world that they cut off their friends 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:13.280 and their jobs and they become deeply devoted to Tilly. 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:17.719 So with them living, various family members come over at 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:22.639 at various points, and then they start working at menial jobs. 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:27.000 They had been you know, working class professionals, and they 0:25:27.000 --> 0:25:30.440 all sort of get jobs like sweeping the floor at Nando's, 0:25:30.480 --> 0:25:34.280 at fast food restaurants. Yeah, so by I think it's 0:25:34.320 --> 0:25:37.960 two dozen six. They're Christine and CHELSONI and the rest 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:40.840 of their children other than Guillaume who had been there 0:25:40.880 --> 0:25:44.359 for a while, come and take these jobs. And yeah, um, 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:47.639 Diane I believe, is the one working at Nando's. And 0:25:47.640 --> 0:25:51.959 they're all working these these menial, manual labor type jobs. 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:56.040 They're working insane hours so that they're they're sleeping maybe 0:25:56.040 --> 0:25:58.600 three or four hours a night, and they're giving I 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:02.600 think it's nine of their pay went directly to Tilly 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:06.159 without any you know, any negotiation of any kind. So 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:09.040 they're working, you know, some of them are working more 0:26:09.080 --> 0:26:13.760 than two jobs. I think was he was the only 0:26:13.800 --> 0:26:16.360 one with a college degree in that of the children, 0:26:16.440 --> 0:26:19.200 so he's working I think a little bit more professionally. 0:26:19.280 --> 0:26:23.680 He was working at an archaeological firm of some kind, 0:26:24.640 --> 0:26:27.560 but he was also bartending at night, and he was 0:26:28.040 --> 0:26:32.199