WEBVTT - Adele Hugo: “La Misérable” 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:14.920 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to another 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:18.400 episode of Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the lives and 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.600 motivations of some of the most notorious stalkers throughout history. 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:26.279 I'm Maria Tremarking and I'm Holly Fry and today we 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.960 are talking about Adele Hugo. That's Adele Hugo in the 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.159 americanized version, which is what we're going to be using. Right, 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.880 that's how you'll be hearing me said. Right. So, Adele 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.920 was born in in Paris. She was the fifth and 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.600 the youngest child of the French poet, novelist and dramatist 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:50.040 Victor Hugo and his wife Adele Fouchet. And you'll recognize 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.240 her father's name from those famous novels that he has written. 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:55.680 We all probably had to read one in high school 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.320 if you grew up in a US city. So we're 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.520 talking about things like The Hunchback of No Trade Dome 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.600 and Lemis rob and her family, as you might suspect, 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:10.080 was comfortably affluent. And Adele, her sister Leopoldine, and her 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:15.000 brother's sharrows and Francois Victor, grew up surrounded by music 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.840 and the arts, and her father's famous friends and their 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:23.360 intellectual and literary conversations. She did have another brother, Leopold, 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.160 who was born in eight three. However, he had died 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:31.080 as an infant, and Leopoldine would also die tragically later 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.679 in her life in a boating accident during her honeymoon. 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.280 So by all accounts, though Adele was a bit of 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.520 a sullen child who spent most of her day at 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.319 the piano, she grew up to be an accomplished musician, 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.760 and she was an intelligent and ambitious young woman. She 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:49.840 was known for her beauty and her long dark hair, 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.880 and she sat for portraits by several well known Parisian artists. 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:59.480 In fact, one of them is possibly maybe it's still 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:05.520 being investigated attributed to the Impressionist painter Eduard Money since 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.600 two thousand and four. Apparently someone bought the painting and 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.320 suspected it was her and they're looking into it, which 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.280 is kind of cool. Um. Her life, though, becomes a 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:19.120 tragic story of mental illness and romantic obsession with a 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:24.000 British military officer. So the Hugos, though did not raise 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.360 their family in France. Victor Hugo was not only a writer, 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.560 he was also a statesman and a human rights activist, 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.880 and he was a fierce opponent of the Second Empire 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.640 of Napoleon the Third and he wrote outspoken pamphlets opposing, 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:42.600 among many other things, napoleon the third seizure of power. So, 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.200 in protest to the anti parliamentary and constitution of eighteen 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.160 fifty one, Hugo took his family and left France. Others 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.640 would put this a different way, to say that he 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.840 was actually banished. Most I think that I read in 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.639 my research suggested it was more banishment. It was a 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:04.880 muchel yes, I'm leaving, well, good, you should go. We 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:10.079 don't want you anywhere um. So, first, after they were 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.600 not banished, the family lived in Belgium um and then 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.440 they eventually landed on the island of Jersey, which is 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.760 the largest of the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands are 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.800 an archipelago in the English Channel, which is off the 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.720 coast of Normandy, and the family's relocation to the island 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.760 happened at about the time in Adele's life, when she 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.680 was in her early twenties, so she was very likely 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:38.040 expecting her life to be focused on establishing her position 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.240 in Parisian society. She may have been expecting to marry 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:45.720 soon um, but none of those things really played out. Instead, 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.640 the family stayed among the Channel Islands until eighteen seventy. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.360 But it's on those islands where Adele first met a 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.160 man named Albert Pinson, and a lot of what we 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.440 know about Adele can be found in biography is written 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.000 about her father. So in late eighteen fifty five, the 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.760 family arrived at Hauteville House at Guernsey, that's another island 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.840 in the Channel Islands, again seeking refuge. And it's around 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.640 this time when Adele also started writing a diary, a 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.720 coded diary which I love. I do too. I want 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.320 to know exactly I didn't. I haven't seen it, and 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.080 I got to look it up. This diary was titled 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.760 Journald de Lexile or Diary of the Exile, and she 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.040 was twenty two years old when she started keeping it. 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.039 Adele was a prolific writer, and she recorded pretty much 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.640 everything in her life, from her thoughts about horse racing 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.520 to love affairs. I gotta tell you, reading the horse 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.080 racing entries were really funny, actually, like you wouldn't expect it, 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:48.920 but they were funny. She was a funny lady, I 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.279 believe it. And she kept this diary throughout the time 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.400 that she lived on the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.599 Adele and Albert met on the island of Jersey actually 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.960 in June of eight before and for Adele, who was 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:04.920 in her early twenties at the time, the affair began 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.800 as a summer romance, and she wrote about their meeting 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.400 in her diary. Of course right, and now we know 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.080 um and we quote her because these diaries are public. 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:16.800 He saw me for the first time on a bench 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.480 on the terrace in Jersey. She said, I was sitting 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.360 down reading. I was absorbed in my book and I 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:24.440 didn't see him, but he saw me, and from that 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.640 day he loved me so. Albert, who went by Bertie Pinson, 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.320 was a lieutenant in the British Army. He was an 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:36.760 aristocratic man and he was considerably older than Adele. He 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.040 and we actually have a quote describing him, was of 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:45.240 average height, rather handsome, and decidedly stylish in appearance. He 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.520 wore long mustaches and took great pains to appear in 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.719 most an exquisite mode. So he was fancy. He was 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.560 fancy every time I hear the description of him and 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.599 his long mustache desire. That's the part that gets new, 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:04.360 right uh. Pinson was also, though described as ill tempered 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.520 and ill mannered and untrustworthy. So he might have looked fancy, 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.880 but he wasn't apparently very delightful, and he also had 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.479 a bad reputation of being both a womanizer and a gambler. 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:22.080 Yet Pinson and Adele became close, and he also became 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.479 close to the Hugo family, reportedly visiting for dinner several 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:30.560 times a week. Pinson proposed to Adele, which was probably 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:35.520 the biggest surprise in research that I found. Um he 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.840 did actually propose to her, and she refused him, but 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:43.800 she would later on regret that refusal. She would sincerely 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.800 believe in months after this that she had taken the 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.360 alternate path and that she was married to the lieutenant. 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:56.960 By September, Pinson left Jersey for England, and upon leaving Adele, 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:01.200 Pinson promised her, we quote, with every token of sincerity 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:04.120 and honor, that she should join him in England, and 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.400 in fact she did at least a few times, and 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.720 he also continued to visit with the Hugo family and 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:16.200 this cordial, seemingly mutual adoration or affection went on from 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.360 about eighteen fifty four to eighteen sixty one. So that's 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:23.840 a significant relationship, exactly. Those are that many years. So 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:30.280 because her father was in political exile slash banished, slash 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:35.200 moved away. The family did move again in eighteen fifty five, 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.080 and this time they went from one island to another. 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.880 They went from Jersey to Guernsey and they stayed there 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:45.240 until eighteen seventy. So at this point Adele's feelings for 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:49.920 prison were, as we said, reciprocated, but circumstances would change. 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.440 And we're going to take a quick break here, but 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.840 when we returned, we will start talking about how Adele 0:07:56.160 --> 0:08:09.840 was likely beginning to succumb to mental illness. Welcome back 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:18.120 to Criminalia. Let's now talk about what happened when Adele 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:24.480 followed Lieutenant Pinson to Nova Scotia. So by eighteen fifty six, 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.240 Adele was falling into a depression that continued to deepen, 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:31.400 and by this time in her life, it is believed 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.960 she was very likely showing signs of a mental illness. 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.360 She seemed to be beginning to lose contact with reality, 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:43.000 and she was exhibiting symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations, 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.560 but her symptoms were mostly overlooked, or at least nothing 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:51.280 was done about them. In a letter to Victor written 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.760 in eighteen fifty six, Adele's mother expressed her increasing concern 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.040 over her daughter's mental state, and we can quote her 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.880 because this letter is also public. She is forced in 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.960 upon herself. She thinks a great deal and her ideas 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.640 often erroneous since nothing flows in from the outside to 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:14.040 modify them, become like burning lava, which is sort of 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.080 a poetic way to describe a depression. I have to say, 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.520 like you are trapped in your own mind. And her 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.000 mother saw that much of it, but couldn't really address it. 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.520 So in eighteen sixty one, several years later, Pinson's regiment, 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.160 which was the sixteenth, move from where it had been 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.320 stationed in Ireland to alder Shop, which is a town 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.320 in southeast England famous for being the home of the 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.360 British Army. So this meant that geographically he was actually 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.880 quite near the Hugo family, and with Pinson so close, 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.600 Adele told a lie about going to see her mother, 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.360 who had gone to Paris for temporary stay, and instead 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.640 Adele went to see Pinson on the Isle of Right, 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.640 and she brought her maid Rosalie with her for this, 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.720 which Holly and I have talked about. There was really 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.679 no particular reason for Rosalie to go with her, except 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.760 perhaps they were her friends. Adele had traveled solo prior 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.880 to this, right, I mean, who among us hasn't been like, 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:13.480 I'm going to go on a road trip and had 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.120 a friend go, can I go? Exactly right. It wasn't 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:17.680 like protection or I don't know how to do this 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:19.480 or anything like that. I think they were just friendly. 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:24.040 In December of that year, Pinson spent Christmas with the 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:28.000 Hugo family at Guernsey, and Adele urged her father to 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.160 let her marry the Lieutenant and victor. Though he was 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.439 agreeable to a marriage between the two, he didn't really 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.240 think that Pinson had made a commitment to his daughter, 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.960 and frankly he was right after her initial rejection of 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.600 the marriage proposal. Pinson never formally courted Adele, and he 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.600 never asked her parents for permission to marry her. Yeah, 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.280 so they had actually kind of been just friends for 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.440 a bit at this point for like a decade now, 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.959 but by the year's end, Pinson's regiment was ordered to 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:04.680 Nova Scotia. Adele's obsession, though, did not dim with his absence, 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.559 and though she had previously turned down his proposal, she 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.360 began insisting that they were going to get married, and 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.720 she even ran away from home to join him in Halifax, 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:19.920 referring to herself as Mrs Pinson. Adele's family, believing that 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.680 there was an arrangement between her and Pinson, actually shipped 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.160 her her clothing in care of a Mr. And Mrs Saunders. Right, 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.440 I mean, why why I think that she's lying? They've 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.839 known each other for such a long time. I can 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:35.679 see why they would. Adele continued to write daily letters 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.679 to Pinson when she wasn't around him. She tried to 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.120 meet with him, but Pinson had lost interest in her 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.640 and he soon started to ignore her and her romantic advances. 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.360 But Adele was undaunted. She began disguising herself as a 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.720 man while pursuing him, which she would do both day 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.440 and night, and though Pinson insisted he did not want 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:58.920 to be with her, Adele continued to follow him around. 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.040 She would peer through his windows and rent rooms in 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:06.000 his vicinity, and she journaled all of her activities and 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:10.319 her feelings in her diary. In eighteen sixty two, when 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.400 all of this was happening, Adele actually refused a different 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.480 marriage proposal from another man who was an Italian poet. 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.480 And we should mention that Pinson was not Adele's first love. 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.280 Remember we talked about how she was considered quite beautiful. 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:27.760 She had this long, dark hair. There were a lot 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.240 of people interested in her, and when she was sixteen, 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.160 she fell madly in love with a man named August Vacquerie, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.400 who was ten years her senior, and that was also 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.960 her brother in law through her sister Leopoldine's marriage, and 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.240 the two actually planned to marry, although the family agreed 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:46.600 to the marriage, but they felt that Adele was too 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.360 young at that time, so while they were waiting for 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.120 her to age up, over the next four years, she 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.079 kind of fell out of love with a goost and 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.920 they did not marry. She also had many many crushes, 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.280 most of whom were men that her parents did not 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:05.800 care for, such as French sculptor and painter Jean Baptiste Pleasangie. 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.560 He has his own story, which is that her parents 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:12.959 were right about him. By the way, he ended up 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:18.080 married to George Song's daughter and eventually caused a huge 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:22.520 rupture between her and her mother. Uh. Just he's a 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:27.160 problematic figure. There we go, that's how to describe him. 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.120 So the Hugoes were correct in thinking this was not 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.760 a good person for their daughter to fixate on. Yes, 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.040 and and you know what I mean. Victor was pretty 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.080 right on with Pinson too, where he's like, I'm not 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.280 so sure that you're committed. So the Hugo seemed to 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:44.600 be aware, at least when their daughter is interested in 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:50.640 and and likes so Adele she received many marriage proposals, 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.880 but here's what's interesting about her is that she refused 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:59.280 them all. It was Pinson or nothing. While in Halifax, Pinson, 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:03.640 unknown to Adele, became engaged to a woman named Agnes Johnson, 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.480 and that engagement was called off because Ms. Johnson's parents 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.840 decided that Pinson was not what they wanted in the family. 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.520 I hear he's no manner, right. He looks fancy, but 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:20.160 he's crabby and unpleasant. Yeah, personality goes a long way. 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:26.800 So a few years later, which puts us in eighteen 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.680 sixty six, now, Pinson moved with his unit from Nova 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:35.720 Scotia to Barbados. Uh, there's a big weather change. Adele, 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:40.040 still obsessed by him, also traveled to Barbados, and once 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.280 she arrived, she moved into a room at a Mrs 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.880 Chatterton's residence and she spent her days exploring the streets 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:52.120 in search of Pinson. So throughout all of this she 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.760 continued to call herself Mrs Pinson, and that includes when 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.560 she went to Barbados. She also started to refuse to eat. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.360 She was taking very poor care of herself, and her 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:07.560 overall physical and mental health continued to decline. There was 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.320 actually a study by the American Journal of Psychiatry that 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.160 found that over a ten year period, people living with 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:19.960 schizophrenia had measurable cognitive declines in memory, verbal learning, and vocabulary. 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.360 And Adele, of course, during this time, was still not diagnosed. 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.080 And what started to happen was she was spending her 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:31.280 nights pacing in her room, just talking to herself. By 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.160 the time she had followed Pinsent to Barbados, Adele had 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.360 spent almost all of her money and regardless, she was 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.600 still following him, and she was still hoping and maybe 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:46.280 we should say, expecting that the two would marry, and 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:50.360 perhaps in some moments, believing they already had. Here is 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.520 the deep tragedy Here. What she did not know was 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:58.360 that shortly after arriving in Barbados, Pinson actually left Barbados. 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.120 He soon traveled to England and out married to a 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:05.720 woman named Katherine Edith Roxburgh. Yes, this is all while 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.240 Adele was still in Barbados roaming the streets looking for 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.120 him or sad girl. So we're gonna take a quick 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.320 break for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back, 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:32.800 let's talk about what obsessive love is. Welcome back to Criminalia. 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:40.040 Let's talk about how undiagnosed mental illness was likely fueling 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:45.320 Adele's stalker behavior. Right, so, but first let's be very clear. 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.680 We're not saying that having a crush on someone means 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.480 that you have a mental illness. But when there's an 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:55.040 obsessive part to it, when it's obsessive love, there are 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.880 some problematic behaviors that mental health professionals um will tell 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.880 you go along with it, and those include making repeated 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:08.280 calls or texts or letters, giving unwanted and intense attention 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.560 towards the object. Of your affection and even making unexpected, 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:17.080 unannounced visits at their work or home. Um, and that's 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:19.960 those are the examples of when we moved into what's 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:24.800 considered stalk or behavior. And there's no list of criteria 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.800 that can solidly distinguish what's real love from what's become 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:33.720 obsessive love. Right if my husband turned around and said 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.760 I'm not into you, I would look super stalkery, wouldn't 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:42.320 we all, I'm very attached to that gent. But we 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:46.960 do know that obsessive love is considered delusional jealousy, and 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:51.919 both real love and obsessive love have some addictive qualities 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.800 to them, and there can be a few things going 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:59.119 on in what differentiates this being something abnormal and not 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.919 healthy versus something that you know is part of just 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:07.199 an intense and deeply held relationship. Yes, I'm defending myself. 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:09.280 I know I'm obsessed with my husband. You just have 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.359 a lot of dopamine when you're around him. It's fine, 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.600 just hitting it off like a rato maze. So much 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:21.080 so I don't mean to laugh about this is his 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.280 mental health issues. So I'm going to talk now about 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.320 a condition called eroto mania, And we have talked about 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.440 this before on this show, but we'll we'll do a 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.120 quick overview because we've talked a lot of things before, 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:38.120 so let's just refresh um. This is a condition when 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:42.439 a person believes that another person loves them, whether or 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.960 not that person does or not. They're convinced. The individual 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.639 often believes that they're being sent messages from their admirer, 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:54.000 and that could be anything from like license plate numbers 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:58.639 to wearing a certain color sweater. It's it's very odd 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.960 and very specific. Arotomania has been considered different things depending 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.919 on which decade you're in. So in Adele's time in 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.359 the early nineteenth century to about the beginning of the 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.480 twentieth century, the mental health condition was believed to be 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:18.560 caused by unrequited love. It wasn't until the early twentieth century, though, 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.000 when it began to be considered a subtype of a 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:25.480 delusional disorder. Yeah, it's an interesting thing that the cause 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.000 and effect there was believed to be someone else not 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.359 loving you back, rather than there being something going on 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.480 with your brain chemistry that was making you perceive the 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:42.399 situation in quickly. So Arotomania has two forms, primary and secondary, 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.760 and the primary form is a condition that exists alone. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:50.399 The onset is sudden and there's no identifiable cause. The 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:55.040 second form is diagnosed along with other mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.760 which Adele likely lived with. And the secondary form often 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:04.919 includes symptoms like persecutory delusions, hallucinations, and grandiose ideas, and 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.840 it has a more gradual onset than the primary form, 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.000 though this can turn into Stoker behavior, and we have 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:17.000 told many of those stories. Now, this description of erotomania, 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.359 at least to us non medical professionals, it doesn't really 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:25.080 feel quite like the right fit for Adell. Right. There 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.840 is also a condition that is known as obsessive love disorder, 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.920 and that's when you become obsessed with one person that 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.960 you think you may be in love with. The distinction 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:39.399 here is that with erotomania, you think they love you. This, however, 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.919 obsessive love disorder was first called fittingly Adele syndrome, and 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.520 it's still not widely recognized as its own mental health condition. 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.760 It's usually tied to other things. And this is an expression, right, um, 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:56.360 But there's another thing. There's Adele's undiagnosed mental illness and 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.760 her symptoms of mental illness. They were likely the fuel 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:03.960 for her fire of irrational and obsessive behavior. And we're 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.520 gonna focus on because aprenia, because that's kind of what 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.879 everyone is assuming was happening with the doll's five. So, 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.600 schizophrenia is a mental illness that can be disabling. It's 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:17.680 generally characterized by a variety of things like thought related 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:21.439 and behavior related symptoms. Um, it could come in the 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:27.400 form of delusions, hallucinations, or just a general unusual way 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:31.360 of thinking. So by the time she was in Barbados, 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.880 it had become really quite obvious to those around Adele 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:40.200 that she was exhibiting some delusional, if not other odd behaviors, 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.600 and though not diagnosed, people who knew her recognized that 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.520 she was clearly unwell. So as we talk about all 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.200 of this, you know, we have to acknowledge it is always, really, 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:55.960 really a tricky proposition to diagnose someone post mortem when 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:57.840 they are not around to be assessed by a mental 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:02.840 health professional. But this, this association with schizophrenia on the 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:05.960 part of Adele, is something that modern biographers and historians 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:10.080 have pieced together multiple times. Like all of the evidence 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.199 indicates something along these lines. Um, there is also a 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:16.399 very good likelihood that she inherited it because it is 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:20.199 known to run in families, and her father's brother Eugene, 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:23.760 is also said to have lived with it. So those 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:29.760 living with this particular mental illness often experience psychosis, which 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.000 happens when you lose your connection with reality. You might 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.840 not know it, but people around you will notice this. 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.960 And delusions are are false beliefs that aren't based in reality, 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:43.800 and most people with schizophrenia will experience these as well. 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:48.280 And delusions could manifest in a few ways. Um you 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:51.960 might think you have special abilities, or you might believe 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:55.399 that you're being harassed by anyone from your neighbor to 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.879 the cia Um. Delusions could also leads you to believe 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:02.840 you have that another person is in love with you, 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:07.760 and those false beliefs often lead to paranoia. So there 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:11.240 are a few different stories of exactly how Adele was 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:14.879 extracted from Barbados and brought home to her family, but 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:18.080 most historians believe that she was actually accompanied back to 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:22.040 Paris by a woman named missus Celine Alvarez Ba in 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:27.399 February of eighty two. Ultimately, in the tragic story of Adele, 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.359 her father committed her to a mental institution when she 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:35.200 was home from Barbados, and she lived there from when 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.240 she was about forty or forty two years old until 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:41.760 her death at eighty five years old. Um and we 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:44.600 have an excerpt in a letter from one of his visits. 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:47.200 It's not too long, I'm gonna quote it. I saw 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:50.560 her again in the mental institution. She recognized me, I 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:54.160 embraced her. I spoke words of tenderness and hope to her. 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:58.119 She was calm and seemed sometimes to be asleep. It 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:00.159 was just one year ago today that I left for 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:03.639 Bordeaux with Charles, who would not return alive. Today I 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:09.520 see Adele again, what sorrow. And Victor Hugo bequeathed his manuscripts, 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:13.480 which include a significant part of Adele's exile diary as 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:17.120 well as her signed scores, to the National Library of France. 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:20.720 It's really easy to forget that she was a prolific 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:25.000 writer and musician, because her symptoms and her travels around 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.800 the world really seemed to cloud that. And I like 0:24:27.960 --> 0:24:31.560 that we have various points that we can look at. 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.240 We can look at her father's manuscripts, which we can 0:24:34.280 --> 0:24:36.520 look at her I suppose it took a little while, 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:39.000 but we could look in her code to diary there. Yeah, 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:40.879 there's a few places to get things from her. And 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:46.600 so interestingly, in looking at Victor Hugo's manuscripts, we know 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:48.840 that this episode was it was a downer. It was 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:53.119 downer for everyone. So to end a bit less somber, 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:57.399 I'm gonna share a little anecote about Victor Hugo that 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:02.719 that turned up during our research. And so Victor knew everyone, 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:05.680 and he was known for having large dinner parties, which 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:07.800 he would have almost every night of the week. There 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:11.120 were at least twenty or thirty people present, and he 0:25:11.280 --> 0:25:14.040 had really one heck of a party trick that he 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:17.560 would pull out and just buris yourselves for a moment. 0:25:17.960 --> 0:25:22.040 He would shove an entire orange in his mouth, and 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:24.080 then he would fill his cheeks with as many lumps 0:25:24.080 --> 0:25:26.439 of sugar as would fit, and he would kind of 0:25:26.440 --> 0:25:28.720 then like churn it all up in there. I can't 0:25:28.720 --> 0:25:30.760 imagine he could have shut very well because of that 0:25:30.800 --> 0:25:34.200