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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello and Happy Friday. Am Holly

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Speaker 1: Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Listen. I'm sorry about

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Speaker 1: all the murder. Um. I'm drawn to very dark stuff

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Speaker 1: right now. I'm fine. Just in case anyone's worried about

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Speaker 1: my mental state, I just I don't know's It's been

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Speaker 1: interesting this one. This story has always been interesting to

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Speaker 1: me because I will tell you the way I came

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Speaker 1: across it, which is very strange, Okay, and then um,

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Speaker 1: and then I'll talk about some of the other things

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Speaker 1: about it that came up as I have read about

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Speaker 1: it over the years that I really wanted to touch on.

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Speaker 1: They didn't all make it into the episode. But the

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Speaker 1: way I learned about this is because there's an interesting

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Speaker 1: bit of trivia, and I don't remember where I read it.

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Speaker 1: During the trial, there was a handwriting expert that was

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Speaker 1: called in for the case by the court. I do

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Speaker 1: not know that handwriting expert's name, but I know that

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Speaker 1: she was yours Saul's granddaughter, which I saw in some

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Speaker 1: like history trivia thing, which is how I learned about

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Speaker 1: this um that would have been her granddaughter through her

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Speaker 1: son Maurice, because her daughter, though she had two children

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Speaker 1: of her own, they did not survive childhood, I don't believe,

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Speaker 1: So that was just an interesting way to intro it.

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Speaker 1: There were a few other things I wanted to talk about.

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Speaker 1: One is actually the executioner Jus, because this is one

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Speaker 1: of those weird things. There is a write up his

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Speaker 1: obituary when he died, which I believe was ninety one.

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Speaker 1: The one that appeared in American in papers in the

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Speaker 1: US and English language papers abroad, paints an interesting picture

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Speaker 1: that um I had certainly not considered before I started

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Speaker 1: researching this, which is that he was publicly known as

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Speaker 1: the executioner of Paris, and that inherently came with stigma

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Speaker 1: and it was literally like something that had been in

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Speaker 1: his family for a long time. And then, uh, and

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Speaker 1: we'll get into this in a moment. You know, this

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Speaker 1: was right before World War two, of course, and then

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Speaker 1: there were some very objectionable instances where he was called

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Speaker 1: to have to do his job that he did not love.

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Speaker 1: And he is described by the few people that were

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Speaker 1: good friends with him as really struggling with this and

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Speaker 1: knowing that people whispered about him like he was a

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Speaker 1: monster when he thought he you know again, this was

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Speaker 1: kind of a family job that he inherited, UM, and

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Speaker 1: he eventually had problems later in life with misuse of alcohol.

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Speaker 1: But what's really interesting is that even though people tended

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Speaker 1: to scorn him and want to keep away from him,

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Speaker 1: after he died, he was lauded by a lot of

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Speaker 1: those same people. It's like, you know, this really amazing,

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Speaker 1: great man, and isn't it incredible that he did this

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Speaker 1: very difficult and sometimes horrible job with a great deal

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Speaker 1: of dignity. And it's like this weird dissonance that people

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Speaker 1: can't manage to find kindness in their hearts for a

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Speaker 1: person who is alive, but have a very comfortable time

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Speaker 1: eulogizing him in very kind ways. And it just was

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Speaker 1: one of those things that, um makes you think about

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Speaker 1: the way people behave and I even, you know, question

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Speaker 1: my own behavior and I'm like, am I doing that

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Speaker 1: thing where I take the easy path? Because that's but UM,

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Speaker 1: I don't know any executioners that part of it. But

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Speaker 1: the same kind of thing will come up in life periodically. UM.

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Speaker 1: It was just an interesting story. And he, you know,

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Speaker 1: is a person who bore a lot of moral burden

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Speaker 1: for an entire country essentially, and doesn't get talked about

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Speaker 1: very often, so I wanted to make sure we at

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Speaker 1: least mentioned him. I just mentioned that this was happening

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Speaker 1: right before World War Two, which we mentioned in the podcast,

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Speaker 1: But I think that helps give a little bit of

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Speaker 1: uh an informative lens on why this was a case

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Speaker 1: that was globally fixated on. It was like, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like we talked about poverty voyeurism when we were

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Speaker 1: talking about the Stork Derby and Millar's will, and it's

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Speaker 1: kind of the same. I think this is a horrible,

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Speaker 1: terrible thing at a time when the whole globe is

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Speaker 1: recognizing that it is on the precipice of horrible terrible things.

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Speaker 1: But this is is tiny and something that people could

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Speaker 1: process and be like, no, but it was terrible. But

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Speaker 1: he is caught, and he is in prison, and they're

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Speaker 1: putting more guards on it in case he gets out,

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Speaker 1: And so I think it just became a way to

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Speaker 1: focus stress and that unrest and make it about this

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Speaker 1: thing instead of having to constantly be under the strain

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Speaker 1: and cloud of the impending global conflict. And then the

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Speaker 1: last thing I want to talk about is the press

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Speaker 1: because as voyeurism, Um, you know, we mentioned that the

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Speaker 1: French government was very angry that all of these things

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Speaker 1: had been photographed and and taken out and what was

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Speaker 1: really interesting and I didn't ever find any commentary on it,

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Speaker 1: but like, there is a Life magazine article that I

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Speaker 1: found from the nineties that is full of the most

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Speaker 1: graphic images of like the bodies being exhumed of and

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Speaker 1: I don't know how they got all of the police

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Speaker 1: photographs of when they were examining his house, and like

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Speaker 1: just photo after photo after photos. It's like a basically

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Speaker 1: a picture book of the whole thing as it played out,

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Speaker 1: which is very horrifying. In addition to all of this,

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Speaker 1: you could, if you wanted to right now, go look

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Speaker 1: at a video of this guillotine name, because someone filmed

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Speaker 1: it and it is all over online, um, which is

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Speaker 1: very weird to me and troubling. Um especially I didn't know.

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Speaker 1: I knew about the video because it had come up

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Speaker 1: when we did the Christopher Lee episode, which, as I

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Speaker 1: had mentioned before, he was also at this guillotining. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he was a teenager at the time. I think he

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Speaker 1: was seventeen, and so I had known the video existed

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Speaker 1: because of when I was doing that research, and in

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Speaker 1: one of the articles I had read, it was there

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Speaker 1: was like an in bed. And I have not watched

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Speaker 1: this video. I don't feel like I need to, um,

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Speaker 1: but I had not read that statement from the French

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Speaker 1: cabinet about being upset that there was so much coverage

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Speaker 1: and candid photographs. And I'm like, I can't imagine what

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Speaker 1: happened when they discovered that someone had filmed it and

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Speaker 1: then scared that film around. I have no idea how

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Speaker 1: anybody officially in any government feels about it now, but

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Speaker 1: it's sure is easy to find if you have a

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Speaker 1: taste for such things. It's very weird. Yeah I did that.

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Speaker 1: So I have some go to places that I look

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Speaker 1: for imagery to go on our social media or whatever. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And interestingly none of them had photos of this particular

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Speaker 1: Like I would not have chosen of gruesome beheading picture,

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Speaker 1: but it had there been a crowd, like a shot

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Speaker 1: of the crowd or the guillotine being set up or

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Speaker 1: something like that like that I probably would have been

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Speaker 1: comfortable with. But just like the places that I normally

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Speaker 1: go to to look for pictures. None of them seemed

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Speaker 1: to have anything, and I was like, that's weird, and

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Speaker 1: I guess it's just that the pictures have not made

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Speaker 1: it to any of those particular sources. Yeah, there are.

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Speaker 1: It's it becomes really interesting. There are lots of photographs

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Speaker 1: of for example, and you know, photographs of her later

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Speaker 1: in her career, but all of them that I saw

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Speaker 1: that I stumbled across mentioned where it's like in the caption,

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Speaker 1: it's like, here's Renee d in her office in nineteen

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Speaker 1: so thirty years later, and they're like, she was one

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Speaker 1: of the defense attorneys in the vin case, and it's like,

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Speaker 1: thirty years later, that is still the thing she is

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Speaker 1: most well known for, which is kind of fascinating. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like invite man, it's so strange that he was in

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Speaker 1: it for the money and so sloppy about money, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like there wasn't ever any sense

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Speaker 1: that he planned like, oh okay, if we rob this

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Speaker 1: wealthy person will be set for. It's more like you've

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Speaker 1: got like, in some cases, just chump change. In some

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Speaker 1: of them, they weren't carrying much cash and so it's

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Speaker 1: super weird. There's a disconnect there, which I think is

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Speaker 1: also part of why he became such a as we

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Speaker 1: called him a mythic boogeyman to people, right, Like, there's

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Speaker 1: an aspect of it that none of it makes even

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Speaker 1: though he was very very smart, really articulate when he

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Speaker 1: talked about, you know, the things he was willing to

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Speaker 1: talk about, he could never articulate really what was going on,

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Speaker 1: and then saying, well, we just wanted the money. I'm

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Speaker 1: like sometimes like and if you if the money is

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Speaker 1: what you're after, Like, there are many ways to con

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Speaker 1: money out of people that don't involve murdering a huge

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Speaker 1: assortment of different people, which becomes a big speculation. Right.

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Speaker 1: It's it's pretty widely accepted that gene to Covin was

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Speaker 1: the first murder he committed, and then you'll read very

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Speaker 1: sensationalized versions of like and then he had a taste

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Speaker 1: for it, and it's like, I don't know that that's

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Speaker 1: the case. He didn't ever indicate that, like he had

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Speaker 1: a compulsion or an urge, So it's a little it's

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Speaker 1: still a little strange where he then just started to

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Speaker 1: adopt that as his functioning criminal mode rather than just robberies,

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Speaker 1: which he had done his entire life up to that point. Well,

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Speaker 1: and because the Internet is the place of like taking

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Speaker 1: the least generous, most reductive read on anything anybody said.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm not advocating robbing people for their money, right,

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Speaker 1: Like somebody's gonna send me an email saying likes to

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Speaker 1: calm people. That's not No, she's saying, you don't have

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Speaker 1: to take the most violent course. Yeah, it's it. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't you know. We were doing it from the for

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Speaker 1: the money just seems like a questionable defense to me,

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Speaker 1: when like there's lots of crimes that people could get

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Speaker 1: money from that aren't murders. Well, and I always have

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Speaker 1: the very this is probably the most vanilla thought on

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Speaker 1: it ever. To me. It seems like so much more

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Speaker 1: work to commit a murder, hide the evidence, worry forever

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Speaker 1: about getting caught than just like doing a job, like

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Speaker 1: a regular job job. I'm gonna have a heist, right,

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Speaker 1: I don't have the energy for that. I'm just gonna

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Speaker 1: have a hist where nobody gets are and an insurance company.

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna have a job. That's fine. I couldn't

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Speaker 1: live with that kind of stress obviously, So again, sorry

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Speaker 1: about all the murder, but it is it's a case

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Speaker 1: that you see sensationalized a lot, and I really didn't

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Speaker 1: want to pick it apart a little bit to really

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Speaker 1: look a little bit more at the nuance and how

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Speaker 1: you know, we didn't even talk about like the French

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Speaker 1: police being like Americans don't understand how we do things,

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Speaker 1: and they're acting like we're imbeciles and we were not

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Speaker 1: bothering and they had the whole like frustration That was

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Speaker 1: interesting to me. And I completely understand the family feeling

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Speaker 1: like they had been kind of ignored and not really

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Speaker 1: um and that Jean's case wasn't taken seriously. Like there

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Speaker 1: are so many psychological profiles within this that all, I mean,

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Speaker 1: every one of these people is a person who you know,

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Speaker 1: comes with the package of hopes and fears and desires

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Speaker 1: and you know, whatever part of the story they're in

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Speaker 1: worth considering. We we lose that when we talk about

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Speaker 1: like the statistics of crimes. I think so anyway, that

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Speaker 1: was my moment to have a soapbox about the way

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Speaker 1: criminal behavior is covered, in the way way things are

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Speaker 1: handled historically when stories are sensationalized. Thank you for hanging

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Speaker 1: out with us and hanging in through all of this gruesomeness. Um,

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Speaker 1: if your weekend is what is ahead and that means

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Speaker 1: time off, I hope that it's really really good and

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Speaker 1: relaxing and that you can put all these unpleasant thoughts

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Speaker 1: behind you. Uh. If you have obligations that make this

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Speaker 1: not really your weekend in terms of time off, I

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Speaker 1: hope that everything that you have to do goes as

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Speaker 1: smoothly as it possibly can, and that you have as

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Speaker 1: good a time doing it as you possibly can, and

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Speaker 1: that everyone is kind to one another. We will be

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Speaker 1: right back here tomorrow with a classic, and then on

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Speaker 1: Monday we will have another episode, which I don't think

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Speaker 1: is going to be as dark. We'll see stuff you

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Speaker 1: missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i

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Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows,