Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand, The Empress’s Oracle

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. For at least a couple
of years, I have had Marie and Adelaide Lenormant on

(00:23):
my list as a potential October topic listener John requested
an episode on her back in twenty nineteen, but I
don't think she made it onto my shortlist right away.
Le Normal was a fortune teller in France in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and for multiple years now, I've
been in this pattern where I pencil her in for

(00:44):
a late October and then some other stuff comes up
and shuffles the schedule around, and then I go, oh, whoops,
October is going to be over, and I put the
topic aside. And that has been kind of a relief
every year because this one has some stumbling blocks in
the research. It is way easier to find information on

(01:05):
Le Norman cardimancy decks, which are named for her, and
if with one exception, everyone I have heard talk about
these decks has talked about them saying it le normand
not Normal, as though it were French way easier to
find information on the decks though, than on her, and
a lot of the information that is out there is contradictory,

(01:28):
or it can't be substantiated, or both. One particular article
about her was printed in multiple publications starting around eighteen
forty five, and that seems to be the source for
a lot of the basic information. One of those publications
was Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, and it included this editor's note quote,

(01:49):
the above article is communicated by an English gentleman residing
in France. We would be understood as not pledging ourselves
for the literal correctness of all its statements, though neither
have we any reason to doubt that it has been
prepared from the best sources of information which may be
available in the case. So that is just it's not

(02:12):
a ringing endorsement of the accuracy of the whole thing,
and that's sort of the foundation that this whole episode
is built on. So anyway, this year I decided let's
go for it, and if it winds up coming out
in November, fine, So here we are. I kind of
love the look. We don't know, but we're printing it anyway.

(02:34):
Marie and Adelil Lenomon was born in Allenson, in the
Normandy region of France, on May twenty seventh, seventeen seventy two.
Her father was a draper named Jean Louis Antoine Lenoment,
and her mother's name was Marie en Guilbert. She was
the oldest of their three children, with a younger sister
and brother, and today you will see the family's last

(02:57):
name as Lenoumont, or, as Tracy said in relation to
the Cardimanci decks, le Normande all one word, but you
will also see it in the historical record as le Normande,
with the love part being its own word. The article
the so. Marie's father died when she was still a child,
and her mother remarried, but then her mother also died,

(03:20):
leaving Marie and her siblings as orphans in the care
of their new stepfather. When he remarried, though, he and
his wife wanted to start a family of their own,
so Marie and her sister were sent to live in
a series of Benedictine convents, and their brother eventually joined
the military. Their stepfather seems to have supported them financially,

(03:41):
but otherwise they didn't really have much of a relationship.
Marie first started predicting the future while living at one
of these convents. The eighteen fifty eight book Remarkable Women
of Different Nations and Ages by JP. Jewett described it
this way. Quote it was in the house of the
Bene Dictines that Mademoiselle commenced her vocation by predicting that

(04:04):
the superior would soon be deprived of her office, for
which ill boding the young lady was subjected to punishment
and underwent a penance, But the event soon justified the prediction.
In other words, the abbess was indeed removed, and Marie
also predicted various details about her successor. From there, Marie

(04:25):
started learning everything she could about divination, prophecy, and fortune telling.
Here's how Frank boot Goodrich described it in his eighteen
fifty seven book on the Court of Napoleon. Quote, she
versed herself thoroughly in the annals of Greek and Roman oracles,
in those of the Gallic druids, of the prophets of Baal,

(04:47):
of the Hebrew philosophers, and of the miracle workers of antiquity.
She studied the interpretation of dreams and the doctrines of
second sight, and at the age of twelve was a
complete adept in the practice of judicial astrology, in the
drawing of horoscopes, and in the combination of catallistic figures.
She examined the mysteries of the white of eggs and

(05:09):
the grounds of coffee, but only to reject them. She
inquired what degree of confidence was to be placed in
the assertions of Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch that Socrates foretold
the principal events of his own life, and in that
of Tacitus that Tiberius and Marcus Aurelius expounded dreams. She
investigated the cures effected in the Middle Ages by amulets

(05:31):
and the relics of saints, and the power of healing
the king's evil, said to have been possessed by the
kings of France since the time of Clovis. Hey, if
you're thinking, what does healing the king's evil mean? Good news,
you can look forward to a Saturday classic that will
explain that. Oh, maybe you've been listening to the show

(05:51):
for a long time and you're now already know I
know that one. So when Marie was about fourteen, she
started to worry that she might never have a life
beyond the convent, and she really did not want to
become a nun. Her stepfather was living in Paris, and
she asked if he could find her a situation there.

(06:13):
He got her a job working at a milliner's shop,
where she learned to sew and decorate hats, and also
how to run a business and keep the accounts. She
also continued her study of divination, developing her own methods
for palm reading and cardimancy. In seventeen eighty nine, just
before Marie turned seventeen, the Estates General convened de Versailles

(06:35):
for the first time since sixteen fourteen. The Estates General
was an assembly for representatives from the three Estates, that is,
the clergy, the nobility and commoners, and King Louis the
sixteenth had summoned them to try to find a solution
to France's financial problems, including an enormous budget deficit. Marie
made her first major prediction in connection to this assembly

(07:00):
and the words of Frank boot Goodrich quote. She foretold
the downfall of that monarchy, which numbered eight centuries of existence,
the dispersion of the clergy and the suppression of the convents.
At Versailles, the three Estates disagreed over how to vote
the Third Estate, or the commoners, was the most numerous,
so voting purely by number almost certainly meant that the

(07:23):
Third Estate would get its way. But if voting took
place by a state, then the clergy and nobility, which
were already more powerful and wealthier than the commoners, could
band together to outvote them. This assembly ended on June seventeenth,
when the Third Estate redefined themselves as the National Assembly
representing the people of France. This was a key moment

(07:45):
at the start of the French Revolution, which of course
did lead to the downfall of the French monarchy. All
of the uncertainty and chaos around the French Revolution meant
that a lot of people from all walks of life
were seeking reassurance and guidance from fortune tellers. In the
words of an anonymously written piece from eighteen forty five,

(08:07):
Leneman quote found the troubles of the times, which unhinged
the minds of all around her and filled them with
alarm and anxiety, very propitious to her views. Even though
fortune telling was in high demand, it was also illegal.
When Marie was twenty, she started working with and studying
under a fortune teller named Louise Gilbert, who she may

(08:30):
have been related to on her mother's side. Both of
these women faced multiple arrests for fortune telling, but they
also had some very powerful clients who were able to
get them released. One of Leonarmand's clients during these troubled
times was Marie tres Louise of Savoy, Princess de Lamballe,
the friend and confidante of Marie Antoinette. According to some accounts,

(08:54):
Leonarman and the princess conspired to free Marie Antoinette from prison,
and this led Leonormo to be arrested and jailed. It's
possible that this is an embellishment, though, and this imprisonment
was just one of the times that she was arrested
for fortune telling. Marie trez was imprisoned in August of
seventeen ninety two and then was murdered not long after

(09:16):
that during the September massacres, in which more than a
thousand people were killed in prisons around Paris. Le Normal
reportedly foretold the Princess's very gruesome death. In seventeen ninety two,
Lenormand also reportedly had a session with revolutionary figures Jean
Paut Marrat, Maximilian de Robes, Pierre and Louis de Saint Just.

(09:40):
She foretold Marat's imminent death and said that Robespierre and
Saint Just would die quote at the hands of an
indignant people. They did not take her seriously until Marat
was assassinated on July thirteenth, seventeen ninety three, when Robespierre
and Saint Just returned to Lenormand. After that she reportedly
told them quote, they would be devoured by their own

(10:02):
work and become victims of the bloody drama which they
were themselves enacting. Lenormal's relationship with her most famous client
reportedly started during one of her imprisonments during the Revolution,
and we will get to that after a sponsor break.

(10:27):
While being held at La Force Prison, starting in seventeen
ninety four, Marie and Lenormant received a letter from a
woman who was being held at carm Prison. That was
Marie Joseph Rose Tascher, wife of Alexandre de Bournay. Rose's
husband had been arrested as an enemy of the Revolution,
and then a few weeks later Rose had been imprisoned

(10:48):
as well, largely because of her connections to him and
his associates. She heard about Lenormal's skill of divination from
one of the other prisoners, and she and several of
the others had pulled everything together that they would need
for her to draw up their horoscopes. They convinced guards
to smuggle these notes from Carme to la force. Le.

(11:09):
Normal wrote back to Rose that she was going to
soon suffer the greatest of calamities, but that she would
survive it, and then quote Mary a man destined to
attain the loftiest dignities and astonish the world. Rose was,
of course the future Josephine Bonaparte. Alexandre de Beauharnat was

(11:31):
guillotined on July twenty third, seventeen ninety four. Rose was
released from prison a few days later after Maximilian Robespierre
was beheaded on July twenty seventh, at the end of
the reign of Terror. Louis de Saint just tou l'demand,
had also predicted would be devoured by his own work,
was guillotined the following day. Rose, who was not yet

(11:53):
connected to Napoleon and who did not have Josephine as
part of her name, had gotten her fortune told as
a child in Martinique. According to Lenormand's account of Josephine's life.
This fortune teller named Euphemia had told Rose that she
would marry twice, that her first husband would die and
leave her with two helpless children, and that then her

(12:16):
second husband would quote fill the world with his glory
and subject a great many nations to his power. Euphemia
also said that Rose would become an eminent woman. At
this point, Rose's first husband was dead, as Euphemia had foretold,
and although Rose and her husband had not been at

(12:36):
all happy together, being left a widow with two children
to support could be interpreted as a calamity. So Rose
went to Lena mont Salon on Rue de Tournant to
try to get more information on this great marriage that
each of the fortune tellers had suggested she would have,
and she took a friend with her, both of them
disguised as ladies' maids. Yeah a lot of people reportedly

(12:59):
went to see her in disguise because of the whole
illegality of fortune telling. Lenormal apparently saw through their disguise
as immediately and told Rose that not only would she
marry well, but that one day she would become empress.
A fictionalized version of this scene appears in Alexandra Dumont
Pere's eighteen ninety four novel The First Republic or The

(13:21):
Whites and the Blues. In that novel, when Leonorman tells
her this, in response, Josephine says, Empress, I you are mad,
my dear. Lenomon's popularity and that of other fortune tellers
continued to grow after the end of the Reign of Terror,
through the Thermadorian reaction that followed, and into the establishment

(13:42):
of the French First Republic in seventeen ninety five. Some
of this popularity was connected to the years of violence,
upheaval and change that everyone had been living through. People
were just looking for reassurance and for some kind of
idea of what they might expect to happen next. Yeah,
there's a level of irony here that because France also

(14:04):
saw as self as this pillar of rational enlightenment, people
were really into fortune telling. Well, that's why it was illegal, Yeah,
for a lot of people. Though, in addition to what
Holly just said, there was also just a sense that
France had gone through a revolution and the fall of
the monarchy and then a massive wave of violence and death,

(14:26):
only to wind up with a situation that wasn't actually
that much better than it had been before. So people
looked back to earlier times and bygone traditions with a
sense of nostalgia, and that included the idea that something
might be found in ancient wisdom to restore a social
and political balance. This also meant that fortune tellers and

(14:46):
occultists in France were often, but not always, drawing more
from alternate readings of biblical texts and classical works, so
things that could be seen as already part of French
hist and heritage, rather than from sources that seemed really
new or strange or bizarre. Rose had trouble supporting herself

(15:08):
and her children after she was released from prison, but
she continued to consult lenormand she made ends meet, primarily
by having affairs with wealthy men who were willing to
support her in her family. And then in seventeen ninety
five she met Napoleon Bonaparte, who she married in seventeen
ninety six. It was through him that she became known

(15:29):
as Josephine. That is probably a nickname he gave to her,
maybe based on her name of Marie. Joseph Rose allegedly
Josephine took Napoleon to see Lenarmond after they met, and
Lenormand told him he would gain battles, marry a widow,
conquer kingdom's distribute thrones, astonish the world, and finally die

(15:51):
in exile. Eventually, in eighteen oh four, Napoleon declared himself
emperor and Josephine became Empress of the French. She kept
consulting le Normand extensively both before and after becoming empress.
Talked to her about her own life and her husband's
political and military pursuits, and Lenormand's own account. Josephine described

(16:13):
it as a small folly to believe her predictions, but
a greater one to doubt what she said in Remarkable
Women of Different Nations and Ages after Jpgewett wrote of
this quote, Josephine, as is generally known, was a firm
believer in auguries and prophetic intimations. The early predictions of
her future greatness and its termination has been so frequently

(16:37):
repeated without receiving any contradiction, that it has become a
fact which no one questions, and would easily account for
the firm faith she reposed in the oracles of Mademoiselle Lenormand,
to whom she constantly sent to ask, amidst other questions,
explanations respecting the dreams of Napoleon, and when the latter
projected any new enterprise, the Empress never failed to conce

(17:00):
the reader of futurity as to its results. Jewett went
on to say, quote, the disasters of the Russian campaign,
it is said, were clearly predicted by Mademoiselle Lenorment. And
it was from her also that Josephine received the first
intimations of the divorce, which was in contemplation, which premature revelation,

(17:22):
unfortunately for the Authoress, procured for her an interview with Fouchet.
So Fouchet was Joseph Fouchet, Minister of Police. As a
side note, someone who's been on my list for a while.
And there are a lot of accounts of Lenormal's fore
telling of Napoleon's divorce from Josephine and how it might
have led to problems for Lenorment. In one account, on

(17:45):
May second, eighteen oh one, Lenorman met with Josephine at
Chateau de Madmaison and told her, quote, you cherish projects, Madame,
for the advancement of your husband. Take care. If he
should ever grasp the scepter of the world, he would
abandon you, for he is ambitious. Nevertheless, you are destined
to enact the first part in France, and the day

(18:07):
is not far off. Josephine continued to consult the Norman
for years, and in October of eighteen oh nine, Le
Norman reportedly predicted that something nefarious would happen on December sixteenth.
That is the day the Senate adopted a decree dissolving
the civil marriage of Napoleon and Josephine. That is, something

(18:28):
they had each agreed to the day before. In some accounts,
Napoleon had Le Norman jailed when he heard about this
specific prediction, and that while she was in solitary confinement
she quote occupied her leisure by the evocation of spirits.
But as is the case with many things about Lenormand's life,

(18:49):
the timeline here is a little fuzzy, and there are
some questions about whether her arrest was really connected to
that divorce prediction. It is absolutely true that Napoleon did
not like Josephine's consultations with a fortune teller or normal's
influence on her, but the events of December fifteenth and
sixteenth were not a surprise to Josephine at all. Napoleon

(19:12):
had told her he was going to divorce her at
least two weeks before because she had not borne him
a son. In a book Le Norman published in eighteen fourteen,
she claimed to have first predicted the divorce in eighteen
oh seven, but it's not clear whether that really happened.
Even if it did, rumors about a possible divorce were
already circulating by then, and Josephine wrote a letter in

(19:35):
eighteen oh seven saying that Joaquim Murat, Marshal of France
and Napoleon's brother in law, was trying to get Napoleon
to divorce her. The Norman's connections to Josephine had, of
course bolstered her popularity. She was fortune teller to the
Empress of the French. That connection was gone after the
formal ceremony of divorce that took place on January tenth

(19:58):
of eighteen ten. But it doesn't seem like the end
of Josephine's marriage to Napoleon really affected Luarmant's popularity at all,
possibly because people thought she had successfully predicted all of
that we are going to talk more about Marine adele
Ldermon after we pause for a sponsor break. In eighteen twelve,

(20:28):
two years after Josephine and Napoleon's marriage officially ended, Marie
Ann Lanarmond met with Fortunata Humphreys, wife of Alexander Humphries Alexander,
and then with Alexander himself. Alexander and his father had
gone to France during the Peace of Amia in eighteen
oh two, and then they'd wound up stuck there when

(20:49):
hostilities resumed in eighteen oh three. Based on family lore
from his mother, Alexander believed he should be the next
Earl of Sterling, even though that title had passed on
to other people. When he consulted with Leonormal, she told
him that he would go through a series of trials
and difficulties, but that he would attain distinction and opulence.

(21:14):
Alexander and his wife were ongoing clients of Lenormal for
the next thirty years, and this led to a very
long and convoluted series of events involving forged documents that
purportedly supported Alexander's claims to the Sterling peerage. One of
these was a map of Canada with writing on the back,
some of which was attributed to King Louis the fifteenth.

(21:36):
Leonormal gave this map to Alexander, saying it had been
left by two people who had come in for a
reading the day before. Letters between Leonarment and Humphries Alexander
were used as evidence in a court case focusing on
seventeen forged documents that he was using to try to
make this case that he had this legitimate claim. Ultimately,

(21:59):
a found that the documents had been forged, but not
that Humphries Alexander or Leanormand had created those forgeries or
even new that they were forgeries. Uh. Seriously, this is
so drawn out it could be its own episode. I
don't know if it will, because the book of court
documents about it is five hundred pages long, and I

(22:21):
found it dizzying to try to make sense of It
is not clear whether Lenormal was involved in making these
forgeries or how much her predictions influenced Humphries Alexander's decisions
as he pursued his claim to the title. Napoleon was
forced to abdicate the throne in April of eighteen fourteen,

(22:41):
following his failed invasion of Russia and other Nations formed
the Sixth Coalition to fight against him. He was sent
into exile on the island of Elba. Lenormand, having predicted
the failed invasion and Napoleon's downfall, started getting even more
powerful clients. Includings are Alexander the First of Russia when
he was in Paris. After Napoleon's defeat, she also started

(23:05):
writing and publishing books, some on fortune telling and the occult,
and eventually a two volume the Historical and Secret Memoirs
of the Empress Josephine. Josephine died of pneumonia on May
twenty ninth, eighteen fourteen, before any of Lenarman's work about
her was published, so she was not there to confirm

(23:26):
or deny anything that Leonormal wrote about her, but Josephine's
daughter Artense described this book as absurd. Napoleon's exile on
Elbow was brief, and he returned to Paris in March
of eighteen fifteen. This kicked off a period known as
thee hundred Days, which ended when King Louis the eighteenth

(23:46):
was restored to the throne on July eighth, eighteen fifteen.
The Battle of Waterloo took place during this period and
after Napoleon's defeat and the restoration of the monarchy, he
was exiled to the island of Saint Helena. Baryomira wrote
about this in Napoleon in Exile or a Voice from Santalena,
which includes a passage in which Napoleon tried to dispel

(24:08):
the idea that he was an atheist. According to Omira,
Napoleon said quote man has need of something wonderful, it
is better for him to seek it in religion than
in Mademoiselle Lenormand, in spite of her connection to Josephine,
it seems like Lenormal was always at heart a royalist
and a supporter of the Bourbon monarchs. She claimed to

(24:30):
have discovered prophecies about the Bourbon restoration. One was known
as the Prophecy of Orval, which supposedly dated to the
sixteenth century and was written in the style of Nostradamis.
It was interpreted as foretelling the rise of Napoleon and
a young Bourbon prince being restored to the throne with
the help of a great warrior. However, this whole thing

(24:52):
seems to have been a fabrication. Lenomond continued to see
clients in Paris through the eighteen teens in twenties, and
we have a lot of accounts of what these sessions
were like. Because fortune telling was illegal, her business was
registered as a book shop with a sign out front
that read Mademoiselle Lenormon Lebree. According to at least one

(25:15):
eyewitness account, actual readings happened in a room behind a
secret panel to avoid detection by the police. The entry
room that people saw when entering the building was also
furnished to keep from attracting suspicion. Rees Howell Groenow, who
was a military officer and a member of parliament, who
was also described as a dandie and a writer of reminiscences,

(25:38):
described it as quote plainly but comfortably furnished with books
and newspapers about as one sees them at a dentist's.
But in Frank boot Goodrich's words, the room where actual
readings took place was another matter. Entirely quote. The visitor
to the Dwelling of the Pythons was shown into a
room in which books, prince paintings, stuffed animals, musical and

(26:02):
other instruments, bottles with lizards and snakes and spirits, wax fruits,
artificial flowers and a medley of nameless articles covered the walls,
the table, and the floor, leaving the eye scarcely an
unoccupied spot to rest upon. The Furniture of the Cabinet
of Consultation was in maple. The walls were adorned with

(26:23):
portraits of the Bourbons, with a painting by Grooves of
great value, and with her own portrait by Isabe. Her cards,
which were of large size and covered with colored hieroglyphics,
were painted by Carl Verne. Pythoness if you're wondering is
just an archaic word for fortune teller or sear something similar.

(26:45):
Uh grownut makes this room sound even creepier quote. The
walls of the room were covered with huge bats nailed
by their wings to the ceiling, stuffed owls, catalystic signs, skeletons,
in short, everything that was likely to impress a weak
or superstitious mind. I think this room sounds amazing. I'm like,
how can I recreate this roupe in my home? We

(27:08):
also have various eyewitness accounts of what Lenormand did during
a reading. Groow describes her spreading out several packs of
cards quote with all kinds of strange figures and ciphers
depicted on them. Her first question, uttered in a deep voice,
was whether you would have the grand or petigiu, which
was merely a matter of form. She then inquired your age,

(27:32):
and what was the color and the animal you preferred.
Then came, in an authoritative voice, the word coupe, repeated
at intervals till the requisite number of cards from the
various packs were selected and placed in rows side by side.
No further questions were asked, and no attempt was made
to discover who or what you were, or to watch

(27:54):
upon your countenance the effect of the revelations. She neither
prophesied smooth things to you, nor tried to excite your fears,
but seemed really to believe in her own power. She
informed me that I was a militarire, that I should
be twice married and have several children, and foretold many
other events which have also come to pass, though I

(28:16):
did not at the time believe one word of the
Sybil's prediction. Diarist Francis Lady Shelley gave a similar account.
Quote On a large table under a mirror were heaps
of cards with which she commenced her mysteries. She bade
me cut them in small packets with my left hand.
She then inquired my age, apoupre my day of birth,

(28:37):
the first letter of my name, and the first letter
of the name of the place where I was born.
She asked me what animal color and number I was
most partial to. I answered all these questions without hesitation.
After about a quarter of an hour of this mummery,
during which time she had arranged all the cards in
order upon the table, she made an examination of my head.

(28:58):
Suddenly she began a sort of measured prose, and with
great rapidity and distinct articulation, to describe my character and
past life, in which she was so accurate and so
successful even to minute particulars, that I was spellbound at
the manner in which she had discovered all she knew.
Len Armand's predictions for Lady Shelley started with you will

(29:22):
soon be ill, but it will pass. And she fainted
at the opera that night, and considered that first prediction
to be verified by the time she recorded it in
her diary. Yes, since it was a diary, time had
not passed enough yet for that entry to have anything
else besides the fainting at the opera. Past podcast subject Washington.
Irving traveled around Europe in the late eighteen twenties, and

(29:44):
his journals from this period include anecdotes about Lenormal from
some of his acquaintances. One was Henry Bulwer, British secretary
of the Legation, who found her quote prone to put
questions and draw hints and conclusions from the replies. The
other was Alexandre Florian Joseph Colonna, Count Valeski, who was

(30:05):
the son of Napoleon and Maria Veleska. He said that
he had gone to Le Norman knowing that a woman
he was involved with was planning to get a reading
from her. He paid Leonormal to tell this woman specific
things in that reading, and according to Irving's journals, quote
the lady's fortune, past and future was told in a

(30:28):
manner to astonish her and greatly to the advantage of
mister Velevski. After the July Revolution of eighteen thirty, Louis
Philippe became King of the French and the government of
France was established as a constitutional monarchy. It seems that
after this point Lenormand retired from fortune telling. She bought

(30:48):
land and a house in Alanson, where she had been born,
and when people asked her to read their fortunes. She
said that she only did that in Paris. Lenormal never
married or had children. In one source described her as
never desiring or thinking about it. She also outlived both
of her siblings. She had premonitions about her brother's death

(31:09):
in service to the French army, and was informed that
he had been killed after she had already bought her
mourning clothes. She predicted that she would live to a
very old age. In some sources that was one hundred
and eight and in others one hundred and twenty four.
But she died in Paris on June twenty fifth, eighteen
forty three, at the age of seventy one. She's buried

(31:30):
at Perlichez Cemetery. All of her belongings went to her
one surviving relative, her sister's son, alexandre Ugaut, who was
described as devoutly Catholic. She had become very wealthy, owning
several properties and a very significant art collection, and he
kept all of this, but he burned her occult materials,

(31:51):
including her divination cards. It seems like other people had
already started capitalizing on the Normal's name while she was
still living. For example, a book, published in English in
London in eighteen twenty five, was titled The Oracle of
Human Destiny or the unerring Foreteller of future Events and
Accurate Interpreter of mystical signs and influences through the medium

(32:15):
of common cards. This was attributed to Madame the Normal,
professor of the Celestial Science at Paris. It included a
preface a method for doing card readings and meanings for
a set of fifty two cards. But this preface is
signed Victory in the Normal, which was not a name

(32:36):
that she actually used, and the biographical details from this
preface purportedly written by the author are just totally different
from anything else written about linermal uh I was not
able to figure out other history about this working kit
where it came from, but it's so associated with Lenorman's

(32:56):
name that there are a bunch of digital copies of
it floating around the Internet that like definitively lists her
as the author. After she died, people started printing divination
cards using her name. Laurent Jeu de Mademoiselle lenormand came
out two years after she died. Jeu is the French
word for game. This includes fifty four cards and was

(33:18):
developed by a Madame Breteau, who claimed she had been
Le Norman's student. Another deck, the Petit le Normal, which
again I mostly heard people call the Le normand was
created in Germany in eighteen forty five, that includes thirty
six cards, and this is the one between those two
that's probably the more well known today. Each of the

(33:38):
cards in this deck has a specific set of meanings,
and during a reading, they are combined to create a
sentence or a series of sentences. Practitioners usually describe this
as a more straightforward and direct reading than something like Tero,
which can involve more subjective interpretation of the symbolism of
the cards rather than specific meanings assigned to each of them.

(34:02):
Lenorman was incredibly famous and influential in France during her lifetime,
but her reputation among other figures within France's occult revival
seems to have been mixed. Alfonse Luis Conston, known by
the pseudonym Elephas Levi, was a big figure in France's
nineteenth century accult revival, and he described her this way quote.

(34:24):
Mademoiselle Lenormand, the most celebrated of our modern fortune tellers,
was unacquainted with the science of Taro, or knew it
only by derivation from Ettela, whose explanations are shadows cast
upon a background of light. She knew neither high magic
nor the cabala, but her head was filled with ill
digested air audition, and she was intuitive by instinct, which

(34:46):
deceived her rarely. The works she left behind her are
legitimist tomfoolery, ornamented with classical quotations, but her oracles, inspired
by the presence and magnetism of those who consulted her,
were off an astounding She was a woman in whom
extravagance of imagination and mental rambling were substituted for the

(35:07):
natural affections of her sex. She lived and died a virgin,
like the ancient druidesses of the Isle of Sane. Had
nature endowed her with beauty, she might have played easily,
at a remoter epoch the part of a Melusine or
a Veleda. Or, to put it more simply, another commentator,
who was paraphrased by Frank Bot Goodrich, summed her up

(35:30):
as quote which or no which a certain share of
admiration will always be due to her, for having contrived
to be believed in an age which neither believed in
God in his angels, nor in the Devil and his imps.
Do you have listener mail? I predict listener mal I

(35:51):
do have listener mail. It is from Jerry, and Jerry wrote,
Dear Tracy and Holly, I'm writing to thank you for
Last Falls episode about E. Pauline Johnson, the Mohawk Canadian
writer and performer. My husband's family has Mohawk heritage, descending
from his great grandfather. He was admitted to the Mohawk
Institute Residential School in nineteen oh two, a few decades

(36:13):
after Pauline's brothers. We visited the Six Nations Reserve in
Ontario many times, and my husband and children are enrolled members.
But somehow we hadn't heard of Johnson, so we gobbled
up your episode and visited Chief's Wood when we were
there in July of this year. We were lucky to
receive our own tour of the house from Quenton, staff

(36:34):
of Six Nations Tourism. Just in case he's a listener, Quentin,
you led a great tour. Attached her a few photos
of the interior, Pauline's writing desk in her bedroom, the
travel desks she took on tours, and the front door
facing the Grand River through which Mohawk visitors entered, and yes,
the door facing the road where white visitors entered, looked

(36:55):
just the same. To pause from the email real quick
if you did not hear that episode, this house had
two entrances, and generally Mohawk visitors arrived on the river
by canoe, and usually a white visitors came on the
road via a horse or walking or whatever. So returning
to the email, I'm also enclosing a photo from an

(37:15):
exhibit in the Woodland Cultural Center, a museum on the
grounds of the Mohawk Institute. During renovations of the school building,
several items were found inside a wall, including the school
application form for my husband's great grandfather. This article contains
a photo of the entire case, with other found objects
and details about the survivor led efforts to continue searching

(37:36):
the grounds. Only after we saw this form did we
learn that he had a brother. Your coverage of someone
who we did indeed miss in history class was such
a gift to our family as we try to learn
more about my husband's ancestors and their history. We are
American and live far away from the reserve, so our
opportunities to learn are mostly virtual. I'm also enclosing pet

(37:58):
pictures for tax Jet. So is the yellow one. Her
name is a rough phonetic spelling of the kanya ka
how ward Sicho, meaning fox. Harriet is the gray one
and she's part gremlin. And Doug is the Cocker Spaniel,
our pandemic puppy who was actually a senior and was
rescued from a medical neglect situation. He's the happiest dog
I've ever had. In the moment he meets you, he

(38:19):
loves you. Thanks again for all your work, Jerry, Jerry,
thank you so much for this email. Honestly, this is
one of the best emails that we've gotten in a
long time. I think I love these pictures from chiefs Wood.
It really struck my heart. The application for him and
realizing that your husband's great grandfather had a brother that
you had not known about before, and then of course

(38:41):
the animal pictures. I hope I did an okay job
of saying the word for fox that was not a
word that I found a pronunciation for. But these man
what cues, what cute doggies. I also am so happy
to hear about a cocker Spaniel who is the happiest
dog that you've ever had and loves everyone he meets

(39:04):
because I only grew up with high strung cocker Spaniels
and didn't know they could be any other way. So
thank you, so so so much, Jerry for this email.
If you would like to send us a note about
this or any other podcast, we're at History Podcast at
iHeartRadio dot com, and we're all over social media. Missed
in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook and Pinterest

(39:28):
and X thing or whatever. We still haven't started accounts
on those other ones, and you can subscribe to our
show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you liked
it at your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

(39:49):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.

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