0:02

Hey, and happy holidays. Before

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we get started with this episode, I just

0:06

wanted to give a quick shout out to your miney that

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Noble Blood officially has merch.

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The link to the merch store will be in

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the description of the episode, and I also want

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to give a special shout out. I'm trying something new

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and hopefully exciting, a pamphlet club

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where if you subscribe, I send an

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annotated script from one of my favorite

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Noble Blood episodes with brand new context

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and information along once a month.

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But the thing with this club is if you want to get in,

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you gotta sign up now. Once it

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starts, you can't get in. You can always get up, but you

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can't get back in. That sounds like the Hotel

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California. Again, Happy holidays,

0:40

and thank you so much to all of the support

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for Noble Blood. I hope you all stay

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safe and healthy and keep

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your heads literally and metaphorically.

0:53

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

0:55

of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild

0:57

from Aaron Minky listener discretion

1:00

as advised from

1:04

the outside. Henriette de Luzy

1:06

de port Field had a lovely life.

1:09

She and her husband, the Minister Henry

1:11

Field, were prominent figures

1:13

in the high society of nineteenth

1:16

century New York in Massachusetts,

1:18

Henriette had emigrated from France

1:21

before coming to America and working

1:23

as the principal of a female art school.

1:26

Her husband, Henry, was nine years her

1:28

junior, and by all accounts, they were

1:31

wildly in love. They were

1:33

fixtures at parties and literary

1:35

soirees. Henriette became

1:38

personal friends with Harriet Beecher Stowe.

1:40

The Fields were neighbors with Nathaniel

1:42

Hawthorne. One evening,

1:45

the Fields were attending a party at the

1:47

Century Club in New York when

1:49

Henriette heard someone hissing

1:51

at her from across the room.

1:54

Murderous, the voice said, murderous.

1:57

It was an old man from

2:00

the Continent, Count Garski, squinting

2:03

at Henriette and hissing at her

2:05

through his loose false teeth.

2:08

Murderous. He called, she's a murderous

2:11

It was a small scandal. The

2:14

elderly man was escorted out of

2:16

the club with murmurs of apology to

2:18

Mr. And Mrs Field. The

2:20

party continued, but with a strange

2:23

tension in the air. The polite

2:25

smiles of things not said

2:29

most people in New York didn't know

2:31

the rumors attached to Henriette de Lucy

2:33

deport Field, the woman once

2:36

known in France as Madame Delucy,

2:39

But Count Gorsky did. There

2:41

was a generation of nobles in

2:43

Europe who hadn't forgotten what

2:45

had happened to the beautiful Duchess

2:48

de Proland, the only daughter

2:51

of a noble family. Count

2:53

Gorsky hadn't forgotten the

2:56

gruesome tragedy that befell

2:58

her, and there were pete that

3:00

believed that Henriette de Lucy,

3:03

the woman who once worked as a governess

3:05

to the Duchess's children, got

3:07

away with murder. I'm

3:10

Dani Schwartz, and this is

3:12

noble blood. The

3:19

Duchess was having nightmares.

3:22

She had been having nightmares for months,

3:24

the same one every night that

3:27

the devil, wearing a red brocade

3:29

suit, was appearing to her in

3:31

her bedchamber. By the time

3:34

she woke up, he was gone. She

3:37

told the servants about it and her friends.

3:39

Everyone looked at her with sympathy. You're

3:42

going through a challenging time, they reminded

3:44

her. It's stress and worry.

3:47

Things will get better soon. Recurring

3:50

nightmares aside. Most people envaded

3:53

the Duchess, nown to her friends as Fanny,

3:56

she was the only daughter of a famous

3:58

French general and politician, Horace

4:00

Sebastiani. Fanny's mother

4:03

had died in childbirth, but she was doated

4:05

on by the rest of her family. She

4:07

was their beautiful, shining jewel,

4:09

a bona fide heiress, niece

4:12

of the Duke of Colignier, and destined

4:14

for a prominent place in French social

4:16

circles. When Fanny

4:18

was seventeen in eighteen twenty four,

4:21

she married the dashing Charles Theobald,

4:23

who went on to become a chevalier Donner

4:26

and the Duke of Chasse Prelan and

4:28

then a Peer of France. He

4:30

was from an important family, related

4:33

directly to the reigning king in France,

4:35

Louis Philippe, But even more important

4:38

than that to Fanny was that it was a

4:40

love match. He was only

4:42

two years older than her when they got married,

4:45

and the pair went on to have ten children,

4:47

although not all of them survived childhood.

4:51

Fanny adored her husband.

4:53

She even tolerated them splitting their

4:55

time between her family's beautiful

4:58

home in Paris and his fa his

5:00

dank Ancestral de Praulon Castle,

5:02

a dreary property in Milan. The

5:05

pair had been married for over twenty

5:08

three years, but that's when

5:10

things were changing between

5:12

them. It started with a

5:15

governess. While they were

5:17

staying in Paris, the Duchess hired

5:19

a new governess for her brood

5:21

of children, a pretty young

5:23

woman named Henriette de Lucy. There

5:26

were no complaints about her services

5:28

or her performance as a governess. The

5:30

children absolutely adored her,

5:33

and they had never been better behaved. But

5:36

that was the problem. The children

5:38

adored Henriette de Lucy so

5:40

much that they seemed to prefer

5:42

her to their own mother. And

5:44

then there was the Duchess's husband, Charles,

5:47

the Duc de Pralan. He was

5:49

becoming distant, kissing

5:52

the Duchess on the cheek instead of the

5:54

lips, rarely coming to her bed,

5:57

ignoring her for most of the day.

6:00

The pair lived in the same house like

6:02

ghosts. The Duchess

6:04

would hear him making a joke to Henriette

6:06

from across the house and then listened

6:09

to their laughter. She was nearing

6:11

forty, it was true, and after ten

6:13

children, her body had changed. But

6:16

her husband was pulling away from her.

6:18

Her children were pulling away from

6:20

her. She didn't know what she could

6:22

do about it. This

6:25

is when the nightmares started. Fanny

6:30

insisted that her husband fire

6:32

Henriette Lucy, who by this point

6:35

had been working for their family for six

6:37

years. The Duke played

6:39

dumb. Was there a problem

6:41

with her service? The Duchess

6:44

looked away. The rumors

6:46

had become a standard topic

6:48

of conversation in their social circles.

6:51

Servants averted their eyes from the duchess

6:53

and hallways. Everyone knew

6:55

that the Duke and Henriette were having an affair,

6:57

including the duchess. So

7:00

the Duchess doubled down. She insisted

7:02

that Charles fire the governess. Charles

7:06

gave a miserable little laugh, my

7:08

dear, he said, if she goes, then

7:10

so do I. But the humiliation

7:13

had become too much for the Duchess, and so

7:15

she called her husband's bluff fine.

7:17

She replied, we'll divorce. Scandal

7:20

be damned matches for our daughters

7:22

will suffer, but I don't care. I'll

7:24

take my inheritance and my money. I'll

7:26

take the children. The Duke

7:29

backed down, all right, he said, I'll

7:31

fire her for now. Why don't you

7:33

and the children go stay at the castle and maloon

7:35

and I'll stay in Paris to fire Henriette

7:38

and make the appropriate arrangements. Pleased

7:41

enough, the Duchess agreed and went

7:43

to the country with the children. But

7:46

as you might have suspected, while

7:48

the Duke did dismiss the pretty

7:50

Henriette de Lizzy, he also

7:52

rented her a luxurious apartment,

7:55

and the pair of them spent a full month

7:57

together that summer while the Duchess and

8:00

children were away. But at

8:02

the end of that summer in August,

8:05

the rest of the family returned to Paris

8:07

on their way to spend the fall. Indeed, when

8:11

the Duchess arrived back at their Paris home,

8:13

she called out, but her husband

8:15

wasn't there. Odd even

8:18

otter, she noticed a few things

8:20

wrong in her bed chamber. The

8:23

hinges on her bedroom door were

8:26

missing. No matter, she

8:28

would tell the servant about it in the morning. Her

8:31

husband returned that night before supper,

8:33

and he reminded Fanny that he had fired

8:36

Henriette like she had asked, that everything

8:38

would be all right from then on. That

8:41

night was the last time anyone

8:44

saw the Duchess de Prelant alive. A

8:54

small warning to younger listeners

8:56

here, it's about now that the

8:58

episode gets a little well

9:00

bloody. On

9:03

the morning of August seventeenth,

9:05

eighteen forty seven, around

9:08

five am, strange

9:10

noises woke two of the servants in

9:12

the prelaw house. Emma

9:14

le Clerk was the Duchess's personal

9:16

maid. She had served Fanny

9:18

for over two decades since Fanny

9:21

was sixteen and newly engaged to the Duke,

9:23

bright eyed over her exciting future.

9:27

That morning in August, Emma

9:29

heard a crash and the sound of a

9:31

struggle. There was an echo of

9:33

a screen in the air. She

9:36

and the Duke's valet, who had also woken up,

9:38

raced to Fanny's bedroom, but

9:41

they found that the door was locked from the inside.

9:44

From the other side of the door, they could hear soft

9:46

whimpering. The door to

9:49

the Duchess's bathroom was also locked,

9:51

as was the door into the Duchess's room

9:53

from the garden, but the valet

9:55

broke a pane of glass and forced

9:57

his way in, but by the time

9:59

they got there, the whimpering had stopped.

10:03

Fanny, the Duchess de Proloan was

10:05

dead. The Duchess's

10:08

bedroom had been designed as a copy

10:10

of Marie Antoinette's chamber from Versailles,

10:13

with a four poster bed on an elevated

10:15

platform and furnishings in luxurious

10:18

embroidered silk. But now

10:20

the entire room was splashed

10:23

with blood. A giant

10:25

stain of blood spread across the bed,

10:28

The chair was flipped over, blood

10:30

trailed all over the room, like

10:32

the duchess had been chased or tried to chase

10:34

her attacker. But whatever

10:36

had happened, the two servants

10:38

could see the end result. The

10:41

duchess was lying on the floor, her

10:43

head resting on a couch. She

10:46

had been stabbed over thirty

10:48

times. Her skull had

10:50

been bashed in, and her throat was

10:52

slashed. Within moments,

10:55

other servants of the household filed

10:57

into the room and gasped. But

10:59

strange july enough, it was another few

11:01

minutes after that before the Duke himself

11:04

appeared, even though his bedroom

11:06

shared in the anti chamber with his wife's room.

11:09

Hadn't he heard anything? Why

11:11

hadn't he sent out the alarm? The

11:14

doorway from the Duchess's room

11:16

to the anti chamber was unlocked.

11:19

Oh my god, the duke cried when

11:21

he finally did come into the room. Oh

11:24

my god, in heaven, some monster

11:26

has murdered. Fanny get a doctor.

11:29

The valet tried to comfort his master.

11:32

It had probably been burglars

11:34

after Fanny's famously valuable

11:37

jewels. The duchess had a set

11:39

of diamonds that had been gifted to her

11:41

mother by Napoleon and Josephine

11:43

themselves. Later, however,

11:46

the police would discover that nothing

11:48

was taken. It wasn't a robbery.

11:51

Alas, alas, my poor Fanny,

11:54

the duke shouted after his valet politely

11:56

slipped away to get help. Would

11:58

monster has done the thing? The

12:01

Duke threw himself onto the blood stained

12:03

bed, alas my motherless

12:05

children. When

12:07

the policeman arrived, he examined

12:10

the scene carefully. The room

12:12

was covered in blood, and it was also covered

12:14

in strands of the Duchess's hair that

12:17

seemed to have been ripped out of her head. The

12:20

Duchess's fingernails were bloody, like

12:22

there had been a struggle. The

12:24

bell she could have used next to her

12:26

bed to alert her servants had

12:28

had its rope cut from

12:31

underneath the divan. The policeman found

12:33

a gun, but upon examining

12:36

it, he found that it hadn't been fired.

12:38

Instead, the gun was covered in blood

12:41

and in Fanny's hair it looked

12:43

as though it had been used to bashen her head.

12:47

Sir, do you know who this weapon belongs to,

12:49

the policeman asked the Duke. I

12:52

do. The Duke replied, it's mine.

12:55

The duke explained to the policeman that

12:58

he actually had heard this struggle

13:00

in his wife's chamber earlier in the

13:02

morning, before even the servants came

13:04

in, and he the duke had brought

13:07

the gun to try to fight off his wife's

13:09

attacker, but by the time he

13:11

came in, the attacker was already gone,

13:14

and when he went to hug his wife's

13:16

dead body, he became covered

13:18

in blood. So he had returned

13:20

back to his room to change out

13:23

of his bloody clothes so that he wouldn't

13:25

frighten the children. That's

13:27

when he came back into the room to

13:29

find the servants there. The

13:32

police didn't exactly buy it. The

13:37

police searched charles room and

13:40

found the bloody handle of a dagger,

13:42

although the blade would never be found. They

13:45

also found a bloodstained bathrobe

13:48

that someone had tried to wash with soap,

13:50

a leather sheets, and an

13:53

assortment of other items that would

13:55

be unidentifiable. Because

13:57

someone had thrown them into the fire

13:59

and tried to burn them. The

14:01

Duke's sink was splattered with

14:04

blood. The policeman

14:06

politely asked if the Duke might

14:08

undergo a physical examination.

14:12

The Duke coughed and protested he

14:14

was a peer of the realm,

14:16

but eventually he agreed, and

14:19

the police found him covered in

14:21

scratches and bite marks. The

14:24

Duke was also limping, and

14:26

when the policeman asked what had happened

14:28

to his leg, that's when the Duke exploded.

14:32

I have no further explanations to

14:34

make to you, he said. I am a

14:36

peer of France and I do not need

14:38

to account for myself to police officers.

14:41

Arresting a duke would

14:43

be incredibly controversial and

14:46

politically dangerous for the policeman,

14:49

but he had no choice. He

14:51

sent all of the evidence he had to King

14:54

Louis Philippe, who had to sign

14:56

off personally on the orders

14:58

for the Duke to arrest, which

15:00

the King did reluctantly. The

15:03

press and wealthy establishment

15:05

power slandered the policeman, but

15:08

his report was so meticulous

15:10

that it was difficult to challenge him,

15:12

especially once they all found Fanny's

15:14

diaries which detailed her

15:16

husband's violent temper and

15:19

frequent threats. A trial,

15:21

though, would be a scandal.

15:24

The Duke was a member of the King's

15:27

court. A trial would reflect

15:29

terribly, not only on the King himself

15:32

but on all of French nobility.

15:34

But with all of this evidence, there would

15:36

be no way of avoiding trial. But

15:39

with all of this evidence that the police had

15:42

seemed like there would be no way to avoid

15:45

a trial, or was there.

15:51

Charles the Duc de Preulant was put

15:53

under house arrest and then transferred

15:56

to the prison at Luxembourg Palace,

15:58

where they scrambled to put together a jury

16:00

of peers of the realm who could try such

16:03

a high ranking nobleman. Basically,

16:05

the only people they could get were childhood

16:08

friends of the Duke. He had to be

16:10

tried in the Court of Peers, which

16:12

was a court exclusively for noblemen

16:15

and pretty much known for its

16:17

lenient sentencing when it

16:20

had to convict. But

16:22

before the trial took place, before

16:25

any more scandal could be made of

16:27

the death of the Duchess de Prelance,

16:30

the Duke drank a vial

16:32

of arsenic. The common

16:34

people, when they heard about his death were

16:37

outraged. Had there been no guards

16:39

watching him. How did he get the poison

16:41

to begin with. The common

16:44

theory at the time was that the nobleman

16:46

imprisoning him had actually given

16:48

the arsenic to the Duke as a way

16:51

of protecting their image, having

16:53

him die before having to be scandalous.

16:56

Lee found guilty. There

16:58

was even a rumor that the King had self

17:00

had sent the Duke the poison, along

17:02

with a note saying that he should do

17:05

the honorable thing. However

17:07

he got it. After Charles drank

17:10

the poison, he smashed the bottle

17:13

and swallowed the shards of broken

17:15

glass to leave no evidence.

17:18

He died six days later in

17:20

excruciating agony. For

17:23

those six days, the Duke was repeatedly

17:25

questioned interrogated, but

17:28

he continued to maintain his innocence.

17:31

You know the awful crime of which you are

17:33

accused, the Lord Chancellor of the Kingdom

17:36

said at Charles's bedside. You

17:38

know all of the circumstances which have led

17:40

to this accusation, and beg of

17:42

you. I implore of you, Duke,

17:45

do not tell a lie. Charles

17:48

replied, I have not the strength

17:51

to say anything. It would take a

17:53

long time for me to tell you the truth. And

17:55

nothing but the truth. What strength?

17:58

Said the Lord Chancellor, clearly frustrated.

18:01

We want a yes or no. It

18:04

requires great strength of mind

18:06

to be able to say yes or no to

18:08

certain questions, and it is

18:10

a strength which I do not now possess,

18:13

the Duke said. The interrogation

18:16

continued that way, with the Duke never

18:18

confessing for the murder of his wife.

18:21

The closest the Duke came to remorse

18:24

was when the Duke said, quote, I

18:26

wished to say how much I regret I

18:29

cannot see my children before I die.

18:31

I implore my family to be kind

18:34

to them.

18:41

Henriette de Lucy, the prey Law's

18:43

former governess, was also imprisoned.

18:46

She was arrested and kept for three

18:48

months while she was interrogated, but

18:51

there was no evidence that she had

18:53

anything to do with the murder of the Duchess,

18:56

and so the charges against her were

18:59

dismissed. No trial continued

19:01

against the Duke posthumously. Though

19:04

his suicide had been an attempt to

19:06

save face for the peers of the realm,

19:09

public opinion rose up in a

19:11

fury against the nobles. Here

19:15

was a man who faced no justice,

19:17

they believed, because he was rich and

19:19

powerful nobles

19:22

would rather have a murderer commit suicide

19:25

rather than force them to have to condemn

19:27

othellow elite. And

19:30

that's if the Duke did kill himself.

19:33

There were also rumors that the Duke

19:35

managed to get away, that with

19:37

the help of his powerful friends,

19:39

he was able to fake his own death and

19:42

escape to Nicaragua. One

19:44

historian in Nicaragua alleged that

19:46

Charles made his way across the Atlantic

19:49

and lived out the rest of his life in Matagalpa,

19:52

marrying another woman, fathering five

19:54

children, growing out a beard to disguise

19:57

his appearance, and keeping away from

19:59

any French frigates containing

20:01

people that might recognize him.

20:04

The escape is actually a real possibility.

20:07

There is even a paper trail, but

20:10

a little more likely if a lot

20:12

less exciting a servant

20:14

probably stole some of the Duke's clothing

20:17

and money and papers so that

20:19

he could start a new life

20:21

in Central America. As

20:24

for Henriette, she escaped the

20:26

scandal by moving to New York,

20:29

where she became the principal of a girls school

20:31

and married a prominent minister. When

20:34

Henriette died, she was old and beloved

20:37

by the literary community. Two

20:39

of her casket bearers were the poet

20:41

and journalist William Cullen Bryant and

20:44

Peter Cooper of Cooper Union. The

20:47

day of her funeral was marked by the famous

20:49

diarist George Templeton Strong,

20:52

who wrote, quote died

20:54

Mrs Henry Field. I knew

20:56

her at one time quite well, and she was

20:58

universally like being uncommonly

21:01

clever and cultivated. Her plainness

21:04

made it incredible that the Duke d'aprell

21:07

law should have been in love with her. A

21:11

more glowing legacy, or at

21:13

least a more romantic one, would

21:15

come later. Henriette's

21:18

grand niece became a writer

21:20

named Rachel Field, and she

21:22

wrote a novel based on her great aunt's

21:24

life called All This and Heaven

21:26

Too. It's a romantic

21:29

story about a governess falling

21:31

in love with a duke in a miserable marriage,

21:34

who then must kill himself in order

21:36

to protect his true love from

21:38

the other nobles blaming her for

21:40

the duchess's murder. It

21:42

was made into a film starring Betty

21:44

Davis and Charles Boyer. It

21:47

really is all about perspective. When

21:50

he tried to decide who the heroes are in

21:52

any given story,

22:03

that's the story of the murder of the Duchess

22:05

de Prelan, but stick around after a brief

22:07

sponsor break to hear a little bit

22:09

more about the skeletons

22:12

lurking in the Duke's closet. It

22:22

was months later that the children

22:25

of the Duke and Duchess de Prela were

22:27

clearing out their father's rooms at their

22:29

parents home when they found

22:31

a hidden trunk. It

22:33

was stuck underneath a few shirts

22:36

at the back of their father's closet.

22:39

Inside the trunk was a bright

22:41

red costume that they had never seen

22:43

before. In red brocade,

22:46

the type of costume that someone would

22:48

wear two a masked ball. It

22:51

was a Mephistopheles costume,

22:54

a costume to look like the

22:57

devil. If rumors

22:59

are to be leaved, The Duke

23:01

had put the costume on to sneak

23:04

into his wife's room at night

23:07

in the hopes of frightening her into

23:09

insanity. In the

23:12

century, an insane wife

23:15

would have been easy enough to dispose of

23:17

without having to resort to murder.

23:26

Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio

23:28

and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Monkey. The

23:31

show was written and hosted by Dani Schwartz

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and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick,

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Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.

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Noble Blood is on social media at Noble

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Blood Tales, and you can learn more about

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the show over at Noble blood tails dot com.

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For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit

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the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.