Bonus Episode 5: The Freak Bicycle Accident Behind a Children’s Classic

Ludwig Bemelmans rode his bike down the wrong side of the road and into literary history when he dreamed up the beloved children’s book Madeline.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines,
lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. The smallest
one was Madeline. The opening lines to Madeline are among
the most memorable in children's literature, and the mischievous but
endearing Madeline, with her blue dress and her yellow hat,

(00:30):
remains one of the most beloved characters ever. But long
before Madeleine came to live in that old house in
Paris that was covered with vines and in the minds
of millions of children across the world, she was born
on an isolated island off the coast of France, and
her birth starts with a bizarre mishap that sent her
eccentric creator, like his most famous character, to a French

(00:52):
hospital in need of urgent care. Welcome to Flashback. I'm
Sean Braswell. Some of the great classics of children's literature
not only contain wonderful stories, they have wonderful stories behind them.
This past season, we heard about the origins of the
Little House books by Laura Ingles Wilder and how they

(01:15):
got their start in the Great Depression. In this special
bonus episode of Flashback, we look at the back story
behind another classic, Madeline, and we learned how sometimes inspiration
and literary immortality is just one freak accident away. Like Madeline,

(01:38):
the young Ludwig Bemwlman's was a boarding school misfit who
inhabited a richly textured but rather parentless world. After his
Belgian father left his German mother when Ludwig was just
five years old, the boy was sent to live with
a wealthy uncle who owned a chain of luxury hotels
in Austria. Young Ludwig was kicked out of several boarding
schools and fired from a stray of hotel related jobs.

(02:02):
He was, as one biographer put it, unruly impertinent, never serious,
and always late. So in nineteen fourteen, at the age
of sixteen, his uncle shipped him off to America. Bembleman
started as a bus boy at the hotel as Star

(02:22):
in New York. He served as a lieutenant for his
adopted country in the First World War, then embarked on
an eclectic career in New York in Paris as a restaurateur,
a writer, and a self taught artist. He designed cover
jackets for The New Yorker and wrote articles for Vogue
in Town and Country. But like Madeline, what the adventuresome
Bembleman's excelled at most, was getting into some rather unexpected binds. Once,

(02:47):
during the nineteen thirties, Bemleman's and his wife stopped at
a beer garden near the German Austrian border that had
a view of Adolf Hitler's mountaintop retreat. The eagles nest
above alive broadcast from the Nazi Lee or himself then
happened to come on the radio the end. Fellow diners

(03:16):
grew silent and turned deferentially towards the mountain out the window. Then,
to the great horror of everyone in the beer garden,
Bemleman's placed a cigar StEB on his upper lip, performed
a mock Nazi salute, and did his best impression of
the fures halting speech pattern. The ir reverend artist was
hauled off to jail and charged as subversive. His release

(03:36):
was secured only after an American vice consul agreed to
shepherd him Miss Clavell style back to safety in New York.
But the incident that would transform Bellman's from a free
spirited artist into an immortally beloved author would take place
where else. In France. Billman's was on holiday on il You,

(04:00):
a small island off the coast of western France. He
was merely riding a bicycle down the wrong side of
the road, his hands in his pockets and a sack
of six lobsters over his shoulder. When he managed to
accomplish the near impossible, he was hit by the only
vehicle on the island, a baker's delivery truck. At a
local hospital, Bembleman's was placed in a narrow bed, and

(04:23):
the scenes he witnessed around him in the upcoming days
would go from odd to iconic. Madeleine woke up two
hours later in a room with flowers. Madeleine soon ate
and drank on her bed, there was a crank and
a crack on the ceiling had the habit of looking

(04:44):
like a rabbit. Madeleine's experience came directly from Bemmleman's own,
as he later recalled of his own hospital visit. In
the room next to mine was a little girl who
had had her appendix out. In the ceiling over my
bed was a crack that had the habit of sometime
is looking like a rabbit. After he had recovered from

(05:12):
his injuries and was back in Manhattan, Bmwin sketched out
the story of the first Madeline book on the backs
of menus at Pete's Tavern on East eighteenth Street. The
beautifully illustrated tale, set in Paris and just over four
hundred words, was named a Caldecott Honor Book in nineteen
and his six Madeline books would go on to sell
thirteen million copies worldwide. Bimbleman's would not reap many financial

(05:38):
rewards from his creation during his lifetime, and despite consorting
with the likes of Greta Garbo and Aristotle Onassis, he
struggled to keep what money he had. He often roamed
from place to place, exchanging his art for hospitality. In
nineteen sixty two, he died from pancreatic cancer. The words
he chose for his gravestone pretty much sum up his

(05:58):
care free approach to life. Tell them it was wonderful,
And she turned out the light and closed the door,
and that's all there is. There isn't anymore. Flashback is
written and hosted by me Sean Braswell, senior writer and

(06:21):
executive producer at Ozzie. It was edited by May mcgoran
and produced by Tracy Moran. Chris Hoff engineered our show.
Make sure to subscribe to Flashback on the I Heart
Radio app, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.