October 20, 2021 • 60 mins
The high dollar French courtesan Marguerite Alibert always got what she wanted. When she nearly met her match in her husband, the oppressive Egyptian aristocrat Ali Fahmy, she got a little trigger happy and found herself on trial. Maybe her ex-boyfriend, the womanizing heir to the British throne could help her out...
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Hey, hey, everybody, welcome to the show. I'm glad
you're here. Glad we're coming to your ears. Hey, I
just wrote that nice. It was very bouncy. Yeah, well
I'm feeling bouncy. I like that. I feel bouncy. It's uh,
eight thirty at night. I just had some coffee for
some stupid reason. But well, we were going to record,
(00:20):
so I wanted to That's true. You're ready and I
will deal with those consequences tomorrow. Hi everybody, Hi, so
good to have you. Always, yes, always, I'm Diana, I'm Eli.
We are excited to have you. We're excited to tell
this story. Um, gotta do a little housekeeping here first,
because man, we are backed up on our machine here
(00:42):
and we have yet It's been a minute since we
have checked our answering machine. Just answer the question. So
back in our Rachel and Jackie Robinson episode, we asked you, guys,
what in the world lettering in sports or any subject
(01:04):
or any subject? Because yeah, I we didn't realize you could. Well,
I letter in drama, but I still don't know what
the hell it means, right exactly? And what how do you?
I don't know, Like, what does it mean because I
did go to school with any of that stuff. So
fortunately y'all rose to this occasion and gave us many
answers that were awesome. So at Lady T on Twitter,
(01:27):
she told us that she remembered that she lettered in
Banned while she was listening to that episode, kind of
like el I was like, oh, yeah, you know what
I had lettered in them? Yea. She reminded us about
Tammy Curry and dropped Dead Gorgeous. Of course, of course, right,
so she's got She sent us a gift of like
Tammy showing off all the patches for all the things
(01:47):
she's lettered in, and it was the school initials on
the front and then individual sports and club patches down
the arm of the jacket. So that's a letter jacket.
Trump Dead Gorgeous is so good. Well, I hate to
say it, but I've actually never seen drop dead gorgeous.
Perhaps I didn't know about that. We are going to
stop recording right now and go watch drop Dead Gorgeous,
(02:08):
because what are you talking about? I don't know. It's
one I never was. People have talked about it, have
told me about it many times. I don't understand. Never
got around to it. I swore that was like in
our vows, something about how like and I'm so glad
that you've also seen drop dead gorgeous, it's so funny.
Smiles and shine on Twitter also let us know that
(02:29):
if you letter more than once, you get the letter first, yeah,
and then a pin or a patch to put on
that letter for every additional year you letter. I do
remember getting bars to pin onto my letter for drama.
Smiles lettered in field hockey and got a pair of
crossed field hockey sticks, and for track and field got
(02:49):
a track cleat. See that's cool. We gotta boring, asked
like silver bar. Yeah, there you get some get like
drama masks or anything like that, which on a like,
I'm so sick of the drama masks being representative of
the entirety of theater. I'm like, it's been six hundred years.
Can we come up with something else? And Linda on
(03:09):
Instagram lettered in orchestra. She played violin, so her pin
was like a music staff and harp. Beautiful, I know.
And she also told us that there are different styles
of letters to denote varsity and junior varsity, which, okay,
that was a whole other level. I was like, what
now that just keeps going. So anyway, we'll culture here
at these letters. What going on with these letters? That
(03:31):
I had no idea? But these pins sound cute as halee.
I'm not gonna lie. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean again,
I probably still have those boring as little silver bars
around here somewhere. It's too bad you didn't get a
cool looking yeah something like um, like a I don't,
I don't know, y'all. Now you have to write in
and tell us would be a cool idea besides the
(03:52):
drama masks to represent theater, get like a rough, like
an Elizabethan rough for Shakespeare. No, you know it's the same,
it's the same thing. It's just a dated you know.
It's just like this archaic image. Like, give me some
fresh and poppy and modern. I want to know what
represents theater now. How come whenever we talk about theater,
(04:12):
the first thing anybody thinks about is years ago. You know. Look,
I'm just saying, just all the avant garde stuff is
flashing in my mind. I'm like, you can't let her
in Andy Warhol's weird pig thing show. Let he put
on let's hear it. Well, thank you guys for educating
(04:33):
us on letters. And I hope that if you didn't
know these things and you're a regular listener, that you've
now learned as well. Yeah. Yeah, another great answering machine.
Thanks guys, appreciate that. It's nice. It's nice to learn
so much from you while we're here to impart knowledge. Yeah,
and one day one of our listeners is going to
be on Jeopardy and there's going to be an answer
(04:55):
comes up about lettering, and they're gonna have it and
be like, yeah, ridiculous romance air. And then I hope
one of your categories is strange relationships throughout history. And
Drew Carry is who's hosting Jeopardy? Now, Drew Carry, That's
not right, that's crisis, right, whoever they got my ambiolic
(05:15):
temporarily and whatever. I hope that's not my Jeopardy answer.
I know, I thought, like, so this person just Jeopardy,
who is Drew Carry. Look, we're not here to talk
about true Carry today. We are here to talk about
(05:36):
marguite Alie bet. We are returning to France. Boy, we
we truly the epicenter of ridiculous romances. Right, But anyway,
Marguerite Alibert was beautiful. She was charming, daring, sensuous, avaricious,
(05:58):
everything you need to be to be a successful high
class Parisian courtes on. In the turn of the century.
I guess I should now, I have to say, in
the turn of the yes, I forgot. I have to
say that, right, we've had We've had another century turn
since then, goddamn. And she had some of the wealthiest,
(06:20):
most high born clients from several countries, including the Prince
of Wales. But it was the impossibly wealthy Egyptian Ali
Fami who would capture her heart or at least her
hand in marriage. She probably expected to divorce him quickly
and get a sweet settlement, but Ali had other ideas,
(06:41):
and soon her only way out was murder. How would
she keep her neck out of the gallows? Let's find out,
Let's do it, hey, their French comlution. Well, Elia and
Diana got some stories to tell. Does no match making
a romantic tips, It's just about ridiculous relationship, a love.
(07:02):
There might be any type of person at all, and
abstract cons that don't concrete wall. But if there's a story,
were the second clinch Ridiculous, a production of I Heart Radio.
Marguerite was born to a cab driver and a housekeeper
in so humble, humble, begetting modestas At some point in
(07:26):
her childhood, tragedy struck when her four year old brother
was struck and killed by a delivery Laurie as he
was playing in the street, and Marguerite was blamed because
she was supposed to be watching him and so he
had run off, and they were like, you should have
been more careful, more awful. So then they sent her
(07:46):
to a convent for her education, and the nuns like,
we're reminding her daily that her brother had died because
of her sins. They was pretty abusive. Yeah, I was
like one of those hits you at the rulers across
the knuckles totally. But Marguerite, it's got a pretty strong character.
So she kind of was rolling her eyes about it
(08:07):
as well. She was a little bit linking her. But
she was also where she was, and this is very
indicative of her character too. She wanted to get as
much out of any situation she was in as she could,
so she did that here. She applied herself to get
her a good, pretty good basic education and she also
learned to see you now. When she was in her teens,
(08:33):
the nuns decided to place her in the home of
a wealthy lawyer on reusual langua. So I guess it
was like, you know, you're you're old enough to get
the hell out of here for a while. You'll continue
your studies, but you're going to hang out with this family,
learn a little something about the real world, and start
to get out there some get some work done, get
a job, more than likely, get your hands dirty. It's
(08:56):
not all knuckle wraps and choir practice there in the
real world. In Andrew Rose's book The Woman Before Wallace,
he says that in the eighties, Langlois was the lawyer
for the infamous Humbert Case or Humbar Case, a giant
scandal that this rocked Paris. In that case, Terre's and
(09:17):
and her husband Frederick the Humbarts. They basically invented a
rich American benefactor and persuaded people to loan them money
at low interest rates and total fraud. Of course, which
thing they didn't pay that money back? Yeah, you know
I've got it around here, somewhere. I will I will
(09:37):
give you a call later. As soon as I found it,
I lived all my francs in my other redd and goods.
This fraud netted them a hundred million francs at the time,
which is close to four hundred million euro today. Rose
Rights quote. Although discovery and retribution were inevitable consequences of
(09:58):
so colossal at reception, a valuable lesson was almost certainly
not lost on Marguerite. The fraudsters had succeeded in duping
the public because they aimed high, brazenly keeping up their
act until the very end. The luxuriously appointed mansion that
was the Humbarers Paris home for twenty years was just
a few steps from the cramped and modest apartment shared
(10:22):
by Marguerite's family. So yeah, so she's basically steps away
from this fancy ass house that they got by lying.
So she's just looking at it every day, like I
could do that. I can lie scam your way into
a huge fortune. And the lang Lua family was very
rich and very cultured, and so Marguerite was closely studying
(10:46):
how the rich lived their life, how they talked, you know,
what they wore. She was kind of starting to get
her mimic on a little bit about the airs of society,
you know what I mean. But her time there was
fairly short. She abruptly left the Langlois home in seven
when she was sixteen, because she was pregnant and unwed,
(11:19):
and the paternity of her daughter, Raymond, is unknown. Marguerite
invented a couple of stories over the years. In one,
the father was a twenty eight year old friend of
hers who really wanted to marry her, but she just
didn't have a big enough dowry, so she wrote, quote,
the beautiful dream collapsed. Yeah. Really, he lives in Canada.
(11:45):
I swear he was going to marry me, but he
just what a jerk. I was not wealthy enough for him.
How rude. In another story, the father was the younger
son of a diplomat at in India and he perished
in the Great War. She also wrote one time that
her younger brother also died in the Great War, and
(12:08):
it was a family friend who was like, no, he
was four, died in the street for all that. So
she's kind of, I mean, a big liar. She doesn't
really tell you know, if you had to come up
with a story about someone's death. In the early twentieth century,
the Great War is a great exp man. Sure, maybe
the Humbars were like, oh, I had all your money,
(12:29):
but it died in the Great War, so sorry. But
more than likely it was probably just another servant in
the household, or possibly a member of the leg La
family impregnated her. But no rich family wants some pregnant,
unwed teenager hanging out making him look like a house
(12:50):
of ill repute. So Marguerite was kicked out of the
house and she returned to her family home for a while,
but they were kind of too poor to provide for
her and her baby and two additional mouths, so her
daughter Raymond, was sent to the country to live on
a farm for a few years with some people who
could handle it while Marguerite plotted her next move. Marguerite
(13:15):
knew that she was meant for bigger and better things
than some you know, working class life, and she was
willing to do pretty much anything to get it. Thanks
to her time with the lang Law family, she already
had a sheen of sophistication. Thanks to her time with
the nuns, she had a bit of an education. So
for a year or so she lived in obscurity in Paris.
(13:38):
She glossed over this time. In her autobiography, researchers speculate
probably because she was making her money through street prostitution.
Maybe she was singing in bars and cabarets and just
going home with the richest guy she could find at
the end of the night, and she's sort of like, yeah,
making ends me. Hey, there you go. So she's making
(13:59):
it work. But maybe later, by the time she's writing
her autobiography, she's feeling like, maybe that's beneath her. So
one day she came to the notice of Madame Dennard,
who ran a type of high class brothel called a
Maison de Rendezvous house of meetups. Madame Dennar wasn't in
(14:19):
this business to make some buck off a quick tumble.
Her girls were the best in Paris. You know, come
on down the Madame Dennard's. We got the smart girls,
we got the pretty girls. They're witty, they're charming, they're intelligent,
they got CD players, they got drop top roofs, beautiful
(14:41):
beyond compare. Look at these caves and no money down
well actually all the money down upfront that happened. Bad credit.
Get the hell out of here, no credit, get the
hell out of here. So Madame Dennard had a very
discerning eye. If she knew how to pick the best,
(15:01):
and she was only going to pick the best, she
knew Marguerite would attract men like flies to honey rose
rights quote. Although not a chocolate box beauty, whatever that means?
What is a chocolate box beauty? I kind of wish
I was one. You just wish you had a chocolate box.
(15:22):
I do wish I had a chocolate box. That would
be so beautiful. You are a beauty. But you don't
have a chocolate box. Now if you did, I would
eat all of it, so I'm glad you don't. So,
although not a chocolate box beauty, she was petite, with
a shapely figure, expressive greenish gray eyes, a pretty mole
on her left cheek, and a large sensuous mouth. Blah
(15:45):
blah blah. At this time, she wore her striking auburn
hair in long tresses falling to her knees. Okay hot
to Molly healthy description, Well, it's France, so she'd be
uh a hot. She sounds like a real hot galette.
(16:09):
That is one hot kiche. So not only all this
beauty and a lure, but the nuns had helped Marguerite
become a decent mezzo soprano. So she even had a
skill that could be displayed on stage, a commonplace for
courtisans to catch the eye of potential clients. Get up
(16:29):
there saying like a canary, give out a little tune,
and they're like, I'll take that one please. She caught
my eye. It's kind of like um Evelyn nesbit on
stage in the chorus line, catching attention, you know, and
find meeting patrons. You know. It's exactly the same thing.
So this girl was worth a little investment for Madame Dennard.
(16:52):
Some fancy dresses, a few elocution and piano lessons later,
and they had exactly who they needed. Marguerite would be come,
according to Madame Denard, quote the mistress of nearly all
of my best clients, gentlemen of wealth and position in France, England,
America and other countries. It was me that made a
(17:13):
sort of lady of her. Thank you very much, mercy
about Oh you like Marguerite, Well, you know that's all me. Yes,
I love your French Madam. I think you should. You
should really to France and oh a character. Yeah, I
was thinking we're like a character. But because I will
(17:36):
go to France and open a brothel. I feel like
there's a good business model there. I think we could
totally pack up our lives and do that. We'll keep
doing the podcast, sure, sure, sure, so yeah. Almost immediately,
Marguerite attracted her first wealthy patron, a married businessman named
Andre Millaire, and she started calling her self Maggie Melair
(18:01):
and Madame Melare even though they were not married, and
he because he's already married, um, and they would go
out together in high society, which was totally acceptable in Paris.
People started to notice her, started to meet her, and
her social circles got wider and wider. Marguerite was on
(18:22):
her way, So the sap and we are on our
way to a commercial break. How about that, and welcome
back to the show. Oh and here's something we thought
was cool. Andrew Rose also says that it's likely Maggie
(18:43):
closely followed the case of Marguerite Steinheil, who you may
remember from our episodes about her and the French President's
Foedix fash classic episode. We had to do it in
two parts because in one part the first part was
when he died. When she gave a blowjob and she
had to sneak out the hotel. The second part was
(19:04):
when she got accused of shooting her husband and mother
and was put on trial for murder. And that was
so this was when Maggie was out and about in
high society. It was certainly rocking society. As we talked about,
everybody was paying attention, everybody was looking close. Absolutely, and
yeah she was. She was on trial for killing her
(19:26):
husband and her mother, and her testimony was like, I mean,
listen to our episode all about it, because we get
real deep into it. But it was like all over
the place, and she definitely made some ship up and
was caught in a million lies, just whatever, just acting foolish.
But even so she was acquitted. She walked free for
those murders, and they can never really prove that it
(19:47):
was her. Andrew Rose said that that probably showed Marguerite
Albert as well as everybody else quote that a beautiful
woman could murder her husband, tell a preposterous story, walk
free from court, and collect an inheritance. So something she
might have just filed away in the back of her mind,
right just in case it comes up. It's always good
(20:12):
to have a nice full toolbox at your disposal, never know,
and that's going to come up. So mixing and mingling
with the elite of Berrie brought Marguerite even more attention,
and she was flirtatious it so Andre, who was you
know her her main guy was paying her bills. Basically
(20:33):
he traveled a lot. So while he was gone, she
continued her work as a high class court asan and
was very successful. She and Andre would be together for
around seven years, and this will be marked with lots
of fights because Andre was jealous and Maggie was you know, fiery,
and she even called herself quote a terrible she devil
(20:57):
because of her own temper. Madame Dinnar wrote once about
an occasion where Marguerite slapped the ship out of a
wealthy admirer in full view of an entire restaurant. So Maggie,
you know she's ready to throw down. Yeah she will.
You will catch her hands. Yes. Finally, in nineteen thirteen,
(21:17):
she and Andrea had a huge fight that really became
something of a scandal. She locked Andre out of their
expensive villa and released all of his horses from the
stables to wander the grounds freely. It was like gossip
columns were having a total field day with this. That's
(21:42):
French side piece saddles up by releasing her lover's horses.
All over his past years she was his main girl.
Now she is trotting away to Green the passenger. So
Andre and Maggie agreed that, you know what, it's probably
(22:04):
best if we part ways. Now everyone's laughing at us.
She was given a severance package essentially two hundred thousand
francs and in American dollars today, that would be like
getting five and a half million dollars. What why somebody
(22:26):
break up with me for five and a half million dollars?
You know. Marguerite was later actually furious at herself for
accepting such a quote poultry sum. She chalked it up
to her youth and inexperience. I should have known better
than to walk away with five and a half million dollars. Stupid, Marguerite,
So stupid? What are you a wit? So? Yeah? So
(22:52):
now Marguerite is on her own. She's got her own
little money now or whatever. So she installed herself in
a fancy apartment, you servants. She had a stable full
of horses, couple of limousines, I mean she is baling
and thanks to her time with Andre, she cut quite
a swath through fashionable Paris. She knew a lot of people,
(23:13):
tons of good connections, and she had her finances in order.
So she did bring her daughter to come live with her,
back from the farm. So Raymond is back wondering about
that girl. But of course everything changed because of a
little something called the Great War. We always war, like
a little spat between Germany and the rest of Europe's true,
(23:38):
and Marguerite was seized by an impulse to serve the
war effort. You know, she had some patriotic music in
her head or something planning. And fortunately she had just
bought herself like a fancy car, so she used it
to show for officers and other like high level officials
to hospitals and you know, offices and stuff getting you know,
she's like transport, very very important at pleased to bleed
(24:00):
on the seats and this is anoka. But Marguery, you know,
she's no altruist. So she got bored with being like
this goodwill patriotic bitch for real quick. She was tired
of that fast, and conveniently, her doctor diagnosed her with
(24:22):
a mysterious ailment that required a warm climate to recover from.
How how fortunate. So she took herself off to Cairo,
where she became friends with a wealthy businessman. She met
some high society British and Egyptian men and was just
kind of living it up in Egypt. Sounds right, I
(24:44):
would do it. But by n she was back in
Paris and she and Madame Dinner parted ways pretty acrimoniously.
Madam Dinner does not write very fondly of her because
of however they parted, whatever was said. But Maggie started
working for a new madame who ran the most expensive
(25:07):
Maison de rendezvous in the entire city of Perry La
La Her Andrew Rose describes how it worked back then.
The mason was a beautifully appointed, fancy apartment. Clients would
be greeted by a respectable maid who would serve them
refreshments in a lushly decorated lounge. Photo books were set
(25:30):
out so you could peruse the ladies at leisure and
make your selection. So you're literally swiping right or left
on a bunch of pornographic beauty photos. The biggest, most
prominent photos were the top tier, most expensive ladies of
the bunch. And this is where you'd find Marguerite's photos.
You're getting like a full page spread in the photo
(25:50):
album or like little wallet sizes in the back. They
were the cheaper girls, right, and they would be like,
one day my picture will be I didn't have by
a liver, you better learn to sing. Marguerite was a
high dollar not only because of her beauty and her
social graces, but also because she was one of several
women who were quote equally happy to play the dominatrix
(26:15):
wielding a horsewhip, to take part in lesbian activity staged
to the customers requirements, or even to indulge in a
client's taste for sodomy. So she had a lot of
items on the menu. Basically, it's made her quite valuable.
Once you made your selection, you and the madame would
(26:36):
chat and decide on a price, and the madame would
telephone the woman of your choice. So and if she's
not here in thirty minutes, your sex is free, probably
like your sex is double transportation. Most of these assignations
happened between five and seven pm. Would you call that
(26:56):
a happy ending hours? In fact, Marguerite and women like
her were sometimes referred to as Bodema san or a
five o'clock lady. Oh, I kind of like that. Now
it is a good time to be a high class
prostitute because it's wartime, and that means officers, hey, hey, hey,
(27:23):
I mean, and they've you know, been on the front.
You know, they're on leave, They're they're ready for a
warm embrace. You know they're going to get they're willing
to pay for it. So yeah, business was booming and
Marguerite was out and about with more and more the
upper echelon, and then in nineteen seventeen she landed her
biggest fish, Edward, the Prince of Whales. Wow, that is
(27:50):
a big fish, big old fish. And that brings us
to this episode side piece. I will tell anyone, I promise,
so you may know of Edward pretty much from his
most infamous action, which was abdicating the throne in order
(28:11):
to marry the American divorcee Wallace Simpson. Really up ended
the whole royal family. I think we talked about it
a little bit and we touched base with them during
Winston Churchill and Clementine. Yeah, but that would not be
the first time that Edward caused trouble for the royal family.
He was a little bit of a naughty boy. Um
(28:31):
by the time he was hanging out with Marguerite. You know,
he's still early in his career. He's still young. Um,
he's like in his twenties, and he had witnessed trench
warfare firsthand. He definitely was like, put me in coach,
you know, and they were like, no, hear them, freaking
heir to the throne, and like, what if they caught you?
You know, that would be so crazy, you can't be
(28:52):
out there. But he was, you know, he was pretty brave.
He wanted to be out there and fight the fight. Um.
He was one of the most photographed people in the
world at this time because he was super you know,
freaking famous, and his rank and good looks gained him
a lot of attention, but his womanizing and his numerous
affairs with married women over the years caused a lot
(29:14):
of embarrassment for the crown. Oh yeah, well that sounds
like the worst thing about him. Well. He also thought
white people were superior and often expressed incredibly racist views,
and later in his life he did tour Nazi Germany
and expressed pro Nazi sympathies and was kind of like,
(29:36):
maybe they got the right idea over there and Nazi Germany. Yes,
boo children, boo. So you know that hadn't happened yet,
but he's that's the person that we're talking about. Yes,
so racist stuff notwithstanding, because that is, you know, arguably
the worst thing about him of many things. But the
(29:59):
real album that the Crown was having with Edward was
that he was very indiscreet. He drew a little too
much attention to embarrassing things that he did, and he
wrote them down was a big problem. Like dear Diary today,
I truly embarrassed the family with the following incriminating evidence.
(30:22):
Here are several witnesses to my actions. You may ask
them and they will verify any of these details. Yes,
I gave them signed copies of this diary as well.
One of the things that he got himself in trouble
for and writing a lot of stuff down about, was
his time with Marguerite Dalibert. They were together for about
(30:42):
eighteen months, and a Royal brit can do a lot
of damage in eighteen months, and this was until the
late summer of nineteen eighteen. Edward wrote her about twenty letters.
According to Royalty Magazine Quote, the letters not only revealed
his feelings form but also included information about the progress
(31:05):
of the war effort and made derogatory comments about his father.
A lot of bad ship in these letters right there.
Like listen again, if an enemy were to read this,
you're just handing them all kinds of AMMO right now.
Plus you're talking about all this weird sex stuff you're
doing with this, like Parisian corpsan. But fortunately, I guess.
(31:28):
In nineteen eighteen, Edwards started to shift his attention to
a married woman named Frieda Dudley Ward, and so that
was kind of ending his fling with Marguerite. She was
on her way out and she she could smell it. Um.
But she knew how valuable those letters were, and of
course she wanted to benefit financially from this connection that
(31:49):
she'd made with the future king, so she tried to
blackmail Edward with these letters. Um. There's no evidence that
still exists of what he asked for specifically or anything
like that. Um. But in a letter, Edward wrote, quote,
I'm afraid she's the one hundred thousand pounds or nothing type,
(32:10):
though I must say I'm disappointed and didn't think she'd
turned nasty. Of course, the whole trouble is my letters,
and she's not burnt one where I specifically asked you
to burn these letters. I told you these letters could
be used as blackmail against me, please burn them. Quite
disappointed that you didn't do what I said. I can't
(32:32):
believe you hung onto them. Outrageous. And then I also
love that he's writing in a letter more incriminating evidence
about how he wrote letters with incriminating evidence, and they
were probably reading it like, god, damn it, Edward, Oh
my god. But Marguerite was also starting a new fling
(32:52):
around this time with the wealthy Charles Laurent, and he
was ready to marry her. Hello, a new thing for Marguerite. Yeah,
that kind of security and stability doesn't come too many courtesans,
like high class or otherwise. So she backed off Edward.
She thought her blackmail might actually backfire into like a
(33:14):
scandal and ruin her chances with Charles, So she's like,
all right, maybe I'll just kind of leave this one
b for now in hand. Yes, is worth a prince
in my bush. So she and Charles did marry, but
they were not well suited for each other. He was
(33:35):
a very serious guy who didn't like the high society,
fashionable party life that Marguerite not only loved but had made,
you know, pretty much her lifetime ambition. So their marriage
dissolved in nineteen twenty, and like she do, she relieved
him of a sizeable chunk of change on her way out.
(33:57):
And I will take that with me. Thank you for
them marriage, Good day, sir. So at this point she
is totally independent. She could take care of herself for
a while, but she's still in her prime. She's only
thirty years old. So she kept those peepers peeled for
another fabulously wealthy man that she could attach herself to
and see what she could get out of him. And
(34:21):
enter Ali camel Thawmy Bay. People in Paris called him
a prince, but he actually was not a prince. Bay
is a title denoting an aristocrat or like maybe a governor.
So they sort of took that and ran with it
and just called the prince because they didn't know what
they were talking about. Um, and I'm sure he did
(34:42):
not disillusion them very vigorously or anything like that. It's like, yeah, prince,
that sounds good. Yeah, yeah, the French accidentally called me
a prince. I'm not going to correct them, Okay. When
someone asked if you're a god, you say yes. He
was actually the son of like an aristocratic and jineer.
His father had a master this huge fortune over the years,
(35:04):
but he was super clutch fisted about it. He was
like a miser and he refused to indulge in like
comforts and luxuries. He was like, I want to take
it with me somehow. But when Ali was eighteen, he
got his hands on his inheritance and basically it went
book wild. Within four years, he had spent over a
(35:24):
million Egyptian pounds. Rabbi Magazine writes that he quote was
known to pay tips between five and twenty pounds when
he frequented bars. This was in the nineteen twenties, so
that'd be like thrown around sixty dollar tips today, pretty good.
So that might speak to like a generous spirit, but
(35:44):
I think he just wasn't very good with money. Because
he also paid thirteen thousand Egyptian pounds for a piece
of land in the Posh Zamilek district. So it's like
a wealthy area and everything, but the land was only
worth four thousand pounds. His personal secretary pocketed the difference,
and he just never knew. Like he's like whatever, he's
(36:05):
not keeping a close eye. Yeah yeah, he don't look
at the books. Yeah. Um. And then he had a
villa built on that property that he spent a hundred
thousand Egyptian pounds on, but it could have been done
for a fifth of that price. So he's just like
he just doesn't know, doesn't know what's what's a gallon
of milk cost? Does not have that answer. No. Rabbie
(36:29):
Magazine goes on to say, quote. One story goes that
when he asked for the young high born Mania saw
Hank's hand in marriage. He walked into her family's house,
followed by twenty uniformed men, each carrying a sterling silver
box laden with jewelry. That engagement did not last very long, however,
(36:51):
as Ali was soon caught engaging in a lewd act
with one of the actresses from the Rahani Theater troupe
in his car. The nuptials were, of course promptly canceled.
In case you were curious, Mania returned all the jewelry.
Look to be fair, the actresses at the Rohani theater.
True now hard to ignore, if I may say so myself.
(37:17):
But yeah, we're just you know, I don't know. Maneia
returned the jewelry. Uh, Marguerite would have kept all that
would have gotten more. Ali is also described as being
quote nervous and rather weak, but still really used to
getting his own way and everything. If he wanted something,
he expected to get it, as is the mentality of
(37:41):
many extremely wealthy people. And he intended to keep it
for as long as he liked, and he did not
care what that cost. And now he wanted Marguerite Alibert.
He was formally introduced to her in ninety two, but
he had actually seen her a few times before, both
in Cairo and in Harris. He was entranced by this
(38:02):
beautiful frenchwoman eight years his senior. For her part, Marguerite
liked his big, old fancy house, and his cars and
his motor boats, and you know the fortunes that he
was able to squander at gambling. Oh, you have so
much money. I love that you're so careless with it
that you'll lose thousands of dollars. Well, apparently his annual
(38:23):
income was around two million pounds a year. Maybe she
really was like, literally, he can afford to lose so
much money and it doesn't even matter. So the two
of them embarked on a passionate love affair slash spending
spree all over France until Ali returned to Egypt. But
(38:43):
not long after, he told her he couldn't live without
her and he asked her to marry him. His family
was not into this match at all. They're like, uh,
I'm sorry, you're gonna marry this French whore. We are
aristocratic Egyptians. That's not how we do things. But as
we know, Ali doesn't like to hear no very much.
(39:08):
I mean, I guess unless the question is have I
spent all my money yet? Then no? Great, I'd love
to hear no, and I would like to spend more.
Let's go do it. So obviously this gave her a
lot to think about. Ali was Muslim, and Marguerite would
have to convert to Islam if she wanted to marry him.
He also wanted her to dress modestly and cover her
(39:30):
face like the other women in Egypt, but Marguerite thought
that she was going to be up to all these tricks.
She could maneuver and handle this thing in the in
the traditional Marguerite Dali bear way, she figured if things
didn't work out, they would just simply divorce and she
could walk away with a huge chunk of cash. So
(39:51):
she insisted on a prenuptial agreement that she would be
allowed to wear Western clothing and also that she would
be permitted to ask for a divorce, which was, of
course not something that was allowed. Right. The wife doesn't
get to ask her divorce from the husband. That's crazy.
Then they'd all be doing it. However, according to history
(40:14):
collection dot com, Ali ripped up their pre nuptial agreement
only a couple of days before their wedding, and by
that time she'd already converted to Islam and moved to Egypt.
So now she had no proof that they had agreed
to these terms of hers ship. Right, y'all need to
get copies. Okay, she should have learned from Edward. So yeah,
(40:37):
so she was forced to dress and act like Ali
had said. He expected women to do exactly what he
told them to do without any argument. But I mean,
if you've been listening, you know that ain't margarite. Uh,
And instead of realizing that, maybe he pinned down a
wasp rather than a butterfly. Ali, true to his nature,
(40:57):
doubled down and he's like, I'll tame this shrue. You
know this is unmovable object, unstoppable force. Exactly, very true.
That's very true. Um. He actually wrote in a letter
to Marguerite's sister, quote, just now I am engaged in
training her. Yesterday, to begin with, I did not come
(41:19):
into lunch or to dinner, and I also left her
at the theater with women. One must act with energy
and be severe, no bad habit. I love that his
punishment is, well, I'm not coming to lunch or dinner.
I wonder if Marguerite was like, oh cool, that worked
really well to get rid of him. I should do
(41:39):
that some more. Royalty Magazine says the letter was probably
intended to be humorous on like some level, so keep
that in mind. All right, He's not like cool joke,
but not a very locker room talk or whatever. But
it quote reveals some of the tensions in Ali's mind.
He clearly fell to need to control his willful wife,
(42:03):
so it kind of shows they were definitely clashing on
a lot of things at this point. Um. He also
announced that he would be taking on multiple wives, as
is allowed in Islam. But Marguerite didn't really know shit
about Islamic culture or customs or Egypt or like, she
was not really prepared for this marriage at all, um,
and she didn't like that idea. To top it all off,
(42:25):
his favorite way to make love to her was quote
par Ladrie, which was certainly in her repertoire of services,
as we remember from the pornographic books, but they were
maybe not necessarily her preference at the time, just a
charge extra for that ship. She's like like on the
(42:47):
menu as an add on. Not all the girls do that.
You gotta pay for it, exactly, and right now I
gotta freaking be respectful and obey you in dead like
no thanks. So with all these vast chasms separating them,
it's kind of no wonder that they were very soon
at each other's throats. These two fought constantly, often in public,
(43:11):
so everyone was aware that they weren't happy together all.
He must have especially hated that if he's like, you're
not even supposed to talk back to me. Here we
are like having a public argument. That must have really
shaken his principles. You know. Marguerite would actually make notes
daily in her diary of the things she hated about him.
(43:32):
Dear today, it's that stupid smug smile. Today it is
this special noise that he makes when he choose his meat.
Dear Daddy, Today, it's that he doesn't treat me as
an equal human being. Hates that. Today it's pola da
(43:56):
one second. One day, Marguerite convinced Ali to take a
little trip to London to see an opera called The
Merry Widow Warning Red Flag, Red Flag, Red Flag. They
took in the play. They had a late supper in
their hotel room before starting some vigorous arguing as they
(44:18):
love to do. They were yelling, you know, probably throwing
things like one of those fights. Yeah, one of those knockdown,
drag out. Let me imagine. The whole hotel was just
burying their heads, you know, under their pillows, trying to
get some damn sleep. But it was not to be
(44:39):
for those poor would be sleepers. At two thirty in
the morning, multiple gut shots heard and Marguerite was discovered
in the hallway holding a smoking gun in her hand,
standing over her husband's body. He had been shot in
the back three times, and Marguerite said, I lost my head,
(45:03):
I've shot him. I feel like she shot him in
the back. She must have said, no, you take it.
So yeah, she's found in the hallway standing over his body,
She's got the gun in her hand, and she fully
(45:23):
confesses to killing him. And it also it could be
argued that it was obviously premeditated and that she had
enticed him to come to London because she knew that
in Egypt she would be put to death on the
spot for killing a nobleman, but in England she might
be able to pull some of her high society strings. Um.
(45:45):
That is history collections, speculation station. Um. But still it
would probably have been brought up by a lawyer at
some point. You know, all that evidence stacked against her.
Marguerite is going to jail, right, I mean she's literally
down standing over her dead husband's body with a smoking
gun in her hand, Like did we fans a smoking gun?
(46:09):
Quite literally? But no, not so much, not so much.
So let's find out what happened after these messages. Welcome
back to the show. Everyone. Marguerite was caught red handed,
(46:30):
as we said, smoking gun in her hand, but she
wasn't going to face many consequences. Partly this is because
of good old fashioned Western racism coming to save a
white woman. Yet again, racism saving white people from from
crimes they committed. Since zero zero zero's here zero. Her case,
(46:54):
of course went to trial, and it was sensational, with
people waiting in line at all hours to get a
seat in the courtroom. He was already dead. Ali was
basically put on trial to because Marguerite's defense was that
he was this savage beast of a husband with perverted
sexual proclivities. She was trapped in an unloving marriage with
(47:15):
a quote, these are her words, oriental brute. Yes, that's
not a word we use anymore, but it is definitely
a huge part of this particular part of the story,
so to keep it in tact for historical reason, particular
brand of racism. Yes, her theatrical performance in court sold
papers for days. She told them about the veils and
(47:38):
the modest clothes she was forced to wear. She recounted
times when she and Ali fought. Witnesses recalled how they'd
seen him hit her in public, sometimes much to the
disapproval of his family and friends. She even told them
he demanded lewd sex of acts. Quote of a sadistic
nature and that she was forced to comply under threat.
(48:01):
I mean, no wonder people line it up to see
this case. She's she's really to tell you everything. And
it's not to say that these things didn't happen. And
then he wasn't a big ship in a terrible husband.
But her sort of reframing it in this like savageness
is like she's literally playing into people's racist presumptions, yeah,
prejudices exactly. And what made it way worse than just
(48:24):
her playing on you know, anyone present and they're at
their own unconscious or conscious bias, very consciousness. Um was
that reporters, naturally we're taking what she said about Ali
and generalized it to be about every man from Egypt
or the Middle East or any other place over there
that's not here. Basically, um As raw Wi magazine says,
(48:48):
quote the newspapers and their frenzy to report complacently stereotyped
all Oriental men as barbarians, sweepingly accused of sharing the
victims sadism and brutality, and it got so bad that
Egyptian writers and intellectuals, both male and female, protested so
much that several major British publications were forced to apologize
(49:12):
for all the things that they had said, like that,
that's how galling it was getting around this time, and
Marguerite's passed as a sex worker was never even disclosed
to the jury. They thought of her as a high
born lady who had been horribly deceived by her husband.
They declared that she had shot him in self defense
after being driven to the brink of her sanity by
(49:33):
his violence, and Marguerite walked out of that courtroom a
free woman. I mean, not that her sex work, you know,
made her more likely to be guilty, but that it
was a huge part of the story leading up to this,
So they're not disclosed that really did like well, and
it made him look even worse that he was, like,
(49:55):
you know, doing all these lewd sex acts on what
who they probably were picturing to be this, like not
a virgin because she's been married before, but just this
high born, aristocratic lady who doesn't do that stuff, you know,
instead of a woman who had been selling it out
of a book for several years at this point. So
it's been it is definitely I think it helped her case,
(50:16):
but it might not only be due to all these
horrible stereotypes and racist prejudice. Marguerite may also have remembered
those handy dandied letters to mund Baby from the future
King of England, Edward, the Prince of Wales. Oh shoot
so yea. At this point in Edwards many sexual activities
(50:41):
and had to be hushed up because he was like
the poster boy for the British monarchy, and honestly they
needed one, because of course, the Bolshevik Revolution happened in
Russia and that made everybody in aristocratic circles incredibly nervous
as any revolution, and so they were kind of all
(51:03):
in any country, they were all kind of going, how's
my working class doing, y'all? Do an? Okay, down here,
let me bring in some bagels on Friday's casual Friday.
You know, we love the working people. Yes, where would
we be without you? Y'all? Keep working now, no attention
to that man behind the iron curtain. Well there you go. Uh.
(51:29):
And then you know Edward had some boyish good looks, right, so,
and he had done like a tour of some less
wealthy nations in the Commonwealth, so he was playing really
prince of the people at this time. He had some
real sympathies and so they really needed to protect this
image that they had going of Edward and Marguerite knew it.
(51:50):
These letters could not have come at a worse time. Express,
which is a magazine in the UK, says that only
hours after Ali Fammy's death, advisors at your House, which
is the Prince of Wales official residence quote, went into meltdown.
The Prince was scheduled to go on a summer tour,
(52:11):
including several official visits to Wales, but by the next
day all of that had been canceled. A ticket on
the next ocean liner out of Liverpool was booked and
his valet was packing for a three month stay in
Canada like they were like, no the world. Marguerite meanwhile
(52:31):
was entertaining several like high level visitors in her cell
at Holloway Prison, so she she would just be like,
come and see me, like all her rich clients would
come by and probably bring her a little treat, and
they're trying to play it off. Was like, oh, I
love going to visit Courtisan's in prison. This is there's
nothing special here, standard visit. So yeah, she's got a
(52:54):
bunch of high level visitors and fancy guests and stuff
including quote and army major with close but not two
obvious links to the royal household. Now, Andrew Rose lays
out this case that Marguerite used her letters to blackmail
the crown with scandal. If they didn't get her acquitted
(53:15):
in exchange for the incriminating letters, they took care of
things behind the scenes. It's a compelling case and it
has pretty thoroughly convinced quite a lot of people. But
we've got to say that it's not confirmed fact yet.
Although if we're waiting for the British government to admit it,
I think, don't hold your breath. Yeah they I mean,
(53:36):
they're probably never going through. You know, it would take
Harry and Megan coming out spilling the beans. We're ready
to tell you all the secrets. But whether it was
the royal machine or the racism machine, or a little
of both, let's say probably either way, Maggie got her wish.
Now she had to turn her attention to the little
(53:56):
matter of her inheritance. So, yeah, the money. So she
was always expected to get something out of her marriage
to Ali. Besides, you know, a murder charge. She's like,
I'm supposed to be charging you, right, So she sued
Ali's family to get her hands on his property, but
(54:17):
the Egyptian courts were not even pretending to have it.
Are you kidding me? Girl? Especially after all that ship
they were reading in y'all's newspapers about their son and
yeah no, ma'am. Yeah, they're like, you're a murderer. You
killed him. We don't care what your racist courts say
about how he put it in your butt or whatever.
(54:38):
You get nothing, Wonka, you get nothing. Good day that
she overplayed her hand a little at this point. To
be fair, Rabbi Magazine says that she invented a little
story that she had gotten pregnant and had legitimate air
to Fami's fortune, and quote soon became the laughing stock
(54:58):
of Parisian society, presumably because she wasn't able to produce
a child to prove this story. I mean, that's kind
of a big lie to like, I, yeah, I had
a baby, and everyone immediately goes where's the baby? And
you're like, whoops, I didn't think of that. Like, it's
not a it's not a long come because you don't
have long to convince everyone before they realize you're full
(55:19):
of ship and not full of baby, or you know,
maybe because she kept telling everyone that he always liked
to put it in her butt, so they're like, wet,
so let me know some more information about how you
get pregnant up the butt. So yeah, she she kind
of faded from public view after all this rigamarole, and
(55:42):
she continued to call herself Princess Marguerite, even though, like
we say, FAMMI was never a prince, you know, but
no one in Europe knew the difference. So she was like, cool,
I'm a princess. When people call you a god, you
say yes, you keep that um. And she lived an
apartment facing the Ritz in Paris for the rest of
her life, spending her time with her daughter and her
(56:04):
grandchildren until she died in one Now at this point
you might remember that she had to hand over all
these letters from Prince Edward, you know, earlier when they
got her off from that murder charge. Um. But Marguerite,
you know, she too smart for that. She had kept
a few as insurance, and so she had a few
(56:26):
still in her possession, and a family friend finally quietly
destroyed them, and all of that incriminating evidence against Edward
was finally gone. Yeah, right, they're out there somewhere. It
sounds like something Carmen san Diego would steal. Incriminating letters
between Marguerite Deli Beart and Prince Edward of Wales. History
(56:49):
Collection says quote after her death, her grandson was going
through her paperwork and saw that Marguerite had managed to
quietly get married and divorced another are five times without
her family knowing about it. Well, when you're good at something,
you know, you stick with it. Oh man. Yeah, and
(57:13):
Edward's secrets were kept safe for nearly a century until
Andrew Rose's book came out and he pieced all this together.
Andrew Rose, friend of the British royal family. Doubtful, right,
I don't think I like him? Oh man? Wow. Crazy.
So that's the story of Marguerite Alibert and her side piece, Edward,
(57:35):
the Prince of Wales and her definitely she murdered him.
Husband Ali from this one's not even like up in
the air, like at least Marguerite Steinheil were like, we
don't really kind of think maybe she didn't kill them,
you know, there was a whole necklace thing to think about,
but no, this was cutting dry, cut and dried, smoking gun. Yeah,
(57:56):
she murder solved, free to go so crazy? Oh man, well,
I I mean, yeah, it's this is another another Kookie
one out of kin I loved. I kind of was
enjoying it because nobody, UM really to feel sorry for.
I mean, I guess I kind of feel sorry for
Marguerite a little bit because she was she was kind
(58:18):
of entrapped in this marriage. That must have been scary
to suddenly be in another culture totally that you don't understand.
You're like, oh ship, I really got in over my
head on this one. Um. And he was kind of
you know, abusive. UM. But she also like just put
herself in so many of those type of situations when
I'm like, I mean, all right, you're fine. Well, as
(58:38):
we learned many times on this show, you know, people
have many different qualities and some of them are detestable
and some of them are worth sympathy. UM, and you
know you you weigh them all against each other and
if your soul is heavier than a feather or something,
I'm not up on my Egyptian. Well, I'm so excited
(59:00):
bring you all this story. As always, another Cookie one
full of murder and betrayal and bad toxic marriages right,
but yeah, let us know what you think. We always
love to hear from you, of course, our beloved audience,
of course, please shoot us an email. You can get
us at Romance at I heart media dot com right,
(59:20):
or we're on social media Twitter and Instagram. I'm at
dianamite boom and I'm at Oh great, It's Eli and
the show is at ridic Romance and we hope that
we hear from your Apple podcast. You can leave us
a review and some stars. We love that. We're also
on YouTube, so you can subscribe to our channel there,
which is also ridic Romance. And we will be back
on Friday with another recryptulous Romance for our Halloween series
(59:43):
of Terrifying Tales and we can't wait to bring another
story then, cannot wait to see you next time. Love
you bye, so long friends, It's time to go. Thanks
so listening to our show. Tell your friends name's uncles
in the stoop to listen to us so ridiculous. Well yes,
Hey, Hey, hey, everybody, welcome to the show. I'm glad
you're here. Glad we're coming to your ears. Hey, I
just wrote that nice. It was very bouncy. Yeah, well
I'm feeling bouncy. I like that. I feel bouncy. It's uh,
eight thirty at night. I just had some coffee for
some stupid reason. But well, we were going to record,
(00:20):
so I wanted to That's true. You're ready and I
will deal with those consequences tomorrow. Hi everybody, Hi, so
good to have you. Always, yes, always, I'm Diana, I'm Eli.
We are excited to have you. We're excited to tell
this story. Um, gotta do a little housekeeping here first,
because man, we are backed up on our machine here
(00:42):
and we have yet It's been a minute since we
have checked our answering machine. Just answer the question. So
back in our Rachel and Jackie Robinson episode, we asked you, guys,
what in the world lettering in sports or any subject
(01:04):
or any subject? Because yeah, I we didn't realize you could. Well,
I letter in drama, but I still don't know what
the hell it means, right exactly? And what how do you?
I don't know, Like, what does it mean because I
did go to school with any of that stuff. So
fortunately y'all rose to this occasion and gave us many
answers that were awesome. So at Lady T on Twitter,
(01:27):
she told us that she remembered that she lettered in
Banned while she was listening to that episode, kind of
like el I was like, oh, yeah, you know what
I had lettered in them? Yea. She reminded us about
Tammy Curry and dropped Dead Gorgeous. Of course, of course, right,
so she's got She sent us a gift of like
Tammy showing off all the patches for all the things
(01:47):
she's lettered in, and it was the school initials on
the front and then individual sports and club patches down
the arm of the jacket. So that's a letter jacket.
Trump Dead Gorgeous is so good. Well, I hate to
say it, but I've actually never seen drop dead gorgeous.
Perhaps I didn't know about that. We are going to
stop recording right now and go watch drop Dead Gorgeous,
(02:08):
because what are you talking about? I don't know. It's
one I never was. People have talked about it, have
told me about it many times. I don't understand. Never
got around to it. I swore that was like in
our vows, something about how like and I'm so glad
that you've also seen drop dead gorgeous, it's so funny.
Smiles and shine on Twitter also let us know that
(02:29):
if you letter more than once, you get the letter first, yeah,
and then a pin or a patch to put on
that letter for every additional year you letter. I do
remember getting bars to pin onto my letter for drama.
Smiles lettered in field hockey and got a pair of
crossed field hockey sticks, and for track and field got
(02:49):
a track cleat. See that's cool. We gotta boring, asked
like silver bar. Yeah, there you get some get like
drama masks or anything like that, which on a like,
I'm so sick of the drama masks being representative of
the entirety of theater. I'm like, it's been six hundred years.
Can we come up with something else? And Linda on
(03:09):
Instagram lettered in orchestra. She played violin, so her pin
was like a music staff and harp. Beautiful, I know.
And she also told us that there are different styles
of letters to denote varsity and junior varsity, which, okay,
that was a whole other level. I was like, what
now that just keeps going. So anyway, we'll culture here
at these letters. What going on with these letters? That
(03:31):
I had no idea? But these pins sound cute as halee.
I'm not gonna lie. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean again,
I probably still have those boring as little silver bars
around here somewhere. It's too bad you didn't get a
cool looking yeah something like um, like a I don't,
I don't know, y'all. Now you have to write in
and tell us would be a cool idea besides the
(03:52):
drama masks to represent theater, get like a rough, like
an Elizabethan rough for Shakespeare. No, you know it's the same,
it's the same thing. It's just a dated you know.
It's just like this archaic image. Like, give me some
fresh and poppy and modern. I want to know what
represents theater now. How come whenever we talk about theater,
(04:12):
the first thing anybody thinks about is years ago. You know. Look,
I'm just saying, just all the avant garde stuff is
flashing in my mind. I'm like, you can't let her
in Andy Warhol's weird pig thing show. Let he put
on let's hear it. Well, thank you guys for educating
(04:33):
us on letters. And I hope that if you didn't
know these things and you're a regular listener, that you've
now learned as well. Yeah. Yeah, another great answering machine.
Thanks guys, appreciate that. It's nice. It's nice to learn
so much from you while we're here to impart knowledge. Yeah,
and one day one of our listeners is going to
be on Jeopardy and there's going to be an answer
(04:55):
comes up about lettering, and they're gonna have it and
be like, yeah, ridiculous romance air. And then I hope
one of your categories is strange relationships throughout history. And
Drew Carry is who's hosting Jeopardy? Now, Drew Carry, That's
not right, that's crisis, right, whoever they got my ambiolic
(05:15):
temporarily and whatever. I hope that's not my Jeopardy answer.
I know, I thought, like, so this person just Jeopardy,
who is Drew Carry. Look, we're not here to talk
about true Carry today. We are here to talk about
(05:36):
marguite Alie bet. We are returning to France. Boy, we
we truly the epicenter of ridiculous romances. Right, But anyway,
Marguerite Alibert was beautiful. She was charming, daring, sensuous, avaricious,
(05:58):
everything you need to be to be a successful high
class Parisian courtes on. In the turn of the century.
I guess I should now, I have to say, in
the turn of the yes, I forgot. I have to
say that, right, we've had We've had another century turn
since then, goddamn. And she had some of the wealthiest,
(06:20):
most high born clients from several countries, including the Prince
of Wales. But it was the impossibly wealthy Egyptian Ali
Fami who would capture her heart or at least her
hand in marriage. She probably expected to divorce him quickly
and get a sweet settlement, but Ali had other ideas,
(06:41):
and soon her only way out was murder. How would
she keep her neck out of the gallows? Let's find out,
Let's do it, hey, their French comlution. Well, Elia and
Diana got some stories to tell. Does no match making
a romantic tips, It's just about ridiculous relationship, a love.
(07:02):
There might be any type of person at all, and
abstract cons that don't concrete wall. But if there's a story,
were the second clinch Ridiculous, a production of I Heart Radio.
Marguerite was born to a cab driver and a housekeeper
in so humble, humble, begetting modestas At some point in
(07:26):
her childhood, tragedy struck when her four year old brother
was struck and killed by a delivery Laurie as he
was playing in the street, and Marguerite was blamed because
she was supposed to be watching him and so he
had run off, and they were like, you should have
been more careful, more awful. So then they sent her
(07:46):
to a convent for her education, and the nuns like,
we're reminding her daily that her brother had died because
of her sins. They was pretty abusive. Yeah, I was
like one of those hits you at the rulers across
the knuckles totally. But Marguerite, it's got a pretty strong character.
So she kind of was rolling her eyes about it
(08:07):
as well. She was a little bit linking her. But
she was also where she was, and this is very
indicative of her character too. She wanted to get as
much out of any situation she was in as she could,
so she did that here. She applied herself to get
her a good, pretty good basic education and she also
learned to see you now. When she was in her teens,
(08:33):
the nuns decided to place her in the home of
a wealthy lawyer on reusual langua. So I guess it
was like, you know, you're you're old enough to get
the hell out of here for a while. You'll continue
your studies, but you're going to hang out with this family,
learn a little something about the real world, and start
to get out there some get some work done, get
a job, more than likely, get your hands dirty. It's
(08:56):
not all knuckle wraps and choir practice there in the
real world. In Andrew Rose's book The Woman Before Wallace,
he says that in the eighties, Langlois was the lawyer
for the infamous Humbert Case or Humbar Case, a giant
scandal that this rocked Paris. In that case, Terre's and
(09:17):
and her husband Frederick the Humbarts. They basically invented a
rich American benefactor and persuaded people to loan them money
at low interest rates and total fraud. Of course, which
thing they didn't pay that money back? Yeah, you know
I've got it around here, somewhere. I will I will
(09:37):
give you a call later. As soon as I found it,
I lived all my francs in my other redd and goods.
This fraud netted them a hundred million francs at the time,
which is close to four hundred million euro today. Rose
Rights quote. Although discovery and retribution were inevitable consequences of
(09:58):
so colossal at reception, a valuable lesson was almost certainly
not lost on Marguerite. The fraudsters had succeeded in duping
the public because they aimed high, brazenly keeping up their
act until the very end. The luxuriously appointed mansion that
was the Humbarers Paris home for twenty years was just
a few steps from the cramped and modest apartment shared
(10:22):
by Marguerite's family. So yeah, so she's basically steps away
from this fancy ass house that they got by lying.
So she's just looking at it every day, like I
could do that. I can lie scam your way into
a huge fortune. And the lang Lua family was very
rich and very cultured, and so Marguerite was closely studying
(10:46):
how the rich lived their life, how they talked, you know,
what they wore. She was kind of starting to get
her mimic on a little bit about the airs of society,
you know what I mean. But her time there was
fairly short. She abruptly left the Langlois home in seven
when she was sixteen, because she was pregnant and unwed,
(11:19):
and the paternity of her daughter, Raymond, is unknown. Marguerite
invented a couple of stories over the years. In one,
the father was a twenty eight year old friend of
hers who really wanted to marry her, but she just
didn't have a big enough dowry, so she wrote, quote,
the beautiful dream collapsed. Yeah. Really, he lives in Canada.
(11:45):
I swear he was going to marry me, but he
just what a jerk. I was not wealthy enough for him.
How rude. In another story, the father was the younger
son of a diplomat at in India and he perished
in the Great War. She also wrote one time that
her younger brother also died in the Great War, and
(12:08):
it was a family friend who was like, no, he
was four, died in the street for all that. So
she's kind of, I mean, a big liar. She doesn't
really tell you know, if you had to come up
with a story about someone's death. In the early twentieth century,
the Great War is a great exp man. Sure, maybe
the Humbars were like, oh, I had all your money,
(12:29):
but it died in the Great War, so sorry. But
more than likely it was probably just another servant in
the household, or possibly a member of the leg La
family impregnated her. But no rich family wants some pregnant,
unwed teenager hanging out making him look like a house
(12:50):
of ill repute. So Marguerite was kicked out of the
house and she returned to her family home for a while,
but they were kind of too poor to provide for
her and her baby and two additional mouths, so her
daughter Raymond, was sent to the country to live on
a farm for a few years with some people who
could handle it while Marguerite plotted her next move. Marguerite
(13:15):
knew that she was meant for bigger and better things
than some you know, working class life, and she was
willing to do pretty much anything to get it. Thanks
to her time with the lang Law family, she already
had a sheen of sophistication. Thanks to her time with
the nuns, she had a bit of an education. So
for a year or so she lived in obscurity in Paris.
(13:38):
She glossed over this time. In her autobiography, researchers speculate
probably because she was making her money through street prostitution.
Maybe she was singing in bars and cabarets and just
going home with the richest guy she could find at
the end of the night, and she's sort of like, yeah,
making ends me. Hey, there you go. So she's making
(13:59):
it work. But maybe later, by the time she's writing
her autobiography, she's feeling like, maybe that's beneath her. So
one day she came to the notice of Madame Dennard,
who ran a type of high class brothel called a
Maison de Rendezvous house of meetups. Madame Dennar wasn't in
(14:19):
this business to make some buck off a quick tumble.
Her girls were the best in Paris. You know, come
on down the Madame Dennard's. We got the smart girls,
we got the pretty girls. They're witty, they're charming, they're intelligent,
they got CD players, they got drop top roofs, beautiful
(14:41):
beyond compare. Look at these caves and no money down
well actually all the money down upfront that happened. Bad credit.
Get the hell out of here, no credit, get the
hell out of here. So Madame Dennard had a very
discerning eye. If she knew how to pick the best,
(15:01):
and she was only going to pick the best, she
knew Marguerite would attract men like flies to honey rose
rights quote. Although not a chocolate box beauty, whatever that means?
What is a chocolate box beauty? I kind of wish
I was one. You just wish you had a chocolate box.
(15:22):
I do wish I had a chocolate box. That would
be so beautiful. You are a beauty. But you don't
have a chocolate box. Now if you did, I would
eat all of it, so I'm glad you don't. So,
although not a chocolate box beauty, she was petite, with
a shapely figure, expressive greenish gray eyes, a pretty mole
on her left cheek, and a large sensuous mouth. Blah
(15:45):
blah blah. At this time, she wore her striking auburn
hair in long tresses falling to her knees. Okay hot
to Molly healthy description, Well, it's France, so she'd be
uh a hot. She sounds like a real hot galette.
(16:09):
That is one hot kiche. So not only all this
beauty and a lure, but the nuns had helped Marguerite
become a decent mezzo soprano. So she even had a
skill that could be displayed on stage, a commonplace for
courtisans to catch the eye of potential clients. Get up
(16:29):
there saying like a canary, give out a little tune,
and they're like, I'll take that one please. She caught
my eye. It's kind of like um Evelyn nesbit on
stage in the chorus line, catching attention, you know, and
find meeting patrons. You know. It's exactly the same thing.
So this girl was worth a little investment for Madame Dennard.
(16:52):
Some fancy dresses, a few elocution and piano lessons later,
and they had exactly who they needed. Marguerite would be come,
according to Madame Denard, quote the mistress of nearly all
of my best clients, gentlemen of wealth and position in France, England,
America and other countries. It was me that made a
(17:13):
sort of lady of her. Thank you very much, mercy
about Oh you like Marguerite, Well, you know that's all me. Yes,
I love your French Madam. I think you should. You
should really to France and oh a character. Yeah, I
was thinking we're like a character. But because I will
(17:36):
go to France and open a brothel. I feel like
there's a good business model there. I think we could
totally pack up our lives and do that. We'll keep
doing the podcast, sure, sure, sure, so yeah. Almost immediately,
Marguerite attracted her first wealthy patron, a married businessman named
Andre Millaire, and she started calling her self Maggie Melair
(18:01):
and Madame Melare even though they were not married, and
he because he's already married, um, and they would go
out together in high society, which was totally acceptable in Paris.
People started to notice her, started to meet her, and
her social circles got wider and wider. Marguerite was on
(18:22):
her way, So the sap and we are on our
way to a commercial break. How about that, and welcome
back to the show. Oh and here's something we thought
was cool. Andrew Rose also says that it's likely Maggie
(18:43):
closely followed the case of Marguerite Steinheil, who you may
remember from our episodes about her and the French President's
Foedix fash classic episode. We had to do it in
two parts because in one part the first part was
when he died. When she gave a blowjob and she
had to sneak out the hotel. The second part was
(19:04):
when she got accused of shooting her husband and mother
and was put on trial for murder. And that was
so this was when Maggie was out and about in
high society. It was certainly rocking society. As we talked about,
everybody was paying attention, everybody was looking close. Absolutely, and
yeah she was. She was on trial for killing her
(19:26):
husband and her mother, and her testimony was like, I mean,
listen to our episode all about it, because we get
real deep into it. But it was like all over
the place, and she definitely made some ship up and
was caught in a million lies, just whatever, just acting foolish.
But even so she was acquitted. She walked free for
those murders, and they can never really prove that it
(19:47):
was her. Andrew Rose said that that probably showed Marguerite
Albert as well as everybody else quote that a beautiful
woman could murder her husband, tell a preposterous story, walk
free from court, and collect an inheritance. So something she
might have just filed away in the back of her mind,
right just in case it comes up. It's always good
(20:12):
to have a nice full toolbox at your disposal, never know,
and that's going to come up. So mixing and mingling
with the elite of Berrie brought Marguerite even more attention,
and she was flirtatious it so Andre, who was you
know her her main guy was paying her bills. Basically
(20:33):
he traveled a lot. So while he was gone, she
continued her work as a high class court asan and
was very successful. She and Andre would be together for
around seven years, and this will be marked with lots
of fights because Andre was jealous and Maggie was you know, fiery,
and she even called herself quote a terrible she devil
(20:57):
because of her own temper. Madame Dinnar wrote once about
an occasion where Marguerite slapped the ship out of a
wealthy admirer in full view of an entire restaurant. So Maggie,
you know she's ready to throw down. Yeah she will.
You will catch her hands. Yes. Finally, in nineteen thirteen,
(21:17):
she and Andrea had a huge fight that really became
something of a scandal. She locked Andre out of their
expensive villa and released all of his horses from the
stables to wander the grounds freely. It was like gossip
columns were having a total field day with this. That's
(21:42):
French side piece saddles up by releasing her lover's horses.
All over his past years she was his main girl.
Now she is trotting away to Green the passenger. So
Andre and Maggie agreed that, you know what, it's probably
(22:04):
best if we part ways. Now everyone's laughing at us.
She was given a severance package essentially two hundred thousand
francs and in American dollars today, that would be like
getting five and a half million dollars. What why somebody
(22:26):
break up with me for five and a half million dollars?
You know. Marguerite was later actually furious at herself for
accepting such a quote poultry sum. She chalked it up
to her youth and inexperience. I should have known better
than to walk away with five and a half million dollars. Stupid, Marguerite,
So stupid? What are you a wit? So? Yeah? So
(22:52):
now Marguerite is on her own. She's got her own
little money now or whatever. So she installed herself in
a fancy apartment, you servants. She had a stable full
of horses, couple of limousines, I mean she is baling
and thanks to her time with Andre, she cut quite
a swath through fashionable Paris. She knew a lot of people,
(23:13):
tons of good connections, and she had her finances in order.
So she did bring her daughter to come live with her,
back from the farm. So Raymond is back wondering about
that girl. But of course everything changed because of a
little something called the Great War. We always war, like
a little spat between Germany and the rest of Europe's true,
(23:38):
and Marguerite was seized by an impulse to serve the
war effort. You know, she had some patriotic music in
her head or something planning. And fortunately she had just
bought herself like a fancy car, so she used it
to show for officers and other like high level officials
to hospitals and you know, offices and stuff getting you know,
she's like transport, very very important at pleased to bleed
(24:00):
on the seats and this is anoka. But Marguery, you know,
she's no altruist. So she got bored with being like
this goodwill patriotic bitch for real quick. She was tired
of that fast, and conveniently, her doctor diagnosed her with
(24:22):
a mysterious ailment that required a warm climate to recover from.
How how fortunate. So she took herself off to Cairo,
where she became friends with a wealthy businessman. She met
some high society British and Egyptian men and was just
kind of living it up in Egypt. Sounds right, I
(24:44):
would do it. But by n she was back in
Paris and she and Madame Dinner parted ways pretty acrimoniously.
Madam Dinner does not write very fondly of her because
of however they parted, whatever was said. But Maggie started
working for a new madame who ran the most expensive
(25:07):
Maison de rendezvous in the entire city of Perry La
La Her Andrew Rose describes how it worked back then.
The mason was a beautifully appointed, fancy apartment. Clients would
be greeted by a respectable maid who would serve them
refreshments in a lushly decorated lounge. Photo books were set
(25:30):
out so you could peruse the ladies at leisure and
make your selection. So you're literally swiping right or left
on a bunch of pornographic beauty photos. The biggest, most
prominent photos were the top tier, most expensive ladies of
the bunch. And this is where you'd find Marguerite's photos.
You're getting like a full page spread in the photo
(25:50):
album or like little wallet sizes in the back. They
were the cheaper girls, right, and they would be like,
one day my picture will be I didn't have by
a liver, you better learn to sing. Marguerite was a
high dollar not only because of her beauty and her
social graces, but also because she was one of several
women who were quote equally happy to play the dominatrix
(26:15):
wielding a horsewhip, to take part in lesbian activity staged
to the customers requirements, or even to indulge in a
client's taste for sodomy. So she had a lot of
items on the menu. Basically, it's made her quite valuable.
Once you made your selection, you and the madame would
(26:36):
chat and decide on a price, and the madame would
telephone the woman of your choice. So and if she's
not here in thirty minutes, your sex is free, probably
like your sex is double transportation. Most of these assignations
happened between five and seven pm. Would you call that
(26:56):
a happy ending hours? In fact, Marguerite and women like
her were sometimes referred to as Bodema san or a
five o'clock lady. Oh, I kind of like that. Now
it is a good time to be a high class
prostitute because it's wartime, and that means officers, hey, hey, hey,
(27:23):
I mean, and they've you know, been on the front.
You know, they're on leave, They're they're ready for a
warm embrace. You know they're going to get they're willing
to pay for it. So yeah, business was booming and
Marguerite was out and about with more and more the
upper echelon, and then in nineteen seventeen she landed her
biggest fish, Edward, the Prince of Whales. Wow, that is
(27:50):
a big fish, big old fish. And that brings us
to this episode side piece. I will tell anyone, I promise,
so you may know of Edward pretty much from his
most infamous action, which was abdicating the throne in order
(28:11):
to marry the American divorcee Wallace Simpson. Really up ended
the whole royal family. I think we talked about it
a little bit and we touched base with them during
Winston Churchill and Clementine. Yeah, but that would not be
the first time that Edward caused trouble for the royal family.
He was a little bit of a naughty boy. Um
(28:31):
by the time he was hanging out with Marguerite. You know,
he's still early in his career. He's still young. Um,
he's like in his twenties, and he had witnessed trench
warfare firsthand. He definitely was like, put me in coach,
you know, and they were like, no, hear them, freaking
heir to the throne, and like, what if they caught you?
You know, that would be so crazy, you can't be
(28:52):
out there. But he was, you know, he was pretty brave.
He wanted to be out there and fight the fight. Um.
He was one of the most photographed people in the
world at this time because he was super you know,
freaking famous, and his rank and good looks gained him
a lot of attention, but his womanizing and his numerous
affairs with married women over the years caused a lot
(29:14):
of embarrassment for the crown. Oh yeah, well that sounds
like the worst thing about him. Well. He also thought
white people were superior and often expressed incredibly racist views,
and later in his life he did tour Nazi Germany
and expressed pro Nazi sympathies and was kind of like,
(29:36):
maybe they got the right idea over there and Nazi Germany. Yes,
boo children, boo. So you know that hadn't happened yet,
but he's that's the person that we're talking about. Yes,
so racist stuff notwithstanding, because that is, you know, arguably
the worst thing about him of many things. But the
(29:59):
real album that the Crown was having with Edward was
that he was very indiscreet. He drew a little too
much attention to embarrassing things that he did, and he
wrote them down was a big problem. Like dear Diary today,
I truly embarrassed the family with the following incriminating evidence.
(30:22):
Here are several witnesses to my actions. You may ask
them and they will verify any of these details. Yes,
I gave them signed copies of this diary as well.
One of the things that he got himself in trouble
for and writing a lot of stuff down about, was
his time with Marguerite Dalibert. They were together for about
(30:42):
eighteen months, and a Royal brit can do a lot
of damage in eighteen months, and this was until the
late summer of nineteen eighteen. Edward wrote her about twenty letters.
According to Royalty Magazine Quote, the letters not only revealed
his feelings form but also included information about the progress
(31:05):
of the war effort and made derogatory comments about his father.
A lot of bad ship in these letters right there.
Like listen again, if an enemy were to read this,
you're just handing them all kinds of AMMO right now.
Plus you're talking about all this weird sex stuff you're
doing with this, like Parisian corpsan. But fortunately, I guess.
(31:28):
In nineteen eighteen, Edwards started to shift his attention to
a married woman named Frieda Dudley Ward, and so that
was kind of ending his fling with Marguerite. She was
on her way out and she she could smell it. Um.
But she knew how valuable those letters were, and of
course she wanted to benefit financially from this connection that
(31:49):
she'd made with the future king, so she tried to
blackmail Edward with these letters. Um. There's no evidence that
still exists of what he asked for specifically or anything
like that. Um. But in a letter, Edward wrote, quote,
I'm afraid she's the one hundred thousand pounds or nothing type,
(32:10):
though I must say I'm disappointed and didn't think she'd
turned nasty. Of course, the whole trouble is my letters,
and she's not burnt one where I specifically asked you
to burn these letters. I told you these letters could
be used as blackmail against me, please burn them. Quite
disappointed that you didn't do what I said. I can't
(32:32):
believe you hung onto them. Outrageous. And then I also
love that he's writing in a letter more incriminating evidence
about how he wrote letters with incriminating evidence, and they
were probably reading it like, god, damn it, Edward, Oh
my god. But Marguerite was also starting a new fling
(32:52):
around this time with the wealthy Charles Laurent, and he
was ready to marry her. Hello, a new thing for Marguerite. Yeah,
that kind of security and stability doesn't come too many courtesans,
like high class or otherwise. So she backed off Edward.
She thought her blackmail might actually backfire into like a
(33:14):
scandal and ruin her chances with Charles, So she's like,
all right, maybe I'll just kind of leave this one
b for now in hand. Yes, is worth a prince
in my bush. So she and Charles did marry, but
they were not well suited for each other. He was
(33:35):
a very serious guy who didn't like the high society,
fashionable party life that Marguerite not only loved but had made,
you know, pretty much her lifetime ambition. So their marriage
dissolved in nineteen twenty, and like she do, she relieved
him of a sizeable chunk of change on her way out.
(33:57):
And I will take that with me. Thank you for
them marriage, Good day, sir. So at this point she
is totally independent. She could take care of herself for
a while, but she's still in her prime. She's only
thirty years old. So she kept those peepers peeled for
another fabulously wealthy man that she could attach herself to
and see what she could get out of him. And
(34:21):
enter Ali camel Thawmy Bay. People in Paris called him
a prince, but he actually was not a prince. Bay
is a title denoting an aristocrat or like maybe a governor.
So they sort of took that and ran with it
and just called the prince because they didn't know what
they were talking about. Um, and I'm sure he did
(34:42):
not disillusion them very vigorously or anything like that. It's like, yeah, prince,
that sounds good. Yeah, yeah, the French accidentally called me
a prince. I'm not going to correct them, Okay. When
someone asked if you're a god, you say yes. He
was actually the son of like an aristocratic and jineer.
His father had a master this huge fortune over the years,
(35:04):
but he was super clutch fisted about it. He was
like a miser and he refused to indulge in like
comforts and luxuries. He was like, I want to take
it with me somehow. But when Ali was eighteen, he
got his hands on his inheritance and basically it went
book wild. Within four years, he had spent over a
(35:24):
million Egyptian pounds. Rabbi Magazine writes that he quote was
known to pay tips between five and twenty pounds when
he frequented bars. This was in the nineteen twenties, so
that'd be like thrown around sixty dollar tips today, pretty good.
So that might speak to like a generous spirit, but
(35:44):
I think he just wasn't very good with money. Because
he also paid thirteen thousand Egyptian pounds for a piece
of land in the Posh Zamilek district. So it's like
a wealthy area and everything, but the land was only
worth four thousand pounds. His personal secretary pocketed the difference,
and he just never knew. Like he's like whatever, he's
(36:05):
not keeping a close eye. Yeah yeah, he don't look
at the books. Yeah. Um. And then he had a
villa built on that property that he spent a hundred
thousand Egyptian pounds on, but it could have been done
for a fifth of that price. So he's just like
he just doesn't know, doesn't know what's what's a gallon
of milk cost? Does not have that answer. No. Rabbie
(36:29):
Magazine goes on to say, quote. One story goes that
when he asked for the young high born Mania saw
Hank's hand in marriage. He walked into her family's house,
followed by twenty uniformed men, each carrying a sterling silver
box laden with jewelry. That engagement did not last very long, however,
(36:51):
as Ali was soon caught engaging in a lewd act
with one of the actresses from the Rahani Theater troupe
in his car. The nuptials were, of course promptly canceled.
In case you were curious, Mania returned all the jewelry.
Look to be fair, the actresses at the Rohani theater.
True now hard to ignore, if I may say so myself.
(37:17):
But yeah, we're just you know, I don't know. Maneia
returned the jewelry. Uh, Marguerite would have kept all that
would have gotten more. Ali is also described as being
quote nervous and rather weak, but still really used to
getting his own way and everything. If he wanted something,
he expected to get it, as is the mentality of
(37:41):
many extremely wealthy people. And he intended to keep it
for as long as he liked, and he did not
care what that cost. And now he wanted Marguerite Alibert.
He was formally introduced to her in ninety two, but
he had actually seen her a few times before, both
in Cairo and in Harris. He was entranced by this
(38:02):
beautiful frenchwoman eight years his senior. For her part, Marguerite
liked his big, old fancy house, and his cars and
his motor boats, and you know the fortunes that he
was able to squander at gambling. Oh, you have so
much money. I love that you're so careless with it
that you'll lose thousands of dollars. Well, apparently his annual
(38:23):
income was around two million pounds a year. Maybe she
really was like, literally, he can afford to lose so
much money and it doesn't even matter. So the two
of them embarked on a passionate love affair slash spending
spree all over France until Ali returned to Egypt. But
(38:43):
not long after, he told her he couldn't live without
her and he asked her to marry him. His family
was not into this match at all. They're like, uh,
I'm sorry, you're gonna marry this French whore. We are
aristocratic Egyptians. That's not how we do things. But as
we know, Ali doesn't like to hear no very much.
(39:08):
I mean, I guess unless the question is have I
spent all my money yet? Then no? Great, I'd love
to hear no, and I would like to spend more.
Let's go do it. So obviously this gave her a
lot to think about. Ali was Muslim, and Marguerite would
have to convert to Islam if she wanted to marry him.
He also wanted her to dress modestly and cover her
(39:30):
face like the other women in Egypt, but Marguerite thought
that she was going to be up to all these tricks.
She could maneuver and handle this thing in the in
the traditional Marguerite Dali bear way, she figured if things
didn't work out, they would just simply divorce and she
could walk away with a huge chunk of cash. So
(39:51):
she insisted on a prenuptial agreement that she would be
allowed to wear Western clothing and also that she would
be permitted to ask for a divorce, which was, of
course not something that was allowed. Right. The wife doesn't
get to ask her divorce from the husband. That's crazy.
Then they'd all be doing it. However, according to history
(40:14):
collection dot com, Ali ripped up their pre nuptial agreement
only a couple of days before their wedding, and by
that time she'd already converted to Islam and moved to Egypt.
So now she had no proof that they had agreed
to these terms of hers ship. Right, y'all need to
get copies. Okay, she should have learned from Edward. So yeah,
(40:37):
so she was forced to dress and act like Ali
had said. He expected women to do exactly what he
told them to do without any argument. But I mean,
if you've been listening, you know that ain't margarite. Uh,
And instead of realizing that, maybe he pinned down a
wasp rather than a butterfly. Ali, true to his nature,
(40:57):
doubled down and he's like, I'll tame this shrue. You
know this is unmovable object, unstoppable force. Exactly, very true.
That's very true. Um. He actually wrote in a letter
to Marguerite's sister, quote, just now I am engaged in
training her. Yesterday, to begin with, I did not come
(41:19):
into lunch or to dinner, and I also left her
at the theater with women. One must act with energy
and be severe, no bad habit. I love that his
punishment is, well, I'm not coming to lunch or dinner.
I wonder if Marguerite was like, oh cool, that worked
really well to get rid of him. I should do
(41:39):
that some more. Royalty Magazine says the letter was probably
intended to be humorous on like some level, so keep
that in mind. All right, He's not like cool joke,
but not a very locker room talk or whatever. But
it quote reveals some of the tensions in Ali's mind.
He clearly fell to need to control his willful wife,
(42:03):
so it kind of shows they were definitely clashing on
a lot of things at this point. Um. He also
announced that he would be taking on multiple wives, as
is allowed in Islam. But Marguerite didn't really know shit
about Islamic culture or customs or Egypt or like, she
was not really prepared for this marriage at all, um,
and she didn't like that idea. To top it all off,
(42:25):
his favorite way to make love to her was quote
par Ladrie, which was certainly in her repertoire of services,
as we remember from the pornographic books, but they were
maybe not necessarily her preference at the time, just a
charge extra for that ship. She's like like on the
(42:47):
menu as an add on. Not all the girls do that.
You gotta pay for it, exactly, and right now I
gotta freaking be respectful and obey you in dead like
no thanks. So with all these vast chasms separating them,
it's kind of no wonder that they were very soon
at each other's throats. These two fought constantly, often in public,
(43:11):
so everyone was aware that they weren't happy together all.
He must have especially hated that if he's like, you're
not even supposed to talk back to me. Here we
are like having a public argument. That must have really
shaken his principles. You know. Marguerite would actually make notes
daily in her diary of the things she hated about him.
(43:32):
Dear today, it's that stupid smug smile. Today it is
this special noise that he makes when he choose his meat.
Dear Daddy, Today, it's that he doesn't treat me as
an equal human being. Hates that. Today it's pola da
(43:56):
one second. One day, Marguerite convinced Ali to take a
little trip to London to see an opera called The
Merry Widow Warning Red Flag, Red Flag, Red Flag. They
took in the play. They had a late supper in
their hotel room before starting some vigorous arguing as they
(44:18):
love to do. They were yelling, you know, probably throwing
things like one of those fights. Yeah, one of those knockdown,
drag out. Let me imagine. The whole hotel was just
burying their heads, you know, under their pillows, trying to
get some damn sleep. But it was not to be
(44:39):
for those poor would be sleepers. At two thirty in
the morning, multiple gut shots heard and Marguerite was discovered
in the hallway holding a smoking gun in her hand,
standing over her husband's body. He had been shot in
the back three times, and Marguerite said, I lost my head,
(45:03):
I've shot him. I feel like she shot him in
the back. She must have said, no, you take it.
So yeah, she's found in the hallway standing over his body,
She's got the gun in her hand, and she fully
(45:23):
confesses to killing him. And it also it could be
argued that it was obviously premeditated and that she had
enticed him to come to London because she knew that
in Egypt she would be put to death on the
spot for killing a nobleman, but in England she might
be able to pull some of her high society strings. Um.
(45:45):
That is history collections, speculation station. Um. But still it
would probably have been brought up by a lawyer at
some point. You know, all that evidence stacked against her.
Marguerite is going to jail, right, I mean she's literally
down standing over her dead husband's body with a smoking
gun in her hand, Like did we fans a smoking gun?
(46:09):
Quite literally? But no, not so much, not so much.
So let's find out what happened after these messages. Welcome
back to the show. Everyone. Marguerite was caught red handed,
(46:30):
as we said, smoking gun in her hand, but she
wasn't going to face many consequences. Partly this is because
of good old fashioned Western racism coming to save a
white woman. Yet again, racism saving white people from from
crimes they committed. Since zero zero zero's here zero. Her case,
(46:54):
of course went to trial, and it was sensational, with
people waiting in line at all hours to get a
seat in the courtroom. He was already dead. Ali was
basically put on trial to because Marguerite's defense was that
he was this savage beast of a husband with perverted
sexual proclivities. She was trapped in an unloving marriage with
(47:15):
a quote, these are her words, oriental brute. Yes, that's
not a word we use anymore, but it is definitely
a huge part of this particular part of the story,
so to keep it in tact for historical reason, particular
brand of racism. Yes, her theatrical performance in court sold
papers for days. She told them about the veils and
(47:38):
the modest clothes she was forced to wear. She recounted
times when she and Ali fought. Witnesses recalled how they'd
seen him hit her in public, sometimes much to the
disapproval of his family and friends. She even told them
he demanded lewd sex of acts. Quote of a sadistic
nature and that she was forced to comply under threat.
(48:01):
I mean, no wonder people line it up to see
this case. She's she's really to tell you everything. And
it's not to say that these things didn't happen. And
then he wasn't a big ship in a terrible husband.
But her sort of reframing it in this like savageness
is like she's literally playing into people's racist presumptions, yeah,
prejudices exactly. And what made it way worse than just
(48:24):
her playing on you know, anyone present and they're at
their own unconscious or conscious bias, very consciousness. Um was
that reporters, naturally we're taking what she said about Ali
and generalized it to be about every man from Egypt
or the Middle East or any other place over there
that's not here. Basically, um As raw Wi magazine says,
(48:48):
quote the newspapers and their frenzy to report complacently stereotyped
all Oriental men as barbarians, sweepingly accused of sharing the
victims sadism and brutality, and it got so bad that
Egyptian writers and intellectuals, both male and female, protested so
much that several major British publications were forced to apologize
(49:12):
for all the things that they had said, like that,
that's how galling it was getting around this time, and
Marguerite's passed as a sex worker was never even disclosed
to the jury. They thought of her as a high
born lady who had been horribly deceived by her husband.
They declared that she had shot him in self defense
after being driven to the brink of her sanity by
(49:33):
his violence, and Marguerite walked out of that courtroom a
free woman. I mean, not that her sex work, you know,
made her more likely to be guilty, but that it
was a huge part of the story leading up to this,
So they're not disclosed that really did like well, and
it made him look even worse that he was, like,
(49:55):
you know, doing all these lewd sex acts on what
who they probably were picturing to be this, like not
a virgin because she's been married before, but just this
high born, aristocratic lady who doesn't do that stuff, you know,
instead of a woman who had been selling it out
of a book for several years at this point. So
it's been it is definitely I think it helped her case,
(50:16):
but it might not only be due to all these
horrible stereotypes and racist prejudice. Marguerite may also have remembered
those handy dandied letters to mund Baby from the future
King of England, Edward, the Prince of Wales. Oh shoot
so yea. At this point in Edwards many sexual activities
(50:41):
and had to be hushed up because he was like
the poster boy for the British monarchy, and honestly they
needed one, because of course, the Bolshevik Revolution happened in
Russia and that made everybody in aristocratic circles incredibly nervous
as any revolution, and so they were kind of all
(51:03):
in any country, they were all kind of going, how's
my working class doing, y'all? Do an? Okay, down here,
let me bring in some bagels on Friday's casual Friday.
You know, we love the working people. Yes, where would
we be without you? Y'all? Keep working now, no attention
to that man behind the iron curtain. Well there you go. Uh.
(51:29):
And then you know Edward had some boyish good looks, right, so,
and he had done like a tour of some less
wealthy nations in the Commonwealth, so he was playing really
prince of the people at this time. He had some
real sympathies and so they really needed to protect this
image that they had going of Edward and Marguerite knew it.
(51:50):
These letters could not have come at a worse time. Express,
which is a magazine in the UK, says that only
hours after Ali Fammy's death, advisors at your House, which
is the Prince of Wales official residence quote, went into meltdown.
The Prince was scheduled to go on a summer tour,
(52:11):
including several official visits to Wales, but by the next
day all of that had been canceled. A ticket on
the next ocean liner out of Liverpool was booked and
his valet was packing for a three month stay in
Canada like they were like, no the world. Marguerite meanwhile
(52:31):
was entertaining several like high level visitors in her cell
at Holloway Prison, so she she would just be like,
come and see me, like all her rich clients would
come by and probably bring her a little treat, and
they're trying to play it off. Was like, oh, I
love going to visit Courtisan's in prison. This is there's
nothing special here, standard visit. So yeah, she's got a
(52:54):
bunch of high level visitors and fancy guests and stuff
including quote and army major with close but not two
obvious links to the royal household. Now, Andrew Rose lays
out this case that Marguerite used her letters to blackmail
the crown with scandal. If they didn't get her acquitted
(53:15):
in exchange for the incriminating letters, they took care of
things behind the scenes. It's a compelling case and it
has pretty thoroughly convinced quite a lot of people. But
we've got to say that it's not confirmed fact yet.
Although if we're waiting for the British government to admit it,
I think, don't hold your breath. Yeah they I mean,
(53:36):
they're probably never going through. You know, it would take
Harry and Megan coming out spilling the beans. We're ready
to tell you all the secrets. But whether it was
the royal machine or the racism machine, or a little
of both, let's say probably either way, Maggie got her wish.
Now she had to turn her attention to the little
(53:56):
matter of her inheritance. So, yeah, the money. So she
was always expected to get something out of her marriage
to Ali. Besides, you know, a murder charge. She's like,
I'm supposed to be charging you, right, So she sued
Ali's family to get her hands on his property, but
(54:17):
the Egyptian courts were not even pretending to have it.
Are you kidding me? Girl? Especially after all that ship
they were reading in y'all's newspapers about their son and
yeah no, ma'am. Yeah, they're like, you're a murderer. You
killed him. We don't care what your racist courts say
about how he put it in your butt or whatever.
(54:38):
You get nothing, Wonka, you get nothing. Good day that
she overplayed her hand a little at this point. To
be fair, Rabbi Magazine says that she invented a little
story that she had gotten pregnant and had legitimate air
to Fami's fortune, and quote soon became the laughing stock
(54:58):
of Parisian society, presumably because she wasn't able to produce
a child to prove this story. I mean, that's kind
of a big lie to like, I, yeah, I had
a baby, and everyone immediately goes where's the baby? And
you're like, whoops, I didn't think of that. Like, it's
not a it's not a long come because you don't
have long to convince everyone before they realize you're full
(55:19):
of ship and not full of baby, or you know,
maybe because she kept telling everyone that he always liked
to put it in her butt, so they're like, wet,
so let me know some more information about how you
get pregnant up the butt. So yeah, she she kind
of faded from public view after all this rigamarole, and
(55:42):
she continued to call herself Princess Marguerite, even though, like
we say, FAMMI was never a prince, you know, but
no one in Europe knew the difference. So she was like, cool,
I'm a princess. When people call you a god, you
say yes, you keep that um. And she lived an
apartment facing the Ritz in Paris for the rest of
her life, spending her time with her daughter and her
(56:04):
grandchildren until she died in one Now at this point
you might remember that she had to hand over all
these letters from Prince Edward, you know, earlier when they
got her off from that murder charge. Um. But Marguerite,
you know, she too smart for that. She had kept
a few as insurance, and so she had a few
(56:26):
still in her possession, and a family friend finally quietly
destroyed them, and all of that incriminating evidence against Edward
was finally gone. Yeah, right, they're out there somewhere. It
sounds like something Carmen san Diego would steal. Incriminating letters
between Marguerite Deli Beart and Prince Edward of Wales. History
(56:49):
Collection says quote after her death, her grandson was going
through her paperwork and saw that Marguerite had managed to
quietly get married and divorced another are five times without
her family knowing about it. Well, when you're good at something,
you know, you stick with it. Oh man. Yeah, and
(57:13):
Edward's secrets were kept safe for nearly a century until
Andrew Rose's book came out and he pieced all this together.
Andrew Rose, friend of the British royal family. Doubtful, right,
I don't think I like him? Oh man? Wow. Crazy.
So that's the story of Marguerite Alibert and her side piece, Edward,
(57:35):
the Prince of Wales and her definitely she murdered him.
Husband Ali from this one's not even like up in
the air, like at least Marguerite Steinheil were like, we
don't really kind of think maybe she didn't kill them,
you know, there was a whole necklace thing to think about,
but no, this was cutting dry, cut and dried, smoking gun. Yeah,
(57:56):
she murder solved, free to go so crazy? Oh man, well,
I I mean, yeah, it's this is another another Kookie
one out of kin I loved. I kind of was
enjoying it because nobody, UM really to feel sorry for.
I mean, I guess I kind of feel sorry for
Marguerite a little bit because she was she was kind
(58:18):
of entrapped in this marriage. That must have been scary
to suddenly be in another culture totally that you don't understand.
You're like, oh ship, I really got in over my
head on this one. Um. And he was kind of
you know, abusive. UM. But she also like just put
herself in so many of those type of situations when
I'm like, I mean, all right, you're fine. Well, as
(58:38):
we learned many times on this show, you know, people
have many different qualities and some of them are detestable
and some of them are worth sympathy. UM, and you
know you you weigh them all against each other and
if your soul is heavier than a feather or something,
I'm not up on my Egyptian. Well, I'm so excited
(59:00):
bring you all this story. As always, another Cookie one
full of murder and betrayal and bad toxic marriages right,
but yeah, let us know what you think. We always
love to hear from you, of course, our beloved audience,
of course, please shoot us an email. You can get
us at Romance at I heart media dot com right,
(59:20):
or we're on social media Twitter and Instagram. I'm at
dianamite boom and I'm at Oh great, It's Eli and
the show is at ridic Romance and we hope that
we hear from your Apple podcast. You can leave us
a review and some stars. We love that. We're also
on YouTube, so you can subscribe to our channel there,
which is also ridic Romance. And we will be back
on Friday with another recryptulous Romance for our Halloween series
(59:43):
of Terrifying Tales and we can't wait to bring another
story then, cannot wait to see you next time. Love
you bye, so long friends, It's time to go. Thanks
so listening to our show. Tell your friends name's uncles
in the stoop to listen to us so ridiculous. Well yes,
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