Noble Blood - "Eat Him If You Like"

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

CW: Gore, cannibalism. The village of Hautefaye was a sleepy town in France best known for a local fair. But in the summer of 1870, gripped by paranoia and political anger, the villagers turned on a young nobleman and unleashed a torrent of horrific violence that would scar the town for a century. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Merch!  — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong,

dance and then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the I-HeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. There was barely any breathing room in the courtroom as the proceedings were set to begin. The French town of Perigoo was by no means amazing. city, but people from all across the entire region, from all across the entire country, had come to town in order to see firsthand the proceedings in what was sure to be the story of the year. Villagers and notables, lawyers and witnesses all jammed into every corner of the

courthouse. And on a cool December day in 1870, Bernard Mathieu took the stand, and appeared before the raucous audience. Bernard Mathieu was the mayor of a nearby town called Otfai, where a horrific crime had taken place, the lynching of a man. No, not just a lynching, the prosecution reminded the audience. Bernard Mathieu had to answer for a carnival of torture, a four-hour procession of brutality,

an ungodly murder, and not just the murder of any villager, but of a young nobleman who had served his country. A total of 21 men, including Mathieu, ranging from 16 years old to well past 60, were charged with this crime, which had occurred four months before the trial, and the press had spent the intervening months gleefully recounting the most horrific details of the atrocity. These weren't any ordinary villagers, the stories made clear, but savages, animals, possessed by their baser instincts. Bernard Mathieu was well aware of the public's perception of the gruesome stories that were coming out about what had happened that day in August.

What did it mean for him to be the mayor of a town of blood-blood? thirsty monsters. Well, he would do everything in his power when he took the stand to distance himself from the deplorables of his town. But there was one charge that Bernard could not quite escape. Some days before he took the stand, a lady had come before the judge and testified against him. She supposedly had overheard one of the murderers telling Bernard that they intended to kill their victim, to which Bernard had allegedly responded, something truly damning, something that was corroborated by a second witness. The mayor allegedly replied, eat him if you like. Before all of this, the tiny town in France had been renowned for its boisterous fares and friendly

faces. Not one of the 21 men charged with the crime had ever had a single run-in-with-the-law before, And yet here was damning evidence, not only of the murder of an innocent man, but of cannibalism. It seemed to the court and to the world that on August 16, 1870, the inhabitants of a quaint town in western France, slaughtered a nobleman and partook in his flesh. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble. blood. A note before we begin, in case you haven't picked up on that, this episode will contain some gruesome details, so be aware of that if that's something you might be sensitive to. Starting in the summer of 1868, Western France was hit by a series of droughts that made

farming in the town of Otefoy excruciating. By the summer of 1870, there had been almost no rain for six months. Whole lakes dried up, the price of food more than doubled, and an air of anxiety took hold of the village. Despite these difficulties, or maybe because of them, the villagers of Otfoy resolved to hold their annual summer fair. The fair typically drew farmers, artisans, and livestock dealers from 15 miles around to an empty campground, where people haggled over good, reconnected with old friends and turned rowdy at the local inn. To the delight of many fairgoers, O'TFoy was only accessible by footpaths. It was remote enough that villagers could enjoy the festivities

without having to cater to city folk or to have to curtail their behavior amidst local police. Coincidentally, this year's fair overlapped with a national holiday for Napoleon III. The holiday took on special significance because France had just declared war against Prussia. Young men from the village and from across the country were being conscripted to the front, and not always against their will. Villagers saw Napoleon III as a trusted guardian of their liberties. The villagers didn't trust many local lords because chances were those lords wanted to restore ancient privileges over the peasantry.

The villagers didn't particularly trust their local priests who were feared to have extorted villagers on behalf of those nobles, and villagers most certainly did not trust Republican radicals who were imposing undue taxes upon them. Only the emperor was fighting for them. Rumors spread throughout Othe some days prior that villagers in other parts of Western France had caught and executed Prussian spies who were lying under cover amongst common folk. These rumors were most likely false, but the effect that they had on the people of Otwe was unmistakable, a fear of conspiracy lurking below the surface of an otherwise ordinary fare. The villagers found something to obsess over on August 9th, when a crowd overheard one

zealous nobleman by the name of Camille de Maillard, proclaimed that, quote, the emperor was done for, referring to a string of military defeats that France had suffered against the Prussians. As it happened, Camille was indeed a critic of Napoleon III, but in reality it's unlikely that he was foolhardy enough to have stated his criticisms out loud, let alone announced them in a public square. So whether or not he did actually make a statement like that, it didn't really matter a week later on August 16th when Camille decided to reappear in public at Otefe's summer fair. To Camille's chagrin, more than one person remembered him as the man who hated Napoleon III. A crowd began forming around Camille of local farmers and traders,

pressing him for a confession of his crime. One person in attendance went so far as to claim that he heard Camille shout out, Long live the Republic, which Camille utterly denied. Fearing for his safety, he fled the fairground sometime in the morning. Camille had a cousin named Alon de Monnet, another nobleman who decided to attend this year's fair. By all accounts, Alon was an upstanding neighbor. His father was the former mayor of the nearby town of Bissuk, and Elaine himself served as a member of the town's municipal council. He spent most of his time managing the 400 acres that made up his family's inheritance,

building waterworks, and tending to the needs of local commoners. He had come to the fair that day in the first place, in search of a cow, to give to a poor family. 32 years old, Elaine desperately wanted to join the ranks of the French army in the war against Prussia. But due to some disability, the army disqualified him from enlistment. Esteemed, compassionate, patriotic, Elaine was the last person anyone would have expected to become a victim of mob violence. There's no record of him having any prior disagreements with townfolk. Elaine turned up at the fairgrounds around two in the afternoon, which may seem insignificant, but actually tells us quite a bit about the circumstances leading up to the commotion.

At this point, many of the farmers and livestock dealers had packed up shop, and they were mingling with one another, perhaps headed to the inn for a pint or two. The crowd at the center of the fairground was still enraged over what many believed, was Camille's brazen support for the Republic. And when someone had informed Elaine of the slander against his cousin, he approached that crowd with the intention of defending his family name. From Elaine's perspective, it made no sense that Camille would ever support the Republic. His cousin was, after all, a closeted advocate for the return of the Bourbonne monarchy,

a completely different political dynasty. To the villagers, though, the disson. distinction didn't matter. Republicans were Bourbons were Prussians. Any elite claiming authority that did not swear undying fealty to the Bonaparte to Napoleon III was a threat. So while Elaine remained steadfast in his conviction that Camille was innocent, more and more villagers attested to having heard his cousin's treacherous proclamations for the Republic. Why else would he have been talking about Prussian war victories. Very few people in this growing mob knew one another well.

The Otefe Fair drew in hundreds of farmers and artisans from all over the region. While Elaine was well known among some residents of Otefe, it's plausible that no one in the mob knew him personally, so no one could speak to his actual character. This made it all too easy to cast him as an accomplice to commuter, to Camille and for the villagers to see one another as fellow defenders of the empire. Before long, sometime around 2.30 in the afternoon, someone accused Elaine of being a Prussian spy. Arguments turned to insults, insults into clenched fists. More and more villagers joined

without knowing anything about the original provocation or conversation, and many confused Elaine for his cousin. The crowd gained a momentum of its own, and what began as an otherwise ordinary day at the summer fair shifted into the prosecution of an enemy of the state. Someone in the crowd warned Elaine, one of us will be left beaten to a pulp. Maybe it was the first punch or slap to the face or the fact that he was surrounded by a throng of men all holding sticks and stones. Eventually, Alain snapped out of it and realized his life was at stake. Historian Alain Corbin tells us that, had Alain understood that his counterparts lived in an entirely different conceptual universe, one that saw any proud noble as a conspirator against

the emperor, maybe he would have survived. But by the time the first blows were struck, it was too late. Alain screamed out in an effort to call him. calm down the crowd, long live the emperor, but it didn't work. Meanwhile, the town's priest had been watching the scene develop from right outside the church. After the first few blows were struck, he jumped over his garden wall and sprung into action, putting his body between Elin and the mob with a revolver in his hand. But even with a gun, it didn't take long for the priest to shrink away when he heard some members of the crowd express interest in wanting to gut the man of faith.

The priest tried another tactic. He invited the angry men into his presbytery for free wine and a toast to the emperor's health. Only some of the men diverged from their path and refreshed with free spirits. They simply returned drunker to the mob. The crowd pushed and dragged along to the house of Otwe's mayor, Bernard Mathieu. We know Bernard as the man who allegedly incited the cannibalism.

That may be false, but what is certainly true is that Bernard, fearing for his property and life, made no effort to calm the situation down. When a few leaders of the crowd demanded that the mayor prosecute and imprison the supposed Prussian spy, the mayor renounced any power and more or less told the crowd to do. do as they pleased. One man, a horseshoer, emerged from the crowd as de facto leader. He suggested that they take Alain to a cherry tree and hang him from the branches. The crowd moved their hostage to the execution site, but, unfortunately for them, and for Alain, the branches proved too weak for the hanging. At this point, the crowd changed their

mind. They wouldn't be so merciful as to end the Prussian's life in a matter of minutes. No, they would draw out the pain, make the Prussian suffer in a fashion that was equal parts barbaric and cathartic. Two farmers from the small village of Manzac led the charge. They bruised and battered along, hit him up the head and clobbered him with stones. The whole scene was within view of an inn, where one man with a rifle turned to the people around him and announced that they should all protect that poor man. No one else at the inn said anything, and the rifleman sunk back in his chair.

The crowd dragged Alain back to the mayor's house and forced him inside a workshop full of ordinary farm tools that offered themselves up as useful torture devices. Alain was tied to a cattle crush, a structure that immobilizes livestock. Utterly defenseless, he was beaten with hooves and sticks until his head was a bloody mess.

There was something strangely casual about the way that the torture proceeded. The villagers would batter Alain for a few minutes, then take a break, leaving Alon alone to howl in pain before they resumed the blood bath. Some of the culprits went out for breaths of fresh share. Others wandered off to other parts of the fair before returning back to the workshop to see how

the violence had progressed. For a brief moment, Alon was left completely alone in the workshop, at which point a rescue attempt was made by the few allies he had had on the fairgrounds. Four men, including the mayor's nephew and Alon's servant, rushed into the workshop to try to free him from the cattle crush, but the crowd returned before they could succeed. The mob doubled down on their torment. One local who had just learned that his son had died on the front lines of the war against Prussia drove a hook into Alain's head, which was thought fatal by some witnesses. By some divine intervention, the crowd around Alain had withered away and his rescuers were finally able to wretch him from the cattle crush. The mayor's nephew pleaded with his uncle,

Bernard, to take in the wounded man, but Bernard refused. His reason? The mayor complained that the mob would smash up his fine collection of crockery. Bernard Mathieu recommended that they put Elaine in the sheep pen next to the house, out of sight from the fairgrounds. Elaine's battered body collapsed when he reached the pen. In between, Gasp, he told his four rescuers to purchase a hogshead of wine and give it to his pursuers and an attempt at peace. A friend passed him some figs to eat. Everything slowed down, but not for long. The horseshoer, leading the charge against Alain, riled up the crowd, calling for them to burn down the pen and break down the front door. One man protected the entryway, while another

urged Alon to change his jacket and shirt for a peasant's blouse. If the mob wasn't going to die down, their only chance would be a covered escape. None of those plans came to fruition, though, as the mass of people burst down the pen door and got a hold of Elaine. The court records report that one of Alain's friends asked him if he'd prefer being shot right then and there. When Alain signaled, yes, his rescuers demanded that the mob shoot him to end his. suffering, but no one listened. In a last-ditch effort to save Alain's life or offer an easier death, his servant wrestled his body away from the mob and took him to the local inn. The innkeeper, much like the mayor, refused to let the bloodied man in, whose leg was nestled in between the

front entrance and the door frame. When the innkeeper shut the door, he broke Elaine's ankle, and amidst all the chaos, the mayor allegedly told Alon's son. servant to, quote, take him away from the front of the inn because he was blocking traffic. Accounts of the precise circumstances of Alain's death diverge, but it was around this point, some two hours after the initial mob began, that the victim finally lost consciousness. When the mob dragged him once again onto the fairgrounds, Allah seemed overcome with adrenaline, as though he knew this was his last chance. He picked up a stake and shoved it into the face of the horseshoer,

but he was promptly disarmed. When Elaine ran under a wheelbarrow to try to fetch another stake, he was dragged out screaming and finally killed. The murderers began that day as strangers, but they ended it as accomplices. When Elaine finally died, they set up his body as a punching bag for fair. fairgoers to beat as they wished. Importantly, they never used a knife or a blade to spill blood.

The same protocol shepherds followed when they prepared animals for slaughter. Some witnesses described farmers poking the corpse's abdomen as they might sheep. Elaine was dead, but the suffering imagined by the fairgoers transformed the suspected Prussian into the beast they believed he was. As night approached, members of the crowd called for the burning of his body, as though they were grilling meat for a feast. Elaine was dragged to the same spot where residents celebrated St. John's Eve with bonfires less than a month earlier.

One witness describing the transfer of the corpse four years after the fact reflected, quote, he was dragged by the legs through the narrow streets of the village, his bloody head ringing on the stones, his torn body jumping up and down. Barring the corpse, the scene could have been mistaken for some sort of holiday. Women and children fetched kindling. The mayor showed up. The horseshoer brought a bale of straw and laid it on top of Elaine's body, asking a group of children to light the fire with a pack of matches. When the fuel flared in a horrible blaze, the crowd cheered, long-live the emperor.

Conflicting accounts of the immolation emphasized the dehumanization underlying this horror. One witness said in court, quote, I saw the fire blaze up and I could see the poor man moving under the wood piled on top of him. Another said, just as the fire blazed up, Monsieur de Monet flailed his arms and legs and made sounds like the noises a hog makes when you stick the knife into its neck. One farmer commented on how nicely they roasted the pig. Yet another saw fat dripping from the corpse onto the charred wood below and said,

It's a pity all that fat is wasted. When the body had been charred when all skin turned to ash, there was no way of telling if they had roasted a man or a pig. The murder of Alain de Monet had nothing to do with the victim and everything to do with his torturers. On the afternoon of August 16th, the crowds of Otefe transformed an innocent man into a reflection of their most profound, primal fears. He was a concrete symbol for an amorphous enemy, for Prussians, Republicans, nobles, conspirators, a disease in the national body that needed cleansing. Amidst the chaos of war and the possibility of famine, here was a physical object they could lay hands on. Here was something they could do to control the circumstances for which there was no clear solution.

Upon returning home, one of the ringleaders told a friend, We did it to save France. Our emperor will surely save us. Arrests were made the same night the murder took place. Police from the local city of Nantan were notified of a murder and potentially an uprising. It wasn't too difficult to identify the main perpetrators. Some of them couldn't stop boasting about the whole affair, and many earnestly believed their actions would be protected by imperial writ.

In total, the police arrested around 50 people from around Otefe and transferred them to the Nont-Planc-Prizen some 10 miles away, though only 21 would be charged with the crime. That same night, a doctor was called to perform an autopsy. The doctor's report itself was meant to describe the physical condition of the body, but he couldn't help but emphasize the innocence of the victim, writing, The corpse, charred almost beyond recognition, was lying on its back, the face slightly turned to the left toward the sky, Its lower limbs spread apart, and the right hand clenched above its head as if to implore,

the left hand drawn down toward the left shoulder and open as if begging for mercy. News of the murder spread throughout the region like wildfire, especially amongst the nobility. They feared a peasant uprising, which many had believed were a thing of the past. After the bonfire and emulation of an innocent man, the major noble family, families of the district mobilized a makeshift militia, details of which are scarce in the historical record. The day after the town of Nolquois mounted a defense against what it believed was an impending peasant invasion. Two years after the event, one landowner recalled how Otefe would have turned into the center of a rebellion had the authorities not stepped in so quickly.

The local press reflected the anxieties of these elites, obsessing over every detail that could reinforce the monstrosity of the perpetrators. First, the regional papers took the story and ran with it, calling the villagers a brutish mob and creatures with human faces. Then a little over a week after the murder, some national papers ran the story to great intrigue. All of them at least alluded to cannibalism. Reporters and readers alike only had to connect the dots. Here were peasants treating nobles like animals. Of course they had eaten his human flesh. Cannibalistic depictions of the villagers

strongly evoked colonialist stories that circulated in French literature at the time. One writer drew a direct comparison between the fairgoers and the so-called cannibals depicted in the novel Robinson Crusoe, which features a rachel. racist trope that was in this case applied to the country farmers in order to paint them as subhuman savages. Perhaps what was most shocking to readers was that none of the men directly involved in

the murder had ever perpetrated a serious crime before. Just as the villagers suspected Prussian spies lurking in their midst, wealthy newspaper readers grew paranoid about the explosive potential of mob violence, in their own backyards. The press openly despised the town mayor, Bernard Matu, for having failed in his duties. He was removed from his position on August 24th. To make matters worse for the town of Otefe, the Bonapartein Empire that the villagers so attached their hopes to

crumbled in early September, resulting in the rise of the Third Republic, led by, yes, the same Republicans, that the villagers feared and hated so much. When the government changed hands that month, administrators worried Otefe would turn into the center of a Bonapartein counter-rebellion, no doubt inspired by the latest reports in the press. One administrator went so far as to recommend that the village be literally erased from the map.

The recommendation was dropped when the new mayor of Ote-Fei pointed out that the main perpetrators were not, actually from the town, but only visiting for the fair. Meanwhile, the story lost no steam among the general public. In September, the police transferred 21 prisoners to the courthouse in Perengue for notification of their trial, and a crowd of 500 people streamed in to catch a glimpse of the so-called monsters of Otefe, a reporter that visited some of the perpetrators in their jail cells, including the horseshoer, described their bodies in brutish terms. One man's eyes, quote, darted about like a badgers as he tried to hide himself in the midst of his co-defendants.

The trial itself took place from September 13th to the 21st, nine days of spectacle attended by the families of the defendants, by the villagers of Perengo, and plenty of upper class locals intrigued by the drama. One man reportedly complained that his local theater had been closed since the outbreak of the war, and so the court offered a decent substitute. Spectators delighted and recoiled that seeing the brutish murderers alive and up close. While the court proceedings revealed that cannibalism probably did not occur, they made it clear that everything leading up to the consumption of human limbs, certainly did happen. No gory detail was spared. The prosecution even presented the very stones upon which Elaine's fat had dripped while his body was burnt. The defense counsel actually

leaned into the trope of the villagers' savagery, claiming that the peasants who banded together were simply acting like animals. All of the individuals on the stand were motivated by Ignorance, superstition, and collective delusion. How could we severely punish any one person? Needless to say, the defense lost. Four of the 21 perpetrators were sentenced to death, and the remaining 17 received prison time. The audience, especially the poorer folks in attendance, protested the convictions to no avail. The executions were set for February. It was anticipated that the executions would take place in Perengue, the same town the court had made its decision, but officials decided to move the execution site to the town of Otefe itself, on the very fairgrounds

where the violence began. In a show of force and an act of political revenge, the government stationed hundreds of soldiers in the village. A crowd of about a hundred spectators appeared to see the heads of the four main convicts lobbed off by guillotine. To the frustration of local priests and officials, most commoners referred to the men as martyrs. The innkeepers of Otefe even refused to serve the executioners. From their standpoint, even if the mob was wrong to kill Alendemone, the Republicans had no right to treat these otherwise upstanding citizens. like animals. The court's decision only confirmed the sort of conspiracy between elites that the fairgoers feared so much in the person of Elaine. There's one more character in this

drama we have yet to follow up on, Bernard Mathew, the former now disgraced mayor. He died on Christmas Day, 1870, shortly after the trials had ended. Apparently, his unscathed collection of crockery was no source of comfort in those final days. That's the gruesome story of the alleged French town of cannibals, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about Huttfe's legacy in literature and today. I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about doing whatever it takes to be thoughts.

Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations. expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Langoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month?

I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about, doing whatever it takes to be the odds. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning,

actress, producer, and director, Eva Longoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me.

Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the MyCultura podcast network. available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The primary source for this retelling of the Otefe case comes from the 1990 history of the event by the French historian Elaine Corbin. Corbin is something of a maverick in the historical establishment. During the 80s and 90s, when scholars usually wrote about political dynasties, world wars, or economic struggles, Corbin investigated more unusual subjects, prostitution, attitudes towards the sea, and, as we know, cannibalism. He employs a literary style that has been cherished by some for its appeal and detracted by others for issuing academic norms.

So when he tells us about the brutal killing of Alain de Manet in 1870, he doesn't just flesh out the details, no pun intended. He sets the stage, introduces the characters, and narrates a tragedy between the killer and the killed. If I may say so, it is a gripping rendition of the story. Unfortunately, the book's appeal may not have been so good for the town of Otefe. In 2009, the long-standing mayor recommended erecting a plaque in remembrance of the lynching, but there was enough of an outcry among the town's residents that the project had. to be scrapped. Where many European cities lean into their dark local histories, sometimes to attract tourists, the myth of Otefe's cannibalism is a delicate subject. The town has no more than

130 residents today, only a little larger than it was in the 1800s, but the attention that it's received in literature and folklore has been wildly disproportionate. The story of the killing was even converted into a popular tune in the late 1800s. Some current residents can recall their grandparents' firsthand accounts of the executions and the bad reputation of the town that followed. Even though the murder of Elandemone remains a touchy subject, the town has taken many steps towards reconciliation and remembrance. On August 16th, 1970, exactly one century after the murder,

the Odefe Church put on a ceremony of forgiveness, featuring the descendants of Elaine Dimonei. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio, and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is created and hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by Noami Griffin and Rima Il Kali,

with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change.

We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.