Mademoiselle Lenormand, the rise of a seer: episode 1/2 of the podcast La sibylle du faubourg Saint Germain

When Galileo discovered, at the beginning of the 17th century, thanks to an astronomical telescope, the immensity of the depth of the sky, he signed the divorce between science and clairvoyance, in particular astrology. It was then followed by cartomancy and then somnambulism, which today is called hypnosis. These practices develop in all spheres of society, from dark streets to luxurious apartments, even in the salons of kings and emperors.
It was in this context that a young woman from Alençon named Marie-Anne Lenormand arrived in Paris some time before the start of the French Revolution.
She has a taste for mathematics and is very interested in the theater, but it is ultimately clairvoyance that she chooses.
She quickly opened her own “clairvoyance office” hidden under the sign of a “Bookstore” at 5 rue de Tournon where she remained for nearly 50 years. In this place, it is said that she receives many personalities of the time, Marat, Robespierre, Saint-Just and even the Empress Joséphine, of whom she will become the confidante.

Mademoiselle Lenormand explores all the techniques of divination, from tarot cards, to the lines of the hand, passing through coffee grounds, melted lead, egg whites, broken mirrors or blown ashes. She gradually forged her own legend through the books she published throughout her life, so much so that it is difficult today to distinguish the true from the false concerning her career and her exploits.

What is certain is that she seriously worried Napoleon, who had her arrested and imprisoned several times.
After a final arrest, while she was in Belgium, around 1820, she greatly reduced her clairvoyance activities.

The aromatic smell of coffee exhales everywhere, new divinity, I hide in the middle of this cloud, I question this precious liquor. Like the miner who manages to discover the richest of metals in the bowels of the earth; this divinatory marc opens the doors of the past, the present and the future to me. Marie-Anne Lenormand

To talk about it

Thanks to

French Playing Card Museumin Issy-les-Moulineaux, for its hospitality.

Text readings:

The Prophetic Recollections of a Sibyl on the Secret Causes of Her Arrest, December 11, 1809 by Marie-Anne Lenormand (1814)
Excerpts from newspapers The illustration, universal newspaper (08.07. 1843) and The journal of the debates (03.07.1843)

Bibliography

Excerpts broadcast:

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), a film by Agnès Varda

Generic

A documentary by Lila Boses, directed by Julie Beressi. Sound recording, Olivier Leroux and Hervé Dubreuil. Mixing, Benjamin Vignal. Ina archive to come. With the collaboration of the Radio France Library. Coordination, Christine Bernard. Production and web pages assistant, Sylvia Favre-Steyaert.

For further