ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: The Tilly Cult

I'll be doing something a little bit different. Usually the stories I tell are ones filtered through decades, if not hundreds of years. But sometimes I come across the story so bizarre, so fascinating, so well everything that I ever want an episode of Noble Blood to be. That. Even though we don't quite have the established consensus of history yet,

I can't us talking about it. And that's why today we're talking about the strange and mysterious happenings that occurred in southwest France when an aristocratic family fell under the spell of a con man named Terry Tilly. But here's the thing. This story is from two thousand one. This is still technically with appeals an ongoing court case in France. So take everything I say with the caveat that the truth isn't yet available to us, or may never be

available to us. So rather than reading a normal episode of Noble Blood, which I prefer to write from my position of relative finality and comfortable hindsight, for this one, I'll be talking with my wonderful research assistant, Hannah Johnston, and together we will try our best to get to the bottom of this strange, strange story. I'm Danish forts and this is Noble Blood. So, Hannah, what did you make of this story? From what what you read? Um?

What I made of the story, I think is just that you know, I have been studying history for a long time and have seen a lot of really absolutely bonkers, you know, stories from history, and this really drove home that people have always been and will always be, extremely strange. Um, and some of them may be evil a little bit. And of one thing that I found very compelling about the story, which again we will get to in just

a moment, is I think there delusions of grandeur. Obviously, being a Protestant noble in France doesn't mean much these days, but I think a sense of self importance made them incredibly susceptible to falling into a cult a plot that I think to anyone else would have sounded ridiculous. Absolutely, that was something that I was thinking a lot about. I think I wrote in my notes that if someone told me that there were forces in the world that we're trying to destroy me and my family, I would

laugh in their face. There's nothing to make me believe that I'm that important. But yeah, I think that like the nostalgia of being a noble from a noble family and having this big, long history, yeah, opens you up to being believing that your actions have some like larger

global impact. So the two main sources that I came to when I was trying to get to the bottom of the story, we're first a Vanity Fair article by Michael Joseph Gross called Aristocrats and Demons, that's very fascinating and I think does a really good, in depth job of getting to the bottom of the story. And a memoir by one of the family members involved. But uh, I just before we start, I just wanted to begin with the caveat that we're not consulting a wide variety

of sources because I just I don't think they're available. No, and whatever else beyond I think there are a couple of Guardian articles too, is all in French, which I do not read yet. Um, I have big dreams of learning it. I started this quarantine with some Rosetta stone that is still very much in early days. Yeah, my dual lingo owl is very mad at me. Um. But yeah, there is also another memoir I found. Um, I'm going

to really butcher her name. The Yeah, the aunt or the sister Um wrote a memoir with her husband that has yet to be translated. So there is more out there that if if anyone reads French, I can't pronounce the name, but it looks interesting. Well, I think that is a great segue to who this family is. I think we should give everyone a family trait of the oh, my God and my French. I'm so sorry if my

pronunciation David family. I believe that I was saying vedrem vejory that that seems if we say Davidori, is that that sounds horrible. Apologies to anyone French. Yes, my deepest apology. The Daviddori family, which uh is a as I mentioned, Protestant nobles in the southwest France, which basically means they have some established wealth, they live in a lovely chateau or they lived in a lovely chateau with like a

turret and three stories. But the family are the major players in this family again, Hannah, please correct my pronunciation. The matriarch gi Met I believe that. Yeah, who's you know, an eighty eight year old older woman, and Gimett has three adult children. Three children. There's Philippe who is in his sixties, who was a executive at Shell Oil. Her daughter jes I ran it through a French textas speech, and I think it's Guila Gila, thank you so much.

But that's just from like TTS dot com or something, so maybe not accurate. So uh, Philippe gui La, who was in her mid fifties and ran a secretarial school, and then Charles Henry, who was fifty three early young, you know, early fifties at the start of this story and was an obstetrician. So these are all professional, wealthy,

established people in the world. Uh. And then the the side characters will come in our the partners and children of these three main siblings, and I think the dynamic that we meet these siblings in is Charles Henry, who's the youngest of the of the three, is the one who lives at Chateau Martel, the family's estate, because he has the income to supported and you know, as an obstetrician. And Philippe the oldest, does feel like he's sort of entitled to it or should be, but he's going through

a divorce at this moment. I don't really know how successful he is at Shell Oil, but he he didn't didn't have the income to sustain a massive estate, and so it went to to his brother. I think Michael Grows refers to him as a he exudes a stork like bearing of wounded pride. Yeah, yeah, it seems I don't know, as a in a noble family, being the the oldest son and not getting the you know, the big castle is probably a big blow, so I get it. Yeah.

And Geelong, the daughter, is married to a man named Jean Marschauan and she runs, as we mentioned that a secretarial school in Paris. And she also has a daughter named gi Met also named after her grandmother, I assume, who is twenty four and getting married to a concert pianist, which I found was lovely until it all goes wrong. Yeah. I was so excited for her, I feel like, and they had this beautiful wedding with all these you know, Parisian performers, and then the next page everything went to

the garbage. That was very sad to read. So I think that is probably where we meet. I've been saying Terry Tilly, but is it? Is it? I don't think that I could make my mouth make the sound. I think the last name is like t or something like that, but it's just impossible for me. We'll just have to do the the bastardized American americanized version. But it's this bespeckled con man, or maybe not just this, this bespeckled

gentleman who begins working at Gee Laws secretary school. He is, begins as a night tea man and sort of works his way up until he's the second in command, getting paid the most, and befriending Galan to such a degree that her husband is worried that she's having an affair. Yeah, I would be worried. I'd be worried too if I saw my wife, you know, paying these massive amounts of money to some strange man who's sort of a jack

of all trades. Um. I believe he got the school a whole new set of computers and nobody's really sure where they came from or you know, where that money came from. And then he's taking all these secret meetings with her, So I absolutely get believing that there's an affair going on. And then his behavior sort of starts getting even weirder. At the school, he has large, imposing

Polish security guards and rott Wiler's patrolling. He sort of takes over the school in a way that reminded me a little bit of like Project Mayhem in Fight Club, where you're like, who's running the ship? This former I tamn now has Polish security guards and Rottweiler's patrolling the school. But I think even more threatening is this is where he starts telling Gila that there's a Freemason conspiracy that's out to get her family, that the Freemasons are trying

to get. First, he just says, are trying to get property that the secretarial school is on that they you know, will stop at nothing to get this property. But then I think the the suspicions sort of widened too. There's this massive worldwide conspiracy there are agents of evil everywhere, and anyone can be a Freemason. So Gila starts seeing

Freemasons everywhere, and she starts getting incredibly paranoid. Yeah, and in the I Think the Vanity Fair article, John is mentioned noticing that you know, it's friends, it's family who are suddenly agents of this freemasonic cult or conspiracy to

tear the family apart or destroy them somehow. And that's, you know, in the con Man playbook, I suppose, is just the the easiest, fastest way I can imagine to isolate a family really quickly um an exert control paranoia, and especially if someone is secretly believes all along that they are special and that they are meant to hold some significance in the world order, I can understand why someone would be susceptible to that. But Terry Telly doesn't

end with his relationship with the law. I don't know whether the wedding was where he met the rest of the family, but I do like that sort of as a set piece as the idea where this is sort of where he infiltrate the rest of the family. So at Gila daughter, he met wedding where she's as we mentioned, before marrying a he seems lovely a pianist named Sebastian Uh.

Terry begins befriending and flattering the other members of the family, and they mentioned that he is an excellent flatterer, Like I'll go up to Philippe, who's that shell oil executive, and say, like, you should be running shell oil. He appeals to that sense of grandeur in a way that he's interesting to me because looking at pictures of Terry Tilly, he's not a striking, conventionally attractive or imposing man. He's he looks, you know, he's on the smaller side. He

wears glasses. He looks like a regular like I t guy, And I wonder if because he doesn't seem as imposing, it's almost more seductive in a way, Like he doesn't look like a con man, right, he doesn't look like a handsome, slick, greasy guy. Yeah. I remember Christine and her memo're talking about she met him once before meeting him officially, Like she met this guy who wasn't introduced by name, and he looked slimy and greasy and disgusting. And she remarks that if if she had known at

the time that this was Tilly. She would have never gone near him. And he's never described as particularly handsome or dashing or even very charming. He kind of starts out very um and he's shaking hands so hard that he's hurting people, and I, I don't know. Normally these kinds of guys are very charismatic and often attractive, but he does not fit the part perfectly. No, which is

you know, makes it a little chilling. You know, cult I know is a loaded word, but it does seem, especially with Gilan, that she becomes brainwashed with with paranoia and really falls under Tilly spell to the degree at which there's this bizarre incident where her husband, Jean Jean Marschand, who had been uh skeptical to say the least about her paranoia about the Freemasons, she confronts him with a wearing a cocktail dress with a fistful of dried flowers

and a gardening glove. She throws the flowers and gloves in his face, tells him that he's an agent of evil. I believe it was a part of an evil network. Rather, it tells him that he has half an hour to pack, and that she wanted divorce he's physically restrained by then her two other brothers, Philippe and Charles Henry, and forced

to leave the the house. And then, in an incredibly chilling moment, he sees an email from Tilly to his now ex wife telling her to do exactly what she said she was going to do, like telling her okay, road dried flowers and a glove in his face and tell him he's part of an evil network. So he has infiltrated her to such a degree that he she's obeying him in these bizarre instructions to throw her husband

out of the house, and it's really heartbreaking. John describes it as as feeling like her brain had been replaced, that Terry Tilly had stolen her brain. Yeah. I really love the description of him as a brain burglar um, which is a delightful, if upsetting phrase. Yeah, just wild. It seems to me that the next few events that happened with his family we have he's last stopped paying teachers at her secretarial school, and they just kept teaching. Yeah,

they kept teaching. I guess they're you know, hoped that it would stop eventually and she would start paying them again. I imagine I guess so. But then she shut it down, right, she just knows the whole thing shuts the school down, stops paying electricity and power. Because then, for a brief period after her divorce, which I could not make heads or tales of, she her brother Philippe, the shell oil One, and Philip's girlfriend Brigitte all live on the top floor

of this secretarial school with no power electricity. I mean, the only explanation I could have is that, you know, Terry Tilly told them like your house is being watched and you know, you need to live off the grid for a little bit or something like that, because we don't really get an explanation of that brief period now. And there are a couple of other episodes of various members of the family being forced to or for some reason choose who ever earn a cord live in abandoned buildings.

It seems like, um, the Christine and Charles and Rees's son a Maori. Yeah, but the one of the younger sons lived in an abandoned office building for several months and that was that was played as some sort of punishment, But glam was never really punished because she was so close to Tilly um, she was sort of the central point of contact between him and Gills. You know, family and not friends, just family. Yeah, well, it's about this point.

I would imagine that basically the entire family now moves in to the ancestral chateau and everyone becomes isolated from their friends and the family that is not part of this. The young bride he met leaves her new pianist husband like like right away three months three months after the wedding, leaves him, moves back in. Charles Henry, the obstetrician, just leaves his practice without warning to his partners or patients.

Everyone just seems like leaves their jobs, leaves their significant others. Charles Henry's wife, Christine, who becomes a major player in this, tells, you know, cuts off contact with her friends and when her friends try to reach out to where she's like that, it's a family. It's a really important family thing that's

happening right now. So at this point, all of them sell their external properties, the properties that aren't this house, so all the places that they had been living and all the savings and money they had, and they give all of their money to Tilly. Yeah. So now it's eleven people I think living at this of the castle. I guess, yeah, I like this nice, medium sized state. Three generations from he met the eight year old grandmother. I think the youngest is Diane at sixteen, who is

Charles Henry and Christine's daughter. So the children in play. We already talked about Gelon's daughter, the bride who leaves her husband. She has a brother, Francois. But I think that the main child who becomes a character in this story for bizarre reasons is Um. And this is the problem with aristocratic French families that they all name their kids the exact same things. Right. Is that how you would say it, I would suppose, so, I think so

that's how I've been pronouncing it in my head. So, Um, who is Charles Henry the obstetrician, the oldest adult son and Christine's oldest son. Yeah, he does a lot of crazy stuff that I am very excited to get into. So let's talk about this period where the family is living at the estate together. Sure, yeah, I think I know. Yeah, there are eleven of them living in the house. I

know at some point Diane was sent away. Um, she went to boarding school, And I think this may have been before Chasmrie was kind of back in the picture for a while. He was in Bordeaux with I guess still with his practice at the time, and then there

were eleven people at the estate at Martel. At some point, I think in somewhere between two thousand two and two thousand three, Tilly ordered everyone to banish clocks and calendars from their chateau, which meant they had no reference of time or what day it was, um, which is another tried and true brainwashing tactic of just disorienting the people that you're trying to manipulate. Um. So they're all living sequestered in this house, no idea what day it is.

They're in the news for a while as like the famous recluses of their town, which is I believe pronounced mont Flancin. That seems right, but yeah, so basically the only interest in them up until this point is sort of tabloid interest where people are like, isn't it weird that this you know, wealthy family is just also quest stirred in their house and cut off contact with everyone. It's sort of like a just a a weird bit of news. But the true bizarre nature of the story

doesn't really unfold until later. I mean, they stopped, so they stop paying taxes, and so the French government reclaims furniture, just comes in and, you know, to start taking furniture repossessed. That's the word, thank you, repossesses everything. And so then you just imagine this, this family of eleven formerly wealthy people living in creepy, abandoned squalor terrified that Freemasons are

going to kill them. And Terry Tilly sort of keeps his leadership by saying that he's a member of this organization and in touch with a character that I still do not understand. And I think the main reason that I'm very confused by this is he says that the leader of this secretive organization is a man named Jacques Gonzalez. Oh, I have no idea what to make of him. Christine said talks about him like once in her book, and the Vanity Fair article talks about him like once or twice.

He's an enigma, and Guillam will try to appear as him later or try to pose as him, and I think my favorite incident of the story. But so that's I think part of the shadowy thing that Tilly does is he just makes him feel like something much bigger than them is going on, where he'll take calls from like this mysterious leader Jacque Gonzalez, who he says is

connected to the Spanish king. So it doesn't seem like Tilly is the head of this He's just the the reliable go between between this family and some legitimate, terrifying organization. But eventually, then this family moves to Oxford. Do you want to take over and talk a bit about what, what, how ths when this family moves to England. Sure? So by my count, we're now in around two thousand five.

So at some point between two thousand three and two, um, Till he moved his family, his his wife Jessica, and you think he had a few children and someone had a child from a previous manner marriage. Um, they moved to Oxford mostly because till he was facing some legal problems in France. I don't quite understand the French legal system, but it looked sort of like embezzlement or something adjacent

to that. And it also seemed to me that Tilly was getting a little nervous about the French tabloids interest in this family. I think that as a as an organization or as a con It thrived in secrecy, absolutely, and I don't think he wanted the you know, as a local rich family. They were. They were an object of interest. And he moves them in various in drips and drabs, both to his shabby apartment. And when I say Oxford, we're not like, we're not at the university.

This is like the bleak suburbs of Oxford, the outskirts. So he moves them in drips and drabs, and they've always been civilians but become invisible working class people, deeply embroiled in this cult. I mean, cult is so weird because it's one family. But I'm just trying to communicate, like the the it seems the brainwashing and commitment to this these beliefs. Yeah, I mean, I think a cult is a reasonable way of describing it, or maybe a

sect of some kind. They didn't have like a religious aspect, which maybe makes it different from other kinds of cults. But there are so few words to describe what was happening to this family. It's an era national set of beliefs that they are so committed to that they forego the rest of their lives yeah, you know what I mean, like the outside world that they cut off their friends and their jobs and they become deeply devoted to Tilly.

So with them living, various family members come over at at various points, and then they start working at menial jobs. They had been you know, working class professionals, and they all sort of get jobs like sweeping the floor at Nando's, at fast food restaurants. Yeah, so by I think it's two dozen six. They're Christine and CHELSONI and the rest of their children other than Guillaume who had been there for a while, come and take these jobs. And yeah, um,

Diane I believe, is the one working at Nando's. And they're all working these these menial, manual labor type jobs. They're working insane hours so that they're they're sleeping maybe three or four hours a night, and they're giving I think it's nine of their pay went directly to Tilly without any you know, any negotiation of any kind. So they're working, you know, some of them are working more

than two jobs. I think was he was the only one with a college degree in that of the children, so he's working I think a little bit more professionally. He was working at an archaeological firm of some kind, but he was also bartending at night, and he was responsible for caring for Tilly's children. That's just an in human work schedule, which obviously was by design, so that there, you know, too exhausted to really consider their situation at all.

That is a real cult technique. The lack of the manipulation, their lack of sleep. Yeah, and that comes into play later when um, Christine and the rest are all sequestered for two weeks in this creepy empty house in Oxford. Yeah.

So to to set the scene again, the the members of the family that had formerly been white collar professionals, wealthy members of the French aristocracy, are now in dingy apartment working one to two menial jobs, constantly giving almost all of their income to Tilly and listening to whatever he says, which I think, as you teased very nicely,

would lead to them being sequestered. This is a dark period, and I think Christine, her memoir was definitely the source I went to for for this story, because she was the victim of a lot of this. Do you want to do you want to take over what happened here? Sure? So, Yes, Oxford is kind of where, um, at least from my perspective, everything comes to a head, and it really all focuses on Christine, who, if you'll remember, is Chas's wife, UM

and the mother of several of these children. She and Charles and Rie had moved to Oxford in two and pretty much immediately Christine was punished for being a liar or you know, being dishonest with her husband. UM, and she was sequestered almost entirely alone in a room UM a pretty you know, red bear furniture. She talks about this. I suppose it's some sort of comforter um that she really liked it till he took away. And she was sequestered for I think from November two until Spring two seven.

She was alone most of the time, UM, and she was forced to write every day. And I believe it's around this time that the idea of the transmission and the Lequili Dumont begins to come up. UM, and Christine

is really at the center of that. Yeah. Liquibly demand again which I will try to pronounce to me just read as the big evil organization that that Telly sets them up, that he says is out to get them in the world, sort of the Freemason version of the story, and he has it in his mind and convinces the rest of the family, including Christine, that Christine is secretly the key and knows deep down the numbers to this Belgian bank account that will have more golden riches than

anyone can ever imagine, and that for some reason Christine either doesn't remember or won't tell them the numbers. And what happens now is her family, including her children and her husband. I mean they torture her. Yes, yeah, they I think thankfully her children were not there, or at least if they were there, it would have been just killam I think I think m giam was there. But

they for about two weeks in January two UM. And this is also after uh Tillie had made Christine go with I believe Guillaume two Brussels UM and try to access safe deposit box at nearly every bank in the city, because I guess that would be a way of getting around whatever number he believed or wanted her to believe that she had in her you know, the recesses of her mind. Um. But eventually that didn't work, and for two weeks in this, you know, very empty. Christine describes

it as completely neutral, very very creepy house. Christine and the family are. They're deprived of sleep, and Christine in

particular is not allowed to sleep. At certain points, she's not allowed to use the restroom, um, she's forbidden from eating, and at some point Tilly, in trying to get her to reveal this number that she is either suppressing or purposely hiding, he punches her several times in the back, at which point everything sort of sort of falls apart, and different family members are than accused of maybe they're

the one hiding this special number that you know. Apparently this this transmission is passed down through you know, the most important families in all of France or the world that will access them this money that would supposedly get them out of all the financial trouble they've been building up since their relationship with Tilly began. I believe it

was Christine, but I might be incorrect. And who said this made an interesting point that you think with a large number of people that they wouldn't have been as susceptible to till these like in the abstract ludicrous things.

But she points out like with a large number of people that you all trust and its air support system in the world that whenever anyone pointed out that a thing was seemed ridiculous, then there were immediately, you know, ten other people who could tell you, no, no, you know,

you're being silly, and justify it to yourself. It was sort of the self reinforcing thing where the group itself convinced itself that these things were less ludicrous than they sound when you just hear about them in the abstract.

In isolation, yeah, absolutely, And I think by this time too, there, you know, they've been isolated from the rest of the world, from really anyone who could tell them, hey, this is absolutely crazy for what almost you know, seven years, six years um, and they've been you know, they'd already been through the rigamarole of sleep deprivation, and you know, none of them had seen clocks or calendars for years and

years at that point. So if I were in that position, I believe anything anyone told me, because that's their only point of reference for the world. And at this point you have no friends, you have no job, you're heavily in debt back in France, you know, and and in trouble financially, and your entire family and your support network is here. Believing all these things, it would be it's

incredibly hard to get out of that. Yeah. And if if you believed even for a second that you had something in your brain that could make it all go away, and and the torture and you know, get your your chateau back and all the comforts that you've lost, I would I believe it too, I would. I don't know.

I try. Uh. That's the really heartbreaking thing is Christine, even as she's being tortured and not allowed to eat and not allowed to use the bathroom, she is angry at herself because she also believes that she does have that key, and she's just mad that she can't remember it. Yeah, that was very hard to read. And I think Christine's writing obviously has the hindsight of, you know, now knowing that it was ridiculous, which I think soften it a

little bit. But realizing, I don't know, the feeling of thinking about being in that position was very hard. And there's one more thing that I wanted to point out that happens at some point when they're in Oxford. But I take it with a grain of salt, because I know that from what I've read, they're trying to challenge this legally to be able to get their chateau back. I read actually that that was rejected in so the story might be over. They might not get it at all.

I don't think so they're not going to get it. But so basically what happened is Charles Henry, who Charles Henry again my pronunciation, I'm so sorry is depending what you believe, either tricked or voluntarily signs over the chateau to Tilly's family estate that's been in the family for generations. And I think, in hindsight, when the family gets out of this is the most heartbreaking loss. And as I said,

I guess no longer ongoing court case. They tried to challenge it to get the chateau back, but I guess, uh it is it is gone. Yeah, I Google translated a French article um that apparently they obviously they contested the sale because it was under false pretenses. I believe they claimed that they were told that they were filing a mortgage or putting it in some sort of I

don't trust or I don't know any financial buzzwords. But they believed that it was kind of waiting for them when they had the money to get it back, but then someone bought it and apparently it's a nice family lives there now, or at least was at last at press time, a mom with a kid. It sounded like yeah, But this article says that they the Court of Appeals rejected them in so I mean, maybe they could buy

it back someday. I don't think it precludes them ever getting it back, but not in the way that they want, I think. And while they're in Oxford. This is also there's a lot of complicated family in fighting that happened that I don't think it's worth getting quite into that, just because it becomes challenging, you know, Various family members at different points are leaving and coming and challenging each other.

A lot of lawsuits that I couldn't quite follow. But one really strange thing that happened that I cannot wait to talk about is Giam, the twentysomething son of Charles Hunry and Christine, sort of becomes Tilly's right hand man for a time period until he sort of cut himself off from Tilly, seems to be doing his own thing

in a in a weird way. And then one day he shows up at the DMV wearing a latex mask that the Vanity Fair article Uh, Michael Gross, I think very generously refers to it as a like Mission Impossible style latex mask. But you look at the photos and it is a it's very scary to look at. It's

a Mike Myers Halloween mask. Apparently it costs like six dollars um or I suppose the equivalent, And I'm like, I don't know who you know who sold him that mask, but it did not look worth almost two thousand dollars to me. And he said it was professionally like glued on, and you you look at it and you're like, that does not look professionally glued on. That con the fact that he looked in the mirror and it's like, yep, people fall for this is just shows how out of

touch he has been with the rest of the world. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. The the Vanity Fair uncle, I think, also has a security still of GM. He went to the DMV to try to take a driving test, and this mask was supposed to disguise him as the ever elusive shot gun salez Um. He looks ridiculous. He shows up with this mask on to disguise himself, but they call the police because they're like, this is were the guy just showed up in a Halloween mask and is

insisting it's his face. But he says his name is Jacques Gonzalez, which to me, this isn't really explored, but I think, I my gut was like, I think he was trying to pull like a Shawshank redemption, you know how in Shawshank Redemption if you've seen it, at the end, Andy Duffrayne uses the fake name and has all the fake identification to claim all the money that he stowed away.

I feel like he was at gum, was at the DMV to try to get like a fake driver's license for Jacque Gonzales as himself that he could claim I don't know, some money, whatever money had been funneled his way, like a sort of backwards con I believe that. Yeah.

I found it very strange that Christine did not mention this bizarre episode, I don't think at all in her memoir, which makes me think maybe it's not as flattering of a motive as we would like to believe, or at least that was my first instinct, but I don't know absolutely.

I I did sort of sense that the the Vanity Fair article interviews a bunch of other, you know, auxiliary people to the story, people who were affected by like you know, teachers at the secretarial school and friends who the people who were still owed a lot of money by this family that was con and they do say like, Okay, well share this con that's convenient, but like they were in on it to some degree and they owe us

a lot of money. Although you know, you do say, like, if this family was in it for money, they do not end up with money. They lose everything million euros,

five million euros, they lose their chateau. But you do wonder what Giam is playing at with this whole charade, because it's bizarre showing up in a Mission Impossible style mask, trying to get a driver's license under a fake name, and spending on it money that is, as you pointed out in in some note, we don't know where he got that money, because it seems like for the most part the family was giving it directly to Tilly, so it was maybe Tilly was also in on this, or

he sort of had maybe siphoned things away from it. There's a lot of money that's, as far as I know, still unaccounted for, and some of it actually seems to tie back to Kim, which I find also a little bit suspicious interesting because he was the intermediary. I believe it's the right word in the sale of Martel that you know, took the rug out from everybody else. I don't wish to spin conspiracies conspiracies on conspiracies, but um,

I think Christine's memoir does. I read that before I read the Fan of Divanity Fair article, and I don't think that her memoir really dives into role as much as I mean. I mean, I would don't fault her at all. That's her son, but yeah, there's a lot left unsaid. I think. I think that's that's the reason why I felt like I couldn't make this a normal

noble blood episode. One because it's it's weirdly complicated, but also because there is that sort of pat narrative that that Christine tells that I think is fascinating and makes sense, where it's this noble family they fall into this uh conman's grasp and then they get out and and that does paint them as the victims entirely. When you read the Vanity Fair story, which is more nuanced and more complicated, and you're like, okay, well, y'am was doing something. He

sort of became Tilly's right hand man. Something was happening with him and with this shady jaque Gonzalez figure who turns out to be a real person. Yeah, I was surprised, me too. I thought he was just Tilly in a in a mustache, a fake mustache and a hat. But no, he's a real guy. I loved the story about them, the journalist who wrote the Vanny vertical showing up and the guy pretends to have no idea what's going on. He's like, oh, maybe I went to the wrong shock,

gen Salas, and then six months later he's arrested. Maybe he did go to the wrong shock Gnsalaz And that's just a patsy. And that's just a patsy. Oh my god, that that another Jack Gonzalez has been has been framed in a double conspiracy. Yeah, but I think this is a good segue to talk about the rescue an endgame, and I think the m v P of the story baron, Oh my god, I was like, I love you the noble man, the noble that this story deserves. I also

feel like I've been to his um. I studied a brought in Oxford one summer, and I think I've been to his cheese cart, oh my god, in the cover Market. I obviously never met him, but had the cheese. Okay, so for contact. The entire family is working these menial jobs and Christine, the the wife of of Charles Henri again is working in the back kitchen of this cheese shop in Oxford's Covered Market run by a man named

Baron Bobby. And that's just his nickname. His family had been bestowed a baroncy by Napoleon, so it's not He's not old aristocracy. And again the title doesn't mean much to him. And I think it's it's very interesting and charming to frame these two characters as ones who both have French titles. And you know, Baron Bobby mentions that that they love speaking French to each other. But I feel like he sort of takes it with a good nature.

He doesn't take it very seriously, and the the Dividrine family maybe took it too seriously in a way that made them vulnerable. But basically Christine sort of slowly over her friendship with Bob, working there, speaking French, hanging out, starts revealing drips of her home life at this point in the story, and the way that her family had succumbed to Tilly and the way they had, you know, tortured her for two weeks while she couldn't remember the

bank account info. And she was saying how apologetic she was for not knowing the bank info, and Bobby is the one who was like, what are you talking about? That's insane, and she's like, no, Terry's incredibly powerful and connected, and I think Bobby at this point is like, no, he's just a little creep. Yeah, I love that. What

a good man, What a good man. And he's the one who facilitates Christine getting in touch with some of her old friends in France, eventually escaping, returning to France and reporting to the French government everything that's been happening with Tilly, and then a warrant is put out for his Yes, but he does manage to avoid it for a little while, um because he believe Oxford. Yeah, and the English government is less than helpful, yes, which maybe

isn't surprising. I don't know, he makes the terrible decision of taking a trip to Zurich. Yeah, that just seems stupid to me. Yeah, if you're, if you're about to, if you're engaging in a vast international conspiracy, you want to restrict your travel from countries that have extradition treaties exactly.

I don't know. After all that was, I mean I was glad he got arrested, obviously, but after almost nine years now, almost a decade of you know, everything's planned to at tie, everything so perfect, he has it all figured out. He goes on a trip. Yeah, he just goes on a little vacation because he wants to get away from this family for a bit. I guess, I don't know. It seems seems like a dumb move to me. But it also seemed like his entire thing was by

the seat of his pants. I mean, this isn't that's true because for a conspiracy, it's only focused on one rich family. Yeah, and not even a big time like it's not like they're the Bourbons or anything. No, I believe that. I mean, look, five million dollars, five million euros is nothing to shake your fifth dad I wish I had five million euros, but it for ten years and this massive conspiracy. You're like, what is his end game here? I guess he just wanted to control control

over people. Yeah, because eventually he just milked them for all they were worth and was just continuing to be mean to them. And the whole matter with the transmission. I was also very confused because he has to know it's not real, Like did he think that he could get her to guess a magic number that would unlock someone else's bank account? And as you alluded to, there's a period where she and her son actually go to Brussels and go bank to bank on foot, just every

bank in Brussels. I wonder if he knows it's not going to work, but wants that like anxiety and that torture for the family. Maybe yeah, I mean after every bank, when it was inevitably not the bank, he would call Christine and just you know, verbally assault her. Um. So maybe it was just for the sake of being terrible, But he did so many things for his own gain, and I'm just not sure what this would have done for him other than a sense of power. I think

you're right because you're at a at a cent. As soon as they sell the house, they really have no material properties left. And at this point it's just like a small collection of basically slaves working for him that he has complete control over, and I imagine to some sort of monstrous person that's intoxicating. I guess, So I guess that's what he's the con man and we're not,

and we are absolutely not. So he gets arrested. But what it basically happens next iss ex husband, the one that she threw the dried flowers and gardening glove at Sean marchand is still like sad and upset about how, you know, nine years earlier his wife had to come to what he believes to be a brainwashing by a

cal man. And he tells authorities that, like, he's worried that the family, which even after Terry's arrest, remained in Oxford, living at these places and just like going about their lives. He was worried that it was going to be like Jonestown, that they would might you know, kill themselves for Terry. And so he or helps orchestrate with Christine, who's back in France at this point, what Michael Gross and Vanity Fair calls an Ocean's eleven style extraction. Yes, and it

really it feels accurate. Well, we have a team. They had the like code name and everything. They have like a cryptologist, they cult de breaker. You know how in in Oceans eleven you need like one expert and everything. That is what I felt like they had. They're like, we have the cult expert and the deprogramming expert and the transportation guy. Yeah, you gotta have someone to do everything. John almost ruined it though, Yeah, do you want to

talk about that? Yes? I do because I have a lot of love for Jean because I find it very admirable that he was so instrumental in getting this this big lawyer, Daniel Picot. Picotin maybe is the pronuntiation um getting this man involved in in this case. Um. I think in two thousand four was the first time they made contact. Um, so I admired him. But the first time that they tried to go to go back to

Oxford and we're at this point. I believe all of the rest of the ved Dream were there, including Gilla and the now nine be something elder Giamet, and they were successful in exit counseling and exceltrating Guillaume, I believe, but Jehan almost ruined it because he tried to confront his wife alone, which basically tipped everyone off and they closed ranks, which I feel for him, and I can completely understand not seeing your wife for that long after this,

you know, really bonkers traumatic separation. But in her memoir, Christine was like that Dingdong almost ruined the whole operation. They had to go and go back to France and wait a little while. And then because of course this whole outburst with Quiller tipped off the tabloids and you know, the English tabloids, they really jumped all over it, which again just kind of closed everything off. So they had to wait several more months, they believe, before they could

go and get the rest of the family out. What does emerge for me is a very clear picture of how challenging it is and how you do need experts for a situation where people have been brainwashed. I mean, yeah, confronting someone in person and then allowing them to close ranks is sort of the the end result. You need experts. You need this to be carefully orchestrated to bring people

back into the world. Yeah, and Christine talks about and I didn't know this, the difference between deep programming and exit counseling, and how they were trying to exfiltrate this the rest of their family with as little trauma as possible, because classic American deep programming apparently is very similar to being kidnapped, um, which I could imagine is not helpful. Yeah,

it would be I guess, re traumatizing. Yeah, so apparently this is even more of a careful process than that, where it's yeah, you really need like I believe they had a psychiatrist or psychologists who you know, you need someone who can pick apart what has become this family's reality for almost a decade without re traumatizing them and

in a likelihood, you know, pushing them further towards h tilly. Yeah, this expiltration mission, which as you mentioned, they had two of for reasons that were necessary, included a psychoanalyst, a criminologist, and then a transportation guy. So like, they're professionals involved in this, and it is a hefty organization and it takes a process the same way you're like, Okay, I don't know if this is you know, because people were involved in the fais work to some degree or just

because it was their brainwashing. It takes a while for the entire family to come around, but by the end they all come out against Tilly and to testify against him. They don't testify, but I mean come out publicly against him. Yeah, I think they do. They join the case, but I'm not sure how much they're supposed to testify. Yes, I don't. I just didn't know. I didn't want to say they all testified because I'm not. I don't think they all did. Maybe they did, yeah, I think only I'm not sure.

But yeah, So eventually, at a certain point they all come out against Tilly, who goes to jail for fraud, imprisonment accompanied by acts of barbarism and torture, extortion of funds, and abuse of weakness. Yeah, I'm intrigued by that part. I would imagine it's a kind of clunky translation. Yeah, but abusive weakness seems like a strange way of putting it. I guess vulnerability sounds better to me, but yeah, vulnerability makes it seem less um subjective. Yeah, there's some Yeah,

there's there's a weird bit of language there. But Tilly, I think is still being held in Bordeaux, declined legal counsel and has given no interviews and ferociously denies all charges. I mean, I suppose that's what I would do, but there's really nothing I think at that point that I'm trying to think of the the idiom that the coup has flown, that the chicken has been cooked. Yeah, the cats out of the bag. Some the cats out of the bag, but the with these two ex filtration missions.

After his arrest, the family was still in Oxford for I believe seven months, I think, so it was a long process. Yeah, which I can't imagine being uh, disillusioned of this you know, awful reality that I've been forced into and then just kind of hanging out for a while. That seems very difficult. I think you imagine that, you I. I don't think they were probably entirely convinced that it was you know, a con at that point. I think they want to believe that, you know, the last decade

of their life it had meaning. And I'm sure when Tilly was first arrested that they were like, oh, that the evil powers of the world have gotten to him. You know, the Freemasons have called in their favors and and had him arrested. You know, I I think that the challenge here for me is realizing that it's not like a Disney movie where when the villain is captured are killed, that the kingdom just magically, you know, a wave of color rushes over the kingdom and everything is

reverted back to normal. Yeah. I'm sure for those seven months it was incredibly confusing and painful. You know that old saying it's easier to to con someone than convinced something they have been conned. I've never heard that, but that seems to apply here. Yeah, where it's like I I imagine that for a while, you want to believe that the secret order of the world you had devoted yourself to with such a fervent, painful commitment was real

for for a while longer. Yeah, I believe Gillan actually believed when um Tillie was first arrested, that he he told her or she believed of her own volition, that he had gotten himself arrested on purpose for some reason, to serve the ends of protecting the family from you know, this existential threat which I can imagine them all, you know, sort of waiting with bated breath even as they were being exit counseled to try to discover what was real

and what wasn't and of course, very cynically him telling them that this was all part of his plan would keep them from, you know, testifying against him. Absolutely, So that is sort of how the story ends, in the sense that Tilly is found guilty, although there is a very funny scene in Christine's memoir that I wanted to thank you for highlighting with the judge. Do you want to describe that. Yes, he tried to brainwash the judge,

I think is what he was trying to do. He starts telling his life story, and you know, the story is constantly changing, and he's using essentially the same tactics that he had used with the family, where you know, he says, he says that he can't talk about its work, his work because it's top secret and you know, I can't say anything more. And he's saying this to the literal judge um, who at some point, I believe, in

perhaps nicer words, tells him to shut up. And again, as we mentioned before, he declined all legal counsels, so he's his own lawyer at this point. Yeah, and he keeps interrupting and just generally causing trouble, telling all these crazy lies he was in the navy, and then oh I wasn't you know, quite in the navy, but I was pretty much in the navy. And then I believe his father takes the stand and is like, this is

a load of crap, this is all false. Yeah, which I find a little bit of cosmic justice, just to you know, have someone come up and be like, this is absolutely false. In Gross's article, he mentioned that Tilly was married to this beautiful blonde woman who I could find no evidence of on the internet. Yeah, is this Jessica? Or is this there's another woman I think in his past, or maybe I have saw Jessica. Yeah, I know nothing of her. Christine describes her as, you know, vaguely, very nice,

but there's no sense of how much she knew. Yeah, she's almost not in this story at all at all, which which is weird that it's like this is his second family. Maybe maybe it was hard to just understand how much, yeah, she knew about what was going on, to what degree Tillie was involved with his normal family. Yeah, I have no idea. I would love to know, because she was sort of the appointed babysit her for um

Christine at one point and the kids. Yeah, so she had to have known something, or maybe she just believed that her husband was really a high up, you know, person in the world of espionage, and that she just had to trust that he was saving the world and he couldn't tell her anything. I feel like that's a very easy cop out, is like, sorry, I M a spy, I can't tell you. Yeah, it seems like he is

a very convincing person if you're susceptible to him. And I guess to me, it's plausible where he's like, you know, these people are in like whatever the equivalent of witness protection is, I guess. So. I mean, maybe Jessica didn't know, but I would imagine that in England or France it would function similarly to the way in the US where they are the way on US television, uh is, which is my frame of references that you know, you start a new life but not really move in with your

uh secret agent secret agent guy. But again, she didn't seem to get in trouble. I found no real evidence of what happened to her, or it didn't seem like she got in legal trouble. Yeah, I mean, maybe she just didn't know anything, or maybe she's like an even deeper agent than her husband was. Maybe she's Jack Man Salez. She was Jack Gonzalez all along. But that basically is

the end of the story. Tilly is sentenced to eight years, it's bumped up to ten, which means he is still in prison and will probably get out, uh in I think based on my matho. Okay, so we have two years before he listens to this podcast and comes for us and and the family. They live in basically council estates in Bordeaux, like government housing in Bordeaux. They've tried to go back to their jobs, so it does sound like Charles Unry is back to being a doctor and

they're they're trying to to work again. But they lost all of their money, all of their possessions, their family estate. I was very sad to read that Christine had lost like cards from her parents and letters to and from her children that she has no idea where until he took them, and that was very sad. Everything, all of their possessions, all of their family heirlooms. But does sound like Ghazag got back together with her ex husband, John Marshan,

which is a slightly happier ending. Yeah, I'm glad that everyone like ended up okay, except for that poor pianist. I think is maybe he just escaped and maybe that's for the best, you know, he ended up better and that he didn't have to be a part of this. Yeah, but I think did get married to a nice young Italian man, which, you know, what more can you hope for? I feel like in the in the movie version of this, it's the pianist who saved the day, because that's a

little sexture than the pianist turns out to be Baron Bobby. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like, I feel like that the Jean Marshand character, the sexy pianist who his bride has been brainwashed three months after their wedding, is like a sexy rescuer. Then Jean Marschan the sixty year old divorcee. I yes, I mean, you know, Sean Marshan has his charms. Yes, I had not to dispare Jean marchand yes, but I yes,

I would love to see this movie. So again, I think it's probably something that's going to have to wait until like a hundred years from now when all the secrets can be unburied in archives and things like that. Yeah, because that's the thing when I'm when I'm doing an episode of Noble Blood and you're obviously so helpful with the research, you have to read everything and digest it and then wait for it to sort of make sense,

wait for a cohesive narrative to come together. And I think there is a patent narrative where this family, you know, fell into a cult. Tillie is the villain and he was caught it. It does there are details that just don't make sense, like the mask, like what did the mask about? What is the mask about? What? Who knows what?

They're family meetings that they take elaborate notes for that just very strange French noble to me, I feel like, I don't know, there are a lot of things that I I can't relate to in my normal, not aristocratic person life. Like Christine talks a little about Charlesonri and his his Protestant drive to you know, defend himself or to like a like some sort of martyr complex, and maybe that's a French thing, like calling back to all of the religious conflict in you know what the sixteenth

century onward. Listen to my episode of Noble Blood. The wedding ended in blood exactly. But that's not just not something that I have ever experienced. I mean, I'm not Protestant, I'm not Christian at all, so maybe maybe everyone feels

this way. But there, yeah, just a lot of like strange habits and even one of the reasons I think that Baron Bobby noticed something was off with Christine is that she was acting noble somehow, she had like the mannerisms of an aristocratic person, which I would love to know what those are. Yeah, what a good detail, the sense that what both what caused this family to be imprisoned and what made them susceptible to tell his brainwashing is the very thing that sort of allows Baron Bobby

to see that something is wrong. I think it's because Christine mentioned, like, you know, she is well educated, and I think her French is excellent and her English is probably wonderful, and she is educated and has mannerisms in the sense that he's like, well, why are you working in the back of a cheese shop like you you act as though you have money, And then that's how the story sort of reveals itself to to him, where she says like, Okay, yes we had money, but but

we lost it for these reasons. Yeah, but the I don't know, I would love to Maybe it's the equivalent of like a very posh English accent. That's a thing where you can sort of tell, yeah, good posture. Maybe I feel like I have a good posture. Well maybe maybe you look rich. Yeah maybe. Uh. There was also maybe an apocryphal story that I sort of half remember, but I remember someone It could even be like a dumb joke. So I feel like I'm couching this um.

Someone would ask, like a historian or an artist or a novelist or someone like, oh, was the French Revolution good or bad in the scheme of history? And the person answers like, oh, well, it's far too soon to tell, in the sense that you need so much historical perspective before you can be able to look at a picture clearly. And I think that the nature of this case me meant to me that Christine and the rest of the family did want to simplify it and paint Tilly as

the perpetrator and their family is the victims. And I think that that effort to oversimplify for the sake of legal expediency clouds some complexity that I couldn't quite figure out. Yeah, I think one of the big questions that I was left with with particularly the Vanity Fair article where it was quoting, um, the teacher from the secretarial school and I believe one of the landlords that Tilly uh and the family kind of possibly duped at some point in Oxford.

Sorry quick aside, they I guess as punishment for some degree. They basically trashed an apartment in Oxford and then sued the landlord. Like they put their landlords through legal hell. It was like nineteen lawsuits or something absolutely crazy. Um and he you know this, this landlord and the one of the teacher who was quoted are sort of like, Okay, well,

what a convenient excuse that they were brainwashed? Um. And I think the question is, as time goes on, is going to be Okay, to what extent should this family be held accountable for the harm that they've caused to other people. I mean there's you know, Charlesonry's partners in his gynecological practice and friends and business partners left behind, landlords duped people sued. Um. I think there are a lot of things. All those teachers and paid Yeah, I

don't know. I mean, it's not that I don't believe that this story is true, that these you know, this family was brainwashed. It's obviously, you know, pretty verifiably true. Um. But I think Christine, especially in her memoir, I think, is very willing to I don't not forgive herself because I think she has a decent sense of you know, the harm that she caused other she and her family may have caused other people. But I think everyone's very quick to be like, well, we were brainwashed, we were

under this guy's thumb. Yeah, he's the he's the villain. We were under this guy's spell. Which I mean again, it's not as if the the Dren family gets off scott free, because as we said, yeah, they lose absolutely everything in the world, and I think they lose ten years of their life. So maybe that's maybe punishment enough. Yeah, you know, they lost their family, they lost all of their money, and they've they lost a decade to this crazy conspiracy. So whatever the damage. I mean that that

seems to be a pretty good sentence to me. Yeah, I think so it's a it's an incredibly strange story. Thank you for attempting to delve into it with me. Thank you for having me. This was very fun, and thank you for listening. I hope that this slightly different episode of Nomah Blood gives you a glimpse into our process. And uh, I guess just illuminates a story that to me, I was very surprised that almost no Americans know or care about. Because it's so bizarre and so weird, you'd

think more would be written about it. I was totally expecting tons of stuff. Yeah, everything's in French. Maybe now someone will, you know, hop on the scholarly work. We are approaching a decade, I think since this story you know, officially closed, so maybe some like modern French historians will get to work. We can only hope. Well, Hannah, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find

you on on social media or the internet? Oh my goodness, Um, I am on Twitter at nourrel hand n O R E L L E hey h A n and on Instagram at that but with N A H at the end just spell Hannah. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining me, and thanks for listening. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The show was written and hosted by Dani Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,

and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.