#french

“Petit a petit, l'oiseau fait son nid.”

“Little by little, the bird makes its nest.”

The case of The Papin Sisters is one of the most analysed cases in French history, with intellectuals and playwrights researching and using this case as an inspiration ever since the murders took place in 1933.

Christine and Lea were the two younger of three children born to the troubled Papin family south of Le Mans. Christine was born on the 8th of March 1905 and Lea was born on the 15th of September 1911, and despite the large age gap, they grew extremely close during their childhood, a bond which would continue throughout their entire lives. All three of the girls had extremely difficult childhoods according to the research done on the case, with all three girls being subject to severe neglect and abuse. 

Emilia, the oldest of the three girls, was reportedly sexually assaulted by her cruel father, an experience which led to her moving away and becoming a nun, leaving her younger siblings to deal with their parents together. According to reports, their mother cared very little for the children, doing absolutely nothing to protect them, or show them any kind of love or affection.

After Emilia left to become a nun, their parents would divorce, but not because of their fathers crime, or his abuse of all three of his children, but because their mother was apparently jealous of Emilia and her fathers ‘relationship’ believing that he didn’t rape her, but that they actually had had a consensual affair. The difficulties in their childhood is what would lead to Christine and Lea becoming so unusually close, according to researchers, Lea always being protected by her older sister, from abuse and molestation, essentially led Lea to become an extension of her older and smarter sister, causing her t lack any real individual personality whatsoever.

After their parents divorced, the girls reportedly spent a portion of their childhood in a mental institution due to the fact that there was no one around to take the girls in. They had grown very quiet during their youth, so quiet in fact that those who were in the institution with them, and even some of the staff, believed the girls to be telepathic. Some people had never heard them speak at all, but they were always together.
Upon their release they began to work as maids, together when they could, in multiple homes south of Le Mans, managing to both find a live in position with the Lancelin family in 1926. The girls working conditions were harsh, they worked 14 hour days 6 days a week for a pedantic mistress who would reportedly use 'mild violence in order to punish the girls, things like pinching them with her nails when they were slacking or that they weren’t doing their jobs well enough.

The attack took place on the night of February 2nd 1933 after they had worked in the home for around 7 years, after a argument reportedly started over Christine plugging in a faulty iron and causing a power outage in the home.

The Lancelin family were due to go to dinner at a friends home, but when Mr Lancelin arrived at their friends home and his wife and daughter failed to show u, he felt as though something was wrong, and decided to return to his home to make sure that his wife and child were okay. When he arrived all of the doors and windows were locked, and the only light in the home was the flicker of a candle in Christine and Leas bedroom. Knowing something was wrong he went and got the police.

Tragically when they entered the home, police found Mrs Lancelin and her daughter Genevieve dead, and beaten to a point that they were almost completelyunrecognizable. Investigators described the scene as looking like a 'blood orgy’, it a an incredibly violent attack which is believed to have lasted around half an hour. Both of the women had had their eyes gouged from their sockets, one of Genevieve’s eyes was found a little way away from her on the floor, and Mrs Lancelin’s eyes were found caught in the folds of the scarf which she was wearing around her neck. The two women also had numerous slash wounds on their legs, so many that they couldn’t be accurately counted and they had been hit around the head with a hammer, and with a pewter pot which had been at the top of the stairs.

The sisters denied nothing when they found wrapped in each others arms as they slept, with the blood Mrs Lancelin ad Genevieve rubbed all over their bodies, confessing to everything that hapenned almost immediately.

For the first time in their lives the girls wereseparated while they awaited trial, and after being found guilty and being sentenced to different prisons, Christine for life, and Lea for just 7 years since they believed that she was manipulated by her smarter, older, ad more dominant sister, Christine couldn’t cope. She suffered an extremely severe mental breakdown leading to her attempting to gouge out her own eyes, just like she had done to her victims, and she died after just 4 years of her sentence because she refused to eat, or to look after herself in any way.

Lea was released in 1941, and according to reports she started a new life under a fake name, found a job and never offended again, which wasn’t surprising to investigators who believed that Lea alone did not prove a threat to society, and that it was with Christine’s influence alone that Lea had committed these awful crimes. 

There’s a lot of questions around the demise of Lea Papin, most sources state that the died in 91, however, a documentary filmed by Claude Ventura claims that she actually died in 2001. In Claude’s documentary, he claims to have found Lea in a hospital, post stroke, and unable to talk, however it is not known for sure whether this really was Lea orwhether he was simply trying to make his documentary more exciting, though this 'Lea’ was actually featured in his film. 

01/12/2021

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One of the best months of the year is starting today! I’m currently very busy studying for my exam this weekend ^^

Day 63/?

30/11/2021

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Is it already gonna be December? Time flew by so fast… I am fully prepared to enjoy the holiday season to its fullest :)

Day 62/?

29/11/2021

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Urgh I have three weeks to film a video for English class… So I took some silly notes on my iPad.

I believe in writing using pink and purple supremacy ♡

Day 61/?

26/11/2021

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A long, long day… Pretty fun though, but as always I am tired after a long week of work!

Day 59/?

25/11/2021

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Today could have been better :/ But I did do some fun activities

Day 58/?

A conversation that would give my French friends a heart attack:

[at Hardee’s ordering an egg and cheese biscuit] “What kind of cheese (do) you want”

“Regular”

“White or yellow?”

“Yellow”

Imagine this scenario. You’re 30 years old, and your 60 year-old mother has purchased a plane ticket for you to go to go see her. She lives very far away and you haven’t seen her in years. A couple of weeks before the journey, you find out that your mom accidentally purchased the ticket under HER name instead of yours. The airline refuses to change the ticket, which is non-refundable. Do you:

a. Buy another ticket under your own name

b. Cancel the trip all together

c. Enlist all your theater friends to put old lady makeup on you, and spend weeks studying how to look and sound the part of an older woman, and take the trip by assuming the identity of your mother, thus confronting your own mortality in the process

If you answered C, check out this episode to see how it plays out

Transfert: “Un double voyage” on YouTube

I decided to use my Tumblr to talk about some of the crazier Transfert episodes I listen to. Transfert is a French podcast featuring real-life stories that people send in, written in the first-person POV, but re-recorded by podcast professionals (I’m not sure if they also edit the narrative or record it un-edited). I don’t really read much non-fiction so this is my only source of “holy shit real life is so much fucking weirder than fiction” moments and I need a place to talk about them. After all it’s not exactly the type of thing you can really find discussions about on the internet, although I’ve found that some of the episodes have YouTube comments.

Having said that, the first episode I’m going to talk about is actually not that crazy except for the perspective it takes — and as many of the podcast’s YouTube commenters point out, it’s one of the few episodes they almost stopped listening to out of loathing. This was because more often than not we are invited to sympathize with the narrator (they’re often victims of accidents, abuse, tragedies, or accidental witnesses to whimsical events), but in this episode we basically hear about the breaking up of a marriage from the ~homewrecker’s~ perspective.

I don’t know if I just too readily identify with protagonists, but I was absolutely sympathetic to what this woman was saying from the beginning. She was in a loveless relationship, she met a man on a business trip and it was love at first sight, and she describes their initial meeting and subsequent encounters with vivid romanticism. She is so good at describing the dizzying uncertainty and fear one feels at the beginning of a great love that we almost forget that the man she’s talking about has been married with ten years, and his wife is seven months pregnant. (This episode is probably a good companion piece to the more recent “Le plan” from Dec. 2, 2021, which is another love story that sweeps you away, only this time it’s two teenagers and no one’s family is ruined.)

At the same time, I have to recognize that the perspective of the victimized wife in this scenario was completely occluded which perhaps prevented some of us from turning on the narrator. I did feel discomfort listening to this episode — but I wouldn’t describe it exactly as “malaise profond” (as one YouTube commenter did) which is an expression that requires no English translation, I’m sure. I also fond it interesting to read through the YouTube comments which was 70% condemnation, and maybe 20% condemnation while at the same time acknowledging that these things happen in life, and at least we got an honest emotional accounting of it here. That fact that the narrator acknowledges her selfishness did not seem to appease any of her critics. But haven’t we all been selfish in our lives?

The passage beginning at 20:26 particularly struck me in terms of its authenticity and honesty in a way that would probably be difficult for most to admit. The narrator at this point has decided to break up with her current partner in order to pursue the man she has just met, and she describes breaking the news, feeling bad about hurting the person in front of her, but that there is a part of her that’s so deeply and passionately in love that it makes her feel detached from the whole process, and *happy* regardless of the pain she is currently inflicting. Damn. It’s brutal to listen to, but I hope I’m not the only one who can honestly admit to having experienced something like that, from both perspectives.

I don’t know why I have so many words about this podcast. But it’s so good. Go listen to it if you understand French!

Transfert: “Le bonheur peut-il manquer d’à propos” on YouTube

The English write Dictionaries.

The French write Rule Books.