The Sibyl of the salons

Our heroine was the most consulted oracle during three political regimes, fifty years. Through her predictions given to the great, she reached the heights of celebrity, and influenced capital decisions. We followed the thread of his life as it is intertwined with the unfolding of history. Mademoiselle Lenormand, named Marie-Anne, was born in 1768 in Alençon, the same year as Charlotte Corday, originally from the same department. According to other sources, she was born in 1772. A resident of the Benedictines, she would have predicted the name of the replacement for the deceased abbess of the convent. She grew up in these last years of the Ancien Régime, where the public was less passionate about the economic and political crisis than about the “miraculous” cures obtained by Messmer thanks to electricity, the feats of Cagliostro inviting famous dead people to dinner, or the first ascents in a balloon. As early as May 1789, Mademoiselle Lenormand announced the end of the monarchy and the worst torments for the Catholic religion. When her prophecies came true, she devoted herself to the study of the divinatory arts: astrology, numerology, palmistry and cartomancy.

IN THE HEART OF TERROR.
Coming to Paris to seek her fortune, she pretended to be a young American, and her first consultants were the victims of the Revolution: beleaguered aristocrats, threatened priests, and even Mirabeau and the future Louis XVIII. The Princess de Lamballe, an intimate of Marie-Antoinette, had her atrocious fate predicted: torn to pieces by the crowd, she had her viscera exposed on pikes. An ardent royalist, Miss Lenormand strove to save the Queen: carrying a basket of provisions, she managed to enter Marie-Antoinette’s dungeon, and advised her to flee, but in vain. During the Revolution, the victorious camp also consulted her: Danton, Fouché, then deputy, Jacques Hébert, “leader of the “enragés”, and Lazare Hoche, “the organizer of the victory”. At the height of the Terror, Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just came to visit it together, reports Canon Lecanu. To each, she predicts her fatal end and the circumstances of it. However, in 1794, she was arrested on the orders of Robespierre, accused of having incited civil war through her predictions. From her prison, she delivers her oracles on the imminent fall of Danton, then of Robespierre through small notes slipped outside. Freed with the end of the Terror, its consultants multiplied: survivors of the guillotine as well as republicans afraid of a brutal return to order. To Joséphine de Beauharnais, she announces her upcoming widowhood. “It was when I saw Joséphine’s hand that I prophesied that one day she would play the most beautiful role in France” (Prophetic Memories). In 1795, Joséphine introduced him to a young soldier: Miss Lenormand examined his palm, which she described as a “chiromantic masterpiece”, and announced to him an extraordinary career in arms: it was Napoleon Bonaparte. The young general came back to see her; she dissuaded him, she said, from enlisting in the army of the Grand Turk: “you will play a big role in France”. The marriage of Napoleon and Joséphine in 1796, which she announced, definitively launched our clairvoyant.

THE SIBYL IN HER CLAIRPERSON’S OFFICE. Our sibyl then opened a consulting room near the Senate, rue de Tournon, under the cover of the profession of public writer, because the exercise of clairvoyance had been illegal since 1791 and was only tolerated. Descriptions of the period havepreserved the image of this rather sumptuous apartment, where she entertained in her bedroom with walls covered with paintings and magic books. On his desk where the consultations took place sat a mirror with magical virtues supposed to come from Marie de Medici. This desk was covered with divination cards, including his famous tarot, magic tables, common cards and various technical supports. To her consultants, Miss Lenormand appeared “always simple and even a little slovenly,” a contemporary tells us. Typically, she wore a beret in winter and a blonde wig in summer. Sometimes she dressed in the oriental style, with a turban around her forehead. The clairvoyant offered her consultants a range of divinatory approaches: cards and hand reading, of course, also dream reading, coffee grounds, ashes, molten lead, or egg white that the visitor had carried with him. This last divinatory technique was already practiced by the Romans. Finally, she resorted to alectromancy: grains of wheat were placed on the letters of the alphabet, a rooster was placed there, and the message came from the grains pecked by the bird. This ritual remained unchanged throughout the sibyl’s busy career. A shrewd businesswoman, she suggested that her consultants acquire her numerous brochures and subscribe to journals written by her: Le mot à l’oreille, and Le Don Quixote des dames where one could find general predictions, practical and moral advice, and political echoes. As with the many other clairvoyants of the time, his publicity was done by word of mouth, and by a few rare leaflets slipped clandestinely. The consultations cost from three to twenty francs, a high sum but not exorbitant for a celebrity; the in-depth horoscope did not cost less than 400 francs.

THE FIRST Psychic IN FRANCE. If the effective role of our clairvoyant during the Revolution was contested by some of her contemporaries or by later historians, her incredible glory during the Empire and the Restoration cannot be denied. She became the first clairvoyant in France, both in terms of notoriety and the number of her consultants. She is often compared to Joan of Arc… Under Bonaparte’s Consulate, she is already the most famous clairvoyant in France, partly thanks to the influence of Joséphine de Beauharnais who has not forgotten her and remains keen on divinatory arts. From 1801, Miss Lenormand was invited to the Château de la Malmaison. She reads Joséphine’s hand, draws her the cards and declares: “If your husband ever managed to seize the scepter of the world, this ambitious man would abandon you…A day will come when you will play the leading role in France.” When parting, the two women exchange their rings to mark their mutual esteem. Napoleon had it written in the Civil Code that “people who make the profession of divining and prognosticating or explaining dreams” were liable to pay a fine of 11 to 15 francs and risked at least 5 days in prison. He launched a nationwide survey to observe and record superstitious behavior; this investigation revealed their roots in the cities as well as in the countryside. The many clairvoyants protested their difference from the ancient sorcerers and followers of black magic, but the prejudice remained that “he who draws the cards holds the devil”. With regard to the divinatory arts, the Emperor had a changing and ambiguous attitude: as son of theRevolution, he had a purely utilitarian approach towards “superstition” and all forms of religion. Thus, the Emperor declared: “If the people no longer go to mass, they will go to Miss Lenormand, or to Cagliostro” (quoted by Gougenot des Mousseaux). But, after Caesar and Alexander, Napoleon did not disdain to appeal to clairvoyance to confirm it in decisions already made. Thus he took umbrage at the too close relationship between his wife and Miss Lenormand. The Empress, an unrepentant talker, recounted the confidences on the pillow of her imperial husband, even to Fouché, Minister of Police, who paid the lavish expenses refused by the Emperor Napoleon therefore had difficulty accepting Joséphine’s indiscretions peddled by the Sibyl who interfered with her political aims. In 1802, our clairvoyant was arrested again for having predicted that the landing in England would not succeed. She was accused of conspiring with the Chouans of Vendée. She would probably have had their leader Cadoudal as a consultant. New arrest in 1805: she came out after two days, as she had announced, which caused a lot of noise. The surveillance and harassment of the police do not prevent “all of Paris” from rushing to her: political leaders, writers, actors, soldiers, people of the world and ordinary people. She is at all parties and leads in style. In 1809, the Emperor himself, very reluctant at first, consulted it on several occasions. He apparently understood that the Sibyl could provide valuable information to his secret police. Fouché and Talleyrand came to visit it in the same direction. Apparently, Miss Lenormand has always refused the role of police informer.

BETWEEN JOSEPHINE AND THE EMPEROR. In 1809, our clairvoyant played a major role in the separation between Napoleon and Joséphine. Interpreting a nightmare of the Empress where snakes were suffocating her, she predicted that the divorce would take place in one month to the day, on December 16, 1809, which happened. According to various historians, she used an indiscretion emanating from Napoleon’s entourage which she transformed into a premonition, perhaps at the instigation of the Machiavellian Fouché, minister of police. A week before the divorce, the two women met again in secret, despite the Emperor’s threats. A search and a new arrest, lasting twelve days, followed. In her Prophetic Memories of a Sibyl, Anne-Marie Lenormand recounted, not without humor, her responses to interrogations: “For so many years, we have had such a cruel apprenticeship to misfortune that you should not be surprised that people come from all sides looking for reasons for consolation…Among the people who consult me, there are some who have drunk the cup of pain to the dregs: they have lost their friends, their fortune, and without my voice consoling, they would have ended their existence in the agony of despair. She steadfastly refused to reveal the names of her consultants. During her incarceration, the clairvoyant had a prophetic dream of an eagle flying so high “that a terrible gust of wind and gathering clouds from the North will bring it down”. Every day, a crowd gathered outside his cell window, and Josephine secretly sent him messages of friendly support. Upon her release, she escaped the promised exile, thanks to the influence of the Empress. Dazzled by her prophecy of imperial divorce, new consultants rushed to visit her,700 they say. In 1814, Anne-Marie Lenormand had her Prophetic Memories published where she pleaded the cause of the divinatory arts, and assigned herself an eminent role on the political scene. Great bookstore success, especially since it reviews the most famous ancient divination works. She predicted the return to the throne of France of a King bringing peace and abundance. In a new prophetic dream, she sees Napoleon pale and disfigured and comes across soldiers speaking Russian. This dream announces to him his imminent fall and the entry into Paris of the Allies united against him. The English, Russians, and Prussians captured Paris in March 1814. The Tsar of Russia and the King of Prussia then consulted our clairvoyant. A genie warned him of the return of the Emperor in 1815, which numerology confirmed. In a new book Sibyllin Oracles, she recounts her last meeting with Napoleon, whom she depicts as very superstitious; he tells her his dreams which she interprets as announcing the defeat of Waterloo and his upcoming exile at the hands of the English. She predicts to him; “You will be defeated and even made a spectacle to the people of Albion. The rocks of Africa will serve as your asylum.” According to Miss Lenormand, the Emperor took to Saint Helena a copy of his Sibylline Oracles. According to Killian (p.43), he declared to his last followers that Miss Lenormand had drawn the plan of the island on the woodwork of her apartment…
ANNE-MARIE BLOWS AGAIN WITH THE RETURN OF THE LILIES. Court royalist, Bonapartist by following, Miss Lenormand was delighted with the return of a King to the throne of France. His attempt to save Marie Antoinette was remembered at court. There, as in other European courts, his Prophetic Memories were read; “Everyone approved of it,” she told us. Many emigrants returning in the wake of Louis XVIII called on his clairvoyance. But under the Restoration, she was more often consulted on problems of the heart or career than on the high destinies of the kingdom. In 1818, Napoleon’s victorious sovereigns met in congress in Aix-la-Chapelle to reshape European policy. No doubt tired of tedious affairs of the heart, Miss Lenormand tries to go there to draw the horoscope of the sovereigns, but she is arrested in Belgium. She settled for a while in Brussels where she was imprisoned for “magical practices”. From her sharp pen, she will draw a vengeful brochure: Souvenirs of Belgium. One hundred days of misfortune… She returned to Paris for the long term, resumed her consultations there, and published more and more prophetic works which she sold in her apartment. If the police no longer worried her, the journalists lashed out against her, accusing her of launching ambiguous prophecies which could therefore not be contradicted by the facts, and of predicting with certainty in her brochures events… already past. Miss Lenormand launches into a final political cause by supporting the romantic Duchess of Berry and her son, “the child of the miracle”, a legitimist claimant to the throne against Louis-Philippe. Financial problems (she lived in style) and a certain melancholy pushed her to spend more time in Alençon, her hometown, where she refused everyone to draw cards. She died in 1843, at the age of 72 for the time, despite her prophecy of living 108 years… Her funeral became a considerable event attended by politicians, writers and artists, and a crowd of her former, less posh consultants.VISIONARY OR INTUITIVE? The table that we have just drawn could lead us to believe that Miss Lenormand was mainly concerned with the highest affairs of state. It was her favorite subject to which she devoted most of her works. She was the privileged oracle of the great, under four successive regimes, and, with a very modern sense of “publicity” built her celebrity on it. She became known for her pamphlets with a lyrical and biblical tone, and an often ambiguous sense in which she often delivers… retrospective prophecies. But for 50 years, she has received people from various social conditions who came to consult her on all kinds of problems, personal, emotional, financial and social. His attentive listening and his keen sense of psychology, particularly female psychology, allowed him to provide wise advice. In times of libertinism, she succeeded in saving many households from breakdown. She always tried to bring her consultants back on the right path of morality and marital fidelity. She strove to dissuade, to incite without imposing: “I had the pleasure of directing and establishing the opinions that uncertainty seemed to lead astray. By presenting them with a faithful picture of what they had to hope for, I managed to dispel their fears, without ever trying to disturb their conscience.” Her art, she insisted, was purely white magic and contained nothing contrary to religion. “In my office, I have often preached the sublime morality of the Gospel, I have reconciled the sinner with his God, as well as with himself.” And, aware of a possible manipulative use of clairvoyance, she adds: “There are weak minds who only see elves, ghosts and sorcerers everywhere… I only correspond with superior geniuses” (Prophetic Memories, p.443). Miss Lenormand thus contributed to giving clairvoyance its letters of nobility. Thanks to it, cartomancy entered the category of high magical sciences, and ceased to be confused with witchcraft.
We do not have to comment on the reality of his divinatory gifts, but we must note his already modern approach to the psychology of each individual, and his sense of listening. Republican, secular and “anti-superstitious” if ever there was one, Pierre Larousse thus appreciated our monarchist clairvoyant in his Great Universal Dictionary of the 19th Century (1866) “She put great effort into developing the big game or the little game, depending on the amount, to consulting the coffee grounds on special occasions. In many cases she showed remarkable, but not entirely extraordinary, insight. From this point of view, her so-called prophecies remain curious to study… She surprised even the people most prejudiced against her; an inquisitorial look revealed to him the secret thought which brought the client to him; a few questions asked at random made him feel the hope or the fear that agitated him.”

MAIN SOURCES USED.

• LE NORMAN (Miss M.A.). -Unpublished letters (personal collection) -Prophetic memories of a sibyl (1814) -The Sibyl at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1819) -Historical and secret memories of the Empress Joséphine (1820) Souvenirs of Belgium. One Hundred Days of Misfortune (1822) -The Protective Angel of France at the tomb of Louis XVIII (1824) -The Little Red Man at the Château des Tuileries…Predictions (1831) The Shadow of Henri IV at the Palais d’Orléans (1831) -Supreme judgment of the Gods of Olympus in favor ofThe Duchess of Berry and her son (1833).
• CILLET (A.L.). Bibliographic manual of psychic or occult sciences (1964).
• CASTON (A. de). The Miracle Merchants. History of human superstition (1864)
• CELLIER DU FAYET (N.H.). The Truth about Miss Le Normand. Memoirs, intimate revelations (1845). The best source on his life written by one of his friends.
• DARNTON (Robert). The end of the Enlightenment. Mesmerism and the Revolution (1984). Remarkable synthesis.
• DUBOIS (L.). Of Mademoiselle Lenormand and her two recently published biographies (1844). Contains important details and dates.
• FLAMET (H.). The 19th century sibyl. Last prophecies of Miss Le Normand (1843).
• GIRAULT (F.). Mademoiselle Le Normand, her biography, her extraordinary predictions, her dealings with the most illustrious people in Europe (1843). Quite complete. -GOUGENOT DES MOUSSEAUX. Magic in the 19th century (1864)
• KILLIAN (Wilfried). The Prophecies of Napoleon to the Island of Saint Helena (1830).
• GUAITA (Stanislas de). Occult Library (1899).
• LAROUSSE (Pierre). Universal dictionary of the 19th century (1865). (Article Le Normand).
• LECANU (Canon). Dictionary of Prophecies and Miracles (1852). (Article Le Normand).
• MOZZANI (Eloise). Magic and superstition from the end of the Ancien Régime to the Restoration (1988). -UNGHERINI (A.). Handbook of biographical bibliography of famous women. (1892). (Article Le Normand).

Emmanuel Camille-Bernard.