The Laetitia Toureaux Affair

Dark Histories

Ben Cutmore

History

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2021

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the late Spring of 1937, the murder of a young Italian immigrant stormed the Paris headlines. The first murder to have taken place on the Metro, it was a baffling affair with no witnesses and a murder of unusual precision. As the country mired in political turmoil, newspapers filled their columns with rumours of the victims life, quickly filling the information void with sensational stories of divey music halls, gangsters and allusions to sordid affairs. The truth, however, would turn out to be far more bombastic than even the most spurious rumours, leading to the slow unravelling of a story of clandestine intelligence, assassinations and a plot to overthrow the government. SOURCES Tuohy, Ferdinand (1937) Mystery In The Metro. The Sphere, Sat 12 June, 1937, p.18. UK Nottingham Evening Post (1937) The 60 second Murder. Fri 21 May, 1937, p.5. UK Brunelle, Gayle K. & Finnley-Crosswhite, Anette (2012) Murder in the Metro: Laetitia Toureaux and the Cagoule in 1930s France. LSU Press, USA. Furlough, Ellen (1998) Making Mass Vacations: Tourism and Consumer Culture in France, 1930s to 1970s, Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 40, No. 2 (Apr., 1998), pp. 247-286, Cambridge University Press, UK ---------- For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected] or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In the late spring of 1937, the murder of a young Italian immigrant stormed the Paris headlines.
0:06.4	The first murder to have taken place on the Metro, it was a baffling affair with no witnesses
0:12.0	and a murder of unusual precision. As the country mired in political turmoil, newspapers filled their
0:18.5	columns with rumours of the victim's life, quickly filling the information void with sensational
0:23.8	stories of diving musicals, gangsters and allusions to sorted affairs. The truth, however,
0:31.6	would turn out to be far more bombastic than even the most curious rumours, leading to the slow
0:37.2	unraveling of a story of clandestine intelligence, assassinations and a plot to overthrow the government.
0:44.6	This is Dark History's, but in the fact it's a worse than fiction.
0:48.8	Hello and welcome to season 5 of episode 6 of Dark History's, I'm Ben and I hope this episode
0:56.8	finds you very well. Happy Easter, I hope you've had a lovely holiday weekend. There's not too much
1:03.7	to say for the episode starts this week, just a little bit of fun, patreon news coming up later
1:08.8	on in the episodes, so yeah I'll talk more about that in the second half of the episode I guess.
1:14.8	So, otherwise we'll just move straight into the story, this is the t-shirt to row affair.
1:24.0	After the conclusion of the First World War in 1918, post-war society across Europe,
1:29.3	whilst enjoying a short lived optimism, quickly fell into a mire of complex social and political
1:34.8	transformations across countries. In France, casualties from the war and the Spanish flu were on a
1:41.6	scale not seen or felt for generations, with the nation losing over 10% of its adult workforce
1:47.3	to the fighting alone. The pandemic that swept across borders shortly after the war's conclusion
1:53.4	only worked to worsen an already difficult and precarious economic position that saw countries
1:59.0	struggle to climb up from their knees. Despite this, the French population grew slowly but steadily,
2:06.4	with economic stability following just behind. By the time of the roaring 20s, the economy had
2:13.2	begun to grow rapidly. Communist unions had flourished, whilst industrial output grew at a rate
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -1380 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ben Cutmore, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ben Cutmore and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.