Database: The Red Ghost of the Tuileries

According to the legend, when Catherine de' Medici set out to build the Tuileries Palace at the end of the 16th century, she expelled a German butcher, Jean l'Écorcheur, from the site.*
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* I bet you didn't expect to read the phrase "expelled a German butcher" just then. I know I certainly didn't.
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Upon his death, l'Écorcheur swore that he would return to get his revenge.**
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** I think this is the weirdest story ever. An expelled German butcher, with a French name, gets so annoyed he swears revenge. Okay. And then what?
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Legend has it that the "petit homme rouge," or Red Ghost, haunted the Palace throughout its construction.***
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*** Is this a dream? An angry German butcher stayed so annoyed he'd once been expelled from a site that he died and then haunted a palace? What?
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Astrologer Cosimo Ruggieri even informed Catherine that the construction of the palace would lead to her ruin, which it eventually did on January 5, 1589. For all that, rumors concerning the Red Ghost continued through the centuries. In 1789, Marie Antoinette asked a magician to protect her against the apparition. ****
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**** Marie-Antoinette asked a MAGICIAN to PROTECT HER AGAINST THE GHOST OF AN ANGRY GERMAN BUTCHER?
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Napoleon, who later resided at the Tuileries Palace, apparently met the ghost who told him: "You shall be happy up until your forty-fifth year. My task is to protect you. Thereafter, I shall abandon you." *****
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**** * WHAT IS HAPPENING? Am I HIGH?
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Category:Database: People
Category:Helix database entries