Database: Mademoiselle Lenormand

Marie-Anna-Adélaide Lenormand, born May 27, 1772 in Alençon, received a conventional education from that city's Benedictine nuns. It was there that, to her great surprise, she discovered psychic abilities that would allow her to pursue the practice of divination. With the Revolution, she moved to Paris and set up a fortune-telling enterprise. It is said that this is where she met three key figures of the Revolution, namely Marat, Robespierre and Saint-Just, for all of whom she predicted a violent death.*
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* To be fair, it was a pretty violent time. Lots of people were meeting violent ends. If this 'psychic' had predicted their deaths would all take place on a little yellow barge called 'Colin', or inadvertedly impaling themselves on a series of stale baguettes - then I'd be impressed.
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Her activity made her suspicious in the eyes of the Committee of Public Safety, whereupon she was sent to prison in 1794, where she met and befriended Josephine de Beauharnais. She escaped the guillotine and, during the Directoire and Empire periods, managed to set up a new necromancy establishment in the faubourg Saint-Germain, where the elite made haste to hear her predictions. She is also believed to have met Napoleon, but this did not stop the Emperor having her arested in 1803, and again in 1809 for treason. She believed herself to be nearly immortal and predicted a very long life for herself. Nevertheless, she died in 1843.
Category:Database: People
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