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Was the Artist Henri de Toulouse Lautrec Implicated in the Killings?

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  • Originally posted by galexander View Post
    But can't you see the weight of circumstantial evidence?

    I can't see any evidence at all.

    Carmen Gaudin was described as "unhealthy" the very first time they met.


    CONCLUSION:

    1. Carmen Gaudin most likely had syphilis and knew that she did.

    2. She had unnecessarily infected a French aristocrat.

    3. This would have angered his over-possessive parents who from all accounts were a little on the crazy side as it was. HTL's father would regularly turn up to dinner in fancy dress i.e. dressed as a medieval knight or wearing tartan.


    Thadée Natanson was of the opinion of the woman who had infected Lautrec with syphilis that she was 'in all probability already dead'.

    But you could read so much into those words.

    What do you read into it other than that Thadee Natanson thought the woman who had infected Lautrec with syphilis was dead? It seems a pretty unambiguous statement to me.
    This is all very interesting, but for the life of me I can't see its relevance to the Whitechapel Murders.
    I won't always agree but I'll try not to be disagreeable.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by galexander View Post
      But can't you see the weight of circumstantial evidence?

      Carmen Gaudin was described as "unhealthy" the very first time they met.

      CONCLUSION:

      1. Carmen Gaudin most likely had syphilis and knew that she did.

      2. She had unnecessarily infected a French aristocrat.

      3. This would have angered his over-possessive parents who from all accounts were a little on the crazy side as it was. HTL's father would regularly turn up to dinner in fancy dress i.e. dressed as a medieval knight or wearing tartan.


      Thadée Natanson was of the opinion of the woman who had infected Lautrec with syphilis that she was 'in all probability already dead'.

      But you could read so much into those words.

      How did he know she was already dead or why did he have reason to believe that she was? Was she on her last legs to such an extent that this would have been only inevitable or was Natanson perhaps referring to something else he had heard of?
      I get that all of that could point to someone in TL's life being the killer. It's thin, but I get it. But everything you just pointed out... none of it has to do with Bourges. There is no link. Nothing there points to the doctor.

      By the way, you are operating under a few biological misunderstandings. First of all, cousins marrying has no more chance of producing birth defects than two strangers. 10 generations of cousins marrying has quite a bit more chance. Secondly, women don't always know they have a sexually transmitted disease. It isn't visible, most women confuse it with a bladder infection, and that's if they feel it all since we women folk have a biological reason not to have a whole lot of nerve endings in the area. Most women find out they have been infected by finding out their partner has been infected. With prostitutes, there isn't a whole lot of disclosure. They could die of it without knowing.

      The fact is, what happened to TL is nothing new. In fact it happened to millions, many of them perfectly innocent housewives who get to watch their babies die for the next few years. So why this doctor? Why the doctor of a minor aristocrat with batshit parents (which was also not unusual) who purposefully surrounded himself with the dregs of society, and knew full well what the risks were because he watched his friends die from it? Why the doctor of a man who could never countenance such an act on his behalf? Did his parents know he had syphilis? Did he tell them? Why this guy? Why not one of his opium buddies, or his manservant or his father?
      The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Errata View Post
        I get that all of that could point to someone in TL's life being the killer. It's thin, but I get it. But everything you just pointed out... none of it has to do with Bourges. There is no link. Nothing there points to the doctor.

        By the way, you are operating under a few biological misunderstandings. First of all, cousins marrying has no more chance of producing birth defects than two strangers. 10 generations of cousins marrying has quite a bit more chance. Secondly, women don't always know they have a sexually transmitted disease. It isn't visible, most women confuse it with a bladder infection, and that's if they feel it all since we women folk have a biological reason not to have a whole lot of nerve endings in the area. Most women find out they have been infected by finding out their partner has been infected. With prostitutes, there isn't a whole lot of disclosure. They could die of it without knowing.

        The fact is, what happened to TL is nothing new. In fact it happened to millions, many of them perfectly innocent housewives who get to watch their babies die for the next few years. So why this doctor? Why the doctor of a minor aristocrat with batshit parents (which was also not unusual) who purposefully surrounded himself with the dregs of society, and knew full well what the risks were because he watched his friends die from it? Why the doctor of a man who could never countenance such an act on his behalf? Did his parents know he had syphilis? Did he tell them? Why this guy? Why not one of his opium buddies, or his manservant or his father?
        I will answer each of your points one by one.

        I suggest Henri Bourges as a possible suspect even though I admit I have no final proof. Bourges is a strong suspect in my opinion because of his medical background and the fact that he was absent from Lautrec's side during the critical months in question.

        Gaudin's symptoms must have been fairly apparent because François Gauzi noted that she looked unhealthy.

        In a letter to his mother of November 1888 Lautrec speaks of ‘la petite vérole’ being a ‘the fly in the ointment’. ‘La petite vérole’ can be either a reference to small pox or syphilis. Since it is unlikely Lautrec had small pox (a highly contagious and deadly disease) it seems almost certain he had syphilis.

        I don't know how many times I have to say this but all the clues point in the same direction.........

        You don't have to be a Sherlock Holmes to work it out........


        Last edited by galexander; 03-20-2012, 10:29 PM.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by galexander View Post

          You don't have to be a Sherlock Holmes to work it out........
          No, you don't. But you are asking people to give you money to write a book for them. And they aren't going to give you that money if you don't have a viable suspect.

          So Bourges wasn't by TL's side during the autumn of 1888. Where does his correspondence say he was? Have you looked at his correspondence? How do you know he wasn't well documented as being someplace else, like the riviera, or laid up with a broken leg?

          So he was a doctor. How many other doctor friends did TL have? Or butchers or murderers?

          If you want anyone to take you seriously, you have to back up what you say with facts. Not "well his family was weird" facts, but "he wrote his mother in September saying that would be in England on business for a few weeks" facts.

          And by the way, people with syphilis don't look sick. Not until they are end stage and within a few weeks of dying. It's not like AIDS where you watch someone die day by day. If people looked sick, do you think THAT many people would have been infected? She may have been syphilitic, but if she LOOKED sick, it was something else. Probably TB.

          Hell. Scratch actually researching your suspect, and go look up syphilis.
          The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

          Comment


          • Hi galexander,

            Originally posted by galexander View Post
            I don't know how many times I have to say this but all the clues point in the same direction.........
            I'm not trying to rain on your parade but I cannot see any real clues here. So HTL suffered from some type of venereal disease, had a doctor friend and liked red-haired women, was a modern artist, visited brothels and painted the inmates on a more or less regular basis... ...just where are the clues here?

            And then - are you sure his doc would be capable of these crimes? Just because one is a doctor doesn't mean he is able and willing to go on a killing spree to avenge one of his patients. What makes you suspect him apart from a gut feeling?

            Again, I don't want to ridicule your thoughts or anything but without hard evidence, they're little more than baseless assumptions.

            Regards,

            Boris
            ~ All perils, specially malignant, are recurrent - Thomas De Quincey ~

            Comment


            • So, it turns out if you use this arcane tool called google, you find out where both Lautrec AND Bourges were during the Autumn of 1888. And its not England.
              The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

              Comment


              • Errata, you seem to have killed this thread stone dead!

                Those pesky facts, ruining everything!

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Henry Flower View Post
                  Errata, you seem to have killed this thread stone dead!

                  Those pesky facts, ruining everything!
                  Note he didnt answer when Too Looses girlfriend passed away either?

                  Shame that


                  kindly

                  Phil
                  Chelsea FC. TRUE BLUE. 💙


                  Justice for the 96 = achieved
                  Accountability? ....

                  Comment


                  • Well done, Errata,

                    Were they vacationing with Sickert by any chance?

                    Regards,

                    Simon
                    Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

                    Comment




                    • Simon, pleeeease don't open that can of worms again. I've had it up to here with that particular nonsense from one particular 'contributor'. Their bone-headed idiocy has left me feeling quite Sickert-heart.

                      Sorry. That was bad.

                      Comment


                      • Hi Henry,

                        Yes, that joke was a real stinker.

                        I'll promise never to mention the S-word again if you promise to buy better Christmas crackers.

                        Regards,

                        Simon
                        Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

                        Comment


                        • Simon,

                          We have a deal.

                          But I'm still waiting to hear who Lautrec paid Bourges to pay to kill 5 prostitutes while they were away in ****** cementing their alibis.

                          Goodnight all.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Henry Flower View Post
                            Errata, you seem to have killed this thread stone dead!

                            Those pesky facts, ruining everything!
                            Yeah, turns out that Bourges was A doctor not HIS doctor. They were living together until 1891, TL was in an artist commune and Bourges was at home.
                            The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

                            Comment


                            • Thanks Errata.

                              So, HTL was in Villiers-sur-Morin in the autumn of 1888, probably staying with Albert Grenier - whose beard and melancholy features I've loved since I first discovered HTL's portrait of him at the Met a few years ago. Where Bourges was I've not been able to discover.

                              Errata, where have you got the 'artist commune' information from? I know it's called a 'commune', but in France that's a purely administrative term is it not, equivalent to a village or parish. I've been unable to discover any evidence that it was an artists' commune other than the fact HTL and his Montmartre colleague/landlord Grenier summered there often. By that token, Arles was an artists' commune too while Van-Gogh and Gauguin were at the Yellow House.

                              HTL and Bourges lived together from '87 to '93, at No.19 and then No.21 rue de la Fontaine. They parted as housemates when Bourges married in 1893.

                              Various things to consider:

                              If Bourges was HTL's friend and housemate rather than his doctor, does that make it more or less likely that he would avenge his friend's illness by slaughtering Whitechapel prostitutes?

                              If HTL had any inkling of what had happened, what type of person was he that he continued to live with the doctor as a friend until the doctor married in 1893?

                              If HTL had any inkling of what had happened, what type of artist was he that the only clue he left was a sketch of a dental procedure (regardless of whether that was 'normal' subject matter for a late Impressionist!)?

                              Thank goodness Bourges didn't get a taste for killing after his bloodbath in Whitechapel, instead becoming a respected author on disease and bacteria. Has anyone been able to discover whether or not he included in his text L'hygiène du syphilitique advice on the most efficient way of hacking the flesh from a dead prostitute's thighs and abdomen? If he did, that might be a clue!

                              During HTL's mental deterioration in later years, his alcoholism and persecution mania, I've found no mention of Doctor Bourges. He was sufficiently tied to HTL to murder 5 prostitutes at the family's behest, but not to guide HTL through his final descent into mental sickness and death? Either the tie was never that close to start with, or else the family felt he had murdered 4 prostitutes too many, and in too public a fashion, so they wanted someone less eccentric to care for their son. (Their son who, despite being nearly out of control, saying wild and crazy things, believing the police were coming for him, never blabbed a word about his family having commissioned the Ripper killings?)

                              Bourges' wife - is anything known about her?

                              Gale: you may have facts that answer or refute any or all of the above, and as someone fascinated by the milieu I'd be sincerely interested to see any parts of your manuscript that you might like to share.

                              I looked again at HTL's portrait of Doctor Bourges, and it struck me that it bears a slight resemblance to the rather sinister photos of Walter Sickert in his top hat. I think that certain images (though they resemble only the mythic Ripper, not the actual likely descriptions) set the imagination running. What was your starting point Gale?

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Henry Flower View Post
                                Thanks Errata.

                                Errata, where have you got the 'artist commune' information from? I know it's called a 'commune', but in France that's a purely administrative term is it not, equivalent to a village or parish. I've been unable to discover any evidence that it was an artists' commune other than the fact HTL and his Montmartre colleague/landlord Grenier summered there often. By that token, Arles was an artists' commune too while Van-Gogh and Gauguin were at the Yellow House.
                                I don't mean "artist commune" like a communal living facility filled with dirty hippies. I mean "artist commune" in that the region was an exceptionally popular place for artists to go and sketch or paint. To commune with nature and some nice looking barns. However the tourist information for Ile de France says that it was very popular with impressionists, so It's likely other artists were around. I assume they communed, but went to their separate rented houses at the end of a night's drinking.
                                The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

                                Comment

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