Henri Lemarchand's Fate Worse Than Death

Linn: It was while vacationing in Paris recently that I heard of Henri Lemarchand, former resident of the quiet town of Lindon in Linn County. As a tourist, I longed to see the so-called "City of the Dead," a huge series of catacombs underneath the streets of Paris, the walls of which are lined with the bones of millions of human corpses. In 1853, city planner Baron Haussmann was contracted by Napoleon III to redesign Paris' layout, and it was necessary by his plans to build upon the lands which were in those days used as cemeteries. So, bodies from the centuries were exhumed and placed in tunnels underground. But the bones were not simply thrown in the tunnels. Rather, they were used to form the very stuff of the walls and ceiling, and were often placed in patterns, with skulls serving as further elaborations in the weird artwork. Now the only cemeteries one will find in Paris are at the very outskirts of town, like Père-Lachaise, where tourists may gaze upon the tombstones of cultural heroes such as Oscar Wilde and Chopin.

     I was taking a tour of these catacombs with a small group of mostly French sight-seers when I noticed an older gentleman in rumpled, yet otherwise tidy clothes lagging behind the group and staring, glassy-eyed, at a section of wall. I let the main group proceed ahead out of sight and approached the man, wondering if he was ill. I was amazed and relieved to discover that not only did he speak English, but was from Iowa as well. We exchanged formalities, and my new acquaintance, Calvin Danvers, gestured to a portion of the wall where there was an obvious gap in the bones.

     "So it is true," Danvers said. "Lemarchand did take the bones---the map is accurate." And then he added softly, "The legend must be true as well."

     My curiosity was piqued. I asked him to what legend he referred After some coaxing, he agreed to meet with me the next day and disclose the whole thing.

     In the morning, we met at a patisserie around the corner from where I was staying, on Rue des Bernardins. After baguettes and coffee, he submitted the following story to me for investigation by Third Eye Over Iowa. If it were not for his sober, sincere expression and voice throughout the tale, I may never have brought tale of Henri Lemarchand to the attention of this publication:

     "My father was a servant of Henri Lemarchand for thirty years. How could he not be! His yearly salary was a small fortune, and room and board were free besides. That is how I come to know this bizarre story. In 1820, Henri's great-grandparents Luc and Anne Lemarchand settled, with their son Jean, in the town Lindon in what would become the State of Iowa. The were a wealthy couple, Luc being from a long line of gentry and bankers, and in that year began training Jean in business affairs, and how to handle the huge Lemarchand family fortune. In May of 1821, Anne died of influenza. Luc died just four months later---it is said grief that killed her husband. Jean lived the next three years of his life in torpor, growing listless and boorish, feeling the tragedy that had befallen his family to be a wholly unjust act of nature. He left Lindon for ten years afterward.

     "Then, in 1831, Jean returned. His zest for life had returned; he opened a new bank with his still sizable wealth, and prospered. Now this is the curious bit: Jean rarely spoke of his journeys during his ten-year absence, yet some rumours have been passed down through time. It is said that Jean may have visited family acquaintances in Newburyport, Massachusetts, then sailed back to the family homeland, France. Wherever he went, it was for the best, thought the locals of the time, for finally Jean's zeal for life had returned.

     "As time wore on, his mood darkened with each passing year. By 1845, when Jean turned fifty, he had become even more sullen and crabby and downright morose than when he was a young man. In 1886, Jean retired with his massive fortune and hired a personal servant. This was my own great-grandfather, Howard Danvers, who came into the employ of the Lemarchand family.

     "Now it is thought that Jean never took a wife. Yet a child must have been born out of wedlock, because the family name did indeed carry on well into the twentieth century. Jean is said to have died in 1891, and at this point his unseen son David became head of the Lemarchand household. I say unseen because he was exactly that! He entertained no visitors of any sort nor ventured abroad for any reason. The only proof there ever was a David Lemarchand was the testimony of my own great-grandfather. You see, for some reason, management of the family's fortune had been turned over to the servants. This may seem strange, but I'll get back to it later. Then, in 1927, my grandfather became servant to David, and my great grandfather retired in New Hampshire.

     "Now David is said to have returned to France in 1948, and his son, as unseen and unapproachable as himself, inherited the Lemarchand fortune. This was Henri Lemarchand. Now in 1959, my father assumed the role of servant to the Lemarchands, and my grandfather retired to the Texas sunshine. Before my father's death in 1988, he explained all this to me and more, for Henri Lemarchand apparently died in 1986, leaving no heirs. And this, young man, will be the first time anyone other than the Lemarchands or their servants will hear what I believe really happened. Bear with me, for what I have to tell you may seem unreal, but this story has been handed down to me from my own forefathers, all honest men.

     "Jean Lemarchand was the last of the Lemarchands. Before Jean and his parents moved to Iowa, they lived for a time on the east coast, in Kingsbridge. There, the young Jean had picked up local rumours of a "witch" living in Newburyport. My father said that he later read some of Jean's notes on those times, and it seems this "witch" was a member of some secret society called the Milieu d'Or, or Society of Gold. Like the Masons or Bavarian Illuminati, the Milieu kept its secrets well, yet members were said to have occult knowledge dating back to the time of the Roman conquest of Gaul. Not much is known of this woman who was a member of this society, but local superstition had it that she knew too much. It is she that Jean searched out later in life, finding her older, yet still full of vigor. For a hefty fee, and after much cajoling on Jean's part, she agreed to teach him the secret of eternal life. Jean was still distraught that his parents had been taken so easily from him when they were both still young, and he desperately wanted to cheat death. In order to complete the necessary potation, the "witch" had Jean search out and bring back the remains of one who's grave had been terribly violated. The greater the violation, she said, the more likely the potion would bring results. Jean knew that the City of the Dead was already being built under Paris to make way for Hassmann's radical reconstruction of Paris, and that the bones from the City would provide him with the exact powerful ingredient he needed. My father gave me the map which allowed me to verify that Jean had indeed stolen bones during his travels in the 1820s. Returning to Newburyport, Jean provided the woman with the corpse's fragments he had collected, and soon drank the potion she assembled. This was the source for his new found zest for life when he returned to Lindon.

     But, it was not until much later in life, when he began to feel that he had been duped by the old woman. He was indeed aging, and the secret of eternal life seemed a foolish fantasy.

     "When Jean took his first servant, my great-grandfather, he was eighty-one years old, and weaked considerably by the ravages of ill health in old age. He took to a wheelchair, and was only able to speak in a raspy whisper by the time he was eighty-six. It was then that Jean supposedly died and passed his household and earnings to David. But Jean did not die, nor had he a son. In fact, when my father became servant to Jean in 1959, he was still alive---122 years old! His eyesight was almost completely gone, he could hear nothing, yet his mind was still sharply aware---even painfully aware of his horrid state. My father dutifully attended to Jean's every physical need. By 1986, when Jean's "grandson," Henri, supposedly died---there was in fact no Henri Lemarchand any more than there was a David. Jean was 181 years old, bed ridden, barely able to draw a breath. Yet my father still cared for the thing that was once a man, as per his contract, even though Jean had begun to rot. Yes---just like a corpse! Even cancerous tumors shriveled and sloughed-off his wasting body! In August, 1986, my father could tolerate this living blasphemy no more. He placed Jean in a wardrobe and buried him---I know not where---only because my father had tried to put Jean out of his misery by injecting him with poisons and smothering him, neither of which produced results. Finally, he hacked Jean's head from his body with a hatchet. And yet! And yet even though severed from his putrescent body, Jean still breathed and a solitary tear rolled down his shriveled cheek.

     When my father buried Jean Lemarchand, he was rotting and decapitated, yes, but still alive!"

     I thanked Danvers for his story, and agreed to remain in contact when we both got back to the States. Since then, Danvers has mailed me Lemarchand's diary, which I have since sent to Professor Anselm Darius in the history department of Georg von Podebrad College. He is attempting to determine the veracity of events in the text, and will alert Third Eye readers of any significant finds. Already, he has a theory as to the actual ingredients of the potation that Lemarchand drank. In addition to bone meal, it probably contained goldenseal root and tincture of pimpernel, but the diary is too confused and confusing to assemble a full list at this time. Also in his efforts, Prof. Darius is examining the historical possibility of the Milieu d'Or, and whether Lemarchand used this name as a cover for another secret organization. As for the remains of Jean Lemarchand, no efforts to find "Henri" have been made.