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28 - Tarrare - The French Cannibal Spy · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an Airwave media podcast. Hi everybody, and
0:18
Speaker 1: welcome back to Hood What Now History podcast That's not
0:21
Speaker 1: Your History Class with me, your and sociable host Katie Charlwood,
0:27
Speaker 1: History Harlot and reader of books. Well, we are still
0:31
Speaker 1: in this spooky season and I am just back from
0:35
Speaker 1: my first long weekend and I don't know how long.
0:38
Speaker 1: It's nice to have time off. I don't know what
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Speaker 1: to do with myself, so I decided to go to
0:42
Speaker 1: Sligo and see my lovely friend Shauna, who you may
0:46
Speaker 1: know from Sex Shava, and I also met up with
0:48
Speaker 1: the fantastic Mark, who you may know as Bearded Badger's
0:52
Speaker 1: Storytelling the podcast or from the Leprecaun Museum in Dublin.
0:57
Speaker 1: I had a fantastic time, got some ideas going fun,
1:01
Speaker 1: Stuff's gonna happen, but it's been great. It's been nice
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Speaker 1: to have some time off, and it's nice to meet
1:06
Speaker 1: all these super cool people that I met on TikTok.
1:10
Speaker 1: You know what I'm going for anyone who's listening, Anyone
1:13
Speaker 1: who has made friends or has friends that are like
1:16
Speaker 1: through things on the internet that you know are not
1:19
Speaker 1: dodgy like m is someone who grew up with chat rooms.
1:24
Speaker 1: Yeah you can. You gonna watch it for weirdos out there,
1:27
Speaker 1: but you know, these are the right kind of weirdos.
1:30
Speaker 1: I know a lot of older generations don't get the
1:32
Speaker 1: concept of, you know, making friends with people who you
1:35
Speaker 1: know live further away from you, or who you know
1:37
Speaker 1: through online and things like that as well, and that
1:39
Speaker 1: the concept of a textual relationship is out with their reality.
1:44
Speaker 1: But you can make some really really good friends and
1:46
Speaker 1: really great connections via online and I have started to
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Speaker 1: do that with TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. To a less extent,
1:54
Speaker 1: I have a Twitter, so you know who did what now?
1:56
Speaker 1: Pod on everything apart from Twitter, which is who did
1:59
Speaker 1: what now? PD? But yeah, making friends. Making friends is
2:02
Speaker 1: fun and it's good. I found, especially that it's quite
2:05
Speaker 1: difficult for someone like me because I live in the
2:09
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere, but also because I think when you
2:12
Speaker 1: get to a certain age, like making friends as an
2:15
Speaker 1: adult is a very difficult process. It's very strange and
2:20
Speaker 1: we're not taught how to do that. But I'll talk
2:22
Speaker 1: about that another time. And it's fun to be friends
2:24
Speaker 1: with people who are creative because then you have like
2:27
Speaker 1: especially for someone like me, because it really helps drive
2:30
Speaker 1: me and spur things on in my brain to actually
2:33
Speaker 1: get me to do stuff, because ADHD brain sometimes finding
2:37
Speaker 1: the drive all the time to do stuff can be really,
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Speaker 1: really difficult. I'm really in a good I'm really in
2:42
Speaker 1: a good spot right now with the right type of support,
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Speaker 1: I think, and it's feeling good. And you can't see
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Speaker 1: what I'm doing, but I'm actually doing weird hand movements
2:49
Speaker 1: and I keep talking with my hands. It's weird, but
2:51
Speaker 1: I do it. So but I know what you're saying.
2:53
Speaker 1: You're saying, quit your jibber jubber in fact me, in
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Speaker 1: fact you, I will. I will because because we are
3:00
Speaker 1: going to talk about Terrall, the French cannibal spy, because
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Speaker 1: everybody loves a cannibal story. But before we get into this,
3:10
Speaker 1: we get to get our source on. Our sources are
3:14
Speaker 1: Memorial by Pierre Francois Percy. This would be the doctor
3:20
Speaker 1: Percy's original paper on Torall's medical history. We have Freaks,
3:27
Speaker 1: the Pig based Lady of Manchester Square and other medical
3:29
Speaker 1: Marvels by Jane Bondison, Curiosities of Medical Experience by JG. Millgan,
3:36
Speaker 1: And of course we have all that's interesting dot com,
3:40
Speaker 1: Ripley's dot com, and BBC dot com. Yes, so it
3:45
Speaker 1: is this spooky season, and because it is the spooky season,
3:48
Speaker 1: we're going to continue with our dark history theme and
3:51
Speaker 1: I am going to tell you a tale of Terral,
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Speaker 1: the French cannibal spy. So I hope you're ready for
3:58
Speaker 1: a tale of s be an age, horror and an
4:02
Speaker 1: insatiable appetite. Toral if there is his real name, which
4:07
Speaker 1: we're not entirely sure of, because we don't really know
4:10
Speaker 1: that much about his early life because generally, if you
4:14
Speaker 1: were born in the seventeen hundreds, unless you were rich,
4:17
Speaker 1: there's not really a lot to know. They don't write
4:19
Speaker 1: that shit down. What do we know about Terrell's early life,
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Speaker 1: Not a lot. Actually, we don't even know his real name.
4:27
Speaker 1: We think RaRo was his stage name that he picked
4:31
Speaker 1: up at one point along the way and it just
4:33
Speaker 1: kind of stuck. We don't even know exactly when he
4:36
Speaker 1: was born. You know, poor people from the past, Why
4:39
Speaker 1: would we care, apparently, So what we do know is
4:43
Speaker 1: that he was a hungry, hungry boy. So Torraro was
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Speaker 1: born roughly around seventeen seventy two, and he was hungry,
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Speaker 1: very very hungry, and during that time in France, it
4:56
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly the most fruitful of times. And a child
5:00
Speaker 1: that can eat their own body weight every single day
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Speaker 1: probably more of a hindrance than a help, to be honest.
5:07
Speaker 1: And so by the time he's a teenager, he's out
5:09
Speaker 1: on his own, he's not with his family, he's gone elsewhere.
5:13
Speaker 1: When Tyrall was seventeen, he weighed about one hundred pounds.
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Speaker 1: He was very much skinny, malinky, long legs, you know,
5:21
Speaker 1: and he was always always hungry. He was starving Marvin
5:25
Speaker 1: all of the fucking time. He was so hungry that
5:28
Speaker 1: he consistently ate out of rubbish in garbage just to
5:34
Speaker 1: help satiate that overwhelming hunger. Fortunately or unfortunately, Tyra's body
5:43
Speaker 1: suited his condition like it was just as weird as
5:46
Speaker 1: his appetite was. So he was skinny. He could just
5:50
Speaker 1: look at his jaw so we could fit more stuff in.
5:52
Speaker 1: His cheeks could stretch. His skin was very very stretchy,
5:59
Speaker 1: and when he was eating or wasn't full, the skin
6:03
Speaker 1: on his cheeks would hang down his face like a bulldog.
6:08
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and his stomach so when he was eating
6:13
Speaker 1: and swallowing and consuming a bunch of stuff, his stomach
6:17
Speaker 1: would sort of just stend out basically, kind of like
6:21
Speaker 1: a pregnant woman's would. It would just be like this
6:23
Speaker 1: big round bulge. But when he wasn't stuff in his face,
6:28
Speaker 1: his stomach would like hang around his just hand sort
6:32
Speaker 1: of loose around his body, and he could wrap it
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Speaker 1: around his waist like a fucking belt. Ed Gain would
6:39
Speaker 1: have a whale of a time with him. It's all
6:41
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Terra having this rather unusual skill. And let's
6:47
Speaker 1: face it, people like to stare at weird stuff. That's
6:51
Speaker 1: why freak shows exist or existed. Not that I approve
6:55
Speaker 1: of them, but you know, people like to go stare.
6:57
Speaker 1: So Terra joined up with his traveling colin and Terraro
7:01
Speaker 1: would be an opening act. And this would work in
7:04
Speaker 1: two ways. So not only would he get you know,
7:06
Speaker 1: paid for performing, but he would also be consistently fed
7:11
Speaker 1: like people would hand them like basketfuls of apples that
7:13
Speaker 1: he could just flow him down his throat, one after
7:16
Speaker 1: the other after the other, like shoving coins in a
7:19
Speaker 1: slot machine. He could fit twelve eggs in his mouth
7:22
Speaker 1: at any one time, like stuff in his cheeks up
7:25
Speaker 1: like a chipmunk, and people would give him loads of
7:28
Speaker 1: weird things to eat. Sometimes he would be handed live
7:31
Speaker 1: animals like birds, which he would just swallow and then
7:37
Speaker 1: throw up the feathers, the beaks and the feet. On
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Speaker 1: one such incident, he grabbed a cat, drank its blood,
7:47
Speaker 1: disemboweled it, and then ate it. And then you know
7:51
Speaker 1: what he did, He vomited up the fur. And so
7:55
Speaker 1: people would just keep giving him weird things to eat,
7:58
Speaker 1: so he would eat. People would make him eat rocks
8:04
Speaker 1: because he could swallow anything, so they would start handing
8:06
Speaker 1: him stuff that you know, really shouldn't be ingested. And
8:10
Speaker 1: one day, in the middle of an act, Tora just
8:13
Speaker 1: straight up collapses, like down the ground, and his audience
8:18
Speaker 1: is so concerned that they take him to a hospital
8:21
Speaker 1: and surprise, surprise, there's an obstruction in his intestines, and
8:26
Speaker 1: so they just give him a ton of laxatives because
8:29
Speaker 1: you know, you get a clear out somehow. Does this
8:32
Speaker 1: deter to Lan anyway? Nope, because the man is just
8:36
Speaker 1: fucking hungry all the time. But then something happens, something
8:40
Speaker 1: very very important in French history, the French Revolution, and
8:45
Speaker 1: for a probably illiterate, desperately hungry street urchin, shall we say,
8:52
Speaker 1: the option of joining the military. Joining the French military
8:57
Speaker 1: is a very very appetizing off because because at least
9:01
Speaker 1: if you're in the army, you're gonna be fed. So
9:04
Speaker 1: Trall makes the relatively wise decision to give up, you know,
9:09
Speaker 1: swallowing rocks for pennies and join the French army. Unfortunately,
9:13
Speaker 1: for Toral, the army rations were exactly great or abundant,
9:22
Speaker 1: and as such weren't really satisfying his needs. So in
9:27
Speaker 1: order to you know, try and quell his hunger a
9:29
Speaker 1: little bit, he would do like extra jobs for other
9:31
Speaker 1: soldiers so he could take a portion of their rations.
9:34
Speaker 1: But this is a man who just can't stop eating,
9:37
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't work, and so he resorts to
9:40
Speaker 1: eating out the fucking garbage again like a wee racoon.
9:44
Speaker 1: Then Toras gets sent to the front lines and out
9:48
Speaker 1: there no one had anything to spare or share. And
9:52
Speaker 1: because tra was hungry as fuck, he was medically hungry.
9:58
Speaker 1: He needed to constantly eat. Because he wasn't consuming what
10:02
Speaker 1: he needed to consume, he strayed up, just collapsed from hunger.
10:07
Speaker 1: So he set out to woko up and recover in
10:09
Speaker 1: a military hospital. And that is where Terrall meets Baron
10:14
Speaker 1: Pierre Francois Percy, who took one look at Toraro and went, oh,
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Speaker 1: this is interesting. I gotta get me some of this again.
10:22
Speaker 1: Remember that Terral is skinny. He's got that weird stretchy skin.
10:28
Speaker 1: He constantly smells. I don't think I mentioned this earlier,
10:32
Speaker 1: but he is stinky. He is you know in a
10:34
Speaker 1: cartoon when you see those like stink lines appear off
10:38
Speaker 1: of a person. I feel like that's what Tolra was like.
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Speaker 1: So Percy decides to start experimenting on Tora because he can,
10:47
Speaker 1: because he wants to see, like how big this appetite is.
10:51
Speaker 1: So they start off nice and simple by giving him
10:55
Speaker 1: like four times the normal amount of soldiers rations. In
10:59
Speaker 1: Terral just and inhales it effectively down it goes gone.
11:05
Speaker 1: So to put this into perspective, he ate like a
11:07
Speaker 1: quarter of a cow by himself. So he like shovels
11:11
Speaker 1: it in and his like weird flippy stomach skin. It
11:16
Speaker 1: just whoop how it goes. But beef wasn't the only
11:19
Speaker 1: thing on the menu, because Percy wanted to say, like
11:22
Speaker 1: what could he eat? Because you know, he'd heard bits
11:25
Speaker 1: and pieces. So you know, he gives them two I
11:28
Speaker 1: want to say, the disapproval of the other doctors. They
11:32
Speaker 1: were like, what are you doing. He's like, I'm feeding
11:34
Speaker 1: them this stuff, okay, And he basically offers him a
11:37
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff like he would eat in his acts.
11:39
Speaker 1: So he gives him eels and snacks and a live cat,
11:45
Speaker 1: after which, yes, here again, he pukes up the fire.
11:49
Speaker 1: Would swallow eels and snacks, like open his gullet up
11:55
Speaker 1: and just and they would just slip right in and
11:57
Speaker 1: he would swallow them whole after till was finished his meal.
12:02
Speaker 1: When he went to the privy of the toilet, his
12:06
Speaker 1: bill movements were fucking putrid, Like nobody could handle going
12:11
Speaker 1: into a bathroom after he'd been in it, Like nobody
12:14
Speaker 1: wanted to go near that. It was kind of like
12:17
Speaker 1: if shit got sour. That's kind of what that was. Like.
12:21
Speaker 1: I mean, he probably had really bad gas as well.
12:24
Speaker 1: Like when you think about it, so imagine you've already
12:26
Speaker 1: got the stench going on from that. But like his
12:29
Speaker 1: entire body stinks. It's a potent smell. It stings the nostrils.
12:35
Speaker 1: Rancid stench was so awful that you could smell it
12:40
Speaker 1: from like twenty paces away the other side of the room.
12:45
Speaker 1: And this wasn't an era predioderant, you know, so near enough,
12:49
Speaker 1: everything at this time either smelt like pea or sweat.
12:54
Speaker 1: So he must have been really, really bad if his
13:00
Speaker 1: scent was putting everyone off. Another weird thing about Tral
13:04
Speaker 1: is that he was constantly hot and sweaty, and that
13:08
Speaker 1: when he was eating he would get like feverish and
13:12
Speaker 1: his scent would get much much worse as he ate,
13:18
Speaker 1: like during the eating process. So while he's doing all
13:21
Speaker 1: these mad scientists, chip a general Alexandre de Bourne is like,
13:27
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this seems useful. He's like, fuck this
13:31
Speaker 1: for a game of soldiers. We've got this dude who
13:34
Speaker 1: can swallow a bunch of weird things and not die. Well,
13:41
Speaker 1: let's put him to good use. So the thing is
13:43
Speaker 1: France and Prussia. There it war, the Franco Prussian War,
13:47
Speaker 1: if you will. So they want to see if Terra
13:48
Speaker 1: can put his weird talent to use and utilize it
13:52
Speaker 1: for spycraft. So their plan is to give him, to
13:56
Speaker 1: give him stuff to swallow for him to smuggle over.
14:00
Speaker 1: So what their plan is is to give them stuff
14:01
Speaker 1: to swallow so he can smuggle it over the Prussian
14:04
Speaker 1: border and deliver it to captured French soldiers. So they
14:08
Speaker 1: decide to test it out first by writing a note
14:12
Speaker 1: and putting the note inside a wooden box and then
14:14
Speaker 1: getting them to swallow the wooden box. So he passes
14:16
Speaker 1: this anyway, so he poops it out. So basically they're
14:19
Speaker 1: waiting for him to put out this box because they
14:22
Speaker 1: want to check to see if the note is still
14:24
Speaker 1: legible after it's gone through his body. You know, I
14:29
Speaker 1: hope at least they like smoothed the edges because those
14:32
Speaker 1: sharp corners, Oh, does not seem fun for anybody. So,
14:35
Speaker 1: as it turns out, this worked, and they decide to
14:39
Speaker 1: reward him with some positive reinforcement like a puppy, and
14:44
Speaker 1: they give him thirty bull organs, which he basically inhales
14:48
Speaker 1: in front of everybody, and because it's a roaring success,
14:50
Speaker 1: they decide to put this into practice. So Tallah swallowed
14:54
Speaker 1: another wooden box with another little note in it for
14:58
Speaker 1: a captured colonel, and he was disguised as a Prussian
15:01
Speaker 1: peasant and he was supposed to sneak over the border. However,
15:05
Speaker 1: Tarra wasn't exactly inconspicuous because you know the weird skin
15:11
Speaker 1: and the smell, and and you know the fact that
15:15
Speaker 1: he couldn't actually speak any Prussian. Oh, and you know
15:20
Speaker 1: the fact that he was French and couldn't actually speak
15:23
Speaker 1: any Prussian. Needless to say, he was quickly captured. And
15:28
Speaker 1: the thing about Tarra is he was never trained in
15:31
Speaker 1: any of this. He was just kind of thrown into it.
15:34
Speaker 1: He's been captured by the enemy, he's being strip searched,
15:39
Speaker 1: he's being whipped, and he's having any number of tortures
15:44
Speaker 1: happened to him over like a day. And Tallah was
15:48
Speaker 1: never trained to endure torture, so he breaks pretty easily,
15:53
Speaker 1: and you know, he tells them all about you know,
15:56
Speaker 1: the plot, and how he's got a secret message and
15:59
Speaker 1: now he's got like a spe shall know, in a
16:00
Speaker 1: box they swallowed and they're like right, So they basically
16:05
Speaker 1: chain him to a privy or a la train maybe toilet.
16:10
Speaker 1: He's changed to a toilet, and they wait for him
16:14
Speaker 1: to shut out the box. Eventually a couple hours later,
16:18
Speaker 1: imagine being the soldier has to dig through the excrement
16:23
Speaker 1: to retrieve the box and then open the box and
16:26
Speaker 1: find the note, only to discover that the note doesn't
16:31
Speaker 1: have any special instructions or necessary information, and that is
16:37
Speaker 1: just a test to see whether or not Taila could
16:43
Speaker 1: deliver the message. And the Prussians, they're not fucking happy
16:49
Speaker 1: about this. So they're like, mate, you're getting executed, and
16:52
Speaker 1: they tell Talal that they're going to hang them. And
16:55
Speaker 1: he waits for days away and there he is for
16:59
Speaker 1: days awaiting his death. But luckily for him, there he's
17:06
Speaker 1: your problem now and chuck him back over the border
17:09
Speaker 1: because he felt like he had done something to sell
17:12
Speaker 1: out his country after failing being a spy, Tral was
17:16
Speaker 1: just done. He was sick of he was dealing with
17:20
Speaker 1: the fact that he felt that his actions had like
17:24
Speaker 1: he was guilty, you know, over the fact that he
17:27
Speaker 1: felt that he'd sold out secrets to the other side,
17:30
Speaker 1: and his constant hunger was really destroying him. So he's
17:35
Speaker 1: back and he goes back to you know, the surgeon Percy,
17:39
Speaker 1: and he begs him, begs him to try and cure
17:44
Speaker 1: him of his hunger, you know, and Percy's like, yes, please,
17:49
Speaker 1: and thank you. Let's see what we can do for you.
17:52
Speaker 1: So he gets him into a hospital and they decided
17:55
Speaker 1: to try a bunch of stuff to see if they
17:57
Speaker 1: can reduce his hunger. So he's in for constant observation
18:01
Speaker 1: and they give him other things, poppy seeds, stuff like that.
18:06
Speaker 1: They tried to use a laudanum, which is an opioid,
18:10
Speaker 1: and they wanted to use that as a hunger suppressant.
18:13
Speaker 1: They gave him. They tried tobacco pills because there's like
18:17
Speaker 1: a theory that nicotine suppresses your appetite. And one of
18:20
Speaker 1: the other things he tried was red wine vinegar because
18:24
Speaker 1: of the acids that are in red wine, it can
18:26
Speaker 1: basically like it can reduce appetite because it can reduce
18:30
Speaker 1: the appetite because the acids that are in red wine
18:34
Speaker 1: can sort of reduce your appetite and reduce fat storage
18:39
Speaker 1: and also like help you burn fat in your body.
18:42
Speaker 1: None of these treatments helped tall oh Oh. And another
18:47
Speaker 1: one was eggs, a diet of eggs. So Tola was
18:52
Speaker 1: like so hungry, and he goes back to his old ways,
18:55
Speaker 1: so he is eating it with the rubbish again. He's
18:58
Speaker 1: in the bins and can't handle these diets. Nothing is
19:02
Speaker 1: helping satiate his hunger, so he is back in the bins.
19:08
Speaker 1: He's going full on raccoon. He's eating anything that is edible,
19:12
Speaker 1: regardless of how rotten or disgusting it is. There's even
19:18
Speaker 1: reports of him breaking into slaughterhouses so that he could
19:21
Speaker 1: eat the raw meat inside. So this is where the
19:25
Speaker 1: story gets menacing. He was fighting animals on the street
19:31
Speaker 1: for food, like dogs and wolves. And then he is
19:36
Speaker 1: caught drinking human blood in the hospital from like patients
19:40
Speaker 1: who had been brought in for blood letting. But don't worry,
19:43
Speaker 1: it gets worse, and you're thinking, what could be worse
19:45
Speaker 1: than drinking blood. On more than one occasion, Tallal was
19:49
Speaker 1: found in the hospital's mortuary feasting on the dead. That's right,
19:55
Speaker 1: he was eating dead bodies. He was eating the flesh
20:00
Speaker 1: of the dead. And then something truly horrific happens. A
20:04
Speaker 1: fourteen month old child was being treated at the hospital,
20:08
Speaker 1: and this infant mysteriously and this and this baby mysteriously
20:14
Speaker 1: disappears Newton neither hide nor hair was ever seen again.
20:19
Speaker 1: We don't entirely know if, and so all eyes and
20:24
Speaker 1: soon all eyes turned to Talla, who, let's face it
20:29
Speaker 1: was known to lurk through the hospital wards looking for
20:32
Speaker 1: something to eat. And although they couldn't prove that he
20:35
Speaker 1: had eaten the infant, they put two and two together,
20:39
Speaker 1: and when the suspicion fell into La he did the
20:42
Speaker 1: wise thing and got the hell out a dodge. He
20:46
Speaker 1: straight up disappears like he straight up disappears from the
20:50
Speaker 1: hospital in Paris, and for four years we don't know
20:54
Speaker 1: where he went or what he did. And it's so
20:57
Speaker 1: weird because you've got this weird looking, weird smelling, scrawny
21:03
Speaker 1: man with an insatiable, uncontrollable appetite who eats rubbish and
21:10
Speaker 1: garbage and people and rocks, and we have no fucking
21:15
Speaker 1: clue about where he went, who did he go with,
21:18
Speaker 1: what did he do? For four years? I mean, this
21:22
Speaker 1: was in the middle of the French Revolution, so who's
21:25
Speaker 1: to say? I also addition, furthermore, the only person actually
21:29
Speaker 1: looking for Toilra was Percy, and find whom he does
21:32
Speaker 1: in seventeen ninety eight, because he's been admitted to a
21:35
Speaker 1: hospital in Versailles. When Terra is visited by Perce, he
21:40
Speaker 1: was suffering constant diarrhea and a weird condition that somehow
21:45
Speaker 1: had cured his appetite, which you know, I mean that
21:48
Speaker 1: everybody wanted, but probably not in this way. And Tra
21:51
Speaker 1: is not exactly compassmentous at this point, and he's telling
21:56
Speaker 1: Percy that he had swallowed a golden fork. Golden fork
22:01
Speaker 1: was killing him from the inside. Now, whether or not
22:04
Speaker 1: he had consumed a golden fork at this point nobody knew,
22:08
Speaker 1: but wasn't really relevant because he had late stage tuberculosis,
22:13
Speaker 1: although it probably would have been still called consumption at
22:16
Speaker 1: the time. Tarrah died in absolute agony a month after
22:21
Speaker 1: Percy's rival, and as far as we know with and
22:24
Speaker 1: as far as we know with Terra, at the age
22:26
Speaker 1: of twenty six, Ral died in excruciating pain with Percy
22:31
Speaker 1: by his side. After Tyra dies, Percy decides that he's
22:36
Speaker 1: going to perform an autopsy to try and understand, to
22:40
Speaker 1: try and get like some clue as to what the
22:42
Speaker 1: fuck was going on with this fella. And in fairness,
22:45
Speaker 1: he was the only one willing to do it, because
22:47
Speaker 1: as bad as that man smelled when he was alive,
22:50
Speaker 1: he smelled even worse when he was dead. And here's
22:53
Speaker 1: the thing. They had to act very quickly because his
22:57
Speaker 1: body quote unquote became prey to a horrible corruption. Like
23:02
Speaker 1: it is like putrefying itself. It was so bad that
23:06
Speaker 1: so many surgeons just like couldn't And these are people
23:09
Speaker 1: who were there during you know, the gaillotine full force,
23:13
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But Tora's body was just
23:16
Speaker 1: too much for most of them to handle. So Percy
23:18
Speaker 1: is performing the autopsy. So when they make an insertion
23:22
Speaker 1: into his stomach, they found his organs like immersed in.
23:28
Speaker 1: Plus his mouth could dislocate his gullet. You could open
23:33
Speaker 1: his gullet and see down. So Tarrar's esophagus was massive
23:39
Speaker 1: to the point that it could stretch like a foot
23:43
Speaker 1: in diameter, so that when you like stretched it open,
23:46
Speaker 1: you could look through his mouth and see his stomach,
23:50
Speaker 1: His his intestines, his liver, and his gallbladder were enormous,
23:57
Speaker 1: and that his stomach took up most of his sort
23:59
Speaker 1: of abdominal area in that it was covered in ulcerts.
24:04
Speaker 1: His liver had already started to putrefy. And you can
24:08
Speaker 1: remember as well, like his organs are already like swimming
24:11
Speaker 1: in puss. And by the time they'd looked at all
24:15
Speaker 1: this stuff, they were like, okay, we're done now. Because
24:18
Speaker 1: the body acids and the weird sweat smell and the puss.
24:23
Speaker 1: This stench was so horrific they demanded the autopsy be
24:27
Speaker 1: stopped and that the body be buried so deep that
24:31
Speaker 1: it could never bother anyone again. Another thing that wasn't
24:34
Speaker 1: discovered during the autopsy was the golden fort Thatterrah was
24:38
Speaker 1: convinced was killing him. Here's the thing, though, to this day,
24:42
Speaker 1: we still don't know what kind of medical condition til
24:46
Speaker 1: I had because like a damaged ypilathemus in rats and
24:50
Speaker 1: an abiutala in cats, you know, can give them an
24:53
Speaker 1: insatiable hunger, but they both kind of got obese with it.
24:58
Speaker 1: Interral was constantly skinny, basically a woken skellet in most
25:02
Speaker 1: of his life, with just skin hanging off him like
25:05
Speaker 1: a badly made suit. And they thought it was prolifergy,
25:07
Speaker 1: but that doesn't quite work it either. At one point
25:10
Speaker 1: they thought it might be hyperthyroidism, you know, because it
25:13
Speaker 1: can you know, because it would have like an incredibly
25:15
Speaker 1: fast metabolism being someone hungry, but without them gaining any weight.
25:19
Speaker 1: It would make you really hungry, but you know, you
25:21
Speaker 1: wouldn't gain as much weight. But there has been no
25:24
Speaker 1: known case of hyperthyroidism that's made it's ever shown someone
25:28
Speaker 1: like Toral existing, then of course there's a possibility of
25:32
Speaker 1: a parasite, but nothing was ever found. And another option
25:36
Speaker 1: was polyphagia, but which which basically involves like like a
25:40
Speaker 1: massive appetite and eating to excess, but it doesn't quite
25:44
Speaker 1: deively modern science doesn't know, and so ends our tale
25:49
Speaker 1: of Toral the French cannibal Spy. If you liked my
25:55
Speaker 1: retelling of this story, feel free to like five stars
25:58
Speaker 1: and review on Apple podcasts or Google podcasts or any
26:02
Speaker 1: of the podcast platforms that you're listening to this on.
26:05
Speaker 1: Feel free to give me many, many stars and many
26:07
Speaker 1: positive words. It just really really helps get me up
26:11
Speaker 1: the list and bist me up. And also my ego,
26:14
Speaker 1: my ego quite likes it when you say nice things. Man.
26:19
Speaker 1: So I want to say I want to say a
26:21
Speaker 1: big thank you to Lewis who said they didn't need
26:24
Speaker 1: a shout out, they just wanted to support me. But
26:26
Speaker 1: you know what, you're getting a showered out, buddy. There
26:29
Speaker 1: you go. You're awesome and I appreciate you, I really do.
26:33
Speaker 1: I appreciate everybody who listens and shares, and ah, honestly,
26:37
Speaker 1: it's it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. If you want to
26:40
Speaker 1: help support the show. If you think liking a review
26:43
Speaker 1: just isn't enough, then go on to provide monetary assistance.
26:49
Speaker 1: There are links down below for PayPal, Patreon, dot com,
26:52
Speaker 1: slas should what now? Podpa dot com s, I should
26:56
Speaker 1: have want now? The coffee link is there? I make
26:58
Speaker 1: sure of a riverloot link. Well, I don't know yet.
27:00
Speaker 1: I'll see how I feel. But if you're thinking I
27:02
Speaker 1: want to support you, and I've already liked and reviewed,
27:05
Speaker 1: but but I don't have any cash, you can follow
27:08
Speaker 1: me on all my social media as an interact there.
27:10
Speaker 1: Now we have Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok, which is who
27:12
Speaker 1: did what now? Pod? And then we have Twitter, which
27:16
Speaker 1: is who did what now? Pd? So what did we
27:18
Speaker 1: learn today? Starving people do not make good spies. Eighteenth
27:23
Speaker 1: century experiments rarely work, and in general, I mean this
27:28
Speaker 1: should go without saying, but please don't leave babies unattended
27:32
Speaker 1: near cannibals. I just think as a general role that's
27:34
Speaker 1: a good one for us to have. And although it
27:37
Speaker 1: is tempting, please do not eat rocks. Eating rocks is
27:41
Speaker 1: never a good idea, Okay, So it is recommendation time.
27:45
Speaker 1: So reading, I am gonna recommend fifty two times Britain
27:49
Speaker 1: was a bell end. It's funny, it's full of historical facts,
27:52
Speaker 1: and it's it's funny and it's easy to digest. If
27:56
Speaker 1: you're trying to read something but you don't have the
27:59
Speaker 1: inner you to read like a full book, you can
28:01
Speaker 1: just read like each page effectively, each tale. For listening,
28:06
Speaker 1: I am going to recommend Bearded Badger storytelling, available on
28:11
Speaker 1: all good podcasting platforms and probably some bad platforms too. Finally,
28:16
Speaker 1: watching if you were If you're a nerd like me
28:19
Speaker 1: and you like Star Trek and stuff, please make sure
28:22
Speaker 1: you're watching the lower decks. It is glorious. I love
28:26
Speaker 1: when it has that. The throwbacks and the callbacks. Oh
28:31
Speaker 1: they make my heart sing and make little nerd and
28:34
Speaker 1: me happy. What can I say? And with that, I
28:36
Speaker 1: am going to bid you adieu. I hope you enjoyed
28:38
Speaker 1: this dark tale of a dark moment in history, and
28:42
Speaker 1: I will see you all for the biddys on and
28:44
Speaker 1: I hope to hear and I'll be back on Thursday
28:47
Speaker 1: with a biysode adios or revoir of Weism My friends.
28:51
Speaker 1: Bye bye,