Section 15 of Princes and Poisoners, Studies of the Court of Louis XIV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Regarding by Jane Bennett, Melbourne, Australia. Princes and Poisoners, Studies of the Court of Louis XIV by Franz Funk Prentano, translated by George Maidment. Section 15, The Death of Madame. Who has not read Bossaway's funeral oration on Henrietta Anne of England, Duchess of Orléans? Who has not thrilled at the echo of that powerful and poignant apostrophe? Oh woeful night! Oh woeful night! When there rang through the air like a sudden thunderclap, the amazing tidings. Madame is dying. Madame is dead. Madame passed from morn to eve like the grass of the field. In the morning she flourished with what graces you know. In the evening we saw her cut down. What awful speed! In nine hours the work is accomplished. Bossaway's masterpiece has crowned the memory of Madame with an immortal halo in which the charms, the quick and exquisite imagination of the young princess who enchanted her contemporaries, the lady who set the tone for taste and wit in the midst of the wittiest and most brilliant court the world has ever known will shine resplendent through the ages. The circumstances in which this startling death echo it have aroused the attention of historians. Madame has returned from England where she had succeeded in getting the treaty of Dover signed on June 1st 1670 by the ministers of her brother Charles II. The treaty assuring Louis XIV of the Alliance of England against Holland and permitting him to conquer Flanders and Franche Comté for France. Madame remained at Dover from May 24th to June 12th. She then re-embarked for France happy in the successful result of her mission and she arrived at Saint-Germain on the 18th. At the age of 26 says Madame de Lafayette and saw herself the link between the two greatest kings of the century. She had in her hands a treaty on which depended the fate of a part of Europe, the pleasure and the importance given by affairs of moment being joined in her with the attractions bestowed by youth and beauty. There was a grace and a sweetness enveloping her whole person that one for her a kind of homage must have been the more pleasant in that it was rendered rather to her personality than to her rank. Need anything be said of the manners of monsieur? The miracle of firing the heart of this prince, says Madame de Lafayette, was reserved for no woman in the world. And yet his heart was wonderfully tender. Madame had definitively secured the exile of the Chevalier de Lorraine, the infamous friend of her husband. Madame died suddenly at Saint-Clu, a prayer to the most cruel anguish on the night of the 29th of June 1670, about three o'clock in the morning. Rumours of poison were instantly set afloat which were not long in gaining strength and currency. They formed the general opinion at court in Paris, in the whole of France, in England, Holland and Spain, where Madame's daughter became Queen. Charles II refused to receive the letter in which the Duke of Orléans informed him of his sister's death. The Duke of Buckingham, the English ambassador, wrote Colbert de Quasi, is in transports of rage. The people of London were hardly restrained from violent outbursts against the Frenchmen residing there. The streets rang with the cry of, down with the French! The French Embassy had to be protected. Monsieur's second wife, Madame Palatine, was always convinced that Madame had died of poison and everything tends to show that Louis XIV at all events in the first moments, shared these suspicions. In regard to the possible authors of the crime, some accused the Dutch, against whom the Treaty of Dover was directed, others accused Monsieur himself and the Chevalier de Lorraine. In either case, the historical interest of the problem is very great. The popular imagination heightened it through the magnificent commentary with which Bossouet embroidered the death of the beautiful princess, and it has been enhanced by all the efforts made for more than a century past to solve it. For fifty years and more, writes one of the Masters of Modern Era edition, Monsieur Arthur de Bois-Lille, the question has been more closely studied and evidence weighed with more care, at least by impartial and serious writers, familiar with the documents of Louis XIV's reign or with scientific problems. But it happens that some have abstained from giving a decisive verdict, and others have varied between poison, in which Walcenaire, Paul Lacroix and François Raveillon very firmly believed, by accident or disease, accepted by Mignier, Loiseleur and Littré, with the result that the question has become darkened rather than illuminated between conclusions diametrically opposed by coming from men of equal authority. Monsieur de Bois-Lille himself refrains from stating any conclusion, and recently we have Dr Leguay, a specialist in his interesting book, Médicin et empoisonneur, devoting a new study to the question and endeavouring to prove that Madame was poisoned by corrosive sublimate. Thanks to a minute study of the documents guided by the work of Monsieur de Bois-Lille, we have just quoted, thanks above all to the skillful guidance of two Masters of Modern Science, as we'll be seen by and by, at an indisputable solution. One. In accordance with the first principle of historical criticism, it's important at the outset to determine exactly the value of the sources whence we may derive particulars serviceable to our investigation. The sources are divided into three well-marked categories. One, the reports of the physicians and surgeons. Two, the accounts of the persons who were able to approach Madame in her last moments, or were in a position to hear authoritative descriptions. Three, the official correspondence of the courts of London and Paris. The first category presents to us five reports of the post-mortem examination. A, the official report signed by the fifteen physicians and surgeons, French and English, who were present at the autopsy. B, the account of the illness, death and autopsy of Madame, by the Abbe Boudelot physician. Boudelot was one of the French physicians present at the post-mortem. C, the report of Valot, physician to the late Queen Mother. Valot was regarded as one of the most eminent physicians of his time. He was present among the French doctors at the autopsy. His report was officially carried to London by the Marshal de Belfort. D, the memoir of a surgeon of the King of England who was present at the opening of the body. This surgeon's name was Alexander Boucher. D, the account of Hugh Chamberlain, physician in ordinary to the King of England, also present at the operation. This document, like the proceeding, is exceedingly useful for checking the official report and the report of the French physicians. Some writers have believed that Louis XIV, fearing a rupture with England, dictated the opinion the French physicians were to give. Boucher and Chamberlain were absolutely independent representatives of the English government. To these five documents of unquestionable authenticity, may be added the notice inserted in the Gazette of July 5, 1670, which was officially inspired by the court physicians and the opinion of the famous Guy Patin, Dean of the Medical School of Paris, though he was not actually present at the autopsy. In our second category, the narratives of persons who approached Madame in her last moments or who'd authority to do the counts, we must mention prominently the account written by the charming Count Esther Lafayette, the history of Madame Henrietta of England, first wife of Philip of France, Duke of Orléans. The Count Esther Lafayette was attached to the suite of Madame. She never left her during the day on which she died. She has left a simple, precise and sober account of the short illness in which every line bears the stamp of truth. Next to this valuable document must be cited the letter of Bossouet who was present at the final scene and the story of Fouillet Canon of Saint Clue who was with Madame before Bossouet arrived. The third category comprises the correspondence exchanged between the courts of England and France and their representative. These would be documents of the greatest value if their official and diplomatic character had not imposed the greatest reserve on the writers and even dictated their sentiments. There are first of all the letters of Louis XIV and Hugues de Lyon to Charles II and Colbert de Quasi ambassador at London. Then the dispatchers of Louis and of Hugues de Lyon to Monsieur de Pompon ambassador at The Hague. On the English side five letters addressed by Lord Montague ambassador at the French court to Lord Arlington secretary of state Charles II and ministers of Lord Arlington to Sir William Temple. Such are the only documents worthy of credence we have at our disposal for studying the circumstances of the death of Madame. For it is necessary to reject in the most absolute manner the accounts of Saint Simon and of Monsieur's second wife Madame Palatine. C'est Ruel and more especially Monsieur de Bois Lille and probabilities and absurdities of these, and we shall not refer to them again. The work of Monsieur de Bois Lille is particularly interesting in showing that these two famous narratives had a common source. As to the testimony of D'Argançon, Voltaire and others destitute in the nature of the case of any authority comparable to that of the authors we have mentioned above, it is unnecessary in the points where it confirms the others. On the points where it contradicts them it cannot prevail and on the points where it contains new information it is dangerous to follow. For we lack any evidence by which to check it. L'Hitre acted judiciously in neglecting these writers when compiling his study on the death of Madame. And the approach leveled against him by Loise Leur is without justification. On the contrary it is perhaps to this happy stroke of criticism that L'Hitre owed the success of his argument. Two. We proceed to recount in the simplest and most precise manner in our power the circumstances of the death of Madame. And from this narrative alone we shall see emerge one of the facts we intend to establish. And this is certainly that Madame could not have been poisoned. Henrietta of England more comparable to the Jasmine than to the Rose. Very slender, delicate slightly round-shouldered not less pleasing for that. Exhausted, not only by four accouchements in rapid succession but by the fast life then led at court was only kept up says Monsieur de Bois-lis by that sanguine temperament which is the prerogative of high-strung women. In 1664 Guy Patin wrote the Duchess of Orleans was taken ill at Ville Côtre and her physicians have prescribed asses milk. The presumption is then that she suffered from some stomach disorder. The king wrote Hugues de Lyon to Colbert de Quasi tells us that more than three years ago she complained of a pain in the side which compelled her to lie flat for three or four hours without finding ease in any posture. Madame was constantly afflicted with a pain at one fixed spot in the breast. She further used to complain wrote the Abbe Bourdele of a cruel burning pain not in the abdomen but in the chest. She was always wanting to vomit. Most often she could take only milk for food and remained in bed for days together. These facts indicate as Dr. Legendre tells us that Madame suffered from a chronic inflammation of the stomach a form of gastritis. The reports of the autopsy show further that Madame was afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis and it is not rare for these two morbid conditions to coexist. During the journey she made in Flanders with the king and monsieur before her departure for England the appearance of the young princess caused much alarm. She was reduced to living on milk writes Madame de Lafayette and retired to her own room as soon as she got out of the coach with the rules she went to bed. One day when the talk fell on astrology Monsieur said that it had been foretold that he would have several wives and judging from the state Madame was in he was beginning to believe it. Madame returned from England on June 18th her condition had become very much worse. Next day she kept her bed she went into the queen's room wrote mademoiselle de Montpensier like a dressed up corpse with rouge on its cheeks and when she went out everybody including the queen said that she had death written on her face. On June 24th 1670 writes Madame de Lafayette a week after her return from England Monsieur and she went to Saint-Clue the first day she went there she complained of pains in the side and abdomen to which she was subject. Nevertheless as it was extremely hot she desired to bathe in the river. Monsieur Evelyn her chief physician did all he could to prevent her but in spite of all he said she bathed on Friday the 27th and on Saturday she was so ill that she did not bathe. I arrived at Saint-Clue on Saturday at six o'clock in the evening I found her in the gardens she told me that I should think her looking cross and that she was not at all well she had sucked as usual and she walked in the moonlight till midnight. The preceding lines every detail of which is of great importance have been neglected by the historians and I have concluded she was poisoned. On Sunday the 29th at dinner madame ate as usual and after dinner she lay down on some cushions as she often did when she was at liberty she had made me place myself near her says madame de la fayette so that her head was almost on me an English painter was painting monsieur's portrait we were talking about all sorts of things and meanwhile she fell asleep during her nap she changed so considerably that after watching her for a long time I was surprised at it and thought that her spirit must do a great deal towards adorning her countenance since it was so pleasant when she was awake and so little attractive when she was asleep but I was wrong in this reflection for I had several times seen her sleeping and had never yet seen her less lovely when she awoke she arose from the place where she had been lying but with so haggard a face that monsieur was surprised and called my attention to it she then went away into the drawing room where she walked up and down for some time with bois franc monsieur's treasurer and while talking to him complained several times of the pain at her side we are coming to the moment when any poisoning must have taken place we see already that the mischief was done monsieur went downstairs to return to Paris he found madame de meckelburg on the steps and came up again with her madame left bois franc and came to madame de meckelburg as she was speaking to her madame de gamache brought to her as well as to me a glass of chicory water that she had asked for some time before madame de goudon her tired woman gave it to her she drank it and then replacing the cup on the salver with one hand she pressed her side with the other saying in a tone that betokened severe pain oh what a dreadful twinge oh what a pain I can bear it no longer she reddened in uttering these words and the next moment turned a livid pallor which surprised us all she continued to cry out and told us to take her away as she could no longer stand we took her in our arms she tottered along half doubled up I held her while someone unlaced her she moaned all the time and I noticed that she had tears in her eyes I was amazed and affected by it for I knew that she was the most patient creature in the world kissing the arms I was holding I said that she was evidently in great pain and she told me I could not imagine how great she was put to bed and as soon as she was there she cried out more loudly than she had yet done and threw herself from one side to the other like a person in infinite agony someone went off to find her chief physician Mr. S. B. he came said it was colic and prescribed the ordinary remedies for such ailments all the time the pain was dreadful madam said that it was much worse than we thought and that she was dying and begged someone to go in search of a confessor for her the young princess believed that she was poisoned a sort of antidote was brought her in the shape of oil and powdered adder which made her vomit after some hours of frightful agony Henrietta of England expired while Bossouet was reciting the last exhortations face to face with death madam displayed a greatness of soul to which all who approached her have borne touching testimony madam was gentle towards death said Bossouet as she had been with all the world her great heart was neither embittered nor wrathful against the dread foe nor did she face him with proud disdain but was content to look him in the face without emotion and to welcome him without distress three this bear narrative of the facts would be sufficient to weaken the opinion of those who believe that the princess Henrietta died of poison the following observations will continue to deprive it of all credit writers are unanimously agreed about the fact that madam could only have been poisoned by the glass of chicory water given her by madame de gamache now as soon as suspicions awoke in the mind of madame and her circle that is to say the moment after the drink had been taken monsieur ordered some of the water to be given to a dog madame de bourre the princess is made who was heartily devoted to her told her that she had made the drink and had herself drunk some of it and madame de meckelborg also drank some we are thus bound to acknowledge that the famous chicory water could not have been poisoned monsieur Jay Lair with his clear and vigorous mind has well analysed the scene the decoction of which so many persons had drunk was harmless it was the cup that ought to have been examined the details given by madame de lafayette and others writes monsieur de boalil exclude the idea of poison poured into the glass itself and indeed madame palatine says that what was poisoned was not the water itself nor the vessel in which it was made but the cup was reserved for the princess and which no one else would have dared to use it is a fact that the 17th century poisoners sought to prepare goblets and silver cups in such a way as to poison the persons who were afterwards to use them among the constant friends of la voisin, la boss, la chéron and la vigueur the most renowned sorceresses of the period we find a certain françois bello one of the king's bodyguard making a specialty of this and deriving a comfortable income from it until the day when this trade led him to the plaster grave where he was broken on the wheel on June 10th 1679 his method of procedure was as follows he crammed a toad with arsenic placed it in a silver goblet and then pricking its head made it urinate and finally crushed it in the goblet during this pleasant operation he mumbled his wicked charms I know a secret said bello such that in doctoring a cup with a toad and what I put into it if 50 persons chance to drink from it afterwards even if it were washed and rinsed they would all be done for and the cup could only be disinfected by throwing it into a hot fire after having thus poisoned the cup I should not try it upon a human being but upon a dog and I should entrust the cup to nobody but it happened that a client of bello's being somewhat skeptical got a dog to drink out of the doctored cup and found that the animal was not harmed in the least he even picked a violin to quarrel with the magician about the matter taunting him with the worthlessness of his wares bello's spoke frankly to the commissioners of the chan bra dot I know that the toad cannot do anybody any harm what I did with the silver cups and trenches was done solely to get hold of such cups and trenches his skill nevertheless enjoyed a very substantial reputation at the same date the magician blessy was believed to know how to manipulate mirrors in such a way that anyone who looked in them received his death blow these facts seem me a childish folly under scientific investigation the knowledge people had of poisons in the 18th century was limited to arsenic antimony and sublimate it did not enable them so to poison a cup as to cause sudden death to the person using it without his being aware of the poison at the moment of drinking it the opinion of professor bro are del on this point is explicit and doctor leg a convinced as he is of the poisoning of madame admits that the story of the cup can only make any well informed man smile the conclusion is that as madame could not have been poisoned by the water she drank or by the cup containing the water she could not have been poisoned at all for her body was opened writes bossue among a large concourse of physicians and surgeons and all sorts of people because having begun to feel extreme pain when drinking three mouthfuls of chicory water given to her by the dearest and most intimate of her women she said at once that she was poisoned it was with the same idea that the English ambassador attended the operation along with an English physician and surgeon after having shown that madame could not have been poisoned it remains to settle what disease it was of which she died a task is simplified by the marvellous study in which litre proved that she succumbed to an acute peritonitis the immediate and inevitable result of the perforation of the stomach by an ulcer this study doctor paul tells us is the finest extant example of a retrospective medical demonstration we have it now under our eyes but we find it condensed by the pen of the most elegant writer of our time monsieur Anatole france who will allow us to borrow this quotation litre an expert in medical observation does not hesitate to diagnose a simple ulceration of the stomach which professor cruvelier was the first to describe and which madame's physicians could not recognize because they knew nothing about it it is unquestionable that for some time madame had been suffering from abdominal pains after her meals the liquid she took on June 29 brought about the perforation of the ulcerated wall and this caused the terrible pain in her side and the peritonitis which we have mentioned the physicians who opened the body found indeed that the stomach was pierced with a little hole but as they could not account for the pathological origin of this hole they fancied after the event that it had been made inadvertently during the autopsy upon which says the surgeon of the king of england I was the only one to insist the incident is reported as follows by the abbey it happened by misadventure during the dissection that the point of the scalpel made an opening at the top of the ventricle and many of the gentlemen asked how it came about the surgeon said that he had done it by accident and monsieur ballo said that he had seen when the cut was made litre objects with reason that it is difficult to make inadvertently an incision with the point of a pair of scissors there's no question of a scalpel in a tough and distended membrane like the stomach during an autopsy the illusion of the physicians present at the operation is the more easily explained because in that lesion as it is now known the edges of the opening are perfectly clean and sharp very regular so that the hole seems to have been made artificially jaku points out the very sharp delimitation of the ulcer the absence of inflammation and of peripheral separation the section of the tissues writes monsieur bouvre is so clean that to adopt a classical comparison the ulcer appears as though cut out with a punch it varies in dimensions from the size of a lentil to that of a 5 franc piece monsieur Anatole France admirably explains the state of mind of the physicians who drew up the report of the autopsy the French physicians were afraid of finding in the viscera of the princess indications of a crime which might throw suspicion on the royal family they dreaded even everything which lent itself to doubt and thereby to malevolence knowing that the least uncertainty as to the cause of death or the condition of the corpse would be interpreted by the public in a sense that would ruin them they had reasons of self-interest and the zeal of fear to urge them to explain everything now in their inability to connect with a normal pathological type a lesion unknown to them all and perhaps suspicious to some it was much to their advantage to explain this enigmatic wound as an accident during the autopsy and we can understand their believing what they wish to believe the English surgeons as ignorant as they accepted their conclusion in default of a better the fact is says Latre in conclusion that they were bound to find a hole and they did find it all dispute was silenced in the presence of three things the sudden attack the peritonitis and the presence of oil and a bile adds Dr. Lejean which the reports of the autopsy show to have been in the lower bowel in the lower bowel was found indeed a substance which the reports of the French physicians describe as fat like oil it was in fact oil the oil which Madame had drunk as an antidote and which had been discharged from the stomach further even supposing against all probability that the hole had actually been made accidentally by young Felix who was the operator all the details of Madame's health known before death and the details revealed by the autopsy are so conclusive in favour of the diagnosis of a simple ulcer ending in perforation that we should be led to the admission that the must have existed in another part of the wall of the stomach another small hole which escaped the notice of the physicians and surgeons present at the autopsy there would have been nothing surprising in this for their attention was not directed to this point it might even be supposed that the scissors of Felix if they had really cut the wall of the stomach by inadvertence only increased the size of the natural perforation already existing allowance must indeed be made for the state of putrid softening in which the organs are bound to have been the corpse having remained exposed all through a day of intense heat to sum up before June 29th there were gastric pains caused by ulceration on the 29th bursting of the ulcer and acute peritonitis peritonitis is distinctly indicated by the reports such are the conclusions of litre Dr. Paul LeGentra a most competent authority unhesitatingly confirms them as also does Professor Bruadel who writes as follows admitting ulceration of the stomach all the phenomena superveen with classic exactitude if we refer to the works of the celebrated crewveille who was the first to describe simple ulcers we find by an interesting coincidence in the very case he presents as a type the closest correspondence with the illness of madame and a fresh proof of the soundness of letre's opinion now since the complications following perforation of the stomach and rapidly causing death writes crewveille superveen suddenly and sometimes directly after taking food or drink the question of poison has been raised pretty often I have never seen a more remarkable case in this respect than that of a Coleman aged 23 and of an athletic vigour who carrying a sack of coal stopped at an inn and drank a glass of wine he went on his way but a few minutes afterwards was seized with horrible pains was attended first at his own house then carried dying to the hospital of the full book Saint Denis his case showed every indication of peritonitis through perforation and he died 3 hours after his admission to the hospital in full consciousness I was able to get from his own lips the valuable information that he had been suffering from his stomach for several months and that digesting his food was always painful the Coal Dealers Society convinced that their comrade was the victim of poison and that the agent of the poisoning was the glass of wine taken immediately before he was attacked by these symptoms decided to bring an indictment against the wine merchant and with this end required the autopsy to be made in presence of a deputation from their body it was a case of spontaneous perforation through a simple ulcer in the stomach the estimate of litre to use the phrase he himself uses to describe his work is thus confirmed in every way Lois Allure thought fit to object the rarity of the case that is no argument the case may be rare and yet have been that of madame and besides Lois Allure makes too much of its rarity Brenton estimates that perforation of the stomach in cases of simple ulcer occurs in 13% and that it is most common in women under 30 madame was 26 Lois Allure admits peritonitis but thinks it was inflammation supervening on a chill why he writes does litre pass by in absolute silence the last words in the statement of madame de la faillette quite as grave and significant as the first as it was extremely warm she wished to bathe in the river monsieur Evelyn her chief physician did all he could to prevent her but in spite of all he said she bathed on Friday and on Saturday was so ill that she did not bathe and further on she walked in the moonlight until midnight there is only one drawback to monsieur Lois Allure's theory but that is a serious one peritonitis as an original melody and especially peritonitis through chill which Lois Allure wishes to substitute for the disease diagnosed by Cruvelier and Litre is no longer recognised by modern science the last cases which were thought to be of this kind says Dr Paul Jean were perforations of the appendix let us come lastly to the work of Dr Leguet made a sense the most important part of which is occupied with a minute study of the circumstances surrounding the death of madame monsieur Leguet's conclusion is poisoning by sublimate poured into the theme as chicory water his study is interesting like the whole book but his conclusions crumble away under the following considerations one professor Brouadier writes if the chicory water had contained the smallest dose of sublimate madame would have pushed the glass from her after the first sip sublimate has a revolting taste in the medicinal dose one gram to a litre the taste is atrocious madame had been taking chicory water for several days in the evening and this evening she drank it as usual two to kill a person adds professor Brouadier at least 10 or 15 centigrams are necessary this dose corresponds to a quantity of solution representing about 200 grams of liquid it seems impossible for anyone to imbibe that without being stopped by its horrid taste madame certainly did not drink 200 grams of her chicory water she took a few sips only three poisoning by sublimate writes the professor produces lesions of the abdominal mucus membrane which could not have escaped the notice of the physicians autopsy we have five accounts of the autopsy which are unanimous in stating that the stomach except for the little hole of which we have spoken was in a good condition four the facts on which Dr. Legey relies for his diagnosis of poison by sublimate and which he borrows from the account of the abbey Boudelot occurred not after the drinking of the cup of chicory water but before in transcribing the account in question, Monsieur Legey has inadvertently admitted the passage there is indication of the bile having been accumulating for a long time where it may be clearly seen from the following lines that the author is speaking of a state long before the fatal attack thus Monsieur Legey's argument is in no way sustained the historian may remark finally that Madame's daughter Marie-Louise the young Queen of Spain died in 1689 almost at the same age as her mother after drinking a glass of iced milk and on this occasion also rumours of poison spread abroad when Charles II Madame's brother died somewhat suddenly there was more talk of poison and when the granddaughter of Madame the young and charming Duchess of Burgundy was stricken with the disease which carried her off people believed that she too had been poisoned in earlier days when Madame's mother Henrietta Maria at France widow of Charles I died on September the 10th 1669 at her country house of Cologne her physician Valio had been accused of accidentally poisoning her by giving her pills chiefly composed of opium thanks to the assistance of eminent masters like Professor Bruadel and Dr Paul Lejean and armed historically with the learned investigations of Monsieur Arthur de Boilier we have been fortunate in resuscitating the admirable study of Le Tre in all its striking accuracy the great writer concludes with an eloquent page a hymn of triumph in honour of modern science which might perhaps have kept Madame in that great place she filled so well we will end with the same observation that we placed at the end of our study of the iron mask in which we showed how the solution was indicated at least a century ago and remarked that in these very problems which are regarded as insoluble history handled with rigor and precision gives conclusions as certain as those of the exact sciences end of section 15 the death of Madame section 16 of princes and poisoners studies of the court of Louis the 14th this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jane Bennett Melbourne, Australia princes and poisoners studies of the court of Louis the 14th by Franz Funk Berentano translated by George Maidment section 16 Racine and the Poisons Question Monsieur Laromé's book on Racine in the grand Zéclivin français series is a charming little work in the first part he studies the poet's life and shows very accurately the influence exercised on his art by the milieu in which he lived in the second part he studies Racine's poetics and art ingenuity the very style of Monsieur Laromé eminently refined and sober we might call it pearl grey in tone with little flaws here and there which to our mind enhance its frequency is perfectly adapted to the author he is analysing we get a clear picture of what manner of man Racine was sensitive and refined like a sea and decorum Monsieur Laromé it is well known excels in bringing vividly before us the dwellings and the furniture of our great writers according to inventories made after their deceased in the case of Racine he achieves another success in the happiest manner his picture of the famous Poets family life after he had renounced the stage is delightful this family which reproduced in charming variety the trays of its own sensitive and restless nature Racine practised all the virtues of a good father he became a child again with his baby, Franchon, Madeleine Nanette and Leonville the two eldest alone boy and girl did not bear these diminutives out of respect for the rights of seniority and preferred the happiness springing from their society to courting the great one day he had returned from Versailles where he had gone to pay his respects when a squire of the Dukes brought him an invitation to dinner for the same evening I shall not have the honour of dining with him he said I have not seen my wife and children for more than a week and they are looking forward to a treat they find carp with me today I cannot give up my dinner with them and he had the carp brought up adding decide yourself if I can help dining today with these poor children who have made up their minds to regale me today and will have no more pleasure if they ate this dish without me I beg you to plead this reason forcibly with his serene Highness Racine, as we know after giving up writing for the theatre subsided into the most remarkable piety but here again is a charming tray I remember says Louis Racine processions in which my sisters were the clergy I was the rector and the author of Athali, singing with us carried the cross and the inseparable figure of the excellent Boileau who had then become as deaf as opposed to appear as close by Monsieur Des Preos writes Racine to his son Jean Baptiste entertained us in the best of fashions then he took Lyon Val and Madeleine to the Bois de Boulogne joking with them and telling them that he meant to lose them he did not hear a word of what the poor children said to him but before becoming this model peter-familias this pattern of piety and virtue Racine had spent an eminently brilliant and passionate youth everybody knows that Dupar and Jean-Mais Lé were not content with merely playing in his pieces the amours of Racine and Mademoiselle Dupar had a terrible development in 1679 which was one of the reasons if not the principle and the determining reason of the resolution then taken by the poet to abandon the career of dramatic author Monsieur Larumé recalls this page in his life in the following terms the mysterious poison affair was being unraveled before the Chambre Ardont on November 21st 1679 with the prisoners Lavoisin brought Racine into the case she declared that Racine having secretly espoused Dupar was jealous of everybody and particularly of her Lavoisin with whom he was much offended and that he had made away with her by poison on account of his extreme jealousy and that during Dupar's illness Racine never left her bedside that he drew a valuable diamond from her finger and had also stolen the jewels and principle effects of Dupar which were worth a great deal of money this is assuredly nothing but the abominable invention of a ruined woman adds Monsieur Larumé one of those calamities which malice, corruption and greed give rise to in the entourage of women of gallantry Racine had been compelled to forbid his mistress to receive Lavoisin from this arose her furious wrath and eleven years afterwards she tried to avenge herself by implicating the poet in a formidable accusation Proust she gave none and the proceedings of the affair published in the archives de la bestie contain no trace of any however a letter written on January 11, 1680 by Louvoir de Bazin de Bazin ends thus the orders of the king necessary for the arrest of Racine will be sent to you whenever you ask for them it is impossible to doubt that the Racine in question was the poet but no arrest was made Racine had been able to clear himself in the eyes of Louvoir and the king this episode in the life of the great poet is worthy of arresting our attention so much the more because it was perhaps the course of his abandonment to be forever regretted of a career on which he had thrown the brightest luster it was neither Louvoir nor Louis XIV who suppressed the leth de cache with which the deposition of Lavoisin had threatened Racine Bazin de Bazin a commissioner of the chambre d'or to a member of the academy determined to spear his colleague the affront of an arrest in such circumstances and thought he might well wait until the denunciations of Lavoisin were confirmed from another source Racine as a matter of fact had beaten the lover of Dupac whose maiden name was Marguerite Thérèse de Gaulle daughter of a surgeon of Lyon Lavoisin knew her very intimately and called her her gossip here follows word for word the part of the celebrated examination of Lavoisin on November the 21st 1679 so far as it relates to Racine who made her acquainted with Dupac comedian she had known her for 14 years they were very good friends together and she knew all her affairs during that time she had for some time had the intention of declaring to us that Dupac must have been poisoned and that Jean Racine was suspected the rumour was strong what more especially gave Raes to the presumption that Racine had always prevented her who was the good friend of Dupac from seeing her during the whole course of the illness of which she died although Dupac constantly asked for her but on those she went to see her they had never been willing to let her in and this was by order of Racine as she learnt from the stepmother of Dupac whose name was Mademoiselle de Gaulle and from Dupac's daughters who are at the Hotel de Soisson and informed her that Racine was the cause of their misfortune asked if he had ever proposed to her to do away with Dupac by poison the proposal would have been well received asked if she was not aware that application had been made to Delegage for the same purpose she knew nothing about that asked if she did not ask if she did not know a lame actor yes Béjar, whom she had only seen twice asked if Béjar had not some spite against Dupac no and what she knew about Racine she obtained first from Mamoiselle de Gaulle asked what de Gaulle said to her and strictly cross-examined de Gaulle told her that Racine having secretly espoused Dupac here follows a repetition of the statement already made that she Dupac had not even been allowed to speak to Manon her maid who is a midwife though she had asked for Manon and got someone to write asking her to come to Paris to see her as well as La Boise herself asked if de Gaulle told her the manner in which the reasoning had been carried out and who had been made use of in the matter no such were the declarations of La Boise before the commissioners of the Chambre d'Ont she repeated them exactly in her final examination before the judges she had known Mademoiselle Dupac the actress had been a friend of hers for 14 years Dupac had told her that Racine had poisoned her and she only knew of Dupac's death when she saw the body at the door on the way to burial finally in the anguish of torture La Boise maintained her declarations asked if she knew nothing more concerning what she had said at the trial about the poisoning of Dupac she had told the truth in all that she had said on the subject Monsieur Larimer gaily and gracefully flings these declarations overboard as an abominable invention of a ruined woman we know La Boise from what has already been said about her above it is inconceivable that such a creature should have nursed a grievance against Racine for not having allowed her to reach his sick mistress to such an extent as to fabricate against him 11 years later so monstrous an accusation this hypothesis is so much the more unlikely in that, if La Boise had wanted to ruin Racine by her charges she would have formulated precise and direct complaints against him while she, it's a matter of fact only repeated gossip she had heard then too Dupac's daughters were still alive and it would have been easy to confront them with the sorceress the examinations to which La Boise was subjected were very numerous they brought out innumerable details on a multitude of crimes in which a very large number of people was implicated there were many confrontations the declarations of the terrible sorceress were submitted to careful investigation by examining magistrates like Nicolas de la Rény all her declarations were found to be accurate we have seen that far from inventing imaginary charges for the purpose of implicating in her own case people of high position and so saving herself as some historians have insinuated La Boise endeavoured to keep silence about the crimes of her clients a curious piece of professional discretion and we venture to say that if she had declared before the judges that she had given Racine poison to get rid of Dupac we should have unhesitatingly believed her but she did not say anything of the kind she declared simply that in Dupac's immediate circle it was the conviction that the actress had been poisoned by her lover and that throughout her illness he had prevented La Boise from approaching the bid as well as Manon, her maid who was a midwife it is further important to note and this observation has not been made by any historian that the belief in Racine's having poisoned Dupac was shared by more than one prisoner before the Chambre d'Ont La Boise was not the only one to make the accusation before the judges as the following question put by one of the magistrate clearly shows asked if she was not aware that application had been made to Dela Grange a sorceress and poisoner like herself for the same purpose the poisoning of Dupac by Racine a great part of the records of the Chambre d'Ont having been destroyed as we have shown we have no trace of the examination to which the magistrate here alluded nevertheless it is testimony which cannot be gained said such are the only documents in the great poison case in which what Racine is mentioned is it possible to derive any positive conclusions from them the circumstances surrounding the death certainly appeared suspicious to the family of the actress and Racine was pointed at the poet had stationed himself at the bedside as a custodian rather than a nurse he prevented La Boise the sorceress midwife and procurer of abortion from approaching and likewise Manon also a midwife and this in defiance of the desire formally expressed by Dupac why did the poet contrary to the wishes of the sick woman prevent these women from attending her Dupac was his mistress Dr. Lagay quotes the testimony of Boileau who was closely connected with Dupac stating that she died as a result of childbirth the chronic


Here with her talk, Drift, Drift, Drift, to convert website leads to sales, please welcome Amy Hall. Yay! Thank you very much. So today, let me give you a little bit more about me. So I have been working at WordPress for the past 10 years. I've about 7,500 hours in the back data WordPress. And I've been working with MailChimp, not exclusively but mostly 98% of the time, for the past 9 years. So here's what you're going to get today. You're going to learn what a drip campaign is, which format to use for your drip campaign, or more than one. How long your campaign should be. How many emails you're going to want to put into your campaign. And then how often you should send your emails. So drip campaigns are not exclusively e-commerce and they can be e-commerce. It's no surprise probably everyone in this room, but the hardest thing about sales is getting the leads. Because for every industry out there, the hardest thing is getting the leads. So who knows what a drip campaign is? Yay! Good! Alright, so it's a series of automated emails sent over a period of time. Every subscriber starts at email number one, no matter when they subscribe. So if they subscribe in January, they get email number one. And then they go through the series. And the object of a drip campaign is to keep your name in front of the readers for that name and brand recognition. So drip campaigns are really good to educate customers about your products or industry or educate potential customers about your product or industry to confirm appointments or reservations to promote your latest product to onboard new clients and to deliver courses. So you've probably gotten a drip campaign in the past and never even thought about it. You may have not even thought it was an automated campaign. If you go to the dentist and the dentist sends you an email reminder or a text reminder of your appointment, that's a drip campaign. And here's the real important part about drip campaigns is that when somebody comes to your website, they're not necessarily ready to buy. They may be ready to be educated about your product, your industry, what you're selling, what you're doing, how to use your services, but they're not necessarily ready to buy. And there's an old urban legend that it takes seven touches for somebody to buy. Oh my God, somebody's taking a picture. Sorry. Okay. So it doesn't necessarily take seven. You know, it depends on that person. But usually people need to have some kind of introduction to your product.  That's what it's about. And that's what a good drip campaign does. You know their pain point and you tell them how you're going to solve it. So there's two kinds of drip campaigns. One is a drip campaign and one's a nurture campaign. You might think that these are the same, but they're not. Real, tiny, subtle difference. A drip campaign is something that you send over time and you just send it and people receive it. A nurture campaign is something that you send over time and it's based on actions that your readers take or behaviors that your readers have. Each subscriber gets emails specifically created to walk them through the sales process. Drip campaign may not walk them through a sales process, but a nurture campaign is specifically to walk them through the sales process.  So this is how you know how many emails to send and this is how you know how long to make your nurture campaign. So 96% of visitors, wait, I went the wrong way. Sorry. So nurture campaigns, great nurture campaigns are abandoned carts. Membership renewals, that's an awesome nurture campaign. Reminders to use a software or reminders to use a service or reminders to use a course. Re-engage with customers that aren't opening or clicking on emails with the intention to unsubscribe if need be. And when I say unsubscribe, people usually go, yeah, no, unsubscribing is super good. Unsubscribe somebody every day through your list, it's a good thing. Because then you don't have dead weight on your list. Then you have a list that's vibrant and is engaged. And honestly, if you're using an email service provider like MailChimp, Constant Contact or Active Campaign, they look at how many emails are open. And so does Google. And they deliver your emails based on the engagement in your list. So if your list is really engaged, it's just like a website. If you have a website that lots of people are coming to and they're really engaged with your website, you're going to get pushed up in the search. Same thing for emails. If you have an email list that has engagement, that people are opening, they're clicking on, you're going to get delivered just a little bit easier. Don't ask me how they know all of that, they just know it. So here's the beauty of nurture campaigns and your campaigns. It's the ability to segment. So the ability to segment emails lists and individualized email campaigns, that messaging on email campaigns, those are the two most effective personalization tactics that there are. And this was a 2016 survey that people that ascend to took. Personal experience, personalization is all about it. And it's not just like putting in, hi Amy, that's not necessarily personalization, although it is, but it's not. Personalization is when somebody comes to your shopping cart or when somebody comes to your site and they put something in the shopping cart and then they abandon and then you send them emails about the specific things that were in their shopping cart. Or somebody purchases something from you and you send them emails about something that's a complementary item to what they have. You know, maybe they bought the MacBook Pro, but they need the USB-C dongle. Or just what I needed this morning. So you send them an upsell. So the thing about your campaigns and their campaigns is that they give people what they want when they want it. And the thing about your guesstimating, when you create your first campaign, you're guesstimating, but you'll be able to see from your replies and from your opens and from your clicks and you'll be able to narrow that down by doing analytics in your email service provider to really know when you need to send each email. You'll have somebody reply to an email with a question and you think, oh, I answered that question in two emails. Well, the next time you sit down that campaign you may want to shift it so that question gets answered earlier. Use segmentation to make it useful. This is not a broadcast. It's not the newsletter that goes to everybody. It needs to be segmented. And the more you segment, the more you can segment. The more you can hit that person's pain point because of what they've clicked in your site or because of what they clicked in the email, the prior email, the better off you are. Segmentation is all about segmentation. So personalize emails with first names or product preferences for better conversion. So you can put first names into the middle of an email. It's easy to do and it makes it more intimate. People think that you're writing specifically to them. I have a series of like probably 70 emails that go out over my web dev process and I've sprinkled first names liberally inside of there so people think it's coming from me. It's hilarious because I get emails back. Oh, and it's so funny because I'm like, no, it's automated. And I tell them at the beginning I'm going to send you an automation of all these emails. It's just awesome. So transactional emails receive eight times as many opens compared to regular marketing emails. And regular marketing emails are newsletters. Transaction emails are the nurture campaign. And also, if you have an e-commerce store, here's your shipping information. Here's your receipt.  If somebody purchases from you and you send them an email saying thanks for your order.  Yes?  No.  And really the distinction is that a nurture campaign is based on the action that people took and you're pushing them towards a sale. That's why a transactional email is just a drip because they just purchased. And you're going to do the same type of emails for everyone. Everybody's going to receive a receipt and a thank you. And then you might send the shipping information when it ships or it shipped today. Here's your tracking number.  Here's some beautiful colored pens to make your journal more impactful. So you might have an upsell that goes in there also. Okay, that's on the other hand. I was going to just clarify what you said. So basically a nurture campaign, you're following up on kind of nurturing that and transactional is something that's purchased and you can thank you, upsell, another opportunity. Right. And there's also other uses for transactional but we're talking about e-commerce. So we're going to walk through planning a campaign. And I would, you have an opportunity to actually plan your campaign here and have me answer your questions. So we're going to walk through it first and I'm going to show you something and your brain's probably going to go, because most of the time that's what I hear. So in your campaign, this is what you need to plan. How many emails will you send? Will you send?  What order are you going to send those emails? What is the timeframe for those emails? What are your triggers? And what will success look like? So we're going to go back and forth a little bit here. So here is a drip campaign sequence. Notice it is very, it's very linear. Super linear, right? If it doesn't have any movement, it's just straight. So if you were a hairdresser, somebody books an appointment, then you're going to send them an email. This is a transactional email. You're going to send them an email that says, thanks for booking and the time and the date of the appointment and the address that they need to get to. One week prior, you're going to remind them, oh, hey, you have an appointment because I would forget. And you're going to send them the same information, the time, the date, the address, and a reschedule link in case something came up. That's for you, that's not for them because if you can plan your workload better if they were scheduled instead of just not showing up. One day prior, you're going to send the same thing and a reschedule link because maybe you can get somebody in there if they were scheduled but probably not if they just don't show up. The day of the appointment, you're going to send the exact same thing, right? You want to get the interface so they remember. And you may want to send a reschedule link here.  Send a reschedule link there. Unless you have a reschedule link with a little, remember, appointments reschedule 24 hours in advance and get charged, right? Yeah. And then after they've completed their appointment, you're going to send them a thanks for coming. And I'll thank to both the next appointment. Because you know, if you're getting a haircut you need another haircut unless you might jump. You need another haircut in six weeks, right? I still need to shave it every few days. And then if they don't, in a couple weeks if they don't sign up for that appointment, you can send them a reminder that they need to make an appointment. So this is a simple drip campaign, super linear. But can you see it answers all these questions? How many emails will you send? Well, we have a specific number. If I'm going too fast, let me know. You're going too fast. Thanks, Nat. In what order? So we have a logical order for all of these emails. What's your time frame? Well, we knew exactly. We did it right after they made the appointment and then one week prior, that was our time frame. What are your triggers? Well, the first trigger was they made the appointment. The second trigger was they fulfilled the appointment. What will success look like? Success will look like, number one, they came in for the haircut. And number two, they scheduled another appointment. Okay, so watch out for your minds being blown. Where's the nurture campaign? That's like, ah! So, most people have a free opt-in offer on their site. A lot of people will have a free opt-in offer on their site or they make a free opt-in offer on their site. So we're going to start with that. You have a free opt-in offer that people can download for free. Can I say free a little bit more? So we're going to go below first. So you're going to send them an email that says, here's your free download. You also, when they fill out the form, you also want to have the thank you screen that pops up or send them to a thank you page that has a link for the free download. So if they download that, then the next step is to send them an explainer video. And this is not like, you don't need to do this, but this is like the example.  No, just fill in your own stuff here. But this is a good example. So if they did download, then you send them an explainer video that goes into more depth than the free opt-in offer. Did they open the explainer video? No, or yes. If they opened the explainer video, then you offer them a product download or a consultation, a service consultation. And in that email, you send a link to the schedule, the consultation or the demo. If no, they didn't open the explainer video. Well, then you send them an e-book that goes into more depth. Because maybe they don't like the video format. Maybe they want to read. I've only recently kind of been liking videos. So I usually read. I want to read. So you can send them an e-book that goes into more depth. And then if they opened the e-book that goes into more depth, then you come back over here and offer them the product download. If they didn't open the e-book that goes into more depth, then we're going to take them off of the sequence. We're going to take them out of the sequence. We're just going to send them the newsletter because they're not interested. And you shouldn't be wasting your time on people that are not interested at this time. It doesn't mean they won't be interested in the future. You just don't waste your time on people that are interested right now. So if they sign up for the free opt-in offer but they did not download, you can send them a video with a high level overview of the opt-in content and another link to download. So the object is to get them to download here. And that was different than the explainer video. This one is super high level. So if they opened the explainer video, then you send them this explainer video that goes into more depth. This one and this one are the same. So you're going to send them that explainer video that goes into more depth. And now they're in this sequence and they follow this sequence now. If the answer is no, they did not open the video, then you keep them out. They're so not interested. Probably somebody signed them up for that without them knowing it. So this can be totally convoluted. Yes. How would you know if they opened it up or not? No, usually there's links and you can have the links tell you in the emails. There's the links, well, I use MailChimp, but all email service providers are going to be the same. If you click the link, it will tell you who clicked the link and you can make the trigger for the next email that's going to send the click. So you have to specify what the trigger is. So we tell MailChimp what to do. Exactly. If you're using MailChimp or if you're using drip or if you're using active campaign or constant, please don't use constant contact. Why is that? You have a competitor? No, it's okay. Part of the reason why I use MailChimp is because when we first started using mobile email, MailChimp converted every single one of its templates to mobile email overnight. Boom, like that. Constant contact took a year. They were not convinced that mobile was the way to go. And that's part of the reason why I use MailChimp is because they're forward thinking they are always looking at how to make things better for the people who are sending emails. So they don't hook you around? That was super bad, okay. So when you subscribe or purchase MailChimp, I don't know what channel you use there. Do they also share with you this information too? How do you learn how to use MailChimp once you... You come to me. You do your plug in there. So MailChimp has tons and tons and tons of videos, a lot of educational videos. So they're super good, but a lot of it is also written out in written form.  So then you can go to YouTube. There are five billion MailChimp, how to do this on MailChimp on YouTube, on one of them. So you can do that. Or you can sign up for a training and learn in an hour what it takes people six months to learn. And I do MailChimp training. It's a long way forward. How much other? The past. Do you have a CD discount? So an hour is $99. Well, go look at my site because I'm not... What is your site? Maybe hold up is. So an hour is $99. And I think an hour and a half is $169. And I run them just a little bit differently. So the $99 is if you really don't have any knowledge at all. And I will walk through everything, but I do the driving and you just watch. And then I send you a recording and you can watch the recording later on. And you ask questions and you ask me, okay, I want to do X, Y, and Z. And I will show you how to do X, Y, and Z. But the $169 is... I'm like the driving instructor. And you are the driver, the student. So I will watch what you're doing on your screen and I will tell you, click this, go here and do that. I'm very kinesthetic. If I don't do it myself, it don't work. So that one's... I think it's $150. I have no idea. That one is for kinesthetic people like me who have to do it themselves so they know what's going on. Yeah, I couldn't leave myself out of them next time. All right, so let's do it. You ready? Yes. I had a question about the video that you would like send because I think that's a great idea if you are like a restaurant near hairdressing. We have a business too. People confuse we're on the second floor. I realized that's a great... Here's our parking lot. Here's where you go. A one-minute video. This is what you can expect when you walk in. That's great. This is what our business looks like. Everybody can put a video. Here's our entrance. Look for this. And other services because we have some other services and I never can get people to like... I add them on my little MailChimp thing because I use MailChimp. But no one ever looks at it. But maybe if I did a little quick... Yeah, I'm going to caution you now. So you really only want one thing on an email. People have seconds. You have seconds to grab attention. So... And I make huge, long emails for people. I make hideously long emails for people for associations and for churches that have tons and tons and tons of information. Nobody gets to the bottom of those. Nobody gets to the bottom of those. The first third. And then they have burnout. And they don't want to read anymore. I have a high school that sends out a five-scroll email every single week. And people are always complaining. They don't get the information. You just didn't scroll. And people are used to scrolling. It's not like we're not used to scrolling. We are on mobile. We are used to scrolling. But the shorter the sweeter you can make your email the better off you are. And sending out once a week. Sending out twice a week if it's pertinent to your audience. If it's valuable. If you're solving their pain points with your emails. Nothing wrong with that. If you're just chatting it up. No. No, don't just chat. So your data analysis is proven then that if you've had five subjects by thumbnail that the mail is not being clicked or it's just reducing the click. So people always want the social media links at the bottom. You know, Facebook, Twitter. You know, connect with me on Facebook, Twitter. I swear only maybe .5%. People ever click on that. It is like there's no reason. People want the share on Facebook like they put their article in there and they want a button to share this article on Facebook. Zero clicks. Because it's like you're trying to get to third base on the first date on that one. You're asking to get married before you're even dating on that one. So yeah, I try and tell people. Not even like for duration of time like you're just starting out your campaign sending one subject but do you find that maybe after six months adding more subjects to find out? It's going to be what your audience is going to so and it depends on your topic. There are topics like associations. Associations can have longer emails. High schools can have longer emails but with a high school we ended up breaking out each topic basically. So they have a sports email that goes out that talks about all the teams and what the teams are doing and then they have a lunch email that goes out. Instead of getting one email with all of that stuff, now we get five and if they're not interested, they don't have to read it. But it has made it a lot easier for parents to get the information that they need for their kids and it's made a rougher on the school because one of the ways that Mailchimp does it is if you unsubscribe you unsubscribe from the list. So we had to do some fancy error and instead of unsubscribe we had to put an update button so they could click which items they wanted to be in. So that's where the planning comes in to play. Does Mailchimp have the capability to text to a phone? Does it seem like everyone uses it? It's not needed. It's like an add-on that you put in Mailchimp. The thing about Mailchimp is that it's the most used email service provider because they give you a free account up to 22,000 email addresses. Right? So there's tons of people that use it. So there's a lot of extensions, add-ons for Mailchimp. You can do basically anything you want to with Mailchimp except hook it up to Shopify with a Mailchimp and Shopify native. Now you have to use a thing called Shop Sync. Can you say that in more layman's terms? I'm actually interested in specifically that. Shopify? I use Mailchimp and then I'm going to be starting up I don't know if I'm doing Shopify or WooCommerce but I'm wanting to know about Interplay's thing. So this just happened last week. Mailchimp and Shopify they used to have a native app that Shopify and Mailchimp talk to each other directly and it was an app built by Mailchimp. So Shopify wants to do some weird things with data that Mailchimp does not agree with and it's okay for Shopify to do that but it's not okay with Mailchimp's terms of service for a third party to do that. Okay. So Mailchimp and Shopify broke up. So they don't have a Mailchimp native Shopify patch. So now there's a thing called ShopSync which is a third party. It's not Mailchimp, it's not Shopify. It's a third party patch between Mailchimp and Shopify. It works really well. I haven't heard anybody complain about it so that's really good. Okay. And PS, Mailchimp just bought their own e-commerce platform called Lemonade. LemonDrop. I think it's LemonStand. Oh, LemonStand. There you go. It's LemonSulking. So, there you go. All right, so does anybody want to walk through this process with me? Okay, who? Everybody. All right, I could probably do everybody. Wait, what time is it? You have about five minutes. Oh, no. I thought I was going super slow. All right, so let's go with you all the way in the back. No, thank you. Okay, so who wants to go? All right. Let's walk through this process for you. Okay. So, Plata Campaign, how many e-mails will you send? So basically, if I'm just getting into Mailchimp, I guess thousands. That's a different. So, we're looking at a specific nurture or sequence. So, we're not looking at over the life of the Mailchimp. We're looking at to sell this one item. How many e-mails are you going to send in that sequence? So, I'm going to go to run some emails. Go ahead. So, I would think it would be however many gets you to that point. With your example, it looked like four cents. So, it doesn't necessarily mean that. So, you have to look at how long your sales cycle is. A sales cycle for a hairdresser is much shorter than a sales cycle for a real estate sales agent broker. Is it different for product or service? Yes, and it's always going to be different for product or service. Right, I'm a real estate agent that we did it's actually a drip campaign. But we did two drip three drips. One drip goes to everybody who is going to purchase. One drip goes to everybody who wants to sell. And one drip goes to everyone. So, the first drip that goes to people that want to sell it's over one year. And he's been a broker for like 100,000 years.  So, he does what is what to look for in the house. What to expect when you get an exception. What is title? What is escrow? How do you get a lender? You know, what to look for to get the right lender. So, he sends that kind of email over a whole year. And he does it on the that was the seller side, right? He does it on the buyer side also. Okay, this is what you can expect when you're buying a house. And here's what you can expect when selling a house. He does basically the same thing. He goes through inspection. He goes through escrow. He goes through title. He goes through for a seller. He goes through staging. He goes through curb appearance. He does everything that that seller needs to know to sell their house. That's what he goes through. And this campaign goes over a year. And then his other drip is a holiday card. So, every month except for yeah, every month except for August he sends them. Oh, happy, happy happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day. There's no holidays in August. We'll make one up. We're recommending like just a paragraph in terms of content like a paragraph worth or like a whole. So his holiday card is just an image which you have to watch out for images because not everybody turns on images so make sure you use your alt text tags. But his buyer and seller they're like five scrolls. But these get read from top to bottom because he's addressing their pain points specifically. I guess it's a drip campaign. So I just wanted to ask if I'm doing it correctly.  So the first email is like a welcoming email to my site and it just tells them a little bit about why I did this. And then the next day they get an email with like the top five posts that might be helpful to them. And that's because my main success goal for this was to get more traffic. And then the third email is just like if you have any questions you don't know how to reach me. And so far the opening rate is like 75%. Oh Wow, awesome. That's good. So are you selling anything from this? No, I just I need to figure out how to monetize. Yeah, that's always the yeah, that's cool. Is it your post? Yeah, the online. Okay, nice. Very nice. And what's your click through rate on the second one? It's really high. I can't remember though. It's double digits. Yes. Okay, so this is I have no idea like I wouldn't know that that was good. I was about to look online and see what the heck I'm getting because I don't even know 75% is good. It depends. That's a phenomenon. So just like base level. Yeah, 75% is awesome. Okay. And it depends. It depends on your industry. Okay, so for retail the industry open rate is like 7% because people get barraged with the retail. You don't have to be like defeated. Right. So the one thing you can Google industry email open rate for your industry and you want to look at that. And so you don't get defeated by not having a 50% open rate because people who get defeated by having a 50% open rate just want to slump them. I have no idea. I would think I would. No. I need to tell you what the industry standard is. It will. If you're using Mailchins. I'm trying not to make it. So as an example, I work at a college. Their fundraising office has an open rate of about 17 to 25%. And that's asking for money. And no one wants to give money. So if you're getting that or higher, I would say that's pretty good. Imagine if one in four people opened your email. That's actually pretty substantial. Yeah. And you can always send out your email again to the people who do not open. Just don't get spammy. Yeah. Well, they didn't open it. That's true. They didn't notice. All right. So automated email messages average has 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher put through rates than business as usual marketing. And that business as usual are just like these letters. These letters always suck. Amy, we're going to have to wrap up.


What's good John Anthony aka Donna the PA's husband welcome to her channel if you're new here to go Head and take a look around her channel after this video if you like what you see subscribe for more PA related content My wife is a physician assistant. We're on the channel She creates PA related content as well as gives you an inside look at the life of a PA In addition to that she actually recently launched get that see University Which is an online platform designed to help you get into and get through PA school So be sure to check that out in the link in the description box below actually Today's video is an excerpt from that site. This is mock interviews if you want more of this kind of content It's only exclusively on get that see University. So go ahead hit that link become a member today But today's video you guys is really really cool. It's exciting you're actually going to get to see a mock interview from a student and In this interview you'll see the whole video all the way through you get a chance to look at them examine them See what you like and it didn't like and then a Donna actually is going to get on and do it immediately following that and she Does a reaction to that mock interview which is cool because she's never seen the mock interviews before So I produced the video my company produced a video and then we allowed a Donna sit down and actually watched the reaction to it live To give you guys raw feedback. So it's really really cool. This is just one of many other videos on the platform So if you like what you see today, be sure to go to get that see University calm and watch some more that stuff All right, I'm done. I'm talking to you guys. Enjoy this. Be sure to subscribe hit that like button do all that good YouTube stuff All right, I'm out peace Welcome to GTCU and welcome to your mock interview masterclass I want you to get some pen and paper right now because what you're going to do is watch this interview by yourself Uninterrupted so you can take some notes and then immediately following I will join you on the screen to watch the interview with you for my very first time Now you're going to get my raw reactions to this and although these interviews are carried out in person A lot of what is addressed in the interviews can be translated to the virtual forum So please be sure to take notes I have been prefaced by the producers that the interviewees are going to try to shake the interviewer's hand So we're going to see that throughout the course of this masterclass But the interviewer is going to reject that so think about right now How you would handle that situation if you went in for the handshake, but you didn't get it. All right. Let's have some fun Well good morning How was your trip in this morning? All right, we'll go and get started and Dina is going to start with some questions, okay Well, I've had a lot of time to think about why I wanted to become a physician's assistant Actually in middle school we had treats and I took a lot of health all the way from middle school to high school And I had a lot of time to think about What I would want to do and I think physician's assistant is perfect for me because like you're not locked into one specialty And it would give me the opportunity to continue to grow and learn and work with other medical professionals What do you do outside of your work? My passion is photography How many tests and quizzes would you expect to take during a typical week? Maybe about four to six And how do you plan to pay for your education? Well, I had a lot of time to think about that as well me and my family we look for sponsors I have grants scholarships, so I don't have to take out any loans for the moment What would you consider your biggest weakness? My biggest weakness I would say Is being a perfectionist maybe I Like to do things and I like to do it well because it's a representation of me But sometimes I can get carried away and it can take away from my actual focus What we do if you don't get into the program is you try again next year. I'm very dedicated and I'm committed and I don't get up Great. Thank you I Was good she handled that well One thing first and foremost, okay you guys it like I know we have this Desire to like be relaxed and comfortable and that is fine But do not rock in your chair Okay, don't rock in your chair don't spin in your chair Don't do any of that just be in the pocket like be in the moment You can do like power hands if you like however, whatever keeps you in this this space This is my interview. I'm serious about this do that because being like, you know the rocking all that That's distracting and also like it's a little bit too lax. I'm just saying just heads up It's like you're not locked into So I wasn't sure if she was saying physicians assistant or physician assistant But I really liked her answer like barring that aspect of thing I did really like the answer that hey, you know what I've had a lot of time to think about this and this Career is for me. So she liked that. She knew about the career and she likes Essentially what most PAs like the flexibility of the career. So this is great This was a very to the point answer and I mean she handled that wall How many tests and quizzes would you expect to take during a typical week? Um Maybe about 46 and how do you plan to pay for your education? Well, I had a lot of time to think about that as well Okay girl, I like this, you know, so initially like she does come out She's like very serious which is cool. It can be cool But what I would suggest is smiling a little bit more, right? You know, like you want to like feel you want them to feel like you're excited to be here You're grateful for the opportunity to interview and you know, you're a pleasant and happy person So definitely smile more, but I like the fact that this Interviewee is showing that she is a planner, you know, she's thought about this She's planned by herself, but also with her family on how she will pay for PA school She's not waiting for PA school to start or for her to get accepted before she figures out All right, you know what? I need a grant. I need this I need a sponsor No, she's planned this out already, which is amazing and the fact that she wouldn't have to take out alone Even better. Okay. Nobody wants a school loan. So that would be great actually All right I see that's how you do it immediately. No hesitation. No nothing I'll try again next year because this is for me. I think she could have added that You know, like this career is for me and I know that I am meant to be a PA So I will try and try again until I get in that would have been a great answer to that like Addition to it, but what she did and how quickly she did it. That's exactly That surety that she had is exactly what you should have in these interviews She got it. That's it That is it She had it y'all she did it She did that she doesn't give up and so I mean, that's what I addressed initially I didn't watch the rest of it at first, but she did go back to it and she like Cleaned it up instead. Look, I'm dedicated. This is for me. I'm gonna do it So I think that was great She ended that super strong like literally all I remember from this interview is that she is a planner and that If she doesn't get in she's gonna try again because she's dedicated She wants this and that is really the impression that you want to give these interviewers throughout your Interview, okay, so great job kudos to her. I really like this particular interview All right. Thank you guys so much for joining me on today's masterclass. I'll see you next class


Hi! Welcome to the session. I am Deepika here. Let's discuss the question. Check whether the following is a quadratic equation. x cubed minus 4x square minus x plus 1 is equal to x minus 2 whole cube. Let's start the solution. Our given equation is x cubed minus 4x square minus x plus 1 is equal to x minus 2 cube. Again we can write it as x cubed minus 4x square minus x plus 1 is equal to now apply the formula of a minus b whole cube that is a cube x cube minus 3a square b that is minus 6x square plus 3ab square that is plus 12x minus b cube that is minus 8. Shift the terms from the right-hand side to the left-hand side. We get x cubed minus x cubed minus 4x square plus 6x square minus x minus 12x plus 1 plus 8 is equal to 0. On solving this we get 2x square minus 13x plus 9 is equal to 0. Given equation is of the form ax square plus dx plus c is equal to 0. So our answer is yes, it is a quadratic equation. I hope the question is clear to you. Bye and have a good day.


Okay folks Larry Pesavento for TFNN mid-afternoon update that we got stocks are bifurcated as again we've got the Dow Jones up a little bit we got the Nasdaq up a little bit and we got the S&P up a little bit the rut well actually rustles up a little bit so everything's up there we've got one market that is really trying to save its own life it's on the precipice of a giant cliff that's our Treasury bonds they got down to 1.1804 today folks I'm going to be talking about that coming up to the break our guests today will be Mike Moore he'll be talking to us about the market for crude oil and also the heating oil and gasoline and also the gasoline or the energy stocks is a big big change going on there with the stocks dropping and the crude oil going higher but we'll be talking about that with Mike tomorrow folks my good friend from many many years ago from over 60 years is Peter Lighties and he will be our guest and he'll be fun to talk to tomorrow so Peter Lighties will be on I'm trying to get him on early depending on how much his time schedule will allow and what he'd like to share with us but we'll have that going on and hopefully we'll have Jeff Hugh John later in the week and with a little luck I think Stan Harley might be ready to go but we'll have to have to wait and see on that one because Stan has moved to Virginia still working for the same firm but has moved Virginia Virginia he liked that area much much nicer so that's where he has moved the chart that I posted here today shows the Dow Jones industrial average I want you to notice here that so far the high today has been an exact 382 retracement that was with the Dow up 100 points and early this morning they said there was no chance that Dow Jones was going to rally 100 points and yet it rallied 140 points right off the bottom it made it slightly lower low then Friday and it just took off and people have asked me the question how can this be well I'm gonna cover that in the first segment that we come up to after this break because there's a lot of things happening that make these markets do this so I think it'll be helpful to listen to what I have to say because it's not just me there's a lot of people that know what's going on there and that's why we're watching it so very very closely here at TFNN so let's remember folks we'll be right back right after the break


Why is it that the Word of God is so often neglected in the life of the believer? It's because this is the first line of defense. The enemy comes for the Word first because if he can come for the Word in your life, he can begin to take ground in every other area. The enemy comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. He steals first the Word from your life before he can kill and destroy. He will snatch up the seeds of the Word. Isn't that what Jesus said in the parable? He snatches up the seeds of the Word. Why? Because that's your grounding that keeps you free from deception. So the enemy first comes to snatch the Word from your life. This is the first sign that you're becoming spiritually drained.