Marguerite Alibert's is one
of gritty survival followed by a lucrative life of sex work. Alibert was a formidable
woman who pulled herself up from a world of poverty to
mingle among France's elite, accomplishing her goal
of turning affairs into large sums of
money in the process. Today, we're looking
at the weird life of Marguerite Alibert. Marguerite saw love not from
a romantic point of view, but as a way to
survive and thrive. She's even one of Prince
Edward VIII's mistresses and went on to marry
an Egyptian royal. However, that monumental
event is where her story takes a murderous turn. In the end, Marguerite
went down in infamy as the princess who
got away with murder. [GUNSHOT] Before we get going, make sure
you subscribe to Weird History, and your mother told us
you should leave a comment. So go ahead. OK, let's get started. The daughter of a taxi
coach driver and a maid, Marguerite Alibert was born
into France's middle class, read, not quite dire poverty
in the winter of 1890. Her mother and father were, not
to put too fine a point on it, total failures as parents. When her younger
four-year-old brother got run over by a lorry,
and rather than going after the driver or at
least carrying Junior down to the cemetery,
the parents sent their naughty, brother-losing
daughter to the Sisters of Mary for psychological torture. The nuns taught young Marguerite
that if not for her sins, her four-year-old brother
would still be alive regardless of the lorry. With more help from
the Sisters of Mary, Marguerite spent the rest of
her guilt-ridden childhood cleaning someone
else's house, only to lose both the
childhood and the house to an unplanned pregnancy at 16. This was surely just
a bump in the road in the beginning of a wholesome
life filled with possibility. Uh, just kidding. They threw her out of the
house to starve in the streets. While Marguerite's "don't ask"
baby went on to live on a farm, as they did in those
days, Marguerite herself became a sex worker and
was scouted by one Madame Denart, keeper of courtesans. The Madame trained Marguerite
to use her natural charm and beauty to make money
instead of babies, which suited Marguerite just fine. Madame Denart boasted
that Marguerite was-- The mistress of nearly
all my best clients, gentlemen of wealth and position
in France, England, America, and other countries. It was me that made a
sort of lady of her. She was cheeky that way. Marguerite had already learned
from the sisters of Mary that she could only count on
herself if she was to survive and flourish in any way. She had also learned
to sing there. Mezzo soprano, a handy skill in
any quality courtesan's garter belt. It seems she'd found
a fulfilling career in which to put everything she'd gotten
from her parents to good use. Marguerite had a
number of aliases, including Maggie Meller,
taken from her first almost husband, a wealthy
40-year-old stable owner, Andre Meller, himself a married man. As we'll see soon, she was nuts
for horses, money, and the name Meller. Andre had it all in the bag-- or not. While Maggie was
never actually married to Meller, what with the
laws of man and God and all, the 17-year-old liked
the name and the money enough to take them for herself. We must admit Maggie Meller
does have a ring to it, and it would soon
become apparent to her that that ring was
the only kind of ring she'd get from this fellow. Ironically, Andre, still
married six years later, hung up his sugar daddy
shingle because Maggie couldn't or wouldn't
stay faithful to him. Freed from the clutches
of abject poverty and in possession of about
200,000 British pounds courtesy of Mr. Meller,
Maggie got Raymonde, her "don't ask" baby,
back from the farm and would later send
her to school in London. It was the only really decent
thing she's known to have done. Prince Edward VIII, having
recently borrowed a hooker from a friend to take care
of his virginity problem, was just one of Maggie's
many moneyed men, but he was also the
Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne,
and so here our story takes a fun turn. Maggie was in her late 20s
and an experienced Parisian courtesan at the time. Prince Eddie was a
baby in comparison-- 23, royal, freshly
deflowered, and out on leave during his
very first World War. It was the good Queen
Mother's worst nightmare. Edward fell head over heels
for Marguerite for about a year before he got
bored, just long enough to write what he
would go on to call-- Oh those bloody letters. --in a lament to
advisor Joey Legh. Those bloody letters
contain every idiot thing a young man might
say to his lady love. All the delicate fancies that
come straight from the heart bypassing the brain. Things like-- I found the sex fork, ha ha ha. Or-- Dad's actually a
bit of a wanker. Or-- This war is dumb and no one will
let me drive the bloody ship. But while the average
parents might be embarrassed if confronted with the
blatherings of their firstborn in the spring of his
first love, this shit could have ruined
the royal family. Spoiler alert-- that's going to
be important here in a minute. It may come as a shock
that Maggie actually did settle down. Well, she got married anyway. In 1919 after a year of sending
a regular stinker to Prince Edward VIII reminding
him that she still had all those bloody
letters, Maggie Meller married Charles Laurent. He was handsome and boring, and
he saved Prince Edward a lot of trouble. People, this is
why boring exists. They divorced six
months later netting Maggie a nice settlement
to call her own. An apartment, 10
horse stables, cars, heaps of servants, and
of course, a new name to use should the mood take her. Maggie's new-- [CLEARS THROAT] --bae was actually a bey,
or lord, not a prince. But that didn't stop
people in certain circles from calling her
Princess Fahmy when she married the hilariously
wealthy Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey and settled down
with him in Cairo. The Egyptian, not a prince,
received his title of bey from Egypt, and Egypt is
an Islam-oriented nation. The strictly upright
life of a bey's wife was not exactly appealing to
thoroughly-established hedonist and probable dominatrix
Maggie Meller, but she agreed to it
on two conditions. The first was that
she be allowed to wear Western clothing. Fair enough-- she's
quite a negotiator. The second, that she be
allowed to divorce him. Ooh. Prince Fahmy wasn't
so into that, but he was willing
to pretend it if it meant Maggie would convert. Just before the
wedding, the clever bey slid the divorce
clause off the table and replaced it with an
edict that he be allowed to get himself more wives. Maybe they were true
soulmates after all. Why the bey thought
this devilishly sexy twice-- yes-- divorced
Parisian prostitute he met while she was escorting
a different rich man around an exotic
country a year ago would ever become a proper
Islamic wife, we have no idea. But apparently he
did, bless his heart. Gotta give it up to
the bey for trying. Bey Fahmy and his princess
fought more or less constantly, sometimes even carrying
on with their rows in broad daylight in
front of other people. He complained that
her independence, insatiable sexuality,
and general personality were utterly humiliating. This was, in fact, exactly
what the bey had signed up for, but he seems to not ever
have really figured that out. As we will soon see-- [GROANS] --he didn't have much time. Bey Fahmy had a certain
reputation around Egypt as a closeted homosexual. Whether to perpetuate that rumor
or to use it to her advantage, Maggie claimed to have been torn
during unnatural intercourse. Considering her line of
work, this coy, false-claimed innocence is pretty
foul no matter what she meant it to do for her. Those who knew her well enough
suspected that she was working on getting another fat divorce
settlement because this claim was one of many in a
growing list of abuses she was collecting so
soon after the marriage. But wait, what about that last
minute no divorce, more wives clause? Well, we'll never know how
that battle might have gone-- probably not great-- because-- dun, dun, dun-- it's
perhaps a bit too perfect that the couple
should have returned from a showing of
The Merry Widow to have a violent fight
in their hotel room that would make a merry
widow of Maggie Meller, but that's exactly what happened
the night of July 9, 1923. After a lot of shouting
and such upon their return from the theater, the bey left. He returned a few hours later
and would never leave again under his own power. Around 2:00 that morning,
three shots were heard. Princess Fahmy was arrested,
and an hour later, the bey was dead, shot by his wife in
the back of the head with a .38 she'd been keeping
under her pillow. It was rather neatly packaged
as far as homicides go. There was no mystery. The murder weapon, the
perpetrator, and the victim were all accounted for. There were no extra
threads to untangle, witnesses present
before and after the shooting, rounded
the case out nicely-- or so everyone thought. [DRAMATIC MUSIC] Ah, the power of blackmail. Oh, those bloody
letters and what a fool I was not to take your
advice over a year ago. I'm afraid she's the 100,000
pounds or nothing type, though I'm disappointed and
didn't think she'd turn nasty. The whole trouble was my
letters and she's not burnt one. Prince Edward VIII, who
all things considered, got out of this lightly
compared to Joey Legh. We think there are
about 20 letters which are wildly indiscreet. He said things about
the conduct of war that might have
been misinterpreted. He's made rude remarks
about his father and there's a commonly sexual
content to them as well. They're not the kind of letters
you would have wanted the world to know about. Put all that together and
you have the keys to a royal get out of jail free card. Maggie's mother's nuns
didn't raise no fool. Her regular stinker of a
threat letter to Prince Edward VIII about his letters was
a refrain the former choir girl turned call girl
was happy to sing again, only this time there was a
lot more than 100,000 pounds on the line. Strings were pulled to protect
the prince and his family's reputation. Maggie's life as a
lady of the night was never admitted into
evidence and therefore couldn't be examined, thus taking
care of those pesky letters and making sure no one
would think less of Maggie for her work or Eddie
for ever having been 23. This combined with some
classic racism of the Roaring '20s ensured the defense could
paint the picture they needed. The late bey as
the wife-beating, buying, swapping subhuman. Marguerite as the
hapless white woman trapped in his savage
brown clutches. Guess how that turned out? Yeah, every decade has
its trial of the century. This was one of them. People lined up around the
building to see the action, or sent their servants to buy
and/or save seats for them. Aside from the vicious
slander of the victim, though, there wasn't much
actual, well, action. In September 1923, Bey
Fahmy was convicted in the public mind of being
an evil, depraved, racially inferior, perverted
little monster man. Marguerite Alibert was
acquitted of all charges. Maggie returned to
her native Paris to live a long,
comfortable life of luxury. She continued her
exciting lifestyle, but eventually withdrew from
the limelight, supported by at least five different
ex-husbands until her death at age 80 in 1971. Prince Edward's mistake
is a cautionary tale to us all in the age of the internet. As for Maggie, we learned
that a little extortion, a little imagination,
and a lot of blackmail can make a very
merry widow indeed. What do you think of
Marguerite-- master game player or wicked as wicked goes? Let us know what
you think, and be sure to check out some of these
other triple-A rated videos from our Weird History.
