Madame Lenormand

Quick Facts
Marie-Anne Adélaïde Lenormand born in Alençon , France, 27 May 1772 - Paris, and died 25 June 1843. Mlle Lenormand, as she was known, was a French clairvoyant and fortune-teller who owes her fame to predicting, among other things, the marriage, coronation and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Lenormand Cards
Madame Lenormand's name has been immortalized by the fortune-telling cards that appeared on the market after her death and bear her name for marketing purposes. More than 100 different card deck versions of the latter have been marketed over the years. In honor of who she was and her search for the truth, the card deck named Petit Lenormand 'Rocks' first edition was published by Club Lenormand in 2024, more than 250 years after Madame Lenormand has closed her famous eyes.
Historical Biography
Madame Verité by Caroline Hanken, published by Atlas Contract, language Dutch Madame Verité is a biographical and historical story about the life of Madame Lenormand. Therefore she received a grant from the Dutch Literature Foundation (Nederlands Literatuur Fonds).
Marie Anne Lenormand was orphaned at the age of seven and grew up in the Benedictine monastery in Alençon. This may explain her enormous interest in the mysterious and invisible world of wisdom.
During turbulent years in Paris, a year before Marie Antoinette's heading, the young Marie Anne settled in the capital of France. There she became friends with Madame Gilbert, a fortuneteller. Marie Anne was very interested in the art of reading faces and hands and studying astrology and for that reason she was arrested several times for fraud.
When Marie Anne Lenormand is arrested again in 1821 in Brussels, Belgium and becomes emaciated through fraud, she writes her own plea in which she explains that she gives her clients insight into themselves and their life circumstances and that her knowledge is used exclusively to heal the soul.
For as she says: 'An art for the soul is sometimes as necessary as an art for the body.' She asks the judges what law forbids an author to use metaphors, images, symbols and allegories? Through the magic of fiction, authors -in all times- have arrived at the truth and penetrated the heart and soul of man.'
In her plea of innocence, Madame Lenormand also draws a comparison to Newton in court, whose calculations about the movement of celestial bodies and the laws of attraction could be seen as a form of magic at the time. 'One would have given this immortal Englishman a certificate of madness and called him a scoundrel, if you now do me.'
Madame Lenormand has been acquired of fraud by the Dutch justice system and immediately released, but the 100 days of captivity in Brussels had done her old bones no good.
A few days before her death, in the hospital of the nuns in the Rue de la Santé, she had her will drawn up and instructed that immediately after her death all her papers should be destroyed.
On 25 th of June 1843 she died at the age of 71. An impressive procession accompanied her from the state bed in the church in a carriage drawn by four horses to the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. She was buried not far from the main entrance in a corner between the rows of gray tombstones in section 3. Her grave is marked with a modest low stone with only her name chiseled into it: 'Mademoiselle Lenormand'.