The evil fate of Leonie Dantes - the daughter of Pushkin's killer
Many people know that Georges Dantes, who mortally wounded Pushkin in a duel, was married to Catherine, the sister of the poet’s wife Natalya Goncharova. Four children were born to this union. One of the daughters, Leonie-Charlotte, died early and under mysterious circumstances. Some historians believe that her father is to blame for her premature death.
Leonie-Charlotte Heckern-Dantès was born in 1840. She was only three years old when her mother, Catherine, died. The woman died in 1843 during childbirth. Leonie was different from her peers, who were passionate about balls and dreamed of getting married successfully. She read a lot, drew well and even wrote poetry.
Leoni was also interested in science. By the age of 16, she independently mastered the course of the Polytechnic School and, according to the professors, knew the subjects better than the students who attended lectures. Her brother Louis-Joseph wrote that, living in Paris, in a family where only French was spoken, the girl considered herself Russian.
The girl learned Russian and was keenly interested in the literature of her mother’s homeland. Her favorite poet was Alexander Pushkin. In Leonie's room there were portraits of the Russian poet, which infuriated her father. One day at dinner, during another argument, she threw in his face: “Murderer!” and this completely destroyed the relationship between daughter and dad.
After this, Dantes began to avoid his daughter and tried not to enter her room. Everything there reminded him of the duel and the poet he killed. Several times Georges tried to explain to Leonie that this was a duel, not Pushkin’s first, and both participants took equal risks, but she did not want to listen. The girl said in response that he shot at the heart of Russian poetry and there is no forgiveness for him.
Having become completely angry with his obstinate daughter, Dantes declared Leonie insane. He was a well-connected senator and therefore easily gained the support of reputable doctors. Soon all of Paris knew that the girl had gone crazy out of love for her late Russian uncle.
The outcome was predetermined - Leonie-Charlotte was imprisoned in a madhouse. In the mid-19th century, such institutions could hardly be called clinics. Patients were not treated there, but isolated from society. Some of them spent their days in chains. The living conditions were terrible - meager food, dirt, rags instead of clothes, beatings of orderlies - everything was designed to break the will of the inhabitants and turn them into animals.
The real mentally ill were kept in rooms with bars along with healthy people who became victims of French punitive medicine. The famous French doctor Etienne Parise, having visited the Salpêtrière clinic, shared his impressions in his notes:
We have no information about how Louise-Charlotte’s days were spent in the madhouse. She spent many years there and died in 1888. Her father, Georges Dantes, lived a long, pleasure-filled life. He died of old age in 1895 at the age of 83. The senator has never read a single line from Pushkin in his entire life.