FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 4): The Countess Marguerite D'Andurian, pictured above in France in 1933, is held by French national police at Nice for questioning in the poisoned candy death of her cousin in 1945. The countess, whose international career of romance left a trail of poisoned husbands and suitors, once escaped being stoned to death only by intervention of King Ibn Saud of Arabia.
[“Held
in France,” syndicated, The Indiana Evening Gazette (Indiana, Pa.), Dec 28,
1946, p. 4]
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FULL
TEXT (Article 2 of 4): Paris, Dec. 26 – The Countess Marguerite d'Andurian,
almost as fabulous a character as her old friend, the late T. E. Lawrence of
Arabia, was held in Nice Thursday for questioning about the death of her
cousin, Raymond Clerisse. He died in 1945 from eating poisoned candy.
The
countess is 51, but her charms are still such that she has no lack of admirers.
A few years ago, a Major Sinclair was said to have committed suicide in the
near east because she refused to take him seriously.
She
was arrested Wednesday by the surete nationale on suspicion of having done some
gold smuggling. A few gold pieces were reported to have been found in her room,
but not enough to prove anything.
She
was supposed to have been brought to Paris Thursday, but at last report she was
still held in the headquarters of the surete nationale in Nice. Commissioner
Pierre Coutant, who had spent a year investigating her in north Africa and the
near east, wanted to ask her a few more questions about her cousin's death.
Her
cousin Clarisse, 26, a lawyer, died on Nov. 22, 1945, and the countess was
picked up a few days later. She was questioned and released.
She
is said to have met Lawrence during the first world war when she owned the
Queen Zenobie hotel at Palmyra, in the Levant Tates, and he was organizing the
Arabs for guerrilla war against the central powers.
In
1934, she disguised herself as a man and tried to get into the sacred mosque at
Mecca, which women are forbidden to enter. About this time, she divorced the
Count d'Andurian and married an Arabian shiek.
The
shiek died of poison and she was condemned to be atoned to death. But before
the sentence could be executed, she was pardoned by King Ibn Saud at the
request of the French consul.
The
consul's son was said to have been in love with her. As soon as the Arabs let
her go, she returned to Palmyra and remarried the Count d'Andurian. The count
soon died of poisoning, and she was a widow again. [Other reports state he was
stabbed multiple times.]
[“Police in Nice Quiz Countess In Poison
Death of Cousin,” Salt Lake Tribune (Ut.), syndicated (UP), Dec. 27, 1946, p. 4]
***
EXCERPT (Article 3 of 4):: The last figure we are dealing
with is a noble woman, who leaves behind a long trail of blood. The wildness of
Jeanne Claire Marguerite Clarisse was apparently shaped by her having resided
since early age within the confines of five convents, with their ambiguous sexual mores.
At the age of eighteen she married the Count of Andurian.
They took a long honeymoon exploring the
Middle East, eventually resting at Palmyra, Syria, where they took charge of a
hotel which the managed together.
She made the acquaintance, W. F. Sinclair, head of British
intelligence in Haifa (Palestine), from whom she stole classified documents,
leading to his suicide.
Sought by the British, the Countess fled to Mecca where she
converted to Islam and married Sheikh Soliman, overseer king Saud’s his harem. There she learned to enjoy the pleasures
of Sapphic love before she resolved to
escape. The escape attempt will succeed thanks to the daughter of the
French consul who assisted in arranging an orgy in which Sheikh Soliman would
be poisoned by his wife.
The Lady then returns to Palmyra, where her first husband is
soon discovered dead, found stabbed to death in the bathtub. Rich, beautiful
and daring our Countess returns to France and is seen Nice and Paris. Her
erotic affairs in Vichy France included a Monsieur Henri who denounced Jews to the
collaborators and was rewarded with a hefty share of their confiscated assets.
After the Normandy invasion the air got too hot for such
delicate skin as hers, so she moved first to Spain, then Tangier and finally to
Gibraltar where she spends her life
enjoying luxurious parties. At the end of one of these romps she was be
found dead: strangled with a silk scarf. Her murderer, Hans Abel was a young
German was apprehended, but his motive was never disclosed.
[Enrico Gavassino, “Madames of the
Gestapo,” undated, in Italian, accessed 2012]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 4): Eight cryptic words, scrawled on
the back of a Paris subway ticket by a dying man, led last month to the arrest
of one of the most fabulous beauties of the Middle East. The words – “Candy
which Marga gave me had a strange taste” – were written in November 1945 by
26-year-old Raymond Clarisse. The beauty, 51-year-old Countess Marga
d’Andurain, was arrested for poisoning Raymond, her nephew.
This was just another episode in the life of Countess
D’Andurain, whose mysterious career has included more loves, murders and hair’s
breadth escapes than the plot of a grade-B movie. When the police arrested her,
she was a slender, dark-eyed average-appearing woman who seemed little the
worse for her experiences. Her looks were faintly reminiscent of the beauty
which had given her the title of Queen of the Desert. Newspapers called her “a
character out of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” because “wherever Marga went, death
struck almost immediately.” Her hectic story started in provincial Boyonne
where she was born and where she married wealthy Count Pierre D’Andurain.
Stong-willed and romantic, Marga persuaded her mild, meek husband to settle in
Palmyra, Syria. There she soon turned his Queen Zenobia Hotel into a nest of
intrigue by flirting with local sheiks and colonial officials. By 1932 she
became so enamored of the lm world that she claimed conversion to Islam,
divorced her husband, married a Bedouin tribesman and started a pilgrimage to
Mecca. But between Jidda and Mecca she was kidnapped by her new husband’s
tribe, which was angered at his marriage to an infidel. Then, during their
captivity the mountains, her husband was poisoned. The countess was found
guilty by a tribal court and sentenced to be stoned to death. The French
interceded with King Ibn Saud, however, and she was freed.
Back in Palmyra she remarried Count Pierre, who a few weeks
later was stabbed to death in the Zenobia Hotel. Authorities investigated but
could prove nothing. Shortly before the war she went back to France and after
the German occupation moved to an apartment in Paris where her nephew Raymond
was a frequent visitor. Just as he was leaving the apartment one day she
playfully popped a piece of candy in his mouth. By the time he got home violent
cramps seized him and his agonized last words started the police investigation.
When they arrested her in Nice, she had rented a deserted house and was
decorating it with mementos of her career.
Last month the countess, swathed in ancient furs, wearing
long woolen drawers and hiding her face, was hustled off to a Paris jail
protesting innocence. So far no sheik has appeared to save her.
[“Mysterious Countess: Fabulous Life and Loves of Marga
D’Andurain Make Desert Version of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace,’” Life Magazine, Jan.
27, 1947, pp. 116-18]
***
NOTE: Countess d’Andurain’s execution by hanging was
erroneously reported by United Press in newspapers on June 2, 1933.
***
***
***
A Spanish-language biography of Marga d’Andurain by
Christina Morató, titled Captiva en
Arabia, was published 2009, by Plaza & Janes, Spain.
***
***
For links to other cases of woman who murdered 2 or more husbands (or paramours), see Black Widow Serial Killers.
***
For more cases like this one, see: Vamps – Femmes Fatales – Predatory Women
[3607-1/14/21]
***
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