We Were Not Armed: The True Story Of A Family Whose Lives Were Stolen By A Conman

This is the story of how a family can be destroyed by a chain of events that begin when one member puts her trust in a conman. At the beginning of the 21st century, the de Védrines were an ancient aristocratic Bordeaux family, educated and socially established. From the outside they had everything they could have wished for - wealth, love, friends, education and family. But the very closeness and trust they had with each other ended up splitting them apart. Exploiting a mix of family pride, historic roots, and personal identity, an outsider - a criminal called Thierry Tilly - stripped the family over ten years of their houses, their money and their personal dignity. It took the courage of Christine de Védrines to break away from Tilly's iron grip. Her story of how she did that is simply told but moving and sometimes almost unbearable. TRUE CRIME. At the beginning of the 21st century, the de Vedrines were an ancient aristocratic Bordeaux family who owned property and wealth. By 2012, they has been reduced to living in poverty, scattered in flats and bedsits in Oxford, far from their ancestral home. Over the space of ten years they had been tricked out of their possessions, with brother turned against sister and child against parent, believing that the only way to save themselves from a conspiracy of Freemasons was to put themselves under the control of conman Thierry Tilly. The conspiracy did not exist, but Tilly used this fabricated story to brainwash the de Vedrines, and even kidnapped them when they showed signs of resistance. It took the courage of Christine de Vedrines to break away from Tilly's iron grip, escape to France, and alert lawyers and police. Her story of how she did that is simply told but moving and sometimes almost unbelievable