You're Dead to Me - Julie d'Aubigny

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Greg Jenner is joined by Dr Sara Barker and returning special guest Catherine Bohart to travel back to 17th-century France and meet the notorious Julie d'Aubigny. Hers is an extraordinary story that includes duels, an elaborate escape plot and multiple affairs. But with a distinct lack of reliable sources for evidence, can Greg and his guests sort fact from fiction and piece together the details of this legendary life?You’re Dead To Me is a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.Research by Bethan Davies and Dr Kelly Gardiner Written and produced by Emma Nagouse, Greg Jenner and Bethan Davies Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Project Management: Isla Matthews Audio Producer: Abi Paterson

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And I was the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. And today we are donning our wigs and drawing our swords as we ride back to 17th century France to learn all about Julie d'Aubigny, the most notorious opera singer of gay Paris.

And to help me unpick the life from the legend, oh there's so much legend, I am joined by two very special guests. In History Corner, she's Associate Professor at Leeds University, where she's an expert on France in the 16th and 17th centuries, early modern print culture and the history of the book. It's Dr Sarah Barker. Welcome, Sarah. Hello.

Thank you for having me. Pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award-winning comedian, writer, actor and podcaster. You may have watched her hilarious stand-up special Immaculate on Amazon Prime or seen her on the telly on Mock the Week or Mash Report or 8 Out of 10 Cats. Maybe you've heard her podcast, Trusty Hogs, with Helen Bower. But you'll certainly remember her from starring roles on our episodes about Joan of Arc,

the history of general elections and Gráinne O'Malley. It's Catherine Bohart. Welcome back, Catherine. I'm so excited for this one because unlike the others before, the episodes I've been on before, I genuinely, this person has never entered my consciousness. I'm so excited. I am delighted to hear that because actually we have chosen this subject with you in mind, given your previous episodes. This one is one we thought, this is a Catherine story. Does that mean she's gay? Let's leave it till later on and we'll find out, shall we? Okay. I'm so excited.

So, what do you know? Well, that brings us onto our first segment of the podcast, the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subjects. And it's a tricky one because there are certain corners of the internet where Lama Opa, or Julie d'Aubigny, is really well known. Indeed, I'm frequently being harassed on Twitter to do an episode about her. So well done, Twitter people, you have won. But when I mention Julie d'Aubigny to other historians, their faces go blank. She is weirdly more known on the internet than she is in history books. In fact, there's no single reliable biography about her. And the best research has been done by the

historical novelist and academic Dr. Kelly Gardner, who very kindly shared that research with us for this podcast. Kelly's novel, Goddess, is huge fun, and we recommend it if you fancy a read. But sticking with pop culture, there's not a huge amount there was a novel written about julie daubigny in the 1830s by theophile gautier there was a musical in 2017 plus there's all the stuff on youtube and websites which is not very reliable i'm afraid but when i first encountered julie's story i thought it was probably romantic myth but today we're going to try and sort out fact from fiction dr sarah what do we know about Julie Daubeney's childhood, her origins? Do we have any kind of reliable concrete evidence? Not really.

Okay. There are so many conflicting sources when it comes to Julie. Most of them were written decades after she was alive or centuries after she was alive. So everything I'm about to say involves maybe and we think. We think she was born in 1673. Her name was actually Julie-Emilie de Bigny. So sometimes people call her Julie, sometimes Julia, sometimes Emily. So that makes it more confusing as well. We don't know where she was born or where she grew up. That's not entirely unexpected because so many records were lost in France during the French Revolution.

We know absolutely nothing about her mother. We believe that her father Gaston d'Aubigny possibly worked at the king's royal stables. He was perhaps a former musketeer who served as a secretary to the Comte d'Armagnac, who was Louis XIV's master of the horse. So he was responsible for the king's riding horses, royal brass bands, training pages and dressage training. So basically, her dad was probably a soldier who was good with horses. Catherine, do you know who the king is in the mid-17th century? Greg, don't ask me questions you know I don't know the answer to. Come on. No, I don't. I would guess a Louis because of course I would. It is not just a Louis. It's the Louis. It's Louis

XIV. It's Louis the Sun King. That's exciting. So we've got the court of Louis XIV. He's the most powerful man in Europe at this point. It's this gorgeous, opulent palace, Versailles, with this hall of mirrors. It's an amazing place to visit if you've never been. The court moves there in 1682, which means Julie probably moves there too with her dad in 1682 when she would have been about nine. And you can imagine the decor, the food, the fashion, the art, the ballets, the balls, presumably just like growing up in Ireland in the 90s, Catherine. Oh, totally. Absolute. Same level of arrogance in men. Same number of mirrors I was obsessed with. Yeah, honestly, the exact same.

And just as many wigs? Yes, but we don't talk about those. That's absolutely what those Irish dancing girls' hair looks like. No questions, please. Okay. And what sort of hobbies do you think a young girl might have had growing up at the court? I don't know what she's allowed to do as the daughter of the horse guy. At least if she was the son of the horse guy, maybe she could also be into dressage. Are you allowed to ride horses?

And for any fun as a woman at that stage? Probably not. I'm going to guess she has to do boring things like paint or promenade or... God, the girl's got such a raw deal. I assume she's not like fencing or anything fun. Well, she's more of an Arya Stark than she is a professional promenader, isn't she? Absolutely. It seems like her father basically considered her

to be one of the boys because he seems to have taught her to ride and to fence and he dressed her in boys clothes probably for practicality. Okay she's gay this is exciting. So not only was he perhaps a former musketeer but there would have been other fencing masters around the court instructing all the young aristocrats so you know she had a good chance of learning from the absolute very best. Yeah so she's with a blade, but she's also going to end up as an opera singer. That's how she becomes famous. So do we have any evidence of her having a musical passion in youth or at least opportunities to see music and enjoy it at the court? Yeah, we do, because we know that the Grande Curie, the great stables at Versailles, hosted a couple of opera performances, as well as a number of balls in the 1680s.

The first performance in June 1682 was a full production of L'Elyse Percé, featuring Dumenil, who's going to be Julie's nemesis, I think, fair to say, in later life. And certainly, if she'd been able to witness these events, these performances, they were so dazzling, so all-encompassing. Louis XIV loves masked balls and plays and ballet. He dances. So there's probably quite a lot of spectacle for a young girl to enjoy. I've got so many questions, though. Yeah.

First of all, are we just acting like musketeers are real? Oh, no, Tony's real. Yeah, absolutely real. Okay, cool. Just putting that aside, why are they having like musketeers are real? Oh, no, Tony's real. Yeah, absolutely real. Okay, cool. Just putting that aside, why are they having their operas in the stables? Don't they have all those fancy big rooms? Well, it's a pretty big palace and the stables are pretty impressive. Okay.

I'm just saying I'd be annoyed if I was a royal horse, but okay, fine. The acoustics are good in the stables. I got you. I'm with you. This is perhaps where Julie has her inspirational moment. She's born outside of the aristocracy. And then according to a much later story, she then starts dating the aristocracy. And it's very creepy and problematic, Sarah. According to much later sources, early 20th century, in 1687, when Julie was age 14, she appears to have become the Comte d'Amaniac's mistress. That's her dad's boss, and he was 46 years old. So quite the age gap, extremely problematic. He sets her up in Paris at the Hotel d'Armagnac. There seems to have been maybe a cover story set up. So Julie is married off to this very boring husband, Monsieur Jean

de Maupin, who is then given a job as a tax collector and just shifted out to the provinces so that Julie and d'Armagnac could keep seeing each other in Paris. But she soon broke up with the Comte Darmagnac and instead started an affair with a fencing master from the south of France called Saran. Well, I'm honking my child exploitation klaxon because that's a horrible, horrible age gap. But we think this might not actually be true because this is from the 20th century, Catherine.

This is a really late story. We can just ignore that. But the story of her getting together with Saran, that's got 18th century sources. So I think we probably say that might be true. But the sources also say she has got married to this boring tax collector called Jean de Maupin, and he's been shipped out to some random faraway place. So she is a married woman, but she's hooking up with a fencer. And he gets in trouble pretty fast, Sarah. He certainly was a bit of a bad boy. He has to flee Paris because he fought an illegal duel.

Paris was one of the earliest cities to have anything approximating what we would see as a modern police force led by Nicolas de Larigny. Dueling was one of the things they were really, really keen to keep a grip on. So once he's involved in that illegal duel, he has to leave. She goes with him. Sorry, how are we distinguishing between legal and illegal duels? What's the difference? It's like if you wound, it's cool. But if you kill, it's not. I think basically legally by this point, all duels are illegal. Okay, so they are illegal at this point. They are. Louis XIV has banned them. They have to keep banning them through French culture, which suggests the bans don't work.

Yeah, exactly that. So we have Serran, who's a fencer, and we've got Julie, his girlfriend, who's a fencer. So are they doing a double act? Are women allowed to fence, Sarah? Serran is said to have increased her sword skills. He taught her how to fight with a short sword. And together, they flee to the south of France to Marseille, where they are meant to be giving fencing demonstrations in pubs and town squares. In terms of women and swords, it is very rare

to have mixed gender fighting. We do have instances of women fighting swords it is very rare to have mixed gender fighting we do have instances of women fighting each other either as part of a sort of fencing demonstration or that old chestnut of fighting over a man and we do have reports of actresses uh fighting with swords in the theater there might be a bit of male erotic fantasy going on here. But at the same time, exceptional people did take part in duels. And Julie is very definitely an exceptional woman. One thing to note, though, is that when she was performing in Marseille, she was doing that whilst wearing men's clothing. Yeah. So she's so good at dueling and she's wearing men's clothing people assume she's a bloke

and so Catherine how do you think Julie responds when people are misgendering her it's hard to tell so far I mean she sounds honestly straighter than I'd hoped um so I'm not sure if she finds that to be offensive and therefore wants to prove actually women can do this too presumably there's a cultural freedom that men have that women don't possess at the time. So actually maybe there's some liberty that you gain by being identified as a man that she might otherwise have taken offense to. But like if you win against a dude, you probably want to be like, aha, see, we can do it. But also if maybe it's easier to be a man at those times, seems like it.

Yeah. Sarah, is she doing the kind of classic Hollywood thing of, you know, See, we can do it. But also, maybe it's easier to be a man at those times. Seems like it. Yeah. Sarah, is she doing the kind of classic Hollywood thing of, you know, taking her hair out and sort of tossing her hair in slow motion and going, actually, I'm a lady? She apparently opened her blouse and flashed her boobs. And the crowd, perhaps understandably, fell silent in response. What do you mean understandably? I thought you were going to say the crowd went wild.

Maybe they went wild after the stunned silence. Yeah, maybe there's a sort of brief pause of like, hang on, are those boobs? She's got a flair for the dramatic. Are there no consequences for her duelling and then whipping her tits out? For us, we can

tell she's going to do much worse crimes than this. Nice. She's probably getting away with it. But I mean, Sarah, at this time, it was quite a patriarchal society. So perhaps her dad's not around, her husband's not around. Yeah, you would normally expect a woman to be sort of under the control of a man. And I think that's one of the really interesting things about Julie, is she seems to be a lot more in charge of herself than other women you might read about at the time.

The nudity thing, yeah, that's interesting. I'll have to think about that a little bit. It feels like the fact that she can challenge social mores around nudity and gender and violence. and gender and violence. Is she getting the benefit of that because of her associations with aristocracy? Or is it just they don't know what to do with her? You don't know. Because we don't know because there's no documentation. Sorry.

She's not in that kind of Versailles bubble at this point. She's down in the south of France. But yeah, maybe she's just shocking them all so much they really don't know what to do with her. I mean, she is technically married. So maybe they're sort of running around looking for a husband going, where is a man when we need him to control this woman? The right man to control this woman. Amazing. As you say, Catherine, they are drawing attention to themselves in quite a dramatic way. They're also belting out duets. Saran can sing, Julie can sing. They are musical.

belting out duets. Saran can sing, Julie can sing. They are musical. Yes. During this same time, both Saran and Julie begin singing with the Marseille Opera. According to the Parfait brothers, who were writing in 1755, she was still known as Mademoiselle Aubigny at this point. And she was really admired by the crowds for her very beautiful bass-dessous voice, which is quite a low register for a woman, but she's also noted for her physical beauty. So the Parfait brothers say that she was not very tall, but she was very pretty. She had chestnut hair, big blue eyes, an aquiline nose,

a lovely mouth, very white skin and a perfect throat. We all love a perfect throat. That's what we're all looking for on Tinder. The Parfait brothers sound like pervs. I think that's a weird chat to have with your brother. You know what I mean? At least have it with a friend. That's so weird.

They were writing about 50 years after her death. Nothing about her voice, I note. They said that she had a Bastessu voice. So this sort of quite low register. It's difficult to explain what a Bastessu voice would be, I guess, in modern. It's sort of kind of Lady Gaga or Cher. Okay, two queer icons, carry on. Julie's beautiful.

She's young. She can sing. She can zing with a sword. So unsurprisingly, Catherine, she dumps Saran and gets herself a new lover. And do you want to guess who that was? I'm going to assume she dumps him for a more professional opera singer because how else do you progress in the world as a woman except to increase the stature of the men you're around? So I'm going to go with big in the 17th century. OK, to be clear, let me just be very clear.

I'm going to say more famous opera singer. That's a really good guess. And later on, that would have been the correct answer. Darn. But at this stage, and this is the reason we brought you on the podcast, Catherine. It's a woman! It is a woman. Yes! Yes! Bisexual realness from Julie!

Twice before on this podcast, you have made the case and third time lucky because, yeah, her next sort of hot and heavy relationship is with a local daughter of a quite wealthy merchant. Greg tried to tell me that Joan of Arc wasn't gay. Then he tried to tell me that Joan of Arc wasn't gay. Then he tried to tell me that an actual pirate wasn't gay. I'm just so pleased to finally, finally be hearing a queer narrative on this podcast. I'm not taking this nonsense of like third time lucky because I was right every

time. But I'm glad you can finally admit it, Greg. This is so exciting. Sarah, please tell me every detail. Well, the details that we have come from the 1750s, so much closer to her death and her life than the creepy situation with the Comte d'Amanek. What is told to us is that during one of her operatic performances, Julie caught the attention of this daughter of a local wealthy merchant and they fell in love. We don't have the name of the woman from any of the biographical accounts, but apparently her wealthy family sent her away to a convent, maybe the convent of the Vistandin in Avignon, just to keep the two women apart. And does it work, Catherine?

Do I think sending a lesbian to a convent is a good way to get her to be less gay? No, I don't. I'm going to say that she goes to get her girl. Does she go and get her girl? Oh, yes. And then some. How would you break your girlfriend out of a convent

if you had to? I'm going to guess she dresses up as a nun. She's got operatic costumes at her disposal. There's no reason she shouldn't be able to get her hands on a habit. I don't think she's going to full on ingratiate herself with the nuns, although I don't think it would be hard. They're definitely her people at this point, surely. And I think that they sneak out dressed in habits. She goes a lot further than that, Sarah, doesn't she?

She doesn't actually become a nun. She does not. Sarah, give us the give us the juicy god she enters the convent as a novice and then they manage a a great escape really they seize their opportunity when a fellow nun dies and the two of them apparently steal the body place it in the young woman's cell and then set fire to it escaping the convent whilst everybody else is running around in chaos trying to put out a fire did not see the needless arson element of that story coming but i will also say what a thrilling tale and also the commitment the level of commitment i'm so thrilled to hear

that lesbian drama has always been this extreme it's like no i could just go in and pretend to be a nun no i will become a nun we will find a dead body we will set the dead body on fire and then only then could we fathom escape i'm so obsessed with the story how is this not a movie well it funny you should say that kelly's novel has been optioned so maybe it will be a movie or a tv series one day so So fingers crossed. I went hunting through the sources to find if this was legit or not, because I was like, that sounds like bullshit. Here we go. Don't you ruin this for me, Greg. Actually, you know what? Quite a lot of people are talking about this in the 1750s. That's as early as we can get. So that's pretty good.

I'm not convinced it's 100% true, but I'm convinced that in her lifetime, some of these stories had their origins. So yeah, might be real. I don't know how close to like early Greek society the old French 17th century was, but I'm guessing it's not conventional or morally okay that there might be queer women. And so for multiple people to be engaging with it as a narrative, it's more likely to be true because they probably want to ignore it, right? So people are really sceptical about same-sex relationships or sexual relationships that aren't within the confines of marriage or any sexual activity that is not just there to create

children. But people are definitely aware of female same-sex relationships. There's been scholars looking at the extent to which these were ever prosecuted in the same way as male same-sex relationships might be. And although they don't seem to have been prosecuted as frequently as men, there were laws on the books that would make this illegal. So she is taking a bit of a risk. There's not usually an acknowledgement that it even happens. So that's fairly modern in a way.

The fact that homophobia is systematic is legalized. It's kind of a concession. Yes, it's kind of modern. Oh God, I hate myself. And quick question. Sorry, last question on the sexual mores of the time. The stereotype of French culture is obviously one that's more accepting of affairs. Is quite prudish at the start of the 16th century to kind of like quite engaged with their sexuality by the end of the the 16th into the 17th century they have a glow up yeah that's one of the things that's really interesting about this period in the the late 17th century on one level yes it's all kind of court culture and drama. But also, it's a time when people are quite religiously introspective, and the Catholic Church is fighting back against some of the

losses it suffered over the previous 100 years. And so, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on all at once. Let's get back to the story of Julie on the run, because she has broken her girlfriend out of a convent and set fire to her. And that's a crime. People are sent to go and get her. According to the stories, she fights them. She wounds two men. She kills one man, but eventually gets caught in Avignon. Her crime is so serious she's meant to be burned alive.

But they find the missing girl and somehow Julie dodges the execution. This stuff feels a bit dramatic because if you kill a man, you're not getting away with it. That bit's not quite true. But yeah, I think the convent story has something to it. Greg, it's obviously true. I believe it and I'm taking it

and I'm very excited about this bisexual origin story. I'm sad that the girlfriend doesn't have a name, but no doubt if I know lesbians, it was also probably Julie. Do you know what I mean like that's a classic lesbian move so I'm gonna call them a pair of Julies this is very exciting and then we get another woe in romance we're back to the fellas it's all right Sarah who's this chap Julie soon meets another lover a young nobleman called the Comte d'Albert he challenges her to

a duel not realizing that she is a woman. She, of course, beats him and injures him, but then nurses him back to health and they become lovers. Tale as old as time. Yeah, I'm more okay with a story where she falls in love with a man once she begins by humbling him. That's fine by me. It's a classic rom-com move, isn't it? Yes. She's sort of moving between lovers quite fast. But the Comte d'Albert is a real guy. They stay good friends. But enough about him because we're moving on to the next part of the story

because there's so much to get through, Catherine, because now she's off to Poitiers, which is sort of in the middle of France. She travels there alone and she starts to take singing lessons from an old drunken actor who she meets called Maréchal, who, according to one of Julie's own letters, said to her, I am a veteran. I know about voices and talent. If you wanted ma petite in four or five years, you will be the premier singer of the Paris opera. I will give you lessons. I have nothing else to do that will amuse me. But apparently his alcoholism is so bad that he ends up in hospital pretty quickly.

So he exits the story. So that's where she's going to learn to develop her skills further as a singer. And also at this point, she now meets another key guy in the story, a young baritone singer called Gabrielle Vincent Tevenard. It's a lovely name. And of course, Catherine, she hooks up with him too. Her husband's out collecting taxes. What's a girl to do? You got to keep busy. You got to keep busy while he does the books. So Sarah, the story goes that Julie and

Tévenard head off to Paris together. She's still on the run from the convent thing, but technically she's already on the run from Saran killing a man in paris so she's now going back to paris the original crime scene so surely there's more people trying to arrest her at this point well you would think but this is where the creepy older man actually seems to come in useful uh because she apparently convinces her alleged former lover, the Comte d'Amaniac, to intervene with the authorities on her behalf. He does that and she gets a royal pardon. So slate is clean, all is fine. There is no legal record of this. I'm being sceptical.

I'm doing my history phase. Meanwhile, Thévenin auditions for the Académie Royale de Musique, which we would also call the Paris Opera. And he gets hired because his voice is so lovely. And, you know, in a good boyfriend move, his conditions for taking the job is that his girlfriend also gets to audition. And because she's so amazing, she gets in. I am genuinely baffled by the fact that she has time to commit crimes, be on the run, hook up with as many people, establish herself as a rider and a fencer and burn

down convents whilst simultaneously developing her diaphragm. I'm like, this girl can multitask. How is she still practicing singing? Wow. Yep. I mean, you've just listed a huge number of achievements and accomplishments. And I wanted to ask you, how old do you think she is at this point? Okay.

The judgmental commentary on the pace with which she moves through lovers makes me think not that much time has passed. She left when she was, what, 15, 16? So I'm going to guess she's still hot enough for the Purvey brothers to be interested. At the time, that means she's probably quite young. She gets into the opera. She's ahead of her time.

She's surely not still a teenager. So maybe 20? She's 17. Oh, I hate her. She's packed a lot in. There's this sort of three-year phase between the age of 14 where she leaves Paris and 17 where she's hired back in Paris. She has accomplished quite a lot.

And she's now going to take her famous stage name. So in the south of France, she was known as Mademoiselle Daubigny. So Daubigny is her original name. Mademoiselle was the name given to any female opera singer. Even if you were married, you kept the Mademoiselle. In Paris, her boring husband tax collector, Jean de Maupin, she takes his name and she becomes known as Mademoiselle La Maupin, or even just La Maupin. She's just The Maupin. That's how good she is. And opera is a new art form. The big name is Lully. He is the guy who has sort of invented French opera. Thankfully, not one of Julie's lovers because he's dead.

Jean-Baptiste Lully is the big name. He was an Italian-born composer, a musician who is just hugely influential and important, really beginning the distinctly French form of opera, which becomes known as the Tragedie en Musique. When Louis XIV founded the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris in 1669, Lully was put in charge. And in 1673, he was basically given the theatre at the Palais Royal by the king. And he has a really quite funny death. You never like to laugh at people's deaths, but this one is quite funny. Any guesses how he dies, Catherine? Okay, well, what a savage setup.

What do you think the funniest way for a dude to die singing would be? I mean, I wish I thought he was more of a worse guy because then I would feel more joy in guessing. Does he choke? Oh, that's a good guess. No. So he's more of a kind of conductor than a singer. Right.

He likes to keep the beat with a large bronze staff that he stamps on the floor on the downbeat. Okay. How very fame of him. And one day he accidentally forgets that his foot is in the way and he crushes his foot with the staff, gets gangrene, refuses to have his leg cut off because he wants to be a dancer and dies of infection. Killed by your own dreams of dancing.

That is so tragic. So we are in the year 1690 by this point. Julie is still very young, but she has had her official pardon, allegedly. She's a shining star on the Paris stage now, in the Paris Opera. And as well as having her gorgeous singing voice, the gossip machine is churning away. And people are like, have you heard about this La Maupin character? She's feisty. So what's happening?

She gets into all kinds of scrapes and particularly her career in Paris was really put into jeopardy after she reportedly attended a court ball that was being hosted by Louis XIV's brother, Philippe D'Orléans, and she showed up in male clothing and kissed a young woman on the dance floor. Three noblemen did not take this well, thought she was a man and obviously challenged her to a duel. Yeah. And how do you think that goes for them, Catherine? I assume she won because that is the Hollywood narrative that I want to have happened. Two, my genuine question is, they challenge her to a duel because they think it's inappropriate to kiss in public or because they then discover she is a

woman? As far as we can tell, it's probably the fact that they're jealous because they want to kiss the young lady. This is what dueling is all about half the time. It's about petty arguments about who fancies who. they see a man who they think is playing with their toy and they think that the possession the woman in this case is theirs so they challenge her thinking she's a hymn to the jewel that seems to be the implications i mean these stories are told much later on sarah aren't they so we don't know the exact details please tell me she kicks their little french butts does? The earliest source we've got for this one is from 1758. So as Greg's been implying,

we can't confidently say that she did this, but she suddenly does a runner to Brussels. And that does suggest that she needed to get out of the country pretty quickly for some reason. I do think we need to be a little bit sceptical about her killing people. As we've said, there's a lot of anxiety around dueling at this time, and even very senior nobles would expect to be punished, probably put in prison for taking part in fatal duels. So she could well have fought three men at once, but there is no legal evidence to say that the authorities were

after her yeah the stories are that she kills them that seems unlikely because there would be there would be so many legal documents that we'd be able to find as historians and they're not there so she does a runner to brussels probably because she's got herself in some hot water but you have to read between the lines, Catherine. But also, like, at once, at once seems unlikely. Surely they don't get to be like, Jinx, you have to fight us all. Like, presumably you do it one at a time.

That still seems like that would be the reasonable thing to do. Cue them up. You schedule them in. I'll see you first. Then you, then you. Yeah. Bring a friend. It's like wrestling.

Tag it in, tag it out. I'm genuinely fascinated by what the social norms of the time are around her just being chased out because she keeps showing up in men's clothing. Is that allowed? That's a good question, Catherine, because the man who's throwing the ball, Monsieur Philippe Duc d'Orléans, the brother of the king, he's really interesting, Sarah. And you and I first met talking about him on a tv show about the bbc drama versa philip has he has male lovers uh he has wives he also loves wearing gorgeous frocks he wears these amazing dresses and women's wigs and just rocks them at big parties and and everyone's like okay so you know he's pretty gender non-conforming as well. So maybe she felt like this was a space that she could do that?

Maybe. This party would have been held at his palace. I mean, Sarah, you've already deployed the sceptical face, which is good. I'm going to ask you to deploy even more scepticism. What are our sources for Julie Daubigny, Lamaupin? What do we know? Peel the onion on, like, which stuff we trust, which stuff is, like, really dodgy. I will try try but it's

really complicated so some of the early writers like the parfait brothers refer to a memoir that apparently she wrote but if that ever existed it's been lost they were writing in 1755 so half a century after her death they were the ones who were really into her music career, but didn't want to reprint any of the untrustworthy gossip. There is then a source from 1758, which was a literary compendium from that year written by a renowned critic called Elie-Catherine Fréron, who often fell out with Voltaire. Fréron gives us the convent adventure and the bust up at the ball. So clearly not hanging back

about the gossipy salacious stuff there. Then it seems that all these stories get repeated quite a lot in French and British publications through the rest of the 18th century. When the 19th century comes along, all of this stuff gets written into biographies and novelists.

Sometimes they're repeating things that maybe happened. Sometimes they are just making things up. Bram Stoker gets in on the act in 1910. And it's around that time that we also get this story about Julie and the Comte d'Amaniac setting her up with the boring hubby. At this point, it's really important to say that Kelly Gardner, who wrote the novel that Greg mentioned earlier, has done such an amazing extensive review of the biographical and historical texts.

She's gone through all the theatrical archive materials, the contemporary journals. And so we have a really good sense of the operas that Julie was in and how well she sang. But all of the other stuff, all of the kind of life off stage is really up for debate. That's brilliant for a novelist. It's really frustrating and intriguing for a historian. We know she existed. We know she sang. We know the opera she sings in. There are some illustrations of her engravings. But the earliest we can get to is 50 years after her death for these fun, exciting stories we love to tell. So it's a question of how much you want to trust them. I mean, I want to trust them loads, obviously, because I want queer representation in history. And we know queer people have existed. So obviously, I want to. But I understand that's doesn't seem like there's much firm ground here although it's true that the sources for her relationships with women come from decades

after her death many of her relationships with men also don't appear in the record until years later so we probably shouldn't be more skeptical of her same-sex relationships than we are of those that she had with men wait so she's just as likely to have slept with the women as she is the men this is so exciting yeah in the 1750s we get sources saying she's hitting on women and burning down a nunnery so um yeah why not uh do you want to look uh add a little image of her katherine just to see what she looked like please show me a picture oh my gosh. Oh, hi, femme queen. Oh my goodness. She's like, for the queers at home, we're talking lipstick, lesbian, bisexual energy. Oh my, not the boyish. I mean, I love that she can do both. I guess she's averse. That's so exciting. Wow. Not what I had anticipated at all. not what I had anticipated at all. That's her stage costume. So that's her as an opera singer.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, so she's wearing a gorgeous frock. She's got the wig. She's got the pearls on. Fronds of fabric hanging down from her elbows to the floor. She's absolutely covered in expensive fabrics. This is a beautiful... Teeny, teeny, tiny corseted waist. The hair is so big and heavy,

it looks like it's probably damaging that beautiful neck and, as we know, famed throat. She's got pearls on. I guess that's some sort of protection and support is that like a structural support for her neck i don't know gloves i guess those are essential if you're going to go around challenging people to jewels oh my god it's gorgeous there you go that's julie daubigny we've we've got her on the run now she's off to Brussels what do you think she's getting up to in Brussels Catherine? She doesn't seem demure

so I'm going to assume Brussels is do they have an opera? They do It feels like once you get a little taste of that kind of fame

you're not going to be like I'll just maybe I should have actually stuck with the nun stuff so I'm going to assume she does in fact go sing in Brussels. We think she maybe does a little bit performing,

but mostly she's getting in another very hot and heavy relationship. What? No, shocking. This time with a pretty powerful dude called Maximilian Emmanuel. He's the elector of Bavaria, which is a prince basically. And it is pretty tumultuous, this relationship, Sarah, and it does not end well. It really does not end well. So the Abbe de Fontenay tells us in his Dictionary of Artists, again, this is from the later 18th century, but he tells us that the relationship was very fraught.

And eventually Maximilian was just so exhausted that he offered her 40,000 francs just to go away. Understandably, perhaps, didn't take that very well. She threw the coins at his emissary's head and left Brussels. She clearly had a violent temper. Later on in life, she threatens to shoot a noblewoman. And we do actually have some court records that show she brutally attacked her landlord when he refused to cook her dinner. She was also reported to have worked in Madrid as a lady's maid to a Countess Marino, who she apparently hated. And so she basically just tried to humiliate her as well. Yes, she humiliates the Countess apparently by dressing her hair with radishes and not telling her. So when the Countess goes out to a ball, basically she's a head full of vegetables.

How embarrassing. I'm sure she looked utterly radishing. So Julie, she comes back from Brussels. She returns to Paris. It's time for another feud. Do you remember the beginning of the show, Catherine? We talked about the fact that as a child she saw an actor called Dominil Dominil that's it remember look at you with your memory phenomenal so do you know why because I was like that's gonna be in the quiz gotta remember

the name you've been on the show before you know how we work she's now old enough to act alongside him and they do not get on at all do they sarah she has no time for him he was a very popular singer allegedly that word again uh attempted to seduce her and she rebuffed him it all got very nasty and they ended up fighting in the street she demanded that he drew his sword he refused so she just beat him up anyway with her walking cane and stole his pocket watch and his snuff box he then turns up the next day saying oh i was jumped on by three men and she just says no you weren't it was just me and hands back the watch and the snuff box as the receipts to prove it well so basically, she met this guy who likes ladies, is arrogant,

sings and acts and generally thinks he can seduce anyone, i.e. the male version of her, and she hates them. Yeah. You're psychologizing her now. We're sort of getting into the mentality of Julie Dubonnet. Frankly, we're making all this up so I can say what I want. Catherine's got a theory. Sarah, do we have a historical theory as to why maybe they don't work well together as a pair? Well, if we're thinking about the kinds of singing that they did, they covered quite a lot of the same vocal range. So Dominique was a haute-contre, which is kind of like a modern countertenor, so quite high for a male voice. And Julie, as we said earlier, sang contralto, so that's the lowest female singing voice.

So there's maybe a bit of competition. But also she was just doing really, really well and, you know, a bit of professional jealousy going on. In 1702, Antoine Donchet, who really admired her, wrote a role containing a really great dramatic range specifically for her in an opera called Tancred. And it's believed to be the first French opera where the female star was not a soprano. So a bit of professional jealousy going on there as well as maybe a personality clash. And Tancred is quite a powerful, tragic opera. She plays a character called Clohinde, who is a Muslim woman who fights with a sword. So it's sort of playing into her

brand. And the tragedy culminates with her dying in a duel with her lover while she's in disguise, and her lover doesn't realise who she is and accidentally kills her. So it's heavy stuff. But she's playing up to Julie Dobinyi, the jeweler. It's kind of interesting to see that her fame offstage is also influencing the kind of role she gets onstage. But in more wholesome news, we know from letters from her friend Tevana, who got the audition for her,

we know that they get into the Academy together. They stay good friends. They have quite a heated friendship sometimes. We know at one point she bites his ear and draws blood. And they have quite a heated friendship sometimes. At one point, she bites his ear and draws blood. And they have quite a public falling out at one point. But every friendship has an up and down, doesn't it, Sarah? I don't know that I've ever bitten anyone's ear, but there is a series of letters that are supposed to have passed between her and Tavena during the feud. So we don't have the original letters, but then they got put into all of the the early accounts of her life in the 19th century so we we don't know quite how much of this survives but

there's an essence of of julie perhaps in these uh these letters yeah they might be fan fiction they might be written later on in her style but you know who knows they could be authentic letters i love that she's like, oh gee, like bisexual Tyson. If the minor feud they have is where she maybe draws blood from his ear, what's the public's spat they have? We can figure out what it's about because of the letters that go between them, we think. There's one letter Tevenard possibly writes after they've had a row in which he admits that she is the far better at dueling, but he's the better singer. That's what he's claiming. So you can see they've clearly had an argument in the pub, maybe. And he finishes the letter by saying, so let us make peace. I come to you bound hand and foot in writing. However,

for an interview with you might be too dangerous. Please forgive me for a jest for which I am unfeignedly contrite. Please be merciful. So he's like, it was a joke. It was a joke. I'm so sorry. Please don't hurt me. I'm sorry. Wow. And Catherine, you're a trained actor. So would you like to read her reply for us? Since Monsieur Thévenard admits with so good a grace his disinclination for a jewel, even with a woman, nothing remains for me but to compliment him on his prudence, a woman. Nothing remains for me but to compliment him on his prudence, and I agree to forgive him his offence. But I desire that since I have promised him my pardon, he should ask me for it in the presence of those who were witnesses to the insult to which he refers. I love this woman.

Let him assemble those witnesses together, and I will keep my word. Oh my God. So she's like, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. All right. I accept your apology, sort of. You know, what I will do though is forgive you only if you make the same apology in front of everyone who saw you insult me. What a woman. Say it in public or don't say it at all. She's so petty. It's a solid friendship with a little bit of ear biting and the occasional falling out. But, you know, she's had worse, hasn't she? Is friendship meant to be based on fear?

Maybe these are later stories. Okay. Even though they might feel in her voice. We're not sure. So we always have to be super careful with Julie Daubigny. She is a projection sometimes of what we want her to be super careful with Julie Daubigny. She is a projection sometimes of what we want her to be. But also presumably the men who came after her who need to rationalise her hold over men

need to make her a terrifying figure. Otherwise, she was just an equal. And that's maybe scarier. Yeah. We need to finish with the last relationship in her life, which arguably is the most beautiful and powerful. And again, it's with a woman and it's with arguably the most beautiful woman in France, Madame Lamarckise de Florensac, who is the great love of her life.

Yes. In 1703, Julie fell in love with Madame Lamarckise de Florensac. She was apparently so beautiful that she'd had to flee to Brussels to avoid the Dauphin's obsession with her. She was one of the most famous, wealthy and well-connected women in France. And they lived together in perfect bliss until 1705 when de Florensac died of a fever. And Julie was apparently so utterly distraught, it was reported that the pain of La Montpain was boundless. What a rollercoaster. So happy and then so devastatingly sad. So what do you think Julie d'Aubigny, the great opera singer, the great dueling fencing master, does when her lover dies young of a fever? How long do they have together? Not long, probably a few years.

Ah, okay. Well, Julie is nothing if not a drama queen. Does she go on a rampage or does she go Romeo and Juliet? We don't know for sure. One of the stories that we have in some ways brings it full circle is that she entered a convent there are some

biographers who maybe get a bit carried away with this and sort of this is all a kind of like pious reform moral redemption arc there are other reports that she brings back the boring first husband monsieur maupin we don't know which convent it was. She likely passed away in the convent around the age of 33 in 1707. The biographers who claim that she was reunited with her husband do not mention de Florent Lassac at all. There seems to be some sort of conscious covering up of the years that she spent at the happiest point of her life. In contrast, in 1904, the French writer Le Tantorieux Fradin wrote, the relationship lasted undoubtedly from 1703 to 1705, and for two years they dwelt in such affection they believed to be perfect, ethereal, and beyond the reach of

the contamination of men. the young women isolated themselves, enamoured, only appearing in public at occasions where their presence was essential. Indeed, there are, after 1702, no songs or satire against the two women, except for critiques of the performances of La Maupin, who continue to be employed by the opera. So what year does she die? How long is she in the convent after her?

1707 is when she dies. So a couple of years. And is there any proof of them being together? As ever, we are having to sort of trust some sources and be sceptical of some sources. And she tragically dies in her early 30s. And as far as we can tell, her last relationship was with a woman. The fact she doesn't die in a duel is astonishing to me. Like if there were records, I think they would say strangled by a fellow nun. I don't see how she gets out of this without dying in a fight. I don't buy the like, she restfully became pious in her like mid-thirties.

Nah, nah. She got killed by a nun she was having an affair with okay that's what happened maybe she faked her death maybe she got another nun to set fire to the body burn down the nunnery and she's still alive today on the run oh my god yes who knows she was real some of the stories probably not so real, but she definitely existed. So there we go, Internet. You win. Well done. The Nuance Window! It's a lovely segue now into The Nuance Window, which is where Catherine and I practice our sword fighting.

And we allow Dr. Sarah two uninterrupted minutes to tell us something we need to know. So, Dr. Sarah, without much further ado, the nuance window, please. Thank you, Greg. I really hope what's come across here is, as well as how exciting life could be in 17th century France, even if you are not Julie Dubigny, living it up all over the place, is the role that different forms of media played in early modern people's lives because by this point the printing press had been around for a few hundred years and initially there'd been lots of religious books printed and lots of scholarly tomes but by the 17th century people had worked out that printing would be a really useful way to share news and current information so it's in the early 17th century that we see the first newspapers emerging across Europe.

And late 17th century Paris was just a really exciting place to be. It's really emerging as a trendsetter in terms of style and fashion and culture. And all kinds of people were drawn there. So there was always lots to write about as well. Even if you yourself couldn't read, you could hear about these stories

being written about, being discussed in public places, or see images about current events or famous people. Cafes were a new chic place to go and talk about these things, or you could just pick up on what was being discussed in the street. But people didn't always trust what they read in the papers, and so news and rumour and gossip was still shared a lot by word of mouth or in songs or poems or letters between people. A lot of these items were never meant to be kept long term. So they often don't survive for us today, which is what makes looking at the life of somebody like Julie d'Aubigny super tricky, but really exciting when we're able to piece things together for a bit. super tricky, but really exciting when we're able to piece things together for a bit.

And even when we encounter people with these super unreliable biographies, with so much of the detail in inverted commas that we've been talking about, just rumour and gossip, that's actually still really useful for historians, because it tells us what people at the time were really interested in, what they feared and what they respected. Lovely. Thank you so much, Sarah. Thoughts, Catherine? I think that last point hadn't occurred to me, but it's so interesting, isn't it? Is that gossip is still a reflection of what intrigues and scares a collective, but it's also such a shame. And I think that written texts often, the lack thereof,

think that written texts often the lack thereof feels like it fails women and queer people doubly or the uneducated or the like lower classes as they were deemed in such an extra way because their narratives aren't aren't sufficiently exciting to persist or even be written down in the first place so it's a shame but it's also you're right there's still something to be learned there and it's a fantastic story and we've had a lot of fun talking about it the other learning that i feel like here is that like if your daughter teenage daughters are hoarding their magazines that's actually archiving so oh please please and if they could write in them yes as well that would be even more helpful okay yes and then tell us how they feel about them that'd be amazing that'd be so helpful for future me so what do you know now

it's time now for the so what do you know now this is our quickfire quiz for our comedian katherine to see what she remembers it's always so stressful producer emma has figured out your previous score so far is averaging at 9.33 recurring, which is very good. Wow. Can you go better? Can you get a 10? I don't think I can. And also I worry that I was so excited by this scenario

that I maybe didn't pay as much attention as I should have. But okay, let's try. Do you know what? Excitement's a compliment. Yes. If you are going to get a 4 out of 10 because you were having such a giddy time, then I'm okay with that as well. Okay, here we go. Question one. In what decade was Julie born?

1670s. Yes. That was a long pause there. Well done. That was me taking 33 away from 1707. That was what you were seeing there. Question two. Aged around nine, Julie probably moved with the rest of the French court to which famous French palace? Versailles. It was Versailles.

Question three. Julie's penchant for which illegal practice repeatedly got her into trouble with the law? She loved that Julian. She did. Question four. What did Julie do in Marseille when a male spectator refused to believe she was a woman? Whopped her baps out. She did. Question four. What did Julie do in Marseille when a male spectator refused to believe she was a woman?

Whopped her baps out. She did. Question five. By the age of 17, Julie successfully auditioned for which world famous music company? The Paris Opera. The Académie Royale de Musique. I'll accept Paris Opera. Question six. How did Julie and her young girlfriend escape from a convent? Oh my gosh, this is my favourite story. How could I possibly forget? She gets into the convent as a novice. What? An older nun dies. Amazing.

They put her in the girlfriend's bed. They unnecessarily set the body alight. Whilst everyone deals with the flaming nun, they, the flaming queers, run from the building. It's a story I will never forget. Yes. Question seven. What is the musical term for Julie's vocal register? Oh, gosh.

Okay. It's Bast-something. Yeah, Bast-a-sue. Yep. Question eight. Why did Julie supposedly end up killing three men in a duel in Paris? Okay, so she gets invited to a ball at, let's face it, a frankly famous bisexual. And then at the ball, she's like, cool, the bisexual lives here.

I guess I can rock up in some men's clothes. Then she does so. Then she hits on some girl. I presume it was effective because they end up kissing. And then three other dudes, I think out of pure jealousy and a sense of possession over women, are like, hey, that's our girl. You got to duel us now. And then she duels either all three at once or one at a time.

The queuing system has not been clarified for me. You're doing the whole podcast again. But yes, that's exactly the right answer. Question nine. How did Julie prank her employer, the Countess Marino in Madrid? Oh, she put, you made that dad joke, radishing. She put the radishes in her hand. Yay, dad joke for the win. And this for a perfect score, Catherine Bohart,

what was the name of Julie's final and favourite lover? Madame de Marquis Florsac. Florsac. Yay, 10 out of 10. Is that right? Perfect. That is right. Madame de Marquis Flors sack. Yay! 10 out of 10. Is that right? Perfect. That is right. Madame la marquise de Flourish sack, you are 10 out of 10. I didn't quite get it right.

I said Flourish sack, which is not the same as Flourish sack. You're fine. It's all good. That's a perfect score. There we go. Congratulations. You've absolutely nailed it. And all it took was eventually giving me a story about a real homo.

How exciting. Well, thanks so much, Catherine and listener. If after today's episode, you're craving more Catherine, then check out our episodes on Joan of Arc or Gráinne Amali or the general election special. And if you're curious for more LGBTQ history, well, we've got an episode on that too. And of course you'll find them all on BBC sounds. And remember, if you've enjoyed this show, please leave a review, share it with your friends, make sure to subscribe to BBC sounds. So you, if you've enjoyed this show, please leave a review, share it with your friends. Make sure to subscribe to BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. We've got more coming.

And I'd like to say a huge thank you, of course, to my guests today in History Corner. From Leeds University, we have the superb Dr Sarah Barker. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, we have the classy Catherine Bohart. Thank you, Catherine.

Always a joy. Thank you for having me. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we fight our way through another period of history with two new dueling partners. But for now, I'm off to go and practise my opera singing. Bye! Your Dead to Me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. The research was by Bethan Davis and Dr Kelly Gardner. The script was written by Emma Neguse, Bethan Davis and me.

This episode was produced by Emma Neguse and me, assisted by Emmy Rose Price-Goodfellow. The project manager was Isla Matthews and the audio producer was Abby Patterson. You've been listening to a Radio 4 podcast. It was probably in our time. But this is a trail for something. It could have been Gardner's Question Time or The Archers. This is a trail for something else. This is a trail for The Infinite Monkey Cage.

And we're back. Also, if you've been listening to any questions or any answers as well, you're also allowed in The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're back with a new series. We've got Eric Idle, Tim Minch and Alan Davis. We've got Brendan Hunt. We've got Sarah Pascoe, Katie Brown, Dave Gorman, Chris Hadfield, Nick Holstott, Carolyn Porco, Diva Amman, Hannah Fry, David Spiegelhalter, Uta Frith, Suzanne Simard, Jan Eleven, Netta Engelhardt.

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In the infinite monkey cage. Turned out nice again. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca.