D'Aubigny is your new favorite 17th-century, cross-dressing, duelling, bisexual opera singer.
IT’S NOT EVERY day you discover a 17th-century, cross-dressing, duelling, bisexual opera singer. But it happens every few weeks on social media. Someone will post, “Wow! Has anybody heard of Julie d’Aubigny? She’s amazing!” And the cult surrounding this fascinating historical figure grows a little bit bigger.
Around age 14, Julie, now considered a beauty, became the Count’s mistress. One of the first biographical accounts of her life, by the Parfaict brothers in their 1756 Dictionnaire des Théâtres de Paris, describes her this way: “Mlle Maupin was not very tall, but she was very pretty: she had chestnut hair, almost fair and beautiful, and big blue eyes, an aquiline nose, a lovely mouth, very white skin, and a perfect throat.
They were on the run across Provence for three months, during which time Julie was tried in absentia on charges of kidnapping, body snatching, and arson. The authorities couldn’t quite bring themselves to admit that a woman might commit such crimes, so the edict sentencing her to death at the stake was proclaimed using the title “Monsieur” d’Aubigny. The runaways were hunted across the south of France, but their luck eventually ran out.
But this outrageously queer, cross-dressing woman was never one to settle down. One night she attended a court ball in men’s clothes and kissed a young woman on the dance floor. Three noblemen challenged her to a duel for insulting the woman, who, for all we know, might not have minded a bit. But a challenge is a challenge, so Julie told each of the men she would meet him later that evening.
She waited one night, dressed as a cavalier, in the Place des Victoires, and wanted him to take his sword in hand. On his refusal, she gave him a caning, and took his watch and snuffbox. Duménil ventured the next day to tell his story to the opera, but he dissembled entirely. He said that three robbers had fallen upon him, he had defended himself against them for some time but, despite his resistance, they had taken his watch and his snuffbox.
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