Vulgar History Podcast
Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du Barry aka Madame du Barry, Part One (with Amanda Matta)
September 24, 2024
Ann: Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. This is Season Seven, Part Two: Meanwhile, Back in France. Part One was mostly focused on America and, kind of, what was going on there. Oh, I should also say, my name is Ann Foster and this season is How Do You Solve A Problem Like Marie Antoinette? And we’re getting closer to Marie Antoinette, which is what I want to say. This is a long journée to get towards her, but there’s so much going on in the world where she was that affected her, even though she wasn’t directly involved in it. I just really want to set the scene.
In this part of the series, we’re going to be looking at France and what was going on in France, and that’s not something I know a lot about, let alone how to pronounce the words, which is why I brought on a guest expert! It’s Amanda Matta. Welcome, Amanda.
Amanda: Hello! Thank you for having me.
Ann: So, listeners, you may know Amanda Matta. She is a content creator. She is a royal commentator. She also hosts The Art of History podcast. And I think we will clarify, you’re not a historian. What your background is in is French and art history?
Amanda: No. Well, yes. Yes, I have a French language background, I studied abroad there. But yeah, art history is my professional wheelhouse. I’ve kind of catapulted myself from my art history background into royal commentary. So, that’s just because I got a lot of books on the royals, essentially. I love reading about the royals and it’s been an interest of mine since teenagehood. So, I’m very flattered you say expert, but I do take a special interest in the French monarchy, for sure.
Ann: And in French mistresses. Do you want to tell everybody what you just told me before we record it? Like, you have a long, long interest in this.
Amanda: Yeah, I do. When I was in high school, I took a French art and history course, which is kind of where it all began. And one of our papers, we could write about anything French history related, it had to be in French. And for some reason, 16, 17-year-old me chose to write about French royal mistresses and this is because I had a fabulous teacher, Madame Crawford, who encouraged even these interests in, like, very licentious topics for teenagers. But I remember, I wrote it, and I printed it on teal paper because it was leftover from my sweet 16 party, which had, like, a turquoise and teal theme. [laughs] So, I still remember what that paper looked like. I wrote about pretty much everything we’re about to talk about today. So, I’ve built on that knowledge, obviously, over the years, but this has always been, like, one of my favourite royal history stories to get into.
Ann: And when we were talking about having you on the podcast, I knew that this is… French history and, like, the Marie Antoinette era, I feel like, correct me if I’m wrong, is like for you, what Mary, Queen of Scots and the Tudor era is for me. Like, I feel like this is just your comfort history era.
Amanda: Yes, absolutely. It’s the first, I think, royal story that I really delved into and just was, like you said, I was just instantly comfortable there. Like, the Marie Antoinette: The Journey book by Antonia Fraser, I stole it off of my mom’s bookshelf when I was like 16, 17, and watched the Sofia Coppola, Marie Antoinette movie. And, like, when I got to the point where I could look back at that movie and be like, “Oh, this is actually, like, pretty, pretty accurate.” You know, you get a good sense of life at Versailles. Like, that was just… I knew this was going to be my wheelhouse forever. So, yeah! Very happy to be in this area again today.
Ann: And so, I am a newcomer to this area. But that’s part of what this whole series, this whole season, is about. Marie Antoinette is, sort of like, the patron saint of the season, but it’s just, like, everything is swirling around. I think of it like the layers of like an onion, like, just getting closer and closer to Marie Antoinette herself, because I think it would be doing a disservice to her to just be like, “Oh, here’s her life story,” where it’s like, well, what was happening in the world? Like, that gets so involved.
Amanda: No, I agree with you. Yeah, she’ll be in this story today. I agree that it’s useful to have that, like, background, like, the world-building that helps you approach Marie Antoinette because to a lot of people, she is just, like, the bitch who said, “Let them eat cake,” and that’s not true at all and it takes a little bit more nuance to kind of acknowledge that. So, building up to her, I think, is the way to go.
Ann: Good, because that’s what we’re going to be doing for a very long time in this podcast. [Amanda laughs] I’m not going to tell anybody I have I have long-term plans for this podcast, and we’re not going to get to a Marie Antoinette episode for quite a while, but she’s in today’s story.
Amanda: Yeah, she is.
Ann: And what we’re establishing here is really just, kind of like, what the French royal court was like because that is where Marie Antoinette was placed when she was a young teenager marrying into this family. And again, this is why I’m so grateful to have you here, because you can explain that whole thing. This is a big question, but like, can you explain Versailles? [chuckles]
Amanda: What was Versailles? Yeah, so Versailles, it’s so much more, honestly, than just a palace in France. It started out as this hunting lodge, it was not to palace standards; it was not glitzy and glamorous as we know it today. It was built, I think, originally under Louis XIII in the 1600s and it got expanded over the years. It had a good location outside of the city of Paris proper and it was Louis XIV, the Sun King, who kind of decided to elevate Versailles to be… It really became the nucleus of absolute monarchy in France.
And this is obviously, it’s not a Louis XIV podcast, but his childhood, you learn so much about, like, his motivations when you kind of get into the things that happened to him as a kid. There were all these civil wars going on in France. I think he was kidnapped as a very young child, became king at a very young age, and he kind of held a grudge against the monarchy and his ministers and the courtiers for his whole life.
So, as he becomes king, he’s coming into his power, he wants a way to centralize them and to keep his eye on them. So, what he does is he takes Versailles, he builds it up into this huge, huge palace, which becomes not just the seat of his royal power and authority, but also, he forces, basically, the royal court to move to Versailles. And that’s basically so he can keep an eye on everybody. So, to do that, he has to make it bigger, better than it ever has been; he hires prominent architects of the age to kind of beef it up, expand the hunting lodge into, yeah, the palace we know today. He adds these wings on either side, he adds the gardens. Over time, you know, you get things like the Hall of Mirrors. If you’ve ever been to Versailles, like, that is one of the most breathtaking places to stand, I think, in the entire world.
Ann: That’s one of, I think, this is my fun fact, there’s so many movies that ask to film in Versailles and that’s, like, one of two rooms that anyone’s ever allowed to film. It’s like, the Hall of Mirrors is like, that’s the room they let you in.
Amanda: Because it’s huge, first of all, there’s a lot of room to get cameras in there. A lot of Versailles is actually kind of cramped and small. There aren’t a lot of hallways, and this had to do with, like, the way that the court life at Versailles was structured. The whole point of Versailles was to showcase the power of the king, the monarch. And the way that the palace is actually physically built and physically laid out just reinforces that.
Basically, it’s designed around the king’s bedchamber, which is, like, the most powerful place in the palace because that’s obviously where the king spends his time; he is waking up and going to bed there. And around that room, you have the king’s apartment, which is just this series of rooms that get smaller and smaller and more intimate the farther you go. And ultimately, you reach the king’s bedchamber. This sounds like it wouldn’t be important, but it is. So much thought was put into this. Because Louis XIV, you know, he’s supposed to be the Sun King, he’s the person that everybody gets authority from, he’s the source of all light in the French monarchy; that’s how he built himself up. His rooms are laid out from east to west, like, on that axis of the rising and setting sun, very, very purposefully. So, as you go deeper into these rooms, access would be restricted, you had to be in the king’s inner circle the farther you got into the Palace of Versailles. So, it’s physically laid out to reinforce the king’s authority.
Ann: And isn’t there something about… Like, you mentioned that he wanted to have everybody at Versailles so he could keep an eye on them. And isn’t there something like he wanted to keep them too busy to scheme against him so he made them all… There’s something about fashion or, like, the things that he made them do, he just kept them busy with busy work, right?
Amanda: Yes, absolutely. It’s kind of like how cults today operate; they keep you too busy and tired with manual labour or weird rituals so that you can’t think about what’s going on and potentially escape. That’s what Louis XIV did at Versailles. He developed this code of etiquette, which, again, I’m going to reference the Sofia Coppola Marie Antoinette movie probably too much during this episode, but if you remember…
Ann: Totally fine, that’s most of what I know.
Amanda: [laughs] Yeah. Well, if you remember in that movie, there’s the Comtesse de Noailles, who is like her lady-in-waiting type person, and she looks at Marie Antoinette at some point and she goes, “This, Madame, is Versailles.” And that’s because Versailles had its own code of etiquette that everyone had to follow, you’re exactly right. It was everything from how you dressed, to how you bowed and curtsied, to how you addressed people, to how you walked. There was a specific walk that women did at Versailles. And so, yeah, it was to keep people constantly thinking about, yeah, not just how to operate, but status and rank dictated everything. It dictated, like I said, how far you could get into the palace, dictated who you would speak to, who would be introduced first, just to keep people busy and to keep all the attention focused on the king. He was the source of all goodness in this life; all favour came from the king. Obviously, there was some political scheming that still happened, but it was all basically centred around how to get access to the king and how to get in the king’s good graces.
So, that was the system Louis XIV set up and really, it lasted until the French Revolution, but it also hastened the French Revolution because, from the outside, this system is completely bonkers. The public was allowed at Versailles; you had to be dressed a certain way to get in, but it was, to the outside world, kind of an amusement park. You could go and watch the king eat dinner. You could just stand there and stare at him. Courtiers who were in Versailles could be there when he woke up, that was a ceremony, his levée; they could be there when he went to sleep; they could be there for his toilette when he was getting powdered and wigs were getting put on. Everything was ritualized at Versailles, and it was to reinforce that hierarchy structure.
Ann: And I think this is a great… Well, it leads me to this question. So, if you’re saying only the most elite can get close to the king. It’s like, at this room, these people drop off, and at this room, these people drop off until eventually, there’s just a few people. Which leads me to the position of the royal mistress, who is a person who is with him all the time. So, can you explain that situation?
Amanda: Yeah. So, the court structure, it is based around getting access to the king. Courtiers are required to be present but, like you said, the access gets restricted the closer to him you get. But the mistress, in France especially, it’s quasi-official of a position at court. It’s not written in the books, but everyone knows that this is almost like a job that is open. It’s a court position that, again, is centred around influencing the king. But the king himself could pick these mistresses, obviously, it wasn’t a job you applied for. You know, the king had to take an interest in you and I think that’s… I always find it interesting talking about royal mistresses just from a human perspective, because royal marriages, you know, were often political, they were for alliances, or money, or all these reasons aside from love. And kings are still people too, you know? They still want affection. So, they’re looking for a person, if it’s not their wife, they’re looking for a person who can give them that affection, who can flatter them, they can have a close relationship with. So, that’s kind of where the role of royal mistress starts.
But in the Middle Ages, it does sort of get elevated to this political position and this court position, like an official job. In France, it’s called the maîtresse en titre, the official mistress or the title mistress. It kind of emerges with Agnès Sorel in the Middle Ages and then under, I think it’s Henri II with Diane de Poitiers, they’re some of the first official mistresses. But under Louis XIV at Versailles, it becomes this, like, regimented role where there are certain expectations. You do get specific apartments at the palace, you know, right above the king’s with a staircase leading into his bedchamber. And people knew that they could go to you to petition the king; they knew that you had an ear of the king and he would listen to you, and ostensibly, the mistress had the king’s best interests at heart. So, you know, there is all this maneuvering around her to get on her good side. So, yeah, it’s a position that everyone knows that you’re sleeping with the king, but they have to respect you anyway, [chuckles] which is just… It’s fabulous to be the power behind the throne in that way.
Ann: Well, I feel like at Versailles, a lot of people were sleeping with a lot of people, like, just in terms of the culture. What I have ascertained, like, I read a biography of the person we’re going to talk about today, Madame du Barry by Joan Haslip and it just seems like the casualness of sex in French aristocratic, noble… That’s just, kind of like, everyone… You have your spouse, like, you’re married, you have a husband or wife, but then also you’re the mistress of whoever. Sex was treated differently in this court than in other royal courts, it seems like.
Amanda: Yeah, it was, I think. Like, in England, you had official mistresses, you had an Anne Boleyn from time to time who, essentially, everyone knows, but there is still, like, this stigma associated with being a mistress in that context, especially if the woman is not married. But yeah, in France, kind of everybody has their lover and it’s well-documented who was sleeping with who. Women in France, especially royal women, could also take lovers but it was never as ritualized as the king taking a mistress, right? And if things went south, there was a higher price to be paid if you were a woman who had looked elsewhere for companionship.
But yeah, the position of mistress, there’s, like, a Wikipedia page for French royal mistresses and you can scroll through and they have them divided by reign because kings would take multiple mistresses throughout their lives. Louis XIV and Louis XV each had, I think, at least five or six. And Louis XV, who is the guy we’re going to be talking about most today, he had two very famous mistresses, the first being Madame de Pompadour. She was unique because at a certain point, she and the king, like, stopped sleeping together, but she remained his favourite person, she still controlled a lot of access to him. So, as much as these relationships usually were sexual in nature, there is still room for a lot of mutual respect between an official mistress and the king. There’s still… I mean, Madame de Pompadour was a major patron of, like, the Enlightenment philosophers; she flattered the king, she made him comfortable, but she also, you know… Yeah, she dictated a lot of court etiquette, a lot of fashions, a lot of art. It’s a job where, I don’t know, there’s just a lot of moving pieces with it. There’s a lot of stuff just, like, piled onto a royal mistress.
Ann: In addition to the royal mistress, though… And so, one of the reasons why I’ve avoided learning about French history until now is because the Louises of it all, I find it confusing that they’re all called Louis. But there was the Sun King, he was number XIV, then his heir is number XV, who we’re talking about this time, and then number XVI is Marie Antoinette’s husband. So, there are really just three Louises to think about today. But so, number XV, don’t people call him like Louis Quinze? I don’t know. People, is that 15 in French?
Amanda: Yes, it is. Quinze is 15, quatorze is 14. XV is interesting because he kind of inherits this court from his… I’m pretty sure it’s his father, Louis XIV. XVI and XV were grandson and grandfather, they weren’t father and son. But yeah, XV inherits the Court of Versailles, the system of Versailles, but I think he feels very stifled by it. It’s not a system he’s set up. But this is what France is doing now, the absolute monarchy thing, the etiquette thing. So, when he takes royal mistresses, I think it’s to escape from court life. It’s a way of living his authentic self, you know, of actually finding joy in being the king. And with Madame de Pompadour, especially, she was somebody who was, like I said, his close companion. They stopped sleeping together a couple of years before her death but she was his mistress for close to 20 years. So, that was a position that, like, it’s very hard to follow up on after somebody’s been the king’s companion for that long.
Yeah, I don’t know. XIV and XV I think have an interesting… There’s an interesting contrast there, which we’ll get to, I’m sure. But XV especially, I think he’s poised to resent the courtly etiquette system in a way that XIV, who set it all up, just kind of thrived in it.
Ann: Can you talk about the “Deer Park,,” which was, like, 15’s XV’s little brothel house he had? Do you know about that?
Amanda: Yeah, I don’t know a ton about it.
Ann: It’s something, here’s… Here’s what I recall reading when I was reading this biography,. It was it was, sort of like, it was a house where if he, it … It wasn’t someone who’swho was going to be the official mistress, but it’s just someone he wants to sleep with. And she would just kind of, like, live in that house until he got tired of her, and then she would leave, but he would give her, like, a pension for life, and she was fine. So, there was, sort of like, not like the mistress, but just kind of like other women that he liked to see.
Amanda: Yeah, there is this, this other, it’s … It’s like a roster of women. They weren’t the maitressantitlemaîtresse en titre, they were called the petite mistress, like, the little mistress, the minornessminor mistress. They weren’t going to wield any political influence. They, they were purely there for the king to get away and to have some companionship to, well, especially in Louis XV’s case, to kind of feel alive. As he gets older, he talks about, to his advisors, very openly, he talks about needing sexual stimulation to, like, feel alive. He was very hot-blooded and this seems to be a dynastic thing with the Bourbons; all the men are just, kind of, rakish and licentious and they love having sex. Louis XV, it’s documented, several times a day he’s looking for a way to, you know, slip away, whether it’s with his official mistress or to the Deer Park.
Madame de Pompadour is by his side for 20 years, eventually she… They call her “frigid” in the historical record. Most scholars agree today that she kind of had some health issues, maybe including vaginal infections so that’s why they stopped sleeping together. But even after that point, she is helping oversee the Deer Park and she is kind of supervising what goes on there, who is in the roster, who’s sitting on the bench for the king to choose from. So, she wields influence, not just politically over the court life, but also like, again, who can get access to the king? Who is he spending his time with? Who is getting to whisper into his ear?
Ann: And so, you’ve beautifully set everything up to understand the Versailles deal, what’s up with the mistresses, and now we’re going to backtrack because we’re talking about who the next mistress is going to be after Madame de Pompadour but her beginnings might surprise you.
And actually, first, I want to see who, if we can agree on who we’re going to imagine. So, the woman who becomes Madame du Barry. So, her name is Jean [phonetic] Bay-soo. Is that how you would say that?
Amanda: I’ve heard both. I’ve heard [ph] Bay-soo and [ph] Bay-coo. I like [ph] Bay-soo, I think that’s the more accurate pronunciation.
Ann: We’ll go with [ph] Bay-soo. And so, the thing about her is she is the most hot person anyone has ever seen.
Amanda: She’s dazzling.
Ann: She’s… Like, when you read about just from childhood through, like, there’s moments in this where she’s just a person standing in a crowd of hundreds and someone is like, “Who’s that hot person?” And in Versailles, a place where everybody’s, like, styled and the dresses are amazing, and the makeup, and the hair. I’m thinking, if you think about a Hollywood red carpet situation, it’s like everyone looks the best they could possibly look. Hair, makeup, dresses. But who’s the one person where everyone’s like, “Oh my god!” So, I’m picturing Angelina Jolie, personally, just because she’s got such a startling, surreal level of beauty. But who do you imagine when you think of her?
Amanda: I have been thinking, honestly, of Blake Lively and I think that’s just because of where we are in the Hollywood news cycle. But because Madame du Barry, as she will come to be known, is always described as “golden-haired,,” as “fair-skinned,,” as “dazzling. That’s ,” that’s where I go because the Sofia Coppola movie characterizes Madame Dubérydu Barry very well with their casting with Asia Argento, who is stunning. But she’s very, like, Angelina Jolie, usually has dark hair. But but she’s got this black hair in the movie. She’s , she’s very like mysterious and swarthy. In reality, Jean-Beku or BessouJeanne Bécu is always described as, you know, golden-haired, just the prettiest smile you’ve ever seen in your life. She’s , she’s very fair. She’s , she’s got these bright eyes. So, like, appearance-wise, I usually go for, like, a Blake Lively or… I don’t know who else is in that. Like… Like, the blonde bombshell.
Ann: Okay, I’m going to suggest Sydney Sweeney.
Amanda: Hmm! Yeah, maybe.
Ann: Because the more… So, Madame Tussaud, who I’m going to do an episode about later. I think the person who taught her how to do waxworks did a waxwork of Madame du Barry and then there’s a recreation of it that you can see and it kind of looks like Sydney Sweeney. But also, when they describe her eyes, there’s something about her, like, eyelids. Her eyes are always kind of like in a Marilyn Monroe-esque way, sort of half-closed all the time…
Amanda: Bedroom eyes, yeah. [chuckles]
Ann: … in a way that people, yeah. And Sydney Sweeney kind of has that as well. Also, she apparently has amazing breasts, which Sydney Sweeney is famous for too. So, she’s got this, sort of like, astonishing beauty like a superpower. Like, it’s really interesting, when I was reading through this book, the way that people just see her and they’re just, like, “What?!” Like, I don’t know if I’ve ever read about someone in history who’s this gorgeous.
Amanda: Yeah, whatever it is, she’s got it. You know, she has this magnetism about her from a young age, even before she has any wealth and status because, spoiler alert, she grows up very poor. People are just, yeah, gravitating towards her and she seems to be able to embrace her “natural charms” is what everybody refers to it as, her natural charms, her natural beauty, her charisma to get what she wants and to elevate herself in the world. So yeah, she just has this quality, this is je ne sais quoi since we’re talking about the French, that is with her for her entire life.
Ann: And then also, when she gets to her Versailles era, like, the talk about everyone there is wearing so much makeup and wigs and stuff, but she comes out with, like, natural hair, very clean face. Like, it’s this real girl-next-door type vibe is what she’s bringing.
Amanda: And she also, you wouldn’t think this would necessarily put someone ahead of the pack, but she bathed several times a week whereas most courtiers at Versailles… This is a place, I didn’t mention this, thousands of people are living at Versailles; it is cramped, it is stinky, they’re using chamber pots. Some people will tell you in a very sensational sort of way, that people were, like, pissing on the floor of Versailles, like, just openly. It wasn’t to that level, but it was gross, and it did smell bad. People were carrying around little scented sachets with them or little bouquets. There was special perfume used to scent Versailles to cover the stink of thousands of people living in close quarters. Jeanne Bécu develops this habit of bathing at least three or four times a week in rose-scented water so her self-care routine, I would love to get a rundown of that. She’s taking care of herself, she’s making sure she always, not just smells good, but is actually clean, which is an advantage in the Court of Versailles, for sure.
Ann: Mm-hm. So, she comes by her hotness through several generations of hot people who elevated themselves through hotness. So, her grandfather was named Fabien Bécu, he was a cook in Paris and this, for reference, I’m looking at, it’s this essay from Women in World History by David S. Newhall, and he says, “He was a handsome cook in Paris who somehow persuaded a noblewoman to marry him.” Through his hotness is how he did that, through his man version of having je ne sais quoi. [Amanda chuckles] She soon ran out of money and died and then he had a second marriage to a chambermaid and the chambermaid was working nearby for an exiled mistress of Louis XIV. Anyway, so hot grandfather has children with his presumably hot chambermaid second wife. One of those children is Anne Bécu, who is Jeanne’s mother, and they were all hot, they were all gorgeous, including Anne. She became a seamstress.
Amanda: She’s so hot, she allegedly seduces a monk. Like, that’s next-level hotness. Even in France, you know, even in France. [laughs]
Ann: Yeah, but I want to say the monk was also hot. [both laugh] I’m picturing Glen Powell as a monk. So, the monk is called Brother Angel.
Amanda: Yeah, frère Ange, yeah. [chuckles]
Ann: Frère Ange. Anyway, he was later dismissed from his order…
Amanda: Because he was too hot.
Ann: Perhaps for… hotness. Anyway, he became a popular preacher due to his hotness. Anyway, so she seduced him. It’s pretty much understood that this is the father of Jeanne. He appeared in several father-like roles, like, at her wedding and things like that.
Amanda: I wanted to say that when Jeanne is born, wasn’t she born in the same village as Joan of Arc? Which I just find so fascinating, in Vancouleurs?
Ann: Yes.
Amanda: What is in the water in this village producing these magnetic people?
Ann: Oh, absolutely. Like, that’s what you want to bottle and sell, frankly. So, Anne was unmarried, 30 years old, she has a daughter who is called Jeanne. I assume the baby was born and everyone’s like, “[gasps] Mon dieu!” because it’s, like, the most gorgeous baby anyone’s ever seen, presumably. Then she moves to Paris. You know, she doesn’t marry the hot monk because he is still a monk at this point. But she’s just, like, this beautiful woman. She has this gorgeous child. There’s just a lot of gorgeous blondness happening. Eventually, Anne marries a servant, we assume he’s hot. Actually, at this point, maybe not, I don’t know. He was set up as a munitions storekeeper for Corsica. So, this story isn’t going to have a lot of war stuff going on, but just bear in mind, there’s constantly war going on.
Amanda: And machinations to elevate people through war and depending on which side you take, you can kind of get ahead because of that.
Ann: Okay. So, let me see. So, Anne marries this guy, this munitions storekeeper. But his boss is named Billard de Monceau, and he took an interest in young Jeanne. Not a gross interest.
Amanda: Yeah, I think it’s just because, again, that magnetism in France at this time, there’s this recognition that if you have charms, you can elevate yourself. The French aristocracy, I don’t think it’s as closeclosed to outsiders as it is in, say, England, where everybody knows their role. Everybody, everybody knows their place. And and titles are this very definitive thing. The French nobility is a lot more nebulous, people are changing their names to suit themselves. I think there was even mention in Jeanne’s biography that her grandfather took the name of his noblewoman wife, which normally you can’t do, men cannot take their wives’ titles for themselves, but Jeanne’s grandfather did because it would work for him. So, there’s a lot of fluidity. So, I think there is this understanding that if you are beautiful and charming, with the right luck and the right placement, you can go far in the world.
Ann: Yeah, so he’s one of the first people to maybe see… And so, the reason why he’s seeing her is because her mom, like, they’re living in this household as servants, basically. Her mom is a seamstress, and then her stepfather is this munitions guy. Anyway, so Billard de Monceau had a mistress named Francesca, who was a courtesan and actress, who is AKA Madame Frédérique. This is crucial because this imprints on young Jeanne. She’s a young girl, and she’s living in this house and through Francesca, she sees just the glamour that a gorgeous woman could potentially have, like, seeing what it’s like to live as the mistress of a really rich person. So, this imprints on her.
And then she’s sent off to convent school, where she lived for eight or nine years. But this is where she develops a love of reading. She has a really exquisite taste, like, her art taste is really, really good. She’s got great taste, and this might be where she starts learning about that stuff. But basically, she goes off to convent school, she learns some stuff, and she graduates or whatever, she leaves when she’s 15 years old. But what she remembers is Francesca’s life and, like, that’s what she wants. She wants nice things. Would you agree? This is one of her driving forces.
Amanda: Oh, for sure.
Ann: She wants nice things; she wants the gowns, she wants the perfumes.
Amanda: Yeah. She just wants life to be beautiful. Yeah, I think when she’s in the convent school, it’s this interesting dichotomy where she is, I think, genuinely religious, because a lot of people were at that time, and they believe in God and a higher power. But she also recognizes the earthly virtues that you can attain if you play your cards right. So yeah, I think she does want this comfortable life. I mean, also, there aren’t a lot of options for young, poor women at this time if you wanted to have a comfortable life. You could either go into service, you could be a shop girl, you could be a domestic servant, or you could be a courtesan. A lot of people will throw around the term ‘prostitute’ with du Barry, as she is later known, but I don’t think that’s ever the route she’s planning on taking. It is this world where if sex is your currency, if your physical attributes are what you have to offer, what you’re getting in reward is not financial money. It sometimes is gifts, but the status and the comfort are the main goals, it seems like.
Ann: Yeah. Oldey-timey courtesan relationships are most similar today to what? Maybe, like, a sugar daddy relationship. It’s, like, someone is bankrolling your glamourous life; someone is paying for you to have a place to live, they’re paying for you to go on a private jet, they’re paying for your clothes. You’re not a streetwalker.
Amanda: You have a patron, you have a protector.
Ann: Yeah, exactly. So, then she got apprenticed, Jeanne, to a hairdresser. I like this note, in the essay, it says, “The incredibly elaborate coiffeurs of that time made hairdressing a well-paying art.” If you think about, like, when you picture, she’s not in the story yet, but the Marie Antoinette thing, it’s like, “Oh, you have this giant wig and it’s shaped like a ship.” Or think about, like, Bridgerton.
Amanda: Oh, yeah, where there’s, like, a music box for some reason in Queen Charlotte’s hair, even though the mechanics of that weren’t quite invented yet. [laughs]
Ann: Yeah, exactly. But think about Queen Charlotte in Bridgerton. Yeah, of course, hairdressers are going to be getting paid a lot of money. She’s also artistic, she’s skilled, so she does this. Anyway, she is 15 years old and began an affair with the hairdresser. His mother, alarmed at his spending on her… [laughs]
Amanda: Which I love, I love.
Ann: Yeah, no, like she… I don’t know, like her vibe is just, what’s the Ariana Grande song? Like, “I see it, I like it, I want it,” like, that’s Madame du Barry.
Anyway, so then there’s a whole thing. They go to court, the hairdresser leaves, but it seems like, perhaps, one of the reasons why this got to a court level is perhaps the 15-year-old Jeanne had a child by him. Because at the same time, a girl is born whose name is Marie-Josephine, but she’s called Betsy and they were like, “Her father is actually Jeanne’s uncle, don’t worry about it. Totally not a teenage person’s child.” And apparently, Betsy looked a lot like Jeanne, and they were very close.
Amanda: Yeah, and Jeanne would eventually, I mean, she would keep in touch with this girl, she would pay for her dowry when Betsy gets married. So, it’s a very close family relationship. Although, it is worth noting that Jeanne’s mother sues the hairdresser’s family for defamation, and that’s the court case. So, they obviously don’t want the story to get out there that Jeanne has borne this child at age 15 or 16. But that is a historical rumour about her, shall we say.
Ann: Yeah, it seems like a lot of people just kind of accept that’s probably true.
So, then she takes a position as a maid and then companion to the widow of a wealthy man. The widow had two middle-aged sons who were attracted to her because she is this, like, super-powered, gorgeous person. Tensions mounted [laughs] and then she was fired. So, you know, it’s the double-edged sword of being incredibly hot, is that people are attracted to you, but then sometimes that is a bad thing.
Amanda: Yeah, sometimes it attracts the attention of the wrong people, including apparently the wife of one of the middle-aged sons of this widow. So, I can’t imagine the dynamics in that household.
Ann: Everybody, everybody. Have you ever seen Showgirls?
Amanda: No, I haven’t.
Ann: Okay, so I only recently watched it for the first time a couple months ago and it’s a bananas movie, obviously. So, the main character, Nomi Malone, everyone who meets her wants to fuck her; men, women, like, every single person. The dynamic of the movie is she’s just so— I was like, “Oh, Madame du Barry, this is kind of like Showgirls. Just, like, it’s almost dangerous how hot she is that everyone is so sexually attracted to her.” And she’s 15! Which is dangerous in a different way.
Anyway, so then she emerges the next year, calling herself Mademoiselle Lange, and she becomes a salesgirl/model at the Maison Labille, a millinery shop patronized by the aristocracy. Now, this was kind of like oldey-times Hooters, is how I describe it [Amanda laughs] because this millinery shop only hired the most gorgeous young women. That’s what it was known for, that’s why people shop there.
Amanda: Again, this, like, roster of cute, hot girls. Apparently, they were sequestered by the shopkeeper, am I right?
Ann: Yeah, they slept there to try and protect them.
Amanda: Right. But they were allowed to circulate on weekends and walk around Paris, which is where, again, there’s this misconception, this rumour that gets spread about Jeanne because of this position in this millinery, which is a hat shop, very fancy hats, but this hat shop that only employs beautiful, sexy women, there’s this misconception about her that that means she was a prostitute and that she was courting the customers in a different way and accepting, you know, a few coins at a time for a couple minutes alone with her. And again, there’s no real evidence of that. Yes, these women were using their charms to market themselves and draw people into this shop and keep customers happy, but I don’t think it was to the level of “This is a brothel.”
Ann: I do want to mention, in other instances, there is a connection between hat shops and sex work in this era. So, even if it was just a hat shop, people are like, “Oh, a hat shop!” It’s like, no, it’s literally a hat shop. But there was this kind of…
Amanda: Connotation, yeah.
Ann: Yeah. So, she’s just working the hat shop, she’s obviously the hottest person there. And then she meets Jean-Baptiste, the Comte du Barry.
Amanda: Yeah, this guy.
Ann: So, he was known as “Le Roué”. Can you explain what a “Roué” is?
Amanda: Yeah, it’s kind of think of, like, a regency rake; it’s a rakish man, it’s a libertine. He is schmoozing, he’s whining and dining. This guy, du Barry, owns a casino, I think he’s a gambler. He’s just no good. He’s also kind of a pimp. He has, again, this roster of women that he will pimp out in a high-class sort of way, send them around Paris to be courtesans and to bring in wealthy men who, in turn, will come into his circle and spend money on his casino. So, it’s just kind of this… He’s called, “Utterly imprincipled, a witty talker, and expert at duping others, and a champion libertine in a society boasting regiments of that ilk.” So, he’s courting people without morals who want to live this very ritzy, opulent, hedonistic lifestyle is, kind of, how he gets characterized.
Ann: And he’s not a wealthy person, although he’s from an ancient family.
Amanda: No. It’s, like, an impoverished noble family.
Ann: Exactly, exactly. And so, at one point, a few years earlier, he had tried to pimp out a woman to the king to become the new mistress but then, which is this? Number XV. But then he found out that this woman was connected to this guy and was like, “Oh my god, that means she might have venereal disease,” and so then he said no.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah. At this time, there is an understanding that women can be elevated to the role of royal mistress with the right maneuvering. Normally though, they come from a noble background, or they themselves come from a wealthy family. So, this guy, du Barry, trying to pimp out women in his social circle to the king, it’s really bold. It’s a bold plan, I will give him that. But he knows the rewards will be good if he can get a woman into the king’s bedchamber. That’s a great connection to have because it is an official position at court.
Ann: And then he goes into the hat shop and he sees Jeanne and he’s just like…
Amanda: “That’s the one.”
Ann: “Here we go!” Oh my gosh.
I wanted to tell you two stories. First, is that when I was a child going to elementary school… And I didn’t really have, I don’t know, you’re just kind of like, “These are the people who are in my school.” And there was a girl one grade ahead of me, and I was just like, “That’s her…” Her name was Tanya, and I was just like, “There’s something weird about her. She looks weird.” And it’s just like, “Okay, that’s just weird-looking Tanya.” And then in high school, she became a model.
Amanda: Ahhh!
Ann: And I realized, “Oh, she’s beautiful!”
Amanda: That’s what it was. [chuckles]
Ann: That’s what was weird. Like, she looked different from everybody else. And I was like, “Tanya just looks weird. I guess that’s just what she looks like.” And then like, “Oh no, that’s beauty.”
Amanda: Oh no, she’s hot!
Ann: She’s actually incredibly attractive. But it’s like, when someone is so beautiful, it can be as, this is like in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Lena’s character says this, but it’s like, people stare at you like you’re a freak of nature when you’re so beautiful.
Amanda: Yeah. People can resent you for that too.
Ann: Yeah. I just truly, like as a child, I didn’t understand she was beautiful. I was just like, “There’s something different about her. She looks weird.” Like, not negative, but just, like, she looks weird.
My second story is I was once in an elevator with Annie Murphy from Schitt’s Creek, who, in person, is so startling looking. Like, on Schitt’s Creek, she’s obviously a beautiful person. But when I saw her in the elevator, I was just like, “Oh! This is what you look like in real life.” And it’s, like, her eyes were so big and so far apart from each other. So, it’s like, those are my two examples of being in the presence of an extremely beautiful person. And both times I was like, “Oh! This is weird.”
Amanda: Yeah. Or like, do you ever have friends like that, that you’re like, “How am I in the same circle as you? Because you’re just a goddess. You are so beautiful. Why are you even talking to me? And I love you so much.” Yeah, some people just bring that out in you. [laughs]
Ann: Yeah. So, I just find it really interesting that Jeanne was, like, so gorgeous that just everyone who interacts with her is just stares and picturing like there’s some people you watch in movies where you’re just like, “How is that…?” Like Lupita Nyong’o? It’s just like, “I could just stare at you forever.” Yeah, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. Gemma Chan is one for me. Like, in the Mary Queen of Scots movie, I just couldn’t focus on anyone else when she was on the screen.
Ann: Or Simone Ashley, when she showed up in Bridgerton, I was just like, “Well… this is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Amanda: But yeah, that’s what Jeanne is using to her advantage. Like, other past royal mistresses, because remember, this is an official position, there is kind of a job description and kind of like a profile of the person we’re looking for to fill this role of official mistress. With Jeanne, she doesn’t fit the bill. She’s beautiful, she’s charming and that’s what they’re going for, that’s what they’re relying on. Whereas in the past, like I said, it’s status, it’s wealth, it’s connections to a good family, it’s being well read in the case of the last royal mistress, Madame de Pompadour, who at this point, when, spoiler alert, Jeanne is about to meet the king, Madame de Pompadour has been dead for four years. It’s a very sad story because Louis XV really, I think, did love her and hold her in a lot of esteem. But with Madame de Pompadour, he was getting, you know, this society hostess. He was getting a very, very smart, savvy woman. And and even after they stopped sleeping together, he respected her enough to keep her at court. And and she still led kind of this household of the official royal mistress.
But with JauneJeanne, the king is looking for something else. He is in his late fifties. He, I have a quote here from Eleanor Herman, who has written a great book. It’s, it’s called Sex with Kings, and it kind of delves into a lot of royal mistresses over the years. And she writes:
As an aging monarch, trembling before the gates of death, Louis had little need of intelligence. He wanted frequent athletic sex to convince him he was still alive. As he aged, he had difficulty finding women who aroused him until he met the enthusiastic Parisian prostitute he made his final mistress. If it had been a few years earlier, under the firm reign of Madame de Pompadour, JauneJeanne would have been a mere fling..
So, it really is, like, right place, right time for JauneJeanne that she is able to elevate herself to the position of just getting in the same room as the king. And we can talk about how she met him here because I think it’s a fun story. But yeah, right place, right time. He’s looking for, I picture like a CatherineCatherine Howard situation where the king is old.
Ann: I was thinking of CatherineCatherine Howard. Exactly. exactly! Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. He’s looking for someone to make him feel alive. If you’ve watched The Tudors, it portrays her so well. I forget the actress’s name, but I love her. She’s so young and she’s so full of life and there’s this one scene where they have had sex, but she goes to sit on a swing or something, or she’s dancing in the rain, and he just sits there and watches her, this is Henri VIII. You can tell it’s just the youthfulness that is really, really appealing to him. So, that’s what we’re dealing with Louis XV at this point. He is in his late fifties, Jeanne is about 25 or 26 at this point.
Ann: And she’s also, I wanted to mention, she is gorgeous. And lots of people in Versailles probably were gorgeous, not as much as her, but she’s also so pleasant and nice and friendly and happy and warm. She’s pairing this…
Amanda: Well, she’s an outsider. She’s not bogged down by courtly etiquette.
Ann: Yeah, it’s a different vibe.
Amanda: And I imagine everyone at Versailles, aside from smelling a little bad, everyone’s a little bit crusty. If you’ve watched, I keep pulling you to different TV shows about royalty, but some just show it really well. The HBO Catherine the Great series, I think does a really good job of showing you how people would have looked, how they would have done their makeup, and everyone’s just a little crusty, a little pale, the clothes are all really gorgeous, but they’ve been using them for a long time, they’re a little bit ratty and a little bit stained. And Jeanne comes in; she smells like roses because she bathes in rosewater three times a week. She’s clean, she’s fresh, she’s not caking her face with lead paint and rouge. And there was the trend at Versailles for a while to put moles all over your face and what they were shaped like and where they were placed had different meanings. She’s not doing that. She’s an outsider. She’s not bogged down by all of this. She is literally a breath of fresh air.
Ann: Literally, the smells.
Amanda: Literally, yes. So, she stays with du Barry because he’s like, “I can’t just bring her to Versailles because the same thing will happen. We have to groom her. We have to train her until it’s the exact right moment to introduce her.” And so, can you explain how this happens?
Amanda: [laughs] Yeah, there’s a couple different stories here about how Jeanne gets introduced first to Versailles, the society, the court, and then to the king. There’s one story that says the king’s valet and somebody who was involved in picking out women for him to sleep with, a man named Labelle, “tried her out,” meaning he slept with her. Du Barry maybe told him like, “Hey, come try this girl out, she’s awesome. She’s really hot.” And then Labelle in turn reported back to the king and said, “Hey, you’ve got to try this girl out.” That’s the kind of, like, very unromantic version of this story.
Another story says that Jeanne was at Versailles, it was open to the public if you could dress the part, in the crowd of people and the king passed by and he was just so taken with her. He happened to see her in the crowd and again, she sticks out like a sore thumb because she’s so gorgeous, and I presume that the heavens opened up and a ray of sunshine fell on her and angels started singing and the king sees her and just has to know her. Again, very romantic version of the story.
Most likely, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle where du Barry is orchestrating her to be in the right place at the right time. The meeting between du Barry and the king, or at least the first look, is probably very orchestrated. It’s meant to seem casual so that the king will be attracted to her and think it’s his idea. But Roué, du Barry, is not welcome at court himself so he has to, like, do this kind of sneaky roundabout method of getting Jeanne in, is what it seems like. I don’t know which version you believe is closer to the truth.
Ann: I like the version that he just sort of… Because it feels so much like in high school or something where it’s like, ”I’m going to be waiting outside the gym when the guy I like, his gym class lets out and then I’ll drop my pencil.” And you know, it’s like, I like thinking of that sort of, like, “We’re just going to do this and this and this.” But it also, like, it was planned but I do think it’s also possible that you could just put Jeanne in a crowd and the king would notice her because everybody always does.
Amanda: Absolutely, yeah.
Ann: But he sees her, however this happens, and it’s on. But he can’t make her the official mistress because she’s not married.
Amanda: Right. Yeah, it seems like Louis XV also didn’t understand the world that Jeanne came from. He knew she wasn’t married, he knew she wasn’t titled but there’s a story that he told one of his ministers, the Duke de Richelieu, that he was delighted with her, presumably after he’s been talking to her and has slept with her a couple of times. He says, “I’m delighted with your Jeanne, she’s the only woman in France that has managed to make me forget I’m 60.” He also tells, I think it’s his valet, that Jeanne has helped him “Discover pleasures entirely new” to the king. He’s never been with a woman like this before. And the valet tells him, “Well, your Highness, that’s because you’ve never been to a brothel.” And it’s painted in the history books, like, that there’s this awakening that the king didn’t know she was a courtesan or a prostitute in some versions of the story and the king is, instead of being put off from Jeanne, because everybody around him knows that Jeanne is good for a fling, but not official mistress material. Because of her low status, because of her impoverished background, she’s not mistress material. She just isn’t. And instead of the king hearing that she is a courtesan or maybe a prostitute, and instantly being done with her, he says, “Okay, well, we have to fix that. And we have to get her a husband and introduce her to court life.” So, that is completely the opposite of his minister’s intent in telling the king about her background.
But yeah, in order to be introduced at Versailles, you had to be first, I think, married. And your family had to be noble and able to demonstrate an aristocratic background back to, I think it was 1400, which a lot of people fudged the records, I will say, but you had to at least be able to keep up appearances. And for women to be presented at court, you had to be almost, like, sponsored, like what we see in Bridgerton where there’s this big court presentation, and usually, it’s a girl’s mother presenting them in that position. But in Versailles, you had to be sponsored by a noblewoman who was also at court. So, that’s another hurdle that we have to get over with Jeanne; she is not only unmarried, she is also completely an outsider. Nobody at court wants to associate with her, because they know all of their friends would never talk to them again, because like, who are you bringing into our circle? What is this? What are you doing?
Ann: So, the first obstacle, so I mean, the Roué puts together these, like, fake family trees claiming that she has connections to nobility. And this is where they sort of benefit from the way that her hot grandfather had changed his last name a few times. So, they’re just kind of being like, “Yeah, they’re connected to this family and this family.” Her hot monk father attended as her, “uncle.” Oh, and the wedding, sorry, I should say, was to du Barry’s younger unmarried brother, who literally, they got married at 5:00 AM and when the service was over, they parted and never saw each other again, basically. But she was now technically married.
Amanda: Yeah, the Compte du Barry, he produces his impoverished brother, Guillaume. Like you said, pastes together this family tree, he fabricates links to, I think it’s the Italian Bari family.
Ann: And also, to the Irish Barrymore family.
Amanda: Yeah, and this Irish noble family. So, it’s just this hodgepodge of anybody whose name sounds similar to du Barry. And yes, the wedding between Jeanne and le Roué’s brother takes place, you said at 5:00 AM; they meet at the altar and right afterwards, he is given a bag of cash, they award him a pension for life and the book I read said “He was given a horse to ride away on.” [Ann laughs] And who knows if they ever even, like, had a conversation. But Jeanne, she’s now a comtesse, she’s a countess, she can be presented at court no problem, as long as a noblewoman is willing to vouch for her. And so, there’s, like, a funny story there, too.
Ann: But this is also where she gets the du Barry at this point.
Amanda: Yes, she becomes Madame du Barry which is how she will be known in history. Yeah, the marriage will come back to bite her eventually, even though she and her husband never lived together, he goes off and lives in exile. He will pop up occasionally, though. And there is a story that eventually Louis considers actually marrying Jeanne; he wants to marry her and make her his wife because his own wife has passed away (this is in, like, 1773) and suddenly, someone remembers like, “Oh, wait, she’s married!” Like, even Jeanne, it seems, forgot that she was married. Her husband’s off probably drinking somewhere. And apparently, I think he hears about this, and he threatens to show up at Versailles and cause a huge scene unless the king pays him off once again. So, he essentially blackmails the king; he gives him an order of merit, which is very funny. Like, he gives him a knighthood, basically, and says like, “Is that enough? Will that tide you over?” So yeah, du Barry threatens to come to court, but I don’t think he ever actually does.
Ann: And then please tell the story of how she was presented at court.
Amanda: [laughs] Yeah, it’s one of the funnier ones because it just shows you, again, the influence of the king. If he wants to get this stuff done, he will. Okay, yes. So, in order to join the Court of Versailles, which you have to do in order to become the official mistress and not just the petite mistress, you have to be presented by a noblewoman in, like, this ceremony in front of all these other courtiers to welcome you into the fold. The problem is that no noblewoman in good standing would be caught dead. This is what Eleanor Herman calls, “Facilitating the prostitute’s intrusion into their privileged sphere.”
So, there really is this connotation that du Barry is a common streetwalker, like you said earlier. Not true, but the king, I think he knows this. I think he knows what is being said about his new favourite, and he doesn’t care. He asks around, he finds one woman, just one, at Versailles, who is willing to sponsor du Barry in exchange for, of course, all of her debts being cleared and her sons got promoted in the military so there’s a lot riding on this for this woman. She agrees, all of that goes ahead but on the day that the ceremony is supposed to happen, she gets cold feet. And she’s like, “You know what? Honestly, I know that I’m making a fortune off of this, but the risk to my reputation is so bad.” She fakes a sprained ankle, she fakes an injury to get out of the ceremony. Some people think she actually injured herself, and the ceremony gets cancelled.
Joke is on her, though, the king will not let up, he insists that the ceremony is rescheduled and this noblewoman has to keep up her end of the bargain. And she does present du Barry to a house full of courtiers. Everyone’s there hoping that she’s going to, like, I don’t know, fall on her face or something, or they’re just hoping to get a glimpse of this spectacular, beautiful woman and see the heavens open and the sun shine down on her.
Yeah, so the presentation ceremony happens. Du Barry comes in a little bit late so she’s not punctual but when she did arrive, “Even her most bitter enemies gasped at her beauty.” This might also have been because she was wearing a gown of cloth of silver and gold, which is literally gold and silver woven into thread. It’s reported that she was wearing diamonds worth 100,000 livres at this time. So, she might have just been very, very sparkly.
Ann: And then part of what she did, she was sparkly and the sun was shining down on her, as it always did, but then she had to make three curtsies and then had to do three backwards curtsies, [Amanda laughs] which required, she has to, like, push her big dress out of the way. Like, ladies would often topple and fall over. But she had practiced this, you know, thousands of times, I’m sure, and she killed it. She was now part of society, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. So, she becomes official mistress. She’s kind of installed at court. She has a 14-room apartment above the king’s, there is a staircase leading directly into his bedchamber. So, if you want to talk about access, like, that is the best you can possibly get. The actual queen, at this time, the queen has died. I always mispronounce her name, Marie Leszczynska, she was Polish, she passed away the year before. But at Versailles, the queen has her own, you know, multi-room apartment but it’s on clear the other side of the palace from the king’s. They occupy, like, the east and west wing or the north and south wing, basically. So, not even the queen has this level of access to the king, her husband. Du Barry is now right above him and can walk down and ask for a favour whenever she wants. So, people start to show up at her rooms despite the fact that she has all these enemies at court, people are coming to her for favours and also, just to, like, look at her because she’s so stinking beautiful.
Ann: And I want to mention also that XV, he sells off Deer Park. So, he’s all-in on Jeanne.
Amanda: He’s a one-woman man, yeah. Yeah, like I mentioned, he toyed with the idea of marrying her in the 1770s. He’s so taken with her, he loves her so much, probably because she makes him feel young and she’s so beautiful. But yeah, he gets this, like, sense of youth and vigour again. He’s, like, pushing 60 when he meets her and well into his sixties now. He is, like, instilled with this renewed sense of, like, “Hey, I’m alive.”
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It’s a cliffhanger! I’m going to leave you there for now. Next week, we’re going to have Amanda back again to tell the second part of the saga of Madame du Barry. I do want to mention that some of you may be very familiar with Amanda’s work, and some of you maybe want to follow her for the first time. So, she’s doing her royal commentary stuff on TikTok and also on Instagram @Matta_Of_Fact because her last name is Matta. That’s where you can find her there to follow her videos and things. And then she also has a podcast called Art of History, which you can find wherever you’re listening to podcasts. Wherever you’re listening to this right now, look up Art of History. That is an amazing podcast that she does where she uses her art history background to look at a painting, a historical painting, and then kind of just tell the story of how it came to be and what it represents and things like that. And you might be like, “Well, a podcast about art?” You know what? It’s amazing and she pulls it off. So, look for her podcast. She also has a Substack, which I think is also “Matta of Fact” on Substack. But I’ll put all the links tall for things in the show notes below this episode.
As well, you can follow me in various places. More specifically, you can follow me. I have a newsletter on Substack, which is just at VulgarHistory.Substack.com. I’m doing every other week, posting an essay there about “Difficult Women” from history. I started with Cleopatra, a story that you know from this podcast, perhaps, but also we’re just kind of moving into just different women who have had that reputation throughout history.
You can also support this podcast on Patreon, Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. And so, you can join there for free just to keep up with what I’m doing. I post stuff there like my travel blogs from my recent trip to England and Scotland and Germany. All of those are there and they’re available to all members at the free level. And if you pledge $1 or more a month, you get early, ad-free access to all episodes of this podcast. For $5 or more a month, you also get bonus episodes of things like Vulgarpiece Theatre, which is where I talk with friends of the podcast, Allison Epstein and Lana Wood Johnson, about costume dramas. We have not yet done the Sofia Coppola, Marie Antoinette film; I feel like we might need to save that for when we get to Marie Antoinette in this series, but there’s a huge archive of those episodes on there that you can hear. And then also, there will be new episodes coming up soon. As well, if you join at the $5 a month level, you get to join, we have a Discord where we just chat. It’s just, like, the Tits Out Brigade, it’s called the Vulgar History Salon and it’s just a place to sort of… I put spoilers there sometimes about stuff that’s coming up on the podcast. We share pictures of our pets, it’s a nice time. Anyway, you can get all those things at various levels at Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. You can also follow this podcast on Instagram and also on Threads @VulgarHistoryPod.
And if you want to get some merchandise, including our new varsity design by Karyn Moynihan, the merchandise is available. If you go to VulgarHistory.com/Store, that takes you to the TeePublic store, which is great for Americans. If you’re outside the US, go to VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com, that’s got better shipping for people not in the US. And I mentioned the varsity design. So, I got this silly review on Apple Podcasts where somebody said that this podcast is not for people who take history seriously. And I was like, it’s not! Because history is full of a lot of goofballs doing silly things and why should we pretend like they were all amazing geniuses? So, basically, the new design, it says “Vulgar History” in kind of a collegiate font, like you might see a university’s name, and then it says “Not taking history seriously since 2019,” because that is when this podcast started. We’re coming up on the five-year anniversary! So, I hope to have something special planned for that anniversary coming up. But for now, enjoy that and other merch at our various merch stores.
We also have our gorgeous brand partner who also inspired the name of my Substack series, Common Era Jewellery. They make beautiful jewellery. One of their collections is called Difficult Women. Yes, it includes Cleopatra, Agrippina, Boudica, some people that we’ve recently been talking about on here. Common Era Jewellery is a women-owned small business and they make beautiful jewellery inspired by women from history and also women from mythology. You can get them in necklaces, you can get them in rings. The pieces are available in solid gold, as well as in more affordable gold vermeil. If you’re interested in purchasing pieces from them, Vulgar History listeners always get 15% off all items from Common Era. If you go to CommonEra.com/Vulgar or use code ‘VULGAR’ at checkout.
And if you want to get in touch with me, you can. My DMs are open on Instagram @VulgarHistoryPod, or you can also message me. If you go to VulgarHistory.com, my website, there’s a little, like, “Email Me,” contact link and you can do that too.
Anyway, next week, we’re going to get into Madame du Barry, Part Two: French Revolution happens. We’ll see how she fares there. But until next time, keep your pants on and your tits out.
Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Ann Foster, that’s me! The editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. The Vulgar History show image is by Deborah Wong. Transcripts are written by Aveline Malek. Find transcripts of recent episodes at VulgarHistory.com.
References:
Madame du Barry: The Wages of Beauty by Joan Haslip
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Get 15% off all the gorgeous jewellery and accessories at common.era.com/vulgar or go to commonera.com and use code VULGAR at checkout
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Get Vulgar History merch at vulgarhistory.com/store (best for US shipping) and vulgarhistory.redbubble.com (better for international shipping)
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Support Vulgar History on Patreon
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