French Revolution: Radicals (part 2): The Actress With A Sword

Vulgar History Podcast

Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de Méricourt (with Claire Mead) 

April 23, 2025

Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. My name is Ann Foster, and if you can hear purring nearby, that is my co-host, Hepburn Foster. We are both very excited to be here talking to you about the French Revolution. 

All told, we’re in the midst of Season 7 of Vulgar History. The way that we’re doing Season 7 is kind of in chunks. The first, Season 7, Part 1, we were looking at North America; a lot of American Revolution stuff happened in that. Part 2 was, Meanwhile, Back in France where we’re talking about some people like the Marquis de Lafayette who were going back and forth between France and America, and then kind of easing our way into France by talking about some people like Madame Tussaud, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, who were in France during the Revolution, were affected by the Revolution, but were not themselves revolutionaries. Now we’re in Season 7, Part 3, which is called Liberté, Egalité, Sororité: You Can’t Stop the Women of the Revolution. We’re talking about women who were all up in this revolution. It’s funny, I posted just a teaser with this new season coming out, and I was talking about last week’s topic, Olympe de Gouges, and I was like, “We’re talking about women from the Revolution, here’s the first episode, Olympe de Gouges,” and someone responded like, “She got her head cut off,” and I responded like, yeah, everyone in this season is going to get their head cut off, spoiler, and someone was put on a pike. Spoiler, spoiler. Although there are other grisly ends for other people, but I’m going to say it’s pretty rare in this sequence of episodes that anything’s going to turn out well for anybody. I mean, spoilers for the French Revolution, for women in the French Revolution. 

And actually, to keep it all lighthearted, because that’s what we try to do in this podcast, I have made a bingo card, where you can cross off the people that seem to reoccur in every episode in this chunk of episodes. You can find the bingo card. It’s on my Patreon, it’s free at Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. It’s pinned right at the very top. If you need an excuse to join my Patreon, get the bingo card because it’s, like, you want to mark off… We’re going to be circling around the same topics because the time period of the French Revolution was a couple years. The events we’re talking about last week, this week, next week, and subsequent several weeks, I want to say it’s, like, a year and a half of just “This event happened, then this event happened.” All the people we’re talking about were all up in these events, but sometimes on different sides of these events, sometimes witnessing it firsthand, sometimes hearing about it later. So, just because we’re going to be talking about the same events from all different people’s point of view, I felt like the bingo card is a nice way to put it together, and I think, for me at least, going through different people’s stories, I mean, they all experience these same events, but their lives are also different, really helps me understand the French Revolution a bit better. 

Last week, we were joined by Leah Redmond Chang to help hold my hand and really begin looking at the Revolution itself, which is such a convoluted, chaotic time. This week, we have another guide on hand, and I’m really excited for you to meet this person if you haven’t already listened to her podcast. So, it’s Claire Mead, and you can find all about Claire at her website, which is ClaireMead.com, but just so you know, Claire is the premier person who knows about women with swords, queer women and swords in history. On her YouTube, she describes it as like, “Arms and armour, women’s histories… and the weird unexpected ways they intersect. Join the chaotic history lesson.” And obviously, that’s the energy we’re bringing to this podcast as well, the chaotic history part of it. But Claire is here to talk about French women with swords and queer elements, and that is what this story is all about. So, I couldn’t have done this without her. She also speaks French, knows a lot about the French Revolution history, and so she’s also going to kind of supplement all of our… We’re all learning together about the French Revolution. Claire is here to help out, and we’re talking about a real fashion girly from the French Revolution era, the one and only Théroigne de Méricourt. So, enjoy this discussion with myself and Claire Mead. 

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Ann: So, I am here today joined by Claire Mead, who is an expert on many things, but one of them is ladies with swords. Or what do I say? Ladies with swords enthusiast, I’m not sure. 

Claire: Essentially, yes. Ladies with swords enthusiasts and enthusiasm, swordswomen historian. I do like sword lesbian historian sometimes because it just encapsulates the whole queer, feminist, shenanigans of it all. Lots of different, completely self-made, just completely invented titles for myself. “Self-proclaimed sword lesbian historian,” said a friend of mine, Sasha. [laughs] 

Ann: Perfect, perfect. Well, and that’s exactly who I needed to invite on this podcast today because we’re talking about a person, where there’s some gender shenanigans, swords are definitely involved. 

Claire: Yes!

Ann: And this is where I really… I’m just starting doing this sort of miniseries about, like, women of the French Revolution, and I’m starting to feel more confident in my knowledge about the French Revolution, but there’s still some stuff I need to be explained, and yeah. 

Claire: I mean, I will confess as a French person, you just look at the French Revolution and even from our perspective… Wow! It can be a mess. Like, there’s just so much infighting, some are just like, about faces in the space of a few months, everything can change. In 1790 to 1793, just so much stuff happens in the course of a few months and just, like, oh my goodness! So, just navigating the French Revolution alone is highly commendable, making it out all in one piece. 

Ann: It’s just so many teams or factions, and people keep changing which faction they’re in and… 

Claire: Yeah, just stick to a faction, please. Just make it easy on the future historians, we beg you. 

Ann: [chuckles] So actually, and I’m going to also… You’re here because you are a French person.

Claire: Oui.

Ann: Oui, oui. Oh my gosh, so first of all, pronunciation, I’m glad you’re here. But also just explaining some French stuff. So, we’re going to jump in. 

The person we’re talking about today is known as Théroigne de Méricourt, which was not her name, but that’s how she’s known, so that’s what we’re going to call her in this episode. So, can you— I didn’t warn you about this. Could you explain, she was born, she was a Walloon person. What is that? 

Claire: [laughs] We’re entering kind of not just French, but also like Belgian territory and history, because essentially she was born in a specific region which would correspond today to north Belgium. And so, it’s that kind of interesting thing of her being associated to, obviously, the French Revolution and French history, but also there’s different questions that do sometimes come up when you talk about these different sort of figures of actually, she was technically born in another country and could probably be considered as Belgian. So, the Wallonie, you know, refers to that specific region. Hopefully I’m not getting this too wrong and I’m not going to get attacked by… [laughs]

Ann: By the Belgians. 

Claire: By the Belgians. Please, please, guys. Please don’t attack me. 

Ann: But this is also… So, the previous episode I did, the people will have heard, is Olympe de Gouges, who was also criticized for her grammar and spelling for not speaking or writing exactly perfect French and then Théroigne de Méricourt, being not a French person, being a Wall— How did you pronounce it? 

Claire: [phonetic] Wal-un. Walloon. 

Ann: A Walloon person. So French, again, not her first language and eventually people are going to be like, “Oh, she speaks with an accent, that means she’s dumb.” So, that comes up as well with her. 

Claire: Yeah, it’s interesting, already that kind of policing of women activists during the French Revolution, and you’re just always, like, never quite doing enough. They’re never ever quite fitting into people’s expectations of them. Funnily enough, the standards and expectations just seem to rise as much as they gain notoriety, just like they can never win, essentially. You’re going to police Olympe de Gouges, despite all the amazing stuff she’s contributed to and same for Théroigne. I mean, it’s just… You can’t win. 

Ann: Well, and it’s, I mean, you see this play out contemporarily as well, where I mean, I’ll just speak to my own personal experience, but also myself and I know other female podcasters or content creators, like, people leave comments where it’s like, if you can’t criticize the content of my show, then they say, “Oh, well you say ‘um’ too much,” or something. And one of my online, I don’t know, acquaintances, Meredith Constant, she does TikTok videos and things and she was just posting one day and she’s like people, I think they told her she said ‘um’ or ‘like’ or something and she was being really conscious and trying to edit that out and then people started criticizing something else about her. And I was like, people are going to criticize you because you’re a woman. You could do the absolute most perfect diction scripted thing, and people would be like, “Oh, it’s too perfect. She uses too much…” Like, ultimately, people, Théroigne and then also a lot of people today, ultimately, they don’t want to hear her raising voice because she’s a woman, but the thing they’re going to criticize is like, “Oh, she has an accent.” 

Claire: Yeah, that’s the thing that they’re focusing on as an excuse, and I’ll say it’s just literally just because she’s a woman. I’ve definitely had these instances as well of people commenting on my videos being like, “Oh, is she a woman?” Because I’m butch and like, I guess they’ve just never seen a gender non-conforming woman with short hair before and it’s just a mind-blowing experience for them. But then on videos of women who present more femme, they’ll just like be criticizing, “Oh, why do you have to have your makeup done this way? Why do you need to be dressing this way? That’s not what a historian looks like.” It’s just like, what do you think a historian looks like? 

I have this drag persona, Eugène Delacroissant, that I used to make fun of the patriarchy museums and heritage, and he is actually kind of beard-wearing, tweed-wearing, museum mansplainer. I love making fun of what people think an authoritative figure in history is supposed to look like, because most time it is actually a very loud, confident, beardy, bearded man wearing tweed. So, you know, be that I guess. We should just all be wearing… Yeah. [laughs] 

Ann: Exactly. And if we are, people are like, “Why are you wearing tweed?” You know, like, if someone doesn’t like you, they’ll find something to criticize. 

Claire: Always, always. There’s tweed haters out there, yeah. 

Ann: Exactly. But I’m impressed today and also back then by anyone who speaks more than one language, and if they stumble in their third or fourth language, it’s like, I only speak English, so I’m not going to judge. 

So, she’s born in basically Belgium. 

Claire: Yeah, essentially there’s three kind of like… Wallonia, like the Walloon region, is one of three regions of Belgium alongside Flanders and Brussels. That’s the kind of best way I could summarize it. Hopefully, the Belgians who listen to your podcast aren’t coming out after me, so that’s how we can best summarize that, but it would have been more, yeah. 

Ann: So, she’s born in 1762, so, you know, during this revolutionary era, but well before the actual French Revolution actually started but, you know, if you do the math, I mean, she’s in her twenties when that’s going to actually start. And actually, well, I guess, because I said before, her name wasn’t really Théroigne de Méricourt, but we can explain at this point why she’s known as that. She was born, her name was Anne-Josèphe Terwagne, which is a Wallon name, and then it was sort of Frenchified to Théroigne, which is just kind of pronouncing it a bit differently. And then ‘de Méricourt’ came later because when she became an enemy of the French Revolution, they wanted to make her seem like an aristocrat, right? 

Claire: Yeah, absolutely. They just really took that idea of just like, “Oh, you come from Marcourt. We’re going to make that Méricourt, make it sound a bit, like, Frenchify it and make it sound a bit fancier. And then we’re just going to conflate that with like, “We’re not being disingenuous, we’re saying you come from this town. It just so happens that it makes you sound like you have an aristocratic name,” at a time at which it’s somewhat maybe a bad move to have an aristocratic name. You know, just a vibe, just a feeling, probably not a great idea. It’s definitely an interesting form of slander to say, “We’re just going to give you this name in the press and we’re going to suddenly give you a whole new identity that makes you pass off as a noble,” when she was definitely anything but. She was from this wealthy-ish but still peasant family, from my understanding. 

Ann: Exactly. So, just so everybody knows, we’re calling her Théroigne de Méricourt, that’s kind of become her brand, that’s her name, but that was not her name. Her name was Anne-Josèphe Terwagne, but we’ll call her Théroigne because, first of all, that’s a great name. And secondly, everyone is called Anne and Marie, and I’m excited to call somebody something else. 

Claire: [laughs] Please, please, we need it. We need it desperately. 

Ann: Olympe de Gouges also changed her name, I’m like, thank you, yes. Thank you. Olympe, love it. 

Claire: Exactly, she had a sense of, kind of, pizzazz and drama, like Olympe de Gouges, that’s good branding, you’re going to be remembered, you’re going to feature in the 2024 Olympics ceremony. [laughs]

Ann: Did she? Actually, great question. I watched the Olympics, I watched the opening ceremony, which was the absolute most French thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I loved it, I loved it. It was so strange and so French. Was she in that part where they were, like, unveiling statues of women? Was she one of them? 

Claire: So, I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I definitely believe that she was. 

Ann: Because there’s the part of the opening ceremonies, while you’re Googling it, I will just let everyone know. During the opening ceremonies, when they’re like, “There’s not enough statues of French women, so we’re going to reveal these statues,” and they did them one at a time. And every time they revealed one, I’m like, is it someone I’ve done a podcast on? No. Is it someone I’ve done a podcast on? No,” I’m like, “Is it someone I’ve heard of? Also, no.” So, all the women they revealed, I’m like, none of those names, I know. 

Claire: You’re being directly called out for all the women you haven’t done podcasts on yet. But yes, she did feature, she was one of 10 women. 10 women, guys, there were 10 women throughout all the French history, incredible. And I think it was alongside people like Simone Veil, but also Christine de Pizan, one of my personal faves, medieval… Well, I mean, she wouldn’t have considered herself a feminist probably, but just like a major, major woman writer from the medieval period. So yeah, it was definitely interesting to see her there. And there were always people saying, “Well, instead of her, we should have had other people.” It’s always like, when you’ve got just 10 women to represent all the French history for the rest of the world, who are you going to pick? It’s always a bit of a tricky, a tricky one. 

Ann: I feel like the Olympics were like, “Oh, we have to choose… Her name is Olympe, let’s choose her.” 

Claire: Yes, that’s also… Yeah, there was a bit of a kind of a vibe with that. 

Ann: But just to compare, I mean, Olympe de Gouges, which again was the previous podcast episode in this series, was… She is now seen, as we talked in that episode, myself and my guest then, people are teaching her stuff in university courses, like, she’s seen as kind of a major voice, a major philosopher. Théroigne is not really remembered as much at all, and we’ll talk about why that is, but I think part of it is kind of her foreignness, and also, it’s just kind of a messier story. And also, because she was like, from this kind of wealthy, but also peasant background, she was never really taken seriously to the same way Olympe de Gouges was. 

Claire: Yeah, I think that’s a big part of it. All these women who were involved in the early days of the Revolution, who were part of the salon and leading their own salon, which they were kind of discussing enlightenment ideals and ideals of equality and writing about these things, they had the privilege to be able to do that in the first place. You do definitely have a class divide between the women who actually had the time to devote themselves to this writing and advocacy, and the women who were working-class women and who had to struggle to survive as Théroigne did, and definitely didn’t necessarily have the backing of their family or partner in order to just then also maintain their legacy. So, it’s definitely an interesting case study between the two, like, who gets remembered and for what reasons. 

Ann: So, I’ll just kind of go through… The main meat of this discussion is going to be the French Revolution stuff, but we’ll go through what her background was, because that is important and explains who she was and where she was coming from. 

So, she had two brothers, Pierre-Josèphe and Josèphe, and her name is Anne-Josèphe. So, like, get it together, French people. 

Claire: There are five names. [laughs]

Ann: Josèphe. You call “Josèphe,” they’re all like, “Yes?” Anyway, she had two brothers, we hear about them later. So, her mother died when she was a girl, and so she was sent to live with her aunt in Liège and was put into a convent school where she learned to sew. But about a year after she began school, her aunt got married and stopped paying for her school. So, then there was kind of a period of time where Théroigne is kind of, like, shuttled around, to an aunt, to her stepmother, to her paternal grandparents, it’s just kind of like, “You’re a girl, no one really has money.” No one treated her well, it’s kind of the beginning of Cinderella sort of vibes. 

Claire: Yeah, it’s definitely like, “You’re just a girl. We’re just going to ping pong around these various situations and just be a bit of a passive person in your own life,” yeah, until that point. 

Ann: And that sets her up, well, I mean, well, it sets her up to want to leave, but the fact that she did leave, I think, speaks to her sort of independent spirit, and she wants something better. She runs away to Limburg. Do you know where that is? Have you ever heard of that? 

Claire: I’ve not heard of that. I’ve heard of the Liège, but Limburg, no. Not at all. 

Ann: It was somewhere where there’s cows because she worked as a cowherd for a year, which is an interesting skill, I don’t think just anyone could do it. 

Claire: Yeah. No, definitely, it’s the kind of thing where you’re like, you know, during lockdown, you’re kind of like, “Oh, I want to be in the countryside and I want a little farm and homestead,” and then you just realize, “Actually, better off just staying as a little fantasy there, not actually doing it.” 

Ann: And that is what happens to her, exactly. She goes to be a cowherd for a year, and then she’s like, “Actually, I’m going to go back to Liège.” [laughs]

Claire: [laughs] Relatable. 

Ann: “I’d rather live in a city people have heard of.” And she worked as a seamstress because, remember, she learned how to sew at the convent school. And then, something good happens to her for once, for the first time. A woman asked her to come with her to Antwerp to help care for her daughter, so to be, like, a governess-type person. But then, because it’s her life, the woman then abandoned her at the inn that they were staying at after a few weeks. So, she’s just stuck in Antwerp, which… Listeners to my podcast will know my feelings about Antwerp, so I’ll just let you know. [Claire laughs] My name is Ann, and when I was a young girl, my family went on a European trip, and one of the places we went was Antwerp and my family, in a loving and yet annoying way, were like, “Oh, Antwerp. You’re Ann, you’re a twerp.” So, I’m like, of course, something bad happened in Antwerp. That’s a city… 

Claire: Yeah, that’s the city that’s like, yeah, it’s directly victimizing you personally. 

Ann: People named Ann do not thrive in Antwerp, and her name is Anne-Josèphe. So anyway, it’s just like, god damn Antwerp. Anyway, luckily, luckily! Something actually good happens. So, a woman named Madame Colbert met her or noticed her or took pity on her and was like, “Can you come be the governess to my children?” And then this did actually happen. She was 16 years old at this time, by the way. 

Claire: God, yeah, imagine just being, already just being abandoned at 16 in Antwerp and then, yeah, this happens to you. At least it’s just… yeah. 

Ann: But here, you know, something good happened in Antwerp. Madame Colbert took her in. So suddenly, Théroigne has options; someone is helping her, someone’s looking out for her. So, she taught the children and also, while she was there, was able to study operatic singing because I guess they’re travelling around to various European capitals. So, she gets to travel, she’s with this family, she’s taking singing lessons, presumably because she has an interest in that and a skill in that. So, good. And then eventually, they ended up in London, where Madame Colbert had a house, and she met a rich Englishman. Name unknown. What I’m reading here just says, like, “A rich Englishman.” 

Claire: Rich Englishman, plot point number 50. Just, you know, wheel him in. He doesn’t need a name. It’s fine. I think it’s kind of refreshing that when you think about it, because the amount of time women are just relegated to just being the wife or, you know, just like, the lover in a man’s story. So, this time, hey, it’s kind of payback time, I suppose. 

Ann: Especially for an Englishman. They’re always named in things. So, basically, the rich Englishman was just, like, he was head over heels for her. One night, when Madame Colbert was out, the Englishman entered the home begging for a terrain to come and elope with him. So, according to her account, which she did write later, she says she declined, and then she was abducted and taken by force. So, you know what? I’ll take her word for that, and also, if she had agreed to go, I could see why somebody later on would claim they were taken by force to kind of make themselves look less scandalous or something. 

Claire: Yeah, which is a big part of when you’re later writing a memoir of your life, right? For many, kind of, these illustrious women, warrior women, either they’re kind of taking this opportunity to kind of justify their past actions or kind of embellish their CV in lots of different ways. And you can just, like, never really, really be 100 percent sure about these autobiographies and their intentions because most times it feels that it was really meant to be kind of, like, an entertaining read more than anything else. 

Ann: That’s true. She wanted to sound interesting, but also, with time, I find your own memory can change. Like, you could remember it differently than what it actually was. Anyway, she and the Englishman, in some context, leave together, and he said, “When I come of age and inherit my fortune, we can get married and whatever.” Actually, that’s notable because he said, like, when he became of age and inherited his fortune, which means he was not 45 years old, which makes me feel a bit better about all of this. 

Claire: Yeah, that’s also refreshing. I’m going to say, yeah, especially given how old she was. 

Ann: Because she’s like 16, 17 years old. So, they did run off together. And so, he did become of age, inherited his fortune, and they went to Paris to just be a glamorous, young couple there. 

So, actually, I just want to say what I’m reading from is… My main source here is the Encyclopedia of Women in History essay by David S. Newhall. It’s mostly factual, but sometimes he throws in some real opinion pieces. 

Claire: [laughs] Some real nuggets of wisdom or (wisdom) in brackets. 

Ann: So, he says, “She quickly caught onto his lavish ways.” So, he’s like, and we can picture something like this today too, it’s just a young man who suddenly gets his inheritance, doesn’t know how to spend it well and is just not… She grew up, like, various levels of poor, really, so I think she would have more respect for money and understanding. And he was just like, “Woo! Let’s spend my money.” 

Claire: Yeah, it’s interesting how already the kind of class divides and all those different questions she’d talk about later in her life are already coming up when she’s being confronted to just like, you know, complete disregard for money. 

Ann: So, the relationship not going great. And eventually, what happens is in 1787, he returned to England, leaving her in Paris, but not penniless. He left her with 200,000 livres, which she invested in stocks and jewels. So, she had some savings there. 

Claire: She had stuff. I do like… I would love to listen to Théroigne’s financial advice podcast. Just, like, “Invest it all in stocks and jewels, guys.”

Ann: [Ann laughs] “Jewels do not depreciate.”

Claire: Exactly.

Ann: So, again, like from this essay, at some point she gave birth to a daughter, Françoise-Louise Septenville. We don’t know, I presume the father was the Englishman, but the name Septenville is a mystery. 

Claire: Yeah, strange. 

Ann: But the daughter, like, as a young… So, she was abandoned in 178/7. She gave birth to a daughter in 1788, the daughter died shortly thereafter. So, this is the sequence of events. The Englishman refused to acknowledge paternity. Around the same time, she also contracted syphilis, potentially from the Englishman. 

Claire: Yeah, great. The Englishman left more than 200,000 livres, just also complete lack of sexual— I mean, which is, like, definitely so much the case at the time of just no awareness of sexual health whatsoever. So, he left her pregnant with syphilis and some stocks and jewels. 

Ann: So, she was allegedly… At this time, the cure for syphilis was mercury, which doesn’t actually cure anything, but does take away the symptoms, I presume, that’s why people thought it cured it. I don’t know. 

Claire: Yeah, it’s just one of those things where you just kind of look at it and think, well, even with the gift of hindsight, guys, I just don’t really know what people are thinking. I mean, being a trustee at the Vagina Museum, I can tell you the amount of completely just, like, strange concepts and remedies that people come up with when it relates to just sexual health and women’s health is just absolutely mind-boggling. 

Ann: You’re a trustee at the Vagina Museum? 

Claire: Yeah! 

Ann: I love that. When I was in London, I wish I could have interacted with them, but I follow them on social media. I’m a big fan, that’s wonderful. 

Claire: Yay! Support the Vagina Museum, everyone. It’s doing great work. It was relevant, okay? [laughs] I had to shout them out. 

Ann: Well, no, and I think… I don’t know specifically, but I’m getting a guess that at this time, the 18th century, so much of what was happening medically was based on what the Romans had taught, where it’s just kind of like leeches, humors. 

Claire: Humors, yeah, yeah. 

Ann: I feel like mercury was, it’s not like, “Oh, this is the latest technology.” I think it’s like, “Well, someone 700 years ago said this would work, so we’re just still trying it,” basically. 

Claire: “We’re just going to go with it.” Yeah, and I think at the time, I was reading a bit about 18th century medical history and how it relates to women, and there’s still definitely talk about the humors and being phlegmatic and these different ideas of being a bit more passive and decadent and, kind of, how it also could relate to kind of negative things attributed to women, which we can touch upon later. But yeah, definitely still quite a lot of things that are quite antiquated and yeah, not very useful in the long term.

Ann: So, if you’re somebody who has syphilis and you’re her, so you’re cured supposedly by mercury, but thereafter, she complained of pains, digestive problems, and fatigue, probably the symptoms of untreated syphilis. So, she has basically some health problems, but I’m going to say who didn’t in Paris at this time? Because, as you just explained, medical care, not great.

Claire: Yeah, not fantastic. 

Ann: Not great. So, at some point around, like, after the English guy left, she crafted a relationship with a 60-year-old Marquis de Persan. So, he’s a councillor of the Parliament of Paris. Much about the relationship remains a mystery. Well, basically, he was just kind of supporting her financially, I don’t find this… I should mention, this essay I’m reading is from the 1990s. So basically, he supported her, and I think it’s a classic, sort of, courtesan, being like a sex worker, but only for one person type of relationship. 

Claire: Yeah, it’s a kind of like, he’s essentially her sugar daddy in that sense. And kind of, I think a situation that many women would have probably found themselves in that time, especially working-class women, of just having to rely on older, rich men. 

Ann: And you know what? Thank you to those older, rich men for supporting these women, because… 

Claire: Exactly. Women, just get your bag. I mean, just 60-year-olds in the 18th century, just take advantage as much as you can. 

Ann: So, she operated under the alias Mademoiselle Campinado. 

Claire: Ooh, nice. Fancy. 

Ann: It’s a great name, but also…

Claire: It’s great. 

Ann: Where are any of these names coming from? Like her child, Septenville? She’s just choosing names, and she’s got a gift. 

So, when she was working as a courtesan, she used the alias Mademoiselle Campinado, and she drew attention by appearing in public alone and bejewelled without disclosing the source of her wealth. But remember, she had invested in the stocks and jewels. Maybe some of these are her own jewels. 

Claire: Yeah, it’s interesting though, in terms of, yeah, already having a penchant for the dramatic and for kind of, you know, just focusing a lot on her appearance, how she’s going to just appear to others in public. She obviously wants to make a splash; she’s not interested in being discreet in any way, or she didn’t quite think it through in terms of the implications of appearing, you know, alone in public and bedecked in jewelry. But hey, you know, you’ve got to admire the vibes of just taking on a flamboyant stage name and being covered in jewels.

Ann: Exactly, Mademoiselle Campinado. It reminds me a bit, I did an episode a bit ago about Madame du Barry, who also was from, like, a poorer class, and when she was in Versailles and everything, she just loved the splashiest jewels, like, the most over-the-top things. It’s kind of like, when you’re not raised in luxury, then you kind of approach it differently, and maybe in like a more, what one might say, tacky way. 

Claire: Yeah, and it’s interesting when you compare that with then Marie Antoinette’s whole movement to have these kind of simpler clothing, like the cotton clothing, and imitating kind of peasant lifestyle, or at least the royal, aristocratic, very, very idealized, rosy lengths of what a peasant lifestyle would be like, and just focusing a bit more on simplicity. It kind of almost reminds you of that kind of old money aesthetic nowadays, of like, the richer you are, the less you’re going to make it really obvious and going to be more minimalistic. So, maybe that’s what was kind of going through her mind, of having to… feeling as though she had to, yeah, conform to, and appearing as more rich than she actually was. 

Ann: And she just didn’t know what actual rich people actually looked like. 

So, remember, she took the singing lessons back when she was being a governess, so she apparently sang on occasion in London, although probably not in Paris. So, she’s pursuing a singing career at this point, so she planned to go to Italy with the Italian tenor, Giacomo David, for musical training, but for some reason, he backed out. But she’s got, like, a lot of… I don’t know, she’s just juggling a lot of life possibilities. It’s like she knows someone might let her down, so she has a backup plan always. 

Claire: Yeah, he was probably like her plan C or D at this stage. 

Ann: Yeah. So, when he’s like, “Actually, I’m not going to train you in opera,” she’s like, “That’s great, I’ve got another plan.” So, she did at one point, following her daughter’s death, she visited her birthplace back in kind of Belgium, where she posed as the widow of an English colonel named Spinster. 

Claire: [laughs] Spinster. Incredible, incredible scene. Maybe that was the unnamed Englishman, who just so happened to be called Spinster. I guess we’ll never know, but it seems a little bit too… Convenient.

Ann: Yeah, so she’s just like, she’s got such a dossier of different names, and it’s great. Anyway, after, I guess, just kind of like getting herself, spending some time back in her hometown, she went to Italy with a different guy, the celebrated castrato. Can you pronounce this name? I don’t know how your Italian is. 

Claire: Let’s see, Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci.

Ann: Which is a great name. This story is full of great names. He was a rake, deeply in debt, and clearly, wanted to just get his hands on her money that she had from the stocks and jewels. 

Claire: And the jewels, yeah. 

Ann: So, he was just no good, this Giusto the castrato. 

Claire: Yeah. No, no, no. No go, no go. I don’t know if I can pronounce his name correctly, but yeah, it’s just… 

Ann: It’s probably a fake name as well. Anyway, she successfully sued him for breach of contract. Good for her, for a woman, like, a lower-class woman, to not just sue him, but be successful. So anyway, she stayed in Genoa for about a year, and then, running short of money, she returned back to Paris, May 11, 1789. 

Claire: Whoa, timing. [laughs]

Ann: Quite a time to show up. So, in the Olympe de Gouges episode, we talked a bit about sort of like the French Revolution beginnings and kind of what happened. So just, that’s all kind of happening right now. 

Claire: Yeah, it’s going down. 

Ann: At this point in the French Revolution, and please correct me if I’m getting this wrong, but I feel like there’s kind of these philosophers who are like, “Yes! These are the tenets of a society.” And then there’s the market women who were like, “We will cut a bitch, we’re so angry. Poor people are starving.” It’s kind of like, all these different groups, but the group that she’s interested in are the philosophers who are like, “Let’s talk about the theory of a democracy.” That’s what interests her at this time. 

Claire: Yeah, and no, I think that’s quite right. I mean, already at the start of the Revolution, there is a much more of a kind of, you know, idealist vibe all around before things start to really get ugly in 1793, la Terreur, but it’s, you know, at least in terms of, like, debates and different clubs, it’s still very much kind of in the theory and the debates. But then, you know, you’re just going to have this rising anger and this kind of current just imminent violence and insurrection. 

Ann: And what she sort of takes, it reminds me of, she’s kind of doing an unofficial undergraduate degree because she’s just really excited to get a political education. She starts attending these meetings, she’s just like, “Oh! Politics. What’s this? I know about singing, I know about sewing, I know about stock investing, I don’t know about politics.” So, she’s just kind of attending all these meetings. I’m just going to read a quote that she said, from her memoir. “For I have always been extremely humiliated by the servitude and prejudices under which the pride of men has held my oppressed sex.”

Claire: Yeah, hell of a quote. And definitely when you see her life, up at this stage, and how she’s being treated by the various men in her life, completely understandable, but also obviously her social class, her background, like, how hard she’s had to fight just to get to Paris at that specific point in time in the first place. It definitely… yeah, feels justified.

Ann: So, she’s really, in terms of this sort of idealistic, beginning revolutionary era, she and Olympe de Gouges and other people, other women, were saying like, “Oh, maybe this is a chance for women to get more rights,” also. So, that’s kind of what excites her about it, I think.

Claire: Yeah, and I think it’s really interesting is at that time, it really is an intersectional struggle. It’s Olympe de Gouges was not only interested in the rights of women, but she was also looking at, you know, she was also being an advocate for the abolition of slavery. And like many other revolutionaries at that time was definitely advocating for the fact that if we’re going to have equal rights of citizens, then that was just antithetical with slavery as much as it still was antithetical with women being considered as an inferior class. So, really, really fascinating. 

All of that also just kind of derives from women, you know, having been involved in what we call the Siècle des Lumières, the Age of Enlightenment, that kind of whole philosophical 18th century discourse around equality, which a lot of time did centre men, like Rousseau, who I hate. I hate Rousseau probably as much as you hate Antwerp for its relegation of women to the domestic sphere. But, you know, also women who were just actively advocating for women’s rights and holding their own salons, their own debates around equality and liberty and what that meant. 

Ann: You know, if we’re looking at this without the foreshadowing of what is to come, like, what an exciting time to be a woman, to be a feminist, where these discussions are happening. You’re like, things could actually change, there’s a lot of people who feel the same way. 

So, Théroigne wants to attend all these meetings and public talks and things. This is where, like, we’re going to get into the gender shenanigans, in order to circulate more freely and to “avoid the humiliation of being a woman,” which she’s experienced, like, being discarded by all these men and all this stuff. So, “She took to dressing like a man wearing a white, blue or red riding habit and a round hat with a turned-up brim and a black feather.” And if you look up images of her, she looks fantastic. 

Claire: She looks just amazing. She looks like Paris Fashion Week ready. It’s just incredible sense of style. 

Ann: So, what are your thoughts about… She wanted to be in these places where there’s a lot of men, and she didn’t want to be othered, she didn’t want to be looked down upon. She wanted to blend in. So, she’s like, “Well, I’m just going to dress like a man.” In terms of just, like, gender stuff, that’s interesting. 

Claire: Yeah, it is super interesting because I was trying to just read up on like different ways in which she would have dressed. And there are lots of people, lots of records referring to this kind of Amazonian clothing in the way in which it wouldn’t have been literally, quite literally, like trousers, wouldn’t have been exactly what the men would have worn, but it would have been kind of masculinized versions of women’s clothing. For example, if you think about the later example of Gentleman Jack from the British point of view, they never have worn specifically trousers, but have worn, like, a riding habit that was very masculinized in that sense. So, a lot of what she’s wearing seems to be that kind of visual language of the riding habit, which is a little bit more androgynous, which I think would have caused a lot of controversy. 

I think it’s really interesting because around that time, actually, a lot of women were joining revolutionary armies, dressed as men, and often were found out. They were discovered, their gender was discovered. But a lot more of them were just like flying under the radar, of just actually completely effectively blending in as soldiers in order to fight for their nation. And it’s just really, really fascinating to me that I think Théroigne, she does make that decision of, “I’m not going to disguise myself as a man. I’m going to be a woman who’s actually actively making a statement by having clothes that are neither quite feminine nor quite masculine. They’re going to be in between.” And in that way, she makes such a massive splash because if she’s not disguising herself, she is making that statement. 

When you look at how women in the French Revolution chose to dress as men to join the army, they’re doing it as justification of, “Well, I’m dressing to pass as a man so that I can fight for my country.” And that’s the main line of defence they have when they’re then discovered and given a little tap on the wrist. And then they just give that big discourse about, “I’m doing it for my country. I was trying to evade danger and suspicion by dressing as a man.” But what Théroigne is doing in many ways is kind of corresponding more to what aristocratic women did in the 17th century of actually openly being women who are leading armies, who are showing up at different confrontations, such as the civil wars of The Fronde in 17th century in defense of the king, in full kind of Amazon, warrior woman regalia. That was in itself kind of linked to the re-emergence of chivalric romance, full of knights and that kind of imagery. I could talk about this all day, as you can see. 

Ann: No, but it’s so interesting. 

Claire: It’s interesting, isn’t it? And it’s also that really interesting thing of at the time—and we could talk a bit more about how that was received by different people, and I think we’re going to—there was definitely this kind of, you know, in the early, more idealistic days of the Revolution, where there was that kind of, like, permissive spirit of, you know, a bit more freedom around imagining a better world for everyone, including women, and at that time, especially later on in 1792, where, you know, the revolutionary army had to fight against foreign forces, women were kind of… There was kind of a blind eye being turned to women joining the armies to fight because the justification was like, “Oh, they are crossdressing, but they’re doing it to fight for their country.” And so, it’s essentially fine. Or “They’re doing it to join their father’s regiment,” or “They’re doing it to join their husband and fight alongside their husband, so it’s okay.” 

But Théroigne is actually pretty radical in the sense in which she is turning up at these political debates, and she’s dressed like this not necessarily because she’s ready for a fight, you know, she doesn’t necessarily have her saber with her and her riding habit and she’s ready to just, like, jump into battle, but because she’s making this specific statement about her status as a woman. And I find that kind of interesting. 

Ann: It’s such an interesting level, because yeah, like you said, there’s stories I’ve encountered for sure about, like, a woman who disguises as a man just to run away or to join the army or something. And then sometimes there’s people who, like, are actually trans people and, you know, just change their presentation. And she’s kind of, like you mentioned with the jewels and stuff, she’s just kind of like, “Okay, the Revolution is happening. Here’s my outfit.” She’s like Lady Gaga. She’s just like, “Okay, this is my era.” 

Claire: [laughs] “This is what I’m wearing to the Revolution.” And it’s really interesting when you kind of go into the idea of gender as performance, because yeah, she’s not saying, you know, “I’m adopting male clothing because I have to because, you know, I want to fight for my country and I’ve got to do it under another identity,” or anything like that. She’s saying, you know, “You’ve got to accept that this is a future that we’re fighting for, a future in which I actually do want to dress this way and dress as a warrior woman.” And I think just from the records of her being shown, like, depicting herself in that way, she was definitely kind of wanting to do it to make a statement and to provoke people into action, really. 

Ann: Which is part of what I’m looking at, just the essay from Women in World History, but they’re saying, like, she herself said that to avoid the humiliation of being a woman, she changed the way that she dressed. But the way you’re describing it, and the pictures that I’ve seen, like, she clearly was still presenting herself as a woman. So, it’s like, yeah. So, it’s like, “I’m going to blend in, but only kinda kinda.” 

Claire: Exactly. And it kind of forms part of this wider history of women taking on this very kind of this idea of the Amazon, you know, especially in the 17th century, you see this kind of reemergence of the idea of the Amazon warrior woman to the extent where, like, ‘Amazon’ kind of becomes a bit of a shorthand for warrior of women in general. You’ve previously had women taking on kind of being depicted in swords and in armour to reflect their power. So, she’s essentially, like, whether or not she’s consciously doing it is up for debate, but she’s at this point travelled across different countries, she’s picked up a lot of things. She’s essentially picking up the same kind of codes of, like, power, as many powerful women before her to say, “This is what I stand for. I deserve as much power and freedom as men.” 

Ann: And this is also just, again, I want to stay here for longer in this idealistic period of the Revolution before it turns into just, like, heads being chopped off. [Claire laughs] But like, perhaps she was thinking like, “I think that women can do more things. I think women should get more rights.” And maybe part of what this outfit is doing is sort of challenging the very binary… Like, this is a situation, and I’ve talked about in the podcast before, but in so much of European history, it’s just kind of like, the way you dress is your gender, is your sex. 

Claire: Yes. 

Ann: And that’s where someone like the Chevalier d’Éon is just kind of like, “Okay, please tell us what is your sex?” Because the clothing really represented— Like now, you know, women wear pants. It’s not like, “Oh my god, what a thing!” But then it’s just kind of like, if you see someone dressed in women’s clothing, you assume that’s a woman, that is just how society functions. So, to see her dressed as kind of a woman and kind of not was challenging cultural understanding of gender, which is… 

Claire: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it’s really, really interesting when you don’t look at kind of later instances in 1793, where a French revolutionary activist, Pauline Léon, and her… I see her referred to as her friend or her partner or her companion, Claire Lacombe, so there’s maybe a bit of a queer, just gals being pals situation there, starts a whole movement called the Guerre des Cockade, you know, the Cockade is a little kind of… 

Ann: Those little like… The pins, the flower. 

Claire: The blue pin on the red bonnet. And essentially, it’s a whole movement that is centred around the red bonnet of, you know, saying “Women should be occupying this kind of space of the citizen, and they should be wearing the red bonnet as well.” And then that kind of becomes part of the whole moral panic that women are now also want to, you know, are going to want to claim that other really, really important symbol of the sans-culottes of the revolutionaries, which is the trousers. It just starts this whole kind of movement of panic of saying, “Oh no! We were happy when women were fighting for us when we really needed soldiers. But now they’re kind of coming after our jobs and our trousers.” You’re happy with women fighting your wars and suffering massive casualties. But then, as soon as it was linked to, kind of, cross-dressing and taking up more space in the public sphere, suddenly stuff started to go downhill. [chuckles]

Ann: Such an interesting thing. The way that she’s dressed is such a major part of her myth and her legend. At the time, it really made her stand out in a way that I think she wanted to stand out. I think that she… I mean, she was a singer. She was, like, going out wearing the jewels, she wanted this attention. And I don’t mean that in a negative way at all, lots of people want attention. And she was this neglected Cinderella growing up in this obscure area, like, of course she’s just like, “I’m in Paris,” and it seems like now there’s an opportunity where maybe the class structure is flattening out a bit and maybe she can stand out in a way that she feels she deserves to. 

Claire: Yeah. And I can’t help but wonder whether or not she was aware of Julie d’Aubigny, so 17th century bisexual opera singer and dualist who also famously, at some point in her life, was wearing breeches and taking part in sword fighting in different taverns to make a living before she moved on to the opera and still lived a very kind of scandalous life with lots of different women and men as her lovers. I don’t know how likely that is, but you know, you also wonder to what extent just being in that world of singing, maybe there was something there in terms of gender nonconformity and the kind of fluidity of how you present yourself. 

Ann: Well, because she was this castrato. Like, the whole concept of castrato challenges gender norms. And then if she’s performing, there’s costuming. So, she would have learned, like, how do you present yourself? It’s so important. 

Claire: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you see lots of instances of these different, yeah, these different artistic circles and especially opera being kind of that ground for kind of playing with your gender a little bit. You know, you could, you could be playing different gender roles, adopting different forms of gender expressions. So yeah, it’s interesting to see that’s where she may have gotten it from. 

Ann: And she was in a situation, again, like the pre-early Revolution times, where it’s just kind of like, if you’re there and you’re enthusiastic, you’re welcome because, like, there’s not really anyone in charge of it yet. It’s just kind of like, “Please, everyone just come. If you have these feelings, join us.” And she joined at that time when it st— That changes at this point, it’s just kind of like, everyone’s welcome. 

Okay. So, then… Things are happening, things are happening. We don’t need to get… I talked a lot in the last episode about kind of, like, the estates and stuff. So, she was just kind of like, things are happening. She’s there. She’s attending these meetings, she’s wearing her outfits, and she’s learning as much as she could about what’s happening. So, there’s like the Women’s March on Versailles. She was not in it, but she heard about it, and I’m sure she was like, ‘Fuck yeah! That sounds great.” 

Claire: Yeah, it’s interesting because I saw some rumours that she was actually literally leading the march on horseback dressed as a man, and then you just always can’t help but wonder, “Did that really happen?” It doesn’t really feel as though she was necessarily in that state of mind at the time of actively being part of the crowd. She was more, as you said, in her kind of undergrad flamboyant student, showing up at the debate era of actually listening and debating rather than just, like, taking part in a struggle. It doesn’t really seem to line up in terms of the timeline that she would have taken part. But it’s interesting that some people situate her there and that there’s these rumours and myths circulating around that. 

Ann: Well, I think that one of them is that she was leading it like a stride on a cannon or something.

Claire: [laughs] Cannon, horse. Pick your steed, you know? 

Ann: Yeah. So, and I don’t know, like this is sort of like, what did she do? And then what did people claim she did? It really starts diverging in here. And I think part of it, I would suspect, part of it is that she was such a notable, memorable person. So, if people are trying to be like, “Oh, there was a Women’s March. We need to draw…” I don’t know, “a political cartoon.” It’s like, “Well, let’s draw Théroigne because that’s the person that people recognize. So, let’s just put her there. Let’s just put this celebrity there, even if she wasn’t there.” 

So, anyway. She was actually, so she was staying, I think, near Versailles and then she moved to Paris because she wanted to continue attending more meetings and just like, keep learning about stuff, her self-education. It says she became a fixture. So, this is the National Assembly meetings. “She was a fixture in the visitor’s gallery every day in her outfit,” and her riding habit. 

Claire: [chuckles] Love it.

Ann: And just like, “Well, there she is.” 

Okay. So, then things are like, these are events that we talked about in the last episode as well. So, like the… October 5th, what is that called when they came to get the King and Marie Antoinette? Is it just like… It was the market women, they had their pikes, they marched up to Versailles, and they’re like, “Bring out the King,” that whole thing. 

Claire: Yeah. 

Ann: Bringing them back. Anyway. So, she, again, this says, “She mingled as a spectator, but she was not part of this event.” So, she’s just kind of like, what is it? Listening and learning. Listening and learning.

Claire: Listening and learning. Just an active, you know, active listening, I suppose. Active witnessing to history. 

Ann: Yeah. So, she’s there, but she’s not in the crowd literally doing it. And then this is where she, having learned all this stuff—and I think like somebody doing their undergraduate degree or somebody where you’re like, “Oh, everyone else is doing this,” and then eventually you feel like, “I think I should do this too”—she founds a club, a society, the Society of Friends of the Law, which “sought to encourage and assist patriotic work in the provinces.” It was short-lived, but it kind of speaks to the fact that she wanted to, like, she was in Paris and she’s like, “Oh, let’s encourage people outside of Paris to be involved in this.” So, it’s interesting that was kind of her focus at that point. 

Claire: Yeah. Which is, which is kind of interesting just in terms of, it’s often minimized, right? Like, the fact that there’s just so much stuff happening outside of Paris at the time as well. There are, you know, you’re going back to women taking part in army efforts, a wide range of women in provinces were forming their own, kind of, their own guerrilla troops. They were, you know, they were taking part in disguising themselves as men, and they weren’t waiting for, like, kind of the Parisian theory to trickle down to them. They were just doing their own thing. 

Ann: And it could be she knew that that was happening, and she’s like, “Let’s harness this. Let’s involve ourselves in this.” 

So, this particular club was short-lived, and then she turned her revolutionary zeal into giving speeches, and she was a trained singer, like, she’s a trained orator. So, I’m sure she was giving… She had a good voice. And so, she was speaking at the terraces of the National Assembly. I’m not sure if that means, like, at the National Assembly or just kind of outside of it, if there’s like a speaker’s corner. 

Claire: I’m unclear about that as well. Like, where exactly is this? The thing about the terraces, I think about just like in Paris, just people outside drinking coffee, which could have been the vibe. But yeah, you wonder if it was just like a public, a bit more of a public forum or semi-public forum. 

Ann: Yeah. So, she’s not, like, technically an invited guest speaker, but she’s a street proselytizer.

Claire: Yeah. On a soapbox. 

Ann: In her outfits, like getting attention for sure. Like at, you know, the Edinburgh Fringe, [Claire laughs] like, the street is full of people and she’s just there in an outfit standing on boxes being like, “Pay attention to me.” 

Claire: Yeah. “Come see my show.”

Ann: That sort of thing. Exactly. So, let’s see, going through her life. So, she had come to understand, like, she had been to all these meetings, she was hanging out in salons, she’s learning from people, and she’d come to realize that the majority of supporters of the Revolution were interested in the rights of men and not in the rights of women. 

Claire: Yeah. Ding, ding, ding! [laughs] Yeah. So, going back to that whole idea of French enlightenment, it’s just that idea of all these different ideas of reason and these different concepts that would lead to the French Revolution were really based around this kind of inherent idea, which Rousseau, again, mortal enemy, hate Rousseau, perpetuated, which is the idea of, you know, the ancient regime. So, anything that was represented by the monarchy, by, you know, that kind of old system was inherently effeminate, you know? The main problem with society is that it was, you know, not enough masculine values, not enough high-value males, if you will. Doesn’t sound familiar at all. 

Ann: No. 

Claire: No, no. We can’t relate at all. So yeah, really that idea that, you know, as soon as you were looking at kind of decadence in terms of, you know, the aristocracy, in terms of the way they dress, the way they behave, you were actually looking at men adopting way too much of the kind of feminine values and qualities rather than masculine ones. Despite the fact that many women were involved in these kind of early Enlightenment ideas, you know, you had Émilie du Châtelet—who was Voltaire’s partner, major philosopher—but you also had Louise d’Épinay, who was also his friend and partner, and who were leading their own debates, despite these women’s kind of proximity to these two men who are kind of remembered as the main spokespeople for the Enlightenment. It’s still the idea of, you know, this is a man’s— I mean, literally the motto, which is still the motto of the French Republic to this day, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” fraternity. 

Ann: So, brotherhood. Right? 

Claire: Brotherhood, literally. Wild, when you think about it, our motto is literally “fraternity.” You know, there’s always going to be that, you know, there’s always going to be that pundit, right? It’s like, “Oh, it’s fraternity in the wider humankind sense.” But somehow, when you look at how, you know, what Théroigne was witnessing at the time, you start to have serious doubts about that. Yeah, liberté, egalité, fraternity. 

Ann: Well, and this is at around the same time that she’s kind of realizing like, “Wait a minute, this is like, fraternité does not include me.” This is where she also is becoming sort of a notorious figure. So, pamphlets are being published talking about her and saying, like you were saying, it’s like, she led this march, she was portrayed as this great whore, this libertine, one tabloid wrote, “Every representative of the National Assembly may fairly claim to be the father of her child.” So, I think the fact that she was in so many settings where it was men, a bunch of men, and also her, people were like, “Well, that must mean that she’s their whore. That must be what she’s doing there.” Although there’s nothing said by anyone about her having any relationships with any men at this time. She’s very much not in that vibe. So, it’s this pivot of… Not pivot, but she wants to speak, she wants to learn, she’s going to all these meetings. And then it’s like, “Oh, but actually she’s just a slut. So, don’t listen to her.” 

Claire: Yeah. She’s had her different relationships with men. There’s different records, newspaper records—although you think they must be actively slandering her, so how true is that?—of her turning up to talk to other women accompanied by sex workers? And she definitely must have been very, very sensitive to those different questions as a working-class woman who has to do various things to survive. So, she’s never really in… She’s not able to, like, brand herself as this chaste kind of woman, and she’s not actively engaged in combat. So, people don’t really know how to place her because she’s just really out there doing her own thing. 

Ann: I was just thinking about… Also, I don’t know, you would know more about this than I do. But something about the concept of— So, cross-dressing when it’s not for these sort of like, “noble reasons,” then the fact that people leapt to this being some sort of sexual deviance, like, the fact that presenting yourself as a gender has something to do with sexuality as well. Like, that seems to be connected somehow. 

Claire: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Up to this point— And you’ve got to remember that, you know, specific definitions of sexuality, as we know them today, wouldn’t really be in place until the 19th century, in a tiny nutshell. When talking about sexuality and gender identity, and expression, people essentially saw that as being conflated, right? And that when you were dressing in a masculine way, there was this kind of assumption that, you know, partaking in masculine activities would include being with ladies. Obviously, there’s also some different kind of contextual perceptions of how you would behave. Like, you might behave in a certain way, more heterosexually, with your wife, and then when you go to this certain club with your mates, then you can be a little bit more, you know, a little bit queerer. And that’s, you know, that’s something we know of a little bit more when it comes to men, because it’s been a bit more actively documented. 

When it comes to women, it’s that interesting thing of… There are prosecutions of women who have cross-dressed throughout history. But it more so happens when it’s not only that they have dressed in a certain way to pursue certain activities, but they’ve also actively been, you know, impersonating men to marry women, for example. So, you kind of get that extra layer of, you know, as long as women cross-dressing are confined to a certain kind of context, you know, if they’re dressing up as a man, going out to fight, well, that’s fine; they might be rewarded for it. They might even receive a pension, as many revolutionary women soldiers did. But then they will be expected to return to traditional femininity; marry, have kids, all of that. 

When you refuse to conform to that, when you’re kind of implying, or even just, like, going ahead and just being somebody who’s going to take up space in the public sphere, then that becomes a kind of active threat in itself. You know, kind of a bit more of a moral panic of, “Well, if you’re wearing trousers, if you’re taking up this masculine behaviour, then you might be partaking in… You might be having sex with other women, you might be doing all these different, these different things,” and it just becomes a little bit more threatening or something that the patriarchy actively wants to contain. 

Ann: Well, and in that sense, they were sort of successful in the sense of she was like, “Well, fuck that,” and she left. She wrote, “I left the French Revolution without too much regret.” She moved out of town, she moved back to Marcourt. After a short stay, she proceeded to Liège, the place where she had started her career as a— You know what? I was just thinking, she was a seamstress. So, it’s like, of course, she’s making these amazing outfits. She knows how to make a dress. She knows how to, yeah. So, of course, she’s just like, “I’m making my own outfit.” 

Claire: She’s literally a self-made woman. [laughs]

Ann: Truly, truly. It’s, it reminds me of like Chappell Roan somehow. 

Claire: Yes! Very much so. 

Ann: She’s just, like, making these amazing outfits because she has these skills. 

Anyway, what happens in Liège? She’s a notorious person, not just in France, but also… Well, the Revolution is kind of concerning people in Austria because it’s like, is this going to spread? Are they going to go after our monarchs as well? So anyway, she was arrested. She was seized, she was taken to various fortress prisons, she was interrogated about her revolutionary activities. It was a horrific situation. She was taken by mercenaries on a 10-day journey to Austria during what she was bullied, potentially assaulted by her three captors because they were like, “Oh, we just got this famous whore with us. Let’s….” whatever. It’s bad. So, she was taken to this prison. She was encouraged to write her memoirs, which is where we have these memoirs from. So, this guy, François de Blanc, an okay guy. [laughs] 

Claire: Wow! At least one okay guy. This is the quota. 

Ann: Thank god. He’s okay. Yeah, we’ve got our one token okay guy. So, he interrogated her over a month and concluded, like, she’s not a spy. She was tortured, and that’s why she said some of the things that she said, because she was being tortured. The press that was slandering her were unreliable. He just grew, he had affection for her and arranged for her release, especially after discovering all of her various health issues that she still had from the syphilis, but also, she had depression, insomnia, migraines, coughing up blood. 

Claire: It’s when you realize, also to some extent, like, the intersection with disability history. The fact that she’s doing all of this with chronic illnesses. I mean, she’s just doing so much with her health being the way it is. 

Ann: Exactly. And like, the thing about the health, we talked about it earlier on in this, is just a reminder, but this is also her mental health. A physician called to examine her noted that her mental state “justifies every apprehension.” So basically, she’s like… Obviously, there’s not mental health care; it’s just leeches and humors. She’s got PTSD from 17 different situations by now, obviously. She’s not thriving health-wise. But she was released because of this okay guy who was like, “You know what? She’s not a spy.” And I appreciate that of him, that they arrested her thinking she was this revolutionary, whatever, and it’s just like, “No, this is just a sick lady who likes to make outfits. She wants to learn about philosophy.” 

Claire: Yeah, it’s not that deep, guys. Just come on. 

Ann: She likes to sing sometimes. Like, this is not an enemy of any country. Anyway, so she was released and she’s like, “You know what? Back to Paris,” which is an interesting choice. 

Claire: To come back, yeah.

Ann: But news of her captivity had preceded her, and she’s welcomed as a hero, a hero of the Revolution. She was invited to speak at the Jacobins Club. She described what happened to her, and she was called one of the first Amazons of Liberty. So, there’s the Amazons. 

Claire: There’s the Amazons, yes. And like, Amazons is kind of interesting because all these kind of figures of antiquity would have been very much related to the former regime, right? Like, you have the whole 18th century movement, you have everything that’s related to the monarchy is very much steeped in the kind of mythological representations. At the time, Amazon, though, was just almost like a blanket term for warrior women in general. And yeah, just kind of like heroic, exceptional women. 

Ann: And this is, like, what her outfit had been presenting her as, and now they’re like, “You know what? You are an Amazon. You are a warrior woman.” And she’s like, “Yes, thank you.” She’s being appreciated in the way that she wanted to be. So, at this point, it seems like she’s more… Because of her time in prison, like she’s more accepted, I guess, or taken more seriously. And so, she takes that and she’s like, “Well, here’s what I’m going to do: Campaign for women’s rights to bear arms,” like weapons. She argued for the establishment of a battalion of women to defend the city. This is like, you’re so excited. It’s like women and swords. 

Claire: Yeah! [both laugh] I love it. Yes. 

Ann: So, she wanted to establish a battalion of women called the Amazons. Basically, she’s just like, “Give us guns, give us swords, like give us outfits, and we will do this.” 

Claire: Yeah. “Give us all the stuff basically.” And yeah, it’s great to see. It’s really interesting as well because there’s definitely, there’s even like, obviously lots of other women kind of take up these petitions for, you know, a battalion of warrior women. It’s interesting to see that those, kind of, impulses even predated the French Revolution. 

You have the Chevalier d’Éon, who I know you’ve done a previous podcast on, who, in terms of when she was, obviously, the monarchy was still stable, had proposed sending over a battalion of Amazons that she would lead to help as allies in the American Revolutionary War. And then she was told no. And she tried, like in the same year, actually 1792, she tried, you know, a bit later, at the Assemblée Nationale, the idea of like, “Hey, so I’m back with the same idea. How about this time?” They were like “No.” I mean, some theories that they were kind of like, “Yes, if you get funding for it,” which is almost like the same way of saying no, because what can you do without the financial backing, right? But yeah, interesting to think that that, that thinking was already around and would just, like, become even stronger in that specific year of 1792, with all these different petitions popping up. 

Ann: Yeah, Pauline Léon, I think, was also petitioning for this as well. At one point, Théroigne summoned women to gather, to do drill… [both chuckle] I don’t know, but not very many people showed up, but like, you know, good try. 

Claire: Yeah, there was also, it’s interesting, because there’s a story of, yeah, out of like a list, quite a big list, actually, of women who joined revolutionary armies. You have the story of the Fernig sisters, they were aged 16 and 13, who joined their father’s regiment in disguise. So again, you have all these different conflations of different tropes that would make them really iconic. It’s like, “Oh, they’re doing it for their dad. They’re joining in disguise without their dad knowing.” They’re also described as soft and modest, so, you know, they’re warriors, but they know their place, you know, as girls. 

But they’re actually the inspiration for, you know, a petition for a battalion called Les Corps de Fernig, the Fernig Corps, proposing, like, 10,000 women and girls take part in, you know, in this effort. And I think the person behind it, the petition, Manette Dupont, had very specific criteria. She wanted women from 18 to 40 years old to take part, so I guess 40 years old was the cut-off. She wanted them to all have short hair, so, you know, it was this kind of like, almost kind of regulation of like, “You’re going to have short hair for practicality. But also, if you join this army, you will not have to think about your appearance. You can’t be vain. You’ve got to be chaste, chaste as hell.” So, it’s just really, really interesting, you know, how you got this kind of sudden movement that is obviously really, really famous in nature, but still kind of relying on that idea of chastity and modesty and kind of the image of like the, you know, the virgin, modest warrior woman. 

Ann: And that is too bad, because I’m just like, you know, who would have been a great battalion of female soldiers? The market women who marched to Versailles with the pikes, cut off the heads of the soldiers, carried the heads back on pikes. But they were not, you know, chaste and whatever. But I’m like, that was basically the… Like, get them! [laughs]

Claire: Get those women. I mean, they’re terrifying. They will raze your city to the ground. That’s who you want. But again, you know, it’s like, really feeding into all those different gender shenanigans, you know, in a bad way this time of, you know, we can have women fighting our wars, but only so much. And, you know, we can accept them if they’re in disguise as men within our troops to some extent, up to a certain point at which they then forbid it. But then if you’re, you know, if you’re being too rowdy, and if you’re assembling as a collective, as a powerful, well-armed collective, that starts to get a bit dangerous. 

Ann: Yeah, exactly. Like, we can have women soldiers, but only extremely chaste, only very rule-following. Yeah, only very modest. Like, well, that’s not who you have in Paris at this time. Where are you going to find them? 

Claire: Yeah. And also, when you consider, like, even just, if you consider a troop, like, these army troops, and you assume that you’re going to have women disguised within them, those troops also then had a large following of different women who were sex workers, who were mistresses of various officers. You had the cantinières, who were, you know, out, kind of, serving food. You had the laundresses. You had a whole range of different women who were actively showing, participating in the war effort anyway, without even fighting, and were showing their skills, who were involved in lots of different ways. So, yeah, it’s kind of interesting how they’re, like… But then, when it comes to women, actually just, like, coming up and saying, “We want this whole regulated women’s battalion,” it’s just kind of so refused. 

Ann: “Not like that. Not like that.” 

Claire: Not like that. 

Ann: “You can support the war, but not like that.” 

Claire: Yeah, exactly. 

Ann: But Théroigne, this is what she wants, this is what she’s advocating for. She’s been in prison, she’s been tortured, she’s been assaulted. She just comes back and she’s even more ferocious than before. Like, if before she’s sort of in her undergraduate period just, like, listening and learning, now she’s just like, “I get it. I see what’s happening. And I have some plans. I have some proposals. I think I can help.” 

So, she gave a major speech on March 25th about the Amazon project, about trying to get this women’s army. So, she was advocating equality of the sexes, rejecting the view that women should be confined to the home, like your best friend Rousseau suggests. So, here’s a quote from her. “Let us return to the days when the women of Gaul debated with men in the public assemblies and fought side by side with their husbands against the enemies of liberty.” 

Claire: Oh, yeah. It’s just really interesting, her language, because she’s not talking about Amazon, she’s not talking about kind of, like, nebulous, heroic kind of figures. She’s really talking about “These are our ancestors.” She’s really kind of appealing to that, but also the kind of working-class nature of it all, really, she’s really saying, “You don’t need to be a warrior queen. You don’t need to be a literal legend of antiquity to take part. We all have it in our blood inherently to take part in this and to actually just return to our roots,” which is kind of radical when you think about it. She’s got really, like, strong rhetoric going for her. 

Ann: Exactly. She’s done the learning, she knows the history. She’s got strong arguments, and yet this is where things are… There’s been a vibe shift since she started being in the Revolution. She went off to jail, she came back, and things are just kind of like… Uhhh, just a lot more head-cutting-off vibe is what’s happening. 

Claire: Yes. 

Ann: It’s a much more just, like, a crowd of people who will try to murder you, which is what happens to her. So, she was, I guess, giving one of her speeches on April 12th, and she escaped a whipping, like, just casual whipping? Just people in the crowd had whips? Not sure. 

Claire: Yeah, it’s interesting. 

Ann: The authorities took her away under armed escort. So, she was being helped by the authorities. So, it wasn’t a whipping by the authorities. It’s just, like, the crowd was so mad at her that they wanted to attack her. 

Claire: Yeah. It’s, like, what I saw from, so that was when she’s speaking to the women of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, so like, the working-class, like the terrifying…

Ann: The market women.

Claire: Market women that you want on your side, directly talking to them. And yeah, it’s interesting. So, I saw, I saw this excerpt from the Royalist journale, journale? Oh goodness, the French is just jumping out. From the Royalist newspaper, Les Follies d’Un Mois in April 1792, that, you know, she’s previously gone to the Halles with the women armed themselves with pikes, that the men refused to bear. There’s also a whole part of this that we should explore that is also, like, these women appealing to… Saying essentially, like, “Men have no excuse. If women are going to war, then literally every single other man should go to war,” and kind of shaming them. This newspaper says that she returned to the Halles with a few sex workers (I mean, they say prostitutes), and as soon as she was recognized, only one cry was heard. “Here she is, she needs to be whipped.” So, you’re kind of on one hand, like, whoa! But then on the other hand, you do remember this is a Royalist newspaper, and so you just kind of, you start to think, “Huh. Interesting.” 

By then, apparently, she’d already talked to the same crowds of market women from the 11th of March, and this Journal Générale newspaper described the scene as what did they say? They say the martial fire that the Jacobin’s bourrique, so essentially donkey, very nice, demonstrated Sunday dictating the scenes of women of the hour was so strong that the lady’s mustache came undone. So, they’re essentially saying, “Wow, she was talking so much fervour that her mustache fell off,” kind of essentially just mocking her openly for having more masculine clothing and completely ridiculing her for what she was doing. So yeah, was she, wasn’t she? Like, either way, it’s not going well for her in the press. Yeah, it’s hard to know what the reception was amongst the market women, but maybe it didn’t go quite so well. 

Ann: Yeah. So, one of the reasons people were mad at her, they’re saying that she’s luring women away from their domestic duties, which is like, this whole thing about women should be at the home. They should just… Like this Rousseau thing. There was a period of time where it’s just kind of like, yeah, “Hell yeah, women can be revolutionaries.” And now it‘s kind of like, “No, no. No, we can’t.” 

Claire: Too much. Too much. Not like that, not like that. Exactly. 

Ann: And this is where I think, is Robespierre in charge now? Right? 

Claire: Yes, I believe he is. Yeah, and she’s kind of accused of kind of using his name, like, yeah, putting his name in her mouth, and I believe so. It’s, like, the French Revolution is just… But yeah, like at the stage, you would have the Girondins kind of slightly more moderate faction of things, and the Jacobins, which, you know, are starting to be a little bit more radical in their way of seeing things. 

Ann: And she was on the Girondist side. 

Claire: Yeah. And while, you know, yeah, people like Robespierre, I can’t remember, people like Robespierre would have been on kind of the more Jacobins, radical side. You had a whole faction of the Jacobins that was literally called les Enragés, which is like “the enraged,” you know? 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. In a few weeks, I’ll be talking about a woman who is part of the Enragés. I love when a French word is so close to an English word that I understand it exactly. I’m like, “Oh, just the enraged? Okay.” 

Claire: The enraged. Just great branding, you know, on their part. That’s good political party branding right there. 

Ann: So, things are, we’re talking about her story, but in a broader sense, the French Revolution is now in this chaotic murder stage, basically. And she’s gotten more determined and more ferocious and just keeps giving her speeches. So, April 23rd at the Jacobins club, she was mocked there for presuming as a woman to have political opinions. So, she… [chuckles] Again, is this what she did? Or is this what someone reported she did? But I love it, so I’ll say it. “She vaulted the gallery railing, [Claire laughs] and charged to the podium at the front, demanding to be heard.” And then the sitting was suspended because that just led to a riot. But basically, whatever happened, she was mocked, she got mad about it, and things are coming to a head really. 

Claire: Yeah. It’s difficult to know whether or not that would have been true because it does definitely fit into that kind of whole misogynist propaganda that the press is obviously doing of, “Oh, she’s this angry, angry woman who’s trying to like corrupt you away from the home,” and she’s just doing all this kind of stuff in public. But I just think that she’s been to these debates for so long that she would know better than to do that. So, it’s… yeah. 

Ann: And mental health problems, like, her judgment might be affected by that. 

Okay. So, then it’s like, what did she do? What did she not do? She was maybe helping to organize things like the demonstration of June 20th, called the visit to the King, which is, I don’t know if that’s the same thing as the Tuileries, where the mob invaded the prison. 

Claire: Yeah. 

Ann: So, it’s like, she might’ve been in that mob, she might not… Like, everyone at the time was like, “She was in the mob, you know, she’s riding a cannon!” or whatever. It’s like, was she? But there was a story that she found the man, like, the editor of one of the newspapers who had mocked her, and she personally lynched him, but it’s like, did she? 

Claire: Yeah. It’s like, everybody always wants her to be in the mob. They were like, “Oh, she’s at the Women’s March on Versailles, she was there.” And she’s like, I don’t know if that’s really her style.

Ann: Yeah. It’s like, she’s wearing outfits. She’s giving speeches, but like, is she running around in mobs murdering people? She’s trying to, like, organize a core of women to do military drills. Like, that’s what she’s doing. 

Claire: Yeah, yeah. And even like in the symbolism of what she’s wearing… She’s often reported to be wielding a sabre, right? And if you just think about the sabre in, in general, like the connotations of that are very, very military, you know? Like, it’s an officer’s weapon. It’s the kind of thing that, you know, would have been regulated in that way. It’s just so… She’s not really the type of woman who has any kind of thing attributed to her in terms of like being involved in active fighting in any sense and it feels like it’s more of a kind of like symbolic perspective of, you know, taking on the attributes, of masculine attributes, like the sword, which, you know, it’s definitely, you know, it’s his own whole thing in itself. 

Ann: Again, it’s like, we don’t know what did she do? What was she only rumoured to do? But it does seem like her outfit, like, the sword, I’m picturing it as kind of like, again, like a Chapelle Roan. It’s just kind of like, “Here’s my outfit, and the sword is the accessory of my outfit.” Not so much like, “I’m going to go sword fighting people now.” It’s more just like, “No, the sword helps you see that I’m doing a military style outfit.” 

Claire: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It’s always like those questions that actually even go back to Joan of Arc and debates around her, and to what extent would she have actively been involved in combat? She definitely had a sword, she definitely had armour. She was probably most likely just holding, being the standard bearer and being the kind of active symbol and kind of like rallying the troops and helping with, you know, army strategies. But was she actively involved in hand-to-hand combat? It’s just kind of an idea of like… I think, Théroigne understanding the powerful symbolism of it all as well. 

Ann: And then she was in this mob. [both laugh] The one time we know she’s in a mob. So, August 10th. So, the crowd outside… This is where the royalist prisoners were killed in the Foyance, which is a prison. 

Claire: Foyance, yeah. 

Ann: So, this is where it was described— And again, I’m going to say like, how is her mental health doing? Probably not great. How’s her physical health? Probably not great. But she becomes, in this instance, exactly what the newspapers had already claimed. She was like, she’s wearing her blue riding habit, carrying pistols and a dagger. She urged on the bloodthirsty crowd to kill the royalist prisoners there. We know she did do this because she was later awarded a prize for her courage on this day. 

Claire: Yeah, yeah. Interesting that she’s kind of switched the sabre for the pistols and the dagger, kind of a lot more just like practical things you want in a full-on assault. She’s no longer in the kind of performance. She’s just kind of, “I’ve had enough. If debating is not going to work, if the theory is not going to work, if petitioning is not going to work, then I may as well…” You know, it is interesting to what extent she kind of becomes that, you know, everything that she’s being depicted as in the press. 

Ann: Yeah, she sort of leans into it. And then she’s kind of like, popping in and out of recorded history, which could be, like, her health is worse and better, and she’s able to do stuff and other times she’s not able to do stuff. 

So, she’s the author of a broadsheet. And I love people writing pamphlets. I love people just like, “Here’s my manifesto. Everybody should read it.” So, what she wrote about… She gave an analysis of the current political military situation. She called for the election of six virtuous, wise women in each Paris section who, wearing tricolour sashes, because her proposal includes outfits… So, these six virtuous, wise women would have the task of reconciling and uniting the male citizens and monitoring their behaviour, and they would admonish miscreants. 

Claire: [laughs] I love it. I think it makes me wonder to what extent she was aware of the kind of the worthy woman trope, which is quite an old trope of kind of like, late medieval… Like, there were these worthy men throughout history and this kind of medieval trope, but then they were given these women equivalents, kind of like what happened was like She-Ra and He-Man. And then within these, kind of, women worthies, you find, like, Amazon queens, you find these women rulers. So, it’s just kind of interesting that maybe she was trying to reference that in some shape, some shape or form with that idea of kind of, you know, six virtuous, wise women per Paris section. It’s just really fascinating. 

Ann: It’s a cute idea. And I would propose it is a philosophical, hypothetical idea and not an actual idea because she knew what was happening in the world, and this was not going to… 

Claire: Yeah, it wasn’t going to happen, but she just wanted to make a statement. Yeah. 

Ann: Okay. So then, May 15th, and this is… So, we mentioned before Claire Lacombe, who is another prominent woman of the Revolution, who maybe we’re going to talk about next week. 

Claire: Ooh! 

Ann: She was with the Jacobins, and what she was doing, Claire Lacombe and her entourage, they were preventing people from getting into the convention. Théroigne arrived as usual, and she was mobbed by the women who attacked her; they whipped her savagely to the extent that she was, like, permanently injured. And then, of all people, according to some accounts, Jean-Paul Marat—like, Marat from the famously later killed in his bathtub—arrived and spirited her away, but she was humiliated. It was women who had attacked her, which maybe especially affected her, and also, she already had all these health problems, and now she’s dealing with these injuries. 

Claire: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And they’re kind of the violating nature of it all as well, like her skirts being lifted, being punished in a way that has these kind of, like, really humiliating, also kind of vaguely sexual connotations. It’s just very… It’s all very, you definitely feel as though it’s definitely conflated with the way that she dressed and presented herself as well. You know, her political inclinations and this kind of… Yeah, just kind of the internalized misogyny of other women, you know, doing this to her. And ironically, Marat would later be assassinated by a Girondin activist woman, Charlotte Corday. So, it’s just, yeah, this interesting intersection of different pathways. 

Ann: Yeah. Just sort of, all the different ways that women were asserting themselves in the French Revolution all kind of come to a head in this one moment. And after this, she withdrew from public life. She’s just like, “Fuck this. I’m done.” That’s how I imagine her thinking, but also, like, just her health got really, really, really bad really quickly, especially her mental health. She was working on writing her memoirs, which were later published, which she had written sort of those confessions/memoirs in prison. And maybe that is what made her think like, “Oh, maybe I’ll write more fuller memoirs.” 

Anyway, she was arrested on suspicion, June 27, 1794, probably for ill-considered words to neighbours. So, this is during The Terror. This is when people are being arrested for, like, thought crime. 

Claire: Yeah, it’s not a good time. Everybody’s getting guillotined left and right. It’s definitely, like, the grim part of the French Revolution that people seem to forget about sometimes. So, it’s like the Revolutionary ideal project has gone completely… It’s become a horror film. 

Ann: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I don’t know how much you’ve seen, like, on social media lately, people just advocating for a French Revolution-type moment. People are just like, “Bring out the guillotine!” Because people are mad at billionaires, people are mad at various fascist governments. And I talked at length in my previous episode about this, but it’s like the French Revolution didn’t actually go well. Like, that’s not the model you want to… Like, I can understand, like, people who are just like, the vibes of just kind of like, poor people going after rich people. But it’s like, yeah, but then what happened then is the infighting, and then they started… Like, people who got their heads cut off were not all aristocrats. A lot of them were not. 

Claire: No, for sure. And I think now there’s a kind of, I think, a reassessment of, you know, how that history has been taught, and how Marie Antoinette and her children were treated in just absolutely horrifying ways. I definitely have lots of thoughts about the meme-ification of the guillotine. Definitely because I happen to have seen a real-life guillotine at an exhibition years ago called Crime and Punishment at the Musée d’Orsay, and it was one of the guillotines that would have been used in capital punishment, which, the last capital punishment was in the 1970s in France, and would at that stage been, you know, linked to the execution of prisoners, of desperate, desperate people, you know, it just… Look, when you see a real-life guillotine, it completely changes your perspective on how it’s kind of made light of, in terms of its use today. I just, I did find it quite interesting. You wouldn’t really have memes related to… Would you have memes related to the electric chair in a few centuries? But, you know, for me, from a French perspective, the guillotine stopped, you know, the last use of the guillotine was in the 1970s. That’s not that long ago. It’s not the 18th century. So, it’s definitely quite a difference. 

Ann: Well, and Théroigne’s story I think really illustrates well, just by looking at her specific life story, like, how the Revolution went from kind of like this idealism, this optimism, and then it just kind of turned into sort of infighting, people who were mad at other people for other reasons would say, “Oh actually, they’re an aristocrat and we should…” Like, she went into this with the best of intentions, and she was just beaten down, like, literally at this point. And then she was arrested. Her brother, remember, she had two brothers, Nicolas-Josèphe, or Josèphe-Nicolas, or whichever. He appealed to have her put in his custody because he knew, like, they were still in touch, and he knew that she needed help because of all her various illnesses. 

The day before the fall of the Committee of Public Safety, which is not a thing that I’ve gotten to yet on this podcast, but the Committee of Public Safety is the, like, Nineteen Eighty-Four-coded, like Robespierre, the people who are just arresting everybody. So, they fell at some point, which we’ll learn about later. Anyway, she wrote a half-logical, half-delusional letter to Saint-Just, a powerful member, asking for his aid, but he was executed before he received it. 

So, I don’t know, you know, you just think about people who, I’m just picturing people with dementia or something, where it’s just like, you still remember who you were, and you still feel strongly about something. So, she’s still writing letters, she’s still… I think that the revolutionary stuff was still such a part of her. But also, it’s like syphilis destroys your brain. 

Claire: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s just kind of terrifying how, you know, her situation reflects just so many other women’s situations throughout history. But also at that time of just being sent away, shut away, like, kept in horrible conditions. She was even used as this kind of case study by this professional, Étienne Esquirol, who said, “Oh, this is an example of revolutionary excess in a woman.” You know, this will lead to that kind of mental health situation. Claire Lacombe, she was also hospitalized during the Salpêtrière, but much later, and you just have these women who you feel kind of disposed of, they’ve served their purpose. But just as soon as, you know, as soon as they kind of create any kind of ways, or they’re just not considered well enough, healthy enough, palatable enough, they’re just kind of locked away, you know, by their peers, but also historically just dismissed as, you know, “Oh, she was a madwoman.”

Ann: Exactly, exactly. And she spent the rest of her life in various asylums, like, she was certified insane, which was a thing that happened. And she just kind of went into hospitals, which again, it’s like the medical care… I mean, all of her various things, like, even just talking about the syphilis, like the physical, what happens to your body and then how it affects your brain. Like, that was untreated except for mercury, but she had also these other… Like, from the whipping, she had injuries. Basically, they’re just like, “Oh, here’s some leeches. Let’s balance your humors.” Like, nothing they were doing was helpful to her, but it was just kind of like, ”Well, she can’t live in society anymore, so let’s just kind of lock her away.” And where it says she was “intermittently lucid and speaking constantly about the Revolution.” And then she died in hospital, June 8, 1817. And what a life. 

Claire: What a life. And just really kind of sad to see that, you know, obviously her fate was just not that much different to, you know, the fate of Olympe de Gouges, who was just considered as like too radical by the kind of more conservative Girondins, too conservative, you know, or like, accused of being a royalist by the Jacobins. Ended up being executed, but also, you know, Pauline Léon, who ended up being a lot, you know, who ends up, like, having a much kind of quiet end to her life, kind of secluded to the domestic sphere and giving up on her revolutionary activities. It’s like, it’s not very, you know, it’s not that kind of heroic end to life that you imagine. Unfortunately, it’s often, often the case. 

It’s interesting how in many ways, Théroigne kind of almost ends up like she’s tried to kind of go beyond tropes, but in a way she’s just kind of remembered for that burst of activity, that literal, you know, taking part in that one insurrection we know that she was part of, that one mob we know she was part of, and then kind of dwindling away into obscurity and, you know, and being locked away. It’s… A lot of these warrior women’s stories often end that way; you’re interested in the kind of glitz and glamour of them wielding the sword, you know, being all badass and then, hey, what’s happening? What’s happening after? Like, where did they end up? 

Ann: Well, and I was just looking too, to double check. So, she was 54 when she died. She was institutionalized, probably in her thirties. So, like, such a young person! Everything she did was in a short period of like the revolutionary activities, that’s just over a short period of time. And then she’s kind of, just because of these illustrations, it’s just kind of like, “Oh, look at her. She’s riding the horse or riding the cannon with a sword, at every mob riot.” It’s like, actually no. 

So, to wrap things up, we’re going to go through… I sent you in advance, the scale. So, we’re going to score her in four different categories. Each one is from 0 to 10. And the French Revolution period is interesting because the first category is the Scandaliciousness, which is how scandalous was she seen by people in her time? So, like, on the one hand, during the Revolution, and then under Robespierre, what was scandalous kind of changed throughout her life. But I do think the first part of her life, like, being the… I don’t know, actually, I guess it wouldn’t have been scandalous to be a courtesan, to be sort of this, to have the sugar daddy, a lot of people are doing it. But then she starts wearing her outfit and going to the Revolution. Even the revolutionaries are like, “This is a bit much.” 

Claire: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think it’s that conflation of different things. And then when you then consider that she’s part of, in those few years, she’s then going to be part of this whole movement where suddenly there’s this horror of like, “Oh my goodness, these women citizens want to claim our red bonnets. They’re going to have on trousers next. This is all getting a bit too woke for us guys. We’ve got to rein it in. [Ann laughs] We’ve got to now forbid cross-dressing and also forbid women taking part in the army, and forbid the creation of women’s societies and clubs.” Like, lots of these sudden repressive measures kind of coming down in 1793. 

I don’t know… I was thinking about that. I think I would rank her as an 8. I feel as though, you know, it maybe wasn’t, I think the step above would have been kind of trying to confirm the just gal being pals allegations of like, you know, would there have been some actual queerness going on? And it’s usually hard to ascertain those kind of things at all. But I feel like I’m landing on an 8 because I feel as though she was definitely being the Chapelle Roan of her time; she was definitely in that kind of spirit of performance, and being outspoken, and being in front lines. But, you know, there, but there were also other things where she was, in many ways, doing what other women were doing at the time that wasn’t necessarily that much out of the norm. 

Ann: Yeah. And she was seen… She was singled out, I think, because of the way she dressed and because of her fondness for speaking and for oratory. She made herself stand out even among a bunch of people who were also advocating for similar things. But I agree. Well, I’m never going to disagree with you. [Claire laughs] I’m very much curious to see what you think, but I think an 8 is a suitable choice. 

The next category, and this one is interesting because it’s Schemieness. 

Claire: Yes! 

Ann: So, this is like, how much does she come up with? And this is like, well, she wasn’t a spy. She wanted to start the Amazon women’s army; she suggested, like, let’s have six wise… I don’t think she was really scheming. I think she was kind of more like seeing what was going on, seeing where she could fit herself in, but she wasn’t leading anything really. 

Claire: Yeah. And she wasn’t kind of playing the game in a sense in which she wasn’t thinking, “Well, okay, let’s try and quietly introduce some, some ideas and then just kind of like, ramp up the radical nature of things.” Even stuff like “Let’s associate directly or try to marry, you know, a French revolutionary and get more political standing.” You know, she wasn’t necessarily in that frame of mind. She was just very much, from my point of view, quite brash. She was just like, “Well, actually, I’m just going to express my views. If you don’t like it, tough luck. I’m going to talk directly to the working-class market women of the Halles, and if they don’t like it, then, you know, that’s the way it is.” I don’t think she was very interested in moderating herself, but that, in many ways also, you know, caused her downfall. 

But you know, obviously, seen as with other women of the period, like Pauline Léon and Olympe de Gouges. You can’t win, can you? You’re always going to be seen as too radical or too conservative, and then, gasp, you’re suddenly a royalist. So, in the end, that was what got her people saying, “You’re too much of a Girondin, you’re too conservative.” So, I think… A 4 feels cruel because there’s not really a reflection on her intelligence. She’s obviously a brilliant orator. She’s got all this political acumen, but I just don’t think she was interested in the scheming side of things. 

Ann: No. The reason I have these four categories on this scale is just because the people we talk about, it’s very rare for somebody to score highly in everything. And I think, yeah, just thinking about it in this context, like for sure, you’re right, she didn’t go in there to play the game. She just came in with kind of, like, principles and really good… I don’t know, just really thinking, like, “This is how it should be,” but without the sort of political awareness of how to actually convince people to actually agree with her. So, you know, if we had a category of just, like, Principles, she’d be 10. 

Claire: She’d be a 10. Absolutely. Yeah, she would. 

Ann: I’m going to go out of order just so we can finish with Significance. So, the next one is the Sexism, which is like, how much did being a woman get in her way? Now, I will say, a lot, it did a lot, and a lot of men also wound up getting their heads cut off for doing similar things. So, it’s just kind of like…

Claire: It is true. It is true. That’s an interesting one. I actually scored that one quite high as a 9, because for me, what really got me about her story, what really did kind of break my heart is that she wasn’t about kind of being, like many of these women, these, you know, women of nobility had been in the 17th century of like saying, “Oh, I’m going to dress as this Amazon queen, because I consider myself an exception to my gender. I’m leading the men, but I also believe that women should stay in their place.” She was really in that perspective of like a collective of women and kind of collective action. But in the end, the smear campaigns against her were so powerful. And I think she was just, like, the inherent misogyny at the time was so against her, not in her favour, that in the end, like, the women, the very women that she wanted to appeal to, the working-class women, just couldn’t gel with her message. 

Sometimes I wonder if it’s just because she had lots of things against her. Obviously, the aristocratized name, that’s not a term, but you know, the name that made her sound more aristocratic. Maybe the dressing in that specific way was also a callback to women of the aristocracy who had had the privilege to dress in these, kind of more unconventional ways, and that just did not appeal to the working-class women she was talking to. But I feel like when you, when you see, like, what’s being told about her in the press, it’s her emotions and her gender non-conformity are just being used against her relentlessly. It’s just something we see today, you know, the angry, woke, social justice warrior. It’s the same rhetoric that will then lead to women dampening access to their own rights to, you know, form part of the status quo and beat down other women. 

So, it’s a 9 for me just because of, like, that kind of heartbreaking thing of, you know, that final confrontation of women, not having her back, not being on her side. And then within that wider context, I feel of… It’s tricky because, like, the men weren’t really unified either, but there were just so many different feminist perspectives going on in the French Revolution, but in the end, they weren’t always on the same side. They kind of did fail to unify in some ways. So yeah, I would say 9… Maybe, maybe an 8, because, you know, you do wonder to what extent, obviously men… You know, if she was like a man who had also kind of been given the aristocratic allegations, would they have suffered the same fate? It’s yeah, still a 9 for me. 

Ann: I think a 9 for sure. And part of it, too, is just her earlier life, being sort of like, no one really cared about her because she was a girl, like, presumably, her brothers were treated better. And then being abandoned, pregnant, what is she going to do? Like, she turns to sex work. So, she’s making do in the life, but also just being set up for failure as a lower-class woman, unmarried, has this child. If she’d had support then, if people had helped her out, like, things could have turned out differently. 

Claire: Yeah, it’s that major kind of irony that more aristocratic upper-class women who took part in the French revolutionary effort are better remembered because they had more time to kind of express their ideas. They had more backing from their families. They had more financial support in the first place. From an intersectional kind of point of view, being involved in sex work, you know, in terms of being supported by that older man, in terms of working-class feminism, in terms of like, disability history, she’s on the margins of society essentially. 

Ann: And so, the final category then is the Significance. So, how significant was she at the time, and how significant is she remembered now? And could you first, I don’t know how this will work into the score, but before we started recording, you were telling me about there’s a street or a neighbourhood that we think is named after her. 

Claire: Yes! Yes, the first time… When I was reading about Théroigne de Méricourt, and I started reading about her about a year or so ago, I was like, Méricourt. And then I was talking to my mum actually about, I’m recording this podcast, and she said, “Oh! Like La Folie-Méricourt,” which is, you know, the name of a whole neighbourhood in Paris, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris I believe, and was actually based on the streets, Folie-Méricourt, which was definitely named in the 19th century. I wasn’t able to see any specific evidence that was actually explicitly named after her, but at the same time, you can’t help but think that there must have been some kind of… 

Ann: And the translation is “The madness of Méricourt.” 

Claire: Folie, yes. Folie is ‘madness’ of Méricourt, and it’s just so interesting to me. So, is this a complete coincidence, or is it linked to Théroigne de Méricourt? But you know, if it is that kind of strange thing of her being reduced to her madness, in a sense. So, definitely needs verifying of whether or not that street was actually explicitly named after her, or more likely her mental illness. 

But I think when it comes to her at the time, I think that she definitely had such a tangible impact. I mean, when you look at, when you look at the fact that Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe founded Le Club de Citoyenne Républicaines, the Club of Citizen Women of the Republic, it was kind of linked on these kind of ideas that Olympe de Gouges but also Théroigne de Méricourt had put forward about women being involved in warfare and the wider political sphere. Like, she was strengthening the numerous other petitions for battalions of women at the time and to some extent, she wanted to present the kind of this war, this Guerre de Cockades, the war of the red bonnets, of women citizens to access the red bonnets, and that then this panic like, “God, they’re going to take our trousers as well,” not only influenced that whole movement, but then also, may have paved the way for future feminist struggles that happened in the 19th century for women to wear the trousers, for future revolutionary feminist action. It’s that kind of thing of, like, you know, the fact that it was an inherent failure doesn’t mean that it didn’t have this tangible impact and the kind of ripple effect that would be more present later on. 

Ann: And I think her significance, the concept of her, just sort of this woman revolutionary, like, in the time, she was influenced in a bad way, but sort of like, it was a way that people could dismiss the feminist thinkers and the concept of female soldiers. Like, she just became this sort of token or something, or just example of what a woman revolutionary is like. I think as much as her name is remembered now, it’s just kind of like, it’s that image of her in the mob. She has just become, like, the exemplar of kind of woman revolutionary, which is not really what she was about, but it does speak to sort of like because of her— On this podcast I do tend to emphasize the importance of, you know, crafting and fashion, but the fact that the outfit that she wore became iconic, it’s kind of like the female revolutionary. And there’s some significance to that as well. 

Claire: Yeah, for sure. And when you consider that later on in the kind of, in the interwar, there was this kind of emergence of a whole, you know, lesbian visual identity of, you know, women having caught more masculinized clothing as kind of linked to the uniforms that they were taking on to replace men who’d gone off to war and how that creates the whole feminist, queer feminist language of dress in itself. You know, you can definitely see so many interesting things that go back to Théroigne de Méricourt, like the kind of inherent, kind of queer feminist aesthetic of the riding habit and those kind of masculinized pieces of clothing that she wore. That idea in many ways of kind of literally weaponized femininity that refuses to be in a binary, that refuses to be, like, full feminine or just kind of like, “Oh, I’m going to dress as a man because we should all aspire to be dressed as men to accomplish great things,” she’s like, “Actually, I’m doing this, this is an act of kind of radical disability in many ways.” 

I find it just quite interesting when there was this kind of like whole moral panic around the idea of women usurping the trousers and the red bonnet, they would describe at some points, “errant knightesses,” you know, this idea that these women with swords are just kind of roaming around and causing havoc. But when you think about it now, there’s such a powerful image in itself. 

Ann: So, where would you rank her, 0 to 10, on Significance? 

Claire: What did I put? I mean, I don’t know why I originally put 7. I think I originally put 7 just because of like the fact that it’s… In terms of her notoriety today, you know, compared to Olympe de Gouges. But at the same time, given the impact she had at the time, I would like to bump her up to an 8. I think even though I believe this podcast is part of, you know, helping kind of make her legacy a little bit more well-known, I think she definitely had such a tangible impact at the time in so many different ways. 

Ann: So, that gives her a total score of 29. 

Claire: 29! 

Ann: 29 out of whatever, 40. But like, that’s a very respectable score. I’m just scrolling up to see who’s got a similar… Do you know, just in terms of gender history, Deborah Sampson/Robert Shurtleff from the American Revolution? 

Claire: I do not. I have a bit of, like, missing knowledge when it comes to the American Revolution, so no, I do not. 

Ann: So, Deborah Sampson/Robert Shurtleff, as evidenced by the double name, was a figure who was a woman who disguised as a man to fight in the war of American independence. But then also it’s, like, or was this… It’s a gender non-conforming, like, because that’s why it’s Deborah/Robert, because it’s like, they lived as Robert sometimes, they lived as Deborah. Anyway, that person has a 28.5. 

Claire: Oh, okay. Great! 

Ann: And you know who else has a 29? Olympe de Gouges. 

Claire: Hey! Perfect matching score, that’s interesting. I mean, I definitely feel as though Théroigne mainly lost points in terms of scheming, but at the same time, she held strong, she stood her ground, she stuck to her guns, literally. 

Ann: She did, to the detriment of her life. So, that’s the perfect neighbourhood, I think, just kind of gender non-conforming people and also Olympe de Gouges. You know, Olympe got the statue, Théroigne did not, but on this scale, they’re equivalent. 

Claire: Exactly. Exactly. [laughs] 

Ann: So, in terms of women, sword lesbians, where can people keep up with you and your work? You have your podcast, and where else? 

Claire: I have my podcast. I have my podcast, Bustles & Broadswords, all about women with swords throughout history and legends. I have my YouTube channel, Joust Gal Pals, which is all about looking at arms and armour through a queer feminist lens. And finally, I also write and draw a webcomic called, Girls’ School of Knighthood, which is all about girls with swords being incredibly gay for one another; that’s the best way I can describe it. [laughs] It’s just lots of coming of age, queer, found family, sword shenanigans. 

Ann: So, for anyone out there who’s a fan of women, queer ladies with swords, you’re the person to follow whether you like a comic, a YouTube, a podcast, you’re providing this content. 

Claire: I’m everywhere. [laughs] 

Ann: Absolutely. And you’re absolutely the perfect guest to talk about this. 

Claire: Oh, thank you. Yay! 

Ann: Gender non-conforming, sword lady. 

Claire: Yes, exactly. We love it. 

Ann: Thank you so much for joining me. 

Claire: Oh, thank you! It was so much fun. 

—————

So, if you’re as obsessed with Claire Mead as I currently am, as I was during that interview, as I was when we were planning the interview, I’m just so excited to know who she is and to have her as a friend of the podcast now. You can keep up with what Claire is doing on her website, which is ClaireMead.com. And there’s links there to all of her social media, including she’s on Instagram, and then she’s also got her YouTube, Joust Gal Pals, where she talks about queer women and swords in history. And then she also has her webcomic, Girls’ School of Knighthood. Guess what? Queer women and girls with swords. So, keep up with her. And then also her podcast! How could I not mention that? Her podcast which is called Bustles & Broadswords: Sword Lady Histories. So, follow that, catch up with her, and I believe she has some new episodes of that coming out soon. Anyway, we’re obsessed, and here we all are in our French revolutionary era. 

Next week, we’re going to be looking at more queer French revolution history. That’s right. We’re going to be talking about two women from that era who were historically very good friends. Their names might have come up in this past episode if you were listening closely. It’s going to be the first ever Vulgar History episode about two people at once. So, you know you’re going to enjoy that as well. Spoiler! Neither of them… Actually, no. Actually, no. Most of the people in the sequence of episodes die quite young, in kind of tragic ways. Of the historically very good friends next week, one and/or both of them survived the French Revolution era. So, stay tuned for that, obviously. 

And if you, again, if you want to get the bingo card for this segment of Vulgar History episodes, it’s on my Patreon, which is Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter, and it’s just a free post there for anyone who’s a member of my Patreon. Speaking of, join my Patreon, because why not? It took me too long to realize that I was using social media incorrectly. What I have been doing on, like, my Instagram, for instance, is just leaving messages for you, the listeners, talking about the episodes and sharing fun facts about the episodes. That works to a certain extent, except the algorithm doesn’t show stuff to everybody. What I understand now is that social media is meant for you to be promoting your podcast to people who don’t already know about it, and I don’t do that really. So, I was like, where can I put the stuff that I know the listeners want to see? So, that’s why I’ve been putting it all on Patreon, which you can join. Again, if you join Patreon at the free level, you’ll see the bingo sheet, you’ll also see some other things I post there, like articles and links and stuff. I have some questions there. I do a monthly Ask Me Anything. Anyway, if you want to get the updates from me, Patreon is where it’s happening. 

If you want to get a little bit more from me, and if you can afford such an indulgence in this French Revolution-like world we’re living in, for $1 a month, you can get early, ad-free access to all episodes of Vulgar History. So, it’s exactly like what you just listened to, but just without the ads at the beginning, middle, and end, and also, four to five days earlier than other people get to listen to them. And then if you want to bump things up even more—again, in these times, I don’t want anyone to feel pressured to spend money that you don’t have but if you feel like supporting your girl, who is me, supporting a Canadian person, which is also me, supporting the country of Canada, the place where I live—you can get a monthly membership on my Patreon at $6 a month. Is that more than it used to be? Yeah, it used to be $5. But times being such as they are, it’s increased to $6 a month. For that, you get access to bonus episodes, like Vulgarpiece Theatre, where I talk about costume dramas, So This Asshole episodes where I talk about gross men from history. Coming soon, by the way, So This Asshole: Rousseau, So This Asshole: Robespierre. I’m just finding a lot of new nemeses among the men of the French Revolution. Like, augh! Goddamn, Robespierre. Every time he shows up, I’m just like, “Fuck, someone’s going to get their head cut off,” and they do. Sometimes him. Anyway, so if you join the Patreon at $6 or more a month, you get all those things. As well, you can join the Discord, which is like a giant group chat for people who are at that level of the Patreon, where we just have a nice time, sharing fun facts with each other, talking about TV shows recently. I guess when you’re hearing this is a few weeks later, but Yellowjackets was a hot topic on there as well. 

And then also if you’re like, “I want to keep up with you, Ann, but not to that extent, that is too many updates. I don’t want weekly, bi-weekly updates; I want a once-a-month, perhaps email newsletter.” Guess what? I have that too. So, you can get your one-stop shopping of all Vulgar History and Ann Foster content in my email newsletter, where I send you— It’s usually mid-month, and I kind of talk about here’s what some of the most recent podcast episodes have been. Here’s the latest news on my book, Rebel of the Regency, pre-orders coming soon. I’m really excited. Cover stuff to announce soon. Lots of stuff to announce. So, join the mailing list to get all that information as soon as possible. I also put in the mailing list my recommendations for TV shows and books to read, podcasts to listen to, et cetera. And also, in-person events, which I’m going to be having one coming up this summer in Toronto. Anyway, to get all that news and to make sure you see it, subscribe to my email list, which you can do by going to VulgarHistory.com/News. I also have a Substack, VulgarHistory.Substack.com where I post essays about women from history every two weeks. 

We also have merchandise, Vulgar History merchandise. I have a big announcement coming next week. A friend of the podcast and one of our… All of the merchandise in the Vulgar History store is designed by artists who I pay for their work because I believe, as an artist myself, as a podcaster, as a writer, I very strongly believe in this age of AI that it’s really important to use real people to do things instead of artificial programs. That’s why we also have the Severn Duo play the opening music of this podcast. That’s also why a real person, Aveline Malek, does all the transcripts for these podcasts. Anyway, there’s a gorgeous new design theme because it’s a new era of Vulgar History is coming to the merchandise store. Stay tuned for that. I think it’s going to be there next week, but again, I’ll let you know during the newsletter because I’ll be posting about it there. The theme is amazing. There’s going to be new T-shirts, there’s going to be stickers. I can’t wait until you see it all. Anyway, you can check out our merchandise at VulgarHistory.com/Store, that’s the store for Americans. If you’re outside of America, then I recommend using the other store, VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com. And the reason I say one is for Americans and one is for not-Americans is to do with shipping rates. It’s not any sort of judgmental stance about any country. You can get in touch with me by using the form at VulgarHistory.com or emailing me at VulgarHistoryPod@gmail.com. 

And lest you think I’m not going to talk about it, I always talk about it because this is another one of my favourite things: Our brand partner, Common Era Jewelry. So, you know what? In these times, if we’re all trying to be mindful about who we’re buying stuff from and what sorts of businesses we’re supporting and making a point to support small businesses, again, in these times of… I record these episodes, like, a week in advance. But you know what? At the time I’m recording this, tariffs are a big topic of conversation, and they probably still are when you listen to this. So, if you want to support a small business owned by a woman who just had a baby, congratulations, Torie, the owner of Common Era Jewelry, support Common Era Jewelry. 

They make beautiful heirloom jewelry, their pieces are made entirely in New York City, everyone involved has health care and good wages. Torie does the designs herself. The packaging is made by a lovely little family-owned business in Chicago. And it’s a business that I support both ethically and morally, and also aesthetically, because the designs are gorgeous. They have beautiful pendants and rings inspired by women and also just kind of women from history, women from mythology. Every time an American man politician does something extremely heinous, I think that Torie sees more people buying her Medusa-themed necklace, which I personally own as well. That’s the vibe. The vibe is kind of ferociously feminist. Anyway, she also has a recent new collection that is inspired by the Zodiac for all the horoscope astrology girlies. That’s there for you as well. Her pieces are available in solid gold as well as a more affordable gold vermeil. She also sells other things if you’re not in the market for jewelry. She also sells scrunchies, phone cases, lots of stuff, and it’s all just really feminine, really powerful, all inspired by history. And Vulgar History listeners can always get 15 percent off everything from Common Era by going to CommonEra.com/Vulgar or using code ‘VULGAR’ at checkout. 

If you want to follow me, like I said, Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter is where I put all my updates. And if you’re like, “Well, I’m not going to remember to look at that website enough to see the updates,” well, they will also be emailed to you if you’re a person who checks your email. But anyway, I’m also posting every now and then on Bluesky, Instagram, Threads, I’m in all the places. 

To all my Canadians, elbows up. There’s an election coming up. The election itself is being on. I’m just checking my voter card, which hopefully you got in the mail as well. Advance voting days have probably passed when you hear this. Election day, Monday, April 28th. And we’ve just seen in America what happens when a really shitty person gets voted into office. So, we want to make sure that doesn’t happen by voting for someone who’s not shitty here in Canada. And if you’re not sure in your riding, is there a vote split between the non-shitty candidates? Where should you put your vote to make it best work? I’ll put a link in the show notes, but there’s a site that’s called SmartVoting.ca. I’ll put the link there, and you can look up your riding and where you are. It kind of advises you just based on the latest polling, who looks like they’re going to win in your riding so you know where to throw your support to make sure the goddamn Pierre… Waste of the name Pierre; formerly a name I had fond feelings about. There was a cute boy in my class in, like, grade 2 called Pierre. Now, the name Pierre: tainted, ruined. Anyway, Canadian election is coming up. Please, please vote. And please vote for a non-shitty person. 

Anyway, next week, historically very good French Revolution friends. Can’t wait to talk to you about these gal pals. And until then, elbows up to all my Canadians. Sans-culottes, pants on, tits out, and I’ll talk to you all next time. 

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:

Keep up with Claire’s work about queer women and swords at clairemead.com

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