- Hello! I'm Adam, and welcome to Corpse Talk,
the show that brings the dead famous to life.
Tonight's guest is the duelling diva whose life was stranger than fiction.
It's the fencing French fugitive!
(cheering)
♪ Corpse Talk ♪
♪ A history chat about this or that ♪
♪ Corpse talk ♪
♪ Corpse Talk ♪
♪ Where the dead famous come to life ♪♪
It's Julie d'Aubigny!
(grunts)
- Ha, ha, ha!
- Woo!
- En garde!
- Ah! I surrender! Mommy!
- OK Adam, you may ask me your questions now. Allez!
- Ahem. Thanks. So, Julie. Despite being a successful opera singer
and sword fighter, your larger-than-life adventures take centre stage
and seem like something straight from the pages of a swashbuckling romance novel.
What's with all the fighting?
- It all started with my father.
You see, he was the fencing master in the court of Louis XIV, the king of France.
- Let's go!
- And was in charge of teaching rich young boys how to fight.
But he decided to teach me, too.
Ja, ja, ja! - Oui, oui!
- Huh?
- One for all and all for one!
- En garde!
(grunts)
- Ha, ha!
(metallic clanking)
(drum roll)
(victorious music)
(grunts)
(crashing)
- That's my girl.
♪♪♪
- So, not many girls became elite fencers like you.
- Mais non, girls back then were supposed to act nice, stay quiet,
and keep out of trouble.
(scoffs)
- Yeah, you seem to have been pretty keen on getting into trouble.
- So much trouble.
But it all got a bit serious when I got involved with my father's boss,
Count d'Armagnac.
He was already married. - Oh.
- Bonjour.
- It wasn't a good decision. And it could have been a terrible scandal.
To cover it up, I had to get married to some boring old guy called Maupin,
who I didn't really like.
- Uh, what? - Adieu!
- Um, au revoir.
- And after him, I ran away to Marseille with the assistant fencing master,
Séranne,
who I thought was very exciting and dangerous since he was wanted
for murder.
- Mm, salut. Oh!
- I guess we all go off the rails in our teens. I know I did, ha, ha.
- Ah oui! What did you do?
- Well, this one time, I dyed my hair green.
(anti-climatic music)
- Huh? Anyway, before long, I fell in love again.
But she was the daughter of a noble family
and her parents weren't exactly thrilled.
So they sent her to a nunnery to escape the scandal.
But nothing can stand in the way of true love.
And we made plans to run away together.
- Ah, I get the idea. Rope let her out of the window, and then make a run for it.
Classic.
- No. More like... - Oh.
- Ha. I disguise myself as a nun, steal a dead body,
put the body in my girlfriend's bed so they think she's died,
and then burn the nunnery to the ground.
- Oh, uh, it's a plan? I suppose.
Wha-- !
(bell tolls)
Wha--, um...wait for me!
♪♪♪
Still, I was right about the rope ladder.
So, what happened next?
- She didn't fancy life on the run with me as a wanted criminal.
So, she left me, and I was alone again.
But not for long!
I fell in love with someone else.
A man I wounded in a duel and nursed back to health.
- This is the most fantastical story I've ever heard.
Why did you like duelling so much anyway?
- Allow me to demonstrate.
- Ugh!
- Ha! En garde!
That means hold up your sword.
- Uh, OK-- Ah!
- Duelling was how most rich people in 17th century France settled arguments.
- Sounds kind of stupid. Wha--!
- Now, parry! That means block my attack.
- Not that this isn't fun and everything, Julie, but I'm surprised something
so dangerous was allowed.
(grunting)
- Oh, it wasn't. Duelling was totally illegal. Now, the riposte.
Attack me.
- Uh...
(sighs)
OK. You got this.
(eclectic music)
Ah!
- Too many people were being killed.
- You don't say.
- Why do you think I was on the run from the law so much?
I remember there was this one famous duel at a party.
(indistinct chattering)
I dressed as a man that night because, why not?
(harpsichord music)
Then I kissed a woman,
which offended three guys who were in love with her.
- Let's do this!
- So I duelled them all at once.
- En garde!
(metallic clanking)
(grunting)
(crashing)
(applause)
♪♪♪
- Well, did you get into trouble?
- Luckily, the king had a soft spot for me and always let me go.
- Phew.
- And also, by then, I was a very popular opera singer.
- Huh. That's a bit of a career change.
- Well, my boyfriend got me an audition at the Opéra de Paris.
- So that would have been the Count d'Armagnac?
- No.
- No, no, uh. Séranne?
- No.
- Wait, uh, sorry. The count d'Albert?
- No. It was the famous baritone singer, Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard.
Try to keep up.
(grunts)
The people of Paris loved me.
Merci beaucoup!
They called me La Maupin, my original married name.
(crowd cheering) Merci.
- But some people have suggested that
not every story about your life is completely true.
Did everything you just told me really happen?
- Huh, maybe it did, maybe it didn't.
Let's just say, you don't want to believe everything you read in your story books.
- And in the end,
you died of a broken heart when your latest girlfriend passed away.
- Marie Louise, the Marquise de Florensac.
The love of my life.
- Well, one of them. I can't keep up.
(grunts)
- Wha-- ! Sorry! I didn't mean to offend you.
- Quel dommage! I demand satisfaction in a--
- Please say a game of ping-pong.
(grunts)
- Duel! En garde!
(grunting)
- Join us again on Corpse Talk, I hope.
The show that brings the dead famous to life.
Ooh! My bum! No!
(crowd cheering)
- Ha, ha.
♪ Corpse Talk ♪
♪ A history chat about this or that ♪
♪ Corpse Talk ♪
♪ Where the dead famous come to life ♪♪