La Maupin: The Swordswoman of the Paris Opera

Julie d'Aubigny, known to history as La Maupin, was a 17th-century French opera singer and swordswoman whose life was so extraordinary that separating fact from legend has challenged historians for centuries. What we know for certain is remarkable enough: she was one of the most celebrated contralto voices of her generation, she fought and won duels against men at a time when women were expected to be ornamental, and she conducted her romantic life with a freedom that scandalized even the permissive court of Louis XIV.

Early Life and Origins

Julie d'Aubigny was born around 1670-1673 in Paris. The exact date is uncertain, as parish records from the period are incomplete. Her father, Gaston d'Aubigny, was secretary to Louis de Lorraine, Count of Armagnac, who held the prestigious position of Master of the Horse to King Louis XIV. This placed the d'Aubigny family in the orbit of the royal court at Versailles, though they were not nobility themselves.

According to period accounts, Gaston d'Aubigny was responsible for training young pages in swordsmanship, and Julie was permitted to train alongside them from an early age. This was highly unusual for a girl of any station, but it gave her a foundation in fencing that would later become legendary. By her teenage years, she was reportedly skilled enough to best many of her male contemporaries.

The Count of Armagnac

Contemporary sources indicate that the young Julie came to the attention of the Count of Armagnac himself. The nature of their relationship was an open secret at court. The Count was a powerful nobleman, and Julie, as the daughter of his secretary, had limited options for refusing his attentions. Period accounts suggest he provided her with advanced fencing instruction and musical training, cultivating her talents while keeping her under his influence.

Around 1687, when Julie was approximately fourteen to seventeen years old, the Count arranged her marriage to Sieur de Maupin, a minor official. Shortly after the wedding, Maupin was sent to a tax-collecting post in the south of France, conveniently removing him from the picture. Julie did not accompany her husband. Instead, she remained near Paris under the Count's patronage. The marriage provided her with a respectable title (Madame Maupin, or La Maupin) while leaving her effectively single.

Flight from Paris

Around 1688-1689, Julie fled Paris under circumstances that vary depending on the source. Most accounts agree that she left in the company of a fencing master, often named as Serannes or Seranne, with whom she had begun an affair. They supported themselves by giving fencing exhibitions and musical performances in provincial towns as they made their way south.

During this period, Julie began performing publicly as a singer. Her voice, a powerful contralto, attracted notice wherever she performed. She also continued to fence publicly, sometimes for wagers. The combination of a beautiful woman who could sing like an angel and fight like a demon was irresistible to provincial audiences.

The Convent Incident

The most famous episode of La Maupin's life, and the one most difficult to verify, involves a young woman and a convent. According to the account preserved in period sources, Julie fell in love with a young woman (her name is variously given as Cecile, or a Mademoiselle d'Armagnac, or simply left unnamed) in Marseille. When the girl's family discovered the relationship, they placed her in a convent, possibly the Convent of the Visitandines in Avignon.

What allegedly happened next has become the stuff of legend: Julie entered the convent as a postulant, located her lover, and engineered their escape. According to the most dramatic version of the story, she placed the body of a recently deceased nun in her lover's bed and set fire to the room to cover their escape.

The historical record shows that Julie d'Aubigny was indeed sentenced to death by fire in absentia by a court in Aix-en-Provence for crimes including "abduction," which was the legal term for taking a woman from her family's control. This suggests something like the convent incident did occur, even if the details have been embellished over time.

The Royal Pardon

The death sentence was later pardoned by King Louis XIV himself. The circumstances of this pardon are remarkable. According to contemporary accounts, the King reviewed her case and reportedly remarked that the laws against dueling were made for men, not for women, and that her "singular" nature placed her beyond the normal scope of his laws.

This pardon is documented in the records of the period. It allowed Julie to return to Paris and pursue her career at the Academie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera) without fear of prosecution for her past crimes.

Star of the Paris Opera

Julie d'Aubigny made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1690, appearing in works by Jean-Baptiste Lully, the dominant composer of the French operatic stage. Her career at the Opera lasted approximately fifteen years, during which she became one of the most celebrated singers of her generation.

Period reviews and correspondence attest to the power of her voice and the intensity of her stage presence. She typically sang travesti roles (male characters sung by women) and parts requiring a strong, dramatic contralto. Composers including Andre Campra, Andre Cardinal Destouches, and Pascal Collasse wrote roles specifically for her voice.

Her repertoire included appearances in:

• Cadmus et Hermione by Lully
• Le Triomphe de l'Amour by Lully
• Tancrede by Campra
• Medee by Charpentier
• Omphale by Destouches

The Ball Incident

One of the most frequently cited episodes of La Maupin's life occurred at a society ball, though the date and location vary in different accounts. According to the story, she attended the ball dressed as a man and danced with and kissed a young woman. When three noblemen took offense and challenged her, she fought all three in the garden, defeating each in turn.

The veracity of this specific incident is difficult to confirm, but it aligns with other documented aspects of her behavior. She was known to wear men's clothing (a practice that required police permission, which she apparently obtained), and multiple contemporary sources attest to her willingness to fight duels.

Romantic Life

Julie d'Aubigny's romantic relationships were a subject of constant gossip during her lifetime and have fascinated historians since. She was openly involved with both men and women at various points in her life, and seems to have made little effort to hide these relationships.

Her known relationships include:

• The Count of Armagnac (her early patron)
• A fencing master (Serannes or similar)
• Gabriel-Vincent Thevenard, a fellow singer at the Paris Opera, with whom she had a long and tempestuous affair
• Several women, including the subject of the convent incident
• The Elector of Bavaria, according to some accounts

Her affair with the singer Thevenard was the subject of considerable public attention. Both were stars at the Opera, and their on-stage chemistry and off-stage drama provided endless entertainment for Parisian society.

Other Documented Duels

Beyond the ball incident, period sources record other occasions when La Maupin resorted to violence. She reportedly beat the singer Louis Gaulard Dumesnil with a cane in a public square after he insulted her, taking his sword and watch as trophies. She is said to have fought multiple duels with men who offended her or challenged her honor.

The frequency of these incidents suggests a woman who was both skilled with a blade and quick to anger. In an era when dueling was technically illegal but widely practiced among men, her willingness to fight was both shocking and, to some, admirable.

Retirement and Death

Around 1705, at the height of her fame, Julie d'Aubigny retired from the Paris Opera stage. The reasons are not entirely clear. Some sources suggest failing health; others hint at personal reasons. She was approximately thirty-two to thirty-five years old.

She died around 1707, at roughly thirty-three to thirty-seven years of age. Some accounts claim she spent her final years in a convent, which would be a remarkable end for a woman once sentenced to death for convent-related crimes. Others suggest she reconciled with her long-estranged husband. The true circumstances of her final years remain uncertain.

Historical Sources

The principal historical sources for La Maupin's life include:

• Contemporary legal documents, including the death sentence and pardon
• Records of the Paris Opera
• Period correspondence and memoirs
• Gabriel Letainturier-Fradin's 1904 biography, La Maupin, 1670-1707: Sa vie, ses duels, ses aventures, which collected and synthesized earlier sources

It should be noted that many of the most colorful details of her life come from sources written after her death, and some details have likely been embellished over time. The boundary between documented fact and accumulated legend is not always clear.

Legacy

La Maupin's life has inspired numerous artistic works, most notably Theophile Gautier's 1835 novel Mademoiselle de Maupin, which uses her as a starting point for a meditation on gender and desire (though it departs significantly from the historical record).

In recent decades, she has been rediscovered as a figure of LGBTQ history, a woman who lived openly and defiantly in an era with rigid expectations for female behavior. Her willingness to fight, to love whom she chose, and to pursue her art on her own terms continues to resonate.

Whether one focuses on the documented facts or embraces the full legend, Julie d'Aubigny remains one of the most remarkable figures of the French Baroque era: a woman who sang with the voice of an angel and fought with the skill of a demon, who burned down convents and was pardoned by kings, who lived and loved without apology, and who died young but left a legend that has refused to fade for over three hundred years.

Further Reading

• Letainturier-Fradin, Gabriel. La Maupin, 1670-1707: Sa vie, ses duels, ses aventures. Paris: Flammarion, 1904.
• Gardiner, Kelly. Goddess: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2014.
• Holoman, D. Kern. The Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire, 1828-1967. University of California Press, 2004.
• Records of the Academie Royale de Musique, Bibliotheque nationale de France.