Goddess (28 page)

Authors: Kelly Gardiner

BOOK: Goddess

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Author’s note

Y
OU PROBABLY THINK
I made this up. I didn’t.

This novel is an interpretation of the life of the very real Julie d’Aubigny. All of the episodes described in this novel are based on documented events in her life. That doesn’t mean that they really happened, because there are so many different accounts of her life it’s now impossible to sift fact from what my grandmother used to call ‘romancing the truth’.

One of those biographers, Bram Stoker of
Dracula
fame, wrote in his book
Famous Impostors
(1910): ‘In truth the story of La Maupin is so laden with passages of excitement and interest that any writer on the subject has only to make an agreeable choice of episodes sufficiently dramatic, and consistent with each other, to form a cohesive narrative.’ If only it were that easy.

Julie d’Aubigny was born some time in 1673, probably in Paris, the daughter of Gaston d’Aubigny, secretary to Louis XIV’s Grand Écuyer (Master of Horse), Comte d’Armagnac. Her father was an accomplished swordsman and trained the court pages, and so his only child was educated alongside the sons of the aristocracy. She dressed as a boy from an early age and quickly surpassed the pages in fencing, learning from some of the great masters of the era. I believe she spent the years from age eight to fifteen at Versailles with the court. By the age of fourteen, she had become d’Armagnac’s mistress and he found her a husband, Monsieur de Maupin, who was promptly dispatched to the provinces to a job as a tax collector.

After that, events in her life happened very quickly: the duels, the convent fire and escape, the many affairs, her lifelong friendships with Comte d’Albert and Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard, her debut in 1690, the exile, the many triumphant performances and fame, and her final grief. It’s all true. Apparently. Distraught after the death of her lover, Madame la Marquise de Florensac, La Maupin entered a convent where she died two years later in 1707 at the age of thirty-three.

These incidents were either noted at the time by diarists or chroniclers, or described by eighteenth-century theatre historians or biographers. Details often differ, and I have tried to sort out the most logical or historically likely scenario. I have added as little as possible. There is really no need to insert any further drama to such a life—the fictional elements lie in the motives, the thoughts, the emotions and the words spoken by these characters.

I have managed to trace many if not all of her opera performances, and episodes such as her attack on her landlord are documented in court reports. The extract of the letter from d’Albert is from the original (published by him after her death, in 1758), and the notes passed between La Maupin and Thévenard in their famous duel of wits are also apparently in their own hands (I admit I have exaggerated some of the tricks they played on each other). The description of her meeting with Maréchal is based on a memoir sighted by her early biographers, the Parfaict brothers (
Dictionnaire des théatres de Paris
, 1756), but the manuscript is now lost—hopefully it will turn up one day.

We don’t know exactly when she was born, where she died or where she is buried, although as an actress she probably wouldn’t have been buried in consecrated ground. Some biographers claim she died in a convent, but nobody knows where—I have brought her back to the convent in Avignon she had once tried to burn down. Most biographers are coy on the question of which convent was the site of her youthful crimes, but several suggest it was the Convent of the Visitandines in Avignon.

Even her name varies. She is now usually known as Julie d’Aubigny, but in her lifetime she was most often called Mademoiselle Maupin. In some cast lists her name is given as Julie-Émilie de Maupin. D’Albert addressed her as Émilie in his letters, while Thévenard called her Julia in his famous note. Although her married name was Madame de Maupin, opera singers were traditionally addressed as Mademoiselle. Biographers and writers have used all of these names. After the publication of Théophile Gautier’s novel
Mademoiselle de Maupin
in 1835, in which the character based on Maupin was called Madeleine, that name too has been used.

Most of the characters in
Goddess
were real people: the only major character I created is the Comtesse, a composite of several of the highly intelligent, well-educated and sophisticated women of the era. In the case of Clara, the name is invented but the real person and her involvement with La Maupin were widely reported—her name was never given in any of the accounts, for obvious reasons. The name of the young woman La Maupin kissed at the ball is also not recorded—I have chosen to connect that incident and her relationship with La Florensac because, frankly, I just couldn’t resist. A few other minor characters, such as Le Bal, are also fictional, but based on real people in the Opéra or the court.

If you’d like to read more about La Maupin’s life, two of the more sensible biographical pieces in English are chapters in Oscar Gilbert’s
Women in Men’s Guise
(1932) and Cameron Rogers’
Gallant Ladies
(1928). An extensive biography (in French) is
La Maupin, sa vie, ses duels, ses aventures
by Gabriel Letainturier-Fradin (1904). There are many other accounts written in varying degrees of outrage or awe, some completely scurrilous or hagiographic. One of the most famous interpretations of her, Gautier’s influential novel
Mademoiselle de Maupin
, is not so much about the life of the real woman as the essence of her: the cross-dressing, the ambiguous sexuality, the spirit and beauty. It was one of the books most often banned in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and helped ensure La Maupin’s continued celebrity.

La Maupin’s fame and infamy wax and wane—sometimes it seems she’s been forgotten but she comes back fighting, notably in times of social change and debate around women’s lives and sexuality. During her lifetime her exploits were recorded in diaries, gossip sheets and letters, plays and songs and stories; and later in dozens of almanacs and biographical encyclopaedias, books on the history of opera and fencing, biographies and novels, a ballet, feminist theory, at least one movie and even a French television series. Quite recently she was named ‘Badass of the Week’ online, leading to a flurry of interest and an outpouring of fan illustrations and blog posts—even a skateboard design. She fascinates and defies her audience and her biographers. What is it about her? This novel is only one answer.

It has been a delight to spend several years in her company. I’m not sure what I’ll do without her voice echoing in my ears. She is an exhilarating, often challenging, companion and I hope I’ve done justice to her life and her voice. She deserves it.

Acknowledgements

T
HIS BOOK HAS TAKEN
several years to research and write and many people have supported me along the way. Any errors in historical fact are, unfortunately, my own.

I finished the first draft during a two-week Writing Fellowship at Varuna, the Writers’ House in Katoomba, a place of peace, bounteous food and endless inspiration. While there, I also had the opportunity to receive invaluable feedback on the initial manuscript from Carol Major.

Rob and Marlene McPherson provided me with the perfect place to finish my final draft—the house in Anglesea where I spent childhood summers.

The novel was part of my PhD project, undertaken in the English program at La Trobe University. I’d like to recommend the warm and supportive environment that postgraduate writing projects can offer. In particular, I benefited from the advice and feedback of my supervisor, the lovely Catherine Padmore, and my co-supervisors, Paul Salzman and Lucy Sussex; the generosity and wisdom of Alison Ravenscroft; and the support of Christine Burns and Loretta Calverly in all things mysterious and administrative. The faculty also provided a grant towards the costs of a research trip to France in 2011.

At La Trobe I also met my two companions in arms, Paddy O’Reilly and Fran Cusworth, who read and scribbled all over the first draft, and with whom I drank coffee, wrote in comradely silence, ate vast amounts of cake, and laughed far too much and too loudly in the library’s not-quite-soundproof-enough meeting rooms.

Speaking of which, my research would not have been possible without the resources and people of the La Trobe University Library, the State Library of Victoria (especially the Arts Librarian Dermot McCaul, fount of all opera knowledge), and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, where I spent blessed breathless hours in the Opéra Library. I have accessed digitised primary sources and resources from countless museum and library collections in France and all over the world, from photographs of extant swords and slippers to original
libretti
and costume designs. In the Musée Carnavalet in Paris, I walked up a marble staircase rescued from d’Albert’s family mansion. At the top, I entered a gilded room that was once in the home of his best friend, d’Uzès. I had no idea either still existed. Such are the joys of field research.

The former chapel and convent of the Order of Visitandines in Avignon still stand, in spite of La Maupin’s best efforts, and the current owner, Madame Cherée, graciously allowed me to inspect both the chapel and the convent gardens and kitchens.

Thanks to my colleagues at the State Library of Victoria who put up with a part-time person to allow me time for writing, and to the many people from all over the world—some of whom I’ve only ever met online—who cheered me on. One of them is Jim Burrows, whose original website on Julie helped me find my way to key references in the early stages of the research.

My publisher, Catherine Milne, understood what I was trying to do with both character and text: she’s a perceptive reader and all-round delight. The book has been ushered on stage by editors Ali Lavau, Nicola O’Shea and Amanda O’Connell, who asked sensible questions about obscure Paris street names and reminded me when my accents were facing in completely the wrong direction. Darren Holt designed the sumptuous cover.

Susannah Walker yet again supported me throughout this lengthy process and this book is dedicated to her with gratitude and love.

You’d never know it from most history books, but La Maupin was not the only queer, cross-dressing or adventurous woman during the Baroque (or any) era. There were many real women who wore armour, fought battles or duels, secretly joined the army or navy or pirates, worked in male professions, took lovers of either or both genders, and wrote music or books, as well as those imagined in stories and on stage. I hope this novel sheds a little light on one extraordinary life, and in doing so helps us to remember or rediscover history’s legions of legendary and very real Amazons. So let’s acknowledge all those who came before—the spirited, brave women like La Maupin who shook up the world, and still do to this day.

About the Author

Kelly Gardiner is a writer of novels, poetry and nonfiction. Her poetry has been published in journals including
Going Down Swinging
and
Southerly
and she is the author of the young adult novels
Act of Faith
and
The Sultan’s Eyes
, and four books for younger readers.
Act of Faith
was named by the Children’s Book Council of Australia as one of the Notable Australian Books of 2012 and was highly commended in the Australian Society of Authors’ Barbara Jefferis Award in 2012.

Copyright

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

First published in Australia in 2014

This edition published in 2014

by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

The right of Kelly Gardiner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins
Publishers

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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Gardiner, Kelly, 1961- author.

Goddess / Kelly Gardiner.

ISBN: 978 0 7322 9888 3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978 1 4607 0249 9 (epub)