Vulgar History - French Revolution： Witnesses (part 1)： Madame du Barry, Versailles Hot Girl

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. And this is 0.99

00:00:14.620 season seven, part two. Meanwhile, back in France, part one was mostly focused on America

00:00:21.620 and kind of what was going on there. Oh, I should also say, my name is Anne Foster. And

00:00:26.320 this season is how do you solve a problem like Marie Antoinette? And we're getting closer to

00:00:31.160 Marie Antoinette, which is what I want to say. Like this is a long journey to get towards her,

00:00:36.920 but there's so much going on in the world where she was that affected her, even though she wasn't

00:00:43.040 directly involved in it. I just really want to set the scene. And in this part of the series,

00:00:48.340 we're going to be looking at France and what was going on in France. And that's not something I

00:00:52.780 know a lot about, let alone how to pronounce the words, which is why I brought on a guest

00:00:56.860 expert. It's Amanda Matta. Welcome, Amanda.

00:01:00.760 Hello. Thank you for having me.

00:01:03.160 So listeners, you may know Amanda Matta. She is a content creator. She is a royal commentator.

00:01:09.460 She also hosts the Art of History podcast. And I think we will clarify you're not a historian.

00:01:15.940 What your background in is French and art history.

00:01:20.360 No. Well, yes. I have a French language background. I studied abroad there. But yeah, art history is my professional wheelhouse. I've kind of catapulted myself from my art history background into royal commentary. So that's just because I got a lot of books on the royals, essentially. I love reading about the royals, and it's been an interest of mine since teenagehood.

00:01:43.720 So I'm very flattered you say expert, but I do take a special interest in the French monarchy for sure.

00:01:51.680 And in French, Mr. Sis, do you want to tell everybody what you just told me before we recorded?

00:01:56.200 Like you have a long, a long interest in this.

00:01:59.660 Yeah, I do.

00:02:00.480 When I was in high school, I took a French art and history course, which is kind of where it all began.

00:02:07.460 And one of our papers, we could write about anything French history related.

00:02:11.180 It had to be in French.

00:02:12.020 And for some reason, 16, 17-year-old me chose to write about French royal mistresses. And this is because I had a fabulous teacher, Madame Crawford, who encouraged even these interests in very licentious topics for teenagers. But I remember I wrote it and I printed it on teal paper because it was left over from my Sweet 16 party, which had a turquoise and teal theme. So I still remember what that paper looked like. I wrote about pretty much everything we're about to talk about today.

00:02:41.440 So I've built on that knowledge, obviously over the years, but this has always been like one of

00:02:47.400 my favorite Royal history stories to get into. And when we were talking about having you on

00:02:54.560 the podcast, like I knew that this is like French history and like the Marie Antoinette era, I feel

00:02:59.740 like, correct me if I'm wrong, is like for you, what like Mary Queen of Scots and the Tudor era

00:03:05.480 is for me like I feel like this is just your your comfort history yes era absolutely it's the first

00:03:13.680 I think the first royal story that I really delved into and just was like you said I was just

00:03:19.240 instantly comfortable there like I the Marie Antoinette the journey book I for by Antonia

00:03:24.980 Frazier stole it off of my mom's bookshelf when I was like 16 17 and watched the Sofia Coppola

00:03:31.800 a Marie Antoinette movie. And like, when I got to the point where I could look back at that movie

00:03:35.580 and be like, oh, this is actually like pretty, pretty accurate. You know, you get a good sense

00:03:39.840 of life at Versailles. Like that was just, I knew this was going to be like my wheelhouse forever.

00:03:45.420 So yeah, very happy to be in this area again today. And so I am a newcomer to this area.

00:03:53.200 And so, but that's part of what this whole series, this whole season is about. Like we're getting

00:03:59.200 Marie Antoinette is sort of like the patron saint of the season but it's just like everything that's

00:04:03.260 like swirling around I think of it like the layers of like an onion like we're just getting closer

00:04:08.040 and closer to Marie Antoinette herself because I think it would be doing a disservice to her to

00:04:12.380 just be like oh here's her life story where it's like well what was happening in the world like

00:04:17.800 that gets so involved I know I agree with you yeah she'll be in this story today I agree that

00:04:24.220 it's it's useful to have that like background like the world building that helps you approach 0.98

00:04:30.060 Marie Antoinette because to a lot of people she is just like the bitch who said let them eat cake 0.95

00:04:35.200 and that's not true at all and it takes a little bit more nuance to kind of acknowledge that so 0.96

00:04:42.620 building up to her I think is the way to go good because that's what we're going to be doing for

00:04:47.580 a very long time on this podcast um I'm not going to tell anybody I have I have long-term plans for

00:04:54.020 this podcast, and we're not going to get to a Marie Antoinette episode for quite a while,

00:04:57.080 but she's in today's story.

00:04:59.360 Yeah, she is.

00:04:59.840 And what we're establishing here is really just kind of like what the French royal court

00:05:05.440 was like, because that is where Marie Antoinette was placed when she was a young teenager marrying

00:05:11.600 into this family.

00:05:12.760 And again, this is why I'm so grateful to have you here, because you can explain that

00:05:17.340 whole thing.

00:05:18.240 Can you, this is a big question, but like, can you explain Versailles?

00:05:24.020 What was Versailles? Yeah. So Versailles, it's so much more, honestly, than just a palace

00:05:30.680 in France. It started out as this hunting lodge. It was not to palace standards. It was not glitzy

00:05:39.280 and glamorous as we know it today. It was built, I think, originally under Louis XIII in the 1600s,

00:05:47.200 and it got expanded over the years. It had a good location outside of the city of Paris proper.

00:05:54.020 And it was Louis XIV, the Sun King, who kind of decided to elevate Versailles to be, it really

00:06:01.800 became the nucleus of absolute monarchy in France. And this is obviously, it's not a Louis XIV

00:06:08.300 podcast, but his childhood, you learn so much about his motivations when you kind of get into

00:06:16.740 the things that happened to him as a kid. There were all these civil wars going on in France.

00:06:21.000 I think he was kidnapped as a very young child, became king at a very young age, and he kind of held a grudge against the monarchy and his ministers and the courtiers for his whole life.

00:06:33.140 So as he becomes king, he's coming into his power.

00:06:35.820 He wants a way to centralize them and to keep his eye on them.

00:06:40.360 So what he does is he takes Versailles, he builds it up into this huge, huge palace, which becomes not just the seat of his royal power and authority, but also he forces basically the royal court to move to Versailles.

00:06:56.840 And that's basically so he can keep an eye on everybody. So to do that, he has to make it bigger, better than it ever has been.

00:07:05.940 And he hires prominent architects of the age to kind of beef it up, expand the hunting lodge into, yeah, the palace we know today.

00:07:16.800 He adds these wings on either side.

00:07:19.260 He adds the gardens.

00:07:20.800 Over time, you know, you get things like the Hall of Mirrors.

00:07:23.820 If you've ever been to Versailles, like that is one of the most breathtaking places to stand, I think, in the entire world.

00:07:29.700 It's kind of, I think, this is my fun fact, that there's so many movies that ask to film in Versailles, and that's like one of two rooms that anyone's ever allowed to film.

00:07:38.860 And it's like the Hall of Mirrors is like, that's the room they let you in.

00:07:42.000 Because it's huge, first of all.

00:07:43.900 There's a lot of room to get cameras in there.

00:07:45.820 A lot of Versailles is actually kind of cramped and small.

00:07:49.220 There aren't a lot of hallways.

00:07:51.960 And this had to do with the way that the court life at Versailles was structured.

00:07:57.180 The whole point of Versailles was to showcase the power of the king, the monarch, and the

00:08:02.880 way that the palace is actually physically built and physically laid out just reinforces

00:08:07.960 that.

00:08:08.980 Basically, it's designed around the king's bedchamber, which is like the most powerful

00:08:15.620 place in the palace, because that's obviously where the king spends his time.

00:08:19.240 He is waking up, going to bed there.

00:08:21.240 And around that room, you have the king's apartment, which is just this series of rooms that get smaller and smaller and more intimate the farther you go.

00:08:30.420 And ultimately, you reach the king's bedchamber.

00:08:33.000 And this sounds like it wouldn't be important, but it is.

00:08:35.780 So much thought was put into this because Louis XIV, you know, he's supposed to be the sun king.

00:08:40.780 He's the person that everybody gets authority from.

00:08:44.600 He's the source of all light in the French monarchy.

00:08:47.020 That's how he built himself up.

00:08:48.380 His rooms are laid out from east to west, like on that axis of the rising and setting sun, very, very purposefully.

00:08:57.680 So as you go deeper into these rooms, access would be restricted.

00:09:03.680 You had to be in the king's inner circle the farther you got into the palace of Versailles.

00:09:08.320 So it's physically laid out to reinforce the king's authority.

00:09:11.860 and isn't there something about like you mentioned that he wanted to have everybody

00:09:17.160 at Versailles so he could keep an eye on them and isn't there something like and he wanted to keep

00:09:22.300 them too busy to scheme against him so he like made them all there's something about fashion

00:09:28.300 or like the things that he made them do he just like kept them busy with like busy work right

00:09:33.380 yeah yes absolutely um kind of like how cults today operate they keep you too busy and tired

00:09:40.160 with manual labor or weird rituals so that you can't think about what's going on and like

00:09:46.080 potentially escape that's that's what louis the 14th did at versailles he developed this code of

00:09:50.760 etiquette um which again if i'm going to reference the sophia coppola marie antoinette movie

00:09:55.860 probably too much during this episode but if you remember totally fine that's that's most of what i

00:10:01.360 know yeah well if you remember in that movie there's the contestant who is like her lady

00:10:07.880 in waiting type person. And she looks at Marie Antoinette at some point and she goes,

00:10:11.620 this madame is Versailles. And like, that's because Versailles had its own code of etiquette

00:10:18.060 that everyone had to follow. You're exactly right. It was everything from how you dressed to how you

00:10:23.520 bowed and curtsied to how you addressed people to how you walked. Like there was a specific walk

00:10:29.320 that women did at Versailles. And so, yeah, it was to keep people constantly thinking about, 0.64

00:10:34.960 yeah not just how to operate but like status and rank dictated everything it dictated like I said

00:10:42.780 how far you could get into the palace dictated who you would speak to who would be introduced first

00:10:48.780 just to keep people busy and to keep all the attention focused on the king he was the source

00:10:54.580 of all goodness in this life all favor came from the king obviously there was like some political

00:11:01.980 scheming, that still happened. But it was all basically centered around how to get access to

00:11:07.420 the king and how to get in the king's good graces. So that was the system Louis XIV set up. And it

00:11:13.100 lasted until the French Revolution, but it also hastened the French Revolution because from the

00:11:19.320 outside, this system is completely bonkers. The public was allowed at Versailles. You had to be

00:11:24.380 dressed a certain way to get in, but it was to the outside world kind of an amusement park. You

00:11:30.560 could go and watch the king eat dinner. You could just stand there and stare at him.

00:11:35.840 Courtiers who were in Versailles could be there when he woke up. That was a ceremony,

00:11:41.540 his levee. They could be there when he went to sleep. They could be there for his toilette

00:11:46.040 when he was getting powdered and wigs were getting put on. Everything was ritualized

00:11:50.820 at Versailles. And it was to reinforce that hierarchy structure.

00:11:56.360 And I think this is a great, well, it leads me to this question. So if you're saying like,

00:12:00.240 only the most elite can get close to the king like like you know at this room it's like okay

00:12:05.340 these people drop off and at this room these people drop off until eventually it's just a

00:12:08.700 few people so which leads me to the position of the royal mistress is a person who's with him

00:12:16.140 all the time so can you explain that situation yeah so yeah the court structure it is based

00:12:22.980 around getting access to the king courtiers are required to be present but like you said like the

00:12:27.360 access gets restricted, the closer to him you get. But the mistress in France, especially is this,

00:12:34.160 it's quasi official of a position at court. It's not written in the books, but everyone knows that

00:12:40.540 this is almost like a job that is open. And it's a court position that, again, is centered around

00:12:48.580 influencing the king. But the king himself could pick these mistresses. Obviously, it wasn't 0.91

00:12:57.140 a job you applied for. The king had to take an interest in you. I always find it interesting

00:13:03.160 talking about royal mistresses just from a human perspective because royal marriages were often

00:13:08.460 political. They were for alliances or money or all these reasons aside from love. Kings are still

00:13:16.540 people too. They still want affection. They're looking for a person, if it's not their wife,

00:13:22.140 they're looking for a person who can give them that affection, who can flatter them.

00:13:26.040 they can have a close relationship with so that's kind of where the role of royal mistress starts

00:13:31.360 but in the middle ages it does sort of get elevated to this political position and this 0.89

00:13:37.520 court position like an official job um in france it's called the matrice on teacher the official

00:13:45.240 mistress or the matrice the title mistress um it kind of emerges with agnes sorel in the middle

00:13:52.460 Ages. And then under, I think it's Henry II with Diane de Poitiers, they're some of the first

00:13:57.600 official mistresses. But under Louis XIV at Versailles, it becomes this regimented role

00:14:04.880 where there are certain expectations. You do get specific apartments at the palace, right above the

00:14:10.160 king's with the staircase leading into his bedchamber. And people knew that they could go

00:14:15.080 to you to petition the king. They knew that you had an ear of the king, and then he would listen

00:14:21.320 to you and ostensibly the mistress had the king's best interest at heart so you know there is all

00:14:28.400 this maneuvering around her to get on her good side so it's yeah it's a position that everyone

00:14:34.180 knows that you're sleeping with the king but they have to respect you anyway which is just

00:14:38.660 it's fabulous to be the power behind the throne in that way well I feel like at Versailles a lot

00:14:46.120 of people are sleeping with a lot of people like just in terms of the culture what I have ascertained

00:14:51.020 I read a biography of the person we're going to talk about today, Madame Dewberry, by Joan Haslip.

00:14:56.220 And it just seems like the casualness of sex in French, aristocratic, noble, that's just kind of like everyone, you have your spouse, you're married, you have a husband or wife, but then also you're the mistress of whoever.

00:15:11.940 Sex was treated differently in this court than in other royal courts, it seems like.

00:15:18.540 Yeah, it was, I think. In England, you had official mistresses. You had an Anne Boleyn

00:15:24.960 from time to time who essentially everyone knows, but there is still this stigma associated with

00:15:30.920 being a mistress in that context, especially if the woman is not married. But yeah, in France,

00:15:38.440 it's kind of everybody has their lover and it's well-documented who is sleeping with who.

00:15:43.440 women in France, especially royal women, could also take lovers, but it was never as ritualized

00:15:50.420 as the king taking a mistress, right? And if things went south, there was a higher price to

00:15:56.360 be paid if you were a woman who had looked elsewhere for companionship. But yeah, the

00:16:01.980 position of mistress, there's like a Wikipedia page for French royal mistresses and you can

00:16:07.520 scroll through and they have them divided by reign because kings would take multiple mistresses

00:16:13.180 throughout their lives. Louis XIV and Louis XV each had, I think, at least five or six.

00:16:19.540 And Louis XV, who is the guy we're going to be talking about most today, he had two very famous

00:16:25.780 mistresses, the first being Madame de Pompadour. And she was unique because at a certain point,

00:16:32.420 she and the king stopped sleeping together, but she remained his favorite person. She still

00:16:37.300 controlled a lot of access to him. So as much as these relationships usually were sexual in nature,

00:16:43.180 there is still room for a lot of like mutual respect between an official

00:16:48.040 mistress and the King. There's still, I mean,

00:16:52.240 Madame de Pompadour was a major patron of like the enlightenment philosophers.

00:16:58.420 She flattered the King. She made him comfortable, but she also, you know,

00:17:03.820 yeah, she dictated a lot of court etiquette, a lot of fashions, 0.94

00:17:07.020 a lot of art and it's a job where I don't know there's just a lot of moving pieces with it 1.00

00:17:15.480 there's a lot of stuff just like piled on to a royal mistress in addition to the royal mistress

00:17:22.120 though and so one of the reasons why I've avoided learning about French history until now is because

00:17:26.960 the Louis of it all yeah I find them confusing that they're all called Louis but

00:17:33.180 there was the sun king he was number 14 then his heir is number 15 who we're talking about this

00:17:41.460 time and then number 16 is marie antoinette's husband so there's really just three louis to

00:17:46.280 think about today but so number 15 what don't people call him like louis cans i don't know

00:17:52.760 people is that 15 in french yes it is cans is 15 14 is 14 um 15 is interesting because he kind of

00:18:02.320 inherits this court from his, oh, I'm pretty sure it's his father, Louis XIV. 16 and 15 were

00:18:11.320 grandson and grandfather. They weren't father and son. But yeah, 15 inherits the court of Versailles,

00:18:17.020 the system of Versailles. But he feels, I think he feels very stifled by it. It's not a system

00:18:22.440 he's set up, but this is what France is doing now, the absolute monarchy thing, the etiquette thing.

00:18:27.780 um so when he takes royal mistresses i think it's to escape from court life it's a way of living his

00:18:35.580 authentic self you know of um actually finding joy in being the king and with madame de pompadour

00:18:41.820 especially um she was somebody who was like i said his close companion they stopped sleeping

00:18:48.220 together a couple years before her death but she was his mistress for close to 20 years um so that

00:18:54.920 was a position that it's very hard to follow up on after somebody's been the king's companion for

00:19:01.760 that long. Yeah, I don't know. 14 and 15, I think, have an interesting, there's an interesting

00:19:07.780 contrast there, which we'll get to, I'm sure. But 15 especially, I think he's poised to resent

00:19:14.560 the courtly etiquette system in a way that 14, who set it all up, just kind of thrived in it.

00:19:22.020 can you talk about um the deer park which was like 15's little brothel house he had or do you

00:19:31.700 know about that yeah i don't know a ton about it it's something here's what i recall reading

00:19:35.920 when i was reading this biography was it was sort of like it was a house where if he it wasn't

00:19:40.860 someone who's going to be the official mistress but it's just someone he wants to sleep with

00:19:44.360 and she would just kind of like live in that house until he got tired of her and then she 0.81

00:19:48.520 would leave, but he would give her like a pension for life and she was fine. So there was sort of

00:19:52.960 like, not like the mistress, but just kind of like other women that he liked to see.

00:19:59.460 Yeah, there is this, this other, it's like a roster of women. Um, they weren't the maîtres

00:20:04.120 son titre. They were called the petite mistress, like the, the little mistress, the minorness

00:20:10.280 mistress. They weren't going to wield any political influence. They were purely there

00:20:14.440 for the king to get away and to have some companionship to, well, especially in Louis

00:20:21.200 XV's case to kind of feel alive. As he gets older, he talks about to his advisors very openly,

00:20:28.740 he talks about needing sexual stimulation to like feel alive. He was very hot blooded. And this 0.97

00:20:35.200 seems to be a dynastic thing with the Bourbons. All the men are just kind of rakish and licentious 0.54

00:20:42.360 and they love having sex. Louis XV, it's documented several times a day. He's looking for 0.99

00:20:49.720 a way to, you know, slip away, whether it's with his official mistress or to the deer park.

00:20:55.840 And Madame de Pompadour is by his side for 20 years. Eventually she, they call her frigid in

00:21:02.580 the historical record. Most scholars agree today she kind of had some health issues,

00:21:07.740 maybe including vaginal infections. So that's why they stopped sleeping together. 0.99

00:21:11.820 But even after that point, she is helping oversee the deer park and she is

00:21:17.340 kind of supervising what goes on there, who is in the roster, who's sitting on the bench for

00:21:24.060 the King to choose from. So she wields influence, not just politically over the court life, but also

00:21:29.900 like, again, who can get access to the King? Who is he spending his time with? Who is getting to

00:21:36.360 whisper into his ear. And so you've beautifully set everything up to understand the Versailles

00:21:41.700 deal, what's up with the mistresses. And now we're going to backtrack because we're talking about who

00:21:47.000 the next mistress is going to be after Madame de Pompadour, but her beginnings might surprise you.

00:21:52.260 And actually, first, I want to see who, if we can agree on who we're going to imagine, because

00:21:58.960 so the woman who becomes Madame du Berry. So her name is Jean Bessou. Is that how you would say

00:22:05.700 that? I've heard both. I've heard Besu and Beku. I like Besu. I think that's the more accurate

00:22:12.460 pronunciation. We'll go with Besu. And so the thing about her is she is the most hot person

00:22:19.740 anyone has ever seen. She's dazzling. She's like when you read about just from childhood

00:22:28.420 through like there's moments in this where she's just a person standing in a crowd of hundreds

00:22:33.720 and someone is like who's that hot person like yeah and in Versailles a place where everybody's

00:22:39.600 like styled and like the dresses are amazing and the makeup and the hair like I'm thinking

00:22:44.360 if you think about like a Hollywood red carpet situation it's like everyone looks the best they

00:22:48.760 could possibly look hair makeup dresses but who's the one person where everyone's like oh my god

00:22:53.800 so I'm picturing Angelina Jolie personally just because she's got such a startling

00:22:58.900 surreal level of beauty. But who do you imagine when you think of her?

00:23:05.960 I have been thinking honestly of Blake Lively. And I think that's just because of where we are

00:23:10.840 in the Hollywood news cycle. But because Madame DuBerry, as she will come to be known, is always

00:23:15.800 described as golden haired, as fair skinned, as dazzling. That's where I go because the Sofia

00:23:24.900 Coppola movie characterizes Madame du Berry very well with their casting with Asia Argento who is 0.99

00:23:31.680 stunning but she's very like Angelina Jolie usually has dark hair but she's got this black

00:23:39.120 hair in the movie she's very like mysterious and swarthy in reality Jean Bécout or Bessou is

00:23:45.920 always described as you know golden haired just the prettiest smile you've ever seen in your life

00:23:52.320 she's very fair she's got these bright eyes so like appearance wise i usually go for like a

00:23:59.440 blake lively or i don't know who else is in that like the blonde bombshell okay i'm gonna suggest

00:24:06.600 sydney sweetie because yeah maybe more when i there's so madame tussaud who i'm gonna do an

00:24:14.020 episode about later yeah um i think the person who taught her how to do waxworks did a waxwork 0.61

00:24:19.400 of Madame DuBerry. And then there's a recreation of it that you can see. And it kind of looks like

00:24:25.180 Sydney Sweeney. But also when they describe her eyes, there's something about her like

00:24:29.740 eyelids. Her eyes are always kind of like in a Marilyn Monroe-esque way, sort of half closed

00:24:35.040 all the time. Bedroom eyes. In a way that people, yeah. So, and Sydney Sweeney kind of has that as

00:24:40.500 well. And also she apparently has amazing breasts, which Sydney Sweeney is famous for too. So she's 1.00

00:24:46.960 got this sort of like astonishing beauty that makes everybody like a superpower. Like it's 0.99

00:24:54.260 really interesting when I was reading through this book, like the way that people just see her

00:24:58.260 and they're just like, what? Like, I don't know if I've ever read about someone in history who's

00:25:02.880 like this gorgeous. Yeah. Whatever it is, she's got it. You know, she has this magnetism about

00:25:09.400 her from a young age, even before she has any wealth and status, because spoiler alert, she

00:25:14.660 grows up very poor people are just yeah gravitating towards her and she seems to be able to embrace

00:25:20.560 her natural charms is what everybody refers to it as her natural charms her natural beauty her

00:25:26.360 charisma to get what she wants and to elevate herself in the world so yeah she just has this 0.91

00:25:32.540 quality this je ne sais quoi since we're talking about the french that it's with her for her entire

00:25:37.120 life and then also when she gets to her Versailles era like the talk about everyone there is wearing

00:25:42.640 so much makeup and wigs and stuff, but she comes out with natural hair, very clean face. It's this

00:25:48.140 girl next door type vibe is what she's bringing. And she also, you wouldn't think this would

00:25:56.080 necessarily put someone ahead of the pack, but she bathed several times a week. Whereas most

00:26:02.060 courtiers at Versailles, this is a place, I didn't mention this, thousands of people are living at

00:26:06.820 Versailles. It is cramped. It is stinky. They're using chamber pots. And it's not... Some people

00:26:12.960 will tell you in a very sensational sort of way that people were pissing on the floor of Versailles

00:26:18.660 just openly. It wasn't to that level, but it was gross and it did smell bad. People were carrying

00:26:23.900 around little scented sachets with them or little bouquets. There was special perfume used to scent

00:26:29.720 Versailles to cover the stink of thousands of people living in close quarters. Jean Bessu

00:26:35.200 develops this habit of bathing at least three or four times a week in rose scented water so she's 0.99

00:26:42.040 her self-care routine i would love to get a rundown of that because she's taking care of 0.99

00:26:46.840 herself she's making sure she always not just smells good but is actually clean which is an 1.00

00:26:52.660 advantage in the court of versailles for sure so she comes by her hotness through several generations 1.00

00:27:02.600 of hot people who elevated themselves through hotness. So her grandfather was named Fabien

00:27:11.160 Bisou. He was a cook in Paris. And this, um, for reference, I'm looking at, it's this essay from

00:27:16.880 women in world history by David S. Newhall. And he says he was a handsome cook in Paris who

00:27:22.220 somehow persuaded a noble woman to marry him through his hotness is how he did that through

00:27:28.820 his man version of having je ne sais quoi um she soon ran out of money and died and then

00:27:36.080 he had a second marriage to a chambermaid and the chambermaid was working nearby for an exiled

00:27:44.120 mistress of louis the 14th anyway so grandfather has children with his presumably hot chambermaid

00:27:52.180 second wife. One of those children is Anne Bessou, who is Jean's mother. And they were all

00:27:59.120 hot. They were, they were all gorgeous. Yeah. Including Anne, um, she became a seamstress.

00:28:06.280 She's so hot. She allegedly seduces a monk. Like that's next level hotness, 0.99

00:28:12.060 even in France, you know, even in France. Yeah. But I want to say the monk was also hot. So

00:28:18.280 i'm picturing like glenn powell is a monk um so the the monk is called uh brother angel

00:28:28.420 yeah fair longe yeah fair longe anyway he was later dismissed from his order

00:28:35.420 because perhaps for hotness anyway he became a popular preacher due to his hotness anyway so

00:28:43.520 she seduced him. It's pretty much understood that this is the father of Jean. Like he appeared in

00:28:48.740 several father-like roles, like at her wedding and things like that. I wanted to say that when

00:28:53.740 Jean is born, isn't she born in the same village as Joan of Arc, which I just find so fascinating

00:28:59.860 in Ventulaire, which what is in the water in this village producing these magnetic people?

00:29:07.320 Oh, absolutely. Like that's what you want to bottle and sell, frankly. So Anne was,

00:29:12.420 she was unmarried 30 years old she has a daughter who is called jean i assume the baby was born and

00:29:17.420 everyone's like mordia because it's like the most gorgeous baby anyone's ever seen presumably then

00:29:23.200 she moves to paris like she can't you know she doesn't marry the hot monk because he's still a

00:29:28.940 monk at this point but she's just like this beautiful woman she has this gorgeous child

00:29:33.200 like there's just a lot of gorgeous blondness happening um eventually ann marries a servant 1.00

00:29:41.120 We assume he's hot.

00:29:42.980 Actually, at this point, maybe not.

00:29:44.500 I don't know.

00:29:45.320 He was set up as a munitions storekeeper for Corsica.

00:29:49.240 So the story isn't going to have a lot of war stuff going on.

00:29:53.000 But just bear in mind, like there's constantly war going on.

00:29:56.080 And machinations to elevate people through war.

00:29:59.920 And depending on which side you take, you can kind of get ahead because of that.

00:30:04.960 And now for a quick advertising break.

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00:33:33.480 And we're back. Okay, so let me see. So she and marries this guy, this munition storekeeper,

00:33:41.600 But his boss is named Biard de Monceau, and he took an interest in young Jean. Not a gross interest.

00:33:54.840 Yeah, I think it's just because, again, that magnetism. In France at this time, there's this recognition that if you have charms, you can elevate yourself.

00:34:03.520 The French aristocracy, I don't think it's as closed to outsiders as it is in, say, England, where everybody knows their role, everybody knows their place, and titles are this very definitive thing.

00:34:17.540 The French nobility is a lot more nebulous. People are changing their names to suit themselves. I think there was even mention in Jean's biography that her grandfather took the name of his noblewoman wife, which normally you can't do. Men cannot take their wives' titles for themselves, but Jean's grandfather did because it would work for him.

00:34:41.900 right so there's a lot of fluidity so i think there is this understanding that if you are

00:34:45.620 beautiful and charming with the right luck and the right placement you can go far in the world

00:34:51.880 yeah so he's one of the first people to maybe see and so the reason why he's seeing her is because

00:34:57.440 her mom is like they're living in this household as servants basically her mom is a seamstress

00:35:03.440 and then her stepfather is this like munitions guy anyway so biard de mousseau had a mistress

00:35:09.380 named Francesca, who is a courtesan and actress, who is AKA Madame Frederique. And so this is

00:35:16.760 crucial because this imprints on young Jean, like she's a young girl and she's living in this house

00:35:20.680 through Francesca. She sees just the glamour that a gorgeous woman could potentially have,

00:35:26.520 like seeing what it's like to live is like the mistress of a really rich person.

00:35:31.540 So she, this imprints on her. Yeah. And then she's sent off to convent school

00:35:37.760 school where she lived for eight or nine years. But this is where she develops a love of reading

00:35:43.720 and maybe she has a really exquisite taste. Like her art taste is really, really good. She's got

00:35:50.680 great taste. And this might be where she starts learning about that stuff. But basically she goes 0.98

00:35:55.420 off to convent school. She learned some stuff and she graduates or whatever. She leaves when she's

00:36:00.040 15 years old. But what she remembers is Francesca's life. And like, that's what she wants. She wants

00:36:05.780 nice things would you agree this is one of her driving forces she wants nice things she wants 0.98

00:36:13.660 the gowns she wants the perfumes yeah she just wants life to be beautiful yeah she i think when

00:36:20.480 she's in the convent school it's this interesting dichotomy where she is i think genuinely religious

00:36:25.200 um because a lot of people were at that time and they believe in god and a higher power

00:36:29.600 um but she yeah also recognizes the the earthly virtues that you can attain um if you play your

00:36:38.040 cards right so yeah i think she does want this comfortable life she i mean also there aren't a 1.00

00:36:43.540 lot of options for young poor women at this time if you wanted to have a comfortable life like 1.00

00:36:48.380 you could either go into service you could be a shop girl you could be a domestic servant or you 1.00

00:36:53.440 could be a courtesan. Um, a lot of people will throw around the term prostitute with 0.95

00:36:58.620 Dewberry, um, as she's later known, but I don't think that's ever the, the, the route she's

00:37:05.260 planning on taking. It is this world where if sex is your currency, if, if your physical attributes

00:37:12.720 are what you have to offer, what you're getting in reward is not financial money. Like it sometimes

00:37:18.200 is gifts but like the status and the comfort are the main goals it seems like yeah it's 0.56

00:37:25.540 oldie timey like courtesan relationships are most similar today to what maybe like a sugar daddy

00:37:34.380 relationship it's like someone is like bankrolling your glamorous life someone is paying for you to

00:37:39.480 have a place to live they're paying for you to go in a private jet they're paying for your clothes

00:37:42.600 it's not you're not on the you're not a streetwalker like it's you have a patron you have

00:37:48.300 a protector yeah yeah exactly so then she got apprenticed jean to a hairdresser and this is

00:37:56.720 i like this note um and the essay says the incredibly elaborate coiffers of that time

00:38:01.460 made hairdressing a well-paying art and if you think about like when you picture she's not in

00:38:06.560 the story yet but like the marie antoinette thing it's like oh you have this giant wig and it's

00:38:09.960 like a ship like or like think about like bridgerton oh yeah where there's like a music

00:38:15.920 box for some reason in queen charlotte's hair even though the mechanics of that weren't quite

00:38:20.300 invented yet yeah exactly but think about queen charlotte in bridgerton like yeah of course like 0.93

00:38:26.760 hairdressers are going to be getting paid a lot of money um and she's also artistic you know she's

00:38:32.620 skilled so she does this anyway um she soon she is 15 years old um began an affair with the

00:38:39.760 hairdresser his mother alarmed at his spending on her which i love i love um yeah no like she

00:38:48.520 i don't know like her vibe is just what's the ariana grande song like i see it i like it i

00:38:53.240 want it like that's madame du barry anyway so then there's the whole thing um they go to court

00:39:00.280 um the hairdresser leaves but it seems like perhaps one of the reasons why this got to a

00:39:06.780 court level is perhaps the 15 year old john had a child by him because at the same time a girl is

00:39:14.660 born whose name is marie josephine but she's called betsy and they were like um her father

00:39:20.640 is actually john's uncle right don't worry about it totally not a teenage person's child

00:39:28.940 and apparently betsy looked a lot like john and they were very close yeah and john would

00:39:34.380 eventually i mean she would keep in touch with this girl she would pay for her dowry um when

00:39:40.040 betsy gets married so it's a very close family relationship although it is worth noting that

00:39:45.760 jean's mother sues the hairdresser's family for defamation and that's the court case so

00:39:51.560 they obviously don't want the story to get out there that jean has born this child at age

00:39:56.600 15 or 16 but that is a historical rumor about her shall we say yeah this is

00:40:03.500 And it seems like a lot of people just kind of accept that's probably true.

00:40:07.520 So then she takes a position as a maid and then companion to the widow of a wealthy man.

00:40:15.800 The widow had two middle-aged sons who were attracted to her because she is this like

00:40:20.680 super powered, gorgeous, like, person.

00:40:25.440 Tensions mounted.

00:40:27.920 And then she was fired.

00:40:30.120 So, you know, it's like the double-edged sword of being incredibly hot is that people are

00:40:36.100 attracted to you, but then sometimes that is a bad thing.

00:40:39.620 Yeah.

00:40:39.780 Sometimes it attracts the attention of the wrong people, including apparently the wife

00:40:43.740 of one of the middle-aged sons of this widow.

00:40:47.160 So I can't imagine the dynamics in that household.

00:40:51.420 Everybody, everybody.

00:40:52.580 Have you ever seen Showgirls?

00:40:54.860 No, I haven't.

00:40:56.300 Okay.

00:40:56.600 so i only recently watched it for the first time a couple months ago and it's a bananas movie 1.00

00:41:01.660 obviously but so the main character nomi malone everyone who meets her wants to fuck her men 0.97

00:41:08.900 women every like every single person the dynamic of the movie is she's just so i was still like oh 0.98

00:41:15.400 that's kind of madame dubert i'm like oh this is kind of like showgirls just like it's almost 0.98

00:41:19.680 dangerous like how hot she is that everyone is so sexually attracted to her and she's 15 0.70

00:41:25.300 which is dangerous in a different way anyway so then she emerges the next year calling herself

00:41:35.340 mademoiselle lang and she becomes a sales girl slash model at the maison labie a millinery shop

00:41:42.600 patronized by the aristocracy now this was kind of like oldie times hooters is how i describe it 0.51

00:41:49.900 because this millinery shop only hired the most gorgeous young women yeah that's what it was known 1.00

00:41:58.100 for that's why people shopped there again this like roster of cute hot girls apparently they 1.00

00:42:04.280 were sequestered um by the shopkeeper am i right but yeah they had to like they slept there um to 1.00

00:42:13.720 try and protect them right but they were allowed to circulate on weekends and walk around paris 1.00

00:42:19.000 Which is where, again, there's this misconception, this rumor that gets spread about Jeanne because of this position in this millinery, which is a hat shop, very fancy hats, but this hat shop that only employs beautiful, sexy women. 1.00

00:42:35.780 There's this misconception about her that that means she was a prostitute and that she was courting the customers in a different way and accepting, you know, a few coins at a time for a couple minutes alone with her.

00:42:47.400 And that, again, there's no real evidence of that. Yes, these women were using their charms to market themselves and draw people into this shop and and keep customers happy. But I don't think it was to the level of this is a brothel. 1.00

00:43:02.200 i do want to mention in other instances there is a connection between hat shops and sex work in

00:43:11.500 um this era so even if it was just a hat shop like people are oh a hat shop it's like no it's

00:43:18.500 literally a hat shop like but there was this kind of because i think hat shops connotation yeah

00:43:23.660 yeah so she's just working the hat shop um she's obviously the hottest person there

00:43:29.460 And then she meets, she meets Jean Baptiste, the Comte du Berry. So he was known as Le Rouet. Can you explain what a Rouet is?

00:43:41.080 Yeah, it's kind of think of like a Regency rake. It's a rakeish man. It's a libertine. He is schmoozing. He's wining and dining. This guy du Berry owns a casino. I think he's a gambler. He's just no good.

00:43:55.720 He's also kind of a pimp. 1.00

00:43:57.080 He has, again, this like roster of women 0.92

00:43:59.920 that he will pimp out in a high class sort of way, 0.64

00:44:03.540 send them around Paris to be courtesans 0.59

00:44:05.660 and to bring in wealthy men

00:44:07.400 who in turn will come into his circle

00:44:09.940 and spend money on his casino.

00:44:11.980 So it's just kind of this,

00:44:13.620 he's called utterly imprincipled,

00:44:15.580 a witty talker and expert at duping others

00:44:17.620 and a champion libertine in a society

00:44:19.840 boasting regiments of that ilk.

00:44:21.520 So he's courting, you know,

00:44:23.420 people without morals who want to live this very ritzy opulent hedonistic lifestyle is kind of how

00:44:29.880 he gets characterized and he's not a wealthy person although he's from like an ancient family

00:44:35.320 so he's it's like an impoverished noble family exactly exactly and so at one point like a few

00:44:43.220 years earlier he had tried to um pimp out a woman to the king to become the new mistress

00:44:47.660 but then uh which is this number 15 um he found out that yep this woman was connected to this guy

00:44:56.200 and was like oh my god that means she might have venereal disease and so then he said no yeah yeah

00:45:02.140 at this time there there is an understanding that women can be elevated to the role of royal mistress

00:45:08.380 with the right maneuvering normally though they come from a noble background or they themselves

00:45:14.320 come from a wealthy family. So this guy, Duberi, trying to pimp out women in his social circle to

00:45:21.100 the king, it's really bold. It's a bold plan. I will give him that. But he knows the rewards will

00:45:26.300 be good if he can get a woman into the king's bedchamber. That's a great connection to have

00:45:32.180 because it is an official position at court. And then he goes into the hat shop and he sees

00:45:36.260 Jean and he's just like, that's the one. Well, here we go. Like, oh my gosh. I wanted to tell

00:45:43.460 you two stories first is that when i was a child going to elementary school and i didn't really

00:45:51.120 have i don't know you're just kind of like these are the people who are in my school and there was

00:45:54.180 a girl one grade ahead of me and i was i was just like that's her her name was tanya and i was just

00:46:00.340 like there's something weird about her like she looks weird like and it's just like okay that's

00:46:04.120 weird looking tanya and then in high school she became a model ah and i realized oh she's beautiful

00:46:10.680 that's what it was that's what was weird like she looked different from everybody else and i was

00:46:16.260 like tanya just looks weird i guess that's just what she looks like and i'm like oh no that's

00:46:20.040 beauty like she's actually incredibly attractive yeah but it's like when someone is so beautiful

00:46:26.560 it's it can be as this is like in sister to the traveling pants lena's character

00:46:32.480 says this but it's like people stare at you like you're a freak of nature when you're so beautiful

00:46:38.100 yeah people can resent you for that too yeah i just truly like as a child i didn't understand

00:46:42.960 she was beautiful i was just like there's something different about her she looks weird

00:46:45.940 like not negative but just like she looks weird my second story is i was once in an elevator with

00:46:51.220 annie murphy from schitt's creek oh who in person is so startling looking like on schitt's creek

00:47:00.340 like she's obviously a beautiful person right but when i saw her in the elevator i was just like

00:47:04.220 oh this is what you look like in real life and it's like her eyes were like so big and so far

00:47:11.020 apart from each other so it's like those are my two examples of being in the presence of an

00:47:16.180 extremely beautiful person and both times I was like oh this is weird yeah or like do you ever

00:47:22.140 have friends like that that you're like how am I in the same circle as you because you are you're

00:47:29.460 just a goddess you are so beautiful why are you even talking to me and i love you so much like

00:47:34.520 yeah some people just bring that out in you yeah some people so it's like this extreme i just find

00:47:42.960 it really interesting that john was like so gorgeous that it just like affects like everyone

00:47:49.200 who interacts with her is just stares i'm picturing like um there's some people you watch

00:47:54.100 in movies where you're just like how is that like lupita nyong'o it's just like i could just stare

00:47:58.740 at you forever yeah yeah yeah jemma chan is one for me um like in the mary queen of scots movie

00:48:05.260 i just couldn't focus on anyone else when she was on the screen or simone ashley when she showed up

00:48:09.880 in bridgerton i was just like well this is the most beautiful woman i've ever seen but yeah that

00:48:16.400 is that's what that's what john's using to her advantage like other past royal mistresses because 0.97

00:48:22.300 remember this is an official position there is kind of a job description and kind of like a 0.99

00:48:27.200 profile of the person we're looking for to fill this role of official mistress. With Jean, she 0.65

00:48:31.940 doesn't fit the bill. She's beautiful. She's charming. And that's what they're going for. 0.98

00:48:36.980 That's what they're relying on. Whereas in the past, like I said, it's status, it's wealth,

00:48:41.360 it's connections to a good family. It's being well-read in the case of the last royal mistress,

00:48:46.560 Madame de Pompadour, who at this point, when, spoiler alert, Jean is about to meet the king.

00:48:51.700 Madame de Pompadour has been dead for four years. It's a very sad story because Louis XV really,

00:48:56.700 I think did love her and hold her in a lot of esteem. But with Madame de Pompadour, he was

00:49:02.220 getting this society hostess. He was getting a very, very smart, savvy woman. And even after

00:49:09.680 they stopped sleeping together, he respected her enough to keep her at court. And she still led

00:49:13.800 kind of this household of the official royal mistress. But with Jean, the king is looking

00:49:19.860 for something else. He is in his late fifties. I have a quote here from Eleanor Herman, who has

00:49:25.720 written a great book. It's called Sex with Kings, and it kind of delves into a lot of royal

00:49:30.460 mistresses over the years. And she writes, as an aging monarch trembling before the gates of death, 0.97

00:49:36.560 Louis had little need of intelligence. He wanted frequent athletic sex to convince him he was still 0.96

00:49:41.700 alive. As he aged, he had difficulty finding women who aroused him until he met the enthusiastic

00:49:47.800 Parisian prostitute he made his final mistress. If it had been a few years earlier, under the firm 0.88

00:49:53.940 reign of Madame de Pompadour, Jeanne would have been a mere fling. So it really is like right

00:50:00.780 place, right time for Jeanne that she is able to elevate herself to the position of just getting

00:50:07.000 in the same room as the king. And we can talk about how she met him here because I think it's

00:50:11.240 a fun story. But yeah, right place, right time. He's looking for, I picture like a Catherine

00:50:18.200 Howard situation where the king is old. I was thinking of Catherine Howard exactly. Yeah.

00:50:22.360 Yeah. He's looking for someone to make him feel alive. And if you've watched the Tudors,

00:50:26.540 it portrays her so well. I forget the actress's name, but I love her. She's so young and she's

00:50:32.540 so full of life. And there's this one scene where they have had sex, but she goes to sit on a swing

00:50:37.740 or something, or she's dancing in the rain, and he just sits there and watches her. This is Henry

00:50:41.560 VIII. And you can tell it's just the youthfulness that is really, really appealing to him. So

00:50:49.520 that's what we're dealing with with louis the 15th at this point he is in his late 50s

00:50:53.680 jean is about 25 or 26 at this point and she's also i wanted to mention like she is gorgeous 0.95

00:51:00.220 and lots of people in versailles probably were gorgeous not as much as her but she's also so

00:51:04.920 pleasant and nice and friendly and happy and warm like she's got she's pairing this like she's an

00:51:10.840 outsider yeah she's not bogged down by courtly etiquette yeah it's a different vibe yeah and i

00:51:16.980 imagine everyone at Versailles, aside from smelling a little bad, like everyone's a little

00:51:21.160 bit crusty. Um, if you've watched, I keep pulling you to like different TV shows about Royal royalty,

00:51:28.420 but some just show it really well. The HBO Catherine, the great series, I think does a

00:51:33.980 really good job of showing you how people would have looked, how they would have done their makeup.

00:51:39.080 And everyone's just like a little crusty, a little pale. The clothes are all, they're really

00:51:44.380 gorgeous but like they've been using them for a long time they're a little bit ratty and a little

00:51:50.040 bit stained and jean comes in she smells like roses because she bathes in rose water three times a

00:51:55.260 week she's clean she's fresh she's not caking her face with lead paint and rouge and there was the

00:52:01.880 trend at versailles for a while to put moles all over your face and what they were shaped like and

00:52:07.960 where they were placed had different meanings she's not doing that she's an outsider she's not

00:52:13.780 bogged down by all of this. She is literally a breath of fresh air. Literally. Yes. So she

00:52:21.860 stays with DuBerry because he's like, I can't just bring her to Versailles because the same 0.63

00:52:26.420 thing will happen where it's like, well, this is, we have to like groom her. We have to like

00:52:29.740 train her into how to like, until it's like the exact right moment to introduce her. And so

00:52:36.480 can you explain how, how this happens? Yeah. There's a couple of different stories here

00:52:42.660 about how Jean gets introduced first to Versailles, the society, the court, and then to the king.

00:52:49.980 There's one story that says the king's valet and somebody who was involved in picking out

00:52:55.840 women for him to sleep with, a man named LaBelle, tried her out, meaning he slept with her. 0.94

00:53:01.640 Dewberry maybe told him like, hey, come try this girl out. She's awesome. She's really hot. 1.00

00:53:06.280 And then LaBelle in turn reported back to the king and said, hey, you got to try this girl out.

00:53:10.680 that's the kind of like very unromantic version of this story um another story says that jean

00:53:18.800 was at versailles it was open to the public if you could dress the part in the crowd of people

00:53:23.660 and the king passed by and he was just so taken with her he happened to see her in the crowd and

00:53:30.380 again she sticks out like a sore thumb because she's so gorgeous and i presume that the heavens

00:53:36.200 opened up and a ray of sunshine fell on her and angels started singing and the king sees her and

00:53:40.380 just has to know her. Again, very romantic version of the story. Most likely, I think the truth is

00:53:45.780 somewhere in the middle where Dewberry is orchestrating her to be in the right place at

00:53:50.420 the right time. The meeting between Dewberry and the king, or at least the first look, is probably

00:53:57.560 very orchestrated. It's meant to seem casual so that the king will be attracted to her and think

00:54:02.820 it's his idea, but Rue du Barry is not welcome at court himself. So he has to like do this kind

00:54:11.980 of sneaky roundabout method of getting Jean in is what it seems like. Um, I don't know which

00:54:17.520 version you believe is closer to the truth. I like the version that he just sort of,

00:54:23.220 cause it feels so much like in high school or something where it's like, okay, I'm going to

00:54:27.340 be waiting outside the gym when the guy I like his gym class just lets out and then I'll drop

00:54:32.360 my pencil. And you know, it's like, I like, I like thinking of that sort of like, we're just

00:54:37.460 going to do this and this and this, but it also like, it was, it was planned, but I do think it's

00:54:42.400 also possible that you could just put Jean in a crowd and the King would notice her because

00:54:47.600 everybody always does. Absolutely. Yeah. But he sees her, however this happens and it's on,

00:54:55.320 but he can't make her the official mistress because she's not married. Right. Yeah. It seems

00:55:00.840 like um louis the 15th also didn't understand the world that jean came from he knew she wasn't

00:55:10.120 married he knew she wasn't titled but there's a story that he told one of his ministers the

00:55:16.200 duke de richelieu um that he was delighted with her presumably after he's you know been talking

00:55:23.220 to her and has slept with her a couple times he says i'm delighted with your jean she's the only

00:55:28.160 woman in France that has managed to make me forget I'm 60. And he also tells, I think it's

00:55:34.200 his valet, that Jean has helped him discover pleasures entirely new to the king. He's never

00:55:41.540 been with a woman like this before. And the valet tells him, well, your highness, that's because

00:55:46.860 you've never been to a brothel. And it's painted in the history books like that there's this

00:55:52.480 awakening that the king didn't know she was a courtesan or a prostitute in some versions of

00:55:56.880 the story and the king is instead of being put off from jean because everybody around him knows

00:56:04.380 that jean is good for a fling but like not official mistress material because of her low 0.74

00:56:10.080 status because of her you know impoverished background she's not mistress material she just 0.57

00:56:16.440 isn't and instead of the king hearing that she is a courtesan or maybe a prostitute and instantly 0.99

00:56:23.620 you know being done with her she he says okay well we have to fix that and we have to get her

00:56:29.520 husband and introduce her to court life so that is completely the opposite of his minister's intent

00:56:35.520 in telling them or in telling the king about her background but yeah in order to be introduced at

00:56:41.100 Versailles you had to be first I think married um and your family had to be noble and able to

00:56:47.480 demonstrate an aristocratic background back to, I think it was 1400, which a lot of people fudged

00:56:55.900 the records, I will say, but you had to at least be able to keep up appearances. And for women to 1.00

00:57:02.520 be presented at court, you had to be almost like sponsored. Like what we see in Bridgerton, where 0.99

00:57:07.820 there's this big court presentation, and usually it's a girl's mother presenting them in that 0.96

00:57:11.800 position. But in Versailles, you had to be sponsored by a noble woman who was also at

00:57:17.340 court. So that's another hurdle that we have to get over with John. She is not only unmarried,

00:57:24.000 she is also completely an outsider. Nobody at court wants to associate with her because 0.96

00:57:29.520 they know all of their friends would never talk to them again. Because who are you bringing into

00:57:36.160 our circle. What is this? What are you doing? So the first obstacle, so, I mean, the Rue

00:57:41.540 puts together these like fake family trees claiming that she has connections to nobility.

00:57:48.180 And this is where they sort of benefit from the way that her hot grandfather had like changed his

00:57:52.040 last name a few times. So they're just kind of being like, yeah, they're connected to this family

00:57:55.980 and this family. Her hot monk father attended as her quote uncle. Oh, and the wedding, sorry,

00:58:02.040 I should say, was to Du Barry's younger unmarried brother, who literally they got married at 5 a.m.

00:58:07.940 And when the service was over, they parted and never saw each other again, basically.

00:58:11.640 But she was now technically married.

00:58:14.020 Yeah.

00:58:14.280 The Comte Du Barry, he produces his impoverished brother, Guillaume.

00:58:21.000 He, yeah, like you said, he pastes together this family tree.

00:58:24.160 He like fabricates links to, I think it's the Italian Barry or Barry family.

00:58:30.660 And also to the Italian Barrymore family.

00:58:33.900 Yeah.

00:58:34.480 And like this Irish noble family.

00:58:36.320 So it's just this hodgepodge of anybody whose name sounds similar to Dewberry.

00:58:40.780 And yes, the wedding between Jean and Le Rouet's brother takes place.

00:58:49.300 Yeah, you said at 5 a.m.

00:58:50.480 They meet at the altar and right afterwards he is given a bag of cash.

00:58:56.320 They award him a pension for life.

00:58:58.460 And the book I read said he was given a horse to ride away on.

00:59:02.940 And who knows if they ever even like had a conversation.

00:59:07.580 But Jean, she's now a comtesse.

00:59:10.240 She's a countess.

00:59:10.940 She can be presented at court.

00:59:12.520 No problem. 0.98

00:59:13.620 As long as a noble woman is willing to vouch for her.

00:59:17.940 And so there's like a funny story there too.

00:59:20.060 But this is also where she gets the du Barry.

00:59:22.980 Yes.

00:59:23.320 She becomes du Barry at this point.

00:59:25.280 Madame du Barry, which is how she will be known.

00:59:28.460 in history. Yeah, the marriage will come back to bite her eventually, even though she and her 0.93

00:59:33.700 husband never lived together. He goes off and lives in exile. He will pop up occasionally,

00:59:39.260 though. And there is a story that eventually Louis considers actually marrying Jean. He wants to

00:59:46.060 marry her and make her his wife because his own wife has passed away. This is in like 1773.

00:59:51.640 and suddenly someone remembers like oh wait she's married um like even jean it seems forgot that she

00:59:59.920 was married um her husband's off probably drinking somewhere and apparently i think he

01:00:06.600 hears about this and he like threatens to show up at versailles and cause huge scene unless the king

01:00:13.100 pays him off once again so he essentially blackmails the king um he gives him an order of

01:00:19.500 merit, which is very funny. Like he, he gives him a knighthood basically and says like, is that,

01:00:26.000 is that enough? Will you, will that tide you over? So yeah, Dewberry threatens to come to court,

01:00:32.380 but I don't think he ever actually does. And then please tell the story of how she was presented

01:00:37.320 at court. Yeah, it was really, it's one of the funnier ones because it just shows you again,

01:00:43.240 the influence of the King. And if he wants to get this stuff done, he will. Okay. Yes. So in order

01:00:48.340 to join the court of Versailles, which you have to do in order to become the official mistress and

01:00:53.740 not just the petite mistress, you have to be presented by a noblewoman in like this ceremony

01:01:00.060 in front of all these other courtiers to welcome you into the fold. The problem is that no noble

01:01:06.800 woman in good standing would be caught dead. This is what Eleanor Herman calls, quote, 0.99

01:01:13.300 facilitating the prostitutes intrusion into their privileged sphere. So there really is this 0.92

01:01:19.020 connotation that DuBerry is a common streetwalker, like you said earlier. Not true. But the king,

01:01:26.720 I think he knows this. I think he knows what is being said about his new favorite, and he doesn't

01:01:31.820 care. He asks around, he finds one woman, just one at Versailles, who is willing to sponsor DuBerry

01:01:39.220 in exchange for of course all of her deaths being cleared her sons got promoted in the military so

01:01:46.600 like there's a lot riding on this for this woman um she agrees all of that goes ahead but on the

01:01:53.120 day that the ceremony is supposed to happen she gets cold feet and she's like you know what honestly

01:01:57.900 i know that like i'm making a fortune off of this but i just the risk to my reputation is so bad

01:02:04.520 she fakes a sprained ankle she fakes an injury to get out of the ceremony some people think

01:02:10.720 she actually injured herself and the ceremony gets canceled jokes on her though the king will 0.99

01:02:16.640 not let up he insists that the ceremony is rescheduled and this noble woman has to keep

01:02:23.060 up her end of the bargain and she does present Dewberry to a house full of courtiers everyone's 0.64

01:02:29.240 there hoping that she's gonna like I don't know fall on her face or something or they're just 0.64

01:02:34.500 hoping to get a glimpse of this spectacular, beautiful woman and see the heavens open and

01:02:39.200 the sunshine down on her. Yeah. So the presentation ceremony happens. Dewberry comes in a little bit

01:02:44.580 late. So she's not like punctual, but when she did arrive, quote, even her most bitter enemies 0.99

01:02:50.780 gasped at her beauty. This might also have been because she was wearing a gown of cloth of silver 0.94

01:02:56.900 and gold, which is literally gold and silver woven into thread. And it's reported that she was

01:03:02.560 wearing diamonds worth a hundred thousand livres at this time. So she might've just been very,

01:03:08.840 very sparkly. And then part of what she did, she was sparkly and the sun was shining down on her

01:03:13.940 as it always did. But then she had to make three curtsies and then had to do three backwards

01:03:20.620 curtsies, which required, she has to like push her big dress out of the way. Like ladies would 1.00

01:03:26.780 often topple and fall over, but she had practiced this, you know, thousands of times, I'm sure. 1.00

01:03:30.880 and she she killed it she was now part of society yeah yeah she um so she becomes official mistress

01:03:39.480 she's kind of installed at court she has a 14 room apartment above the king's there is a staircase

01:03:47.560 leading directly into his bedchamber so if you want to talk about access like that is the best

01:03:52.120 you can possibly get the actual queen at this time the queen has died um i always mispronounce her

01:03:58.360 name. Marie Leschenka, I think is how you say it. She was Polish. She's passed away the year before.

01:04:04.880 But at Versailles, the queen has her own multi-room apartment, but it's on clear the other

01:04:11.380 side of the palace from the kings. They occupy the east and west wing or the north and south

01:04:16.440 wing, basically. So not even the queen has this level of access to the king, her husband.

01:04:22.460 DuBerry is now right above him and can walk down and ask for a favor whenever she wants.

01:04:27.940 So, um, people start to show up at her rooms, despite the fact that she has all these enemies at court. People are coming to her for favors. Um, and also just to like, look at her because she's so stinking beautiful.

01:04:43.920 And I want to mention also the, uh, 15, he sells off Deer Park. So he is, he's all in on Jean.

01:04:51.080 we're done he's a one woman man yeah yeah like i mentioned he toyed with the idea of marrying her

01:04:57.480 in the 1770s he's so taken with her he he loves her so much probably because she makes him feel

01:05:04.280 young um and she's so beautiful but yeah he gets this like sense of youth and vigor again he's like

01:05:12.840 pushing 60 when he needs her and well into his 60s now he is like instilled with this renewed sense

01:05:20.720 of like, hey, I'm alive. It's a cliffhanger. I'm going to leave you there for now. Next week,

01:05:31.920 we're going to have Amanda back again to tell the second part of the saga of Madame Dewberry.

01:05:39.160 And I do want to mention that some of you may be very familiar with Amanda's work and some of you

01:05:44.400 maybe want to follow her for the first time. And so she is on, she's doing her royal commentary

01:05:48.980 stuff at on tiktok and also on instagram at mata underscore of underscore fact so m-a-t-t-a

01:05:56.740 underscore of underscore fact because her last name is mata and that's where you can find her

01:06:02.060 there to follow her videos and things and then she also has a podcast called art of history

01:06:07.840 which you can find wherever wherever you listen to podcasts wherever you're listening to this

01:06:12.060 right now look up art of history and that is a amazing podcast that she does where she takes

01:06:16.760 She uses her art history background to look at a painting, a historical painting, and

01:06:22.300 then kind of just tell the story of how it came to be and what it represents and things

01:06:26.080 like that.

01:06:26.500 And you might be like, well, a podcast about art and you know what?

01:06:30.540 It's amazing.

01:06:31.360 And she pulls it off. 0.93

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Vulgar History - September 24, 2024

French Revolution： Witnesses (part 1)： Madame du Barry, Versailles Hot Girl

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