Vulgar History - How One Woman Survived the French Revolution (By Getting Out Of Town)

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00:00:42.560 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is Anne

00:00:47.280 Foster, and this season we've been looking at the French Revolution. And up until now,

00:00:52.560 everyone we've looked at in the French Revolution has died in or around 1793, which leaves me to

00:00:59.500 think, did no one survive the French Revolution? Is everyone who lives in France now descended from

00:01:04.300 not French people? This week, we're talking about somebody who survived the French Revolution,

00:01:09.380 just as kind of evidence that people did. But she's also from a different background. We've

00:01:13.760 looked at a lot of sort of poor working class people, but she's, what was it like for wealthy

00:01:17.520 people in the French Revolution? And because we're talking about the French Revolution and

00:01:20.720 what happens after. I couldn't do this without Alison Epstein. Welcome, Alison. Thank you.

00:01:26.280 Well, I'm happy to be back. So last time you were on the podcast, you were telling me a story

00:01:30.260 and this time I'm telling you a story, but this story is going to involve a bunch of people that

00:01:34.660 you know more about than I do. Like Napoleon. Like dudes from history. Like men from history.

00:01:43.100 Yeah. I think Danton is here. I'm sure Robespierre is involved. So you can just kind of give everybody

00:01:48.260 some explain what's happening exactly wonderful but i look forward to hearing you tell me a story

00:01:54.080 yeah well it's it's nice like we're recording full disclosure both episodes in one day so it's just

00:01:59.620 fun like you tell me a story now i tell you a story and the person we're talking about is called

00:02:03.700 germaine de stael i don't know if i'm pronouncing that right but she's not around to correct me

00:02:09.900 so so it's right now let's go with it i'm a canadian person who learned french in school

00:02:16.040 taught by Acadian teachers.

00:02:17.600 So my pronunciation of French words

00:02:18.940 is going to be what it's going to be.

00:02:20.520 You have an excellent French pronunciation, Alison,

00:02:22.900 because you actually studied French stuff in school, right?

00:02:25.640 I did.

00:02:26.520 I studied French in college 15 years ago.

00:02:29.900 So it's getting worse and worse by the day.

00:02:32.500 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:33.320 I just wanted to say,

00:02:34.040 I've been talking about a lot of French named people

00:02:35.980 in this series.

00:02:36.960 And this is why I wanted to explain to people

00:02:39.200 why I pronounce things the way that I do.

00:02:41.040 And it's because I'm Canadian.

00:02:42.460 It's also because you were very influenced

00:02:44.120 by Jerry Orbach as the candlestick

00:02:45.700 in Beauty and the Beast.

00:02:46.720 When I try to picture

00:02:47.840 how to pronounce a French thing,

00:02:49.260 I think how would Jerry Orbach

00:02:50.460 have said this as Lumiere

00:02:51.840 in Beauty and the Beast?

00:02:52.760 And then I just,

00:02:53.300 I go for it.

00:02:54.880 And so,

00:02:55.420 but her name is Germaine.

00:02:56.680 I don't know.

00:02:57.100 How do you say Germaine

00:02:57.820 in a French way? 0.63

00:02:59.120 Germaine?

00:02:59.860 Germaine, yeah.

00:03:01.120 But we're going to

00:03:01.960 anglicize it.

00:03:02.680 Germaine is good. 0.97

00:03:03.760 Germaine.

00:03:04.580 Technically, okay.

00:03:05.260 So her name is Germaine de Stael.

00:03:07.400 And my sources for this are,

00:03:09.560 this is how you know

00:03:10.220 that she's like a notable person

00:03:11.340 from history

00:03:11.860 because he didn't have to go

00:03:13.440 diving around too much to find.

00:03:15.700 The facts are out there. Thank God. Some of the people who've done this season, I had to like

00:03:19.580 sneak into the university library, get some books out, look at the resources, like looking up

00:03:24.300 databases. I'm just like, I need to learn facts. We're like, Tyrone de Maricor. Jermaine de Stael,

00:03:29.700 we know about her. So I got information from an essay from Women in World Biography by Jean A.

00:03:35.700 Ojala, and also the entry from the Encyclopedia of World Biography. So her full name, because we

00:03:41.900 didn't talk about this in the um episode we did last about the men of the french revolution but

00:03:47.500 i'm sure i assume they all had 16 names oh camille de moulin has at least 11 more names yeah yeah

00:03:53.820 french people like names so her name was technically anne louise germaine de holstein

00:04:01.640 okay which is actually well that's her married last name style holstein so her her real last

00:04:09.200 name when she was born, was Necker, because she was the daughter of Jacques Necker.

00:04:14.160 The finance minister.

00:04:16.020 Yeah. Do you know? Okay. I'll just say, so she was born Germaine, April 22nd, 1766. Her father

00:04:22.480 was Jacques Necker, a Swiss banker and French finance minister to Louis the 16th. And do you

00:04:28.620 know, do you have context about Jacques Necker? I think he's sort of a notorious figure.

00:04:33.380 He is. And I have to tell the listeners that Anne didn't warn me because every time I see his name,

00:04:38.520 I'm like, oh, I don't care about finance. And I turn pages. So I don't know a lot about him,

00:04:43.180 but I know that he was really influential in the early lead up to the revolution.

00:04:47.960 Necker was one of the really smart economists who was like, I see what the issue is here with the

00:04:54.720 economy going to hell immediately pre-French revolution. And I think I would like to fix it

00:04:59.220 and help the people to not starve to death. And so he became a little bit of a folk hero

00:05:04.160 in the early days. He was also, I think, instrumental in the king deciding to call

00:05:10.340 the estates general in the first place. That was one of his ideas.

00:05:13.920 So he's sort of a note. We'll talk a bit about what he was up to because that affects what

00:05:17.420 happens to his daughter, Germaine. But that's her dad. He's Swiss. And her mother was named

00:05:22.980 Suzanne Cushard, who was a salon, salonier. She ran salons and she was also a writer.

00:05:30.180 For her job?

00:05:30.600 well she was a writer recreationally okay and recreationally she ran so i think her job was 0.75

00:05:35.800 like being married to jack necker like running a household silly question but she was like she

00:05:40.640 did have as her hobbies she was a writer and a salonier so germaine is growing up in this sort

00:05:45.600 of like it's cool for women to be educated sort of environment interestingly both of her parents

00:05:50.940 Protestants at a time when France, very Catholic country. Let's see, Jacques. Here's some facts 0.93

00:06:01.200 about Jacques. He was a business guy. It says he was more at ease among accountants than in

00:06:07.700 Parisian society. That's really paints a picture, doesn't it? It paints a picture and like all love

00:06:13.500 to accountants. I have a wonderful accountant named Leonard who is amazing. My friend Gina

00:06:19.220 is an accountant and i just i think they would my mom was an accountant yeah and so if you think

00:06:24.500 about like who's comfortable with accountants and who's comfortable in parisian society it's like

00:06:28.820 yeah those are two different kinds of people generally um and so this i will quote to you 0.99

00:06:37.320 from the women world biography essay um her mother suzanne was prudish and socially ambitious

00:06:42.660 a perfect mate for her lackluster husband i love a catty historian it's one of those great honestly

00:06:52.520 i do i love when people sneak stuff like that into an encyclopedia okay so she was an only child

00:06:57.740 and until she was 12 she only interacted with adults i think i know people like this who've

00:07:02.380 like i've not intentionally but i know people who like had children young and then they go to a

00:07:08.180 party and they bring their children to the party and those children just grow up around adults and

00:07:11.460 those kids become like mini adults because that's who they spend a lot of time with

00:07:14.720 so she and i think her parents were kind of like we don't love kids so like let's just treat you

00:07:21.740 like little adult person so her mother supervised her education um which included no contact with

00:07:30.200 any children you don't need that social skills who needs it well why do you need social skills

00:07:37.160 with children like you're you know you're gonna be an adult one day so you should be good with

00:07:40.320 talking to adults um so she hung out at the salon germain like she just hung out at her

00:07:45.040 mother's salon among the celebrated thinkers of the age of enlightenment

00:07:48.540 not every kid would thrive in that situation but she did like she was a smart little kid 0.99

00:07:54.800 so again like bitchy historian says germain's mind was thus assiduously cultivated at the

00:08:01.660 expense of an active playful childhood so remember the good old days when history used to be objective

00:08:09.500 this is from like the 80s or 90s

00:08:13.180 anyway so she was not allowed to leave the house without her mother

00:08:18.360 she did not have it says she didn't have any friends her own age until she was

00:08:22.260 how would she possibly have where would she have met them

00:08:25.240 did they come to the salon so she okay my god okay i promise i'm not like

00:08:32.940 here to just read you this encyclopedia entry but it just has a way with words

00:08:36.540 she and her parents were bound together by a complex web of passions and hostilities and

00:08:41.640 their family life was characterized by emotional frenzy emotional frenzy yeah yeah so her mother

00:08:49.440 was like a pretty intense person um jermaine did not get along with her mother she kind of really

00:08:53.900 well as you can see like it's like her mother didn't let her hang with other kids her mother

00:08:56.800 made her hang out with her all the time like yeah this is a lot this is a lot even if your mother's

00:09:02.200 a great person so eventually jermaine fell ill i think from some sort of like nerves

00:09:07.840 sort of thing where it's just like probably just growing up in this like emotionally

00:09:11.840 emotional frenzy anyway so the doctor removed her from her mother's care because it's like

00:09:17.580 even back then even back then like they're like well here's some leeches and also clearly

00:09:21.860 your mother is making you ill with her what you need is personal space and to balance the humors

00:09:28.340 but mostly personal space. 1.00

00:09:29.620 Yeah, leeches, but also let's get you away from her. 0.92

00:09:32.180 So she was ordered to rest,

00:09:33.860 to discard her corset and to avoid mental strain.

00:09:37.460 That sounds great.

00:09:38.400 Where can I get that prescription?

00:09:39.640 This is great.

00:09:40.380 This reminds me of Christina of Sweden in that episode 0.93

00:09:42.840 where they were like, you need to take some baths

00:09:46.420 and just relax.

00:09:47.880 So I think Jermaine was probably,

00:09:49.480 like she's being treated like a little adult her whole life

00:09:51.240 and that would get stressful when you're 12

00:09:53.980 and aren't an adult

00:09:55.720 and you don't have the emotional regulation of an adult.

00:09:57.760 anyway so she was removed from there she went to live at the necker country estate near paris

00:10:04.760 and in this atmosphere she so i don't i don't know specifically i guess you know married couples

00:10:11.680 didn't always stay together they didn't always live together once they had children right

00:10:15.240 so she spent more time with her father at the necker probably in or near paris for work right

00:10:22.280 yeah and the mother would be off in switzerland or whatever so she got closer to her father here

00:10:26.800 to i would say a concerning a concerning amount which we will talk about anyway so at this point

00:10:34.620 jack necker he was the director general of finance for louis the 16th but like when he was in paris

00:10:41.640 but on the weekends he could go to his family estate and just like escape his duties and his

00:10:46.060 terrifying wife chill out so she was hanging out in this kind of like place where she could be free

00:10:52.560 this is where her father could be free um she adored her father which developed into

00:10:57.120 a rivalry with her mother over the father's love is what i'm talking about when i say like this gets

00:11:03.140 um accordingly problematic sure it does um one of her biographers talked about that she

00:11:12.100 um her entire life was spent celebrating her father like she was obsessed with loving her

00:11:19.840 father which is just trying to put myself in her footsteps like she's just got this like

00:11:25.700 throttling relationship with her mother who's really intense and sounds pretty scary and then

00:11:30.460 the father was like she could be nice and free with him so it's just if these are the only two

00:11:34.360 humans you ever interact with right and i mean he was incredibly famous at the time like the fact

00:11:40.420 that i know his name and he was an accountant means he was pretty famous for accountants so

00:11:45.420 like not unreasonable to feel like my father was a pretty great guy now conversely germaine later

00:11:51.460 wrote in her diary quote of all the men in the world it is he her father whom i would have wished

00:11:57.260 for a lover yikes no yeah no okay so yeah germaine i don't know part of this is maybe i don't know

00:12:07.660 why i'm making excuses for this but it's just like she was raised in these salons to be like always

00:12:11.540 thinking about everything philosophically or whatever like she was not like two feet in the 1.00

00:12:15.920 real world yeah at this point um she later wrote a novel that had a savage caricature of a woman

00:12:24.000 who was clearly inspired by her mother a person who'd like to make others lives as drab as possible

00:12:28.600 you know when you have feuding parents when one has feuding parents you know like one might be

00:12:35.460 the hero and one is the villain and so she very much embodies that in a time pre-psychotherapy

00:12:40.780 Oh, she would have benefited from therapy, it sounds like.

00:12:43.120 She would have, yes. 1.00

00:12:44.560 But she did benefit from taking the corset off and just...

00:12:47.300 Having a nap.

00:12:49.180 Having a bath. 1.00

00:12:50.880 Anyway, she was one of the richest heiresses in all of Europe. 1.00

00:12:54.120 But she was limited in who she could marry because of the Protestant angle of it.

00:12:58.780 Because this is a real time where it's just like you're a Protestant, you're Catholic,

00:13:01.740 and you could never marry the other one.

00:13:06.400 And France, very Catholic.

00:13:08.320 France, very Catholic.

00:13:09.540 So no French nobles would fit this religious requirement.

00:13:14.300 It had to be somebody of a certain income, a certain social class, but they had to be Protestant.

00:13:19.100 Probably someone from not Germany, I would think.

00:13:22.220 Yeah, you would think, yeah.

00:13:23.240 But Germain was like, okay, but whoever I marry, I insist I have to live in France, even if my husband's not French.

00:13:30.960 And so there was negotiations ensued.

00:13:35.460 And who she wound up marrying.

00:13:37.980 So this person from Sweden, Eric Magnus de Stael von Holstein. And in order to make this all work

00:13:46.600 out, and I think it's impressive that Germain was able to be like, here's what's up. I'm going to

00:13:50.540 live in France, like figure this out, parents. And they did, they didn't just force her to go to

00:13:55.280 Sweden. So they had to have negotiations with the French royal family, but like Jacques Necker was

00:14:00.060 the accountant for the royal family. So he had those connections. So basically this guy, her

00:14:04.080 husband, Eric, was appointed Swedish ambassador to France and was made a baron. Nice. So that this

00:14:10.440 marriage could take place and so that she could stay in France. And the marriage contract included

00:14:16.040 a clause saying that Jermaine would never have to live in Sweden. Like no shade to Sweden. It's a

00:14:22.620 place I would like to go, but she did not want to go there. Wasn't it Descartes who had to go visit

00:14:29.080 christina of sweden and hated it so much that he was like died there he died because the castle was

00:14:34.660 like so cool christina probably remembered that was absolutely not she's just like here's what

00:14:39.560 i know about sweden people die there so they got buried but this was just sort of like she got

00:14:46.220 like most marriages at this time except for uh camille de moulin and his wife lulu this is not a

00:14:54.140 this is not a love match like she had no romantic illusions this was a man who was protestant and

00:15:00.280 would move to france yeah she was just like here's what i want like in like how they explain in the

00:15:06.540 movie dangerous liaisons once she was married she knew she could take lovers so she's like great i 1.00

00:15:11.740 have a husband so now i can fuck around amazing because i won't have to be living with my mom 0.99

00:15:17.340 i can have some independence for having affairs yeah yeah so she had her formal presentation at 0.98

00:15:23.140 royal court so this is our marie antoinette moment apparently jermaine uh she arrived late

00:15:28.820 and when she curtsied before marie antoinette her dress split open oh no baby that's so sad

00:15:36.180 so she she you know quite a impression although she's like this heiress and stuff so it's not 0.96

00:15:42.900 she's jack necker's daughter no one's gonna be like oh she's bad but it's just kind of like oh 0.94

00:15:46.460 no but she did her vibes were a bit like um to give a comparison everyone is familiar with 1.00

00:15:52.460 carolina brunswick she's just kind of like a messy bitch like she's rich but she's like not 1.00

00:16:00.040 her like etiquette is not what people would presume and she's she was never described as 1.00

00:16:05.360 like being a great beauty so it didn't really have beauty or madness but it's like she's rich

00:16:09.160 so she didn't have to and we see people like that in the celebrity world today like when you see

00:16:13.360 like oh this is the most wealthiest heiress of whatever and you're like well she just looks like

00:16:16.540 whatever person with a whole lot of money yeah yeah it's like you don't have to impress people

00:16:20.740 when you're this rich and so she didn't so she was a brilliant conversationalist she was witty

00:16:24.740 she was intelligent um but her behavior even though she was welcomed at versailles etc people 1.00

00:16:31.180 just go like like she's kind of there was bitches there you know high side in paris that's the 1.00

00:16:37.180 tagline of versailles there's bitches there so yeah yeah yeah so they would be mean to her but 1.00

00:16:42.920 they couldn't be too mean because she was like so wealthy and stuff anyway so i like when you 0.99

00:16:47.980 if one looks at portraits of her it's like we've talked about this in previous episodes but you're

00:16:52.300 like she looks fine this is what everyone looks to me in portraits but it's like oh she was no

00:16:56.300 great beauty but like i don't i don't know how you find me she looks great she looks great i don't

00:17:01.920 know so in the swedish embassy in paris she established her own salon a skill that she

00:17:07.980 knew how to do because she like grew up in her mother's salon and she was unlike manon roland 0.85

00:17:15.180 Jermaine was involved in her salon. 0.82

00:17:16.720 She would talk to people.

00:17:17.840 She was like one of the,

00:17:19.280 because she had been so well-educated, 0.99

00:17:21.140 she grew up in a salon.

00:17:21.860 She had lots of thoughts

00:17:22.680 and, you know, she could contribute.

00:17:24.340 And she was a really good hostess.

00:17:25.520 She had the ability to speak up 0.88

00:17:28.640 and not make people feel bad

00:17:29.760 and just make everybody feel welcome.

00:17:31.460 Do you know who were included in her salon,

00:17:34.120 in her circle of people who attended her salon?

00:17:35.880 Who's that?

00:17:37.640 Thomas Jefferson.

00:17:39.020 Oh, okay.

00:17:40.720 And Lafayette.

00:17:42.200 All right.

00:17:43.200 One of my boys.

00:17:44.560 And Thomas Jefferson.

00:17:46.520 Two characters, both played by David Diggs in the musical Hamilton.

00:17:50.040 Indeed.

00:17:50.780 I have to ask, did Digiterman, did she serve food and wine at her salon?

00:17:55.340 Or was this a sugar, water, and complaining scenario?

00:17:59.220 I think Thomas Jefferson attended instead of Lafayette.

00:18:02.220 So I think there was wine.

00:18:03.520 I think there was cheese.

00:18:04.740 I think it was not Madame Roulin being like, you can only talk about politics and I will only serve you water.

00:18:12.080 While I sit judgmentally in the corner.

00:18:13.960 this sounds like a much better time yeah this sounds kind of fun yeah no so she's just having

00:18:18.540 a nice time like she's finally she's off the leash like she's free she had this bananas

00:18:22.640 upbringing but now she's just like great i can like socialize well she's an adult so i guess

00:18:27.960 i can have friends she knows how to socialize with adults that's the one thing she always knew

00:18:32.360 how to do um and she's also focusing on her own writing like remember her mother had been a writer

00:18:37.060 as well jack necker her dad so he's also he's in versailles like she's in paris like they're just

00:18:43.720 both in the same society and he he never allowed her to have a writing desk in his house

00:18:50.780 I don't know how often she visits she probably visited his house a lot she was a lot from what

00:18:55.660 I've heard I think so so he's like oh that's nice you're a writer but like don't do that here honey 0.98

00:18:59.960 like that's not cool for a woman but like you have your nice little hobby but she acquired a 1.00

00:19:05.600 portable desk which I love this I love this like a little laptop desk yeah like with a hinged top 0.95

00:19:10.940 and so she carried it with her 0.98

00:19:11.840 wherever she went

00:19:12.460 which is interesting

00:19:13.080 so if she goes to someone else's house

00:19:14.480 who's like

00:19:15.360 oh we don't have a desk for you 1.00

00:19:16.340 she's like that's cool

00:19:17.100 brought my own desk with me

00:19:18.400 like let's go

00:19:19.540 and so she

00:19:21.200 was a big fan of Rousseau

00:19:23.800 because

00:19:24.840 everybody was

00:19:26.100 everybody was

00:19:27.400 she wrote

00:19:28.960 a book called

00:19:31.240 Letters on the Writings

00:19:32.280 and Character of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

00:19:33.980 was her first publication

00:19:35.700 in 1788

00:19:37.380 and she was recognized

00:19:38.280 as like a really good writer

00:19:39.420 a writer of distinction

00:19:40.340 which is cool for like a woman writer so i think different from olymp de gouge or some of the other 0.98

00:19:46.440 women we've talked about because she was this wealthy heiress living in these higher circles

00:19:51.740 it's like oh that's cool you're a writer not just like this is freakish and like also like probably

00:19:56.800 don't piss off her dad who is in charge of all of the money of france i'm sure she was getting a lot

00:20:01.760 of distinction yeah exactly exactly it's kind of like a nepo baby sort of vibe where she's like oh

00:20:07.860 a necker baby yeah so she she had a child um with her husband eric um they named allegedly

00:20:16.280 allegedly true um she had a child called gustavine gustavine that's an excellent name which is a

00:20:24.440 great so it's like gustav but a girl and not not marie which is great thank you germaine although

00:20:30.440 i will say um gustavine like many infants of the time died in infancy but was also cared for

00:20:37.800 entirely by household servants because i mean germaine didn't know anything about children

00:20:42.920 right she had never seen one she had never encountered one but also she had you know like

00:20:48.740 post postpartum yeah postpartum just like depression and loneliness and she also

00:20:55.000 part of this manifest and she just wanted a passionate beautiful love as described by

00:21:00.320 the romantic writers of the time she and you know she's married to eric which is great and she's

00:21:05.340 like you know i'm taking lovers but like nothing is really emotionally fulfilling me to fill this

00:21:09.780 void she had a brief affair with a guy named hallie rand have you heard about him yeah i thought he

00:21:17.300 was a bishop yeah that's gonna be exciting if that's the same guy i'm thinking of i it is because

00:21:23.860 he amazing I think he also attended her um salon yeah Talleyrand the future revolutionary and

00:21:30.620 foreign minister yes he I believe was originally a bishop who came to the estates general as like

00:21:39.780 part of the clergy and was one of the leaders in like getting the clergy to side with the people

00:21:45.080 which allowed sort of the revolution to move forward so like I don't know a lot about him

00:21:49.960 but i love that she's finding somebody fun she found somebody to quote fill the void um but so

00:21:56.400 he she's having like an affair with him but then through him she met someone else who like gave her

00:22:01.400 the fiery passionate love she was looking for this is the camp louis de narbonne lara so i think we

00:22:07.140 mostly just call him narbonne from now on okay his name is louis and so he was um his name is louis

00:22:14.580 like everybody else so we're not gonna call him that he was ambitious and she had all these

00:22:20.120 connections her dad was jack necker so she like helped she helped narbonne with his like career

00:22:25.600 because this is like as we talked about in the um people listen to the dangerous liaisons movie

00:22:30.740 review episode people had affairs well actually we talked about this in a couple other episodes

00:22:35.320 too the one you haven't heard this yet because when we're recording this it hasn't aired but i

00:22:40.420 did a whole episode about sex lives with people from this period and also the gouverneur morris

00:22:45.040 it's just like you got married and then you had lovers and that's what like everybody did

00:22:49.620 in the upper classes so it's just like this is fine this is so the fact that she's like oh could

00:22:55.760 you please you know promote this guy who's my lover yes i'm married to eric the swedish ambassador

00:23:00.340 it's like it's not strange this is the time when the king has five royal mistresses and they're all

00:23:05.520 competing visibly for power so yeah this is not on from the top this is very public yeah yeah so

00:23:12.140 this is um this is this here's just a statement about her overall charisma her love affairs were

00:23:20.940 continuous intense and simultaneous so she's involved with narbonne but it says she never

00:23:28.640 ended a love affair and often as many as five lovers lived with her you know what good for her

00:23:34.820 she wanted this life and she's living this life and like honestly yeah like she was raised in this

00:23:39.620 you know by her mother in this kind of like locked up way but now she's just like i can

00:23:45.380 live for myself and what i want is five live-in lovers it's the live-in part that's getting me

00:23:50.780 i'm like what where did they go did they like make breakfast in the morning together was there

00:23:56.620 like were they like was this a bachelorette situation i don't know yeah yeah you know

00:24:01.700 they have their own like little house like for the men it's it's reminding me a little bit about

00:24:05.580 another episode you and i did together about rochelle the yeah she had so much she had her

00:24:10.260 union of lovers she did yeah i'm imagining uh germaine like bringing in a new lover to this

00:24:17.400 new house and as he opens the door and walks into the room full of six other dudes there's

00:24:22.100 a narrator who's just like a new bombshell has entered the villa i was just gonna say a new

00:24:28.600 so she's having the narrator is victor hugo i think she's having a nice time right but like

00:24:37.380 if you're keeping track it's now 1792 yikes oh she's been having a nice time for a while longer

00:24:44.420 than i would have expected yeah yeah so she's so i mean i'm sure that there was some drama

00:24:51.420 leading up to this but basically french revolution starts happening but this is what's interesting

00:24:56.340 this is like to in her story it's kind of like not super affecting her yeah really where it's

00:25:03.260 like it's so important to um rose pierre and to um the market ladies like they're just doing all

00:25:08.300 this stuff and i'm sure she's like oh what people just stormed that place like oh okay that's too

00:25:11.980 bad okay like i'm just going to jeff bezos wedding in venice now like yeah anyway so she's got her

00:25:20.880 her hands are full she literally she is busy with five lovers simultaneously and writing books like

00:25:28.060 she's got a lot going on but with the overthrow of the monarchy things are now changing so many of

00:25:36.460 her friends went into hiding because she had a lot of monarchist friends because of who she is

00:25:41.760 your dad worked for the king yeah yeah so she was and she's in danger herself because kind of

00:25:47.840 everyone's in danger. So, you know, even the French Revolution even eventually reached her

00:25:52.480 in her sort of like love island villa. Anyway, so she's in danger. So Narbonne is in danger. And so

00:26:01.620 she steps up, you know, she helps Narbonne and others hide in the Swedish embassy,

00:26:08.140 a place that apparently they weren't super keeping an eye out for people. Presumably the

00:26:13.480 other people who's hiding are the other five lovers. Probably. I guess if you attack them

00:26:17.480 there you'd be at war with sweden and they were already at war with everybody else true yeah so

00:26:21.600 she hid narbonne others in the swedish embassy and she helped arrange their escape from france

00:26:26.140 she herself tried to leave you know how many times i've said in this podcast when people's

00:26:31.200 like leave paris like don't do a madame dupery and just hang out and come back leave and come

00:26:37.420 back and let's just like leave stay away have you seen my jewels my jewels have gone missing

00:26:43.940 they look like this i'm very wealthy honey no no she's not doing that no she's smart

00:26:52.960 germaine is smart so she tries to leave paris to go to switzerland which is where she's from 0.50

00:26:57.320 right or her dad was swiss but she was arrested on route however she had enough friends in high

00:27:03.580 places she was able to be like do you know who i am which actually could go either way in this

00:27:08.280 situation it's like yeah we know who you are that's why we're arresting you the daughter of 0.97

00:27:11.740 Jack Necker. Anyway, she was released and then she went off to Switzerland. So she was in Coppet, 0.99

00:27:18.560 which is, is that, wait, let me double check. Yeah. Coppet, a municipality in Switzerland.

00:27:24.400 I think that's where she was born. Anyway, obviously the Necker family had connections

00:27:30.620 there. And so she was from there, like she was just like helping out. She provided money and

00:27:37.260 documents for victims of political persecution oh she's also pregnant at this time sorry all this 0.64

00:27:42.440 is happening she's like smuggling people lovers in the embassy she's pregnant she's trying to

00:27:46.420 escape she's talking away out of it she's also pregnant at this time as well and she had the

00:27:50.980 father of the son is narbonne probably or somebody else narbonne was like her main lover but that's

00:27:58.820 not to say that his dna had fathered this child that's fair the acting father of this child so

00:28:05.380 she had smuggled she had helped Narbonne get to England and so she went there to be with him

00:28:09.360 but unfortunately for her so she gets to England where a lot of um exiled French royalists had

00:28:14.920 gone like that's where Madame du Barry went it's just like let's hang out in England for a while

00:28:19.000 um but the other people who were already there were um so exiled French royalists in England

00:28:25.600 were not cool with her they're like you're an adulterer which is insane because everybody is

00:28:31.280 who's not who's not they like called her an instigator of revolution maybe because she

00:28:36.920 hosted the salons i don't know just kind of like misogyny they're just kind of like who are you

00:28:42.140 did she travel there with all her other lovers like if she i could see them being like

00:28:46.420 chill out germane anyway sure sure and like the necker family is like half revolutionary half

00:28:53.560 royalist like it's there's a dangerous line there it was like necker was fired and that was sort of

00:29:00.380 like helped the revolution start so i think she's probably associated with it right because you're

00:29:04.720 saying like he was sort of yeah he was sort of this hero of the revolution so like some people

00:29:07.960 and french people in england were like oh we don't like you because you're like revolutionary but then

00:29:11.760 other people in france were all like we don't like you because you're an aristocrat so she's

00:29:15.800 just like not this is the the lafayette scenario which is you can't be enough of one thing for

00:29:19.860 other of them exactly she's the lady and lafayette friend of hers so maybe he gave her advice i don't 0.69

00:29:25.140 know he isn't down don't come back don't come back so anyway she did leave england because she

00:29:31.640 was not having a nice time um but she went to switzerland again narbonne was supposed to join

00:29:37.640 her but he did not uh he procrastinated so this is where i start feeling like narbonne not as into

00:29:45.680 her as she's into him sort of situation got if you want to hear about the the encyclopedia person 1.00

00:29:52.800 explaining why that happened jermaine was a difficult woman demanding and domineering 1.00

00:29:59.500 and she enervated her many lovers who wrote this article and can i have a word with them 1.00

00:30:07.280 i mean basically okay so she i think it's just like adults having a disagreement in the

00:30:13.780 relationship she had saved his life paid his debts bought him a house in switzerland

00:30:17.380 and he was not coming to be with her. 1.00

00:30:20.500 This is him being an asshole. 1.00

00:30:22.400 This is not her being annoying. 1.00

00:30:25.220 No, this is like,

00:30:26.260 hi, I bought us a house after I saved your life.

00:30:28.760 Do you want to live in it with our kid?

00:30:31.280 You don't have to pay anything.

00:30:33.020 And he's just like, oh, she's so annoying.

00:30:35.460 She wrote a treatise called

00:30:37.280 On the Influence of the Passions,

00:30:39.520 where she's just basically talking about like,

00:30:42.560 oh, when you're passionately in love,

00:30:44.060 sometimes it makes you sad.

00:30:45.200 she laments the lot of women um and how it's so hard to have men women relationships 0.78

00:30:52.360 because she has not had great luck with men they've all kind of sucked so yeah yeah and so 0.65

00:30:59.660 she's just like oh the double standard like women who defy social convention are vilified but like

00:31:05.000 men can do it and i'm like hell yeah germaine yeah these are fair facts and people like oh

00:31:10.060 she's so she enervates her many lovers she's so domineering and difficult i'm not reading all the 0.91

00:31:16.700 parts of this but some are like it's unclear how she seduced so many men when she was such an ugly

00:31:21.280 person not beautiful and had bad manners and yet she must have had some charms because man 0.87

00:31:27.280 basically yeah you see why i love her i do so narbonne finally shows up in switzerland probably

00:31:35.460 because he needed money or something. 0.99

00:31:38.640 This fucking guy, he arrived 1.00

00:31:40.280 and then he's like, 1.00

00:31:41.100 hey, Jermaine, lovely to see you in Switzerland,

00:31:44.140 but I brought my mistress with me,

00:31:47.040 so let's just have sort of like

00:31:48.280 an open relationship type situation.

00:31:50.860 Ugh.

00:31:52.360 She's just like, no. 0.97

00:31:54.120 I don't want to be three levels deep in mistresses.

00:31:57.000 It's too much.

00:31:58.380 It's too much.

00:31:59.180 It's too much.

00:31:59.520 But then she met the brilliant intellectual,

00:32:02.140 Benjamin Constant, or maybe Constant.

00:32:05.460 have you heard of him i don't know never benjamin constant the brilliant intellectual

00:32:10.080 i guess he was brilliant well and this is and so she swaps she trades up she gets a new lover

00:32:16.680 um she continues writing um she writes fiction which are basically you know as much as anyone's

00:32:24.760 novels and you're a novelist and i think you've said this you know there's some biographical stuff

00:32:29.760 in any piece of fiction right like yeah yeah your book fake and the thief is about like a

00:32:35.680 man living in london and victorian era but there's like you pull from your own yeah but he's me in a

00:32:41.880 lot of ways they all are sure yeah so germaine's books are all about these kind of like women who

00:32:46.520 defy convention and have lots of lovers and travel widely where it's like okay the character is not

00:32:52.540 named germaine but like okay you're novel it's the character is named germaine but with an a y

00:33:01.020 n e at the end completely completely unrecognizable yeah so she wrote but she also wrote like her

00:33:07.320 treatises on politics as well she wrote you're gonna love this she wrote a treatise called

00:33:12.300 reflections on peace so at this point like we're in the terror is happening in france and so she's 0.97

00:33:17.400 just being like robespierre sucks the terror sucks like european monarchs where are you 0.97

00:33:23.400 like help save france like we need to establish a liberal regime in france so she's like anti 0.97

00:33:29.500 robespierre which is like the correct side to be on in 1793 slash four yeah safely in switzerland

00:33:36.000 also the right place to be when you're anti robespierre exactly um and so looking at the

00:33:42.980 dates here, May 1795. We've never made it this far in the podcast. Robespierre is gone. He's been

00:33:51.680 executed. So she, which I guess is why she feels safe enough to return to Paris. So she stuck it

00:33:57.780 out and didn't come back until it was safe. And I love that for her. The first person in this

00:34:03.040 podcast series to do that. The only way we made it this far, someone said 1792 to 1795, I'm going to

00:34:11.600 be in switzerland she's so smart the only other person who survived it was lafayette and that's

00:34:17.620 because he was in jail prison in austria over five years yeah this is the other way like don't be in

00:34:24.640 france that's how you're gonna survive so yep she returns she reopens her salon and she's just like

00:34:30.460 i'm gonna resume having influence on events so the people who are in charge of france at this point

00:34:35.640 are the remind me who they are the ones who got rid of robespierre this is the part of french

00:34:41.760 revolution government where i don't know what's going on because no one knows what's going on

00:34:46.120 this is the messy bit until napoleon comes along and no one's really doing anything so i don't

00:34:51.440 remember what well honestly she doesn't know either and she's just like i'm gonna try to

00:34:55.300 have some influence here but like what is going on so let's see there was an attempted coup by

00:35:02.320 the royalists. One of them was her lover, Benjamin, Constante, who was arrested. Jermaine

00:35:10.540 personally appealed to a member of the Directory government. The Directory, there we go. Yeah,

00:35:15.660 so that's who's in charge. And she managed to get her lover, Benjamin, released, but she was

00:35:21.440 expelled from France. Well, it was nice while it lasted. Which is better than being executed. So

00:35:27.220 She went back to Coppette in Switzerland and she and Benjamin, like, I feel like this is a good partnership.

00:35:33.100 He's a writer.

00:35:33.740 She's a writer.

00:35:34.480 They're like collaborating on political writings, writing more treatises.

00:35:38.920 Eventually, her husband, remember?

00:35:41.360 Oh, yeah, Eric.

00:35:43.060 Remember him?

00:35:44.260 Presumably still in Paris being the Swedish ambassador.

00:35:48.420 Can you imagine him being the ambassador throughout all of the terror?

00:35:52.200 And he's just like, I would like to leave, please.

00:35:54.600 This is like, this is like Gouverneur Morris, the episode I did a few weeks ago, who like went to Paris during the terror to be like, hey, what's up? I'm your new ambassador. Like, why do we need an ambassador as the streets run red with blood? He's like, well, you know, just for bureaucratic things, you know, trade embargoes. Like, what are you doing? Anyway, so her husband eventually persuaded the directory to allow Germain to return to France.

00:36:22.840 So there's a lot of just high-level convincing of people to do things that goes in her favor a lot.

00:36:27.500 I think because she's so wealthy, although that's not always a good thing during...

00:36:31.640 I think it would be now, now that the royalists are coming back in, the more money you've got would be more helpful.

00:36:37.340 So she has a daughter with Benjamin Constant named Albertine.

00:36:43.680 Excellent.

00:36:45.340 Which, again, I appreciate not calling Marie.

00:36:50.940 So Albertine survives.

00:36:52.560 she grows to be an adult she later becomes the duchesse de broglie anyway so they found a club

00:36:59.020 because if people are not starting newspapers in france at this time they're starting a new club

00:37:03.980 to spread their political principles which are like i'm not going to get into but like you can

00:37:08.280 imagine she's like a philosopher type person but she likes monarchy and she's just like brousseau

00:37:13.940 light yeah let's just be cool like let's just not murder people and like have a monarch but also

00:37:20.640 be cool is kind of her vibes and she continued to help her friends which i appreciate you know

00:37:27.100 like she's this wealthy person she has these connections but like when she helped them hide

00:37:30.220 in the swedish embassy she's also helping them now like a lot of her friends from versailles

00:37:35.020 and stuff are just like struggling and she's extremely wealthy because her money wasn't seized

00:37:41.180 because she went to Switzerland.

00:37:45.480 So remember her old friend Talleyrand?

00:37:48.380 Yes.

00:37:49.320 So he at this point had been in the United States,

00:37:53.060 I guess in exile,

00:37:54.740 but because of her intercession,

00:37:56.580 he was able to return to France

00:37:58.920 and he was appointed minister of foreign affairs.

00:38:01.820 So she lent him money and helped launch his career.

00:38:05.260 So she's just like the power behind all these guys, really.

00:38:08.860 And now for a quick advertising break.

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00:40:34.780 reality tv is messy pop culture is louder than ever and the internet completely unhinged welcome

00:40:43.980 to roxanne and chantelle the podcast where cousins roxanne and chantelle break down reality tv

00:40:49.560 celebrity drama and the stories everyone's texting about we recap the shows spill the headlines

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00:41:02.740 week if it's trending we're talking about it this is roxanne and chantelle let's get into it

00:41:09.780 and we're back she like in terms of like oh but she wasn't beautiful it's like who the 0.99

00:41:16.460 cares but also she was clearly so good at getting people to do what she wanted like that's that's

00:41:22.560 a skill like she's wealthy but that's not it like she's getting you can be wealthy but you have to

00:41:28.400 be convincing, too.

00:41:31.120 Like, she's getting people

00:41:32.240 to, like, to return someone from exile?

00:41:34.480 Like, that's, like,

00:41:36.680 she's got something going on.

00:41:37.880 She's, yeah. Well, I mean, she's

00:41:39.400 all these simultaneous lovers. Like, something

00:41:42.000 is drawing a lot

00:41:44.180 of men to her. Yes. And they 0.99

00:41:46.040 do what she wants, and good for her.

00:41:49.140 And then,

00:41:50.260 December 1797,

00:41:52.480 she met

00:41:53.080 a man named Napoleon Bonaparte.

00:41:55.680 this is what happens when you survive the french revolution you have to put up with this man

00:42:03.880 unfortunately he shows up but you're going to enjoy this speaking i'm good she okay go on

00:42:09.420 so at first she was like oh man like who's this guy he's got some real charisma and this is like

00:42:14.740 we were saying like there's a directory and who's in charge of france like there's not a person with

00:42:18.700 a personality and charisma in charge like there's a vacuum it's just kind of like we need like there

00:42:23.880 his robes pierre but there hasn't really been a someone to step into that role of like being in

00:42:30.520 charge it's just like rallying the people around an exciting new and no one's getting rallied around

00:42:36.780 gentle swing toward the monarchy like okay yeah like you just need someone to take charge and

00:42:42.760 napoleon she's like i think this is the guy who can maybe do that she was right to be fair and

00:42:49.700 she's like hey Napoleon like you seem like a guy like I could maybe help you like get some more

00:42:55.700 power do you want to come to my salon and he's like no man I knew I didn't trust that guy and 0.96

00:43:02.140 because he disapproves his women who meddle in politics um he opposed uh intelligent women in

00:43:10.500 general he thought women should be modest and retiring decorative accessories considerable 0.99

00:43:17.740 charisma and charm was not going to work on him because he is because he sucks because he's he's 0.96

00:43:23.620 this like kind of robespierre adjacent where he's just kind of like these are my morals and ethics 0.97

00:43:28.740 yeah so she kept trying to win him over and he just kept hating her more and more and that is

00:43:36.880 the situation for the next like several decades so honey you can do better than him so i think

00:43:46.040 it's just like she's always won over every man and oh she's just like why are my charms and money 0.97

00:43:50.740 not working i must lean in harder yeah it's like what is moby dick or whatever it's just like this 0.97

00:43:56.120 is my like like my white whale yeah like i yeah i need to charm this person 0.74

00:44:02.600 so um yeah so having this kind of not even nemesis type relationship but she was just

00:44:11.080 like trying to be like hey it's me and jermaine um hey the directory like what she was uh asking

00:44:17.220 them to do was to refund to her two million francs her father had lent the french treasury

00:44:23.160 and they're like no also i am sure they don't have that for a number of reasons no money

00:44:32.920 and she was continuing with her political writings and her salon and so this was sort

00:44:38.220 of like the directory regime was sort of like this is concerning like we just finished the

00:44:43.820 french revolution like this woman is writing these like political treatises she's having these 0.76

00:44:48.560 salons like this is really a suspicion and so like the last thing we need is another 0.96

00:44:52.940 fucking treatise please calm down it's been such a long decade so they thought about like oh should 0.96

00:45:00.100 we imprison her but they thought that that would uh bring too much attention to her so instead 0.98

00:45:04.860 they exiled her from france this is if i did not see you keep track but this is the second time

00:45:09.920 and she's just like peace out going back to switzerland

00:45:14.300 which she did so she just like hung out in coppet in switzerland again but she was she had like

00:45:24.040 you know friends and whatever all all places really like lovers sure i mean she was she's

00:45:29.840 been in this town like five or six times i'm sure she got five new lovers every time she was exactly

00:45:34.280 And I think that her lovers would have like a lover, interlover network.

00:45:38.140 Like she could hear what's happening before it happens.

00:45:39.800 So she's like, oh, I heard there's going to be a coup.

00:45:41.700 So I'm going back to Paris.

00:45:43.500 And she did.

00:45:43.900 It's her flying squadron of hot dudes across Europe.

00:45:46.400 Yes.

00:45:47.000 Yeah.

00:45:47.220 So she enters Paris on the eve of the coup of 18 Brumaire.

00:45:51.600 Brumaire.

00:45:53.400 So this is when 1799 Brumaire is November in the Republican calendar.

00:46:00.240 Do you remember what Brumaire means?

00:46:02.340 I think it's sort of foggy.

00:46:04.280 Hmm. My fave.

00:46:08.060 So, the coup, anyway, she's just like, I think there's a coup, and I think that means I can come back.

00:46:15.300 Although little did she know that it was couped by the one guy who doesn't like you.

00:46:19.720 Yes, tragically.

00:46:21.120 She hoped that Napoleon would install a moderate republic based on enlightened principles.

00:46:27.200 Oh, honey, I have such bad news for you.

00:46:29.520 Because instead he installed his authoritarian regime, the consulate.

00:46:34.280 But here's the thing.

00:46:36.180 Napoleon had, I can't even count how many brothers and sisters.

00:46:40.000 God, so many.

00:46:41.060 So many Bonapartes.

00:46:43.300 Anyway, two of his brothers frequented her salon because everybody loved her.

00:46:48.260 So his brothers, Joseph and Lucien, frequented the salon.

00:46:52.400 And her lover, Benjamin, was now a member of the government.

00:46:55.640 So she had like...

00:46:57.360 They had her back channels.

00:46:58.800 Yeah.

00:46:59.120 She could tell them what to suggest to him.

00:47:01.320 Like she...

00:47:01.700 Exactly.

00:47:02.160 Exactly.

00:47:02.500 So she could connect with them through those ways.

00:47:04.280 But once he figured out that it was Jermaine making these suggestions, he's just like, Jermaine, which I love how much she bothered him because I'm happy to hear about Napoleon being bothered.

00:47:17.160 Being annoyed.

00:47:17.640 Yes.

00:47:18.000 I want everything in my life that makes Napoleon have a bad day.

00:47:22.260 Yeah.

00:47:22.700 So, like, she just kept trying to, I don't know if she's trying to win him over at this time, but she's just trying to, like, tell him what to do. 0.98

00:47:28.360 She's just fucking with him now. 0.94

00:47:29.900 She's just like, ha-ha, it's me again. 1.00

00:47:31.880 Absolutely.

00:47:32.640 So she wrote more novels.

00:47:34.720 She wrote a novel in 1802, and the novels really annoyed Bonaparte.

00:47:38.840 Like the novels are sort of intentionally annoying Bonaparte, I think.

00:47:43.000 So 1802, she wrote a novel called Delphine, which is the life of a beautiful and intelligent woman.

00:47:49.860 I love her.

00:47:51.780 Who sought happiness through love.

00:47:53.440 napoleon was enraged by this novel because it uh it included divorce here because it praised

00:48:02.140 liberalism divorce the british and protestantism yeah he didn't like any of those things no he

00:48:09.440 said that the book was anti-catholic it was immoral um and you know that just made more

00:48:14.140 people want to read it because she's this kind of scandalous person you do wonder why napoleon's

00:48:18.800 sitting around reading that novel in his spare time i'm just like man that woman's in your head

00:48:23.960 yeah you know it's like living rent-free it's just people who kind of hate a certain celebrity

00:48:28.940 and just we're just like oh my god did you see what like megan merkel just did it's like why

00:48:32.800 no i didn't i don't pay that much attention what's going on why do you why do you know that

00:48:38.540 yeah he's just like he's he's it's an interesting dichotomy between the two anyway because of this

00:48:45.860 novel she was exiled from France third time back to her little village in Switzerland she did it

00:48:53.960 this time she's like let's do some traveling so she she's just kind of traveling around um to she

00:48:59.040 went to not Germany because Germany was not Germany it was all these duchies at this point

00:49:03.420 she went to not Italy because that was also duchies at this time and also Russia and everywhere

00:49:09.800 she went she was well received by the courts and aristocrats because of her literary fame and her

00:49:14.860 outspoken opposition to napoleon i bet yeah i bet you they loved her in russia they're just like man

00:49:19.600 we agree fuck that man yeah they're just like you write these great books about like beautiful and 0.94

00:49:24.840 intelligent women who are called not germane and you hate napoleon and you wear cool turbans like 0.99

00:49:30.500 come on in girl you didn't mention the cool turbans this is news all of her portraits she's

00:49:36.720 wearing cool turbans i love this yeah she's well i don't know like there's a thing where as a kid

00:49:41.600 they're like don't wear a corset and i feel like she never did again she's always wearing kind of

00:49:44.900 like muumus and turbans yes i love this yeah so she's she's just doing herself like in a way that 1.00

00:49:54.860 only like a wealthy white woman could at this time but at the same time lots of wealthy white women 1.00

00:50:01.120 not thriving like this like she had a special she she started on third base but like but man she did 1.00

00:50:07.520 get to home plate absolutely yeah yeah repeatedly simultaneously so um at some point in here her

00:50:18.000 husband remember she's married oh yeah eric yeah he died i guess r.i.p eric r.i.p eric you know

00:50:24.420 what he was a real one like he didn't get in the way no he just he let her do her thing and he was

00:50:29.900 just survived the terror being the swedish ambassador you know he stayed out of the way

00:50:36.040 and i respect that so she's just like huh okay where am i gonna live because i guess that means

00:50:44.940 like they would have chosen a new swedish ambassador so maybe she can't live in this 0.51

00:50:48.240 she wouldn't have the house and she was also probably still exiled wasn't she she's still 0.96

00:50:52.000 exiled from france so anyway she's just like i'm gonna go to not germany accompanied by her lover

00:50:58.380 benjamin and two of her children i'm don't know where the other children came from but she's just

00:51:03.640 you know consistently she's accumulating them as she goes and you know what and she's keeping them

00:51:08.920 with her which and the children presumably she lets them hang out with other children and so

00:51:14.260 they're going to be raised to be like somewhat emotionally better than she ever was anyway so

00:51:19.380 she wanted to go to germany like when i went to germany last year she wanted to gather material

00:51:23.940 for a book a research trip she went to learn about its people and its culture so she met she

00:51:32.420 visit frankfurt and weimar she went to berlin where queen louise of prussia like fetted her

00:51:39.120 her husband died she's traveling on germany just like researching for her book but also like

00:51:43.920 as every like wealthy person did then it's like you travel around and then later you publish a

00:51:48.160 book being like my thoughts about the travel i did here's my new book which wouldn't that be nice

00:51:54.540 i wish i could get paid to just publish a book about like i went to canada here's what i think

00:52:00.280 yeah just i'm gonna travel and then pay me to do the traveling and i'll publish a book and then

00:52:05.200 pay me for the book one one day anyway if you're listening we're both available and we could travel

00:52:12.480 together and then it could be you don't have to pay both of us once a co-production anyway so then

00:52:19.560 she finds out her father died jacques necker oh that must have been a bad day for her you know 0.73

00:52:25.100 she has all these lovers, but I haven't read anything lately about how much she was obsessed

00:52:30.180 with him. I mean, but you know, she was, she wouldn't stop being obsessed with him anyway.

00:52:35.880 So she went to Coppet, to Switzerland, I guess to mourn her father, but also just check in with

00:52:42.000 her various lovers there as well. So she and Benjamin had a written agreement to get married,

00:52:47.340 but then she was like, no, because if she got married, she would lose her. So she had the

00:52:53.200 title of baron like because her husband eric was a baron so she was baron and she didn't want to

00:52:59.400 lose that title and she was also skeptical about marriage believing it cost her independence and

00:53:04.120 identity which it probably would have if her swedish husband hadn't been so chill and hands

00:53:08.920 off yeah true this it kind of reminds me of like i recently saw oprah was talking it was an old

00:53:14.320 interview but they're like why didn't why didn't you and steadman get married because you know

00:53:17.160 she's been with him for decades and she was just like well because he's like a traditional sort of

00:53:21.280 man like she knew that if she married him she would be expected to live in this wife sort of

00:53:25.260 way that she doesn't want so instead they just are effectively married but like that paper could

00:53:31.560 change things and for Jermaine yeah I think it was Whoopi Goldberg whose quote was like why didn't

00:53:36.600 you ever get married well I don't want somebody in my house which I guess is sort of the opposite

00:53:40.940 of what Jermaine was doing because she has six live-in lovers just like I want more people in

00:53:44.880 my house yeah I don't want just one person in my house I want numerous people in my house but

00:53:48.680 anyway. Simultaneous. Yeah, like her first marriage had gotten her what she wanted,

00:53:52.180 which is just like away from her mother. And she could take all these lovers. But then she's like,

00:53:57.280 oh, but do I want to marry? Not really. Anyway. Oh, yeah. So she's still forbidden from France.

00:54:05.200 Napoleon, just to keep up, is now Emperor Napoleon. And so she's just like,

00:54:09.620 screw that guy. So she went to Italy. She went to Milan, Rome, Naples, Venice, and Florence. 0.98

00:54:14.020 she did everything she met the italian literary and artistic elite she climbed mount vesuvius

00:54:19.780 she visited pompeii i love a girly who's like i'm going to pompeii and you can't stop me

00:54:25.500 pompeii i've said this before some of these people like what got you interested in history

00:54:29.520 and i'm like when i was like five years old i read a book about pompeii and ever since then

00:54:33.480 i was just like i love this i love i've i have not been to pompeii it's a dream um in my book

00:54:40.680 was the Titanic and I have been to the Titanic Museum in Belfast where they built the Titanic

00:54:44.860 and that was just like let's go oh my gosh that's amazing yeah no Pompeii I would love to go to and

00:54:51.440 in my book uh Rebel of the Regency the scandalous saga of Carolina Brunswick Britain's Uncrowned

00:54:56.760 Queen available for pre-order now rebeltheregency.com um Carolina Brunswick goes to Pompeii

00:55:01.920 and I was just like yes girl go because Pompeii had been excavated for the first time like in

00:55:08.600 like the 1790s and it was a huge trending topic so like the fact that jermaine went there it's

00:55:13.960 just like that was the place to go like everyone was like everyone suddenly became obsessed with

00:55:18.880 like ancient rome but not in like a um kind of way no more in like a let's wear like drapey

00:55:27.120 dresses that look like what they wore and let's like paint mosaics in our ballrooms sure yeah so

00:55:34.820 she she's just traveling she's doing it up she's having a nice time and then so during the summer

00:55:39.420 of 1805 back in copet she worked on another novel called koreen all of her novels are just like the

00:55:44.960 name of a woman that is not germane and she kept hosting just like all of the like most illustrious

00:55:51.820 and talented people of the era came to visit her because she's just like this cool person who

00:55:56.420 everybody knows is this like great thinker this great writer she hates napoleon just like everyone

00:56:01.000 wants to hang out with her but she's like I miss Paris you know like I like being here with amongst

00:56:08.560 my lovers in Switzerland but I miss Paris the energy I don't know the baguettes the cheese

00:56:15.060 I like this note um so there is a the whole Rousseau thing about like the romantic movement

00:56:23.980 or just like the return to nature like let's all have gardens and like pretend like we're

00:56:28.240 shepherdesses and like live in nature and whatever like that was also really trendy at the time 0.98

00:56:32.820 she was like fuck that i like urban cities i like 0.98

00:56:38.080 houses i like buildings i like indoors i i like hotels like this is yeah anyway so she was not 0.99

00:56:48.440 into that so she's like in coppet like she's staying at this sort of country estate which is

00:56:52.220 like other people would love it and she's just like i miss the hustle and bustle of life in

00:56:56.940 Paris. And so she risked venturing to Paris for a few days, which I love for her. Just kind of

00:57:03.640 like, I'm just going to sneak in. If I don't wear a turban, maybe nobody will know me.

00:57:08.740 And Napoleon's like, my Jermaine sense of singling. I know she's in town.

00:57:13.600 At one point, I guess her son, her children were allowed to be there. It's just she specifically

00:57:18.680 was not allowed. So in December 1807, her son August met with Napoleon. He must be like a

00:57:26.380 teenager by now a young man and then he was like hey napoleon good to meet you i'm the son of

00:57:31.580 germaine de stael could you allow her to return to paris please and napoleon said quote as long

00:57:39.000 as i live she will never set foot in paris again women should stick to knitting 1.00

00:57:43.280 bitch oh you know where she could knit at your guillotining and she would enjoy it 1.00

00:57:52.000 fucking napoleon so anyway she wrote a new novel called well she was writing her novel 1.00

00:57:57.440 corinne and then this was published um this is about corinne the heroine is an independent woman 0.98

00:58:03.340 of genius who is a remarkably talented poet and actress and everyone loves her and she's so

00:58:10.560 beautiful but she's restless and unhappy because she can't live in paris um anyway this book took

00:58:16.800 place in italy where she had traveled and she's like you know i went to italy she says in her

00:58:21.200 fictional novel like you know there's not as much freedom in italy as there is in other places

00:58:25.300 napoleon had been king of italy since 1805 and so he interpreted this as a insult to him

00:58:31.940 which i hope it was it probably was anyway so then she so her other book like remember she

00:58:39.660 traveled on germany and then she wrote a book called on germany like my research trip she

00:58:45.540 tried to publish that in france napoleon forbade it from being published in france um the manuscript

00:58:50.080 and proof pages were seized by the minister of police and she was sent into exile from france

00:58:56.040 i'm like i feel like she already is an exile from france double exiled exile to the power of two

00:59:02.560 she bothered him so much she really did and i kind of love it but she but she's just like all

00:59:09.460 i want it's sort of like how she was like i want to be friends with napoleon and eventually she's

00:59:13.320 like fine i won't be now she's like all i want is to be in paris like the one thing that she can't

00:59:17.820 do um like her works that she was writing at this time were about like women of genius who were 0.96

00:59:24.880 lonely like who couldn't go to paris for reasons exactly so she brief sexual affairs could not

00:59:34.340 compensate for the energizing urbanity of paris so she saw all these lovers but not like my lovers

00:59:40.300 in paris so this second time so it's not just that she was exiled like she's exiled from

00:59:45.400 france and then the second time she was excelled and she was forced to stay in her house

00:59:51.240 i don't know how napoleon could do that like she's in switzerland but so she was

00:59:56.120 she had to stay in her house so she's just like not just like can i not go to paris but like i

01:00:00.440 have to like house arrest basically yeah but what and like her house was being watched by like

01:00:07.860 napoleon spies her mail was intercepted like of course she's like lonely and depressed and it's

01:00:12.280 not just like i want to go to france it's just like i want to like leave this house ever i don't

01:00:15.900 like nature it's just not doing it for me or me anyway so but then she met a new lover who is 24

01:00:25.320 years old john ruca who had been so he was an officer in the hussars and i don't know a lot

01:00:33.280 about the hussars but i know they have really cool outfits the only thing i know about them

01:00:38.260 is that they were soldiers with good hats.

01:00:40.280 Yeah, they had cool outfits.

01:00:42.080 Anyway, so he had been wounded in the wars

01:00:44.660 and he suffered from tuberculosis,

01:00:46.300 which was very hot at that time.

01:00:48.140 He became her devoted lover

01:00:50.000 and father of her son, Louis Alphonse.

01:00:54.860 So she's just like-

01:00:55.520 We did have to get a Louis in there somewhere.

01:00:57.040 It's true.

01:00:57.820 Maybe he made her do that.

01:00:59.140 I don't know.

01:01:00.900 So anyway, eventually she and he,

01:01:04.500 so her, two of her children,

01:01:05.780 it always says two of her children.

01:01:06.960 how many children are there why is she always doing things with just is it always the same two

01:01:10.920 i mean only has room for two at a time i presume that so she gave birth to louis in april 1812

01:01:17.620 one month later may 1812 so she two of her children presumably one being this baby and

01:01:23.480 her new lover ruka snuck away to go to vienna and from vienna she traveled to russia this is 0.98

01:01:29.460 she's sort of like always she's like i have my spidey senses tell me napoleon's about to fuck

01:01:33.800 up and i'm headed there she traveled to russia on the eve of napoleon's russian campaign

01:01:39.880 oh i hope she was just gloating the whole time so she wrote a novel called or a memoir i guess

01:01:48.580 10 years of exile where she talks about what it was like in moscow before napoleon's army arrived

01:01:54.380 and the city was burned she met czar alexander i they discussed plans to defeat napoleon

01:02:01.780 I like to think that it was her idea.

01:02:03.740 Like, and that's why Napoleon lost there. 0.99

01:02:05.580 Because she was just like, I'm going to fuck this guy's life up. 1.00

01:02:07.940 You think I can't charm you? 1.00

01:02:09.220 Well, I'm going to burn your army down. 0.99

01:02:11.100 Yeah. 0.88

01:02:11.420 You think I should knit?

01:02:12.800 Knit plans to defeat you in my brain? 0.99

01:02:16.600 Is what she did.

01:02:18.820 So, let's see.

01:02:19.560 Then she went to Stockholm.

01:02:22.640 Basically, she's just traveling around Europe.

01:02:24.700 Talking with, like, the rulers of countries about how to best defeat Napoleon. 0.97

01:02:29.360 i love her shit talking napoleon world tour that's really good i'd love to go on one 0.87

01:02:34.180 eventually she went to england where she was admired as a writer and enemy of napoleon but 0.85

01:02:41.100 this is like okay this is why i started looking up about who jermaine de stale is because she

01:02:47.080 went to england while carolina brunswick was there and carolina brunswick hosted salons and

01:02:52.520 she loved women writers like she loved having women writers at her salons she's like oh my 0.96

01:02:56.160 God, Jermaine DeStale, she's this no-fucks-given. 1.00

01:02:58.840 She has all these lovers. 1.00

01:03:00.560 She also has people criticize her for not being beautiful. 0.63

01:03:03.500 I want her to come to my party.

01:03:05.860 But Carolina Brunswick's husband, the regent, George IV,

01:03:11.220 had been doing a decades-long emotionally abusive thing

01:03:14.760 where he just got people to not go to Caroline's party,

01:03:18.100 so Jermaine DeStale did not go to Caroline's parties. 0.85

01:03:20.440 Oh, no, she got pretty.

01:03:22.560 They were there at the same time,

01:03:24.900 and I think they would have

01:03:25.720 had a nice

01:03:26.340 they would have gotten along

01:03:27.800 really well I think

01:03:28.680 oh agree

01:03:29.420 yeah yeah

01:03:30.540 they both love a good time

01:03:31.700 they both hate Napoleon

01:03:33.540 Caroline loved a

01:03:35.000 a woman writer

01:03:35.740 like she was writing herself 0.99

01:03:36.960 so this was

01:03:37.620 this was the part

01:03:38.860 where Jermaine Estelle

01:03:39.480 was in England

01:03:40.300 could have met

01:03:41.060 Caroline Brunswick 0.99

01:03:41.720 but it got all fucked up 0.98

01:03:42.860 by 0.99

01:03:43.160 Prinny

01:03:43.940 which is 0.58

01:03:45.480 Caroline's

01:03:46.180 husband's 1.00

01:03:47.060 stupid nickname 1.00

01:03:48.160 it's short for Prince 1.00

01:03:49.780 it's so stupid 1.00

01:03:51.640 it's a dumb nickname 1.00

01:03:53.400 ugh 0.98

01:03:54.900 Anyway, so she went to England or the UK, frankly, England. I don't think she went to

01:04:01.280 Scotland or Wales. I don't think she was going to Wales, no.

01:04:04.020 I think she was basically in London. Anyway, she's there for 11 months. She met poets,

01:04:08.880 members of parliament, social reformers. She also got permission to publish her works in England,

01:04:16.400 like in English, like on Germany was published there, even though it wasn't allowed to be

01:04:20.820 published in france she continued writing um so she began to write a study of the french revolution

01:04:27.120 based on her own experiences and observations which she was there and i think she who she's

01:04:34.060 very well suited to write this book so she was talking about how rose pierre and the terror had

01:04:38.560 betrayed the revolution in her opinion because she'd been you know having those salons like

01:04:43.440 thinking about it ideologically but then in practice what had happened anyway what else

01:04:50.320 oh yeah finally finally napoleon defeated april 1814 yay two seconds later what happens jermaine

01:04:59.960 returns to france that's my girl it's like finally like finally i can slip back in here

01:05:07.520 and this is when the bourbon bourbon dynasty was reinstated so they were like let's just have a king

01:05:13.920 again let's try that the emperor thing was bad let's not do that yeah let's not do a couple

01:05:19.700 decades so she was like not enthusiastic about the restoration of the of the monarch because

01:05:26.500 she had been ideologically agreed with what the french revolution was about at the beginning

01:05:31.400 but anyway march 1815 napoleon escapes she's like no i just got here

01:05:40.580 so she should have sent him more than 20 miles away from france but she's just like i know it's

01:05:48.160 Which way the wind is blowing.

01:05:49.060 She's like, let's just go hang on Switzerland for a bit.

01:05:52.340 It's best if Napoleon and I are not in France at the same time.

01:05:55.260 I'm going to give it 100 days.

01:05:58.000 Let's see what happens.

01:05:59.640 Exactly.

01:06:00.140 So then like there's the Battle of Waterloo.

01:06:02.260 Napoleon is defeated again.

01:06:04.680 And she returns to Paris. 0.99

01:06:07.240 Hooray.

01:06:08.240 It's like, yeah, it's just sort of like the counterbalance, like the yin and yang.

01:06:11.980 It's just like if Napoleon's in Paris, she's not.

01:06:14.360 Like if she's there, he's not.

01:06:16.340 Like it's, they can never, Paris is not big enough for these two to be there at the same time.

01:06:23.420 So she, you remember the thing about she wanted the 2 million francs?

01:06:27.600 Yeah.

01:06:28.840 So she's trying to get that money again now from the king, who is Louis the, my God, this is a long room.

01:06:35.100 18th?

01:06:36.280 Five, six, seven.

01:06:37.320 I said, unconvincedly.

01:06:39.620 Louis the 18th.

01:06:42.080 So she appeals to him, the new king, to be like, hey, so my father.

01:06:46.340 The adventure of toaster strudels.

01:06:50.620 He lent the treasury two million francs in 1790.

01:06:54.200 Could I have that back to be a dowry for my daughter, Albertine?

01:06:59.820 And the king was like, yeah, sure.

01:07:03.880 Whatever.

01:07:04.580 I'm king now.

01:07:05.740 I know.

01:07:06.160 He's like, I, yeah, for sure have two million francs.

01:07:08.900 And here you go.

01:07:12.060 And so her daughter, Albertine, got married.

01:07:14.260 and

01:07:15.440 and

01:07:16.700 super secret 0.83

01:07:18.960 sexy marriage

01:07:19.840 of Jermaine

01:07:20.660 to her young lover

01:07:21.920 Rokka

01:07:22.660 in Switzerland.

01:07:24.120 Rokka!

01:07:24.680 Go Jermaine!

01:07:25.760 You know, 0.96

01:07:26.100 she wasn't sure about marriage

01:07:27.200 but now she is.

01:07:28.980 She had to get 1.00

01:07:29.880 a much younger husband 1.00

01:07:30.960 because she's still in control.

01:07:32.700 I think that's it.

01:07:34.020 I think she just

01:07:34.640 didn't want to lose

01:07:35.580 because she's 0.95

01:07:36.580 this guy's just a soldier.

01:07:37.940 Like,

01:07:38.100 I think she would stop

01:07:38.860 being Baron 0.89

01:07:39.600 still,

01:07:41.120 but

01:07:41.260 I don't know.

01:07:42.860 She just was like

01:07:43.420 I think she could

01:07:44.040 probably call herself whatever she wanted now that napoleon's not there and she got two million

01:07:48.600 francs she's cool she's doing well so her chateau in switzerland again became it became like she

01:07:55.600 can be there on her own terms so she's happy to be there because she's not trapped there and so

01:08:00.480 again like it was the gathering place of distinguished european intellectuals and

01:08:04.140 politicians including a friend of hers she had met in england lord byron oh boy

01:08:11.760 trigger warning lord byron yeah yeah he is he was he was a good friend to carolina brunswick

01:08:19.260 interestingly so but she was now able she was no longer banned from paris she could come and

01:08:26.040 go as she pleased she could there we go and leave she didn't have to just like rush in and then

01:08:31.100 sneak out and then run away to moscow yeah she returned there and she was like she continued on

01:08:36.120 with like talking with like diplomats and politicians to be like here's you know trying 0.95

01:08:39.740 to influence things, but she's like getting older. She's like, I don't want to say she's not out of 0.97

01:08:44.240 touch, but just kind of like, she's getting tired. Like she's been through a lot, you know, like

01:08:50.020 she's, she's thriving. She's having a nice time, but like, she's been constantly pregnant. She's

01:08:55.180 like constantly on the run or an exile. Like it's a lot of emotional stuff to be going through.

01:09:00.360 She also had been, she was addicted to opium, um, which as everyone was at the time,

01:09:07.720 Who whomst wasn't in this era.

01:09:10.140 Who wasn't like a little laudanum to take the edge off the French Revolution.

01:09:14.180 Yeah.

01:09:14.460 So she'd be using opium for help with her insomnia.

01:09:18.160 And then she had a stroke, which left her paralyzed but still able to speak.

01:09:23.680 And she died.

01:09:25.380 So she arrived back in Paris where she died on Bastille Day, July 14th, 1817, age 51. 0.93

01:09:34.340 Everything happens in July.

01:09:35.680 and you just can't be in france in july drama happens i do i do like like napoleon would hate 0.99

01:09:43.840 that she died on best deal day in paris it's like the final fuck you to napoleon 0.99

01:09:48.780 anyway you know what this country is free from you you little man i wonder if they they couldn't 0.99

01:09:56.800 celebrate best deal day after the restoration of the monarchy like you wouldn't that's not like a

01:10:02.280 happy memory to know the monarchy but it was bastille day technically right anyway so her

01:10:09.980 writing had a profound impact on literary and political developments in the 19th century like

01:10:15.340 because she was writing non-stop about like philosophical things but political stuff her

01:10:19.600 writing about the french revolution was really influential because it was like a first person

01:10:23.160 narrative of what happened and she also wrote a book called what i did on my summer vacation

01:10:28.500 in germany which was a bestseller her novel corinne which took place in italy uh helped

01:10:35.000 like her novel about italy her novel about germany like it helped people understand other

01:10:39.280 countries and that kind of helped those countries in some small way towards their like unification

01:10:44.420 movement to talk about like here's what it's like yeah so she was a very influential writer

01:10:50.260 she's a very cool person she wore cool turbans and that and she hated napoleon hated napoleon 0.98

01:10:57.200 And that's where I was like, I need to have Allison join me for this episode because.

01:11:02.620 I hope the subtitle for this episode is Napoleon's number one hater.

01:11:06.620 And then it can be a listener to decide if that's her or if it's me.

01:11:11.540 Absolutely.

01:11:12.760 So because this is a regular vulgar history episode, a biography of a woman, we get to

01:11:18.320 give her some scores.

01:11:20.340 It's been a minute since I've had an episode like this.

01:11:22.640 So the first category, and these are all on a score of one to 10.

01:11:25.840 The first one is scandalousness.

01:11:28.980 How scandalous was she for considering the time and place she lived in?

01:11:33.400 And I feel this will be a high number.

01:11:35.880 I think so, too.

01:11:36.980 I think the revolving door of live-in lovers has to get her a lot of points. 0.96

01:11:42.420 That was a lot even for France in the 1790s.

01:11:47.920 When they were like, this woman, you have so many lovers that the country of England is freaking out. 1.00

01:11:53.900 That's pretty good.

01:11:55.100 yeah yeah so she was and she had babies with various lovers and just the scandalousness of

01:12:00.600 being so frequently exiled from the country of france when you've been exiled and you're already

01:12:07.140 in exile then you are double exiled on top of it that's pretty yeah there's a scandal in there

01:12:13.440 yeah and i think too for depending who you talk to but like to rose pierre to napoleon the fact 0.99

01:12:18.960 that she was a woman inserting herself so consistently in politics and meddling like I 0.99

01:12:26.320 think was pretty scandalous for a woman at the time the only counterpoint I will say is that 0.79

01:12:33.020 she was able to kind of no matter who was in charge for most of it she was like hi I can be

01:12:40.560 exactly what you need me to be for long enough to get you to do what I need you to do I can be

01:12:45.560 She was scandalous, but it didn't really get in her way.

01:12:50.680 No, I think the king was like, yeah, would you like two million francs?

01:12:53.840 Absolutely.

01:12:54.720 And then the folks on more of the moderate side of the revolution were like, yeah, we'll come to your salon.

01:12:59.840 Totally.

01:13:00.360 And Napoleon's brothers were like, yeah, you seem cool.

01:13:03.060 So it really depends on who you ask, because she was able to charm offensive work sometimes.

01:13:08.720 Yeah.

01:13:09.340 I would say, what about something like Seven?

01:13:11.560 Because it's like, there's quite a bit of scandal, but it didn't.

01:13:15.300 really get yeah it's not like oh she used to scandals and then she couldn't achieve her goals

01:13:21.080 like she she worked her way around them but i think one of the reasons why the scandal why 1.00

01:13:28.300 people still accepted her like people still came to her parties is because of that charm like she 1.00

01:13:32.200 had this scandal but then she kind of offset it herself with her just like bananas personal 1.00

01:13:37.340 charisma social skills which she learned growing up in a salon i guess i don't know no friends 0.99

01:13:45.300 other than salon oh my god salon attendees her inner child just needs something um she's somebody

01:13:52.200 who is just like you need to i don't know like go to toys or us and just like get the toy you

01:13:56.500 always wanted as a child and just like live that for yourself um her scheminess i think this is

01:14:03.100 also very high i think her schemes are quite high yes i think once you go on a multi-country

01:14:09.120 i'm going to thwart napoleon's empire hater tour that's quite high for schemes and i also think

01:14:16.720 we have to give her points for leaving france at the right time we have to give her points for that

01:14:22.720 she she knew what was happening yet so i think there's like the high level schemes of like

01:14:27.740 hey czar of russia here's how you can defeat napoleon and then there's lower level schemes

01:14:33.760 it's just kind of like oh i'm gonna like make my lover get like a job promotion and then she was

01:14:38.860 also just head on the swivel she's like yeah i'm not gonna get caught absolutely not no she was

01:14:43.920 like the and the fact that she never did she's just like oh i'm gonna be like and her scheminess

01:14:48.780 was so attuned that she could tell when it was time for a scheme she's like the wind's changing

01:14:55.720 I think Napoleon's going to leave Paris, so I'll go back.

01:14:59.880 I'm under house arrest.

01:15:01.340 However, I get the vibe that Napoleon's distracted, so I'm going to escape to Vienna, and it'll be fine.

01:15:07.320 Well, and even think about earlier in the story where her scheminess, she was hiding her lovers and other people in the Swedish embassy. 0.91

01:15:13.260 She was helping scheme to, like, get money to her friends.

01:15:17.400 I'm happy with a tent, like a full tent.

01:15:19.800 I am, too.

01:15:20.320 I think that's where she's the highest.

01:15:22.060 I can't think of any scheme that she could have done.

01:15:24.160 And they were good schemes.

01:15:25.080 they all worked out they all worked that's the thing um her significance and this is tricky well

01:15:30.980 we'll see because i have read that she was very influential in the development of romanticism

01:15:37.820 in literature in france but like i don't know about that and you've done a lot of reading

01:15:43.320 about the french revolution and haven't really come across her so how significant is she unclear

01:15:48.360 yeah i think she's significant to napoleon who was very significant and i do think there's

01:15:56.220 something to be said for that she did ruin a very important man's day several times several times

01:16:02.860 and her writing was influential it's just not something that i know about not something you

01:16:07.620 know about but like to people who know she was she was known in her day though right like people

01:16:12.460 would recognize her as the famous heiress with the schemes yeah like when she went to england 0.95

01:16:18.220 And I just know from my research for my book, Rebel of the Regency, go to rebelofregency.com to pre-order. 1.00

01:16:24.460 When she came to England, Carolina Brunswick was losing her mind. 0.58

01:16:26.980 She was so excited.

01:16:27.900 She's like, oh my God, this extremely famous person is coming.

01:16:30.220 I can't wait to meet her.

01:16:32.500 Like she was very, very famous at the time.

01:16:34.920 I wonder how much more famous she would be now.

01:16:38.940 I'm leading into the sexism bonus. 0.99

01:16:40.940 Yeah.

01:16:41.320 Like would we have known her more? 0.89

01:16:44.160 Yeah, because I'm sure there's lots of men

01:16:45.920 who wrote similar books at the time

01:16:48.560 that haven't studied consistently since then.

01:16:52.000 And maybe her books weren't as much

01:16:53.340 because we joke where it's like, 1.00

01:16:55.140 oh, it's a book about this beautiful, glamorous woman 0.99

01:16:57.020 who everyone's being mean to her for no reason.

01:16:59.540 It's like, how many men's books are like that too?

01:17:01.840 All of them, all of the novels.

01:17:04.220 That's David Copperfield.

01:17:06.320 Exactly.

01:17:06.860 No, you're right.

01:17:07.500 Yeah, so what about like a five for significant?

01:17:09.800 I was going to say six.

01:17:11.020 Let's go five and a half.

01:17:12.280 5.5.

01:17:13.680 Yeah. Because it's certainly there. She is somebody of the people I've talked about in

01:17:18.600 my French Revolution season so far. When you look her up just in any podcast app,

01:17:23.580 other podcasts have talked about her. Helps that she lived long enough.

01:17:28.900 True, true. But most of the other people I talked about this season, I was like,

01:17:32.740 oh, I'll just listen to another podcast about them so I can learn how to pronounce their names.

01:17:36.220 Oh, no one's ever done a podcast about them? Oh, I'm the first one? Great. So she's at least

01:17:42.060 that well known yeah and then the sexism bonus um how much more would she have accomplished or 1.00

01:17:48.400 would she be known now if she were not a woman living under the weight of the patriarchy and 1.00

01:17:55.540 the way i'm thinking about it is i don't know that she would have accomplished more i think she

01:17:59.200 accomplished the things that she wanted to do but i think she would have had less less headache and

01:18:05.300 hassle with them like for one thing napoleon would have been fine with her if they had been a dude

01:18:09.720 I would assume. 1.00

01:18:11.440 And then if she didn't have to spend all the time in exile, 0.94

01:18:13.320 maybe she wouldn't have developed the insomnia

01:18:15.020 and the health problems that led to her drug addiction 0.95

01:18:17.560 that led to her death.

01:18:19.760 Yeah, like if she was a man traveling

01:18:21.400 and doing these same things,

01:18:23.520 like she would have probably had less hassle in life. 0.76

01:18:25.460 And also we would probably know her name better.

01:18:29.040 But at the same time, 1.00

01:18:30.060 she did find a way to kind of make the charm offensive

01:18:33.360 her number one weapon in getting what she wanted. 1.00

01:18:36.160 Like she built a very specific kind of life 1.00

01:18:38.400 that was not i would say a result of sexism it was more turning sexism into great now this works

01:18:47.680 for me yeah like she got married and then that gave her the independence to do what she wanted 1.00

01:18:53.280 but that was lucky for her her husband was cool with that like another she would get a really high 1.00

01:19:00.540 sexism score if she had a husband who didn't let her do stuff or like right if eric wasn't like 0.70

01:19:05.480 Yeah, you go get your lovers and let them stay at the embassy.

01:19:07.660 It's fine.

01:19:09.680 Yeah, so I don't know.

01:19:10.700 I don't know.

01:19:11.040 What I used to say in the first season of the podcast was like, everyone gets five because of just the patriarchy.

01:19:15.860 But I feel like for her, so that's what I'm sort of thinking, just like a five.

01:19:20.340 I think a five is fair because I do think the sexism of Napoleon has to be points.

01:19:27.620 I see the face of Anne doing math in her head.

01:19:30.720 It's hard because there's a point five.

01:19:32.620 i can't i can't do a 0.5 in my head um but i do think this is going to get her out of the

01:19:39.800 allison epstein cul-de-sac ah 27.5 is that is higher than my usual scores let me double check

01:19:48.160 my categories here yeah because usually when you're on this podcast we get like we get a 23 0.63

01:19:54.340 Let me see where that puts her. 27.5. Yeah. No, that's just one. The highest score in the 0.91

01:20:03.480 Alison Epstein dirtbag cul-de-sac is a 24. And she's the next category up, which is like most

01:20:09.040 people. It's in a category called notable. It's because her schemes were good. And I almost never

01:20:16.160 have somebody whose schemes were good. No, exactly. And she had nonstop schemes. She lived a long

01:20:23.540 life long enough to have so many schemes and they all worked yes yeah no so i'm just seeing like

01:20:30.360 who's who's she next to who you might know there's a lot of people have scores around carolina

01:20:36.300 brunswick has a 26 for instance rachelle has a 26 like i think those are her contemporaries

01:20:42.780 peg get along with peg plunkett 26 like i think this is she is yeah this is ladies having a nice

01:20:49.260 time corner this is like what is it called the like dream blunt rotation area this is just like

01:20:55.240 these are some this is a nice a nice place to be um claire claremont 29.5 yeah so these people are

01:21:02.380 all great thank you so much allison i you know it's been a while since we've done an episode

01:21:06.600 like this where i tell you a story but i always enjoy them and this one just really it just felt

01:21:12.920 like one that i needed to do with you because of the napoleon hateration but also because of the

01:21:17.940 french revolution you were here to hold my hand through the parts about like what was this

01:21:22.060 french um who was in charge of the country at this point please what is the directory

01:21:28.320 if we can just if we could have made it through the whole season for marie and not talking about

01:21:35.460 the directory that would have been great but we couldn't do it wait i mean we could have if i just

01:21:39.220 never talked about what happened after we stop in july 1793 every time and we never talk about

01:21:47.060 afterwards but unfortunately too many things happen well thank you so much for joining me

01:21:52.280 for this episode I feel like Jermaine has a new fan in you she does she I am on her team because

01:21:59.960 if Napoleon has no haters both Jermaine and I are dead so I am always I'm ride or die for her and

01:22:06.480 even once you've done this and I mean listeners you do this too just do like an internet image

01:22:09.960 search and just find her wearing her various turbans and her moo-moos and she's just like

01:22:15.160 having a nice time and think about how dare these encyclopedia writers be like although she was 0.99

01:22:20.780 not attractive at all strident and rude and disagreeable of course she drove her lovers away

01:22:27.700 she knew how to read and was so unattractive she was great she's great thank you so much

01:22:36.580 for joining me on this episode, Alison.

01:22:38.680 Thank you.

01:22:44.120 Just a few reminders,

01:22:45.660 because I forgot to mention in last week's episode,

01:22:48.040 also with special guest Alison Epstein,

01:22:49.780 that Alison is, of course, an author of three books,

01:22:52.600 most recently, Fagin the Thief,

01:22:54.640 which is a reimagining of the story of Oliver Twist

01:22:56.960 through the more interesting character.

01:22:59.800 I don't think that's arguable.

01:23:01.540 I think Oliver Twist is not a very interesting character.

01:23:03.680 And I think Jacob Fagin is a very interesting character.

01:23:05.840 And that is what Fig and the Thief is about. You can learn about Alison and their books at

01:23:10.340 AlisonEpstein.com. And Alison is also the author of a wildly funny and extremely fun

01:23:16.660 substack called Dirtbags Through the Ages, where they talk about just kind of, I mean,

01:23:22.400 Dirtbags Through the Ages, just historical weirdos, grifters, con artists, spiritualists.

01:23:28.400 It's such a good time. I feel like it's a sibling to the Vulgar History Podcast in many ways. And

01:23:33.580 you can follow that at rapscallison.substack.com, which is like rascalion. Is that the word?

01:23:41.900 I always see Alison's thing as rapscallison, rapscallion with an extra letter. I'll put a

01:23:48.080 link to it in the show notes, or just go to alisonepstein.com slash newsletter and you'll

01:23:51.340 find information about that as well. And of course I have a reminder to give you about the upcoming

01:23:57.620 Vulgar History live in-person event, which is coming up startlingly soon. It's going to be

01:24:04.180 coming up, in fact, on Sunday, Sunday, July 20th. We're meeting at the Titsa Brigade Toronto branch.

01:24:12.340 We're going to be having an in-person meetup in Toronto. And to learn where we're going to be

01:24:17.300 meeting, it will be an outdoor location. So dogs and children in strollers also welcome. If you

01:24:23.100 want to know where we're meeting and you want to know what time of day we're meeting, just go to

01:24:26.700 vulgarhistory.com slash meet up and leave your email address and I will give you all the

01:24:31.400 information. You're welcome to come. There's not, because we're meeting outside, there's no like

01:24:35.640 capacity. So like bring your friends, bring your, again, dogs, if they're cute, like that's a nice

01:24:41.340 thing to do. Anyway, that's coming up soon again. And you can rfcp at vulgarhistory.com

01:24:46.180 slash meet up. And also I wrote a book. Guess who's in the book? Jermaine de Stael is in the

01:24:52.180 book sort of because my book is called rebel of the regency the scandalous saga of carolina

01:24:57.540 brunswick britain's queen without a crown and it is the story of carolina brunswick who was

01:25:02.960 the britain's queen of the crown frankly she was an iconic like amazing interesting person

01:25:08.580 a real character an eccentric one might say a dirtbag who lived in the end of the 18th century

01:25:15.320 early 19th century and i love my book i wrote because it's really funny and also good and also

01:25:20.960 smart. And anyway, at one point, Caroline of Brunswick really liked hosting parties and she

01:25:26.060 liked having writers at her parties. And when Germaine de Stael came to England, Carolina

01:25:30.100 of Brunswick wanted her to come to her party. I think we mentioned this in the podcast, but that

01:25:34.220 Carolina of Brunswick's husband, George, the Prince of Wales, just peer pressured Germaine

01:25:41.300 de Stael to not go to the party, which is terrible because I think Germaine and Caroline would have

01:25:45.660 had a lot in common. Anyway, you can learn about that meeting that didn't happen and other things

01:25:49.680 in my upcoming book Rebel of the Regency. So you can order it in Canada and in the United States

01:25:55.880 wherever you get your books from your local independent store or from any online retailer

01:26:00.940 just like a Rebel of the Regency by Anne Foster and if and when you do pre-order the book because

01:26:06.300 it's a pre-order at this point the book doesn't actually like exist in a corporeal state as of

01:26:11.380 yet but it will soon. It's coming out in February 2026 but if you pre-order it now which is where

01:26:17.120 you just pay for it now from a bookstore it'll first of all show up for you maybe in the mail

01:26:23.340 at your house or maybe at the bookstore we can run and pick it up right on the day that it's

01:26:27.780 published but also by pre-ordering it as an incentive to do so i'm giving out little treats

01:26:33.760 so if you share your receipt from having pre-ordered my book rebel of the regency by ann foster

01:26:39.420 if you share the receipt with me then you can get one year free membership to my sub stack

01:26:44.320 and as well as one year free membership to my Patreon

01:26:47.560 and also an extremely cute digital paper doll

01:26:50.880 that you can put as your phone wallpaper

01:26:53.240 or print it out

01:26:53.880 and like literally use it as a paper doll

01:26:55.500 of Carolina Brunswick.

01:26:57.480 Anyway, you can submit your receipt

01:26:59.340 and you can also find the links of how to buy the book

01:27:01.740 at rebeloftheregency.com

01:27:03.840 and if you are planning to read the book,

01:27:06.240 please, please, please add it

01:27:07.320 to wherever you track your books.

01:27:08.920 If that's Goodreads, if that's Storygraph,

01:27:11.060 all these metrics are just really helpful

01:27:12.760 to help show my publisher

01:27:13.940 that I'm a person that they should publish more books by me because people are so enthusiastic

01:27:19.080 about this book. So I'd really appreciate it. Next week, special treat for you. Not only am

01:27:25.480 I having an in-person meetup on Sunday in Toronto, but also there's going to be two episodes next

01:27:30.560 week. And that's because we're talking about a person from the Roman empire times. That's because

01:27:36.040 so many people in the French revolution were like, let's be like the Roman empire. And I was 0.66

01:27:39.740 like, what was it the Roman empire even like? So first we're going to talk about what the Roman

01:27:43.440 Empire is like, that's coming up on Wednesday. Then on Friday of next week, we're going to talk

01:27:48.300 about a person who lived in the Roman Empire. It's a person who also is a character on the 1976

01:27:54.860 miniseries, I, Claudius, which if you know the lore of this podcast, I was wildly obsessed with

01:28:00.880 a few months ago. So anyway, that's a treat for you. In-person meeting on Sunday in Toronto,

01:28:05.400 episode on Wednesday, episode on Friday. And until then, my friends, keep your pants on and

01:28:10.380 your tits off vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by ann foster that's me 0.97

01:28:17.480 editor is christina lumagi theme music is by the severin duo transcripts of this podcast are 0.99

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Vulgar History - July 15, 2025

How One Woman Survived the French Revolution (By Getting Out Of Town)

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Transcript