"la Marseilaise"

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Timeframe: Apr 01, 1689-Jul 31, 1689

This event subsumes the last few weeks of la Maupin's singing career in Marseilles, her pursuit of the young Marseillaise to the convent of the Visitandines in Avignon, and their three months together afterward. My original account of it in my web page runs as follows:

After a while she became bored with Sérannes, and she declared, with men in general. Having experienced the attentions of young ladies who at first mistook her for a man, she thought it would make a charming contrast for a virile woman such as herself to be seen around town with a young girl, and a blonde would show off her own dark coloring. Soon a beautiful young blonde, perhaps mistaking La Maupin for a man, demonstrated some infatuation for La Maupin, who reciprocated with ardor. The young lady's parents, not surprisingly, did not approve of the liaison, and quickly sent her into the Visitandines convent in Avignon in order to keep the two apart. Our heroine followed, entering the convent herself as a novitiate. Shortly thereafter, one of the nuns died. La Maupin disinterred the body of the deceased nun and, placing it in the bed of her beloved, set the room afire so that the two could flee in the ensuing confusion.

They disappeared for three months before La Maupin abandoned the young novice who returned in shame to her family and the convent. A tribunal of the Aix Parliament tried La Maupin in absentia and condemned her to death by fire for her crimes, which seem to have included kidnapping the novice, body snatching, setting fire to the convent, and failing to appear before the tribunal. The condemnation, interestingly, was of "sieur" d'Aubigny, perhaps to conceal what was considered one of the more delicate aspects of the whole affair, the homosexual nature of her relationship with the young lady. (See the footnote on cross-dressing^(CrossDress) for another explanation of this.)

Upon her condemnation by the tribunal, La Maupin fled Marseilles for Paris, a journey that would take her several months. We find her next in Orleans, down on her luck. Returning to eking out a living singing in taverns and inns she makes her way along the Loire valley. She seems to have thrown herself into this occupation with the zeal that seems to be her most defining characteristic. She is quoted as saying of this time, "I tried even to compose the words and airs of some chansonettes, which were liked well enough by my rough audiences."

The earliest reference to this event is a little oblique. Parfaict writes in 1756 that, "Une aventure particulier, & qui n'a aucun rapport à notre ouvrage, fut cause que certes dernier quitta Marseille au bout de quelques annees." ("A singular adventure, which has no relevence to our work, was what ultimately caused them to leave Marseilles after a few years.") Laporte in 1775 gives the details.

Sources:

ID	Author	Title	Year
src-37	Claude Parfaict	Dictionaire des Theatres de Paris	1756
src-26	Joseph de Laporte	Anecdotes Dramatiques	1775
src-38	François-Joseph Fétis	Revue musicale, Volume 6	1850
src-14	Emile Colombey	Histoire anecdotique du duel dans...	1861
src-11	Ellen Creathorne Clayton	Queens of song: being memoirs of ...	1863
src-13	Édouard de Beaumont, Alfred Rich...	The sword and womankind: being a ...	1900
src-8	Gabriel Letainturier-Fradin	La Maupin (1670-1707): sa vie, se...	1904
src-6	Cameron Rogers	Gallant Ladies	1928
src-15	Oscar Paul Gilbert, James Lewis May	Women in Men's Guise	1932
src-3	Jessica Amanda Salmonson	Amazons II	1982
src-4	Jessica Amanda Salmonson	The Encyclopedia of Amazons	1991

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