The majority of the readers of the English-speaking race who enjoy
Théophile Gautier’s fascinating romance _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ are
not aware that the heroine was a real person. The novelist has of
course made such alterations as are required to translate crude fact
into more elegant fiction, and to obliterate so far as can be done the
criminal or partly-criminal aspect of the lady’s venturous career. But
such is one of the chief duties of an artist in fiction. Though he
may be an historian, in a sense, he is not limited to the occasional
bareness of truth. His object is not that his work shall be true but
rather what the French call _vraisemblable_. In narrative, as in most
arts, crudeness is rather a fault than a virtue, so that the writer
who looks for excellence in his work has without losing force, to fill
up the blanks left by the necessary excision of fact by subtleties of
thought and graces of description, so that the fulness or rotundity
of the natural curves shall always be maintained. In truth the story
of _La Maupin_ is so laden with passages of excitement and interest
that any writer on the subject has only to make an agreeable choice
of episodes sufficiently dramatic, and consistent with each other,
to form a cohesive narrative. Such a work has in it possibilities of
great success--if only the author has the genius of a Théophile Gautier
to set it forth. The real difficulty which such an one would have
to contend against would be to remove the sordidness, the reckless
passion, the unscrupulousness, the criminal intent which lies behind
such a character.
The Mademoiselle de Maupin of real life was a singer at the Opera in
Paris at the end of the seventeenth century. She was the daughter
of a man of somewhat humble extraction engaged in secretarial work
with the Count d’Armagnac; and whilst only a girl married a man named
Maupin employed in the province. With him she had lived only a few
months when she ran away with a maitre d’armes (_anglicè_, a fencing
master) named Serane. If this individual had no other good quality in
matters human or divine, he was at least a good teacher of the sword.
His professional arts were used in the service of his inamorata, who
became herself an excellent swordsman even in an age when swordsmanship
had an important place in social life. It may have been the sexual
equality implied by the name which gave the young woman the idea, but
thenceforth she became a man in appearance;--in reality, in so far as
such a metamorphosis can be accomplished by courage, recklessness,
hardihood, unscrupulousness, and a willing obedience to all the ideas
which passion and sensuality can originate and a greed of notoriety
carry into execution.
In a professional tour from Paris to Marseilles, in which she as an
actress took the part of a man, she gained the affections of the
flighty daughter of a rich merchant of Marseilles; and, as a man, ran
away with her. Being pursued, they sought refuge in a convent--a place
which at that age it was manifestly easier to get into than to get
out of. Here the two remained for a few days, during which, by the
aid of histrionic and other arts, the actress obviated the necessary
suspicions of her foolish companion and kept danger away. All the while
La Maupin was conscious that an irate and rich father was in hot search
for his missing daughter, and she knew that any talk about the venture
would infallibly lose her the girl’s fortune, besides getting herself
within the grip of the law. So she decided on a bold scheme of escape
from the convent, whereby she might obliterate her tracks. A nun of
the convent had died and her body was awaiting burial. In the night La
Maupin exchanged the body of the dead nun for the living one of her own
victim. Having thus got her companion out of the convent, she set the
building on fire to cover up everything, and escaped in secret to a
neighbouring village, taking with her by force the girl, who naturally
enough was disillusioned and began to have scruples as to the wisdom
of her conduct. In the village they remained hidden for a few weeks,
during which time the repentance of the poor girl became a fixed
quantity. An attempt, well supported, was made to arrest the ostensible
man; but this was foiled by the female swordsman who killed one of the
would-be captors and dangerously wounded two others. The girl, however,
made good her escape; secretly she fled from her deceiver and reached
her parents in safety. But the hue and cry was out after La Maupin,
whose identity was now known. She was pursued, captured, and placed
in gaol to await trial. The law was strong and inexorable; the erring
woman who had thus outraged so many conventions was condemned to be
burned alive.
But abstract law and the executive are quite different things--at least
they were in France at the close of the seventeenth century: as indeed
they are occasionally in other countries and at varying times. La
Maupin, being a woman and a clever one, procured sufficient influence
to have the execution postponed, and so had the full punishment
delayed, if not entirely avoided. More than this, she managed to get
back to Paris and so to begin her noxious career all over again. Of
course she had strong help from her popularity. She was a favourite at
the opera, and the class which patronises and supports this kind of
artistic effort is a rich and powerful one, which governments do not
care to displease by the refusal of such a small favour as making the
law hold its hand with regard to an erring favourite.
But La Maupin’s truculent tendencies were not to be restrained. In
Paris in 1695 whilst she was one of the audience at a theatre she took
umbrage at some act or speech of one of the comedians playing in the
piece, and leaving her seat went round to the stage and caned him in
the presence of the audience. The actor, M. Dumenil, an accomplished
and favourite performer but a man of peaceful disposition, submitted
to the affront and took no action in the matter. La Maupin, however,
suffered, through herself, the penalty of her conduct. She had
entered on a course of violence which became a habit. For some years
she flourished and exercised all the tyrannies of her own sex and
in addition those habitual to men which came from expert use of the
sword. Thus she went attired as a man to a ball given by a Prince of
the blood. In that garb she treated a fellow-guest, a woman, with
indecency; and she was challenged by three different men--each of
whom, when the consequent fight came on, she ran through the body,
after which she returned to the ball. Shortly afterwards she fought
and wounded a man, M. de Servan, who had affronted a woman. For these
escapades she was again pardoned. She then went to Brussels where she
lived under the protection of Count Albert of Bavaria, the Elector.
With him she remained until the quarrel, inevitable in such a life,
came. After much bickering he agreed to her demand of a settlement,
but in order to show his anger by affronting her he sent the large
amount of his involuntary bequest by the servile hand of the husband
of his mistress, Countess d’Arcos, who had supplanted her, with a
curt message that she must leave Brussels at once. The bearer of such
a message to such a woman as La Maupin had probably reckoned on an
unfriendly reception; but he evidently underestimated her anger. Not
contented with flinging at his head the large _douceur_ of which he was
the bearer, she expressed in her direct way her unfavourable opinion,
of him, of his master, and of the message which he had carried for
the latter. She ended her tirade by kicking him downstairs, with the
justification for her form of physical violence that she would not
sully her sword with his blood.
From Brussels she went to Spain as _femme de chambre_ to the Countess
Marino but returned to Paris in 1704. Once more she took up her work as
an opera singer; or rather she tried to take it up, but she had lost
her vogue, and the public would have none of her. As a matter of fact,
she was only just above thirty years of age, which should under normal
circumstances be the beginning of a woman’s prime. But the life she
had been leading since her early girlhood was not one which made for
true happiness or for physical health; she was prematurely old, and her
artistic powers were worn out.
Still, her pluck, and the obstinacy on which it was grafted, remained.
For a whole year she maintained a never-failing struggle for her old
supremacy, but without avail. Seeing that all was lost, she left the
stage and returned to her husband who, realising that she was rich,
managed to reconcile whatever shreds of honour he had to her infamous
record. The Church, too, accepted her--and her riches--within its
sheltering portals. By the aid of a tolerant priest she got absolution,
and two years after her retirement from the opera she died in a convent
in all the odour of sanctity.