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“Bassin du Dragon” by Jean Cotelle le Jeune (1642-1708), ca. 1693
Julie D’Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and bang a nun. If nothing in that sentence at least marginally interests you, I have no idea why you’re visiting this website. (via Badass of the Week: Julie D’Aubigny, La Maupin) (thank you, Rachel!)
Yep, that’s my girl.
(via coeurdelhistoire)
Shoes ca. 1720-40
From Shoe Icons
First draft
So.
I’ve finished the first draft of Tragédie.
It feels weird: like it’s finished - except it’s not, of course - and just before the end I panicked a little and had to jump up and walk around and talk to someone and stare into the open fridge and make a cup of tea and breathe a lot.
That was two days a ago and since then I’ve tweaked a little and corrected things here and there, but now I just have to walk away and not look at it for a few weeks or maybe longer.
I feel empty. Emptied. Like it has all of me in it and there isn’t anything more.
Until the next draft.
‘Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.’
- Truman Capote (ever the drama queen)
Today: I redrafted the scenes about La Maupin’s Paris Opera debut, in December 1690, as Pallas Athena in Lully’s Cadmus et Hermione. She was a sensation. Naturally.
“Paris came, listened and marveled, applauded to the echo and sought assignations with the new star by squadrons and regiments.”
- Gallant Ladies, Cameron Rogers, 1928.
Here’s the Prologue.
Footage: French ensemble Le Poème Harmonique, 2008, film by Vincent Dumestre.
place vendome, paris (by .natasha.)
