Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, A production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. In eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, the French forensic pathologist, doctor Henri Le Ludique
Speaker 1: published his first work, Notes and Observations on Forensic Medicine
Speaker 1: Offenses against Morality. If that sounds fairly dull, please stay
Speaker 1: with me, listener, because I promise you this episode is anything.
Speaker 1: But it's the final section of the book.
Speaker 2: That we're interested in today, a section that the doctor
Speaker 2: actually did not write himself, which consists of the entire
Speaker 2: text of a unique autobiography that the doctor had acquired,
Speaker 2: an autobiography entitled Secret Confessions of a Parisian. Legludique claimed
Speaker 2: the autobiography's author was one of his patience from his
Speaker 2: time as a prison doctor, and he had chosen to
Speaker 2: include the autobiography quote for documentary purposes in order to
Speaker 2: enable readers to understand the writer's state of mind end quote.
Speaker 2: Many of leglu Diique's patients when he was a prison
Speaker 2: doctor had been convicted for sexual violence, but this particular
Speaker 2: prisoner had instead been booked as an army deserter and
Speaker 2: petty thief. The autobiography then was included not as a
Speaker 2: study of a devious criminal mind, but to quote the
Speaker 2: doctor to quote trace the origin and evolution of the
Speaker 2: author's sexual inversion. End quote. The autobiography begins quote in
Speaker 2: the beautiful year of eighteen sixty, there lived in Paris
Speaker 2: a woman whom all gilded and gallant Paris knew. This woman,
Speaker 2: who happens to be the humble author herself went by
Speaker 2: many names, but in the byline of the autobiography she
Speaker 2: narrows it down to two, Arthur w and the Countess.
Speaker 2: Throughout this episode, I will refer to our subject mostly
Speaker 2: as the Countess and as Pauline, another name she used,
Speaker 2: as those were the names she used most commonly. Pauline
Speaker 2: presents her life story in the vein of many nineteenth
Speaker 2: century buildings romans. She takes the reader from her early
Speaker 2: experiences as a young boy wishing to wear the dresses
Speaker 2: her mother made, to her courtship with the nobleman who
Speaker 2: introduced her to the life of a female courtesan. We
Speaker 2: then follow her as she becomes Pauline and the Countess,
Speaker 2: working as a performer in Parisian clubs frequented by the
Speaker 2: queer community as she gets drafted into the army and
Speaker 2: ultimately is sentenced to years in a men's prison for
Speaker 2: abandoning her post Confessions of a Parisian was largely inspired
Speaker 2: by Rousseau's Confessions, and it offers the reader a similar
Speaker 2: look into the author's psyche. Pauline's insight is often funny,
Speaker 2: often joyous, and often heartbreaking. Sinner, degenerate, and corrupt are
Speaker 2: often used self descriptors. These ideas echo the common societal
Speaker 2: view of homosexuality and other non traditional sexual and gender
Speaker 2: identities as immoral vices. Her work was ultimately published, after all,
Speaker 2: as a documentation of mental illness. At the same time,
Speaker 2: Confessions also offers an intimate, vibrant look into the lives
Speaker 2: of members of Paris's queer community during a time where
Speaker 2: they were regarded as little more than case studies by
Speaker 2: social scientists and deviants by larger society. On top of
Speaker 2: being a talented performer and writer, Pauline was a very
Speaker 2: competent illustrator, and her drawings of different members of her
Speaker 2: community were included in Confessions publication. As I mentioned in
Speaker 2: one of our earlier episodes on the nineteenth century writer
Speaker 2: and nobleman Marc de Montefad. Discussing the gender and sexuality
Speaker 2: of historical figures through our modern understanding is a very
Speaker 2: complex task. The Parisian queer community at the time had
Speaker 2: their own language and system of identification, and this is
Speaker 2: how the Countess best On understood and described herself. In
Speaker 2: her words, she was a fil or mignon, both of
Speaker 2: these terms applying to multiple identities. The latter term, for example,
Speaker 2: originated from Henri the Third's fashionable young male favorites, but
Speaker 2: eventually evolved to apply to a broader queer identity. In
Speaker 2: Pauline's writing, we see mignon mean a homosexual man, a
Speaker 2: cross dressing man, and a transgender woman. The Countess seems
Speaker 2: to have identified at times with all of those descriptors.
Speaker 2: She was happiest, however, when society saw her as a woman.
Speaker 2: She proudly reflected, I, who had so desired to be
Speaker 2: a girl, had triumphed over natural law. I'm Danish Schwartz
Speaker 2: and this is noble blood. Uness opens her autobiography in
Speaker 2: the time and place I described earlier, eighteen sixty Paris,
Speaker 2: At the height of her local fame, she was around
Speaker 2: twenty two or twenty three at the time, and had
Speaker 2: begun performing six years earlier. Though the book is in autobiography,
Speaker 2: the prolog is written in third person and introduces us
Speaker 2: to our quote heroine. Speaking of the third person, this
Speaker 2: is a good time to acknowledge that there is very
Speaker 2: little secondary scholarship on the life of the Countess. Our
Speaker 2: main source of information about her life is the woman herself.
Speaker 2: Certain details and events have almost certainly been embellished or
Speaker 2: glossed over. Dates and ages don't always match up, she
Speaker 2: writes at one point, quote time doesn't matter, nor does space.
Speaker 2: In this sect of those who deny their sex, I
Speaker 2: was an example of that. Pauline is, however, a fairly
Speaker 2: balanced narrator, and seeing as she did not know whether
Speaker 2: or not the work would be published in the end,
Speaker 2: there was likely little reason to self censor. In fact,
Speaker 2: I would argue that reading it, her writing comes across
Speaker 2: as brutally honest. She describes herself in a measured, if
Speaker 2: flamboyant tone. As a young adult, she had quote literary tastes.
Speaker 2: She read a lot, She drew passively, and she sang agreeably.
Speaker 2: Her face lent itself marvelously to makeup like the face
Speaker 2: of all of those whose physiognomy is large, full and
Speaker 2: marked by strong features. While she considered her face beautiful
Speaker 2: to average, she thought her hands ugly and her figure
Speaker 2: too thin. When it came to her character, writing in
Speaker 2: the third person, quote she was good despite her cold air, sensitive,
Speaker 2: despite her reputation of insensitivity, a little romantic, generous to
Speaker 2: a fault. She also described frequent bouts of depression. She
Speaker 2: had quote a melancholic air, a tinge of sadness, which,
Speaker 2: despite her efforts, changed the expression on her face from
Speaker 2: laughter to sorrow in an instant. It appeared as suddenly
Speaker 2: as a lightning bolt in the summer, in the middle
Speaker 2: of her gayest hours pun ironically not intended. While the
Speaker 2: Countess's life drastically changed after her childhood, we see her goodness,
Speaker 2: her sensitivity, and sometimes her sadness in her earliest years.
Speaker 2: Pauline says she was born in eighteen thirty nine, though
Speaker 2: that would make her twenty or twenty one in eighteen sixty.
Speaker 2: Her parents were working class and, in her her words,
Speaker 2: decent folks in all senses of the word. Her father
Speaker 2: was a coachman turned steward, raised and educated by his
Speaker 2: first master. Pauline notes interestingly that he belonged to a
Speaker 2: now extinct class of servants who were treated as family
Speaker 2: by those they worked for. She concludes that her father
Speaker 2: quote had only one great flaw, a weak character compounded
Speaker 2: by excessive vanity. I inherited these two traits almost in
Speaker 2: their entirety. Her mother was a seamstress, and according to
Speaker 2: her an angel, the image Pauline holds of her mother,
Speaker 2: even years after her mother's death, is nothing short of seraphic.
Speaker 2: The two were incredibly close. From her earliest years, Pauline
Speaker 2: much preferred to spend time with her mother rather than
Speaker 2: play with other children. While her mother would sow, young
Speaker 2: Pauline would read romance books she found stored away in
Speaker 2: the home. Quote, my eyes would often fill with tears,
Speaker 2: forcing me to stop reading. My dear mother would also cry,
Speaker 2: and we dry our tears with exchanges of kisses. Her
Speaker 2: mother would say, my dear little boy, you have a
Speaker 2: good heart. The countess described the first part of her
Speaker 2: life as one long musical poem. Her mother loved singing,
Speaker 2: and the pair sang together every day. Quote. These golden
Speaker 2: hours developed a powerful taste for singers and concerts In me,
Speaker 2: I specifically mean female singers, because my frivolous nature was
Speaker 2: seduced by the brilliance of their appearance. Her mother often
Speaker 2: took her to shows at cafe concerts, which were popular,
Speaker 2: accessible alternatives to cabarets. Pauline quote drank them all in
Speaker 2: with my ears and my eyes wide open, and dreamed
Speaker 2: of one day being on stage. Many of her mother's
Speaker 2: clients were actresses in the theater, and they liked to
Speaker 2: spoil Pauline with gifts of candies and books. She reflected,
Speaker 2: those experiences didn't leave me indifferent. The sight of these women,
Speaker 2: decorated like holy shrines and perfumed like sachets, filled me
Speaker 2: with all possible joys. She remembers running her fingers over
Speaker 2: the lace of their dresses and playing with their jewels
Speaker 2: while she'd sit in their laps. Her most prominent memory
Speaker 2: is of a blue satin dress with gold spangles. A
Speaker 2: theater owner had sent the dress over to have her
Speaker 2: mother make a copy, and Pauline became fixated by the
Speaker 2: dress on the mail Anakin, She wrote that blue satin
Speaker 2: gown had obsessed me ever since it had been brought in.
Speaker 2: I looked at it, I touched it, I took it
Speaker 2: off the mannequin, and I managed to put it on myself,
Speaker 2: even though it was too big for my little body.
Speaker 2: She knew the tricks of the trade from her mother
Speaker 2: and her clients and pinned the dress at the front
Speaker 2: so that she could walk in it. She then picked
Speaker 2: up her mother's fan and began to show off for
Speaker 2: herself in the mirror. Absorbed in her fantasy, she didn't
Speaker 2: hear the delighted giggles of her mother and her assistants
Speaker 2: having returned to the studio. When her mother asked what
Speaker 2: she was doing all dressed up, Pauline replied, with a
Speaker 2: little embarrassment, Mamma, I'm playing diva. Her mother smiled and
Speaker 2: simply replied, that's nice, but you must take off Madam
Speaker 2: Dee's gown. You might damage it. Pauline's father also simply
Speaker 2: laughed at the anecdote. He did not to enforce masculinity
Speaker 2: on his young son. While Pauline loved women's dresses and
Speaker 2: accessories from a young age, she would burst into tears
Speaker 2: at the sight of boy's shorts, refusing to wear them
Speaker 2: unless they were decorated with embroidery and lace. Pauline believed
Speaker 2: both the innate tendencies of her character, her shyness and sensitivity,
Speaker 2: and the chance of her mother's profession developed in her
Speaker 2: quote love of beauty and style that would later degenerate
Speaker 2: into a frenzy and cause the disorders and missteps that
Speaker 2: mark my life end quote. Despite that perspective, she cherished
Speaker 2: that time, She wrote, my whole childhood was spent in
Speaker 2: an atmosphere of graciousness, delicacy, and lovely faces. And neither
Speaker 2: the passage of time, nor misfortune, nor the cruel disappointments
Speaker 2: of life, nor the long hours of imprisonment can ever
Speaker 2: tarnish that glorious memory. As an adolescent, she was sent
Speaker 2: to a boys boarding school very close to her home.
Speaker 2: Her first sexual experiences happened there, masturbating with older male peers,
Speaker 2: namely one boy called Charles. Pauline recalls she didn't think
Speaker 2: much of the quote evil she had committed, only the
Speaker 2: desire to do it more. She wrote, having indulged in pleasure,
Speaker 2: I had drunk deeply from the source of those predilections
Speaker 2: that make a man prostitute himself. Not by circumstance, no,
Speaker 2: by starting out with a boy four years older than myself.
Speaker 2: I was destined always to play the woman's role, the
Speaker 2: role of the mignon, that distinct, separate type among all
Speaker 2: men with similar passions. It was during her time at
Speaker 2: boarding school that Pauline began to realize she would never
Speaker 2: be like her peers. She wrote, people have often said
Speaker 2: that morally I am not like other men. I can
Speaker 2: only add that I'm different physically as well, and this
Speaker 2: difference has caused me pain. It is the rapidly growing
Speaker 2: ulcer that has engulfed all my happy moments, and the
Speaker 2: poison that has corrupted my life from the time that
Speaker 2: I became a man. This sadness, which is so powerful
Speaker 2: in my life, is the real cause of the enjoyment
Speaker 2: that I had in concealing my sex beneath a woman's
Speaker 2: exterior end quote. It is an evocative early description of
Speaker 2: what we today would recognize as gender dysphoria. The countess
Speaker 2: tells the reader that she still sees Charles sometimes and
Speaker 2: declares that by seducing her, he had quote broken down
Speaker 2: the barrier that my shyness would have raised against the
Speaker 2: desires that the sight of me kindled in the mind
Speaker 2: of the Marquis d X. The original Marquis de X
Speaker 2: was her father's employer, and we do not know his
Speaker 2: identity beyond the mysterious moniker. Marquis de X died when
Speaker 2: Pauline was just an adolescent, and then his son inherited
Speaker 2: his title. This new younger Marquis, whom Pauline refers to
Speaker 2: as M, began to come to her family home, often
Speaker 2: maintaining a friendly relationship with her father. When Pauline was
Speaker 2: a young teen, M began to court her. He was,
Speaker 2: in her words, a tall, handsome man of twenty six.
Speaker 2: With her parents' permission, he would take Pauline for in
Speaker 2: his coach, where he would praise her beauty and tell her,
Speaker 2: if you wished, dear, you could be happier than a
Speaker 2: king's son, and you could have all the lovely things
Speaker 2: that you want so much. He laid out his wishes
Speaker 2: plainly for her. He would take care of her generously,
Speaker 2: giving her as much money as she needed each month,
Speaker 2: and she in turn would provide him pleasure. Pauline was,
Speaker 2: according to her, thrilled by the splendors. Everything he had
Speaker 2: told me seemed so special that, with my regret dissolving
Speaker 2: into my desire, I was eager to latch onto this man,
Speaker 2: who said that he loved me like a friend and
Speaker 2: like a lover. The marquis also charmed her into sharing
Speaker 2: her secrets. I'd tell him everything about my wild dreams
Speaker 2: and the frustrations that I felt at not being a woman,
Speaker 2: since I was so ill suited for being a man.
Speaker 2: He replied, you so unlike a man that it would
Speaker 2: be very easy to change you into a charming lady.
Speaker 2: Em told Pauline's parents that he would take her in
Speaker 2: to further her education. That was one word for it,
Speaker 2: she equips to the reader. Pauline's mother was hesitant at first,
Speaker 2: distraught to part with her dear child, but Em persuaded
Speaker 2: her that Pauline could pursue her talent for art with
Speaker 2: his connections and opportunities. Perhaps, by twenty first century standards,
Speaker 2: we might identify EM's tactics as grooming. Instead of enrolling
Speaker 2: Pauline in art school, Em took her to meet a courtesan, Paula,
Speaker 2: who styled Pauline into a courtesan herself. Paula acquired her dresses,
Speaker 2: found her an apartment nearby, and gave her lessons on
Speaker 2: how to walk and talk. The part of a courtesan.
Speaker 2: Paula was very influential to young Pauline. It was she,
Speaker 2: not coincidentally, who offered the name Pauline as Pauline's first
Speaker 2: chosen name. The name was in full Madame Pauline de Florene.
Speaker 2: This woman, who quickly became my friend and confidant, was
Speaker 2: my first true platonic love. She wrote. With her, I
Speaker 2: experienced the charm of exquisite and intimate friendship. After Paula's lessons,
Speaker 2: em took Pauline out in society as a woman for
Speaker 2: the first time. At the popular restaurant in Madrid. He
Speaker 2: introduced her to his noble friends and their own kept women.
Speaker 2: She wrote, it took some nerve, and in spite of
Speaker 2: my confidence, the confidence I had in my luxurious wardrobe,
Speaker 2: I could feel myself blanching under my pancake makeup and
Speaker 2: my heart something to Pauline's delight, everyone was cordial, and
Speaker 2: she saw the women paying close attention to the details
Speaker 2: of her fashionable outfit. After recounting this day, we get
Speaker 2: one of the most arresting passages of the autobiography. The
Speaker 2: countess reflected years later, there's one thing in my life
Speaker 2: that made me so happy that it alone banished all
Speaker 2: my regrets and my sorrows, at least temporarily. It was
Speaker 2: the realization of my most bizarre dream of seeming to
Speaker 2: be something that I was not. The desire to dress
Speaker 2: as a woman, to be accepted in the eyes of
Speaker 2: the world as an elegant lady pleased me so much
Speaker 2: that when I was able to do it, it took
Speaker 2: the sharp edge off my regrets. She continued, with a
Speaker 2: great deal of patience and effort, had succeeded in resembling
Speaker 2: the finest being in all creation. I was a woman,
Speaker 2: and when people talked about me, they referred to me
Speaker 2: as the lovely, the charming Pauline. With that I was
Speaker 2: able to forget my feeble body and enjoy hours and
Speaker 2: hours of an enchanting illusion. Her euphoria jumps off the page.
Speaker 2: It's especially remarkable when you remember she was writing this
Speaker 2: in eighteen seventy four. Her relationship with m wasn't always
Speaker 2: as joyous. While she claimed to have accepted his offer
Speaker 2: without a second thought, she was conflicted over the nature
Speaker 2: of their relationship and the nature of her role as
Speaker 2: a mistress. Sweet words from M would placate her doubts.
Speaker 2: She explained, since I had so often envied women when
Speaker 2: I was reading, I was able to forget when listening
Speaker 2: to this seducer that I was nothing more than a
Speaker 2: plaything for a debauched man whose affection for me would
Speaker 2: last only as long as I could please him. The
Speaker 2: source of much of the Countess's shame around her gender
Speaker 2: and sexual identity was it seems inexorably intertwined with the
Speaker 2: grief she felt about her profession and position in the world.
Speaker 2: She declared, every kind of prostitution is a moral degradation,
Speaker 2: a dishonorable situation, so that in order to live happily,
Speaker 2: you must not even recognize it. Because she could not
Speaker 2: live as a woman until she had become a courtesan,
Speaker 2: one became forever associated with the other. In her mind,
Speaker 2: its tragic, and Pauline was certainly not the only queer
Speaker 2: person of the time to feel similarly. Around three years
Speaker 2: into their arrangement grew distant. He eventually ended things, leaving
Speaker 2: her a letter enclosed with some money. Pauline claimed she
Speaker 2: was sixteen or seventeen at the time, and she worried
Speaker 2: about what would happen to her Now she could not
Speaker 2: return to her parents because they would ask too many
Speaker 2: questions she couldn't or didn't want to answer. She also
Speaker 2: admitted she had no desire to return to the quote
Speaker 2: straight and narrow, as she called it, after time in
Speaker 2: the vibrant circles of Parisian society, and so she made
Speaker 2: her debut in the cafe concerts. She used the parting
Speaker 2: money the marquie had left her to buy exquisite stage
Speaker 2: costumes and considered herself a quote passible singer. This is
Speaker 2: the time in which she became truly immersed in the
Speaker 2: Parisian queer community, for they were her fellow performers and
Speaker 2: audience members. One group was known as the tribudes, a
Speaker 2: term allegedly coined from the Greek verb to rub, which
Speaker 2: had long been used to describe women who had sex
Speaker 2: with other women. In Pauline's words, these women came usually
Speaker 2: in pairs and were charming priestesses of that enormous cult
Speaker 2: that worshiped at Sappho's altar. They belonged to that strange
Speaker 2: sect that incomprehensible love from which men are excluded. They were,
Speaker 2: as Pauline described them, women who loved women and dressed
Speaker 2: like men. She analyzed, such a woman so comfortable dressed
Speaker 2: as a man usually has a masculine personality and masculine
Speaker 2: tastes like Mignon. As described earlier, Tribid also applied to
Speaker 2: a broader queer identity. Pauline's illustration of one tribid friend
Speaker 2: B is included in the audio biography. She wrote, the
Speaker 2: despair that B felt at the age of fifteen was
Speaker 2: the same one that I felt. So she adopted men's
Speaker 2: clothing and looked ravishing in them. Even men were fooled
Speaker 2: and women went wild over her. Another part of the
Speaker 2: audience was made up of quote mincing, perfumed young men
Speaker 2: fitted out with the finest gloves, makeup, and professionally curled hair,
Speaker 2: a group sometimes known as Fee. An illustration of a
Speaker 2: Fee and good friend of the Countess Le Charles is
Speaker 2: also featured in the book. Within their group, All of
Speaker 2: these terms applied to one born as a man who
Speaker 2: either identified as a cross dressing man or as a woman.
Speaker 2: Specific terms were also seemingly associated with sex work. Pauline
Speaker 2: was also engaging in sex work as a performer, taking
Speaker 2: audience members on as client after the shows. As the
Speaker 2: other Phee performers did. She also found two more quote
Speaker 2: protectors following M's departure, but neither lasted as long as
Speaker 2: her original affair. The group she worked with had a
Speaker 2: tradition of quote baptizing new members of their circle. One night,
Speaker 2: drinking champagne, a fellow feed adorned Pauline with a new
Speaker 2: name on behalf of all these young ladies as well
Speaker 2: as our dear sisters who are assembled here, I August
Speaker 2: D now baptized Arthur W. The Countess. The Countess noted
Speaker 2: how seriously everyone took the ceremony for the Trebad's and
Speaker 2: the Mignons who were there. This was a well known
Speaker 2: and powerful act. For me, I thought that it was
Speaker 2: just a joke. But when D, taking his seat again,
Speaker 2: added my lovely, I dubbed you the Countess, and I
Speaker 2: swear that this name will remove all traces of your
Speaker 2: real one, he was only too accurate. She found genuine
Speaker 2: friendship and community. She commented on the solidarity between Tribades
Speaker 2: and phil writing that Tribades were quote deeply sympathetic toward
Speaker 2: Filin Mignon, since like them they have an unnatural love,
Speaker 2: They're indulgent and have a soft spot for the young
Speaker 2: men whom they call their sisters, and that feeling is
Speaker 2: genuinely reciprocated. In her early twenties, now years into her career,
Speaker 2: the newly named Countess rekindled her relationship with her mother.
Speaker 2: Her father had died and she wanted to bring her
Speaker 2: mother as much joy as possible. It was around this
Speaker 2: time as well, that she was required to participate in
Speaker 2: the conscription lottery, drawing the number one hundred and eighty.
Speaker 2: She was in the reserves and eventually deployed. Not only
Speaker 2: was the Countess afraid to join the regiment, being an
Speaker 2: army man meant living as a man again. The Countess
Speaker 2: eventually was given leave to visit a fictional uncle and
Speaker 2: she was able to see her beloved Paris again. Returning
Speaker 2: to her mother's home, Pauline threw herself into her arms,
Speaker 2: weeping that she could not return to the regiment. Her
Speaker 2: plan to desert was simple. Arthur could not be found
Speaker 2: if only the Countess existed. She told her mother that
Speaker 2: she was quite comfortable as a woman, and rather than
Speaker 2: just playing the part when she performed, she would become
Speaker 2: one forever. Her mother, whose quote dearest wish had been
Speaker 2: to have a daughter was pleased with the idea. The
Speaker 2: Countess told her that she would return the next day.
Speaker 2: Transformed when the police were sent to find the lost soldier,
Speaker 2: the count un as his mother told them she hadn't
Speaker 2: seen him. The soldier in question was naturally standing in
Speaker 2: the very same room. The Countess returned to the theater
Speaker 2: and for years continued living life as before. In eighteen sixty,
Speaker 2: after a brief illness, the countess's beloved mother died. Falling
Speaker 2: into a depression, Pauline lost much of the desire and
Speaker 2: energy to dress up and perform. She stole from the
Speaker 2: home of her mother's former employer to pay off her debts,
Speaker 2: and was later caught and identified as the missing soldier.
Speaker 2: She was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison.
Speaker 2: As she wrote in her autobiography, at the beginning of
Speaker 2: September eighteen sixty one, I arrived chained to another inmate
Speaker 2: at the Central Prison. The countess claimed that less than
Speaker 2: two hours after her arrived, all of the inmates had
Speaker 2: learned her life story naturally. She claims she gained many admirers,
Speaker 2: According to her quote, those who had had unnatural sexual
Speaker 2: urges outside of prison would have more so inside, and
Speaker 2: those who had never experienced those thoughts would adopt them easily.
Speaker 2: So my arrival stirred up many thoughts and unleashed many desires.
Speaker 2: She eventually accepted the proposal of a particularly devoted admirer
Speaker 2: she calls R in the autobiography. This man had saved
Speaker 2: up quite a bit in prison and promised the Countess
Speaker 2: everything she might want. His feelings for her became eventually obsessive.
Speaker 2: He could not sleep, he followed her everywhere, and was
Speaker 2: prone to fits of jealousy. Eventually, she says, she became
Speaker 2: fed up and told him she didn't want to see
Speaker 2: him again. By her count the relationship lasted four years
Speaker 2: and five months. She tells the reader, I have sketched
Speaker 2: this story in one page, but I could have spent
Speaker 2: twenty on it because there were so many strange incidents involved.
Speaker 2: R was eventually released and begged the Countess to request
Speaker 2: transferring prisons out of his fear that she would form
Speaker 2: a relationship with another inmate there. She knew the request
Speaker 2: was ridiculous, but felt guilty over how things ended between them,
Speaker 2: and felt she owed him for all of the money
Speaker 2: he had given her she did request a transfer, and
Speaker 2: the request was eventually approved and she was moved to
Speaker 2: another prison. She arrived twelve days later in March of
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty six. At intake, she was led to the baths. There,
Speaker 2: a handsome man tossed her a towel, saying, take this kid.
Speaker 2: This tall, handsome man was the stockroom clerk. His number
Speaker 2: was five ninety eight. He had served as the bugler
Speaker 2: for the first rifleman, and as the Countess wrote, he
Speaker 2: was to become more than a brother to me. His
Speaker 2: name was Gustave Engel. It was love at first sight
Speaker 2: for the Countess, at least. She asked her fellow inmates
Speaker 2: about Gustave, but all they told her was he had
Speaker 2: a reputation and that she was wasting her time. She
Speaker 2: believed they were jealous, as they wanted to court her themselves.
Speaker 2: The Countess lamented her new position in the prisoned dirty
Speaker 2: shoemaking workshop, but luck shined upon her when Angele was
Speaker 2: demoted from his position as a stock room clerk to
Speaker 2: fellow shoemaker. She recounted, I decided then and there to
Speaker 2: give him as many extra rations as possible. I had
Speaker 2: almost two hundred and fifty francs saved so I could
Speaker 2: pay for them. At this point all my thoughts of
Speaker 2: frugality and greed were banished. This new love, though shameful,
Speaker 2: had cleansed me. She included a note with the rations
Speaker 2: asking for the man's name. In his reply, she learned
Speaker 2: it for the first time, and he told her quote,
Speaker 2: I want to thank you with all my heart, but
Speaker 2: you shouldn't deprive yourself because of me. His reply did
Speaker 2: nothing to deter her. She wrote, From that day on,
Speaker 2: I understood the meaning of the word to love. Oh
Speaker 2: how well. I knew then that I had never been
Speaker 2: in love before, because I had never experienced such overwhelming intoxication,
Speaker 2: such a stirring in my heart. She looked forward to
Speaker 2: her exercise period in the yard because she knew she'd
Speaker 2: see him there, and he might smile at her, maybe
Speaker 2: even talk to her. The man was her light in
Speaker 2: a dark place. She forgot that she was in prison
Speaker 2: when thinking of him. Their relationship lasted over four years.
Speaker 2: Although it's unclear whether they were ever quote exclusive lovers,
Speaker 2: still there was certainly mutual intimacy. She wrote, Our earthly
Speaker 2: happiness is a friendship or a love without limits, where
Speaker 2: shared feelings merged completely, and I had never felt this
Speaker 2: sort of mutual affection before, at least not to the
Speaker 2: extent that I had yearned for it. Eventually, after a
Speaker 2: quarrel over the Countess's jealousy, Engele wrote a letter to
Speaker 2: her saying he never wanted to see her again. Distraught,
Speaker 2: she got herself placed in solitary confinement to get over him. Still,
Speaker 2: the night before Angele was released, the Countess found a
Speaker 2: way to see him. She recalled, He squeezed my hand,
Speaker 2: told me that he'd never forget me. On that day,
Speaker 2: he gave me his badge with the number that was
Speaker 2: used instead of a name, and that each inmate wore
Speaker 2: on his sleeve. This simple number five nine eight spoke
Speaker 2: volumes to me and was prescius to me because my
Speaker 2: friend had touched it every day. Then, the Countess tells
Speaker 2: the reader simply, on July twenty second, eighteen seventy one,
Speaker 2: I was released. Those are the final words of her autobiography.
Speaker 2: It is quite the anti climactic ending to such a
Speaker 2: dramatic life story, but it is the ending we have.
Speaker 2: The countess never published for the writing, and her life
Speaker 2: following her release from prison is undocumented. We can imagine,
Speaker 2: even hope that maybe she returned to her life as
Speaker 2: a performer, her life as a woman, back to her
Speaker 2: beloved community in Paris, but we cannot know for sure.
Speaker 2: Despite its abrupt ending, Confessions is a magnificent work. It
Speaker 2: is one of the earliest surviving queer autobiographies in French
Speaker 2: and provides incredible insight into the life of not only
Speaker 2: a large community, but a fascinating individual. She who had
Speaker 2: realized her dream and in her words, had triumphed over
Speaker 2: natural law. That's the story of Pauline or the Countess.
Speaker 2: But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
Speaker 2: a little bit more about where you can see her work.
Speaker 2: For today's epilogue, instead of an extra anecdote, I'd like
Speaker 2: to point listeners towards the Noble Blood, Instagram and Patreon,
Speaker 2: where we've uploaded the Countess's illustrations included in her autobiography,
Speaker 2: Confessions of a Parisian. While she considered her artistic talent
Speaker 2: only passable, her drawings really are quite good and portray
Speaker 2: the fashions of a subculture. But we're not otherwise well documented.
Speaker 2: There's illustrations of b of La Charles the Fee and
Speaker 2: a person called LaBelle, drawings of her lover, Gustave the Rifleman,
Speaker 2: and of course a self portrait of the Countess at
Speaker 2: her dressing table putting on her makeup. We spent so
Speaker 2: much time in this story telling the Countess's story in
Speaker 2: her own words, that it feels right to show you
Speaker 2: her story by her own hand as well. Noble Blood
Speaker 2: is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from
Speaker 2: Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz.
Speaker 2: Writers for Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Paul Jeffy,
Speaker 2: Natasha Laski, and me Dana Schwartz. The show is edited
Speaker 2: and produce used by Jesse Funk and Nomes Griffin, with
Speaker 2: supervising producer rima il Kaali and executive producers Aaron Manke,
Speaker 2: Trevor Young and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.