She did that. She was also so extra she had to be pardoned by the King of France… twice.

-The first time it was because of the aforementioned “breaking and entering a convent to flee with a novice while also putting a dead nun in her bed [that she had previously dug up from the nearby cemetery] and setting fire to the convent just in case”.

-The second time it was because she went to a Royal Ball and spent so much time flirting with a high society girl so overtly that three of her suitors challenged her to a duel. She fought the three of them at once and then went back in to continue flirting with the girl. She apparently hadn’t considered the small fact that duels were outlawed, and that maybe having three duels on the Royal Palace gardens wasn’t the best idea ever? Luckily for her Louis XIV found her hilarious and he pardoned her a second time.

-She also gained her living for a while by doing ‘singing and dueling demonstrations’. As in dueling and singing mocking songs about the guys she was dueling at the same time.

- Apparently, during her time at the Opera, she challenged to duels all the nobles who tried to molest the chorus girls. When she realized they went around saying “they had been mugged by a gang” to cover for the fact that they had been crushed by an opera singer, she started taking small objects from them and returning them in front of everyone, “you forgot this when I beat you up” style.

- When the woman she loved the most in her life died, she apparently retired from public life… to a convent. She died at 33 (37 according to other sources).



If you want more details about Julie d’Aubigny, aka Madame de Maupin, and you speak Spanish, there is this twitter thread that gives all the information above and more. Warning, though, it uses quite a lot of slang.

