Blogs

This story is dedicated to Comtesse Baharat Atlas, for the Opera section, and to Sophie Dalville, for the fencing section.

CHAPTER ONE :

It all begins under the reign of Louis XIV, in 17 ^th Century.

Louis de Lorraine- Harcourt, Comte dArmagnac, Comte de Charny, Comte de Brionne, Vicomte de Marsan, Chevalier of the Kings Order, Senechal of Burgundy, Governor of Anjou, is Grand Squire of France, Master of the Horse and Crown Equerry. He is one of the kingdoms four Grand Officers, and Louis XIV calls him Cousin, a privilege in itself!

Being in charge of the Royal Stables and horse breeding, his duties include, among many others, the education of young Nobles to become the Kings Pages.

Monsieur Gaston dAubigny (not a Noble), is the Comte dArmagnacs secretary, and the director of this Pages school, where they are taught manners of the Court, but mainly horse riding and fencing. Gaston dAubigny, a heavy drinker and addicted skirt chaser, has one daughter, Julie. She receives the same education as the Pages, quite unusual for a girl.

At age 15, she is by far the best fencer of them all and rides horses like a man. She has become a woman too, and her budding beauty, as well as her unusual skills and flamboyant personality, catch the eyes of the Comte dArmagnac. She becomes his mistress.

In order to hide this liaison behind a respectable faade, le Comte dArmagnac arranges the marriage of Julie with a certain Monsieur Maupin, an obscure civil servant, whom, by a strange occurrence (ahem...) is immediately summoned to service in a very distant part of the kingdom. Of course, Julie does not follow her husband, and stays with the Comte. He introduces her to Versailles, where she attends, at respectable distance according to her special status, to some ceremonies, and is invited to minor Salons.

In retrospect, we can guess she must have been in awe of the Courts splendour, and at the same time doubt that her fiery and free-wheeling temper could have been satisfied by such a strictly coded environment.

Eventually, the inevitable happens: le Comte and La Maupin become jaded, and estranged.

She stays in Paris, and being alone but married allows her more freedom than unmarried girls of her age. She lives a bohemian life between cabarets and salles darmes ( fencing arms rooms), where she challenges fencing amateurs and professionals, more than often winning. She turns wild sometimes, and is reported to have struck some shopkeepers, and quarrelled violently with young aristocrats in the streets. One day, in a salle darmes, she meets a professional fencer, a Beau named Srannes, and they fall in love.

Sharing their passion for each other and for fencing, they live at random like carefree youngsters for some time, until Srannes gets entangled in a bad case of a forbidden duel that caused someones death, under the porch of the Carmelites church.

The Paris Lieutenant- General of Police, the famous and most dreaded La Reynie, is determined to chase and find Srannes; the sentence for such an offence can be death or the galleys! The young couple, frightened, decides to flee Paris to Srannesbirth place, Marseilles, where he says he has friends and opportunities.

Arriving there, of course, friends turn their back on them, and opportunities fail to occur.

La Maupin has a grand idea: why not create a new cabaret act? She will dress as a man, and fence with Srannes, and during or between fights, they will act and sing songs! and this, they do...

Its an immediate success! People are stunned , not only by this novelty show, but also by this splendid and charismatic woman dressed as a man ,fencing like a champion, and singing beautifully like a girl...A mixed, ambiguous and disturbing feeling, between desire and scandal...Julie discovers that she enjoys causing such trouble and confusion in the minds and senses of men and women in the audience. When acting, she feels waves of fascination and hidden desire vibrating from the crowd unto her, and she enjoys so much being wrapped in them. From now on, she will sometimes wear mens clothes, in everyday life too, even walking in the streets in manly attire.

One day, someone in the audience suggests that she should attend the singing class at the Opera Academy of Marseilles. She is promptly auditioned by the Director, Pierre Gaultier, a friend of Lully, the great music composer.. She has no vocal technique yet, but an immense musical memory, an incredible stage presence and a dream voice of Bas-Dessus (as the mezzo-soprano voices were called in those days; some argue that La Maupins voice was rather a contralto voice, but alas! well never know. ) Gaultier falls under her spell. She enters the Academy of Music, and as she improves quickly, and learns the Repertoire at lightning speed, she is soon afterwards hired in the Opera House of Marseilles, under the stage name of Julie dAubigny, and begins her Opera Career.

( to be continued)

( pictures, from top to bottom: (1)a portrait of Mademoiselle de Maupin, probably by the end of her life

(2) Louis de Lorraine-Harcourt, Comte d'Armagnac, as a young man

(3) a "fancy" portrait of La Maupin in a fencing outfit, drawn by Aubrey Beardsley by the end of the 19th century.

1 novembre dellanno di nostro Signore 1779

A small pathetic discovery was made this day. I have been looking for my journal for nearly a week and I have solved the mystery.

Cece was found passed out in my wine cellar this morning after being absent for the same time as my journal.

Seems she had pilfered my journal and while reading its lurid contents fortified herself with my best wine. And worse in a drunken stupor decided to write down in my journal her visions of what she was seeing around her!

Something about a Danza Macabra, mass hysteria and haunted spirits taking over the island. When finally roused from her debauched state she ran screaming to the church, madly crossing herself. She threw open the church doors screaming, "Save me Lord I'm a good woman!" and sprawled on the cold church floor praying for 5 hours.

Poor loon has missed a glorious few days on the island. The weather temperate, surrounded by friends.

And, without her cooking, I havent eaten this well in months!

Yesterday, on a cold night, I was walking, all alone, over Versailles Marketplace. I knew I shouldn't walk alone, but I was not afraid, I believe the murderer, if it was human, I would defend myself. But the nature of the attacks we're not human, were demoniac. Dark night began to turn scary, I felt something was following me, and, then, the moon appear, and, under the moonlight, I see it.

A wolf. A very big wolg. Black hair. Evil yellow eyes.

I scream, and almost fade.

Then, he run away. Ignoring my sence, and following intuition, I follow the wolf. Then, he stop. He came closer to me, and, for my biggest surprise, the beast stand up, and I see him in all his size. The wolf was not big, a giant.

Suddenly, he ran away. I stay there, shaking. I try to run after the wolf, he went on direction to the palace, but when I try the way to the palace was block, i could't enter and warn to anyone.

And that was just the half of what happen that night, then, thing went more strange, supernatural...

Sua Eccellenza

Capacitatodd Elswit, Principe di Melioria

requests the pleasure of your company

for a Danza Macabra

on Saturday, the 30^th of October

at 2:30 pm SL time

Villa Versuviana

Melioria, Westphalia

Attire Haunted Masquerade

29 ottobre dellanno del Signore 1779

Please Lord watch over our home. Last night there was a tremendous storm which drove us all into shelter. The heavens opened up. Gales blew like none seen before in these parts. During the storm there was a tremendous clap of thunder followed by screams down by the dangerous rocks at the foot of the Villa. By the time we reached the spot all was silent and the clouds parted for the full moon. Before us lay the wreak of a sailing ship but one not seen before. It is the spirit of a ship crashed against our shores. And whoever was aboard has left ship or drowned at sea. But it is now empty. But there is a dreadful feeling of something on the island.

Since this sinister event many frightening visions have been seen on the island. Too hellish to be named. I have sent as many as I can of the citizens of Melioria aboard my ship the Fire Sprint and sent them toward the safety of the mainland.

The Villa sits empty of life decorated for the Danza Macabra today at 2:30 but I wonder who or what will attend.

27 ottobre dellanno del Signore 1779

With the blessings of God my ships have returned safely through what my men say were the worst seas they have seen. A storm so great and lumbering that it bares truth to the old tales of the allegiance between Titans and Aegaeon. They barely made it to safe harbour. This confirms my fears. Death comes on an ebb tide and we have lost many to Heaven this week for the tides of Melioria ebbed fiercely away. I thought at first was just a seasonal Borasco but from the look of the skies today something fearful is coming.

As I saw the walls of Palma, my heart was happy once again. We where home, and very glad about it. Though the Italians we stayed with where kindI missed our home, our families, our culture.

The pirates that had run us from the harbor would pay dearly for their treatchery to Majorca. I saw that in my fathers often kind gaze as he took in the tattered ports entry, broken and worn from its previous guest.

My brothers crystal eyes burned as well as he spoke with the captain who was guiding us in. The docks where quiet for the early morning, and I knew that then breathing in the silence that was the ocean, we had our work cut out for us.

But after a few days, the buzzing of the harbor is slowly regrowing. Kinsman return home with ships loaded, and hearts overflowing with glee. I am pleased by this and papa is too.

Merchants are also coming back, their wares as fantastico as ever. I cant help but watch and giggle as Aiden continues to march people into line as orderly as can be expected of an older brother. He is proudly standing by father as they address questions and towns people. Aiden, my darling brother, how you keep busy running too and fro between the mainlands and home. I often pray that the sea does not swallow as the air grows colder and the ocean, vicious...

But here I sit, as the workers begin for the harvest of Mondrago's vineyards outside fathers villa and pray once again, to see you home safely.

My publisher abuses my modesty and eventually forces me to give an account of the prestigious critical acclaim received by my first story. So, here are a few samples:

" A new star arose in the firmament of Literature! I wish I could write like him! ( it would spare me a lot of thinking, hehe...)"

VOLTAIRE ( in a letter to Mme du Chatelet- sadly, she threw it in her dustbin.)

" I hate to say anything good about these darn Nobles, but I must admit this de Verne is the best ( but I don't know in what.)"

ROUSSEAU ( mumbling as he had his beard shaven, his Barber reported me)

" De Verne's stories? Magnifique! Fantastic! Flabbergasting! only bad thing is I can't read English"

DIDEROT ( translated from the French by Lady Candace)

" If I read the SIDE STORIES? Yessum, Ma'am! Now, this de Verne...he's my boy! "

LOUIS XV ( from a private conversation with La Du Barry).

All I can say is: Thanks for the encouragements, guys, you have such a good taste.

If the book is published on paper, all this will look great on the back cover, won't it?