Joining me today, he reads books y'know, it's Chris Joel.

'Ey up.

Everybody's favourite Gary Brannan, Gary Brannan.

Here's a thought: earlier today, Noel Edmonds was entirely naked.

Just imagine.

And standing in for Matt Gray, the mouth from the south, Will Seaward.

Hello!

I'm not from Yorkshire.

Get him out(!)

In front of me I've got an article from Wikipedia, and these folks can't see it.

Every fact they get right is a point and a ding,

and there's a special prize for particularly good answers, which is:

Today, we are talking about Julie d'Aubig..

d'Aubig?...

D'Aubigny.

This is it.

Forty minutes of this, try and stay with us.

To be fair, I am not French.

And if...

No way.

Really?

If I were English, I'd pronounce this as der-orb-ig-ny,

but I think it's d'Aubigny.

D'Aubigny sounds fine.

Let's go with d'Aubigny, yes.

Better known as Mademoiselle Maupin.

Mopin.

Moppin.

I'm not French.

This is going to be…

It's a French article.

I'll be honest, it's downhill from here.

The whole thing's not in French, is it?

No, it's not.

M-A-U-P-I-N.

P-I-N?

Maupin.

Mau-pin.

Madame Maupin.

Was she a mistress of Louis XIV?

It's a long list, if it is.

Let's face it(!)

Born to Gaston d'Aubigny, a secretary to the Master of the Horse...

for King Louis XIV.

It's not close enough to have a point,

but she was certainly-

A secretary for a horse, would you believe?

[whinnies] "Take that down.

"Read it back?"

[whinnies] "Sir, I know it's very sad, but why the long face?"

You're absolutely right that she was a mistress, but to a Count.

So I'm going to give you a point for that.

To the... oh, god.

A mistress to-

French names.

Count d'Armagnac?

D'Armagnac.

Tom, what have you done to yourself?

It's not gone well. It's not gone well.

D'Armagnac. Go on.

Became a mistress by the age of 14, because pre-French Revolution.

But by that point, she had learned a lot of things,

by learning alongside the court pages.

Okay.

Is that an artful euphemism?

No, it's not.

Is it an artless euphemism?

No, her father trained the court pages.

So what did Julie learn alongside them?

Words.

I'll give you a point.

Numbers.

Yes, reading as well.

Standing very still.

Going "ooh" at the right moment, when the king comes in.

Yes, all that kind of stuff.

Polishing pointy bits of gold chairs.

There's a couple of other skills that a page would have in those days.

Carrying things.

Putting things down.

Something a little more violent.

Swording!

Yes.

Swording!

Which is an artless euphemism.

Swording.

She learned to fence, and then dressed as a boy from an early age.

She got involved with an assistant fencing master.

The police were then looking for him, to arrest him.

What had he done?

You know he's got a sword in his hand?

Yeah.

You know he waves it around in a violent fashion?

Mm.

Did he - perchance and taking a punt – did he stab someone?

Yes.

I'm looking for something specific here.

What might be a reason for stabbing someone, pre-Revolution?

Being slightly upset.

In which case, you would do what?

- Oh, a duel! - Stab 'em!

A duel! You'd fight a duel.

Yes.

The man she was involved with killed a man in an illegal duel,

so they fled the city, to Marseilles.

How did she earn her living on the way south?

Fighting for money.

Yes.

F***!

Giving fencing exhibitions, and also, singing.

She was a talented singer.

Singing and fencing at the same time would be a hell of an act, wouldn't it?

Opera.

Which I believe had been invented at that point.

And not only that; she joined an opera company.

Have a point.

For full operatic effect, did she die of tuberculosis at the end?

We've seen very different versions of Aida.

Made it to Marseilles.

Grew bored of her lover.

Not what I thought you were going to say.

Grew bored of this humdrum, dull life of opera singing and fencing.

Decides to become an accountant.

She ran away somewhere, and she ran away with someone.

To Nice.

With a man from Nice(!)

Right, you are wrong about Nice, and you are also wrong about a man.

With a woman!

Yes.

From a place that isn't Nice!

I'm not giving you a point for that, but it's Avignon.

So yes.

Oh, I was going to say Poitiers. So close.

But she was running away,

because the girl was sent away by her parents.

Where was the other girl sent to?

A convent?

Yes, absolutely right.

So she followed, entering the convent, and-

With swords.

Let's face it, you get in most places

if you turn up waving swords around, singing opera.

No, she went into the convent,

and then tried to free her lover from the convent.

This is a hell of an opera in itself, let's face it.

I like to think that everybody is singing all the way through this.

Yes, I do.

It's a full-on Rodgers and Hammerstein, this.

Could we talk through the plan, the scheme that she went through,

the heist that she pulled?

And it's quite a dark heist,

Did it involve swords?

to get her and her lover out of the convent.

Did the nuns have swords?

Er, not to my knowledge, although-

"Bloodbath at convent!"

But frankly, 'Sister Act 3', it's going to be absolutely amazing.

But then it should have been a very easy heist!

"Give me my ...ing lover, or I'll chop you all to pieces."

As negotiating tactics go, it's normally successful, I find.

Well, they were trying to cover their tracks.

What kind of scheme would you pull to do that?

You would pretend to be a doctor.

And you'd say, "This nun has a terrible disease!

"All of you will get the disease.

She must come with me immediately."

And the nuns would go, "Oh, a doctor has said so."

Then the doctor would also have a sword, and they…

Yes, and they were listening, because he was ♪ SINGING ♪!

And then we have the interval.

That's the way it goes.

Er, no.

She would pretend to be a policeman.

and she would say, "This nun has committed a terrible crime!

"She must come with me immediately."

But she was charged, in absentia,

for kidnapping, bodysnatching, and arson.

So based on that, what was the heist?

Oh, s***.

So you take a dead body, replace your lover with it,

then burn the whole place down to cover the tracks.

Damn!

What worries me is that your mind went straight to that.

Does this s*** count as a confession?

There's no DNA evidence, darling(!)

She escaped from that.

The affair lasted three months,

before the girl returned to her family, and then she left for Paris.

What happened in Paris?

And I'm deliberately phrasing that vaguely, because it's kind of a repeat.

Did she dig up the entire Père Lachaise Cemetery,

and burn Paris to the ground?

It's a repeat of something we've already talked about.

Something with swords?

Yes, definitely.

It's a sword thing, from this lady, I'm guessing.

Yes.

Catastrophic juggling accident.

Oh, did she challenge someone to a duel?

Yes, you're absolutely right.

She was insulted by a young nobleman, fought a duel with him,

put a blade through his shoulder.

Whoa.

Awesome.

Was he pinned to a tree in a comical-

No, it was just a vicious injury, Gary!

It wasn't a cartoon thing, where he was going,

"Well, this is inconvenient.

"I'm stapled to this tree now."

"I'll fight with the other arm!"

The cool thing about duels, duelling is really addictive.

Bismarck, I think, when he was a student,

he was also addicted to duelling.

He would walk-

Bit unfair though: six 14" guns against a man with a sword.

Well, no.

He'd walk around the street,

wearing two cudgels, six pistols and two swords

and a dressing gown.

And he'd wander around, going, "Yeah, fight me. Fight me. I'm Bismarck."

That's a very different Big Lebowski, isn't it?

Duelling, once it got later, was a really formal event.

- Yes. - What would they be wearing?

You're normally just in a shirt, aren't you, as I understand it?

No, we're talking, for this at least, much later.

This is German military, 19th century.

Oh, your full kit, no doubt.

Armour?

Well, you wouldn't be in armour.

They wouldn't have armour at that point.

You'd have a breastplate.

Well, wasn't the early German thing that you duelled, growing up,

or you fenced, growing up, to get good gnarly scars, didn't they?

Yes, you're absolutely right.

They would fight with a mask and a thick scarf, so you couldn't-

Ah, so that you could only get this bit.

You could only get that bit.

So it was essentially ritual scarification.

Awesome.

Scars were judged by Otto von Bismarck to be a sign of bravery.

Men's courage could be judged – and there's a quote here –

"by the number of scars on their cheeks".

Oh, cracking. I'm well away.

Did he specify which cheeks?

How would you duel?

I've just got this image of the sword....

"Oh, I see. I've got a very wrong idea about this."

I've just got two men backing up against each other,

with a sword, kind of, "Thunk. Thunk."

Only one end of the sword would go, "thunk."

The other one would go...

It's marvellous, the thought of Bismarck stood there in his dressing gown,

cudgels, hand grenades and cannons,

and someone else reverses bent over, round the corner.

"Well, we're doing it this way. Fair enough.

"I've never been beaten by a more worthy adversary."

At which point, it turns out the guy's got a cannon up there.

Er, yes, scars, for God's sake(!)

Scars were usually targeted to the left profile.

Okay.

Oh, look at you with your, "I'm handsome for 19th century warring Germany" face.

You know what?

I'll take that.