Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the myth,
Speaker 1: the legend, mister Max Williams, are you our super producer
Speaker 1: and indeed, Noel part time werewolf? My name is Ben Bullen.
Speaker 2: Part time. I guess everyone's a part time Werewolf's the right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not a werewolf all the time. Funny story, dude,
Speaker 1: I thought it was so badass when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I thought I have my future career figured out. I
Speaker 1: was going to be the first werewolf astronaut on.
Speaker 2: Because that is a really cool hodgepodge of stuff that
Speaker 2: kids like.
Speaker 1: Because then you're always a werewolf, right if the four.
Speaker 3: It's a problem when you transform, you're gonna rip through
Speaker 3: your spacesuit and then freeze to death and or implode
Speaker 3: in the cold vacuum of space. I will say thank
Speaker 3: lets you wear wolf power save you from that, which
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how that works. I will say thank
Speaker 3: you to the good folks at NASA who did write
Speaker 3: a response to a young No, they didn't yet was
Speaker 3: it werewolves aren't real?
Speaker 2: Bro go to the school.
Speaker 1: It was very kind. I think I think my mom
Speaker 1: framed it, but.
Speaker 4: I loved it.
Speaker 3: Though NASA had recalled you bro, I don't know why
Speaker 3: that's the voice that I say.
Speaker 2: NASA's response, it'd.
Speaker 1: Be badass and speaking I.
Speaker 5: Keep saying that word. It's almost like wanting at something.
Speaker 5: It's like we're doing a segue. We are immensely fortunate,
Speaker 5: fellow ridiculous historians, to be talking about generally badass things. Also,
Speaker 5: we just found out we can say ass on the
Speaker 5: air right without having to beep.
Speaker 2: It absolutely, so we can't then, you know what, what
Speaker 2: is it all for?
Speaker 1: So so we are no. We are joined with a guest,
Speaker 1: a friend of the show, a person we have followed
Speaker 1: for quite some time, separately and together, the creator of
Speaker 1: bad Ass of the Week, Ben Thompson born in Noddingly, Yorkshire,
Speaker 1: England in eighteen forty three.
Speaker 2: That's the one, right, I was.
Speaker 4: So tempted to do like a British accent, which I
Speaker 4: can't do, and so I was like, very hello, come
Speaker 4: in with that.
Speaker 3: But by the way, Ben Thompson, aren't you sick of
Speaker 3: these Brits sounding like better English speakers than we do?
Speaker 3: Television shows, and then when you find out that there
Speaker 3: Britsy like feel betrayed, like the blige to you all
Speaker 3: the stage.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah man, yeah yeah, You're like you're like, what
Speaker 4: was this? Like Superman and Batman, like Spider Man, they're
Speaker 4: all British.
Speaker 2: Now it doesn't.
Speaker 4: Writing is acting in our own accent.
Speaker 2: Right on American? I would say, you know.
Speaker 4: They asked, oh, man, whose house I'm blanking? Has the
Speaker 4: name right now?
Speaker 1: Betterfry and Laurie about.
Speaker 4: Asking about acting for house, and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: acting with an American accent is kind of like trying
Speaker 4: to act with marbles in your mouth.
Speaker 1: It's like great, it's also amazing jazz pianos. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: so you know, Yeah, he is in his own right.
Speaker 1: He is, I guess a badass. Well let's give him
Speaker 1: his flowers. Then you created Badass of the Week in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, and that's how Nolan and I
Speaker 1: originally followed you. You know, we we love your work,
Speaker 1: and you have appeared on previous episode of Ridiculous History.
Speaker 4: Kind of wear wolf related talking about werewolves. Yeah, this
Speaker 4: is the second time I've heard the astronaut werewolf story.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, yeah, I always think of you, man, I
Speaker 1: always think of you.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, so this yeah, April two thousand and four,
Speaker 4: So this is uh, this month is the twenty year,
Speaker 4: twenty year anniversary of the website. It's crazy, twenty years wild, right?
Speaker 4: Do you feel old, sir all the time? Every time
Speaker 4: I try to get out of bed?
Speaker 1: Jeez? Well we have we have asked you to join
Speaker 1: us again because you always have an amazing investigation of
Speaker 1: things that we call ridiculous history but also super badass stuff.
Speaker 1: And in our previous episode, which everyone should check out
Speaker 1: fast forward through the werewolf story.
Speaker 4: Uh, we had a different take on it last time,
Speaker 4: so it was exact different. It was a it was
Speaker 4: an exciting twist to hear that NASA had written you
Speaker 4: back that that was new information they did called did
Speaker 4: you brow called you bro?
Speaker 1: Yes, we'll check the letter while we're checking the receipts.
Speaker 1: Ben tell us if you could tell Noel Max and
Speaker 1: all of us ridiculous historians about Julie.
Speaker 4: Okay, So last time I was here, I was talking
Speaker 4: about I talked about the kung fu werewolf, right Ti
Speaker 4: Jin He's you know. The story was that he was
Speaker 4: like a shaolin master who had some sort of condition
Speaker 4: where he grew hair like everywhere, and he looked like
Speaker 4: a were wolf. And so the you know, the way
Speaker 4: that he's described sometimes is as the Kung Fu were wolf.
Speaker 4: That story was like kind of a mess in terms
Speaker 4: of being able to you know, place any of this
Speaker 4: stuff historically. It's it's a lot of myth and legend
Speaker 4: around him. We're pretty sure he was a real guy,
Speaker 4: but you know, a lot of the I we wanted
Speaker 4: to tell, like the we told the action movie version
Speaker 4: of his life, but you know, it was kind of
Speaker 4: hard to pin down exact details, even down to like,
Speaker 4: you know, when he was born kind of thing. Julie
Speaker 4: dobi Is is a bit of a different story here.
Speaker 4: So she is, you know, she's not the Kung Fu werewolf.
Speaker 4: She is a bisexual opera singing sword fighter from seventeenth
Speaker 4: century France. Yes, and all of those things, all of
Speaker 4: these things are great. Yes, she she killed her wounded
Speaker 4: at least ten men in duels. She performed as like
Speaker 4: the lead contralto for the Paris or Paris Opera, which
Speaker 4: was like the biggest opera in the world at the time,
Speaker 4: and all.
Speaker 3: The phone really quick. I'm just sorry to bother an interrupt,
Speaker 3: but a contralto. I have a pretty decent opera background,
Speaker 3: both of my parents sang. I don't think I fully
Speaker 3: can wrap my head around what vocal range a contralto is.
Speaker 4: I didn't know either, because I have no opera background whatsoever.
Speaker 4: But apparently it's deep.
Speaker 2: It's deep. It's almost like a like a female baritone.
Speaker 4: Or something like that. Okay, something like that.
Speaker 2: Sorry, my opera brain just pinged at that one. I'm like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: please carry on with you.
Speaker 4: Yes, so deep deep, singing deep with singing voice, probably
Speaker 4: doing singing badass stuff. Right. She's she will act as
Speaker 4: she will perform as characters like media and all of
Speaker 4: these kinds of badass women from mythology as well, which
Speaker 4: is cool and uh. She did also wants the kind
Speaker 4: of the hook for hers that she wants. Took holy
Speaker 4: orders so that she could sneak into a convent and
Speaker 4: have sex with a nun.
Speaker 1: And holy orders, Holy orders, by the way, are the
Speaker 1: thing in monastic society and gunneries where you have to say,
Speaker 1: I give my life to God. I will just be
Speaker 1: what like a bride of Jesus Christ in this situation.
Speaker 1: And then she did this on purpose, right.
Speaker 4: She became a nun in order to sneak into a
Speaker 4: convent and because her girlfriend had been sent to a nunnery,
Speaker 4: so she broke in that way.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people are non consensually sent to
Speaker 1: nunner ees.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, time because they'd shamed the family or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 4: Right, we'll get to it.
Speaker 1: Have you seen the.
Speaker 2: Paul Verhoven movie Benedetta No I do?
Speaker 4: I am a Paul Verehoven generally a Paul Verehoven fan,
Speaker 4: but I have never.
Speaker 3: Seen its relatively recent and it is a intensely wild,
Speaker 3: highly sexual nun story about like this badass nun who
Speaker 3: basically believes that she's being she is Jesus's kind of
Speaker 3: concubine basically, and then she has these visions. But there's
Speaker 3: also a lot of bisexual, kind of like lesbian stuff
Speaker 3: that that goes on in it.
Speaker 2: And it's a very heavily sacrilegious film.
Speaker 3: But it is a wild ride. And what you're describing
Speaker 3: here kind of reminds me of some things in that.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to picture this through the lens of starship
Speaker 4: troopers and RoboCop.
Speaker 2: Very weird art house guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no, I know anyone over they started.
Speaker 1: There is a RoboCop cameo clear in one of the yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: But the thing with her versus Tyjan is a lot
Speaker 4: of her stuff is we can document it right there
Speaker 4: as there are some details. After she became kind of
Speaker 4: a legendary figure in France, so there were a lot
Speaker 4: of after her death in like, you know, the late
Speaker 4: seventeenth century, there started to be a lot of like
Speaker 4: basically erotic fan fiction novels written about her that elaborate
Speaker 4: on her story a bit. But we're going to try
Speaker 4: to distill out that that information and try to stick
Speaker 4: to the story, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 1: So we're talking, we're talking then sixteen hundreds, right.
Speaker 4: Sixteen hundreds. Yeah, she's born in sixteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: Okay, sixteen seventy three. And what were the circumstances of
Speaker 1: her you know, upbringing, where she was she royalty? Was
Speaker 1: she impoverished? Where does where does Julie come from?
Speaker 4: Okay, so let's get into her backstory. I do want
Speaker 4: to say one quote about her before we get going.
Speaker 4: There was a French writer named fel Field Guiltier, and
Speaker 4: he described her as beautiful, deadly, valiant, and supremely unchased,
Speaker 4: which I love, chased, unshased, supremely soxpremelychased.
Speaker 3: This person already has my heart. I'm absolutely crushing on Julie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is going to be. This is going to
Speaker 4: be that Paul Verehoven movie mixed with I don't know,
Speaker 4: maybe the Three Musketeers with uh, with Sue Curry absolutely.
Speaker 2: Like Brotherhood of the Wolf or something. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's go, all.
Speaker 4: Right, let's go. So she is born in sixteen seventy three.
Speaker 4: She is not royalty, but her father is a guy
Speaker 4: named Gaston Dauby Gaston like Beauty and the Beast.
Speaker 1: Uh, we were all thinking it.
Speaker 4: Yep. Yeah, he was the Grand Squire of France, which
Speaker 4: means that he's the guy that helped train horses for
Speaker 4: Louis the fourteenth, the son king. So this is what
Speaker 4: the time period were, think like Versailles three. I think
Speaker 4: Three Musketeers think that kind of that kind of time period.
Speaker 3: Everyone intensely smelly. Apparently Louis the fourteenth was very averse
Speaker 3: to bathing.
Speaker 4: Ever, yeah, huh, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: Baths his entire life, that's right. Wow, and he probably
Speaker 3: just covered himself in oils and Linien Mass and we
Speaker 3: did an episode about soap and that was one of
Speaker 3: the things where he was convinced that bathing is how
Speaker 3: you got sick and died.
Speaker 1: And his baths, those three baths, most of them were
Speaker 1: not consensual. Yeah, Cat, you know right, Just so stream
Speaker 1: and I think our pal A. J. Jacobs pointed this
Speaker 1: out as well. The past smelled different and not in.
Speaker 2: A good way.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 3: Even when we were talking to Morocco recently, I don't
Speaker 3: remember exactly how it came up, and he's like, you know,
Speaker 3: back in the seventies, everyone just kind of smelled.
Speaker 2: Like bo all the time. So we've come a long way.
Speaker 3: Imagine if that was the late seventies, imagine what the
Speaker 3: sixteen hundred months have been. Like, I'm sorry, we're just
Speaker 3: trying to paint a picture here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I remember. There was a story about the
Speaker 4: Anglo Saxons when they didn't like the Vikings, and one
Speaker 4: of the things that they complained about with the Vikings
Speaker 4: was that the Vikings would bathe once a week. So
Speaker 4: the Anglo Saxon women liked them more than they liked
Speaker 4: the Anglo Saxon men.
Speaker 3: They were also the guys and beefcake af it was
Speaker 3: their culture war.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these guys bathed once a week and they put
Speaker 4: butter in their hair to make it kind of shiny
Speaker 4: and look nice.
Speaker 2: Locks. I mean, break signed me up.
Speaker 4: I mean I'd be kind of grumpy. I think if
Speaker 4: like an army of Chris Hemsworth showed up and started
Speaker 4: and started living in my neighborhood, you guy's gotta go.
Speaker 4: You gotta get them.
Speaker 1: We know how things worked out for the French monarchy overall,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of like every time we examine a
Speaker 1: story in the United States right before the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: they didn't see a revolution on the way. This is
Speaker 1: pre revolution. The era of King Louis is an era
Speaker 1: of absolute monarchy, right.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, so this is Louis the fourteenth. He is,
Speaker 4: like he is Francis the dominant superpower in the world
Speaker 4: right now, right, this is an absolute monarchy. They are
Speaker 4: a world superpower and they will continue to be for
Speaker 4: a while. The French Revolution isn't going to be for
Speaker 4: at least another one hundred years, right, it's going to
Speaker 4: be you know, I think Louis the sixteenth is the
Speaker 4: one that is overseeing that. So fourteenth, this is like
Speaker 4: a golden age of French history.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, sixteen pushed it too far. Fourteen five just
Speaker 1: a smelly guy.
Speaker 4: Just such a weird thing to think about, because when
Speaker 4: you picture him, you know, I always you picture he
Speaker 4: like all these portraits of him and stuff. He's always
Speaker 4: very elaborately dressed. You always picture him with like five servants,
Speaker 4: like putting cloaks on him and whatever. But I never
Speaker 4: bade I don't know that. I just learned that today.
Speaker 1: Well three times, three times you bathe, okay, but not
Speaker 1: all all those baths were consensual. Yeah, So if we
Speaker 1: go back, as he said, there's this halcyon era France,
Speaker 1: the global superpower, an absolute monarchy. The king is for
Speaker 1: most people in Western Europe, the king is the closest
Speaker 1: thing to God right on earth.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean literally, if you insult him, it is
Speaker 4: like insulting God right like he is he is. I mean,
Speaker 4: the deal with with the absolute monarchy was that, like,
Speaker 4: God wants me to rule over you, and if you
Speaker 4: have a problem with that, you have a problem with God.
Speaker 4: And this is at a time when everybody is extremely
Speaker 4: religious and extremely like you know, devoted to not getting
Speaker 4: their heads cut off by crazy kings.
Speaker 1: I'm still into that. I am super into I don't.
Speaker 1: I think my head and my neck get along really well.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, guys. I'd like to keep
Speaker 1: that combo going.
Speaker 3: Although I am curious if you do, in fact keep
Speaker 3: seeing the world for a few minutes from like a
Speaker 3: rolling type viewpoints.
Speaker 4: I've heard that so when they like when they would
Speaker 4: decapitate with the guillotine and like hold grab grabbed the
Speaker 4: head by the hair and hold it up in front
Speaker 4: of the crowd, and the crowd was cheering. I you know,
Speaker 4: there is some evidence that you can continue to see
Speaker 4: for a few moments after your head is severed.
Speaker 3: I mean, in some particularly macabre like representations of that
Speaker 3: in film, you do even see the face kind of
Speaker 3: eyes move still and like the face kind of twitchy.
Speaker 4: I think it's right.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but yeah, not worth it just to
Speaker 2: find out.
Speaker 3: If around and find out, But it is something I
Speaker 3: think about often, perhaps weirdly often.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're what a weird disclaimer? Uh, I'm glad we
Speaker 1: made it. No, folks, don't cut people's head off.
Speaker 2: Don't do it.
Speaker 1: I know everybody gets in situations. But the best way
Speaker 1: to be an executioner. The best way to handle a
Speaker 1: guillotine is not to use one.
Speaker 2: Uh, the French don't even use them anymore.
Speaker 1: We'll see. So so okay, So Julie's father.
Speaker 4: Is yes, so Gaston Domi. He is the secretary to
Speaker 4: the Grand Squire of France. Now, secretary, you have certain
Speaker 4: ideas of what that means. But for this guy, he's
Speaker 4: kind of like the assistant. He was not a nobleman,
Speaker 4: but he's kind of juiced in with the nobles. His
Speaker 4: job is to train aristocrats to ride horses and sword fight.
Speaker 4: So that's like a thing that all the great courtiers
Speaker 4: need to know, like the noble family is, they need
Speaker 4: to train their kids that. So this is what. He's
Speaker 4: a fighting instructor, and he's a horseback riding instructor another
Speaker 4: whatever other things that were considered mainly at the time,
Speaker 4: which I think dancing is one of them, right, I
Speaker 4: think he was also a dance instructor.
Speaker 1: What this guy, This guy rides horses, he breaks dances,
Speaker 1: Are you kidding? Okay?
Speaker 4: French love the pop and lock, right, They're all about
Speaker 4: that still, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, like the street performers, the robot kind of situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it all stems from mime, which I
Speaker 3: believe is a is a is a treasured French art form.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're never gonna live that mime thing down. Are they.
Speaker 2: Ful of mimes?
Speaker 3: I think it's a really delightful uh skill set. Like
Speaker 3: people are so mean to mimes. Yeah, well the blows
Speaker 3: are way weirder.
Speaker 1: The mimes have never had a chance to respond in
Speaker 1: an interview.
Speaker 3: It's funny, Ben, because they're always stuck in a box.
Speaker 3: You know, I can't get out. How do I get
Speaker 3: out of this part?
Speaker 1: So? Okay, so is this guy? So this guy is
Speaker 1: basically what we would call not royalty but pretty well
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's he's doing good. Like he's not he
Speaker 4: doesn't have the bloodline, but he's friends with all these
Speaker 4: guys and you know, and he's training. He's training not
Speaker 4: only aristocrats, he's training members of the King's personal bodyguard, right, uh,
Speaker 4: riding horses, fighting, you know? There is he like?
Speaker 1: Is he like that thing in military films where there's
Speaker 1: a hard nosed non commissioned officer, like a sergeant level
Speaker 1: kind of guy.
Speaker 4: Something like that. I mean, I honestly just picture Gaston
Speaker 4: from Beauty and the beasts, just like whipping a bunch
Speaker 4: of eggs, whipping a bunch of friends aristocrats into shape.
Speaker 4: Like I kind of picture him in that same vein
Speaker 4: as Gaston from the from the right. Yes. Yeah, But
Speaker 4: one thing that he does is, uh he trains his daughter.
Speaker 4: And he has a daughter, this is only his child,
Speaker 4: and he trains her in the same the same arts, right,
Speaker 4: this is what he does. He trains swordfighting, he trains
Speaker 4: horseback riding. She could. She's with me, like, we're gonna,
Speaker 4: We're gonna do this together. These are skills that, in
Speaker 4: sixteen seventy three are not often taught to women. But
Speaker 4: Julie picks it up right away. That's going pretty well.
Speaker 4: She's kind of one of the guys. She's fighting, she's
Speaker 4: riding horseback, all this stuff. But then around the time
Speaker 4: she's like sixteen, she starts having an affair with her
Speaker 4: dad's boss, the Count de Armagac, the Grand Squire of France,
Speaker 4: and so Gueston's like, okay, that's a bit of a
Speaker 4: problem for me.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: So he does he does what what you would do
Speaker 4: if you were a dad in this situation in seventeenth
Speaker 4: century France. He marries her off to calm her down.
Speaker 4: He marries her to a nice older French clerk named
Speaker 4: Monsieur Mopin, and he was like, okay, well you're you're
Speaker 4: married to Monsieur Mopan. Now you go live with him.
Speaker 4: That should that should calm him everything down.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, Julia doesn't seem like the type
Speaker 2: to settle down.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, she uh, she was went to his house.
Speaker 4: She could have the noble woman's life now because she
Speaker 4: was married into nobility. There's like a little manner outside
Speaker 4: of Paris, Julie Dobie, she could like, you know, just
Speaker 4: settle down, relax. This is not her and we are
Speaker 4: gonna see her character very soon. But she is not
Speaker 4: interested in any of this stuff.
Speaker 1: She is she is.
Speaker 4: Fierce, determined, strong, good at fighting, good at horseback riding,
Speaker 4: better than the other boys. And she's not going to
Speaker 4: just kind of settle down and marry this kind of
Speaker 4: I just picture this kind of boring older French clerk.
Speaker 4: He will not be in the story any longer. She
Speaker 4: leaves and she a French clerk. Yeah, that is the
Speaker 4: end of that is the end of Monsieur Pan's participation.
Speaker 1: Is this guy's like a milk toast sort of dude,
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, is he out of town a lot?
Speaker 1: Is that what happens?
Speaker 4: No, she's out of town a lot. She bails, she
Speaker 4: runs away, right, she leaves him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's focus on her. She's way more interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's he's Yeah, milk toast is a great,
Speaker 4: great word for him. She takes off, and she will
Speaker 4: refer to herself as La Monpin, like, you know, Madame Monpin,
Speaker 4: the just because I think sometimes like being a married
Speaker 4: woman allows her to get away with some things that
Speaker 4: she might not have been able to.
Speaker 3: Being connected with nobility in that way probably got you
Speaker 3: in some doors, right, agency in a patriarchy as well, right.
Speaker 4: Exactly right. So she takes off, she keeps the name,
Speaker 4: and that's about it. She starts sleeping with a wandering
Speaker 4: sword fighter named Saran and starts wandering, uh, wondering the
Speaker 4: Marseille region, traveling.
Speaker 1: With the wanderings, Ben hold On. A wandering sword fighter.
Speaker 3: Is that kind of like a mercenary sort of a
Speaker 3: cell sword or he is.
Speaker 2: Looking for a fight.
Speaker 3: He's just always out there, like just grumpily wandering around
Speaker 3: looking for someone to cross blades with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, so this will be a thing. I mean
Speaker 4: we see this in feudal Japan as well. So like
Speaker 4: one thing, like when we were talking about musashi and stuff. Right,
Speaker 4: so one of the things that's happening is, you know,
Speaker 4: France at this time is the dominant power in Europe.
Speaker 4: They have huge swaths of land. They're not at a
Speaker 4: war right now. So there's a lot of guys who
Speaker 4: are good at fighting with nothing to do. So what
Speaker 4: they do is they travel around and they fight each other.
Speaker 4: But but you were talking about the people who dance
Speaker 4: in public squares. These guys would put on fighting demonstrations
Speaker 4: in public squares, non lethal like you know tuanted rape.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you fight this other guy. People bet money
Speaker 4: on it or you put in money. Yeah, exactly right,
Speaker 4: you put in money. They put in money like like
Speaker 4: traveling boxing match right, Like, uh.
Speaker 2: So they're cool if you could bet on the joust
Speaker 2: at the ren fair.
Speaker 3: Got a feeling it's a little bit of a predetermined
Speaker 3: outcome in those situations.
Speaker 1: So hey, you can bet on anything that's true.
Speaker 2: I like to bet on myself.
Speaker 1: I like to bet. I like to bet that this
Speaker 1: story is going to some unexpected places. But Ben, every
Speaker 1: time you bring us a badass. It is so cinematic, right,
Speaker 1: and as you said, this is different from our Japanese
Speaker 1: werewolf taijin because there is documentation. So up to this
Speaker 1: point we know this, Uh, we know that Mopan, Madame Mopan,
Speaker 1: has taken up with a wandering swordsman. That's true. It's
Speaker 1: not a euphemism, to be clear, right, to be a
Speaker 1: funny one. But but okay, so she's out with this
Speaker 1: guy busking.
Speaker 4: Busking, and she starts participating, right, So that's the that's
Speaker 4: the what ends up happening with her. She's traveling, puts
Speaker 4: on these fighting demonstrations, and she's like, she puts them
Speaker 4: on with him, so they'll fight together. They'll fight each other,
Speaker 4: they'll fight anybody from the crowd. Come on up here,
Speaker 4: we've got an I'll bet whatever that I can beat
Speaker 4: you in a sword fight.
Speaker 2: All the dudes were like convinced they could take out
Speaker 2: this a woman.
Speaker 4: Yeah I can, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: They're like a woman with a sword, scandalous.
Speaker 4: Yes, And so well that is going okay, they're making money, right,
Speaker 4: It's it's interesting, right, it's more interesting than the typical
Speaker 4: public fighting demonstration, like, oh, this is a woman, she's
Speaker 4: wearing pants. What is this strussed like a man, but
Speaker 4: it's a woman what and so uh okay, yeah, so
Speaker 4: they uh, they put on these fighting demonstrations and that's
Speaker 4: going pretty well, except at some point Saran pisses somebody off,
Speaker 4: probably on account of one of these demonstrations. They end
Speaker 4: up fighting. Uh, he ends up fighting a real duel
Speaker 4: with the guy behind a monastery, and Sarn kills the
Speaker 4: guy with the sword in the sword fight. Okay, so yeah,
Speaker 4: that's bad, but it's not necessarily the murder. It's not
Speaker 4: a murder charge because it's it was it was a
Speaker 4: fair duel. The problem is that at this point dueling
Speaker 4: is illegal in France. Was supposed to duel, okay, and
Speaker 4: you think about like the Musketeers. Everybody's duel. Everybody's sword
Speaker 4: fighting all the time. But and it was common, right,
Speaker 4: you have all these warriors with nothing, no war to fight,
Speaker 4: so they're all fighting each other. Everybody's defending each other's
Speaker 4: honor and all of that stuff, slapping with the white gloves.
Speaker 4: But dueling was made illegal by Louis the fourteenth because
Speaker 4: he was tired of all these French aristocrats killing each
Speaker 4: other behind monasteries. He was like, we're wasting a lot
Speaker 4: of good guys here with this stuff. Can we please
Speaker 4: stop dueling?
Speaker 1: What would economists call it a diminishing return?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, you know, I'd rather have this guy available
Speaker 4: if I need him for a war than have him
Speaker 4: die trying to defend his stupid honor over Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 4: so maybe this is not such a bad thing for Surround,
Speaker 4: except that Surround actually ends up getting a warrant out
Speaker 4: for his arrest. And this is actually like a lot
Speaker 4: of people, even though dueling was outlawed, a lot of
Speaker 4: people were still dueling. So surrounds a little surprised until
Speaker 4: he realizes that the warrant for his arrest was signed
Speaker 4: by the Conte Armagnac, the Grand Squire of France, Julie
Speaker 4: sex Lover.
Speaker 1: Whoa, and at the time that was totally legal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he wasn't wanted for murder. He was wanted for
Speaker 4: illegal dueling. Oh wow, oh man, Yeah, and so they
Speaker 4: were going to arrest him, So him and Mopann have
Speaker 4: to go on the run together. Of course romantic, yes,
Speaker 4: So they keep traveling around putting on sword fighting exhibitions,
Speaker 4: but they've got to like move every couple of days,
Speaker 4: put it on a different place because they got to
Speaker 4: make money and stuff. But yeah, and eventually, like Julie
Speaker 4: starts becoming a bit of an attraction because, like I said,
Speaker 4: she's a singer and she eventually starts singing while she's
Speaker 4: doing the sword fighting.
Speaker 2: Like talking, making out of little songs on the fly.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, like freestyle rapping like rap battle sword fight. Right.
Speaker 4: So picture like like a like a bar like Gaston
Speaker 4: would hang out at, like wood paneled, you know, rowdy
Speaker 4: people drinking all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Out of giant mugs, yes.
Speaker 4: Slashing beer all over the floor. And then a woman
Speaker 4: in man's clothing gets on the stage with a sword
Speaker 4: and the big boots, the big hat, the musketeer kind
Speaker 4: of hat, dressed like the Count of Money, Cristo or something,
Speaker 4: and she starts singing like operatic contralto deep voice, and
Speaker 4: she's holding the sword and she's challenging people in the
Speaker 4: crowd to come up and fight her.
Speaker 2: And like, hey, hoot, I want to be there. I'm
Speaker 2: picture to see this right, oh wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah. People will throw money on the stage because they're
Speaker 4: they're happy with the show, or people will throw money
Speaker 4: on the stage to be like you know, this is
Speaker 4: what I'm going to bet that I can beat you
Speaker 4: in a sword fight, right, and she will get up
Speaker 4: there and the guy, you know, and this is like,
Speaker 4: this is seventeenth century France, Like everybody knows how to
Speaker 4: sword fight here. It's not like a random weird thing
Speaker 4: that like this is this is everybody here knows how
Speaker 4: to fight with the sword, because that's all you got, right,
Speaker 4: you have a sword and you have one of those
Speaker 4: flintlock one shot pistols.
Speaker 1: Right right, which is what is that going to do?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: That's like your opener or your closer, right, Yeah, everybody's.
Speaker 4: Trained in how to fight with the sword. So these
Speaker 4: guys get up on the stage and she starts kind
Speaker 4: of like dueling with them and singing about them, making
Speaker 4: fun of them and how they're dressed and how bad
Speaker 4: they are at sword fighting.
Speaker 1: She's doing an eight mile exactly.
Speaker 2: I was really half joking when I said that, but.
Speaker 4: This is totally true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 4: She would try to time the disarm with the song,
Speaker 4: so like kind of like end with the note and
Speaker 4: and the disarm at once.
Speaker 1: So so she's like she's playing with them a little bit.
Speaker 1: She's parrying maybe. Yeah, she gets to her like her
Speaker 1: closing note.
Speaker 3: That's the thing, right, In order to prolong it with
Speaker 3: that level of precision, you have to be like a
Speaker 3: cat playing with a mouse that's half dead, you know,
Speaker 3: or just sort of like going with it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I picture like neo at the end of the matrix. Right, Like.
Speaker 3: A particular word comes to mind already, y'all, and I
Speaker 3: think you know what it is. It's it's badass. But please, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know it's just gonna get better.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay. Well, she's doing all this and she's kind
Speaker 4: of gaining the celebrity. And one interesting thing that's happening
Speaker 4: for her is after these demonstrations, you know, everybody likes
Speaker 4: her and all the men are fawning over her or
Speaker 4: whatever because she's very beautiful. She has these this auburn hair,
Speaker 4: these piercing blue eyes. She's you know, very attractive to everybody.
Speaker 4: But there are women at these bars that come up
Speaker 4: to her and like they almost they think some like
Speaker 4: she's dressed like a man. This is doing some weird
Speaker 4: things for them, And so she starts getting a lot
Speaker 4: of attention from women, and she realized that she really
Speaker 4: likes it, which is.
Speaker 1: Forgive me, forgive me, sir, you are the handsomest man
Speaker 1: I've ever seen.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So she had been sort of by curious up to
Speaker 3: this point, but now she's getting some legitimate attention and
Speaker 3: she's starting to realize that maybe this is sort of
Speaker 3: her She likes it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is also illegal, like dueling. This is it's
Speaker 4: also illegal to take up with a woman if you
Speaker 4: are a woman in France at this time, but.
Speaker 2: But not necessarily a man with a man, right or no?
Speaker 2: Is that also illegal?
Speaker 4: I think that's also illegal.
Speaker 1: Unless you are an aristocrat, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like alcohol in Saudi Arabia now.
Speaker 4: Right, Yes, nobody sees you but the bartender.
Speaker 1: It's fine, right, So okay, so this this life as
Speaker 1: essentially a dangerous notable performer with fans. She is getting
Speaker 1: a lot of notoriety, right, it's sort of a Maverick character.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, she is kind of you know, becoming one
Speaker 4: of the most popular of these people who do this. Now,
Speaker 4: Mopan has a bit of a problem. So it's sixteen
Speaker 4: ninety three now and Sarahan is still wanted, so they
Speaker 4: still got to kind of pick up and move every
Speaker 4: couple of days. He's still wanted for dueling, and at
Speaker 4: this point they've up the charge to murder because they
Speaker 4: can't for their annoyed that he's leaving, they can't find him.
Speaker 4: And also the other problem is that my Pan's getting
Speaker 4: attention from women. She likes it. Saran is a wanted
Speaker 4: murderer and she most importantly, she has gotten to the
Speaker 4: point where she can beat him at sword fighting whenever
Speaker 4: she wants. So this guy has outlived his usefulness. He's gone.
Speaker 1: She ditches him, heartbreaker. How are you not making films? Bed,
Speaker 1: because I am like seeing the structural acts right here.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and zero shades you professionally been But how
Speaker 3: has this not already been made into a film?
Speaker 2: It's just got all of the beats, right.
Speaker 4: That's the thing. So this is a popular story in France,
Speaker 4: and like I said, like you know, at the beginning,
Speaker 4: this was her story. They made operas about it, they've
Speaker 4: made plays about it all in French. They've written, like
Speaker 4: I said, erotic novels like fan fiction basically about her. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 4: she comes to this, you know, adventuring like female James Bond.
Speaker 4: There's a series of books written about her, you know,
Speaker 4: after her death. But it's all in French. It's a
Speaker 4: popular story, but it's just not There's not much about
Speaker 4: it in English, and I feel like there should be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed to agree.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I can't explain why nobody has paid
Speaker 4: me money to write this movie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, luckily for us, this is ridiculous history. And my
Speaker 1: pals Noel Max and I are our start a little
Speaker 1: thing we call the Ridiculous Cinematic Universe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first. No one's ever attempted anything like this.
Speaker 1: But ever, ever, this is one hundred percent originally so
Speaker 1: so okay, there's this moment though which which we're at
Speaker 1: here kind of a fulcrum and it is such a
Speaker 1: such a troupe in stories. Right, you're talking about the
Speaker 1: student becoming teacher.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, she had learned from her dad and then
Speaker 4: she had learned from Saran and now she beats him,
Speaker 4: she leaves him and she starts sleeping.
Speaker 1: Hey wait wait, wait, so she like she she sword
Speaker 1: fights with him. They have the duel. Let's picture it.
Speaker 4: This is exactly how I would write this, right, and
Speaker 4: if we were going to do the cinematic universe version
Speaker 4: of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, So Ben set the scene
Speaker 1: as you see it, because I'm seeing like, is it
Speaker 1: is it on a cliff, you.
Speaker 2: Know, real set piece kind of vibe, you.
Speaker 4: Know, yeah, yeah, the big duel. He's like, you know,
Speaker 4: I taught you everything, you know? And she they're fighting
Speaker 4: and she puts him, she has to defeat him in
Speaker 4: sword fighting and then kind of walk away like well.
Speaker 3: Of course it ends with her having the blade to
Speaker 3: his throat, and of course as he's done on the
Speaker 3: ground at the edge of the cliff, and then submits
Speaker 3: to her. Finally, you see that he realizes that the
Speaker 3: student has become the teacher and he can't even be mad.
Speaker 2: He's almost proud, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, you can see we have a shot of his
Speaker 1: eyes and then like.
Speaker 2: An hour wafting and then you go, you go take
Speaker 2: him on the world.
Speaker 1: Girl, She says, I will give you your life, but
Speaker 1: you no longer possess my respect.
Speaker 2: We're going to workshop this.
Speaker 3: I think we're going in slightly differently.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful perfect I think it's coher. But okay,
Speaker 1: so she leaves now she is now she is something
Speaker 1: quite controversial in France at the time, a woman with
Speaker 1: her own agency fights better than the dudes.
Speaker 4: Who is also a lesbian, who is also living in
Speaker 4: Marseille with another woman. She is living really.
Speaker 2: Openly right, like she doesn't really give an f you.
Speaker 4: Know, yeah, she is. She is sleeping with the daughter
Speaker 4: of a wealthy merchant in Marseille. She's this like beautiful
Speaker 4: young blonde woman named Cecilia Cecilia Portigali. Uh. And that's
Speaker 4: going great. They're they're they're crushing it.
Speaker 3: And of course we think of France as being pretty
Speaker 3: early on the sexual liberation bandwagon, but this is even
Speaker 3: before that. And it's honestly probably because of figures like
Speaker 3: this that it became more widely.
Speaker 4: Accepted, I think, so I think something to that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Monsieur Portigali is a is a well respected seventeenth century
Speaker 4: Frenchman and his lovely daughter is now having a tourd
Speaker 4: affair with a wondering swordsman.
Speaker 2: Aka mister Portugal, which sounds like a I don't know,
Speaker 2: like a cartoon villain or something, or like a boss,
Speaker 2: a mob boss.
Speaker 1: Mister Portugal is one hundred percent the name of a
Speaker 1: nineties backpack wrapper from Williamsburg. I love that. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: aka mister Portugal. You know you might have heard amongst
Speaker 1: Wu Tang see.
Speaker 4: I was gonna go with like like a like a
Speaker 4: gin Blossoms vibe like band.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, also consuing it with Portugal The.
Speaker 1: Man the Man, which is a great band. Honest. Oh
Speaker 1: they're fine, all right, talk about.
Speaker 3: Different No, no, no, they're good, they're good. I just
Speaker 3: I don't get all the hype. Sometimes I like a
Speaker 3: couple of their songs quite a lot.
Speaker 1: Don't let the hype ruin things.
Speaker 2: It's hard to let the hype ruin things.
Speaker 1: Don't let the hype ruin things. Be rom person, have
Speaker 1: your own agency, just like love the Pod.
Speaker 2: I do try. It's hard. It's hard to be this
Speaker 2: badass and like self possessed.
Speaker 3: So at this point, now she's off on her own,
Speaker 3: living her best life with ruffling some feathers along the way.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah. And so mister Portugal does a thing
Speaker 4: that he has available to him. Uh, you know, Gaston
Speaker 4: married mopan Off to stop the affair that he didn't like.
Speaker 4: Mister Portugal sends Cecilia to a nunnery to solve his problem.
Speaker 4: You get thee to a nunnery.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, this is both ridiculous and evil.
Speaker 1: Like a candy cigarette. It was common at this time.
Speaker 1: It was common at this time for families to send
Speaker 1: daughters that they found problematic off to a convent.
Speaker 4: Right yeah, I mean she's she's a lesbian. This is
Speaker 4: against God. You need to go find God. You're going
Speaker 4: to be a nun now, this is going to solve
Speaker 4: all of our problems. You won't like, you won't just
Speaker 4: you know, you won't make me look bad in front
Speaker 4: of my friends in Marseille anymore. So he forces her
Speaker 4: to become a nun, which is a thing that happened
Speaker 4: to women in the seventeenth century. So what does Julie
Speaker 4: Domini do? She is we have seen a very fiery person,
Speaker 4: a person who does not like to be told what
Speaker 4: to do, or when she should do it, or who
Speaker 4: she should do it with. So this is the bit
Speaker 4: from the from the Top where she goes to Avion,
Speaker 4: goes to the convent that cecil has been basically imprisoned
Speaker 4: at and tells them that she wants to become a nun.
Speaker 2: Because you could just volunteer. I mean, they needed folks,
Speaker 2: right like you still can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we can't.
Speaker 3: No, no, but I mean they didn't necessarily there wasn't
Speaker 3: a test or anything. They didn't check your religious bona fides, like.
Speaker 4: Check that she was married, because you're not really supposed
Speaker 4: to be a nun if you're married.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe that's bad on them, but in general, I think,
Speaker 3: you know, you're supposed to just take them at face value, like, yes, okay,
Speaker 3: this person's giving their life to God. Awesome, comrade.
Speaker 4: We're gonna find that Mopana is very good at finding
Speaker 4: finding lovers, both man and woman. She's very good at
Speaker 4: convincing people to do things that you wouldn't expect her
Speaker 4: to be able to convince them to do.
Speaker 1: Oh she has riz.
Speaker 4: She has riz. Yeah, I learned that recently. Eighteen charisma.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nice.
Speaker 4: Yes, So she convinces the convent to accept her. I
Speaker 4: don't know whether that's, you know, a nice sized bag
Speaker 4: of gold or like a really decent SOB story, but
Speaker 4: she's made a nun at the same convent where Cecilia is.
Speaker 4: And in this, in the in the cinematic version of this,
Speaker 4: I'm picturing Cecilia like being sad in the cloister and
Speaker 4: then then then the nun shows up and like pulls
Speaker 4: the pulls the hood back. Well, what are you doing here?
Speaker 1: You know, Max, thank you so much for the music.
Speaker 1: I know you just put in this because that is
Speaker 1: the moment, the big reveal. Right, but uh, Ben, riddle
Speaker 1: me this does does our protagonist stay a nune for
Speaker 1: the rest of her life?
Speaker 2: No, dn Uta thought.
Speaker 4: She escapes and breaks out Cecilia in a in a
Speaker 4: way that is pretty crazy. Like I like, this is
Speaker 4: like we're getting into one of the crazier parts of
Speaker 4: the story, if you can believe it. So here's what happens.
Speaker 4: They start making they're they're hooking up in the in
Speaker 4: the convent, which I imagine is not very easy to do
Speaker 4: when you're surrounded by you know, nuns who are frown
Speaker 4: on that sort of thing. And uh, they start planning
Speaker 4: an escape. And so here's what they do. It doesn't
Speaker 4: take them very long, uh to plan to plan their escape.
Speaker 4: So one day one of the older nuns passes away
Speaker 4: and the convent has a big funeral for her. So
Speaker 4: usually do we waits a couple of days after the
Speaker 4: funeral and sneaks out at night and digs up the
Speaker 4: dead nun and puts her in Cecilia's bed, then sets
Speaker 4: it on fire Jesus and then in the in the
Speaker 4: flame and the confusion, the two of them flee the
Speaker 4: convent under the cover of flame and darkness. And when
Speaker 4: the nuns go to find where the fire started, oh
Speaker 4: it's in Cecilia's room. Oh there's a burned up dead
Speaker 4: body in Cecilia's room. Oh. I don't know what happened,
Speaker 4: but she must have died. Yeah, so she helps classical ruse.
Speaker 1: The old switcher room you get in situations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, dug up a dead body to fake Cecilia's death
Speaker 4: and escaped.
Speaker 1: Okay, first off, objectively ghoulish, but also quite successful.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, it worked. It worked. And you know, this
Speaker 4: is one of those stories that you would think would
Speaker 4: come from like the erotic fan fiction. But we know
Speaker 4: this happened because Mopan will be arrested for this crime
Speaker 4: and there's public record of her of her arrest on.
Speaker 4: So they find out that it's not Cecilia. They figure right,
Speaker 4: they figure out what happened.
Speaker 3: I mean, it seems this is this is a golden
Speaker 3: era for being able to perpetrate these types of switcheroos
Speaker 3: because a testing.
Speaker 2: There's there's no there's really no photography.
Speaker 3: Well there's photography, but it would be like kind of like, no,
Speaker 3: there's no photography. No, it would be it would be
Speaker 3: painted at the very would cut.
Speaker 4: Maybe the body just didn't burn, like the plan was solid,
Speaker 4: but maybe.
Speaker 2: The body just didn't burn beyond it was.
Speaker 4: And she's gone and Mopan's gone, or.
Speaker 1: Maybe people found that a grave had been detegrated.
Speaker 2: Very well, good, it's a good point.
Speaker 1: So okay, So the law is once again after her,
Speaker 1: right uh, and.
Speaker 4: This time they catch her. So they catch her, they
Speaker 4: put her, they take her to court, and for the
Speaker 4: crime of like for what she did, they sentenced her
Speaker 4: to death by burning at the steak.
Speaker 2: Which what, Yeah, that's a little extreme.
Speaker 3: Is that Is that something that's only reserved for like
Speaker 3: women who are perceived as being like beyond like like
Speaker 3: just so wicked and harlatty or something like that.
Speaker 1: This dude's at the steak. I blame Big Firewood because
Speaker 1: I think that was I think that was a part
Speaker 1: of it. You know.
Speaker 4: Here's the weird thing about that, though, is in the
Speaker 4: court documents they refer to her as monsieur Mopin. They've
Speaker 4: referred to her as a man in the court documents,
Speaker 4: because because while digging up the dead nun and setting
Speaker 4: the convent on fire and all that stuff is pretty scandalous,
Speaker 4: the lesbian relationship was super scandalous. So, Monsieur Mupan, it's
Speaker 4: said to death by burning at the stake.
Speaker 1: Who similar to Joan of arc Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean this is I mean I think
Speaker 4: this is what they did to witches, right, and so
Speaker 4: maybe it was like the fact that this happened to
Speaker 4: a holy person in a holy place. You know, maybe
Speaker 4: there's something to that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's a crime against God on several counts.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what does Mupan do? She flees,
Speaker 4: She gets away, She flees into the countryside.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yet she continues doing her sword fighting and singing exhibitions.
Speaker 4: So she's popping up, up and down. She's traveling down
Speaker 4: the Lua River and performing once or once a night
Speaker 4: at these various taverns and bars, and then getting out
Speaker 4: of town before the law realizes where she's at.
Speaker 1: This is amazing because she's rolling up to women and
Speaker 1: men perhaps after an exhibition and saying saying, I like
Speaker 1: your vibe. I've only got one night in town. I'm
Speaker 1: on the run, you see.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's a lot of person.
Speaker 3: Would she have been traveling under a different name or
Speaker 3: using a stage name.
Speaker 4: It seems likely because for we know that she was
Speaker 4: doing this sort of thing, she uses her own name
Speaker 4: at a club in Paris three months after she has
Speaker 4: escaped her death sentence, so we it's it's safe to
Speaker 4: assume she is traveling under assumed names around this time
Speaker 4: and moving around because she's traveled a big distance from
Speaker 4: Avignon to Paris, and she's she's making money somehow, and
Speaker 4: it seems likely she's doing that, And because she was
Speaker 4: performing at this club in her name, it's kind of
Speaker 4: a it seems likely well.
Speaker 3: And and again, despite me being maybe about two hundred
Speaker 3: years early on the photography tip, this would have been
Speaker 3: a time when you really could elude the law for
Speaker 3: extended periods of time just by using a clever disguise
Speaker 3: and an assumed name, and just by being crafty, because
Speaker 3: there just weren't the same kinds of like surveillance state
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 4: Situations picturing like a like a Dungeons and Dragons wanted
Speaker 4: poster right, Like, yeah, I call.
Speaker 2: Her kind of a rogue. Would she be a bit roguish.
Speaker 4: She's very much she's a bit swashbucklery.
Speaker 1: Also, I'm just gonna say a lot of people perhaps, yeah,
Speaker 1: bar she dual class, she dual classic. She's doing the
Speaker 1: multi class.
Speaker 3: She probably could dual wield, you know, from time to
Speaker 3: time if she needed. Seems like a pinch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet her dexterity was crazy too, because we
Speaker 1: can tell she can fight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and she's using a rapier, which is a dexterity base.
Speaker 2: We've already established her charisma score through.
Speaker 1: The roof ch okay, uh, everybody, welcome to Ridiculous History
Speaker 1: presents Dungeons and Dragons Dungeons and Dragon five history.
Speaker 4: I will definitely DM for you guys if you want. Yeah,
Speaker 4: hell yeah.
Speaker 3: After this, I'm going to resume my brand new game
Speaker 3: of Fallout four, which, while it's not Dungeons and Dragons,
Speaker 3: it has a similar structure.
Speaker 4: Similar vibe. Yeah, you get the idea. That's like the
Speaker 4: show is awesome.
Speaker 1: So hey, wait, have you played boulders Gate three then?
Speaker 4: So I have not. I have purchased it, I have downloaded,
Speaker 4: I have installed it, but I was working on I'm
Speaker 4: finishing off this one book that I'm working on, and
Speaker 4: my ideal is like I cannot open that application until
Speaker 4: my man completed. That will be my reward. I will
Speaker 4: take it. I will take two weeks off and I
Speaker 4: will play the game. But it's a black hole. Once
Speaker 4: I open it, I'm done. Right, that's the end of
Speaker 4: it for me. So I don't want to know anything
Speaker 4: about it. I've never sure. I haven't played it, but
Speaker 4: everybody I know it's great. I know I know I
Speaker 4: need to play it, but I'm ready. I need one
Speaker 4: more week to finish this book off and then diving
Speaker 4: into it.
Speaker 1: We believe in you.
Speaker 3: We know you can do it, and we look forward
Speaker 3: to hearing how you enjoy the game when you get
Speaker 3: to reward.
Speaker 1: Yourself and for everyone playing along at home. As you
Speaker 1: doubtlessly know, our pal Ben Thompson has a podcast called
Speaker 1: bad Ass of the Week. You may be thinking what
Speaker 1: happens to Julie. There is an entire show about it,
Speaker 1: much more in depth. We have not even Ben, would
Speaker 1: you say that we have not yet begun to spar
Speaker 1: with this barred well.
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess here's what I'll say, because you
Speaker 4: know right now she's currently wanted for one sentenced to death.
Speaker 4: She's gonna kill at least seven more people. And we
Speaker 4: haven't even gotten to the bit where like she starts
Speaker 4: to star for the Paris Opera, she has to deal
Speaker 4: with this murder conviction thing. First, she goes to the
Speaker 4: court of Versailles and kills the guy on Louis the
Speaker 4: fourteenth front. Somebody takes uh. She's making out with some
Speaker 4: woman in Versailles in front of Louis the fourteenth, and
Speaker 4: these three guys take exception to it, ask her to
Speaker 4: go outside, uh, and she leaves all three of them
Speaker 4: bleeding in front of Versailles.
Speaker 1: Nola and I were talking about this affair, and Nola
Speaker 1: you were saying to Ben, what's like one of the
Speaker 1: craziest moments.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's hard to encapsulate the entire
Speaker 3: life of a human being, especially one who is so
Speaker 3: roguish and barredly and badasses this one, you know, into
Speaker 3: a single podcast. So we were kind of looking for, like,
Speaker 3: give us a big, splashy moment, you know, to take
Speaker 3: us out on and then people can you know, read
Speaker 3: more about this incredible character on your site and listen
Speaker 3: on your podcast.
Speaker 2: But yeah, take us home.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so okay, well I guess I'll tell that story.
Speaker 4: So she's she has managed to expunge her record. She
Speaker 4: gets back, like she gets the death sentence waived by
Speaker 4: Louis the fourteenth. Personally, what yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: He's the king. It's an absolute breaks.
Speaker 4: Into the Conte Armagnac's castle, like her former lover breaks
Speaker 4: into his castle, like is sitting in his in his
Speaker 4: dressing room when he comes home and is like, hey,
Speaker 4: I need a favor, and he writes a letter to
Speaker 4: Louis the fourteenth, who publicly pardons her for her crimes.
Speaker 4: Then she goes to Versailles. Later, a bunch of other
Speaker 4: stuff happens. She joins the parasop rush, becomes this big
Speaker 4: rock star basically in Paris. She goes to Versailles for
Speaker 4: a royal ball, right, like think like Cinderella kind of deal.
Speaker 4: Marie Antoinette vibes, right, She's it's not Marie Antoinette time
Speaker 4: period yet, but that's the vibe. Big hair, yeah, big hair.
Speaker 4: She's there dressed as a man with the sword on
Speaker 4: her on her belt. She's a famous actress.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: She is dancing with every girl there and making out
Speaker 4: with most of them just.
Speaker 3: Like staggering, you know, jumping behind and making a real
Speaker 3: spectacle exactly.
Speaker 4: And these three guys, these three guys were all suitors
Speaker 4: of the one girl that Julie was making out with.
Speaker 4: But the way they didn't say that they're they're jealous
Speaker 4: that they got shown up by a girl. That you
Speaker 4: say that, like, oh, we this is what you're doing
Speaker 4: is disrespectful to Louis the fourteenth, And we need to
Speaker 4: take you outside and teach you a lesson. She says, okay, fine,
Speaker 4: and she takes them outside, duels them each in succession,
Speaker 4: leaves all three guys bleeding and wounded on the sidewalk
Speaker 4: in front of like a crowd of people.
Speaker 1: This is so weird. I'm picturing I'm picturing spaghetti westerns,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I'm picturing all a little more code
Speaker 1: like you can you can fight me together, but one
Speaker 1: at a time, if your orn is so important.
Speaker 3: And a lot of the imagery of this and you go,
Speaker 3: we're back to werewolves again really makes me think of
Speaker 3: the absurdly wonderful weird oh genre mashup film The Brotherhood.
Speaker 2: Of the Wolf.
Speaker 3: I love that kind of like French ninjas fighting this
Speaker 3: mysterious beast of gold.
Speaker 1: Is that what it was?
Speaker 2: Just? I don't know.
Speaker 3: Wandering swordsmen, all of this kind of tree really gives
Speaker 3: me Brotherhood of the Wolf.
Speaker 4: Five Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she she, she, she wounds
Speaker 4: all three of these guys, puts the sword back, goes
Speaker 4: back inside. Yeah, that woman again. She's arrested again, of course,
Speaker 4: because and you stooal three dudes in front of Louis
Speaker 4: fourteenths castle.
Speaker 1: Is also like the sexiest thing you could do when
Speaker 1: you're meeting someone.
Speaker 2: I like you.
Speaker 1: I think we've got a real connection. Hang on, I
Speaker 1: gotta step outside for a second.
Speaker 4: Just let me just deal with this real quick. I'll
Speaker 4: be right whatever. Ye hold my champagne, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ship and uh with this, we know there is
Speaker 1: much much more to the story. And I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the things we appreciate so much about Badass
Speaker 1: of the Week. We cannot let you go, Ben without
Speaker 1: following up on one thing you slid in in a
Speaker 1: super cool way. You've got a book, huh you got yeah?
Speaker 1: Book coming.
Speaker 4: I've been working on I've been working I'm actually I'm
Speaker 4: trying to finish off three things that I've been working
Speaker 4: on for like multiple years now.
Speaker 1: So I have the feeling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I just finished we were talking about Dungeons
Speaker 4: and dragons. So I have been writing D and D
Speaker 4: adventures like D and D modules. Yeah. My friend Brian Snowdy,
Speaker 4: he's an original like Alpha Magic artist. He's an original
Speaker 4: D and D like the illustrator, and so he's doing
Speaker 4: all the art for him and I'm writing them. So
Speaker 4: those are You can check those out on the website
Speaker 4: Badass ofdweek dot com.
Speaker 3: Ben Bowlin is a legitimate D and D tabletop player.
Speaker 3: I am exclusively in the video game realm, but I'm
Speaker 3: really trying to break out one day.
Speaker 4: I'll send it to you like that. And that's the
Speaker 4: way I can DM without even actually having a schedule.
Speaker 1: You guys, what if we did this is max keep
Speaker 1: it on air. It might be embarrassing, But what if
Speaker 1: we did just like one time, a D and D
Speaker 1: campaign episode of ridiculous history. We could do like.
Speaker 3: Can't you do kind of you can change you can
Speaker 3: make it themed, right, can't you like have the big
Speaker 3: bad kind of be like some historical villain?
Speaker 1: You know, sure, because you're you do a one off
Speaker 1: kind of contained thing.
Speaker 3: And I like this idea a lot. I think we
Speaker 3: should we should backpocket this. What else are you working on, Ben, So?
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm doing the D and D Adventures and then
Speaker 4: so there's a five five books in that series. I
Speaker 4: just finished those off. I'm working on a book for
Speaker 4: so I do Badass, But I also have like a
Speaker 4: series I do for a younger audience called Guts and Glory.
Speaker 4: It's for like middle school, high school age, and so
Speaker 4: I'm working on a book. I'm putting the finishing touches
Speaker 4: on a book now called Putin versus Lensky, which is
Speaker 4: kind of a lead up to the Ukraine War. I
Speaker 4: don't deal with the Ukraine War, but it's like why
Speaker 4: are they fighting and how long have they been? Because
Speaker 4: those two countries have been fighting each other since like
Speaker 4: the Viking times, and it's so complex and complex. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's super complex and nuance. There's a lot of stuff
Speaker 4: happening there, and so I try to very I try
Speaker 4: to spell out the history of why these countries are
Speaker 4: fighting right now.
Speaker 3: I think that's an incredibly valuable thing for young people
Speaker 3: because it's so easy growing up with just kind of
Speaker 3: like a very vague sense of these kinds of things
Speaker 3: if you got it in school at all, you know.
Speaker 4: Even like even in the US, there was kind of
Speaker 4: a vibe of like when the Ukraine War started, there
Speaker 4: was like a general consensus across the US of like,
Speaker 4: isn't Ukraine and Russia like the same thing? You know,
Speaker 4: Like were you guys just all Soviets? It was all
Speaker 4: like the same, right, But we were.
Speaker 3: Just talking about Sheshnia. They have banned music of a
Speaker 3: certain beats per minute range in order to be more
Speaker 3: in keeping of the Chechnian folk tradition of folk music.
Speaker 3: And I did not realize that she Shechnia was a
Speaker 3: Russian you know, I guess vassal state kind of. But
Speaker 3: they had also waged war against Russia several times in
Speaker 3: the past. So all of that that the theater of
Speaker 3: that part of the world is mega nuance, like you said,
Speaker 3: And I think.
Speaker 4: It's really interesting because that was the public message that
Speaker 4: was being put out by the Soviet Union is yes,
Speaker 4: if you asked, if you asked, like a you know,
Speaker 4: we asked Russia, they would say, yes, we are all
Speaker 4: the same thing. This is our internal problem to leave it.
Speaker 4: And the Ukrainians would be like, no, actually, we're like
Speaker 4: a whole other thing. We got our whole language everything,
Speaker 4: We got a.
Speaker 1: Solid and crimea and like the gifting of it.
Speaker 4: Uh, now there's a whole thing there. So I'm gonna
Speaker 4: I'm doing a I'm doing a book on that for
Speaker 4: kids to kind of give them a primer on it.
Speaker 4: And then I'm also trying to finish off this novel
Speaker 4: I've been working on for one hundred years over year,
Speaker 4: but not at least like four years of working on
Speaker 4: this thing. So I'm just trying to polish that off too.
Speaker 1: Time is different when you're when you're writing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, because this is like a personal project.
Speaker 4: Uh you know, this is the novel is the thing
Speaker 4: that gets put on hold every time paying work shows up,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, And also, uh gosh, no, I'm hearing all
Speaker 1: this stuff from a fellow bin out here changing the world.
Speaker 1: And man, one time, you know this, one time I
Speaker 1: fell asleep trying and put on a pair of pants.
Speaker 2: You had that one leg in there. The other one
Speaker 2: was just too much for it.
Speaker 1: It was too much. We cannot wait to hear your
Speaker 1: opinions about Badass of the Week, folks. Ben Thompson, thank you.
Speaker 1: So much for classing up our show. Here where where
Speaker 1: can people find you and interrupt your work on your novel?
Speaker 4: So you can find me at Badass of Theweek dot com.
Speaker 4: There's links to everything on their Facebook, Twitter, all that Instagram,
Speaker 4: all that stuff. And like you said, there is a
Speaker 4: full episode on Julie dow on Badass and so if
Speaker 4: you want to check out Badass of the Week podcast
Speaker 4: that's anywhere you can get podcasts, you can check that
Speaker 4: episode out because they think it's a really good one
Speaker 4: and people will enjoy it. If you liked you heard
Speaker 4: so far, it's kind of just more of that.
Speaker 1: We just got to the We we got some teases
Speaker 1: right for the turn, but we we just sort of
Speaker 1: set up the beginning so to She just wanted.
Speaker 4: For death to get this the second time. We wanted Wow,
Speaker 4: you know, and the toylet.
Speaker 3: The idea of making this a two parter. But honestly,
Speaker 3: like I think it would benefit you the listener. Yes,
Speaker 3: you to get this version of the story, this part
Speaker 3: of the story, and now pivot ye directly get ye
Speaker 3: not to a Nunnery, but to the Badass of the
Speaker 3: Week podcast feed and or website to get the rest
Speaker 3: of this incredible, stirring, swashbuckling tale.
Speaker 1: You specifically you, thanks as always to our super producer,
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams, Jonathan Strickland, ak the Wuister A J.
Speaker 3: Bahamas Jacobs oh Man, We're actually I don't know if
Speaker 3: he listens to every episode, but.
Speaker 2: We know for a fact that he listens to some.
Speaker 4: I was just on the puzzler like like like a
Speaker 4: week ago.
Speaker 3: Bahamas was an inexplicable nickname that Ben has gifted AJ.
Speaker 3: And we love the mystery of it, and it's going
Speaker 3: to continue. Whenever he writes us, he always describes it
Speaker 3: coming to us from his own personal Bahamas wherever that
Speaker 3: might be, even if it's in like Saint Louis.
Speaker 2: But we're gonna we're gonna be se I'm pretty soon
Speaker 2: in person. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe we just dropped that as a little tease easter
Speaker 3: egg for him if he happens to hear it. We're
Speaker 3: making a special trip just to see AJ for a
Speaker 3: very special book event for his new book, A Year
Speaker 3: of Living Constitutionally, which we're very excited to be a
Speaker 3: part of.
Speaker 1: Thanks also to Eve's Jeff Goat, Christopher Hasiotis, Casey Pegram
Speaker 1: since we are in a Francophone episode of French history
Speaker 1: episode and no thanks to you man.
Speaker 2: To you as well. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.