Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in history class from house
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Honley Frown and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. And in
Speaker 1: the first episode of this two parter we talked about
Speaker 1: Leonard Autier, who was a young man from the French
Speaker 1: countryside who strolled into Paris with nothing and he managed
Speaker 1: to become the country's most celebrated hairdresser in a startlingly
Speaker 1: short period of time. He quickly found himself styling the
Speaker 1: hair of the Daufine of France, Marie Antoinette, and their
Speaker 1: friendship and their business relationship continued and deepened when the
Speaker 1: Austrian born princess transitioned into the role of queen. He
Speaker 1: really reminds me of like kids making amazing makeup videos
Speaker 1: on YouTube. You then get to become a spokes spokesbottom.
Speaker 1: Yes uh. And as his time at Precise stretched on,
Speaker 1: Leonard took on additional tasks as needed, but always had
Speaker 1: a keen sense of what was in his best interest.
Speaker 1: For example, he helped Marie Ane when it revived a
Speaker 1: French fashion magazine called Journal d Dame, with the intent
Speaker 1: that his own work would be featured in its pages.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's no fool, but all is. He was creating
Speaker 1: the next big thing, and often quite literally big in hairstyles.
Speaker 1: After a style developed by Rose Boltent appeared in Journal
Speaker 1: des Dame and became quite popular, Leonard was driven to
Speaker 1: concoct the hairstyle that would surpass it. There was some
Speaker 1: definite jealousy in the mix. There. Almost everyone has heard
Speaker 1: of or seen drawings of Marie Antoinette's wild hairstyles that
Speaker 1: had accessories such as miniature figures and bird's nest and
Speaker 1: yards of fabric trims as part of the coiffure, and
Speaker 1: those are examples of what Leonard came to call the
Speaker 1: poof sentimental. As hoped, the poof Sentimental eclipsed the much
Speaker 1: simpler Kazaco hairstyle that Bartown had created, and from there
Speaker 1: Leonard continued to just invent flamboyant styles. One called a
Speaker 1: hedgehog involves stacks of full curls, then a number of
Speaker 1: ringlets falling around the wearer's neck. The Zephyr featured numerous
Speaker 1: flowers that moved and shook like a garden in a breeze.
Speaker 1: But of course, the most famous of all of Marie
Speaker 1: Antoinette's hairstyles was the one that had a ship in it.
Speaker 1: That was Leonard's work. That style was called the Kaffier
Speaker 1: a la belle Pool, which was named for the ship
Speaker 1: called the Bellpool, which had recently won a naval battle.
Speaker 1: It's so famous. That's what everybody thinks of ship hair.
Speaker 1: So when King Louis the fifteen died, Leonard was on
Speaker 1: hand for the coronation preparations for Louis, and so was
Speaker 1: Rosebert tom Once he became the queen's hairdresser, he delegated
Speaker 1: more and more responsibility to his friend and business partner Fremmel,
Speaker 1: running the hair school, and all the appointments for anyone
Speaker 1: but the Queen were handled by Freml or one of
Speaker 1: Leonard's brothers, sometimes calling themselves Leonard, so that Leonard himself
Speaker 1: could be at her Royal Highness's beck and call at
Speaker 1: any moment. Yeah, he had had his tendrils in so
Speaker 1: many different business interests that kind of um Foster and
Speaker 1: bolster his name. That then when he suddenly became hairdresser
Speaker 1: of the queen, he was like, we gotta figure out
Speaker 1: a delegate. Uh. And as the Queen's hairdresser Leonard's relationship
Speaker 1: with Marie Antoinette really did deepen quite a great deal.
Speaker 1: He allegedly knew her every secret, and even, for example,
Speaker 1: in the late stages of her first pregnancy, when she
Speaker 1: was confined to bed, Leonard was there. He would lie
Speaker 1: in bed with her so that he can comb and
Speaker 1: style her hair, and he would later joke that he
Speaker 1: and the Queen had shared the same bed, but that
Speaker 1: joke was often misinterpreted and used as evidence the Queen's
Speaker 1: lass sevious lifestyle. In his memoir, he recounted all the
Speaker 1: seedy gossip associated with Marie Antoinette of affairs and indulgent
Speaker 1: in a complete disregard for the needs of the people
Speaker 1: when spending money on herself. Even though he included all
Speaker 1: that gossip, he also said it wasn't true. It comes
Speaker 1: across as him wanting the fun of a rumor mill
Speaker 1: while also defending his very important friend and also employer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he was theoretically. We'll talk about the legitimacy
Speaker 1: of his memoirs at the end of the episode. But
Speaker 1: he had remained very loyal to Marie Antoinette until Louis sixteen.
Speaker 1: Throughout and beyond their reign uh and after the Queen's
Speaker 1: second pregnancy, which resulted in the birth of the Daufin
Speaker 1: Luis Joseph in the fall of sev one, it became
Speaker 1: apparent that the Queen was losing her hair. We talked
Speaker 1: about in the first episode that even when she first
Speaker 1: came to France, there was discussion about her hair growing badly,
Speaker 1: which seemed to indicate it was quite thin. But at
Speaker 1: this point she really was having a pretty significant hair loss.
Speaker 1: And Leonard, ever the inventor and also incredibly fearful that
Speaker 1: his fate was so closely tied to the hair that
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette was losing, suggested that she let him cut
Speaker 1: her hair for an entirely new and less architectural style
Speaker 1: called aquifer a LanFan. And this style was basically shorter
Speaker 1: hair that was cut in layers and then curled and
Speaker 1: arranged and stacked ringlets. This idea of cutting hair short
Speaker 1: at this period of time was really breaking all of
Speaker 1: the rules that had gone forth in style prior to it.
Speaker 1: The Queen was really really nervous about having her hair
Speaker 1: cut relatively short, but she eventually agreed, but her status
Speaker 1: and Leonard's ability to just sell any style, as the
Speaker 1: latest innovation led to the coiffier on la font being
Speaker 1: adopted by most of the ladies of the court within
Speaker 1: just a few weeks. Yeah, it's not quite as dramatic
Speaker 1: as the stories of like women cutting their hair short
Speaker 1: in the twenties, because there still was some length and
Speaker 1: curl to it. But it really was a massive departure,
Speaker 1: and it was this huge you know, after people had
Speaker 1: kept their hair long and styled and elaborate styles for
Speaker 1: so long, to just go, I'm cutting it all off
Speaker 1: was huge and it caught on super quickly. But as
Speaker 1: the unrest among the people of France grew during this time,
Speaker 1: Leonard was certainly aware of it, though whether he was
Speaker 1: self aware enough to recognize his own contribution to the
Speaker 1: problem is unclear. Talked about in the first episode that
Speaker 1: he created these expensive and lavish hairstyles from Marie Antoinette,
Speaker 1: which were then imitated by other women, which made them
Speaker 1: lose money that they didn't need to be spending. He
Speaker 1: really sort of contributed to that whole kind of cult
Speaker 1: of style that was irresponsible many ways. We don't know though,
Speaker 1: whether he was really aware that that he was such
Speaker 1: a key player in that He had at this point
Speaker 1: made a great deal of money both styling hair and
Speaker 1: by selling beauty products to the Queen through his beauty
Speaker 1: school in the decade and a half that he had
Speaker 1: been working at Versailles, and at a time, for example,
Speaker 1: when a loaf of bread had reached the then exorbitant
Speaker 1: sum of eight sus due to scarcity, Leonard was charging
Speaker 1: as much as four thousand sous for creating a new hairstyle.
Speaker 1: He was, after more than a decade and a half
Speaker 1: of working with the nobility, a very, very rich man.
Speaker 1: But as the people's dislike of Louis the sixteenth and
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette grew, Leonard became less less involved in their
Speaker 1: everyday lives. He continued to do the Queen's here for
Speaker 1: special occasions, but stopped being his everyday job, and for
Speaker 1: other clients he would usually send one of his assistants.
Speaker 1: In February of seventeen eighty eight, Lanard moved out of
Speaker 1: Versailles to pursue other interests. With the Queen's blessing, he was, however,
Speaker 1: still referred to as the coiffier to the Queen. But
Speaker 1: before we dive into the business venture that Leonard next
Speaker 1: decided to pursue We're going to take a brief break
Speaker 1: and have a word from one of our fantastic sponsors,
Speaker 1: even though he was no longer working every day with
Speaker 1: the Queen. To honor Marie Antoinette's love of Italian opera, Monsieur,
Speaker 1: Leonard decided to venture into theater production in partnership with
Speaker 1: the director of the theater at Versailles, Mademoiselle Montansier, and
Speaker 1: with permission from the King, Autier opened the Teatle de
Speaker 1: Monsieur at the Tuileries Palace on January seventeen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: He was quite good at managing his theater, and reviews
Speaker 1: for the productions were also quite good, but it was
Speaker 1: costly and the former hairdresser struggled to fund his operas.
Speaker 1: That was why he ended up in partnership with Montensier,
Speaker 1: but he and the recide director clashed over the nature
Speaker 1: of the operas and the plays to be staged there.
Speaker 1: Montensier tended towards the sorts of traditional fair that were
Speaker 1: appropriate for Versailles, whereas Leonard wanted to expand into other
Speaker 1: types of productions. Leonard eventually found an investor to buy
Speaker 1: Mademoiselle Matansier's interest in the theater. Yeah, and that's actually
Speaker 1: gonna come up again later. Um. Additionally, this theater was
Speaker 1: a combination of two troops of actors, one that was
Speaker 1: French and one that was Italian, and the two groups
Speaker 1: did not mesh well and there was constant fighting, and
Speaker 1: even with additional financial backers, by the end of the spring,
Speaker 1: just like four months after they had opened, Leonard was
Speaker 1: pretty much out of money. When King Louis the sixteenth
Speaker 1: assembled the Estates General and early May of seventeen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: Leonard was requested by Marie Antoinette to style her hair
Speaker 1: for the gathering. He immediately saw that she was not
Speaker 1: the woman he had served for so many years, and
Speaker 1: she told her old friend that she had quote sad
Speaker 1: thoughts followed by gloomy premonitions. Knowing that the public was
Speaker 1: likely to jeer when she made her appearance, she wanted
Speaker 1: to at least look her best and tasked Leonard with
Speaker 1: achieving that wish and Leonard saw the queen pretty regularly
Speaker 1: in the months leading up to the official start of
Speaker 1: the revolution, and he undoubtedly witnessed many of the key
Speaker 1: events that were involved, including the women's march on Versailles
Speaker 1: and the royal family being captured and taken to Paris,
Speaker 1: and he also engaged in a bit of spy work
Speaker 1: for the king on occasion, which indicates he was deeply
Speaker 1: trusted by Louis. The sixteenth, when the royal family fled
Speaker 1: Paris for Verenne, Leonard's younger brother, Jean Francois, traveled with them,
Speaker 1: although it appears that Leonard did not know that he
Speaker 1: was part of the party that left at the time.
Speaker 1: In the midst of all this evil, Leonard and his
Speaker 1: wife Marie Louise were still adding to their family. They
Speaker 1: had three daughters already, and then they welcomed his son
Speaker 1: at the end of seventeen ninety. By the end of
Speaker 1: seventeen nine one, though, the couple had ended their marriage,
Speaker 1: and when the King and the Queen were arrested at
Speaker 1: Varenne and returned to Paris in June of sevente Leonard
Speaker 1: once again visited the Queen and uh he found her
Speaker 1: to be so different from her normal self that it
Speaker 1: really struck him and was very affecting. She was constantly
Speaker 1: under guard, but in this case, instead of seeming gloomy,
Speaker 1: she had almost achieved through all of this stress a
Speaker 1: level of ease with the men who watched over her.
Speaker 1: She would converse with them, and she abandoned the trappings
Speaker 1: of court hierarchy to sort of just be a normal
Speaker 1: human and have fairly common level relationships with these people
Speaker 1: that were guarding her. In the meantime, Leonard Attier's name
Speaker 1: had become a hindrance to the already struggling theater. His
Speaker 1: ongoing associate Asian with Marie Antoinette, was basically poisoned to
Speaker 1: the business. So first his name was removed and then
Speaker 1: he was asked to step away by the investors. It
Speaker 1: was renamed t afters. Marie Antoinette, finding her family in
Speaker 1: desperate financial circumstances, asked Leonard to travel to London with
Speaker 1: a collection of diamonds that had traveled with her to
Speaker 1: France from Vienna when she was just a teenage girl.
Speaker 1: This was important that she didn't want it to be
Speaker 1: a diamond that was technically from France's money. It was
Speaker 1: her own that she had had well before she was
Speaker 1: part of the royal family in France. And Autier agreed
Speaker 1: that he would do this, and he made his arrangements
Speaker 1: and he went to England as requested, arriving there at
Speaker 1: the end of December sevente Lanard was able to sell
Speaker 1: the diamonds, and he was. He also set out to
Speaker 1: see who might be sympathetic to Louis the sixteenth and
Speaker 1: willing to help the French royals, which he did over
Speaker 1: the course of the next year and a little beyond.
Speaker 1: That was ultimately a disappointing exercise. He did manage to
Speaker 1: connect with Duberry in England, and although she had been
Speaker 1: exiled from Prassailles, she was still loyal to the crown,
Speaker 1: especially as Louis the sixteenth had set her up with
Speaker 1: a pension yeah, as the King's favorite. As the king
Speaker 1: was nearing death, she basically was sent away because he
Speaker 1: was having last rites and she could not be part
Speaker 1: of that um. But Yeah, they set her up with
Speaker 1: was really a pretty nice amount of money after that,
Speaker 1: and she did remain loyal to the crown. She had
Speaker 1: actually stayed in France when others had fled, and many
Speaker 1: of the royals and members of the palace households had
Speaker 1: appealed to her to send the money, as they had
Speaker 1: fled with very little, and she had been unable to
Speaker 1: really send anything because her home was under constant surveillance,
Speaker 1: so she knew if she trying to get money out
Speaker 1: to somebody else, it would immediately cause basically a raid
Speaker 1: of her house, and eventually she decided that she would
Speaker 1: leave France to assist the scattered Royals. She traveled to
Speaker 1: London to find some diamonds that had been stolen from her.
Speaker 1: At least that's what she told government officials. She actually
Speaker 1: made several trips to London to look for these diamonds,
Speaker 1: that this was the fourth and there had been a
Speaker 1: robbery of Duberry's diamonds, but she had also traveled to
Speaker 1: London to sell to others, with the intent that the
Speaker 1: proceeds would be sent to parties working to fight for
Speaker 1: the Royalist cause. Leonard suggested that they used the same
Speaker 1: jeweler he had sold the queen's diamonds too, and this
Speaker 1: plan was eventually agreed upon, although Leonard entered the shop alone,
Speaker 1: and he really wanted to use his jeweler because when
Speaker 1: he had sold may Antoinette's diamonds, he got a lot
Speaker 1: more from for them than they had been assessed for
Speaker 1: in France, so he thought, like this, we're going to
Speaker 1: get more money if we go to my guy, And
Speaker 1: so while he was in the shop alone, du Berry
Speaker 1: wanted to avoid revealing that they were hers and consequently
Speaker 1: exactly how much her time as the King's favorite had
Speaker 1: earned her. Uh and so this entire setup led two problems. First,
Speaker 1: a passer by recognized Duberry and chatted her up, even
Speaker 1: after she curtly explained that Leonard was inside selling a
Speaker 1: small diamond so she could settle her debts. Second, lay Nard,
Speaker 1: who got more than they were expecting for the diamonds,
Speaker 1: yelled an enormous some from the jeweler's door to do
Speaker 1: Berry in her carriage, two point to million libra, which
Speaker 1: at the time would have been worth around a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty five thousand pounds in English currency. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: did one calculation, and we've talked about before how it's
Speaker 1: really hard to do like historical money and what it's
Speaker 1: worth today. So I don't know if this is accurate,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like using calculators that I found online
Speaker 1: from fairly reputable sources, it's like going, we got thirty
Speaker 1: eight million dollars, which you wouldn't want to stand in
Speaker 1: the street and yell why would you why would you
Speaker 1: just yell that at the door to not not the
Speaker 1: brightest move ever, but this huge number of and the
Speaker 1: fact that it was the sale of diamonds was overheard
Speaker 1: in the street and a rumor quickly arose that the
Speaker 1: diamonds had been stolen, and by evening police came looking
Speaker 1: for Leonard at the house where he was living, and Leonard,
Speaker 1: assisted by a friend, jumped out the window to a
Speaker 1: vade capture. Madame Duberry had heard of the misfortune. She
Speaker 1: had you know, friends in London, and she was able
Speaker 1: to clear the matter up by producing proof that the
Speaker 1: diamonds were in fact hers. Mr Pitt, the Chancellor of
Speaker 1: the Treasury, had already suspected that they were legitimately Duberry's diamonds,
Speaker 1: and he was sympathetic actually to the woman and her cause.
Speaker 1: He knew that she was probably trying to get money
Speaker 1: to help the Royals reachieve their position in France. He
Speaker 1: knew that she was probably trying to fund the efforts
Speaker 1: to restore the French monarchy. But he had sent police
Speaker 1: to arrest Leonard, but only as a matter of appearance,
Speaker 1: uh and they had actually his His policeman had been
Speaker 1: instructed to take this man to dinner and then just
Speaker 1: let him go. So coming up, we will talk about
Speaker 1: the serious downturn in the royal family's situation, but before
Speaker 1: we get to that, we'll have one more quick sponsor break.
Speaker 1: So after that little skirmish with the police was settled,
Speaker 1: Duberry and Leonard were able to send a pretty significant
Speaker 1: sum of money to the cause. But things in Paris,
Speaker 1: they did not know yet, had already gotten much worse
Speaker 1: for the royal family. On January one, before the money
Speaker 1: that Leonard and DuBarry sent had gotten to its intended
Speaker 1: Royalist recipients, King Louis the sixteenth was executed by guillotine.
Speaker 1: Leonard continued to communicate and work with the princes of France,
Speaker 1: who were living in exile and still plotting away for
Speaker 1: the monarchy to regain its power, and he also during
Speaker 1: this time received word that one of his brothers had
Speaker 1: been executed, though there's actually some inconsistency in the account
Speaker 1: of when he received the news and precisely who had
Speaker 1: been put to death. For some time there was actually
Speaker 1: confusion as to whether or not it had actually been
Speaker 1: Leonard who was executed. So you will remember we mentioned
Speaker 1: in the first episode that problem where Leonard recruited his
Speaker 1: brothers as assistants and they all used the same name
Speaker 1: for business purposes, and it appears that was the case
Speaker 1: in this mix up over exactly who had been guillotine.
Speaker 1: It said Ottier Leonard and then in parentheses Jean Francois,
Speaker 1: but for a long time people just thought it was
Speaker 1: Monsieur Leonard. In any case, it was clear that France
Speaker 1: was not a safe place for one so closely associated
Speaker 1: with the monarch who had been overthrown and executed, and
Speaker 1: the bad news continued to come for Leonard. Marie Antoinette
Speaker 1: was executed on in October sixteenth, seventeen ninety three. Du Barry,
Speaker 1: who had returned to France despite Leonard begging her not to,
Speaker 1: was also put to death on December eighth of the
Speaker 1: same year. Yeah, she wanted to go back for her things, basically,
Speaker 1: like she had left everything she had and he was like,
Speaker 1: please don't, it's not worth it. She's like, that's all
Speaker 1: I have. I gotta go get him. And that didn't
Speaker 1: work out. So after spending a brief time in Verona,
Speaker 1: where the French King Louis the eighteenth was set up
Speaker 1: in an exiles court after the young King Louis the seventeenth,
Speaker 1: the child of Marine Too and Lui the sixteenth, had
Speaker 1: died in prison. Leonard next moved on to the German
Speaker 1: Duchy of Brunswick, which he quite enjoyed, but he eventually
Speaker 1: left there and he ended up St. Petersburg. In there,
Speaker 1: at the age of fifty eight, he rebooted his career
Speaker 1: as a hairdresser. Czar Paul the First greeted him warmly,
Speaker 1: an Empress Maria employed Leonard at once. He established a
Speaker 1: comfortable life for himself there, even though it was nothing
Speaker 1: vaguely akin to the really lavish life that he had
Speaker 1: had in Versailles. He worked in St. Petersburg for sixteen years,
Speaker 1: and just three years into his stay he had been
Speaker 1: asked to style the corpse of Czar Paul the First
Speaker 1: after he was murdered for refusing to abdicate. After Leonard
Speaker 1: applied makeup to the deceased and arranged his hair, it
Speaker 1: was said that the man looked better in death than
Speaker 1: he ever had alive. Yeah, he wasn't classically attractive man,
Speaker 1: but Leonard really made him look quite good. Uh. And
Speaker 1: while Leonard lived in St. Petersburg, a fire actually destroyed
Speaker 1: all of his personal papers, so consequently we don't have
Speaker 1: a whole lot of information on his personal life during
Speaker 1: this time, though he clearly managed to keep himself very
Speaker 1: busy styling the hair of Russian noble. When the French
Speaker 1: monarchy was restored in eighteen fourteen, Leonard returned to France,
Speaker 1: hoping that his years of loyal service and the great
Speaker 1: amounts of money that he had lent various members of
Speaker 1: the nobility in the early years of the revolution would
Speaker 1: be rewarded and maybe he would get a title. He
Speaker 1: was given a job as the doorkeeper of King Louis
Speaker 1: the eighteenth apartments, obviously a position far below what he
Speaker 1: had hoped for. Yeah, I thought maybe I'd be a
Speaker 1: marquis from a door guy. Uh. Encouraged by a friend
Speaker 1: who was a woman that had actually been his mistress
Speaker 1: before the revolution and who he reconnected with. After returning
Speaker 1: to Paris, Leonard petitioned to open another theater, but getting
Speaker 1: a royal privilege to open the venue was bound up
Speaker 1: in red tape and lack of interest. There were already
Speaker 1: many theaters throughout the city, so adding yet another seemed
Speaker 1: like an enterprise unlikely to take off with any real success.
Speaker 1: But he also had supporters within the nobility who pointed
Speaker 1: out that one more theater privilege granted by the King
Speaker 1: was really not a particularly big risk, so it would
Speaker 1: be better to grant a loyal servant of the royal
Speaker 1: line such a privilege than someone who might not be
Speaker 1: a loyalist, so Leonard persisted. He had been told to
Speaker 1: drop up a petition for the opera comique for the
Speaker 1: Minister of the Interior, with the assurance that the royal
Speaker 1: family would support it. So Monsieur Leonard had a friend
Speaker 1: helped write the petition, and that same friend promised to
Speaker 1: have an acquaintance that worked within the ministry keep an
Speaker 1: eye on it and report its progress. And Leonard's friends
Speaker 1: even managed to have the petition put in a beautiful,
Speaker 1: clean envelope and placed directly onto the desk of the
Speaker 1: minister so it would not get lost in the flurry
Speaker 1: of other petitions that were constantly being sent to the office,
Speaker 1: but on his desk, it's sat and sat. It stayed
Speaker 1: on the desk for four months while other petitions piled
Speaker 1: up as well. When another of Leonard's friends went to
Speaker 1: the minister to inquire about the status of the petition.
Speaker 1: The minister pointed to his desk and said, I am
Speaker 1: keeping Leonard's matter before me. Technically that was true, but
Speaker 1: he had not touched it. Kind of a smarmy synarchyated
Speaker 1: and the lip query. Eventually, one of the princes spoke
Speaker 1: to Leonard on the matter, and when Leonard asked that
Speaker 1: the king had signed his order, he thought, oh, he
Speaker 1: wants to talk to me. This must be congratulations. He
Speaker 1: was told, in fact, that he needed to let this
Speaker 1: opera comique matter completely go, that he was not going
Speaker 1: to be getting his theater, but that he was being
Speaker 1: named Orderer General of State Funerals, which is a cushy
Speaker 1: job that was more title than work, and it came
Speaker 1: with an annual salary of twelve thousand francs. At first,
Speaker 1: he thought this appointment was a joke, but he was
Speaker 1: assured that it was not. While Leonard was sad to
Speaker 1: let go of his theater plan, he thanked the prince
Speaker 1: profusely and adjusted to the idea that he was now
Speaker 1: a state funeral director. His installation ceremony was filled with formality,
Speaker 1: as all of his staff appeared rank and file before
Speaker 1: him that evening, though they all dined together and attended
Speaker 1: the opera, and Leonard was pleased to discover that his
Speaker 1: new staff was quite lively and fun, which he had
Speaker 1: not expected given their profession. Yeah. Uh, it seems so
Speaker 1: bizarre to me. Oh, you want to start another theater
Speaker 1: and you're a hairdresser. Would you like to be a
Speaker 1: funeral director? What? Uh? And While this turn of events,
Speaker 1: though it did seem to be getting the seventy three
Speaker 1: year olds life back on track, this was certainly better
Speaker 1: than being a dorman h He was soon sued by
Speaker 1: his former business partner in the Tatla de Maschieux, Madame Montasier,
Speaker 1: for unpaid annuities that he owed her. The proceedings took
Speaker 1: place in eighteen nineteen in the court found in her favor,
Speaker 1: and Leonard suddenly found himself responsible for paying the woman
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand francs money that he absolutely did not have,
Speaker 1: but he died before he could pay it off. On
Speaker 1: March twenty four of eighteen twenty. Leonard presided over only
Speaker 1: one funeral procession on his job as Orderer of State funerals,
Speaker 1: when the Prince de Conde died in eighteen eighteen. When
Speaker 1: Leonard himself died, his staff laid him to rest. Although
Speaker 1: it was a very small funeral with few in attendance.
Speaker 1: Of Leonard's children, only two of his daughters survived. They
Speaker 1: inherited seven hundred and sixteen francs and a in an
Speaker 1: assortment of small jewels, including one tiny piece which had
Speaker 1: been the property of Marie Antoinette. But at that point
Speaker 1: Leonard owed his maid three hundred and seventy five francs
Speaker 1: and his landlord two hundred and fifty francs. So other
Speaker 1: than his famous shell comb, which had styled the most
Speaker 1: famous and powerful heads of France, there really was not
Speaker 1: much for his kids to keep. Leonard's memoir Souvenir to
Speaker 1: Leonard Coiffio de la ram Ri Antoinette weren't published until
Speaker 1: twenty years after his death, and their legitimacy has been questioned.
Speaker 1: While the details of Monsieur Leonard's exploits are almost certainly exaggerated,
Speaker 1: as the case with a lot of memoirs we talked
Speaker 1: about on the show, many of the events in the
Speaker 1: memoirs do align with events that were playing out in France,
Speaker 1: Europe and Russia at the time these memoirs were reprinted.
Speaker 1: In eighteen nineties. Yeah, and then they got an English
Speaker 1: language printing in the nineteen teens. I think nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure. But the thing that makes Leonard
Speaker 1: to me a really interesting figure is how his creative
Speaker 1: and outlandish hair designs were, to some degree, as we said,
Speaker 1: held responsible for the moral and fiscal downfall of many
Speaker 1: of France's women in the country as a whole as
Speaker 1: a consequence. And this is that thing we always talk about.
Speaker 1: It serves as a perfect example of how one person,
Speaker 1: in this case, one person who walked into Paris with
Speaker 1: nothing but a COVID ambition and a serious case of confidence,
Speaker 1: can make this really huge impact on world events. You
Speaker 1: don't think, oh, I bet the queen's hairdresser really was
Speaker 1: an important figure, But he really was in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. So yeah, to me, it kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: uh fills that that constant uh litany that I'm always
Speaker 1: chanting about. Every person is making history all the time,
Speaker 1: even if they're they're just and I'm using the air
Speaker 1: quotes because I don't think of it that way, just
Speaker 1: you know, doing an update making hair. You have some
Speaker 1: listener mail for us as well. I do. I have
Speaker 1: two pieces of listener mail, though I'll be quick about it.
Speaker 1: The first one is from our listener Jennifer and her dad.
Speaker 1: They have sent us a variety of postcards as they've
Speaker 1: traveled around, and this one is from the Victoria and
Speaker 1: Albert Museum. High ladies, it's me again. Today. My dad
Speaker 1: and I went to Victorian Albert. It's a huge place
Speaker 1: and they had a special exhibit on clothing and fashion.
Speaker 1: I know you both would have loved. Many people have
Speaker 1: sent me stuff from that, and I do. I have
Speaker 1: an exhibition catalog from friend of the show Brian Young
Speaker 1: that he brought me back from when he went. She said, so,
Speaker 1: I thought I would send you a card of this
Speaker 1: lovely corset. My dad and I argued over this one
Speaker 1: whether to send this one or address, but I won
Speaker 1: since I write the cards. Cheers, tears, and thanks as
Speaker 1: always for the lovely podcast. Uh. I love it and
Speaker 1: I'm glad you went with the corset because I love
Speaker 1: corset pictures. Like the architecture of course, it's is fascinating, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's got a really beautiful spoon busk and it's
Speaker 1: just lovely. The second one is another gift we've been
Speaker 1: any sewing great gifts lately from our listener Laura, and
Speaker 1: she says, Hi, thank you so much for all the
Speaker 1: hard work you do to present a well researched and
Speaker 1: enjoyable podcast. I've always loved history, and you do an
Speaker 1: incredible job of bringing knowledge and passion to subjects that
Speaker 1: are too often overlooked or forgotten. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people think history is boring, and it breaks my
Speaker 1: heart because they don't know what they're missing. If only
Speaker 1: every teacher could bring history to life like you do,
Speaker 1: that is so sweet, she says. I'm an artist with
Speaker 1: a dull day job, and I listen to your show
Speaker 1: during quiet moments at my desk and while working on
Speaker 1: art at home. I recently completed the Enclosed Decks of Cards,
Speaker 1: which are inspired by my love of medieval and early
Speaker 1: modern history. I actually have a master's degree in medieval history.
Speaker 1: Each face card represents a real historical figure from the
Speaker 1: medieval early modern period, and there are even some post
Speaker 1: show topics, including Tycho Brahy, Joan of Arc and Juanna
Speaker 1: of Castile. I did a bit of research on Wuana
Speaker 1: for my master's thesis and was very moved by her story.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate your episode on her uh so, she
Speaker 1: sent these amazing cards. They're absolutely beautiful. I think I've
Speaker 1: said before on the show that I love decks of
Speaker 1: cards like I collect them because I use them as
Speaker 1: pattern weights. So I'm excited that i will have one
Speaker 1: of these in my selling room when I'll get to
Speaker 1: look at all the prettiness all the time. They are beautiful,
Speaker 1: They're absolutely lovely. So thank you, thank you, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Laura. If you would like to write to
Speaker 1: us about this episode or any other, you can do
Speaker 1: so at History podcast. At how staff works dot com,
Speaker 1: you can find us across the spectrum of social media
Speaker 1: as Missed in History. You can come and visit our
Speaker 1: website missed in History dot com for all of our
Speaker 1: episodes and show notes on anything Tracy and I have
Speaker 1: worked on together. So come and visit us. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff
Speaker 1: works dot com.