Supersluts of History: Royal Mistress Madam du Barry
6/12/202646 min
Madam du Barry's life was remarkable: from rags, to riches, to... revolution. And she pi**ed off Marie Antoinette along the way, too.
How did this courtesan from a poor background make it to be royal mistress in Versailles? How did the French Revolution impact her? And what her 'special talents' that attracted King Louis XV?
In our new mini-series, we're exploring and celebrating women whose sexuality was used to define them.
Joining Kate today is historian and author Professor Christine Adams, to take us back to 18th century France to find out more about this remarkable woman.
This episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.
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First 90 secondsKate Lister· Host0:00
Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history, like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods, or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe. Hello, my lovely Betwixtors. It's me, Kate Lister. How the hell are you doing? Welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. Hello. Let's make some room at the back, please. We've got new people, right? Newbies who might not know what's going on, and because they might not know, we do have to tell them. Yeah, that's right, you can say it with me. This is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults, about adulty things and an adult way, covering a range of adult subjects. And you should be an adult, too. Right, let's crack on. [laughs] It's 1769, and I have managed to sneak us into Versailles. Everything is so excessive, not to mention my wig [laughs]. No wonder a revolution is on the cards. These people are just dripping with jewels. But it's years before that's all gonna kick off, and we are here to see something truly historic and extraordinary, and possibly one of the reasons why there was a revolution happen.