September 4, 2017 • 25 mins
Marie Antoinette's hairdresser set the styles of France during King Louis XVI's reign. But when he first arrived in Paris, he had almost nothing. Just how did he manage such a meteoric rise?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from house
stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fromman I'm Tracy we Wilson. So Leonard Ottier
became so much a part of French court in the
eighteenth century that many people actually believe that he was
(00:22):
a member of the nobility. He was not, but as
coiffure to Marie Antoinette, he was afforded access to her
that even most nobles would not have had, and after
her ladies in waiting, for example, would complete the long
codified ritual of dressing the Queen, Leonard went in to
Marie Antoinette's apartment and create the hairstyle masterpieces that have
really become a hallmark of the young ruler's iconic image.
(00:44):
I think most of us when we think of Marie Antoinette,
we think of her giant stacked hair with the ship
in it. Yeah, but we're gonna talk about a little
bit um and that is all because of this one person,
and that iconic hare is very, very tied as well
to the image of debauchery and corruption that Marie Antoinette
was a oociated with. As the French monarchy came under
attack her hairstyles too. Many not only looked ridiculous, but
(01:06):
they were also very expensive and they were dangerous. Uh.
Their sheer size made them difficult to manage. There is
story after story of them just having to take things
out and change hair to get in and out of carriages. Uh.
And in a time when candles provided all illumination, they
were huge fire hazards. There are also many stories of
people getting their hair ignited or catching on chandeliers as
(01:29):
they walked around. Like basically they were just a problem. Uh.
And not only was Louis the sixteenth Queen spending massive
sums of money to keep her hairstyled this way, we're
going to talk a little bit about how much Leonard
was able to charge for some of these. But other
women of France were, of course following her lead to
try to keep up with trends. So Marie Antoinette was
skewered in the press not only for her own loose
(01:51):
purse strings when it came to pursuing fashion and style,
but also for the financial irresponsibility that her style choices
inspired in other women of the country. And the man
with the comb who created all of that Fereor is
the topic of today's episode and the next it is
a two parter. Before we get into this, we have
to talk about the term hairdresser or because it's one
(02:11):
of those things that in the modern parlance, I think
most people that do hair would like to be called stylists.
Um hairdresser has in some salons, not all, hairdresser has
become more like the person who does It's almost like
the assistant who handles rinsing prep, you know that kind
of stuff, whereas stylist is the person that actually decides
(02:35):
what your hair is gonna look like, you know, color,
There's it's varied, there's a whole different hierarchy of words.
It's not consistent. Even Salona Salon. Some stylists don't even care.
Just let me do my let me do hair, and
I'm good. But just in case anyone is wondering about that,
because you may go to someone who says, I'm not
a hair dress room a stylist. In this context, hairdresser
(02:56):
was pretty much the term, and we're going to use that.
So don't think that we're in any way demeaning anyone
who designs colors, etcetera hair but Leonard called himself a
hair dresser, and as well learn his call to hair
dressing was not because he thought he was, you know,
an artiste that needed to do it. He thought, stupid
(03:17):
people can do this and make a ton of money,
so I'm gonna do it. Uh, So we're gonna talk
about Leonard Autier. Leonard Alexis Attier was born somewhere in
the five year span between seventeen forty six and seventeen
fifty one in the southwest of France, in a town
called Pomier. His parents made their living as domestic servants,
(03:38):
but even from a very young age, Leonard longed for
more than life in a rural town could really offer him,
and he learned his trade in styling hair as an
apprentice in Marseilles and Toulouse, and then he spent time
in Bordeaux crafting the latest hairstyles. But his work never
really caught on with the upper class there, and he
was unwilling to style the hair of women farther down
(03:59):
this social hierarchy, so he decided that he was going
to leave Bordeaux and he set his eyes on Paris.
He moved to Paris in seventeen sixty nine when Louis
the fifteenth was still king and when the popular hairstyle
for women consisted of curls arranged close to the head
called a tete de mouton or sheep's head. Autier settled
(04:20):
into lodgings in a less than stellar part of town
at number fifteen Rue Denier. He paid for two weeks
worth of lodging and then set out the next morning
to try to make his way as a gentleman of Paris.
I sort of love this because in the beginning this
was definitely a fake it till you make it situation. Uh.
He had walked into Paris with basically nothing but was
(04:40):
in his pockets and a comb. He couldn't afford wig powder,
so he used some baking flowers, some leftover baking flower
to whiten his hair, and he carefully prepared these garments
that were second hand, uh, so that they would look
really clean and tidy and artfully assembled. There's even discussion
of how he very carefully tied his cravats so that
all of the platz are perfect and that he looked
(05:01):
completely assembled. And he put on a sword, which was
common for French noblemen at the time, and he went
out to seek his fortune, and according to his account,
and we're going to talk about his his memoirs a
little bit later, people in the street just stopped and
commented on what an attractive and fine looking gentleman he was.
He made his way to the business of a monsieur Legroux,
(05:22):
was a well known hairdresser in Paris at the time,
looking for a job. Legrox had written a book on
hairstyling called The Art of Hair Dressing, which Leonard had read,
and in fact it was one of the things that
inspired the young man from the country to start pursuing
a career in coiffure. But this was not a case
of admiration. This arkens back to what I said earlier.
(05:44):
Autier felt that if someone such as Legroux, who was
obviously in his mind of buffoon, could cultivate a successful
career for himself based on dressing hair and complimenting rich women,
then certainly he could do the same thing. And he
managed to establish an industry contact in Lgaro. They talked
about him possibly working there, and that was thanks in
part to a friend of Otier's named Fremont, who was
(06:07):
already working for the established hairdresser Leonard felt that he
would quickly surpass Legro and he told Fremont that he
believed he would be quote the foremost hairdresser in the
universe within three years. This was the bold most for anyone,
but particularly someone who had arrived in the city the
day before with almost nothing, but it evidenced the boastful
(06:29):
and often overconfident personality that he would really become famous for. Yeah,
this was a man that did not lack for confidence,
like to the point that as I read his memoirs
and the biography that I read of him, I was
really quite envious. As a man, it must be like
a delight to walk through the world with like absolutely
no self doubtte and with the help of Fremon, Leonard
(06:53):
quickly made additional friends and he started doing the hair
of one of the actresses at Nicolette's Theater for a
role as a fairy. And this was initially sort of
a fun thing where he was like, oh, let me
do your hair, it'll be fun. But his concoction, which
made use of jewelry and flowers and stars as accent
pieces in this really lavish hair do that also involved
a little bit of architecture to defy gravity won the actress,
(07:16):
who had been doing okay but not exactly having a
breakout star moment won her a great deal of attention
quite quickly, and in turn, Leonard also was given a
lot of attention. The young hairdresser moved immediately out of
his lodgings and the more dodgy part down so he
could live nearer to the theater's performers, and within just
a few days he had become such a sensation that
(07:38):
he gained the attention of Etienne Francois nukesois Oi. While
Leonard was glad to make a connection so closely tied
to the king, he also knew that court politics could
easily shift and any given connection could just fall out
of favor, so he also sought to expand his connections
to the nobility, and his posthumously published memoirs he wrote
(07:59):
her this time quote, greedy for gold and fame, I
may very well decide the destiny of my whole life
within just a single stroke of my home. Yeah. He
was very astute in realizing that he needed to. He
couldn't count on any one stroke of luck to propel
him into the life that he wanted, so he really
sort of cast his net net very wide. He was
(08:20):
really quite trud as a businessman. And we're going to
talk about his incredibly speedy rise to success. I mean,
already he's been in France for days and he's getting
attention from very very high up people. But first we're
gonna pause and have a word from one of our sponsors.
(08:41):
Leonard had a rapidly growing clientele in the theater. Numerous
actresses and dancers demanded to have him perform the same
magic on them that he had done on the actress
who played the ferry at Nicolett's. And incidentally, he seems
to have also had a romantic involvement with that actress
as well. Uh. And he was well aware that part
of his appeal was that he was handsome and charming,
(09:01):
and that some of the women who were seeking his
services were also interested in him as a potential romantic interest.
But even as he shot to fame inside just a
couple of weeks in Paris, there was also a bit
of jealous sabotage. A foot Legro, the established hairdresser who
Leonard had visited his first full day in the city,
(09:21):
was jealous of all the attention that this new upstart
was getting the grow attempted to launch a smear campaign
against Leonard's morals, suggesting it seems a tendency to engage
in impropriety with his patrons. But it seems like, at
least to some, this rumor only made the handsome Leonard
more appealing. They're like, oh, really, I could get my
(09:44):
hair to n and maybe have a little action. I
would like to book an appointment please, So he really,
I mean, it was insane how quickly he became super
toy popular and one of his new patrons during this
time was the Marquise de lan Jacques, who was to
be a part of Marie antoine arranged social circle. When
the new Dauffhine arrived from Vienna. Non Jacques made clear
(10:06):
to Leonard that she was interested in introducing him to
the French court and promoting him as a hairdresser there,
but on the condition that he really couldn't be dallying
with dancers and actresses if he wished to move into
higher society. But there's really a pretty strong suggestion that
what she was really indicating was that she would like
to sort of be his his patron and have a
(10:27):
romantic relationship with him, but if that were going to
be the case, he could not be involved with other people.
Autis memoirs indicate that the two of them began a
sexual relationship almost immediately. He did not, however, severed ties
with his actress Paramore. The Marquise seems to need constant
appointments with Leonard, but as described in Wilbashore's biography of Leonard, quote,
(10:50):
according to one on liquor, her hair never seemed so
badly arranged. Yeah, she was having some. I was two
appointments today, one in the morning and one in the evening,
and yet her hair did never look very good. La
Jacques introduced Leonard to Madame Duberry, the King's favorite, and
it was actually an invitation from Duberry that first granted
(11:11):
Leonard an opportunity to visit Versailles, and at their meeting,
she made an appointment with him to visit her at
her home the next day. During that appointment, Duberry, who
had just exited her bath, explained to Leonard what a
massage was and asked that he give her one request
that he obliged when he later told the Marquise de
lan Jacque about it, though she became quite jealous and
(11:34):
told him never to go to Duberry again. Yeah, apparently
this is a time when massage was not like a
thing yet. It was like, oh, this is a new
thing from the Orient I've heard about you. Would you
like to try giving me a massage. It's unclear whether
there was sexual activity or not. It's entirely possible, but
we just don't know sure. Leonard, however, had already made
(11:55):
his Versailles contact, and with the imminent arrival of the
new Dauphine Marie Antoinette, he was not about to let
that go. So when he first saw the young Austrian
not long after she had arrived in France, It's funny
because he was not exactly bowled over by her. Uh.
He didn't find her especially attractive, although he thought that
she had potential. Her hair, which had been styled by
(12:16):
arrival to Monsieur Ottier named Larsigneur, was especially disappointing, and
according to accounts of other royals who had been involved
in negotiating the marriage of the Austrian princess to the
future King of France, there was definitely going to be
a need for a good hairdresser. Ry Antoinette had a
very high forehead and her hair grew quote badly, which
(12:38):
probably means it was then I'm glad you clarified that,
Holly in the outline that you wrote, because in my
head I just imagined it being full of calx. Regardless,
this was considered a defect. Yeah, she she definitely had
a high forehead and and yeah, it's unclear what badly means,
but it seems like probably she just didn't have like
(13:00):
a really lush head of hair, and there will be
some hair loss later in the story, so that to
me links up a little bit. And as the new
Dauphine became integrated into life at Versailles, Leonard's friend and paramour,
the Marquise de lan Jacques, became one of the Princess's favorites.
As Lady in waiting, lan Jacques had much closer access
to the future Queen than most people, and lan Jacques
(13:22):
and others, including Madame Duberry, had mentioned Leonard's skills at
Coaffure to Marie Antoinette, but initially she retained Larsigneur as
her hair dresser for a time. Eventually, the Princess decided
that she would indeed retire La Signeur with a lovely
pension and instead take on Leonard as her hairdresser. She
received him for their first appointment in her bed chamber,
(13:45):
which was outside of palace etiquette. Only ladies were supposed
to attend the princess in a place of such privacy.
The Dauphine insisted, however, but also ensured that a number
of her lady attendants remained with them to appease members
of the household who were concerned with scandal. Yeah, as
as most people that have read much on Marie into
anet no, she was really put out by all of
(14:08):
the really codified rules of existence, particularly for a high
ranking royal at Versailles, which she can thank Louis FOURT
four he kind of put all those in place. But
she would just just like, I just want to talk
to a person in my room. Can we just do that?
But Leonard won the heart of the future Queen almost
immediately by addressing one of her concerns. So she did
(14:30):
not like wearing bonnets. She thought she looked better without
something covering her face, and that it was important because
of her status too, for people to be able to
see her face when she went walking around. But as
this was late autumn. If she wanted to go for
a walk in the gardens, which is one of her
favorite activities, she would mean to wear a hat to
ward off chill, and at this point the hairdresser came
up with a novel approach to solving this problem. So
(14:52):
he decided he would incorporate bits of sheer, lightweight fabric
into the hairstyle itself to give her hair a little
bit of covering and war without hiding her face. The
style delighted Marie Antoinette, and it became a common request
for her to make of Leonard. Incidentally, it was actually
this use of fabric and trim interwoven with the hair
(15:13):
that put previous podcast subject Rose Burton in front of
the Princess. Leonard suggested her as a supplier of such adornments,
so the Dauphine style stayed fresh and new, and having
pleased the future Queen so greatly, really cemented Autier's position
at Versailles. The Daufine assured him his position was secure,
(15:34):
and she soon came to rely on him for his opinion,
not just on her hair, but on anything involving style.
He was named Valet du Chambre for the princess, which
expanded his already impressive reputation. Finding himself in constant demand,
Leonard decided to extend his good fortune to his friend Framon.
We took on as an assistant, but he called him
(15:54):
his lieutenant. The two men knew that the favor of
the royal could have an abrupt end, but together they
thought that one of them could bolster the other one.
And it was shortly after this partnership was struck that
Leonard called suddenly to style the Dauphine's hair for a
trip to Paris, found himself needing to sober up for
the job. He and Framon apparently had concocted this plan
(16:16):
where Fraymon was going to be his assistant, and they
had this long dinner where they talked about the future,
and they had a lot of drinks, which apparently lean
Arm was not normally a big drinker, so he was
suddenly like, I gotta go do some hair. Uh, So
he rapidly drank several cups of coffee. And it was
at that appointment that he went to that he allegedly
created one of the fashion trends that is now commonly
(16:37):
associated with late eighteenth century style and that is the
use of ostrich plumes to accent very very tall hairstyles.
Leonard claimed that the coiffier he gave Mariantoinette that evening
was more than a yard high from her chin to
the top of the hair. And while this was a
gamble uh, in fact, when he told Fraymon about it,
he was like, what did you do? We're going to
(16:57):
get fired already. The Dauphine I actually loved it, and
soon sky high hair covered in feathers was all the rage,
which had an effect on ostriches. We are going to
talk about Monsieur Leonard's decision to open a school for
aspiring hairdressers, but before we do, we're going to pause
(17:17):
for a quick sponsor break. While Leonard was happy to
have found himself in the unique circumstance of having achieved
success so rapidly, he wanted more and he remained ever
aware that fortunes linked to Versailles could, as we've said
(17:37):
a couple of times now, change in an instant. So
his next step in becoming the dominant name in hair
in Paris was actually to open a school for hair
dressing with his friend Framon, and not only would taking
students or an additional income, but becoming the teacher of
the latest hairstyles in Paris and Versailles added yet another
new level to his fame and status. The school enabled
(17:59):
Land to help himself out, along with two of his brothers,
Pierre and Jean Francois, as well as a cousin named Villeneus.
He sent for his siblings and cousin to move from
the country to Paris to assist him, and, through the
Academy de Coiffure, to become hairdressers themselves. He was also
able to use his connections to get them regular jobs
(18:20):
in the households of Versailles. And while this habit of
using his success to help others in his circle, and
particularly his brothers and bring them along is admirable, it
also causes problems in the historical record. And here's why
all of the Autier brothers began to use the name
Leonard at various times, presumably to capitalize on the popularity
(18:44):
of the name and to manage multiple bookings. So Leonard
could just send one of his brothers when they would
show up and say hello, I'm Leonard. I'm here to
do your hair, uh, which is great business sense. It's
like franchising your siblings. But of course this makes the
movements of the true Leonard Autier a little bit tricky
to pin down, and that's actually going to come up
(19:04):
in the second episode in terms of a death notice.
So it is well documented that the Dauphine Marie Antoinette
loved defertissement. One of the activities she became interested in
attending was a masked ball. She first learned of them
through her brother in law, Charles Philippe, the Count of Artois,
and she got the idea that the Count and Leonard
(19:25):
should plan such an event secret from her husband and
the rest of the court, so that she could attend
one in disguise and experience anonymity. And Leonard, of course
he anticipated this, did the lion's share of the planning.
But the ball came together and the Count of Artois,
the Marquise de lan Jacques, and the Dauphine all attended together,
(19:46):
and this actually ended up being an occasion where Leonard,
further ingratiated himself to the future Queen Assigned from simply
having thrown the party in the first place, and having
become really one of her trusted friends, one of the
other men that was in attendance at the masked ball
had figured out who Marie Antoinette was. Many people did not,
but this one man did, and he was being a
(20:07):
little bit aggressive in his attempts to woo her. He,
you know, Leslie, was taking liberties in terms of putting
his arm around her waist and pulling her very close
to him. But Leonard witnessed this and stepped in, and
this actually got him into a brief fisticuffs with the
man's friends. So these two men came at the hairdresser
with clubs, and according to Leonard's account, which we will
mention again, he was very confident, and his memoirs really
(20:31):
talk up what a great dude he was um. But
according to his account, he disarmed one of these men
and he used the club that he took from them
to fend off the attack, and the original offender, who
turned out to be the Duke of Schatle, fled after
jumping from a window. It might come as a surprise that,
in the midst of all of his appointments and romantic dalliances,
Leonard actually married one of the kitchen assistants of Versailles
(20:53):
named Marie Louise Jacqualbie. The couple had a daughter together,
but it seems that the marriage itself was more of
a convenience and security situation for both of them. Leonard
established one more tie to Versailles, even if it was
on the lower end of the social hierarchy there, and
Marie Louise got the financial security of having a rich husband,
and even if they lived very separate lives for the
(21:16):
most part. Yeah, they would go on to have more children,
but initially they had one very quickly. And Leonard really
continued to be incredibly shrewd about bolstering his position in
a variety of ways. So, for example, uh comment talk
was all the rage in seventeen seventy three. There had
been a warning that a comment was going to hit France,
and it was a big discussion. There was fear and excitement,
(21:38):
and while no comment hit France, there was a comment
observed in October of that year. But all of that
sort of comment fur inspired Leonard to create a commet
hairstyle for the Dauphine, and she loved it so much
she wore it to the opera that night, and it
was a huge hit. It garnered just a plethora of compliments,
and it launched an obsession with commet themed murch of
(22:00):
nice in Paris. And it turned out that in something
akin to a pre internet social network marketing scheme, though
Leonard had masterminded this whole thing, he had paid people
at the opera to talk up Marie Antoinette's outlandish hairstyle
and create good buzz around it. I cannot stress what
a shrewd businessman he wants. Um So, yeah, he just
(22:21):
he found a new way. It seems like almost every
day to be like, I need to solidify my position
even more. I know I'm getting super rich and I'm
very busy, but I want to be super richer and
even busier. So on that note, we are going to
pause here with Leonard truly at the top of his game. Obviously,
he did not stay overside forever. So in the next
(22:42):
episode we're going to talk about how his career as
the Queen's hairdresser wound down and his other business ventures
and the ways in which his life changed in the
face of the French Revolution. And now I have listener
mail listener gifts what And we got an email from
this person before we got the gift in the mail
saying that that he was trying to arrange something. But
(23:04):
it is from our listener Roland and his wife Galina.
It says, dear Tracy and Holly, thank you for the
entertaining and educational show. I love it and I share
it with so many friends. My wife Galina is from Bulgaria,
from an area called the Rose Valley, and after listening
to your recent show on Rose's, I asked her to
bring something special back from her latest trip. Enclosed our
(23:24):
two vials of pure distilled rose oil from her hometown
ish area of Kasi Lack. I don't know if I'm
pronouncing that correctly. Galina had to be sure it wasn't
fake rose oil. So one is already opened and resealed
and it has her Bulgarian seal of approval. So thank
you so much, they said us. There these beautiful little
tiny um wooden sort of vile cases, and then within
(23:46):
them is a little Within each of them is a
little vial of rose oil. And they're absolutely beautiful and
they're super cool. So this is we're in a rare situation.
Tracy is actually in the studio. She's in Atlanta this week,
so she gets the gift right here as we're sitting here.
It's really cool. Thank you so much. So yes, thank
(24:06):
you so much, Roland and Galina. That's absolutely beautiful. And
I just I'm like debating, do I keep this at
my desk for when I need a whiff of something
to lift delicious or should I take it home? I
might stay at my desk for a little while I
get to do both. Yes, yes, so thank you so much.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at house to works dot com.
(24:28):
You can also find us across the spectrum of social
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(24:49):
and I have worked on. So come and visit us
at missed in History dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other top fix visit how staff works
dot com. MHM
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from house
stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fromman I'm Tracy we Wilson. So Leonard Ottier
became so much a part of French court in the
eighteenth century that many people actually believe that he was
(00:22):
a member of the nobility. He was not, but as
coiffure to Marie Antoinette, he was afforded access to her
that even most nobles would not have had, and after
her ladies in waiting, for example, would complete the long
codified ritual of dressing the Queen, Leonard went in to
Marie Antoinette's apartment and create the hairstyle masterpieces that have
really become a hallmark of the young ruler's iconic image.
(00:44):
I think most of us when we think of Marie Antoinette,
we think of her giant stacked hair with the ship
in it. Yeah, but we're gonna talk about a little
bit um and that is all because of this one person,
and that iconic hare is very, very tied as well
to the image of debauchery and corruption that Marie Antoinette
was a oociated with. As the French monarchy came under
attack her hairstyles too. Many not only looked ridiculous, but
(01:06):
they were also very expensive and they were dangerous. Uh.
Their sheer size made them difficult to manage. There is
story after story of them just having to take things
out and change hair to get in and out of carriages. Uh.
And in a time when candles provided all illumination, they
were huge fire hazards. There are also many stories of
people getting their hair ignited or catching on chandeliers as
(01:29):
they walked around. Like basically they were just a problem. Uh.
And not only was Louis the sixteenth Queen spending massive
sums of money to keep her hairstyled this way, we're
going to talk a little bit about how much Leonard
was able to charge for some of these. But other
women of France were, of course following her lead to
try to keep up with trends. So Marie Antoinette was
skewered in the press not only for her own loose
(01:51):
purse strings when it came to pursuing fashion and style,
but also for the financial irresponsibility that her style choices
inspired in other women of the country. And the man
with the comb who created all of that Fereor is
the topic of today's episode and the next it is
a two parter. Before we get into this, we have
to talk about the term hairdresser or because it's one
(02:11):
of those things that in the modern parlance, I think
most people that do hair would like to be called stylists.
Um hairdresser has in some salons, not all, hairdresser has
become more like the person who does It's almost like
the assistant who handles rinsing prep, you know that kind
of stuff, whereas stylist is the person that actually decides
(02:35):
what your hair is gonna look like, you know, color,
There's it's varied, there's a whole different hierarchy of words.
It's not consistent. Even Salona Salon. Some stylists don't even care.
Just let me do my let me do hair, and
I'm good. But just in case anyone is wondering about that,
because you may go to someone who says, I'm not
a hair dress room a stylist. In this context, hairdresser
(02:56):
was pretty much the term, and we're going to use that.
So don't think that we're in any way demeaning anyone
who designs colors, etcetera hair but Leonard called himself a
hair dresser, and as well learn his call to hair
dressing was not because he thought he was, you know,
an artiste that needed to do it. He thought, stupid
(03:17):
people can do this and make a ton of money,
so I'm gonna do it. Uh, So we're gonna talk
about Leonard Autier. Leonard Alexis Attier was born somewhere in
the five year span between seventeen forty six and seventeen
fifty one in the southwest of France, in a town
called Pomier. His parents made their living as domestic servants,
(03:38):
but even from a very young age, Leonard longed for
more than life in a rural town could really offer him,
and he learned his trade in styling hair as an
apprentice in Marseilles and Toulouse, and then he spent time
in Bordeaux crafting the latest hairstyles. But his work never
really caught on with the upper class there, and he
was unwilling to style the hair of women farther down
(03:59):
this social hierarchy, so he decided that he was going
to leave Bordeaux and he set his eyes on Paris.
He moved to Paris in seventeen sixty nine when Louis
the fifteenth was still king and when the popular hairstyle
for women consisted of curls arranged close to the head
called a tete de mouton or sheep's head. Autier settled
(04:20):
into lodgings in a less than stellar part of town
at number fifteen Rue Denier. He paid for two weeks
worth of lodging and then set out the next morning
to try to make his way as a gentleman of Paris.
I sort of love this because in the beginning this
was definitely a fake it till you make it situation. Uh.
He had walked into Paris with basically nothing but was
(04:40):
in his pockets and a comb. He couldn't afford wig powder,
so he used some baking flowers, some leftover baking flower
to whiten his hair, and he carefully prepared these garments
that were second hand, uh, so that they would look
really clean and tidy and artfully assembled. There's even discussion
of how he very carefully tied his cravats so that
all of the platz are perfect and that he looked
(05:01):
completely assembled. And he put on a sword, which was
common for French noblemen at the time, and he went
out to seek his fortune, and according to his account,
and we're going to talk about his his memoirs a
little bit later, people in the street just stopped and
commented on what an attractive and fine looking gentleman he was.
He made his way to the business of a monsieur Legroux,
(05:22):
was a well known hairdresser in Paris at the time,
looking for a job. Legrox had written a book on
hairstyling called The Art of Hair Dressing, which Leonard had read,
and in fact it was one of the things that
inspired the young man from the country to start pursuing
a career in coiffure. But this was not a case
of admiration. This arkens back to what I said earlier.
(05:44):
Autier felt that if someone such as Legroux, who was
obviously in his mind of buffoon, could cultivate a successful
career for himself based on dressing hair and complimenting rich women,
then certainly he could do the same thing. And he
managed to establish an industry contact in Lgaro. They talked
about him possibly working there, and that was thanks in
part to a friend of Otier's named Fremont, who was
(06:07):
already working for the established hairdresser Leonard felt that he
would quickly surpass Legro and he told Fremont that he
believed he would be quote the foremost hairdresser in the
universe within three years. This was the bold most for anyone,
but particularly someone who had arrived in the city the
day before with almost nothing, but it evidenced the boastful
(06:29):
and often overconfident personality that he would really become famous for. Yeah,
this was a man that did not lack for confidence,
like to the point that as I read his memoirs
and the biography that I read of him, I was
really quite envious. As a man, it must be like
a delight to walk through the world with like absolutely
no self doubtte and with the help of Fremon, Leonard
(06:53):
quickly made additional friends and he started doing the hair
of one of the actresses at Nicolette's Theater for a
role as a fairy. And this was initially sort of
a fun thing where he was like, oh, let me
do your hair, it'll be fun. But his concoction, which
made use of jewelry and flowers and stars as accent
pieces in this really lavish hair do that also involved
a little bit of architecture to defy gravity won the actress,
(07:16):
who had been doing okay but not exactly having a
breakout star moment won her a great deal of attention
quite quickly, and in turn, Leonard also was given a
lot of attention. The young hairdresser moved immediately out of
his lodgings and the more dodgy part down so he
could live nearer to the theater's performers, and within just
a few days he had become such a sensation that
(07:38):
he gained the attention of Etienne Francois nukesois Oi. While
Leonard was glad to make a connection so closely tied
to the king, he also knew that court politics could
easily shift and any given connection could just fall out
of favor, so he also sought to expand his connections
to the nobility, and his posthumously published memoirs he wrote
(07:59):
her this time quote, greedy for gold and fame, I
may very well decide the destiny of my whole life
within just a single stroke of my home. Yeah. He
was very astute in realizing that he needed to. He
couldn't count on any one stroke of luck to propel
him into the life that he wanted, so he really
sort of cast his net net very wide. He was
(08:20):
really quite trud as a businessman. And we're going to
talk about his incredibly speedy rise to success. I mean,
already he's been in France for days and he's getting
attention from very very high up people. But first we're
gonna pause and have a word from one of our sponsors.
(08:41):
Leonard had a rapidly growing clientele in the theater. Numerous
actresses and dancers demanded to have him perform the same
magic on them that he had done on the actress
who played the ferry at Nicolett's. And incidentally, he seems
to have also had a romantic involvement with that actress
as well. Uh. And he was well aware that part
of his appeal was that he was handsome and charming,
(09:01):
and that some of the women who were seeking his
services were also interested in him as a potential romantic interest.
But even as he shot to fame inside just a
couple of weeks in Paris, there was also a bit
of jealous sabotage. A foot Legro, the established hairdresser who
Leonard had visited his first full day in the city,
(09:21):
was jealous of all the attention that this new upstart
was getting the grow attempted to launch a smear campaign
against Leonard's morals, suggesting it seems a tendency to engage
in impropriety with his patrons. But it seems like, at
least to some, this rumor only made the handsome Leonard
more appealing. They're like, oh, really, I could get my
(09:44):
hair to n and maybe have a little action. I
would like to book an appointment please, So he really,
I mean, it was insane how quickly he became super
toy popular and one of his new patrons during this
time was the Marquise de lan Jacques, who was to
be a part of Marie antoine arranged social circle. When
the new Dauffhine arrived from Vienna. Non Jacques made clear
(10:06):
to Leonard that she was interested in introducing him to
the French court and promoting him as a hairdresser there,
but on the condition that he really couldn't be dallying
with dancers and actresses if he wished to move into
higher society. But there's really a pretty strong suggestion that
what she was really indicating was that she would like
to sort of be his his patron and have a
(10:27):
romantic relationship with him, but if that were going to
be the case, he could not be involved with other people.
Autis memoirs indicate that the two of them began a
sexual relationship almost immediately. He did not, however, severed ties
with his actress Paramore. The Marquise seems to need constant
appointments with Leonard, but as described in Wilbashore's biography of Leonard, quote,
(10:50):
according to one on liquor, her hair never seemed so
badly arranged. Yeah, she was having some. I was two
appointments today, one in the morning and one in the evening,
and yet her hair did never look very good. La
Jacques introduced Leonard to Madame Duberry, the King's favorite, and
it was actually an invitation from Duberry that first granted
(11:11):
Leonard an opportunity to visit Versailles, and at their meeting,
she made an appointment with him to visit her at
her home the next day. During that appointment, Duberry, who
had just exited her bath, explained to Leonard what a
massage was and asked that he give her one request
that he obliged when he later told the Marquise de
lan Jacque about it, though she became quite jealous and
(11:34):
told him never to go to Duberry again. Yeah, apparently
this is a time when massage was not like a
thing yet. It was like, oh, this is a new
thing from the Orient I've heard about you. Would you
like to try giving me a massage. It's unclear whether
there was sexual activity or not. It's entirely possible, but
we just don't know sure. Leonard, however, had already made
(11:55):
his Versailles contact, and with the imminent arrival of the
new Dauphine Marie Antoinette, he was not about to let
that go. So when he first saw the young Austrian
not long after she had arrived in France, It's funny
because he was not exactly bowled over by her. Uh.
He didn't find her especially attractive, although he thought that
she had potential. Her hair, which had been styled by
(12:16):
arrival to Monsieur Ottier named Larsigneur, was especially disappointing, and
according to accounts of other royals who had been involved
in negotiating the marriage of the Austrian princess to the
future King of France, there was definitely going to be
a need for a good hairdresser. Ry Antoinette had a
very high forehead and her hair grew quote badly, which
(12:38):
probably means it was then I'm glad you clarified that,
Holly in the outline that you wrote, because in my
head I just imagined it being full of calx. Regardless,
this was considered a defect. Yeah, she she definitely had
a high forehead and and yeah, it's unclear what badly means,
but it seems like probably she just didn't have like
(13:00):
a really lush head of hair, and there will be
some hair loss later in the story, so that to
me links up a little bit. And as the new
Dauphine became integrated into life at Versailles, Leonard's friend and paramour,
the Marquise de lan Jacques, became one of the Princess's favorites.
As Lady in waiting, lan Jacques had much closer access
to the future Queen than most people, and lan Jacques
(13:22):
and others, including Madame Duberry, had mentioned Leonard's skills at
Coaffure to Marie Antoinette, but initially she retained Larsigneur as
her hair dresser for a time. Eventually, the Princess decided
that she would indeed retire La Signeur with a lovely
pension and instead take on Leonard as her hairdresser. She
received him for their first appointment in her bed chamber,
(13:45):
which was outside of palace etiquette. Only ladies were supposed
to attend the princess in a place of such privacy.
The Dauphine insisted, however, but also ensured that a number
of her lady attendants remained with them to appease members
of the household who were concerned with scandal. Yeah, as
as most people that have read much on Marie into
anet no, she was really put out by all of
(14:08):
the really codified rules of existence, particularly for a high
ranking royal at Versailles, which she can thank Louis FOURT
four he kind of put all those in place. But
she would just just like, I just want to talk
to a person in my room. Can we just do that?
But Leonard won the heart of the future Queen almost
immediately by addressing one of her concerns. So she did
(14:30):
not like wearing bonnets. She thought she looked better without
something covering her face, and that it was important because
of her status too, for people to be able to
see her face when she went walking around. But as
this was late autumn. If she wanted to go for
a walk in the gardens, which is one of her
favorite activities, she would mean to wear a hat to
ward off chill, and at this point the hairdresser came
up with a novel approach to solving this problem. So
(14:52):
he decided he would incorporate bits of sheer, lightweight fabric
into the hairstyle itself to give her hair a little
bit of covering and war without hiding her face. The
style delighted Marie Antoinette, and it became a common request
for her to make of Leonard. Incidentally, it was actually
this use of fabric and trim interwoven with the hair
(15:13):
that put previous podcast subject Rose Burton in front of
the Princess. Leonard suggested her as a supplier of such adornments,
so the Dauphine style stayed fresh and new, and having
pleased the future Queen so greatly, really cemented Autier's position
at Versailles. The Daufine assured him his position was secure,
(15:34):
and she soon came to rely on him for his opinion,
not just on her hair, but on anything involving style.
He was named Valet du Chambre for the princess, which
expanded his already impressive reputation. Finding himself in constant demand,
Leonard decided to extend his good fortune to his friend Framon.
We took on as an assistant, but he called him
(15:54):
his lieutenant. The two men knew that the favor of
the royal could have an abrupt end, but together they
thought that one of them could bolster the other one.
And it was shortly after this partnership was struck that
Leonard called suddenly to style the Dauphine's hair for a
trip to Paris, found himself needing to sober up for
the job. He and Framon apparently had concocted this plan
(16:16):
where Fraymon was going to be his assistant, and they
had this long dinner where they talked about the future,
and they had a lot of drinks, which apparently lean
Arm was not normally a big drinker, so he was
suddenly like, I gotta go do some hair. Uh, So
he rapidly drank several cups of coffee. And it was
at that appointment that he went to that he allegedly
created one of the fashion trends that is now commonly
(16:37):
associated with late eighteenth century style and that is the
use of ostrich plumes to accent very very tall hairstyles.
Leonard claimed that the coiffier he gave Mariantoinette that evening
was more than a yard high from her chin to
the top of the hair. And while this was a
gamble uh, in fact, when he told Fraymon about it,
he was like, what did you do? We're going to
(16:57):
get fired already. The Dauphine I actually loved it, and
soon sky high hair covered in feathers was all the rage,
which had an effect on ostriches. We are going to
talk about Monsieur Leonard's decision to open a school for
aspiring hairdressers, but before we do, we're going to pause
(17:17):
for a quick sponsor break. While Leonard was happy to
have found himself in the unique circumstance of having achieved
success so rapidly, he wanted more and he remained ever
aware that fortunes linked to Versailles could, as we've said
(17:37):
a couple of times now, change in an instant. So
his next step in becoming the dominant name in hair
in Paris was actually to open a school for hair
dressing with his friend Framon, and not only would taking
students or an additional income, but becoming the teacher of
the latest hairstyles in Paris and Versailles added yet another
new level to his fame and status. The school enabled
(17:59):
Land to help himself out, along with two of his brothers,
Pierre and Jean Francois, as well as a cousin named Villeneus.
He sent for his siblings and cousin to move from
the country to Paris to assist him, and, through the
Academy de Coiffure, to become hairdressers themselves. He was also
able to use his connections to get them regular jobs
(18:20):
in the households of Versailles. And while this habit of
using his success to help others in his circle, and
particularly his brothers and bring them along is admirable, it
also causes problems in the historical record. And here's why
all of the Autier brothers began to use the name
Leonard at various times, presumably to capitalize on the popularity
(18:44):
of the name and to manage multiple bookings. So Leonard
could just send one of his brothers when they would
show up and say hello, I'm Leonard. I'm here to
do your hair, uh, which is great business sense. It's
like franchising your siblings. But of course this makes the
movements of the true Leonard Autier a little bit tricky
to pin down, and that's actually going to come up
(19:04):
in the second episode in terms of a death notice.
So it is well documented that the Dauphine Marie Antoinette
loved defertissement. One of the activities she became interested in
attending was a masked ball. She first learned of them
through her brother in law, Charles Philippe, the Count of Artois,
and she got the idea that the Count and Leonard
(19:25):
should plan such an event secret from her husband and
the rest of the court, so that she could attend
one in disguise and experience anonymity. And Leonard, of course
he anticipated this, did the lion's share of the planning.
But the ball came together and the Count of Artois,
the Marquise de lan Jacques, and the Dauphine all attended together,
(19:46):
and this actually ended up being an occasion where Leonard,
further ingratiated himself to the future Queen Assigned from simply
having thrown the party in the first place, and having
become really one of her trusted friends, one of the
other men that was in attendance at the masked ball
had figured out who Marie Antoinette was. Many people did not,
but this one man did, and he was being a
(20:07):
little bit aggressive in his attempts to woo her. He,
you know, Leslie, was taking liberties in terms of putting
his arm around her waist and pulling her very close
to him. But Leonard witnessed this and stepped in, and
this actually got him into a brief fisticuffs with the
man's friends. So these two men came at the hairdresser
with clubs, and according to Leonard's account, which we will
mention again, he was very confident, and his memoirs really
(20:31):
talk up what a great dude he was um. But
according to his account, he disarmed one of these men
and he used the club that he took from them
to fend off the attack, and the original offender, who
turned out to be the Duke of Schatle, fled after
jumping from a window. It might come as a surprise that,
in the midst of all of his appointments and romantic dalliances,
Leonard actually married one of the kitchen assistants of Versailles
(20:53):
named Marie Louise Jacqualbie. The couple had a daughter together,
but it seems that the marriage itself was more of
a convenience and security situation for both of them. Leonard
established one more tie to Versailles, even if it was
on the lower end of the social hierarchy there, and
Marie Louise got the financial security of having a rich husband,
and even if they lived very separate lives for the
(21:16):
most part. Yeah, they would go on to have more children,
but initially they had one very quickly. And Leonard really
continued to be incredibly shrewd about bolstering his position in
a variety of ways. So, for example, uh comment talk
was all the rage in seventeen seventy three. There had
been a warning that a comment was going to hit France,
and it was a big discussion. There was fear and excitement,
(21:38):
and while no comment hit France, there was a comment
observed in October of that year. But all of that
sort of comment fur inspired Leonard to create a commet
hairstyle for the Dauphine, and she loved it so much
she wore it to the opera that night, and it
was a huge hit. It garnered just a plethora of compliments,
and it launched an obsession with commet themed murch of
(22:00):
nice in Paris. And it turned out that in something
akin to a pre internet social network marketing scheme, though
Leonard had masterminded this whole thing, he had paid people
at the opera to talk up Marie Antoinette's outlandish hairstyle
and create good buzz around it. I cannot stress what
a shrewd businessman he wants. Um So, yeah, he just
(22:21):
he found a new way. It seems like almost every
day to be like, I need to solidify my position
even more. I know I'm getting super rich and I'm
very busy, but I want to be super richer and
even busier. So on that note, we are going to
pause here with Leonard truly at the top of his game. Obviously,
he did not stay overside forever. So in the next
(22:42):
episode we're going to talk about how his career as
the Queen's hairdresser wound down and his other business ventures
and the ways in which his life changed in the
face of the French Revolution. And now I have listener
mail listener gifts what And we got an email from
this person before we got the gift in the mail
saying that that he was trying to arrange something. But
(23:04):
it is from our listener Roland and his wife Galina.
It says, dear Tracy and Holly, thank you for the
entertaining and educational show. I love it and I share
it with so many friends. My wife Galina is from Bulgaria,
from an area called the Rose Valley, and after listening
to your recent show on Rose's, I asked her to
bring something special back from her latest trip. Enclosed our
(23:24):
two vials of pure distilled rose oil from her hometown
ish area of Kasi Lack. I don't know if I'm
pronouncing that correctly. Galina had to be sure it wasn't
fake rose oil. So one is already opened and resealed
and it has her Bulgarian seal of approval. So thank
you so much, they said us. There these beautiful little
tiny um wooden sort of vile cases, and then within
(23:46):
them is a little Within each of them is a
little vial of rose oil. And they're absolutely beautiful and
they're super cool. So this is we're in a rare situation.
Tracy is actually in the studio. She's in Atlanta this week,
so she gets the gift right here as we're sitting here.
It's really cool. Thank you so much. So yes, thank
(24:06):
you so much, Roland and Galina. That's absolutely beautiful. And
I just I'm like debating, do I keep this at
my desk for when I need a whiff of something
to lift delicious or should I take it home? I
might stay at my desk for a little while I
get to do both. Yes, yes, so thank you so much.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at house to works dot com.
(24:28):
You can also find us across the spectrum of social
media as Missed in History, and you can come and
visit our website, which is Missed in History dot com
and you can look for this episode, which you probably
already did unless you're on it Tunes or stitch your
some other app that feeds it to you. Uh. And
you can find all of our other episodes so we've
ever done, including show notes on the ones that Tracy
(24:49):
and I have worked on. So come and visit us
at missed in History dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other top fix visit how staff works
dot com. MHM
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Tracy Wilson
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