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41 - Julie d’Aubigny and Virginia Hall
54 Plays1 month ago
It's Women's History Month, and Sam and Jeff are sharing the stories of some seriously badass women.
Sam tells the story of Julie d’Aubigny, better known as Mademoiselle Maupin or La Maupin. A French opera singer with a tumultuous career and a flamboyant lifestyle, Julie was the subject of gossip, rumors, and colorful stories in her time, inspiring numerous fictional and semi-fictional portrayals.
Jeff tells the story of Virginia Hall, an American spy who worked with the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in France during World War II. Code-named "Marie" and "Diane," Virginia was at the top of the Nazi’s Most Wanted list—and she knew it.
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at downtherabbitholepod@gmail.com.
Sam's Sources:
Jeff's Sources:
- Purnell, Sonia, A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of Virginia Hall, WWII’s Most Dangerous Spy
- Home of Heroes - Virginia Hall
- Wikipedia - Virginia Hall
- Smithsonian - How a Spy Known as the Limping Lady Helped the Allies Win WWII
- CIA - Virginia Hall: The Courage and Daring of the Limping Lady
- Mental Floss - Virginia Hall, One-Legged WWII Superspy
- YouTube - Virginia Hall
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Down the Rabbit Hole'
00:00:01
Jeff Rogers
Hello, Sam. Hi, Jeffrey.
00:00:24
Jeff Rogers
Well, hello. Hello. Welcome to Down the Rabbit Hole with Jeff and Sam. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. And you can find this show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and even Amazon. you have any of those, we're probably listening to it anyway.
00:00:43
Jeff Rogers
But any of those, you can find us on there. um We're going to be here for you every Thursday. Whether you like it or not, we're here Okay?
00:00:53
Jeff Rogers
Too true.
Engaging with Listeners: Social Media and Contact Info
00:00:54
Jeff Rogers
Too true. And where can you find us, Samantha? um You can find us on Instagram at downtherabbitholdepod. Or you can reach out to us on Gmail at downtherabbitholdepod at gmail.com.
00:01:06
Jeff Rogers
Send us your comments, questions, concerns, stories. No one has yet to send us a story that they want us to do. I mean, yeah. Yeah. So if something tickles your fancy. There's people always kind of send stories.
00:01:21
Jeff Rogers
I just have to give them to you because they. You're just holding them for yourself. It's like um there's so many of them and so many of them are dark that people give me. And immediately I'm like, that's Sam's.
00:01:33
Jeff Rogers
That's Sam's. And so now I have to go back and pass them all to you. Yes, you should do that. Because ah somebody. We can't tell them to contact us and then not respond. No, no. we're We're working on it.
00:01:44
Jeff Rogers
Okay. We're working on it. Anyway, yeah. So you've got recommendations. All right. And some of them are pretty dark. Oh. Which I think is more you, maybe. It is. It is. More you. What's new? What's going on?
00:01:58
Jeff Rogers
I mean, you are you've been off for a couple of days now. Anything new?
Culinary Adventures: Burgers and Diners
00:02:04
Jeff Rogers
no How many books have you read? Just three in the last couple days. Okay.
00:02:09
Jeff Rogers
But there, I mean, it doesn't really count because I'm redoing the Harry Potter series as always. So like those are not really, they don't count. I went last night to a bar, and it was called Exiles Bar.
00:02:24
Jeff Rogers
It's in D.C. No, I No, it's not a bar. It's a... um it's ah Well, it is a bar, like a sports bar. but You went to a sports bar? Yeah, for the bar food. They let you in? Well, it was like... I had the choice.
00:02:38
Jeff Rogers
It was like, do you want to go... to either the Italian restaurant, which is the Red Hen, or Mexican restaurant, or there's an American right there beside it. And I was like, you know what? American, because I want a burger.
00:02:53
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Sometimes you're just craving a burger, you know? Right. So we go in there, and um it was packed. So he said, well, I know another place. It's like an Uber ride away. So we get in the Uber.
00:03:07
Jeff Rogers
It was like the worst smell in the Uber ever. Seriously, it was like, um somebody had vomited, then the Uber driver was like, let me cover that up with the cheapest strawberry raspberry smell air freshener possible.
00:03:27
Jeff Rogers
Yeah, it was bad. oh It was bad. Anyway, we went to this bar, went in and ordered, and I got this, it was like the Diablo burger. and Oh, yeah.
00:03:37
Jeff Rogers
which i always order my burgers with like a lot of fresh jalapenos on them i don't like the pickled jalapenos or jarred you know the ones that come in the jar i fresh jalapenos so they brought a lot of fresh jalapenos on it but it's the cheesy sauce or cheese on the burger with an egg it's divine and the cheesy sauce was so spicy oh and then i put the jalapenos on there Why would you do that? Do you know me?
00:04:03
Jeff Rogers
I do. I just, and that just made my stomach do some results. Yeah. It was, it was really good. It was so messy though. butt clenched a little bit too. It was so messy that I had to stop eating it with my hands because there weren't enough napkins.
00:04:19
Jeff Rogers
That's a good burger. I was digging at it with my fork and my knife. Well, you know, I have to do that anyway. yeah It was good. and it was good. That sounds great. and I had some really good just homemade chicken and rice last night and ah so good.
00:04:35
Jeff Rogers
Yeah, really just hits the spot sometimes. I appreciate the basic things. Right. I did my workout today at noon. It's a little orange theory. And then afterwards I met Marianne. I do so love him. At a diner.
00:04:48
Jeff Rogers
We met at the diner. do you Have you been to that diner with us yet? Beeliner diner? No. keep talking about me. It's so I have a salad. Yeah.
00:05:00
Jeff Rogers
And Marianne always has like the burger. Good food. I'll have to join you sometime. Do we have absolutely nothing to talk about? Now I'm craving food. Now want a burger and I just had one last night.
00:05:13
Jeff Rogers
Oh, you're eating some high protein bar, Chris. What do you have my friend eating? What do you have Samantha eating, Christopher? Chris, you know who you know who you are, Chris. Have you ever listened to this? i don't know if he listens because he's a busy man. he's a busy man.
00:05:27
Jeff Rogers
Well, he is helping me okay on my my journey to getting back to the fitness level that I would like to be in. Awesome.
00:05:38
Jeff Rogers
But I might i might die I actually ever hit that that calorie, protein, carb, fat breakdown that he gave me. I don't think it's possible. I mean, I'm not even getting half of the stuff that yeah I can't fit anymore.
00:05:55
Jeff Rogers
to figure it out. and Sam eats very small portions of food. And when we were in London, we went to this restaurant called Mark's. like for Mike's. It was Mike's.
00:06:07
Jeff Rogers
and um oh it's perfect i ordered like the big breakfast i want like all the food it was a whole island ordered like the english breakfast with side note beans for breakfast i'm not about that and then uh no i mean you greens and beans is what you have at night with cornbread and butter and an onion anyway that's a whole other issue um i can eat beans any day so we all got like plates of food and then they brought sam the cutest little plate with like the cutest little egg describe the plate um well it was so perfect it was it was absolutely perfect it had two little triangle hash browns one fried egg and then she set the plate down she was like she looked at it and she looked at me and she was like do you
00:06:54
Jeff Rogers
want like an avocado or something and hot dog if adding that avocado was not the greatest thing ever and it was so good and then I looked behind me and did you see behind me there was that whole tray of avocados I was thinking about just pocketing some of them but I didn't but it was perfect That place was called Mike's Cafe and it was
Memorable Cafe Experiences
00:07:15
Jeff Rogers
in Notting Hill. So if anybody's in Notting Hill, you have to go to Mike's Cafe. They're the friendliest people. They're wonderful. It was it was such a great ah experience. was just amazing. Yeah. The food was delicious. The vibe was really cool. I mean, everything about the the decorations, like right in my alley. Dogs were coming in. People were playing with dogs as they came in
00:07:38
Jeff Rogers
There was a map on the wall. And we should have asked to be included in that. Well, we thought about it and then we just didn't think it again. It was time go on. Yeah. But there's a map on the wall where people put, was it pictures? Polaroids. Polaroids, yeah. Polaroids. And we had a Polaroid camera. Yeah.
00:07:53
Jeff Rogers
But from wherever they are in the world. Yeah. It goes on that map. Anyway, that was like probably one of the best experiences of the trip. There were so many good experiences, but that was just like, they were so friendly there. It was such a good vibe. Such a cute restaurant that,
00:08:09
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. Delish. Amazing. It's great. It's great. ah What else? Should we just jump in and tell
Storytelling Prep and Coin Toss
00:08:18
Jeff Rogers
a story? Let's do it. What are we drinking? Because, you know, we've got to drink something when we tell a story.
00:08:24
Jeff Rogers
We are drinking. I am drinking an Olipop watermelon lime. I'm drinking an Olipop cherry vanilla. Okay. And we're drinking out of our beer steins that Kelsey made us. Hey,
00:08:43
Jeff Rogers
Here we go, get it to the top, get it to the top. Who pours like that? Me.
00:08:51
Jeff Rogers
Me, I do, I do. Mine's pretty, it's so pretty. So is mine. Cheers, Chris. Cheers, Chris. Oh god, oh my god. She's working out, she's really sore.
00:09:05
Jeff Rogers
Okay, and next we flip the coin. Sam picks a coin from our many coins from around the world, and that tells us who will tell the story first. Tell me when to stop.
00:09:17
Jeff Rogers
Okay, go.
00:09:19
Jeff Rogers
Keep going. Keep going. I can't hold arm off any longer. Keep going. Keep going. Stop! There you go. I feel like it was very loud. Sorry.
00:09:30
Jeff Rogers
Why are you yelling at me? I was excited. Okay, this one is... Oh! ah Sierra Leone? Oh, hey. Okay, the 10 cent piece.
00:09:42
Jeff Rogers
There is a guitar on one side. A guitar. A guitar. A guitar. And a man on the other one. So you can be the guitar. Thank you. And I'll be the man. Perfect.
00:09:53
Jeff Rogers
Perfection. Damn it. We always do that every week. Hold on. It's part of the show, though. Sam flips the coin. She throws it into the floor. She has to. She's making funny sounds as she's bending down right now. bed And she's knocking stuff off the table.
00:10:09
Jeff Rogers
She's actually kind of a hot mess. Chris, what are you doing to my friend Sam? She can't move, right? She's eating protein shit. Mm-hmm. I am. I'm trying. Okay.
00:10:20
Jeff Rogers
It's the man. Oh, it's you. Okay. Oh, it's me. Hi. I'm the problem. Okay. Problem a child.
The Adventures of Julie d'Aubigny
00:10:28
Jeff Rogers
Okay. So this story is a little out of my um normal.
00:10:36
Jeff Rogers
This is a story about a badass woman just for you, Jeffrey.
00:10:42
Jeff Rogers
Okay. okay Okay. Okay. What? What? This makes me so excited. Okay. This makes me so excited. Okay. wait Oh, God. What if we have the same? We don't.
00:10:53
Jeff Rogers
Okay. You would have told me if you did. there any reason why we're doing Badass Women today? um Because tis the month for Badass Women.
00:11:06
Jeff Rogers
Can we celebrate that anymore? Yes, we can. And, you know, I love a badass woman, period, full stop. Most gay men do. I don't know. There's a relationship there.
00:11:17
Jeff Rogers
And so I'm doing the story because I love the woman that I'm doing the story about. But it is also Women's History Month. It is. There you In honor of us.
00:11:30
Jeff Rogers
You too, Green. Thanks.
00:11:34
Jeff Rogers
This is a story about a woman whose life was an absolute whirlwind of adventures and romances.
00:11:44
Jeff Rogers
i know who you're talking about. I'm just kidding. i Sorry. Jesus, how? Julia Roberts. I do so love her. me too.
00:11:56
Jeff Rogers
Interesting. So this one. She was known by many names throughout her life and even after. Born Julie de Obigny, she was also known as Julie Emily de Maupin by her cast lists.
00:12:14
Jeff Rogers
Mademoiselle Maupin was her stage name. Emily and Julia were what her lovers called her. La Maupin, what her adoring fans called her.
00:12:26
Jeff Rogers
And Madame de Maupin, her married name. Oh, like this. Her exact date and place of birth are unknown, but it is believed that she was born sometime around 1673. She was the daughter of a secretary to Count de Armagnac, the master of horse for King Louis The fourteenth the master of what?
00:12:50
Jeff Rogers
Horse. Really? Yeah. Wow. um She likely lived at a riding school in Paris until the age of 10 when she moved to Versailles with the court and spent many years in the great stables.
00:13:05
Jeff Rogers
Her father was an accomplished swordsman, and he trained to the court pages. He also decided to train his only daughter, who dressed as a boy, alongside those pages.
00:13:16
Jeff Rogers
In her early teen years, she became a mistress to the Count when then she got married to an unimpressive and unimportant man, Sir de Maupin.
00:13:31
Jeff Rogers
Stories claim that he was sent away the morning after the wedding to be a tax collector in distant provinces. Julie was left to continue her role as the mistress.
00:13:43
Jeff Rogers
She became bored or fed up with him and ran away with a fencing master named Soren. I bet he was hot. please The fencing master? Yeah, he's called a fencing master. That means he was hot. Probably. yeah probably They scraped by as best as they could.
00:13:58
Jeff Rogers
As a duo, they performed fencing demonstrations at fairs and taverns. During these demonstrations, people couldn't or wouldn't believe that she was a woman because she was just too good.
00:14:10
Jeff Rogers
At one show, she shut up all the doubters by simply removing her shirt and turning in place to show them she had boobs. Hmm. While in Marseille, she began a singing career with the opera.
00:14:25
Jeff Rogers
She was well loved by all who saw her. At one of her performances, she met a young woman and fell in love. The girl's family was mortified and shipped her off to a convent in Avignon.
00:14:39
Jeff Rogers
Julie wouldn't stand for it. She followed her to the convent and entered as a postulate. One night, an elderly nun passed away, and Julie and the girl stole the body, locked it in the girl's room, and set fire to the convent.
00:14:54
Jeff Rogers
Holy shit. The things you do for love. Uh-huh. The two escaped and were on the run happily for three months.
00:15:04
Jeff Rogers
Julie was sentenced to death and and in absentia by the parliament and province, where the convent was. The judges couldn't believe that a woman would abduct another woman,
00:15:15
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:18
Jeff Rogers
julie returned the young woman to her family then dressed as a man again and continued her travels throughout the country one day she bumped into a young nobleman literally shouldered him comte dalbert he challenged her to a duel he didn't realize that she was a woman she wounded him beat him in the challenge, but then she stayed with him and nursed him back to health.
00:15:45
Jeff Rogers
They started a romantic relationship, and this is known as her greatest romance of her life. hu Her adventures continued. She began taking singing lessons, met a new lover, Gabriel Vincent Thevenard, who was another singer.
00:16:03
Jeff Rogers
The pair returned to Paris where Julie went to her former lover, the horse master guy, and requested he arrange a pardon for her little indiscretion in province.
00:16:16
Jeff Rogers
no She burnt a convent down. Well, you know, I mean, it was kind of accidental. It was for love. It was for love. So can you forgive me? Right.
00:16:28
Jeff Rogers
I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. But I ain't going to do that. Nope. Can't catch me in a convent.
00:16:37
Jeff Rogers
The Bernard auditioned for the opera and was hired immediately. He accepted on the condition that Julie be allowed to audition as well. So by the age of only 17, she was now a part of one of the greatest musical companies.
00:16:56
Jeff Rogers
She was pardoned by the king for her crimes and became a star. Between 1690 and 1694, she was an adored member of all the major productions. Her performing name was Lama Pen.
00:17:10
Jeff Rogers
Just to keep things interesting, she attended a court ball in Paris, dressed yet again in men's clothing. While there, she kissed a young woman on the dance floor.
00:17:22
Jeff Rogers
For this, she was challenged to a duel by not one, but three separate noblemen. She kicked their asses. She told each of them to meet her outside, which they did, and she fought all of them at once.
00:17:38
Jeff Rogers
She beat them. I love her. However, by this time, King Louis had outlawed duels, so Julie fled to Brussels. She quickly found herself another lover in the Elector of Bavaria.
00:17:53
Jeff Rogers
During a dramatic performance, she actually stabbed herself with a real dagger on stage, He was a little overwhelmed by this, so he paid her 40,000 francs to leave him alone.
00:18:07
Jeff Rogers
Oh, my God. She rejected the money, threw it at his feet, and traveled to Madrid.
00:18:14
Jeff Rogers
In Madrid, she began working as a maid for Countess Moreno, who she despised. And in another act of petty rebellion, she dressed the Countess's hair with radishes before a grand ball so that everyone but the Countess herself could see.
00:18:30
Jeff Rogers
She fled back to Paris before the Countess returned home that night. Again, Maupin found herself pardoned for her crimes, the dueling, and returned to opera performances.
00:18:43
Jeff Rogers
She was back to stardom in all the major productions. She introduced the Italian idea of contralto voice to France. She defended chorus girls from less than savory advances of pompous men.
00:18:56
Jeff Rogers
She again became infatuated with another woman. Drama ensued. She tried to kill herself. She threatened to blow the Duchess of Luxembourg's brains out and then found herself in court for attacking her landlord.
00:19:13
Jeff Rogers
Dang. In 1703, she fell in love with Madame Le Marquis de Florenzac. She happened to be, quote, the most beautiful
Julie d'Aubigny's Rise to Fame
00:19:23
Jeff Rogers
woman in all of France and one of the most famous, wealthy, and well-connected women in France as well.
00:19:30
Jeff Rogers
According to stories, the two lived in peace and happiness for two years until the death of de Florenzac by fever. Hmm. Le Maupin was destroyed.
00:19:42
Jeff Rogers
She entered a convent where she died at the age of 33.
00:19:47
Jeff Rogers
Author Kelly Gardner worked for many years to find the truth of this incredible and maybe a tiny bit crazy woman. How about she was passionate?
00:19:58
Jeff Rogers
Passionate. She described her simply as runaway, adventurer, opera singer, sword fighter, lover, and goddess.
00:20:09
Jeff Rogers
Huh. Throughout all of her chaotic adventures, the crowds adored her, in spite of her high-profile affairs with women, her public brawling and dueling, and her breaches and swords.
00:20:21
Jeff Rogers
She lived hard. She loved harder. She died young, but with an extraordinary story left behind. That's a very good story. ah job. Yay! That was good.
00:20:33
Jeff Rogers
I really enjoyed reading about her. She was... You just... I mean... She just took life and ran. Yeah, that was good. She looked hard. She did. She loved hard.
00:20:45
Jeff Rogers
She burned hard. stabbed hard She did it. Put radishes in the hair She did. But she, like, she just, I mean, she was a teenager. know at that time was a woman, but, like. Well, I mean, if you're, like, 12, basically that's today's, like, 40. You're a grown woman. Yeah.
00:21:03
Jeff Rogers
So, yeah, but between, I mean, think about it. She left, like, Versailles, or she ran away from Versailles at the age of 14. And then by the age of 17, she was back in Paris and was in a renowned opera singer, but had lived so much in that time. Learned her best life.
00:21:19
Jeff Rogers
and All over Europe. All over Europe. wow That's good. That's very good. Thank you. Thank you. and Okay. Your turn. Is it my turn? is indeed.
00:21:31
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Okay.
00:21:35
Jeff Rogers
I want to say, I'm not going to say the book yet. Hold on. So here's the beginning of the story. She had a difficult choice to make. Ahead of her was a snow-covered passage through the Pyrenees, the mountains separating France and Spain.
00:21:50
Jeff Rogers
Behind her was Nazi-occupied France. Another bad turn in the unpredictable landscape of World War two To plow forward through 30 miles of dangerous hiking on foot would be demanding in the extreme.
00:22:06
Jeff Rogers
But if she stayed, she'd almost certainly be captured by the Nazis, who now considered her their most feared and dangerous Allied spy. The Nazis had stuck wanted posters all over the country hoping to capture her, kill her, or even worse.
00:22:23
Jeff Rogers
Some spies, she knew, had been hanged from butcher's books hooks. She looked at her longtime companion, Cuthbert. Rather than provide moral support, the clumsy Cuthbert would do nothing but slow her down and make the trip through the Pyrenees even more treacherous.
00:22:41
Jeff Rogers
Even so, what decision was there really? i mean, uncertainty was better better than certain death or even torture, and there was still a war to be won.
Introducing Virginia Hall, the WWII Spy
00:22:52
Jeff Rogers
She took her rucksack and she began stomping through the the snow towards Spain, Cuthbert matching her stride for stride. Cuthbert was what she had named her wooden leg.
00:23:04
Jeff Rogers
And this is going to be a hell of a journey. This is the courageous story of a badass woman, master of disguise, and a fierce spy who changed the course of World War two This is the story of Virginia Hall.
00:23:23
Jeff Rogers
Do you know who I'm talking about? no I'm going to have so much fun telling you this story then because... The book that I used, one of the main sources for this story, was a book called A Woman of No Importance by Sonya Purnell, the untold story of an American spy who helped win World War II.
00:23:45
Jeff Rogers
really thought we were finally going get that story, but I will take this one in instead. So that was your little buildup, okay? I mean, I did it. I did it. I'm teetering on the edge of my seat. Okay.
00:23:58
Jeff Rogers
Virginia Hall was born in Baltimore in 1906. She was born into a wealthy family. She was a tomboy. She was also very intelligent. Immediately after high school, she went to college.
00:24:10
Jeff Rogers
This wasn't exactly what her mom wanted because she wanted Virginia to marry wealthy. Of course. She does get engaged with a man, but he keeps cheating on her. So she's like, fuck this.
00:24:23
Jeff Rogers
um She attends Radcliffe, and then she and attends Barnard College. She studies economics and languages. She wants to be a diplomat and represent the United States, but this is the 1920s, and diplomatic jobs for women at the time were, well, they weren't.
00:24:41
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. but she is going to try so to do this she studies french and italian and even spanish she actually finished her studies in europe and returned to america right before the great depression she couldn't become a u diplomat because she was a woman so she moved to poland where she would work as the secretary for the embassy um She would then apply over it and over to become a diplomat, but she was rejected every single time.
00:25:11
Jeff Rogers
The first year they lost her application. i mean, typical, you know. The second year she actually hand-delivered the application. She showed them that she could speak other language. She showed them that she was a college graduate. She passed the application portion, and when it was time for her to go to the interview, she was told the wrong location of the interview.
00:25:32
Jeff Rogers
The U.S. would not let her become a diplomat, period. So she transferred to Turkey, okay? So now it's 1933, and she's working as a secretary at the embassy.
00:25:43
Jeff Rogers
She waits for her next opportunity to become a diplomat. While she's waiting, she goes out hunting with her friends, and they're hunting for snipes. That is a tiny little bird, and it's actually where the turn sniper the term sniper comes from.
00:25:57
Jeff Rogers
They're really hard to hit, but Virginia, she's really good at it.
Virginia's Challenges and Triumphs
00:26:01
Jeff Rogers
But as she's hunting, she hops over the fence and she forgot to turn the safety on for her gun and she accidentally shot herself in the foot.
00:26:09
Jeff Rogers
She was taken to the hospital. An infection set in. Gangrene set in Now this is before the widespread use of antibiotics. so the doc said, to save you, we have to amputate the leg below the knee.
00:26:21
Jeff Rogers
Virginia has the amputation, makes a full recovery, and gets a wooden leg. And she continues on trying to become an American diplomat. But now they have another reason to not hire her.
00:26:32
Jeff Rogers
She is a woman, and now she is disabled with just one leg. She named her wooden leg Cuthbert. Cuthbert was a monk and a mystic and a miracle worker and saint of England in the 600s.
00:26:47
Jeff Rogers
Reference Vikings. Go ahead. Oh, tell me. no go ahead. Okay. It's unclear if Virginia knew of the saint from her studies or from her travels. She doesn't really like taking no for an answer, so she starts to lobby for the rules to be changed.
00:27:03
Jeff Rogers
But that doesn't work. So in 1940, Germany invaded France, and Virginia was like, peace out. I'm headed to France to volunteer for the ambulance corps and drive ambulances to save soldiers. And that is what she did.
00:27:14
Jeff Rogers
She went to an active war zone to drive ambulances. France falls to the Nazis, and she flees to Spain over the Pyrenees. Virginia meets British intel agent at the train station in Spain where she's like, the British intel agent was like, holy fuck, she's impressive.
00:27:31
Jeff Rogers
They swapped phone numbers and actually he was like, also take this number. This is my friend. He may be ah able to help you find a job in England. That was the phone number for Nicholas Boddington.
00:27:42
Jeff Rogers
He is the head guy at the British SOE or the Special Operations Executive. It's like the CIA. No, SIS. ah huh They immediately want her.
00:27:53
Jeff Rogers
hill um She speaks German and French in addition to English. She once lived in France and she understands the culture. But best of all, she's American.
00:28:05
Jeff Rogers
so she can use her passport and her real documents to give the Germans to get into France. She posed as a journalist to do this. She goes to France and trains for the next six months, learning everything she needed to know about espionage.
00:28:20
Jeff Rogers
Now, she's a spy. So in December of 1941, she goes to Vichy, France. Vichy is technically a free state, but it's really under the German rule.
00:28:32
Jeff Rogers
She's poet posing as a journalist for the New York Post. And once she was in she built a spy network. She didn't join other spies. She built the network from scratch because this was so dangerous. And she was, number one, a woman, and number two, had a wooden leg, good old Cuthbert.
00:28:50
Jeff Rogers
The British gave her cyanide tablets and some money just in case she got caught.
Espionage in Lyon and Escape to Freedom
00:28:57
Jeff Rogers
So Virginia turns up in Lyon, France, ah no place to stay.
00:29:01
Jeff Rogers
um Many of the people were displaced. She lived with the nuns at first. She had a curfew. Finally, she gets a hotel where she sets up her headquarters. She goes straight to the U.S. Embassy.
00:29:12
Jeff Rogers
The U.S. is like, nope, America's neutral. We don't want any of that. But the second in the command of the U.S. Embassy pulls her aside and said he's willing to help. It just takes that one person, you know?
00:29:24
Jeff Rogers
This is how she starts to communicate with London. At the U.S. s Embassy, they have a diplomatic protection, so the second-in-command sends her messages to London, and they aren't screened by the Nazis because of the diplomatic protection.
00:29:37
Jeff Rogers
So now she's established a way to communicate and a connection from France with the outside world. Next, Virginia has a two-pronged plan, okay?
00:29:49
Jeff Rogers
Next up, the guy she goes to the gynecologist, but not for her, for the Nazis. She wants to fuck up the Nazis. Find a gynecologist, done.
00:30:00
Jeff Rogers
Then she finds a brothel, done. She befriends the owner of the brothel. She gets the gynecologist and the brothel owner owner to start working together. The brothel owner sends all of his sex workers to the gynecologist to see which ones have and do not have STDs.
00:30:15
Jeff Rogers
He gave them all a clean bill of health, but a lot of them did have STDs. And those with the STDs, the brothel owner is only going to let them sleep with the Nazis.
00:30:27
Jeff Rogers
It's sort of diabolical. Virginia wants to destroy the Nazis from the inside out and make them enjoy it. huh Virginia starts sending messages to London asking for supply drops in the countryside. She gets them. They're dropping off guns. they're dropping off explosives. She's giving them that... or She is giving that money to the guerrilla fighters who are doing everything they can to fight the Nazis.
00:30:50
Jeff Rogers
She's also bribing officials. And they are giving... her in those supply bags heroin because the first part was fucking up the nazis by giving them nest stds and the second part was fucking them up by getting them addicted to heroin oh okay So meanwhile, Virginia is building a hell of a spy spy network at the same time.
00:31:12
Jeff Rogers
So many new spies come in and she helps them get set up. And Virginia and the new spies are sending wireless transmissions back to London. But the problem is now the Nazis can trace the transmissions and some of the new spies are getting caught.
00:31:27
Jeff Rogers
In October 1941, Virginia and the 12 other spies decide to meet up, talk about the cool things they've been doing, maybe make a plan. Basically, they just really wanted to meet each other.
00:31:38
Jeff Rogers
And this was a mistake for a spy. Virginia, she's too smart for this. She knew this was a mistake. She doesn't go. All the other spies get busted by the Gestapo.
00:31:49
Jeff Rogers
Now once ah once again, Virginia is the only spy on the ground and the only spy able to communicate with London. ah one She sends a message to London. She said all the other spies were captured. And as for her, the German Gestapo now know exactly what she looks like.
00:32:07
Jeff Rogers
And they have these drawings of her. They know that she walks with a limp. They're now calling her the Limping Lady. And they've also nicknamed her Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt.
00:32:21
Jeff Rogers
And now Virginia Hall is the Gestapo's most wanted person. This man named Klaus Barbie was over the Gestapo and fucking hated her.
00:32:31
Jeff Rogers
will love that. Yes. In fact, Klaus Barbie, the head of the Gestapo, why do I get ahead of myself? I always do that. He said, a would do anything to find that limping Canadian bitch.
00:32:44
Jeff Rogers
Limping Canadian bitch. The Gestapo believed that she was Canadian because Americans, well, they just can't speak other languages. Of course. yeah London said, get out.
00:32:55
Jeff Rogers
They basically, they know who you are. They know you have a limp. They know that every time you walk, there's a certain kind of distinct noise that your wooden leg makes and they're going to catch you. Virginia basically said, nah, I'm good.
00:33:09
Jeff Rogers
She decides to plan a jailbreak for the 12 spies who were captured. Again, the risk. She has the wooden leg. The wooden leg makes the sound. As the fates would have it,
00:33:20
Jeff Rogers
France is no longer getting shoes anymore because everything is so scarce, so they start making their own shoes out of wood. And suddenly a lot of people are walking around making the same wood noise that Virginia's making.
00:33:34
Jeff Rogers
This disguises her. She finds the prison, she convinces them to give her a roster of prisoners. Using that, she found the wife of a prisoner outside, made friends with her, and convinces her to help.
00:33:47
Jeff Rogers
She has the other prisoner's wife start smuggling stuff into the spies on the inside. They're baking stuff into cakes and taking it in Things like handcuff keys are in the cake and screwdrivers are in the cake.
00:33:59
Jeff Rogers
This is going so well that she gets a 70-year-old double amputee from World War I to use his wheelchair to smuggle in a briefcase with an entire wireless set in it. He sits on it on his wheelchair and smuggles it in.
00:34:13
Jeff Rogers
The spies on the inside, they know how to use this. So the spies start using it and never get caught. Now they're sending messages to London from inside the prison. A month goes by and Virginia has smuggled into the prison everything they need to escape.
00:34:29
Jeff Rogers
And the craziest plan of all is that Virginia had the idea to use someone to smuggle in a shit ton of alcohol. She knows that the German Gestapo will drink it all. And that night, that's exactly what happens.
00:34:43
Jeff Rogers
They're all getting drunk. All the while the prisoners are the spies are escaping the prison, scaling the wall where she meets them on the other side and takes them to a safe house where they stay for two weeks.
00:34:54
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. All the while, the Gestapo is looking everywhere for them. Then she gets them out of the country. Like, she's such a badass. Oh, she's like the badassiest of badass whatever. Right. jeff But because she did But because she did all this, 500 members of the Gestapo are now looking for her, the limping lady, Artemis.
00:35:20
Jeff Rogers
Virginia's like, peace out. I'm out of here. But the only way to get across the Pyrenees, only way out was to go across the Pyrenees. um In the worst snowstorm in over 200 years, from France and into Spain, over 30 miles.
00:35:36
Jeff Rogers
Now imagine how long it would take for you and me to do this with both of our legs. I'd be dead. It takes Virginia two days with her wooden leg. What? And all the while she's commun in communication with London.
00:35:50
Jeff Rogers
using the little radio. And in one of the messages, she said that Cuthbert is giving her problems. And she now has a sore on her leg from the wooden prosthetic. Back in France at her hotel at her hotel room, what was her hotel room, the Gestapo has ransacked it.
00:36:05
Jeff Rogers
Now they know who she is. She arrives in Spain, finally, only to be arrested for illegal immigration. She sends a message to London, who then sends it to America. And they finally come and bail her out.
00:36:17
Jeff Rogers
And it's off to London, she goes. But she wants back in. Like, she's not done. And the SOE is like, no way. Your cover is blown. So then she goes to work with the Americans back in America.
00:36:29
Jeff Rogers
She works with the OSS, which is like the predecessor of the CIA. Before it was the CIA. That's what I said. She takes the class in wireless transmitting. She has way more.
00:36:41
Jeff Rogers
She has so much more experience than any of the other men. of course. In the CIA a at this time. I mean, can you imagine? They're like, well, I've been sitting here with this computer. I've never had to send a real message before.
00:36:56
Jeff Rogers
And she's like, the Gestapo, they want me. They call me Artemis, you know? want secret name from an enemy force. What? She realizes that, okay, she has more experience than them, but she and she wants to go back in, and they're going let her, but she realizes that she needs a disguise.
00:37:14
Jeff Rogers
The OSS hire a Hollywood makeup artist to make her look a lot older, ah tactic that is still used, and ah She goes to a dentist in London where she lets the dentist drill her teeth down and the OSS sneaks her back into France via a boat, drops her off, and she's completely alone.
00:37:36
Jeff Rogers
And again, she develops a huge spy network, but this time she's an elderly milkmaid with bad teeth. And now the French resistance is underway and they have a lot of guerrilla fighters, but Virginia thinks they could be more strategic with their mission.
00:37:53
Jeff Rogers
So over the next year, she establishes a chain of command and then gets them to coordinate attacks. And by 1944, Virginia Hall had put together an army, three battalions, 1,500 guerrilla fighters, all against the Germans.
00:38:10
Jeff Rogers
Americans were dropping off supplies like guns and explosives. She was notified that in June of 1944, D-Day was going to happen. And in the weeks leading up to D-Day, Virginia and her army sabotaged rope roadways, railroads, and bridges, preventing the Germans from reinforcing the beaches where this was going to happen.
00:38:32
Jeff Rogers
Then D-Day happened. Once the war was over, and Virginia would go back to America and start working for the CIA. She monitored communism in Eastern Europe.
Virginia Hall's Legacy
00:38:44
Jeff Rogers
President Truman wanted to give Virginia Hall the Distinguished Service Cross, which is the highest ever civilian honor. He wanted to make her a hero. Virginia did not want this. Too many people she knew died from being known.
00:38:58
Jeff Rogers
So she said, no, thank you, sir. And he insisted. um So instead, um General Donovan awarded Virginia this. And Virginia had one request.
00:39:11
Jeff Rogers
And that was that it would be awarded to her in a private ceremony with only one witness, her mom. She was made in honor of the member of the Order of the British Empire. and she was also awarded the Croix de Guerre by France.
00:39:27
Jeff Rogers
Virginia retired at the age of 60. She and her husband moved to a farm in the country out in Barnesville, Maryland, and at the age of 76 in 1982 she passed away.
00:39:38
Jeff Rogers
And until that point, the public didn't know anything about any of this until they read her obituary. The limping lady, AKA Virginia Hall, also known as probably the deadliest spy of World War II, left behind no memoir, she granted no interviews, and she spoke little about her overseas life, even with her relatives.
00:40:00
Jeff Rogers
And that is the story of the badass woman, Virginia Hall. Damn. Fucking hell, right? Dude, I mean,
00:40:13
Jeff Rogers
i I've had this idea of who she was, but when I sat down to write this out using all these sources that I was using, and I put this together, it's not when you put something down in words where you're really like, oh, or she really changed shit. cause you come Yeah, you combine.
00:40:32
Jeff Rogers
Damn. Yeah. Damn, Jeff. That was... damn yeah to him geoff i was
00:40:42
Jeff Rogers
If that one is even better than that one, which I think it is, holy crap. Yeah, that one, this we're looking at a certain book that I have.
00:40:55
Jeff Rogers
He's been talking about it for about a year. favorite human being ever. Besides me. Yes, and Ashley, and Alan, and all my family. I love you. No, but ah that one's going to be its own thing.
00:41:09
Jeff Rogers
i know. And it's going to be completely different than this, but... Not really. I know, but that's... I'll do it. I'll do it. And Ashley, she's helping me with that one. And it's got to be for me, it's got to be this caliber right here. Well, I don't doubt it will be.
00:41:25
Jeff Rogers
i mean, that was awesome. Way to go, Virginia. ah Virginia fucking Hall. Artemis. The limping lady, Artemis. With Cuthbert. With Cuthbert.
00:41:36
Jeff Rogers
I love that. I love the... I love in the beginning... Yeah, that was a really good intro. Well done. Yeah. That's it's one of my favorite stories so far.
00:41:48
Jeff Rogers
i think that that tops it too for me. Oh, so as we sip on our Ollipop.
00:41:57
Jeff Rogers
Ollipop, Ollipop.
00:42:03
Jeff Rogers
We have the same brain. Danger, danger, danger. danger did We started singing that damn song at the same time. and then we locked eyes.
00:42:14
Jeff Rogers
And then we locked eyes and we were like, oh, we're there. We're doing this. um We hope you liked vortex of fuckery today.
Reflections on Podcasting and Community
00:42:22
Jeff Rogers
We really do. You know, this is fun for us to do.
00:42:25
Jeff Rogers
we and The fact that people listen to us and they tell us and they... you know they continue to listen and that they are entertained by it and that they like the stories that we tell it's just it's fun to do this and we're gonna keep doing this because it's just fun and we need we need a little fun Honestly, we sit here and look at each other for an hour at a time. It's like a therapy session a little bit.
00:42:49
Jeff Rogers
is. No matter what mood we're in as soon as we turn though record on, as soon as we start recording and we dance a little bit, we listen to our song beforehand, the vibe changes and we're here with you.
00:43:03
Jeff Rogers
and It's kind of special. We really like it. And we hope you like it, too. um So that's the show. We did a good one today. We did. That was a fucking good show today. Cheers, queers. We did a good show today. um And to our dearest, loveliest, Alan, our overqualified, underpaid master publisher, content creator extraordinaire.
00:43:26
Jeff Rogers
Ashley, the ultimate and epically unmatched hype queen editor. And to Kelsey, our incomparable swag and merch creator. Yay!
00:43:38
Jeff Rogers
Together, our first and forever fans. Thanks, guys. Bye.