Geneviève Prémoy Explained

Geneviève Prémoy, alias Chevalier Balthazard (1660 - 1706), was a legendary French officer.^{[1] [2]} Premoy made a career in the army of Louis XIV and became famous in contemporary France after a popular - possibly fictionalised - biography was published.^[3]

Premoy was born in Guise in Picardie. As a teenager, Premoy ran away from home after a domestic conflict, and proceeded to dress in male clothing and enlist in the regiment of the Prince of Condé in 1676. Premoy was eventually promoted, and rose through the ranks due to bravery in battle, including participating in the Siege of Philippsburg (1688).

Their actions was uncovered when they were wounded in the breast during the Siege of Mons (1691).^{[4] [5]} They were called to Versailles, were Louis XIV made them an honorary knight of the Order of St Louis. Premoy was fired from the army but given a pension and allowed to keep their rank, and though they were ordered to wear a skirt, they continued to dress as a man on the upper part of their body.

A supposed autobiography, Histoire de la Dragone: contenant les actions de Genevieve Premoy, was published in 1703.

References

• Rudolf Dekker & Lotte van de Pol (1995). Kvinnor i manskläder. En avvikande tradition. Europa 1500-1800. Stockholm: Östlings Bokförlag Symposion.
• Jessica Munns & Penny Richards: The Clothes that Wear Us: Essays on Dressing and Transgressing in Eighteenth-century culture (1999)
• John A. Lynn: The French Wars 1667-1714: The Sun King at War (2002)
• Amazons to Fighter Pilots: A-Q. Reina Pennington, Robin D. S. Higham. Greenwood Press, 1 jan 2003

Notes and References

1. Füssel . Marian . December 2018 . Between Dissimulation and Sensation: Female Soldiers in Eighteenth-Century Warfare . Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies . en . 41 . 4 . 527–542 . 10.1111/1754-0208.12567 . 1754-0194.
2. Book: Silva, Arlei Wiclif Leal da . Identidades Legitimamente Diversas: Um Estudo pela Visibilidade Inclusiva da Transgeneridade e da Não Binariedade de Genêro . 2022-06-23 . Editora Appris . 978-65-250-2542-1 . pt-BR.
3. Dekker . Rudolf M. . van de Pol . Lotte C. . January 1989 . Republican heroines: Cross-dressing women in the French revolutionary armies . History of European Ideas . en . 10 . 3 . 353–363 . 10.1016/0191-6599(89)90133-2 . 0191-6599.
4. Book: Munns . Jessica . The Clothes that Wear Us: Essays on Dressing and Transgressing in Eighteenth-century Culture . Richards . Penny . 1999 . University of Delaware Press . 978-0-87413-672-2 . en.
5. Book: Klen, Michel . Femmes de guerre: une histoire millénaire . 2010 . Ellipses . 978-2-7298-5465-2 . fr.