The ordinance of 1800 organised for authorisations to be issued by police prefectures following the procurement of certificates from a doctor, the mayor, or the police commissioner in the applicant’s place of residence. Hundreds of authorisations were issued in Paris in the 19th century. The exact number is unknown, as the archives are very incomplete.

When applying for a permit, it was better to put forward “medical” reasons. Excessive hair growth (hypertrichosis) was one ground evoked by Clémentine Delait, the famous bearded woman, who successfully obtained an authorisation in 1900.

Rosa Bonheur, the most celebrated female French painter of the 19^th century requested authorisation for reasons that were anything but medical. She explains this in her memoires. On the other hand, George Sand alternated from one gender to another without ever notifying the police.

However, women who practiced male professions (printing, stonemasonry, lock smithery, horse grooming, building painting etc.), passing off as men (and thereby increasing their earnings tenfold), risked prosecution.

The authorisations granted were exceptional. In 1890, a mere dozen women were authorised according to the press.

The bearded cross-dressing lady

Clémetine Delait (1865-1937), “the bearded lady”, even sold her own postcards, depicting herself posing as a “gentleman” in her garden in Thaon-les-Vosges. This “strong woman”, owner of a bistrot, reputed for her good humour, had a full bushy beard that she gave up shaving in 1900 having lost a bet. She wore men’s attire, armed with her authorisation from the Home Secretary himself. 

A good wife and mother, a pleasant businesswoman, indifferent to the easy money her assumed anomaly brought her, Clémentine, though dressed as the opposite sex, remained socially a woman. By respecting her family duties and with the ultimate authorisation of the Minister of the Interior, she posed no threat to the social order.

Bearded women were rarely shown dressed as men. In fact, it was the expression of the sex/gender opposition that was sought after. Therefore, the assistant of the École de médecine who preserved the bust of the bearded lady circa 1881, dressed her in a white lace collar (this bust can be found at the museum Orphilia in Paris). “For popular consciousness, the bearded lady is an ambiguous being. She belongs to both the animal kingdom and humanity. She is both man and woman. Her existence manifests the instability of biological laws and, as a result, seems to worry man about his own status as a human being” (1).

“She had this particularity of being a masculinised female”, wrote one journalist from the Paris-Soir on the 21^st of April 1939 on the death of Clémentine Delait. But what is a “masculinised female”? Something fascinating without a doubt as demonstrates the 80 postcards she edited, such an enterprise that she would trademark in an attempt to make at least some profit from them.

Carnivals and circuses would also exploit this phenomenon. In 1903, Clémentine Delait played cards in the lions’ cage. In 1928 she went on a world tour. It was the height of “human zoos” where bearded women would stand alongside men or women who presented physical anomalies such as: dwarves, giants, Siamese twins, as well as “savages” from Africa and other far away colonies.

The “caging” of bearded women was in contrast with the place they occupied in Christian culture. The legend of Saint Libérade (Wilgeforte in Germany, Uncumber in England), a bearded saint invoked to relieve the suffering of unhappy brides and wives, had always been very popular. This daughter of a pagan king secretly converted to Christianity had taken a vow of chastity, but her father wanted to marry her off by force. Thanks to the Heavens, she covered herself with a cloak that kept away the husband she did not want, an act of disobedience that led to her crucifixion on her father’s orders.

Rosa Bonheur, a legal cross-dresser

Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) was famous for being one of the few rare women to have achieved a place in the history of painting.  In her lifetime, she had her work exposed, was recipient of a medal (the Empress Eugénie decorated her with the Légion d’Honneur), known all over the world… and in no way worried by her minor eccentricity: dressing as a man. Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) was famous for being one of the few rare women to have achieved a place in the history of painting.  In her lifetime, she had her work exposed, was recipient of a medal (the Empress Eugénie decorated her with the Légion d’Honneur), known all over the world… and in no way worried by her minor eccentricity: dressing as a man.

An animal painter, she wasn’t allowed to enter abattoirs, reserved for men. She applied for an official authorisation to cross-dress and obtained it on “health grounds” et on condition that she not appear on stage dressed like that. There was no scandal. Rosa Bonheur was an original, sure of herself, who lived in total freedom, outside conventions as encouraged by her Saint-Simonian education received in her family of artists.

In her home, a large house on the edge of the Fontainebleau Forest where she lived with her partner Nathalie Micas, then her future biographer Anna Klumpke, she of course wore breeches, smoked cigarettes and Havanas, looking after her treasured animals. Her studio in By is now a little museum.