Pyrenees 1838: Anne Lister Is Mistaken For A Man

“Received from Madame Anne Lister, English Lady, & Mademoiselle Walker, her niece, a collective passport. Sent to Monsieur le Sous-Préfet of the district.

                    The Lieutenant of the district’s Gendarmerie,

                              P. Montéléon”

Anne, vexed due to the report’s contents, that she considers “detestable falsehoods”, asks if she is under arrest. She is told that she isn’t. She’s merely held in a “state of prevention”.

Anne then asks to be taken to the Sous-Préfet de Mauléon. The gendarmes escort them there and she speaks with the Sous-Préfet, who was polite and respectful. Unfortunately, he cannot help Anne with the gendarmes’ report, but the passport is returned to Anne and she is once again free. 

The Sous-Préfet would then write a letter to the Préfet de Pau, in which he explained that they had arrested a person whom they thought a man dressed as a woman. Per his account, this person had offered the gendarme money so they could walk free. This is, obviously, a very different account from the one Anne gives.

On the 29th of September, Anne and Ann travel to Pau. They wait for about half an hour to speak to the Préfet de Pau, Mr. Duchatel. He eventually receives them and Anne recounts the events from Mauléon. It is not clear how well received Anne was or how the conversation evolved.

In the early hours of the 30th of September, Anne and Ann travel from Pau to Lourdes, where they call at Mr. Latapie’s house. Latapie had been the lawyer Anne hired to help her prove that she had been at the top of Mt. Vignemale on the 7th of August of that same year. The lawyer, unfortunately, had travelled to St. Sauveur. Thus, Anne and Ann then make their way there to try and meet with him. 

When Anne and Ann reach St. Sauveur on the 1st of October, they learn that Mr. Latapie had travelled to Barèges. They had, once again, missed him. So they send someone to get him. At Luz, which at the time was a small town near St. Sauveur, they finally meet with Latapie. Anne explains what happened in Mauléon and then Mr. Latapie also hears the same story recounted by Charles (one of Anne’s guides). Mr. Latapie concludes that the gendarme was to blame and advises Anne as to what she should do next:

“if the Prefet de Pau does not take any steps to satisfy me, I must apply to the Secretary des Affaires Étrangères, and then to the War Department –”

Latapie then tells Anne that he will write a letter for her to sign the following day. He also keeps Anne’s passport so he can examine it.

Anne and Mr. Latapie meet again on the 2nd of October. He meets her and Ann and reads them the letter he wrote. Anne thinks Latapie’s letter:

“really very well done – explanatory – très polie –”

and she thinks that the Préfet de Pau: 

“would understand the hit at his incivility and hoping that he would notice the matter as he thought proper and that I should have no occasion to apply to higher authority and hoping also that he would send me a copy of the Rapport and an answer to my letter directed to me aux soins de Monsieur Okey avocat to the British Embassy –”

In the letter, Anne once again explains the events from Mauléon in detail and all the trouble she went through. It’s clear that she felt, at the very least, insulted by how she was treated. It’s easier to understand Anne’s reaction, if we remember that she was mistaken for a man in previous occasions. In September 1818, while running errands around York early in the morning, Anne is thought to be a man by some men and women she encounters. Madame Galvani, who taught Anne French in 1824, had also thought Anne was a man at first.

In her letter from 1838 to the Préfet de Pau, Anne considers that:

“If there is no excess of power from the gendarme and the officer, there is at least fault and a very serious one.”

She asks the Préfet for a certified copy of the gendarmes’ report and tells the Préfet that the gendarme and the offIcer from Mauléon deserve, at the very least, a reprimand. Anne’s logic is sound: if these officers got a reprimand for what they had done to her, maybe they would think twice before they did the same thing to other travellers. 

Anne also hints that she is prepared to seek a higher authority, but she expects that the Préfet de Pau will handle the matter fairly. She instructs him to send her any response to her letter and to forward the certified copy of the gendarmes’ report to Mr. Okey (the lawyer for the British Embassy in Paris). Mr. Latapie promises to give Anne a copy of this letter, which is delivered to Anne, by Charles, on the 3rd of September. 

Later, on the 10th of November 1838, Anne and Ann are in Paris. From there, Anne writes to Mr. Okey, the lawyer for the British Embassy in the same city, asking him if he received any letter from Pau:

“Mrs. Lister presents her compliments to Mr. Oakey, and if he has received any letter for her from Pau, will be much obliged to him to put it under cover to her at Meurice's Hotel - Saturday Morning 10 November 1838"