Mademoiselle Delait

In 19th-century France, the bearded lady was not only accepted but admired. It was even suggested that because a man with a full beard was the superior standard of human beauty, a woman with a full beard marked an important forward progression in the human species. The most famous French bearded lady was Clementine Clatteaux Delait, born in 1865 in Thaon-les-Vosges, France. As a young woman, Clementine shaved her beard and led a normal life, but when she and her husband attended a carnival and saw a bearded woman, she was inspired to grow a beard of her own. People came to see her in her husband's restaurant, which he changed from Cafe Delait to Cafe de la Femme a Barbe. When he died in 1926, Mme. Delait toured Europe on her own. She died in 1939.