Good morning! Saxey here, filling in, and reacting to current events by diving into a froth of historical swashbuckling.

First, a bisexual sword-fighting opera singer. I heard about Juliet D’Aubgny from this enthusiastic twitter string, and then followed her to Rejected Princesses.

One night, while out carousing on the town, a particularly ardent man named d’Albert began crudely hitting on her. … she got into a fight with him and two of his buddies, won, and ran her sword clean through his shoulder. She felt a bit bad about that, so she visited her impaled victim in the hospital and hooked up with him anyway. Although the relationship only lasted a short while, they were apparently lifelong friends.

http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/julie-daubigny

Secondly, a fencer, spy, and blackmailer of a king. Chevalier D’Eon lived up until middle age as a man, and from then onwards as a woman - Mary Wollstonecraft listed D’Eon as one of ‘a few women who, from having received a masculine education, have acquired courage and resolution’. The National Portrait Gallery acquired a portrait of D’Eon in 2012:

D’Eon first came to London in 1762 as part of the French embassy and helped negotiate the Peace of Paris, which ended the Seven Years War. Despite being awarded the Croix de St Louis, [D'Eon] refused to return to France when recalled. Instead, d’Eon published secret correspondence that revealed French ministerial corruption and blackmailed the French King by threatening to disclose secret information about French invasion plans.

There are understandably debates about how the Gallery describe and present D’Eon:

...the intent of the artist and whether d’Eon wanted to be portrayed as a gender puzzle is unknown; such an interesting figure may very well have insisted on being presented as such.

Bonus picture: from the British royal family’s art collection, here’s the Chavalier beating a chap at fencing.