When Alexis Durand-Brault made a film inspired by the story of disgraced cycling star Geneviève Jeanson, he didn't call it "La petite reine" for nothing. Let's pedal back for an overview of the origin of this expression.
The origin of the expression "petite reine" (little queen) coincides with the origin of the bicycle itself, as it refers to both the bicycle and cycling in general, by extension.
If we take the story literally, we might come across the appearance of a first bicycle called the celerifere. It was supposedly a two-wheeled, foot-propelled vehicle invented by a certain Count Mede de Sivrac in 1790. "Supposedly," because it was in fact a hoax, entirely fabricated in 1891 by the French journalist Louis Baudry de Saunier. The Count never existed!
So why such a deception? In 1870, France lost the Franco-Prussian War. The journalist allegedly wanted to restore France's prestige by dating the invention back to 1790 in his Histoire générale de la vélocipédie , which he published in 1891, and attributing it to a French inventor.
It is rather to the German Karl Drais that we owe the very first "bicycle," a velocipede also called a draisine: he filed his patent for invention in France in 1818. A wooden vehicle with two aligned wheels, it could be moved by pushing on the ground with one's feet and steered with a lever that allowed the front wheel to be oriented. The ancestor of the scooter, in other words!
From 1818 onwards, improvements to the velocipede followed one another. The Penny-farthing, equipped with a gigantic front wheel and a tiny rear wheel, which could only be mounted with the help of a footrest, appeared in the early 1870s. The perfect vehicle for toppling forward!
The diameter of the wheels decreased over the years thanks to the addition of gears, a crankset, and the construction of the bicycle, so that the cyclist could move forward more easily, without having to exert Herculean muscular effort. Around 1889, the model that would become the modern bicycle appeared.
A "little queen" with blended origins
The expression "petite reine" (little queen) is partly attributable to the Dutch Wilhelmina of Orange-Nassau, who became queen at the age of 10. She was reportedly one of the first to use the modern velocipede and ride it around the city.
LINK: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelmine_des_Pays-Bas
Others claim that the expression was first spotted in a work entitled Histoire du vélocipède in 1891, written by Pierre Giffard, a pioneer of sports journalism.
Under the title La Reine Bicyclette , the author had then used these words to refer to both the bicycle and the person riding it. The cover also illustrated a woman carrying a modern bicycle at arm's length.
Regardless of the source, "la petite reine" marks the advancement of the bicycle and the rise of its popularity in Europe and elsewhere.
Photo titled "From the little queen to the modern bicycle": excerpt from Petit journal , Montreal, May 20, 1934