Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (15 page)

Sometimes, tired of self-reproach, I would blame society. I would tell myself that it is barbaric to allow a sixteen-year-old child to enter into such a despicable contract. . . . The law, which does not allow her to manage her property until she is twenty-one, lets a sixteen-year-old girl sell her body.

My mental torment had finally taken a toll on my health. My head felt heavy, I had fever chills, and I took to my bed. I was told that I had to go down to the parlor after dinner because the fat woman was giving a little party for the house regulars. I got up.

At nine o’clock there were already a lot of people present. I sat in a corner. . . . Champagne was bubbling in glasses and veins. I felt a chill, then a cold sweat. I slumped down on the sofa where I was seated.



Someone lifted and led me out.

I gradually came to. The person who had accompanied me or rather carried me was a young man, about twenty-eight or thirty years old. He was of medium height; his attire was meticulous but austere. He seemed worn-out from work or from debauchery.

‘‘You are sick, my child!’’ he told me. ‘‘You must look after yourself.’

‘‘Look after myself ! Where do you suggest I go?’’

And, driven by fever, regret, self-disgust, I told him everything in one breath.

‘ How much do you owe?’ he asked.



The Fall

I told him. He shrugged his shoulders.

‘‘Listen,’ he said, ‘‘I live alone, but I have a huge apartment because after giving birth, one of my sisters will be coming to Paris in two months. Would you like to use her lodgings?’’

Without waiting for my reply, he rang, asked for my things, asked for my account, paid, had his carriage brought around, and told me to follow him.

I asked if I could say good-bye to my friend. He refused. Fanny took care of my good-byes.

We rode a long way. My companion was not saying a word. The car slowed down. We were climbing. I saw a cab stop, and near a gaslight I read Place Breda.4

The apartment was on the second floor. A sleepy man opened the door for us.

‘ Take Mademoiselle to the back bedroom. See that she does not lack anything. If I do not come back, call my doctor.’

I followed the butler who took me to a pretty, freshly painted room.

During the night I had an overwhelming thirst, but I did not dare call.

In the morning someone knocked softly at my door. It was the doctor and the butler. I slipped on a dress. They chatted as they waited, ‘‘He should be looking after himself instead. This wasting disease will catch up with him one day.’

Barely dressed, I opened the door. I answered the doctor in half-words, and he left saying, ‘ She has nothing.’

M. L

came home at ten o’clock.

‘‘Well,’ he told me, ‘‘you have nothing. . . . Good! Regardless, take care of yourself !’’

He had a lunch brought to me, asked me what I needed for my toi-lette, and left until the next day.

That went on for a week, seeing him barely more than an hour each day. I was well one day, ill the next. Finally, I stayed in bed two days with a headache. When M. L

came into my room he told the servant,

‘ Quick, the doctor!’’

It was two hours before the doctor showed up. He arrived out of breath from a lunch in town, which he described in detail before taking a look at me.

‘ Good God!’ he exclaimed. ‘ Why was I called so late? She is about to develop smallpox!’’



‘ ,  -!’

He left. M. L

and the butler followed him. I was alone. I tumbled out of the bed and listened at the door. The doctor was saying, ‘A lot of good that has done you. What are people going to say when she dies here, in your home? In addition it is a contagious illness.’

‘ Oh!’’ said the servant. ‘‘Monsieur can have her served by whom he pleases, but I am not going into her room again.’

M. L

seemed very affected.

‘‘Doctor, could we not take her to a sanitarium?’’

‘‘No, to move her now is impossible. I am going to try to send you a home nurse.’

He prescribed a few remedies, and I heard him walk away and leave.

Then I took my hat, which had stayed on a table, my dress, my coat.

I opened a door, walked through a room, then two, without seeing anyone, then finally through the anteroom and down the stairs.

Downstairs I climbed into a cab that was stationed across the street and told the coachman as I dropped onto the seat, ‘ Saint-Louis Hospital!’’



8

o EffectsofaHospitalStay

M. Adolphe and His Friend—How to Get a Start in the theater?—The Versailles Incident—Plans for Revenge

  I had passed out in his cab, the coachman asked the concierge at the hospice to help him get me out of the carriage. The doctor on call had been summoned and he had me brought to a room where he gave me the necessary care.

When I came to, he asked me what I wanted. I looked at myself and understood why; this dress and this silk coat, this flowered hat surprised him.

I told him I had smallpox and I was at the hospice to receive treatment.

He had me turn toward the light, then ran his thumb across my forehead and said dolefully, ‘‘Yes, you are right, but what you have just done was very foolhardy.’

He had me brought to a room. An hour later I was delirious. For ten days I was out of my mind. I was blind for seventeen days. The nuns were caring for me with great kindness. My face was covered with a mask of blemishes that kept my eyes and nostrils shut.

I would hear the doctor asking in the morning, ‘‘How is number

 doing?’’

The good sister would reply, ‘‘Better, doctor. I hope she will open her eyes tomorrow or the next day.’

‘Are you keeping her face coated with ointment? . . .’

‘ Yes, doctor, I do it myself every half hour.’

‘ Good,’ he said, touching my cheeks. ‘‘If she does not scratch, she will have very few marks. The spots are numerous, but small.’



.    

Three days later my eyes began to open like those of a kitten. I was forbidden to try to open them too fast, but I could not help myself. I felt a slight tear.

‘‘Why did you open your eyes? You do not have an eyelash left,’ said the nun.

I wanted to look at myself, but I did not dare ask for a mirror. She must have read my thoughts because she instructed my neighbors not to lend me one. Futile recommendation! Taking advantage of a moment when the good sister was out, I managed to get a young girl in the bed across from me to pass me her case, and it had a mirror on the bottom.

I dropped the case and fell back on my pillow! Tears surged and my heart fell.

In number  there was a woman who had hit her knee. The injury was so serious that her leg had to be amputated. For such cases, the surgeon is accompanied by his students. Two of these young men stopped at my bed and read, ‘ Céleste Vénard, smallpox.’

‘ Oh,’ said one of the two, ‘‘I have to take a look at the one who survived this terrible condition.’

He opened the curtain at the foot of my bed.

‘ Oh!’’ I said, surprised.

I had just recognized in the one speaking, M. Adolphe’s friend, and in the other, M. Adolphe himself. The first one came to the side of my bed and touched my face. He said, ‘ She will not be too marred.’

And he started to move away.

I grabbed his coat and said to him, ‘‘You do not recognize me! I was with Denise at the Chaumière three months ago.’

He was so taken aback, he was at a loss for words; then he made an effort to regain his composure and said to me, ‘‘Denise told us you had gone to the country.’

‘‘I had asked her to tell you that. She does not even know that I am here. I have kept it from her until now. But I really would like to see her. Would you tell her?’’

He promised he would send Denise to me and left.

I heard heels echoing on the wood floor. M. Adolphe, his head bare, his hair pulled back, looking sad, held his hand out to me.

‘‘Poor girl,’ he said, ‘‘if I had known, I would have come to you long ago. I was in the next room and I came to look at you. But I was far from imagining that the one I was thinking of was near me! Because I have certainly been thinking about you.’



Effects of a Hospital Stay

Visiting hours were starting. He left, saying to me, ‘‘I shall be back.’

I wanted to fix my hair, but it was falling out by the fistful. The next day I received a few cookies, jam, and some sugar.

That Thursday Denise came to see me. She walked by me twice without recognizing me. Finally I called out to her. . . . She threw her arms around me and began to cry.

Once she had regained some of her composure, she asked me what I was going to do when I got out.

‘‘I ran away from M. L

’s house because I was sick,’ I said. ‘‘I left my things there. I shall give you a note for him. If he wants to return them to me, sell them so I can have a little money, and I shall rent a furnished place.’

‘ Oh, but,’ said Denise, ‘‘you cannot, it is prohibited; you will be arrested.’

‘ That is right. Well, I shall ask M. Adolphe to do it for me.’

My handwriting was illegible, yet I had to write to M. L

, so I

tried again:

Dear Sir,

You have been so kind to me that I am embarrassed to have to bother you. I just recovered from a long illness. . . . I left with you the few things that I possess. If you would be kind enough to give them to the bearer, I would be twice beholden to you. I am very sincerely grateful.

Céleste

Denise came back that Sunday. She had all my things, plus one hundred francs to help me out when I got out.

‘‘You see,’ I told her, ‘‘I am going to rent a hole. I have been told that I have a pretty voice. I am going to work, and I shall try out for the stage, and once I have an engagement, I shall be able to be taken off the register. M. Adolphe will help me.’

Three days later, he told me that he had rented one room and a cabinet on Rue de Buffault. My departure was set for a week from then.

Denise came to get me. M. Adolphe was waiting for me downstairs and took me to my new dwelling and promised to come visit me.

The room that had been rented for me was on the first floor in the back. The window looked out over a boarding school for little boys.

       ?

I had enough money for a month, but after that? Inadvertently I looked at my face, and I started to cry. It was all red, and the doctors had warned



Effects of a Hospital Stay

me that if I exposed myself to the outside air, the marks would last a long time.

M. Adolphe came to see me twice. He told me that he had just been named surgeon at the military hospital in Versailles. He gave me his address and made me promise I would write to him.

As soon as I could go out without any risk, I put on a black veil and went to the Théâtre Beaumarchais. I asked for the manager. He refused to see me. I insisted. . . . He saw me after making me wait two hours.

He was a big, gray-haired man, a little slovenly in dress.

‘‘What do you want from me?’’ he said looking me up and down.

‘ Sir, I would like to be in the theater.’

‘ You have never acted?’

‘‘No, sir, but if you wish I could give it a try.’

We were at the door toward which he had pushed me rather than escorted me.

‘ They are all the same. They think that all there is to it is to go see a manager!’’

He was sneering at me as he was speaking to me thus.

I held the door open, then, just before closing it, I told him, ‘ One is not born acting, but I am at the right age to learn. I thought I should go to a small theater. I was wrong, I shall try a more important one.’

‘ The Opera is on Rue Le Peletier.’

‘ Thank you, sir, I am going to the little Lazary!’’

‘‘Insolent girl!’’ he yelled and closed the door.

Once on Boulevard du Temple, I went in the Délassements. A man who looked like he was disguised as an old woman made me enter a little office. On the door was written ‘‘Production Department.’

He patted his big belly, his gray hair, took a large pinch of snuff and said to me, ‘ One of our dance extras is not here; can you dance in her place tonight?’’

I told him that if someone wanted to show me how, I could learn very quickly.

‘ The devil take you!’’ he said shaking the tobacco out of his jabot. ‘‘I was promised an old coryphaeus from the Opera. I have been listening to you for an hour thinking you were she.’

I was sixteen and a half years old! . . .

I went to the Funambules. There, I said to myself, they put on mime shows. I should know enough. Oh! Was I wrong! . . . They would not even hear me. I was too skinny, and my wrists were not strong enough; women have to fight with sabers!



Effects of a Hospital Stay

I went home feeling dejected, legs worn out.

The next day Denise came to see me.

‘‘I have come to get you. I am taking you to dine at the house of one of our former acquaintances.’

‘‘Who is that?’’

‘‘Fair Marie! You know, the one who wrote to me that Sunday at mass.

She just bought some furniture. We are going to have a house warming at her house, on Rue de Provence.’

  

Mlle Marie had a little apartment on the first floor with blue wool hang-ings and curtains of white muslin. She was reclining on her sofa.

‘‘How charming it is here!’’ said Denise.

‘‘Yes,’ replied Marie, ‘ but this is my sixth home. They all get sold.’

‘ Of course, you amass notes and you do not pay them!’’

‘ Oh! This time I shall keep it! Where do you live?’’ she asked me.

‘ I live on Rue de Buffault.’

‘‘Furnished?’’

‘‘Yes, and I am certainly lonely all alone.’

‘ Do you want to come live with me?’

I looked at Denise, who said to me, ‘‘Now, that is not a bad idea! You would not have to pay anything.’

‘‘I accept, but on one condition, and that is that I pay half the rent as soon as I am able.’