Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (25 page)

The men who had frightened me so lined up to let us by. Some of them saluted me. I left the beach laughing at my fright. They were oyster fishermen.

The next day was a beautiful icy day. The sun was pale but cheery.

I was told I should visit the park. I put on a black velvet dress, a matching coat, a white pinwale corduroy hat with roses pinned underneath the brim, and a veil, more to keep my nose from turning red than to hide. This park was magnificent. Nearly tame stags and deer roamed freely.

I saw coming toward me a tall blond woman whose hair was curled English-style.

Several people were walking alongside her. The passersby were salut-ing her and she would reply with a smile. I could hear, ‘ The queen!’’

I saw my baron coming out of an alley on a superb gray horse, but when he saw me he did an about-turn!

I went back to the hotel for dinner.

The baron came to see me for a minute and said that indeed during my morning walk I had run across the whole court. I understood why he ran off; he was chamberlain.

He sent me some theater tickets. Count Ory and Figaro were playing.

This theater does not have loges but a balcony divided in several places for chamberlains, ladies, and the king. The most important persons of the city go to the orchestra pits. I made a long face when I was shown my seats.

My white hat interested many of the young men seated in the balcony.

Unfortunately, I had not counted on the nuisance of my fame. During intermission two curious men positioned themselves right in front of me.

‘ Oh, it is not possible!’’ said one of them. ‘‘But, yes, it is, it is Mogador!’’

The two of them left, but they came back with reinforcements. I was seized by the irresistible desire to cross my eyes.

‘ You must be wrong,’ said a newcomer.

‘‘No, no,’ said his debater, ‘‘I know her well. She is slightly pock-marked; that is she. In fact the baron can settle this for us.’

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Travel Impressions

Thank goodness the curtain went up. They did not dare come back down.

I left my seat before the play was over. I had hoped that I could get to my hotel, but they had left their seats at the same time as I, and they were lined up in the hall.

I saw the baron at the entrance. He turned his back to me, motioning for me to get into the waiting carriage. A man pushed me. I heard someone speak to the coachman, but I could not make out the words.

We left posthaste. We had been riding for a good while, when I began to worry because I should have arrived a half hour earlier.

I figured that I was lost and was being taken to a wood. I was in dire circumstances. He probably thought I was rich and he was going to rob me and kill me.

The carriage stopped and I recognized my hotel.

‘ The fool!’ I said getting out. ‘‘He got lost.’

‘‘No,’ said the baron who was waiting for me at the door. ‘‘I ordered him to take a detour, otherwise you would have been followed. Do not go out and do not look out the window!’’

‘ Well, now, am I in prison here?’

‘‘I am saying this for your own good. One of your compatriots, Mlle Hermance, supposedly because she was attracting too much attention, has just been sent back to France.’

I rose early and tried to find some amusement, but in vain, and four o’clock arrived after much yawning. I was relaxing until all my fibers were loose, when I heard several voices coming up the stairs.

I thought the baron was bringing me some of his friends. I opened the door and saw five young men, but no baron. I quickly shut my door.

I listened; they were talking about me. One was saying, ‘‘I knew she was staying here.’

A door next to mine opened. It led to a room where they were going to dine. They knocked on the wall and sang songs composed for me.

   

At eight o’clock there was a knock at the door. Since I did not recognize my friend’s voice, I did not open. A note was slipped under the door.

This is what it contained:

I do not dare go see you. Your hotel has been invaded. Go out at ten. I shall wait for you at the corner of the place and the Café Anglais.

When the appointed hour arrived, I wrapped myself up like a con-spirator and we slid along walls like two shadows.

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Travel Impressions

Since there was a lot of frost, we progressed slowly. My maid slipped and fell. I began to laugh so hard that I had to hold on to a wall.

A watchman was pacing quietly. He stopped to listen to us and yelled, probably, ‘‘Who goes there?’’ I did not know what to answer, and I was afraid to take another step. The watchman was still yelling. I replied, ‘‘It is we!’’

Apparently that was not enough, and if the baron, noticing my tardiness, had not come looking for us and had not spoken to the sentry, he might have shot us.

‘‘You must change hotels. Since we have a dearth of women as beautiful as you, when one of them arrives, a revolution ensues.’

‘‘My dear, your country bores me. I shall not change hotels. I am leaving tomorrow without fail.’

I returned home as laboriously as I had arrived, and I saw Paris with exuberant joy.

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15

o ActsofDesperation

A Muffled Sound, Something Falling . . .—The Carriage for Indigents—A Solution That Destroys the Problem—Stars in Those Days Did Not Take Advantage of Their Botched Suicides

   everything completed for the move. Our shop was ready. I had saved a little money, but it was not enough. I sold my jewelry, some cashmere garments, and I paid off some small debts.

I was not planning to become a prude, but I wanted to leave this life of subjection to the pleasures of others. I wanted to laugh only when I felt like it and for my own personal enjoyment.

I was recalling the Sundays of my childhood. In those days I would check on the sun four days ahead to find out if it was going to rain. That is not a custom of the beautiful people from high society. What does Sunday mean for most rich people? A day of boredom.

Take as an example those strollers who come home on Sunday night.

They have walked four leagues in the country to pick wild flowers. They are tired, dusty, but they have had enough fun to last them a week.

I would compare these pleasures from my childhood to those of the dazzling gilded young people I frequented, and I found the first ones superior.

What did all those young people, who thought they were so original mixing anglomania with the traditions of the Regency, do for fun?

The more creative ones had ridden tall skinny horses, had raced either through the Bois de Boulogne or the Champ-de-Mars, had lost money, had dined every day in restaurants, had played games all night long with mistresses, had gone to dances, to their clubs, and they had been unable to find ways to have fun.

I had seen the two lifestyles. The life of the idlers seemed more genuinely enjoyable, and I made the decision to return to them.



  ,   . . .

My shop was very pretty. My mother had made it look elegant. She hired some good workers, and the opening of the fashion shop was set for the twentieth of the month. This was the ninth.

The apartment I had rented was on the third floor, facing the courtyard.

I had hired a new maid, a girl from Nantes named Marie. She was short, had gray, cat-like eyes, a big nose, and a dumb but honest look.

At that time I had a pretty little white dog with black spots that I had raised. I was afraid of losing her because she was coughing. One of the workers suggested I give her a powder that was touted all over Paris to prevent illnesses. I gave my little dog the dosage prescribed. An hour later I could hear moaning, and I heard my maid forbid the dog to leave the room. The poor creature ran between her legs and collapsed at my door. I had poisoned her with too strong a dose.

I have always been superstitious. The death of my dog seemed to be a bad omen. I did not like my apartment any more. It depressed me.

We had several employees. When one of them quit, my mother asked me to go see a woman who had applied for a job. She had said her address was on Rue Coquenard.

I put on a shawl, a hat, a veil, and I left by way of Faubourg Montmartre.

I had reached the corner when I heard a muffled sound, several voices yelling, and I saw everyone rushing. I drew near. Several persons were around something on the ground. A blond woman with unfastened hair was being lifted. I let out a dreadful cry.

‘‘Marie!’’ I yelled, kissing her.1 ‘‘Marie! Wake up. . . . Oh, God! How horrible! She is not dead, is she?’’

An elderly man who was feeling her forehead replied as he removed his hat, ‘‘It is all over!’’

She was brought up to her room, a furnished garret. I followed this sad procession. She had left only a letter with a request that it be sent to its address without opening it.

I could see that poverty had led her to this. She was laid out on her pallet. A doctor said she had broken her back.

I knew the man the letter was addressed to and I promised to go see him. But in the meantime, I immediately sent him the letter by messenger.

The woman she was renting from was asked if she had been renting from her for very long.

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Acts of Desperation

‘‘No, just two months. I had given her notice because she is registered with the police. I have a demoiselle here, so I could not keep her.’

‘‘Did she ever have any visitors?’’

‘ No, I think she was sick the whole time.’

I gave her Marie’s last dress. I sent a bedsheet and a bonnet with recommendations that her hair be attractively done up. She was so proud of it! I remember one day she said to me, ‘‘I hope I never, ever die in a hospice; I am afraid they would cut my hair.’

Her lover lived on Rue Racine. I had a carriage drop me off in front of his house.

I checked with the concierge. The first thing I saw on his table was Marie’s letter. That meant he was not in!

The doorman did not seem eager to go get him, but his wife, who was nicer, told me that he was at the tavern next door. I spoke to a waiter there and he was paged in the billiard room.

‘ Tell whoever it is to wait for me at my house,’ he said. ‘‘I am finishing a betting pool.’

I waited for him at the concierge’s. I waited for more than an hour.

Finally he arrived, disheveled and full of wine.

He was a fifteenth year student, still young and rather handsome.

‘ Oh! It is you!’’ he said to me. ‘‘Why did you not go in? You could have had an absinthe with us. I won the pool.’

‘ Do not laugh my friend, I have some bad news. Read this letter.’

And I pointed to Marie’s letter still on the table.

‘Again!’’ he said. ‘‘If that is why you came, you could have stayed home. Good grief, shall I never be rid of her? . . . I do not want to read her letters.’

‘‘Read this one,’ I told him. ‘‘It is the last one.’

‘ She told me that a hundred times. Upstairs I have ten of them that I have not opened—’’

‘ That was wrong, you could have prevented a terrible thing. . . . She is dead!’’

‘ Dead!’’

‘‘Yes, dead! She threw herself out the window.’

He picked up his key, asked if there was heat in his house, and invited me up to his room. Once inside, he removed his cap, threw his hair back, and opened the letter. It was eight or ten pages long. He lit a candle and read. . . .

During the reading he moved his head a few times but never shed a tear.

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Acts of Desperation

Finally he told me, ‘‘It is an irreversible tragedy. I cannot do anything about it. For a year now I have had another mistress whom I love very much. At first I kept that fact hidden, but Marie would follow me, and she found out. After that there was a lot of weeping and crying. I began to hate her. One night she came over, determined to kill me. . . . She had a knife! I told my mistress to go upstairs, and I locked Marie in an empty room. Since she was making a racket, I went out to spend the night elsewhere. Once I had left, she was let out and was told that if she returned and made so much noise again, the guards would be called to arrest her.’

‘‘What you did is mean. You have no heart.’

‘‘You should have been there. . . . I do not know a worse torture than having near you a person who torments you with an unrequited love. . . .’

He read the letter one more time without any more feeling than the first time. There was a knock at the door. . . . He had removed the key.

‘ Who is there?’’ he asked.

‘‘It is I,’ said a woman’s voice.

He set the letter down and went to open the door. I saw a small brunette with an upturned nose enter.

‘ Oh!’’ she said. ‘‘You are entertaining Mogador? You should have had someone tell me not to come up.’

She turned to leave. He hastened to hold her back.

I understood then that poor Marie must have been quite miserable.

I picked up the letter so this woman would not see it. This letter would end up being the instrument that would avenge Marie!

   

In my haste to leave, I had inadvertently taken this poor child’s letter with me. Here are a few fragments:

At least read this letter to the end. Do not laugh. I have told you this many times because I always hoped that you would have pity on me.

My crime is to have loved you too much; forgive me; I am going to pay for it dearly. I have never had much strength when I was faced with giving you up. Repeatedly I came back and asked your forgiveness for the pain you caused me. . . . You would have me sent away! I would send you my soul and my tears in a letter that you would burn without answering, or that your mistress would personally return to me with an insult.

You will miss me, even if just for love of her. When I shall be no more, she will leave you.

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Acts of Desperation

Leave the Latin Quarter. Go back to Bretagne where your mother is still waiting for you. . . . I was present when you received letters from her in which she bemoaned your abandonment.