I Am Madame X

by Gioia Diliberto

  She had been born Henrietta-Marie Biard d’Aurnet to an old aristocratic family that owned an enormous crenellated château with vast lands in Burgundy. At seventeen, she had been married to the Vicomte de Perrony, whose aristocratic lineage was even older and more illustrious than hers. The vicomte died soon after the wedding, however, and Madame de Perrony never again showed an interest in men. She stayed on in Perrony’s grand hôtel on rue Beaujon and took up writing for the newspapers. In addition to her column for Le Figaro, she wrote for a gaggle of illustrated journals, under a variety of names—Marie Double, Bonne, Henriette d’Isle, and Georges de Letoière.

  Now Etincelle was standing before me, holding her notebook opened, poised to write. “I enjoyed your playing very much, Mademoiselle. Who’s your teacher?”

  “I don’t have one. I study on my own.”

  “Such discipline in one so young and pretty!”

  “Well, I’ve always studied on my own. Even when I was at school, I practiced a couple of hours every day.”

  “What school was that, dear?”

  “Le Couvent des Dames Anglaises, on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. It’s been torn down.”

  “Oh, yes, another victim of Haussmannia. I lost half my garden to one of his boulevards. Such a shame.”

  Etincelle scribbled in her notebook, then closed it shut and extended a thin, red satin arm. “I’m sure we will meet again, dear.”

  The next morning at seven—four hours before I usually rose—Mama shook me awake. As I opened my eyes, she waved a folded copy of Le Figaro in front of me. “Look at this, Mimi,” she said excitedly, pointing to the fourth column on the front page. “It’s unbelievable. Etincelle never writes about Americans!”

  “Yesterday at Madame Avegno’s,” the article said,

  I met the charming American woman’s daughter, Virginie Amélie. She is an Ingres portrait brought to life, tall and graceful with an undulating swan’s neck, whiter than white skin and masses of lustrous red hair (why is it American women have so much hair?).

  In addition to possessing otherworldly physical beauty, Mademoiselle Avegno is a pianist of extraordinary talent. Yesterday she played Mozart and Beethoven. One could dream while listening to her. Her long, thin fingers fluttered like wings as they made the ivories vibrate in tender song.

  Etincelle returned to Mama’s salon the following Monday and every Monday after that, and she rarely failed to write about me in her “Carnet d’un Mondain.” It didn’t take long for the other society reporters in town to discover me, too. Soon they started showing up at Mama’s Mondays, and I became the ornament and focus of dozens of columns in the popular press. The stories were all about my unique, exquisite beauty. I can assure you, there were other girls in town far prettier than I. But once an influential reporter writes something about you, all the other reporters jump on the bandwagon. Etincelle anointed me the Parisian beauty, and suddenly everyone wanted to meet me. Invitations poured in, including a few from the old Faubourg families Mama wanted so desperately to know. She insisted I accept every one.

  My mother saw me as her ticket to the top, and she pushed me relentlessly. It never occurred to me to resist. I became caught up in an endless round of teas, lunches, dinners, receptions, parties, and balls. I was too busy to notice that I had no friends my age. Most of the people I met were old and boring, but somehow it didn’t matter, because I was the center of attention. At fourteen, it’s a heady experience to be told constantly how beautiful you are, to have men fawning over you and women eying you jealously. I loved it, and I began to expect it.

  Whenever I entered a room, heads would lift and turn in my direction. People would murmur as I walked past. Sometimes, at parties, they would actually stand on chairs to get a better look at me.

  Every night during the high season—from November to May—my carnet de bal was filled with noble names. After I danced with the duc de Rivaulde three evenings in a row, Mama began to dream of being a mother-in-law to nobility. I was barely into my teens, and already she was scheming to marry me off to a title.

  There was some grumbling in the press about the inappropriateness of a girl my age appearing at every reception and ball in town. But many people assumed I was older than I was. Dressed up and wearing makeup, I looked twenty-five. I had reached my full height of five feet six inches, and my face and form had taken on the contours of womanhood.

  Mama insisted that I dress elegantly, and we had endless battles over my toilette. Also, she insisted I go back on Chomel’s Solution. She had gone to the doctor for a fresh supply of jars, and one night she stood by my high canopied bed with a spoonful of the sticky blue liquid in her hand.

  “Open your mouth, Mimi,” she ordered.

  “I won’t. It makes me sick.”

  “Don’t forget who the mother is here.”

  I threw off the cream silk sheets and jumped to my feet. “I won’t take it!”

  I grabbed the spoon from Mama’s hand and flung it into a corner by the armoire. Mama slapped me across the face; I slapped her back. “Don’t ever touch me again!” I shouted.

  Fortunately, Mama gave up on the Chomel’s. The following week, however, she brought me some blanc d’her be powder from the pharmacy. It was composed of mashed carbonate of lead mixed with a pomade made from veal grease and beef marrow. Mama showed me how to apply it in layers by patting a sponge in the grains and then daubing several layers of it on my face and shoulders. It lightened the skin well enough, but it smelled horrendous. Next we tried blanc de perle, an odorless powder containing the metallic chemical bismuth and bicarbonate of soda. That combination gave a bright whiteness to my skin. I use blanc de perle to this day.

  At that time in Paris, the fashionable women who could afford it were dressed by the couturier Charles Frederick Worth. Mama longed to have him make my clothes as well. The problem was, Monsieur Worth was so busy, and so snobbish, one needed an introduction to enter his atelier. Etincelle was more than happy to provide it, and one morning Mama and I joined the long line of carriages outside 7, rue de la Paix, headquarters for Maison Worth.

  We left the carriage with our driver, mounted the red-carpeted stairs, and entered a large foyer. Beyond, a series of salons opened off a long hall. Large glass cabinets in the first salon displayed black-and-white silks; in the second, colored silks; in the third, velvets; and in the fourth, woolens.

  In the fifth salon, the tall windows were shuttered against the daylight. Soft candlelight flickered from crystal wall sconces so that customers could try on ball gowns in the same lighting they would find at parties.

  Dozens of salesmen wandered throughout. Most were handsome young Englishmen with curled hair and pearl tiepins. A few beautiful models slid by in bursts of glittery tulle and jewel-colored satin.

  In the waiting room, a dozen women sat on divans sipping Madeira and listening to a young man play Verdi on a grand piano. A thin middle-aged woman who was dressed like a schoolmistress, in a simple black skirt and white blouse, handed us a ticket, and we sat down.

  An hour later, she returned and called our names. “Come with me,” the woman said.

  We followed her down the hall to a large room that was plainly decorated but well lit. Women were standing in front of tall mirrors against the walls while fitters pulled, tucked, and pinned their dresses.

  Posed at the center was a short, stout man with droopy-lidded eyes like Emperor Napoléon’s, and a wheat-colored brush mustache. His face seemed to have collapsed. His nose lay squished between his eyes, and his jowls disappeared into the fleshy folds of his neck. He was dressed like the portrait of Rembrandt at the Louvre—velvet beret, floppy silk scarf tied at the neck, and flowing cape, which he swept aside with his arms as he screamed at the beautiful woman who stood before him.

  “Why do you wear those ugly gloves? Never let me see you in gloves that color again,” he shrieked.

  Hanging her head, the woman yanked the offensive brown items from her hands and stuffed them into
her pocket. I thought she was going to cry.

  Monsieur Worth turned to Mama. “By whom are you presented to me?”

  “I have a letter from Madame la Vicomtesse de Perrony.” Hands trembling slightly, Mama removed the letter from her purse and passed it to Worth.

  He held the beige paper at arm’s length and scanned it quickly. Then he looked Mama over, moving his eyes from the top of her head to her black buckled shoes. “Ah, yes, Madame. I know exactly what will look well on you. It will be easy to dress such a lovely woman.”

  Mama blushed and smiled softly. “It would be an honor to be dressed by you, Monsieur. But first, I had hoped you’d create something for my daughter.”

  Mama stepped back so Monsieur Worth could get a better look at me. His sleepy lizard eyes opened a bit, and a sigh escaped through his mustache. “Beautiful. Beautiful. Walk across the room please, Mademoiselle.”

  I obeyed, enjoying the admiration of this important man.

  “Turn. Now the other way.”

  As I paraded and twirled, Monsieur Worth studied me, squinting and stroking the wrinkled folds of flesh where his chin should have been. “Come back in eight days,” he announced abruptly. “Your dress will be ready.”

  Pierre Gautreau had offered to buy the dress for me as a present. On a cold, rainy evening, he took me in his carriage to pick it up, after treating me to dinner at Tortoni’s. The low scudding clouds disappeared into blackness as we arrived at 7, rue de la Paix. It was nine o’clock, an hour before Worth closed his shop. A few salesmen scurried about, locking cabinets and stacking bolts of cloth on shelves. Through the parted curtains of the brocade salon, I glimpsed an army of seamstresses—gray-faced girls, some far younger than I, slouched over rows of sewing machines.

  Worth was in the fitting room, talking to a short brunette in a pink gown trimmed in black fringe. When he saw Pierre and me, he waddled over on stocky legs to greet us.

  “Bonsoir. Mademoiselle Avegno, your dress is waiting.” He cocked his head toward a folding screen in the corner. I stepped behind it. A prune velvet gown, overlaid with tinseled tulle and dotted with pearls and gold beads, lay across a settee. I studied the garment as I undid the buttons on my jacket. It was too flounced and bedecked, and though the color might have looked fine on a blonde, it was wrong for a redhead. Morosely, I fastened the bodice and dropped the skirt, which had WORTH 7, RUE DE LA PAIX stamped in gold ink on the waistband, over my head.

  Then I stepped from behind the screen. “Un rêve!” cried Worth.

  “How much for this masterpiece?” asked Pierre.

  “Two thousand francs,” said Worth.

  Pierre looked stunned. “That’s quite a sum.” He dropped into a chair and removed his checkbook from a pocket inside his coat.

  “I am an artist, Monsieur. I have Delacroix’s sense of color and form.”

  Pierre stopped writing and looked up. “For the price of this dress, I could buy her a Delacroix instead.”

  When I got home, I showed Mama the gown. She looked disappointed, too. “I never would have picked that color for you,” she said.

  “I know. It’s ugly.”

  “Well, Monsieur Worth knows what he’s doing. Let’s see how you look in it.”

  I put the dress on and modeled it for Mama.

  “I like it much better now,” she said, as if to convince herself.

  The following Saturday evening, I wore the prune velvet gown to a reception at the Ministry of Public Instruction. I thought it made my skin look chalky and my hair a dull brown, but that didn’t stop the Paris correspondent for the London Truth from writing about me in his column the next day. Pierre picked up a copy of the paper at his club and brought it to our house after lunch. Under the headline, “La Belle Américaine: A New Star of Occidental Loveliness Swims into the Ken of Parisian Society,” the paper’s Paris correspondent wrote:

  I am not going to chat with you about the crowned virago, Queen Elizabeth. The western star on whom I am about to descant has just risen from above the horizon. Of all the beauties I have ever seen, she is in face, form, hair, and complexion the most beautiful. My western star is Venus rising from the waves…in the country of George Washington.

  Her head is classical, and she wears her natural wavy hair in Grecian bandeaux. If her nose were an atom shorter, one might admire it more, still I cannot say it is too long to be out of proportion with the other features, which her dress sets off.

  At first sight, one is literally stunned by her beauty. Mademoiselle Virginie Amélie Avegno is a Canova statue transmitted into flesh and blood and bone and muscle. All her contours are harmonious…. A murmur of admiration greeted her wherever she went. The crowd opened, as if awe-struck with her beauty, to let her pass.

  “The nerve! ‘If her nose were an atom shorter.’ Who does he think he is, passing judgment on my face!” I complained.

  “You’re lucky he noticed you,” said Mama. “He could have written about the duchesse de Noailles instead. I saw her dancing with the prince de Ligne, and she was wearing the most beautiful white dress.”

  “Your mother’s right. It’s a huge compliment that he chose to write about you,” said Pierre.

  “Well, if I see him again, I’m going to cross my eyes and stick my tongue out at him. Then we’ll see if he notices my nose and my lips.”

  The London Truth correspondent was a friend of the Minister of the Marine, and perhaps that’s why I was asked to participate in the Marine Ministry’s “Four Continents” ball in March. There were to be four corteges, representing Africa, America, Asia, and Europe, each featuring a celebrated beauty. I would star as America.

  On the appointed evening, while a thousand guests enjoyed an eight-course banquet in the cavernous ballroom, a long procession of corteges threaded through a dim maze of corridors. At midnight, two butlers threw open the ballroom doors, and the thunder of voices stilled, as the gas lights from dozens of chandeliers rose.

  Africa, played by the Minister of the Marine’s young brunette wife, entered first. She rode in on a camel borrowed from the Jardin des Plantes. Following her were dozens of male “natives” wearing enormous black wool wigs and brightly colored sarongs.

  Europe was next. The beautiful Duchess Laure Castellian was carried in on a throne covered in pink and purple flowers. She was dressed in a brocade gown covered with gold beading, and a diamond-and gold tiara rested in her yellow curls. Trailing her were a gaggle of “peasants,” Germans in leather vests and feathered caps, Italians in Roman togas, and Dutchmen in wooden clogs.

  Then it was Asia’s turn. An actress from La Comédie Française stood on a wheeled platform pulled by eight men hunched under animal skins. Dressed in ballerina tights and a leopard-skin tunic, she balanced a slippered foot on the back of a live tiger, while holding on to a fake tree.

  Finally I was brought in, reclining on a hammock that was fastened to a wood platform. I was dressed as Pocahontas in a white leather sheath, a black wig with two long braids draped over my breasts, and a warrior’s headdress of brightly colored cascading feathers. Following me was a parade of “Americans”—Puritans in wide white collars and large-brimmed black hats; plantation tyrants cracking whips; Mexican banderilleros with huge slouched hats and pistols bulging from their belts.

  I struggled to keep my headdress in place while balancing in the swaying hammock. Sweat beaded my face and chest, and my stomach churned from the hammock’s rocking. I looked into the crowd and recognized many people I had met at Mama’s Mondays and seen in society. Wasn’t that Dr. Tom Evans, the Empress’s dentist, sitting with Mama and Pierre?

  Now I had lost my concentration, and the hammock was swinging in a wide arc. Suddenly it pitched me to the floor of the platform and over the side, six feet to the ground. I landed on my shoulder with a shock of pain.

  Several couples at nearby tables rushed to help, and within seconds a small crowd had gathered around me.

  “Please, I’m a doctor.” A bearded young man pus
hed his way through the perfumed group and knelt by my side.

  “Don’t move, Mademoiselle.” He cupped my forehead with one slim, cool hand and held my right wrist with the other. A band of heat gripped my arm under the shoulder. “Yeeow,” I cried.

  “Don’t move.” The man looked directly into my face with dark eyes so shining they seemed to beam light.

  Then another male voice: “Should I call an ambulance, Doctor Pozzi?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  Now Dr. Pozzi was moving my legs and arms, first the right ones, then the left ones. “Good. Nothing’s broken. Can you sit up?”

  I rose slowly, feeling the weight of my upper body. My shoulder throbbed. Just then, Mama pushed through the circle of people who were surrounding me. “Mimi, are you all right?” she cried. Dr. Pozzi scooped me into his arms and, with Mama scurrying behind, carried me through the crowded ballroom, through the maze of corridors, and out a back door to the street.

  “Let’s see if you can stand up,” he said, gently lowering my legs to the pavement. “Good.” He smiled quickly. The contours of his handsome face were cleanly defined in the long white ribbons of light from the street lamps. I saw that he was tall and young—no more than twenty-five or -six—and though not at all effeminate, he was prettier than most women.

  “Now, my lovely Indian maid, let’s get you home.” He tweaked my right braid, and a shiver of excitement shot through me. Mama glared at him, her jaw clenched.

  It was one in the morning, and the streets were deserted except for a few cabs. Dr. Pozzi hailed one and directed the driver to rue de Luxembourg. When we arrived at Number 44, he walked Mama and me to the door and pulled the bell. One of the maids always waited up for us, and I heard her padding down the hall.

  “If you have any problems, any stiffness or severe pain in the morning, come see me.” He handed me his card: DR. SAMUEL-JEAN POZZI, HÔPITAL NECKER. His face looked pale, his dark eyelashes almost blond in the transom’s harsh lantern light.

  The door creaked open, and the maid appeared in the entry, wearing her black uniform, her face a smear of weariness.