The Mistress of Paris

by Catherine Hewitt

  The venue had seen some great stars in its time, including the sensational dancer Clara Fontaine. Dances were held every night of the week, and when Louise started frequenting the Closerie des Lilas the venue was beginning to attract the more ambitious grisette, with aspirations of grandeur and a hat to match; a cheap bonnet would be met with disdainful looks.30 Any self-respecting girl at the Closerie des Lilas would proudly appear in a bibi, the feathered hat favoured by lorettes.

  The ability to dance well was essential. Dancing was how a girl attracted attention. This served two purposes. Firstly, it enabled her to secure a client, and for a grisette maybe even to progress to the status of lorette. But for a lorette it was also a potential audition. It was a chance to be spotted by a theatrical producer and offered a part on stage. In the lorette’s eyes, nothing could rival the thrill and glamour of being an actress.

  By attending such dances, Louise was now rubbing shoulders with actresses, lorettes and men of all ages and classes. Students were all very well, but she found she had a particular weakness for military men. She sought out the prime spots they frequented, such as the Champ de Mars and the popular ball at the Salon de Mars. She loved the smart uniforms, the carefully waxed moustaches, the gleaming buckles and medals. There was something about the discipline, the rigour and the air of tradition that impressed her.

  Poverty fuelled both Louise’s need for basic necessities and her yearning for luxuries. And then there was alcohol, that potion that made a person forget their worries. Louise began to rely on it more and more. But all these things had to be paid for; an unmarried girl simply could not survive in Paris, let alone console herself with a little luxury from time to time, without some spare sous. A sexual favour here and there seemed a small price to pay for a hot meal, a swig of gin or a pretty hat.

  Sometimes, if Louise had offered her services to a student, a cramped attic room might be available. But occasionally she would be obliged to take a lover home. Mme Delabigne was accommodating. She knew the flavour of poverty and the ache of hunger. She had found her own body to be a renewable source of income. And Louise was disarmingly attractive. It was a simple calculation.

  Louise later confided to an acquaintance how her mother complied willingly when she brought a man home, and had helped manage her career by ensuring that she always looked her best. Referring to Mme Delabigne, the confidant explained:

  In the morning, when the lover had gone, she would come into her daughter’s bedroom. Finding the young girl, without stopping to worry whether or not she was tired, she covered the shivering pink body with a damp sheet. It was heroic of her, because she could have killed the youngster. That was too bad. Under the icy sensation, her breasts filled out, her skin grew firm again. The mother could feel that she had done her duty and she would say to herself: ‘You will see. The little one will be marvellous. She will be fabulous.’31

  But men could be cruel. The profession forced Louise to develop a tough exterior. She had to feign pleasure when a fat and sweaty man pressed his naked body close to hers. Then she might be ordered to carry out peculiar sexual acts. And the richer the man, the more exotic his requests could be. Some men were violent; on a bad night, she might be spat at, slapped and kicked. But Louise persevered, using her charms and her body to survive. She took the blows, drawing strength from her naturally ambitious streak. Working in a dress shop had left her with a taste for finery and the power and security it brought. She would never have been satisfied as a simple grisette. From the very first, she had a loftier target in her sights.

  A grisette ideally sought to build herself a small register of regular clients. It was easier than constantly hunting for men, and far less precarious. Having an established client base was also an indication that a girl was moving up in the demi-monde. A practical way to do this was to find a job as a waitress or a barmaid. Girls who did so enjoyed the reassurance of a reliable weekly income (albeit small), and had the advantage of being able to supplement it through a steady stream of potential clients who might become regulars.

  When a job came up working in a brasserie de femmes, Louise seized the opportunity. She desperately craved security.

  The brasserie de femmes was a new concept that was growing fashionable in the 1860s.32 The particularity of the bars was that they were staffed exclusively by women. As one contented patron remarked, the idea was ‘founded on a simple principle: it is pleasant to smoke a cigar while you watch a creature whose job it is to please strutting up and down in front of you’.33 The waitresses would often be dressed provocatively in provincial costume, and were more than happy to supplement their income. Men were delighted by the gimmick and the craze soon took off.

  Countless brasseries de femmes sprung up in the 10th arrondissement near the Delabignes’ home. Louise fitted in well: the girls were typically pretty and known to be fierce with clients who took liberties. Many people deplored the corruption they believed these venues encouraged. ‘Of all the young girls, the brasserie girl is the one who most easily turns into a monster void of all sense of morality,’ fumed A. Coffignon. ‘Beware he who falls into her clutches.’34

  The girls earned tips from the beverages they sold, and were instructed to throw out customers who had stopped buying drinks. The waitress’s job was to use her feminine wiles to persuade men to spend more. To encourage them, she would often drink as well.

  Despite her aspirations, Louise’s life was spiralling into a vortex of alcohol and promiscuity.

  Then one day, an unexpected glimmer of hope appeared. It caught Louise off guard, but it would change her life forever. In 1864, the sixteen-year-old fell in love.

  CHAPTER 3

  First Love, First Appearances

  Richard Fossey was different from other men. Four years older than Louise, he was kind and gentle. He knew how to listen. He came from a good family, his father was well-connected, and his parents had high hopes for his future. And while the young man’s career was being decided, he was making his transition from boyhood to manhood in the heart of the capital.

  Louise and Fossey shared a mutual acquaintance, their friend Camille.

  When the girls met as teenagers, Louise quickly warmed to Camille. Louise was sharp-witted, passionate and physically alluring, and though her interior was growing embittered and hardened to pain, the teenager masked her core with a captivating veneer of girlish coquettishness which was designed expressly to please. By contrast, Camille was straightforward, sturdy and placid. She was fun, but she was also dependable. Louise’s world was coloured by uncertainty; she valued the loyalty and discretion she found in her new friend. The pair formed a close and lifelong bond.

  After a while, Louise’s comrade began to make Mme Delabigne uneasy. One way or another, she needed her daughter to earn. An acquaintance who diverted the youngster’s attention was a threat to the whole family. Mme Delabigne felt certain that it was Camille who had orchestrated her teenage daughter’s meeting with Richard Fossey during one of the girls’ pleasure-hunting forays in the capital. But Louise preferred to circulate a different story.1

  In her version of events, fictionalised later in her novel Isola (1876), the couple’s encounter was more serendipitous and romantic. One dismal evening, Louise had slumped in despair beneath a coach entrance in a side street. As she sat crying, unsure whether to return home and face the latest violent lover her mother had procured, or to brave the cold night air and sleep huddled at the side of the street, a man approached. It was Fossey. Noticing the shivering young woman, he stopped to ask the cause of her upset. Tentatively, Louise began to tell him of her traumatic upbringing. ‘He possessed that extraordinary kindness that comes with youth,’ Louise remembered.2 Fossey listened in earnest. He was moved by her tears, sympathised with her misfortune, and tried to console her. As she spoke, Louise could see that her youth and fragility had touched Fossey’s heart. He seemed compelled to protect her.

  Fossey did not fit the mould Louise had come to know. She had never
been treated with such care. Like many femmes de brasseries, she had grown accustomed to male contempt and she concealed her resentment beneath a thick skin. The encounter was the first of many meetings.

  Mme Delabigne told people how, as the relationship blossomed, Camille would come to the house to collect Louise.3 Then, having coaxed Mme Delabigne into giving her permission, the two girls would hurry out to the corner of the street where Camille’s lover and Fossey would be waiting for them. Camille became a convenient messenger, surreptitiously sliding Fossey’s passionate love letters into Louise’s hand when Mme Delabigne’s back was turned.

  Before long, Fossey announced that he intended to make Louise his wife – when the time was right. The prospect had everything to appeal. Aside from his connections, Fossey seemed to genuinely care about her and could offer her a respectable life. She could have a husband and a home. She could be somebody’s wife. Louise had never known security. She gave herself to him completely.

  Acquaintances held that it was the idea of love and the future Fossey offered that most captured Louise’s heart. But Louise insisted: ‘What people say may not always be true.’4 ‘Nothing was too much for him,’ she explained, ‘I had everything a woman could wish for, and I was perfectly happy.’5

  Looking back, Louise would see this as the great – and only true – love affair of her life. As they spent more and more time together, Louise anticipated the formalising of their union. She waited. The proposal did not come.

  Still, she had plenty to keep her occupied. She had to earn a living, and in 1864 she got a lucky break: one of the minor actors she had met in the Latin Quarter said he thought he could get her work as an extra. She might lack experience, but her looks were a considerable advantage. After a series of meetings and discussions, Louise began playing walk-on parts at the Théâtre Saint-Germain (later to become the Théâtre de Cluny).6 It was an enviable opportunity for a girl of Louise’s age. It was her first step up the social scale.

  Under the Second Empire, Paris’s theatre scene was prospering. In 1806, Napoleon I had abruptly quashed the liberty of theatres that had been established following the Revolution. Only eight closely monitored venues were authorised to continue staging performances in Paris.7 When liberty was finally restored in 1864, Parisians, starved of entertainment, poured into the auditoriums. In response, a host of new theatres sprang up across the capital, and by 1875 Paris boasted 58 in total.8

  The pleasure-hungry middle and upper classes had money to spend, while the working class craved light relief to colour their dreary routine. Behind the scenes, playwrights were brimming with new ideas, producers and designers bursting with originality. It was a winning combination.

  Each theatre held a distinct position in a hierarchy and specialised in a particular genre.9 An audience member’s class would guide their choice of establishment; for in 19th-century Paris the theatre was more than just an entertainment venue – it was where you went to be seen.

  The upper classes were proud to be spotted at the opening night of a tragedy or a work by Molière at the prestigious Comédie Française. Meanwhile, a working-class spectator would more likely be found laughing heartily at one of the Théâtre des Variétés’ popular farces. Ticket prices were pitched to cater to this social diversity. In 1862, spectators could enjoy a performance at the Bouffes-Parisiens for as little as 1 franc; at the Théâtre des Italiens, they could expect to pay as much as 12 francs for a top-price box.10 The average weekly wage for a worker under the Second Empire was 12 francs 50.11

  When Louise first appeared on stage, these class boundaries that had so clearly distinguished theatregoers and establishments were beginning to blur. As more and more people came to see plays, the theatre was undergoing an embourgeoisement.12 If a person wanted to be noticed by the masses, the stage was the place to be.

  Certainly, many regarded the stage as a breeding ground for immorality, and the actress was a problematic figure in the eyes of 19th-century society. Outwardly, she could appear impeccably groomed, as polished as the next fine lady. But then in private she might be given to wild passions and sexual libertinism. Yet despite popular preconceptions, the actress remained distinct from the common prostitute: she wielded power.

  ‘The visitor to Paris cannot fail to have been struck by the important part that actresses play in that gay city,’ observed an English journalist. ‘They set fashions; they are received in the salons of the haute finance, they are to be seen everywhere, at the races, the theatres, always at the best places; many of them live in very elegant style, and are apparently never in want of money.’13

  Louise knew that, as she stepped on to the stage, she would be walking away from her past and her perilous life of prostitution. It was glamorous, it was exhilarating; she had begun to climb.

  Situated on the busy Boulevard Saint-Germain, the Théâtre Saint-Germain was a small venue in an area where theatres were few. Although many considered it a welcome addition to the left bank, the theatre struggled from the very beginning. When it first opened, the theatre turned to young, inexperienced writers for its popular repertoire of dramas and comedies – to its detriment. When a theatre’s nearest neighbour was the acclaimed Théâtre de l’Odéon, ‘a work which lacks wit, like all those it has presented so far, can never succeed’, warned theatre critic Adrien Desprez.14 Throughout the 1860s, the venue was perpetually closing and reopening, changing name several times. For its performers, it made an uncertain profession even more precarious.

  Still, the theatre’s position in the heart of the Latin Quarter made it a lively place in which to perform. There was hardly an hour of the day when the Boulevard Saint-Germain fell quiet. The chatter of voices and the rumble of carriage wheels were an intrinsic part of the boulevard’s character. The swarms of fashionable young Parisians it attracted were loyal patrons of its many bars and cafés.15

  Louise’s time in Paris’s brasseries had left its mark. With temptation all around, she could not resist a drink, and often arrived for a performance the worse for wear. Her acting did little to redeem her in directors’ eyes. She was offered no stretching roles and was relegated to the chorus. No critics mentioned her in their reviews, and there seemed little chance of her acting career progressing.

  Thankfully, she possessed one attribute that outweighed all these flaws. Her unconventional yet beguiling appearance more than compensated for her lack of talent. Her looks were an asset to any production. Eventually, a man with influence and vision spotted her and came to the same conclusion. His name was M. Soëge.

  M. Soëge was a familiar face on the theatre scene, and he boasted contacts with many important directors. Catching sight of the striking redhead one evening at the Théâtre Saint-Germain, M. Soëge calculated that she could tempt other directors. It was in his power to propel this girl’s career, and he decided to use his influence. Naturally, he would need to be thanked in some way. But rewarding male benefactors was an area in which Louise excelled.

  With M. Soëge’s expert salesmanship, Louise was offered a golden opportunity. In 1866, she was invited to join the cast at one of the most popular theatres in Paris: Jacques Offenbach’s Bouffes-Parisiens.

  If Paris was a musical hotspot in 19th-century Europe, then Offenbach was undoubtedly its figurehead. The triumphant airs of his frivolous operettas captured the spirit of the time, and Parisians rhapsodised about the upbeat, catchy melodies the composer brought to the stage. Offenbach’s music was in direct harmony with the Parisian obsession with farce and light-hearted entertainment.16

  Though a German Jew, Offenbach considered himself every bit the Frenchman. Born in 1819, his musical dexterity was spotted early by his father, who sent him to study in Paris as a teenager. After a year at the prestigious Conservatoire, Offenbach performed as a cellist in a series of theatre orchestras, but he remained unfulfilled. He yearned to write music for the stage. When he began to do so, his musical gift truly started to shine.

  Like a magician, he captivated
his audience. ‘There was something demonic about him,’ one listener mused.17 He had a glitter in his eye and boundless energy that magnetised people towards him.

  By 1855, Offenbach had been conducting the orchestra at the Théâtre Français for five years and he was restless. He longed to start his very own musical theatre. It would be a place for ‘gay, witty music’, he enthused.18 It must exude life.

  Fortune was smiling on Offenbach. He got word of a small theatre that had become vacant near the Palais de l’Industrie, where the much-hyped Exposition Universelle was about to open. It was a tiny wooden building with steep seating that could hold barely 50 people. But it had a quaint charm. It seemed worth the risk. And there was no time to lose; in a matter of days, crowds would be flocking to Paris from all corners of the globe to see the exposition. Offenbach hurriedly made enquiries and soon took up residence at the theatre that would become known as the Bouffes-Parisiens.

  He had to work quickly; the influx of visitors to the capital could fill his auditorium for weeks. Under pressure, he took a chance on an unknown librettist, Ludovic Halévy. It was another fortuitous decision; the chemistry between the pair was immediate, and the first performance in July 1855 was a wild success.

  The Bouffes-Parisiens soon became one of the most popular theatres in Paris, and night after night the actors would perform to full houses of delighted spectators. By the end of the summer season, Offenbach had proved that he could fill the auditorium. The Bouffes moved from its original home in the Salle Lacaze on the Champs-Elysées to the Salle du Théâtre Comte on the Passage Choiseul for the winter, installing itself there permanently in 1858. The new venue was larger, warmer and more luxurious. But its primary selling feature was that it adjoined the Passage Choiseul; audience members could enjoy some fresh air or a cigar outside before the performance and remain dry, even in bad weather.19