The Mistress of Paris

by Catherine Hewitt

  Parisians raved about the theatre. ‘The chocolate box’ – as people affectionately termed it – was exactly what was wanted.20 The music was ‘not just French, but Parisian’.21 Visitors’ guides recommended it as an unmissable venue ‘where you always have fun and where the crowd is invariably gracious and full of pretty women’.22

  Crowd-pleasing operettas appeared in quick succession. Then, in 1858, after a hesitant beginning, a new operetta surpassed all those that had gone before it, taking the music scene by storm. Orpheus in the Underworld got the whole of Paris dancing to Offenbach’s infectious melodies and chuckling at his gentle satire of the current regime.

  By the time Louise was beginning her career as a theatre extra in the 1860s, the charismatic composer’s reputation was firmly established. Offenbach’s fine features, spectacles and side whiskers were recognised all over Europe. And recognition gave rise to sociability. This suited Offenbach; he hated solitude. His Friday evenings were invariably given to entertaining. These informal gatherings saw friends and acquaintances packed into the rooms of the Offenbachs’ elegant home, banter and laughter filling the air. ‘He had an extraordinary number of friends who were always dropping in promiscuously. His Friday evenings at home were wildly amusing,’ his grandson remembered.23 ‘If he noticed that voices were being purposely subdued, he would look up and ask if anyone was dead.’

  Offenbach was famed for his ‘soupers de Jacques’, parties he would throw ritually after the first night of any performance. These events nourished his creative appetite. Guests recalled that it was not unusual for him to seize a pencil in the middle of a party and plunge into a state of deep concentration, then begin frantically composing while the conversation continued around him.24

  Offenbach was fastidious about the tautness of his theatrical productions. Like many creative geniuses, he lived at high pressure and was the victim of nervous tension. He possessed a fortuitous instinct for sensing when he was in the presence of an undiscovered star. And he never missed an attractive woman. ‘You know,’ he explained to a friend by way of justification, ‘that in my little theatre the public sits very close to the stage, and consequently the women have to be even more beautiful than elsewhere.’25 They always were. Women wanted to be noticed by Offenbach.

  Unfortunately, his magnetism and musical talent were not matched by his business sense. In the early 1860s, Offenbach was obliged to hand over the management of the Bouffes to Alphonse Varney.26 But his popularity never wavered. When his La Vie Parisienne came to the stage in 1866 to a thunder of wild applause, it merely reinforced the composer’s position as society’s most popular, empathetic musical impresario; he was the toast of Paris.

  It was at this point, just as Offenbach reached the height of his fame, that Louise was offered the chance to work for him. She would appear in a rerun of one of his most successful operettas: Orpheus was to return to the Bouffes-Parisiens.

  Louise knew that this would be markedly different from her experience in the Théâtre Saint-Germain. For one thing, her name would now be printed in the daily announcement of productions that appeared in the papers. It was the custom for actors to be identified by a single name when the cast lists were published, so this name was critical. It was how they would be remembered. Louise decided that hers must change.

  She wanted to make an impression, to stand out. A new life had begun. She was now climbing in society and she wanted a name that reflected the heights she was aiming for, the person she was determined to become. After years of humiliation, she wanted to be worshipped. She deliberated. Finally, she believed she had found the perfect stage name.

  Louise renamed herself ‘Valtesse’. The name was a witty contraction of the French ‘Votre Altesse’, or ‘Your Highness’. It delighted her. From now on, everyone who addressed her would be her subject and she their queen.

  On 2 February 1866, Valtesse’s name appeared for the first time in the Parisian newspapers.27 Readers learned that this new face was to appear in the minor role of Hébé. This was her chance to shine.

  ‘Offenbach is still an idol this winter,’ confirmed Le Monde Illustré in its announcement of the rerun of Orpheus.28 The composer’s Barbe-Bleue was due to premiere in the same week at the Variétés, where La Belle Hélène had packed the auditorium for months in 1864. Parisians could not get enough of Offenbach’s music. Orpheus was bound to be a success.

  But it was not. Orpheus met with a cool reception. Was it due to the renovations that had recently been carried out to increase the size of the theatre, wondered critic Albert de Lasalle? The Bouffes used to be so intimate: ‘You were sitting so close to the actors that you could see the slightest grimaces with which they accentuated their lines; it was as though you were performing in the show with them,’ recalled de Lasalle.29 The decor and costumes were still spectacular, but the voices had lost something of their exquisite clarity. It was not that the show was poor; it just failed to retain its audience’s interest as it had in 1858. Had people seen one performance too many of Orpheus?

  Historically, shows usually ran only for a few weeks. Until the second half of the 19th century, city populations were considered too small to justify runs of several months.30 But this situation was starting to change. Even so, by early April, one newspaper journalist reported having spotted a notice displayed in the theatre: ‘Due to popular demand, we announce the final performance of Orpheus in the Underworld.’ ‘People must have really disliked it to have called so vehemently for the last performance,’ joked the journalist.31 The production closed.

  As a minor part, Valtesse did not receive attention in the reviews of the show. But it hardly mattered; through Orpheus, she had firmly established herself as part of the troupe at the Bouffes-Parisiens. This was her first production of many.

  When Orpheus finished, Valtesse was awarded her next role. She was to play Mme Annibal in the theatre’s production of Didon, Reine de Carthage. The show received still less critical attention than Orpheus. But the cast was smaller; Valtesse stood a greater chance of being noticed. That was what she wanted; she had not pursued a career in the theatre to remain unremarked.

  Valtesse had yet to be awarded a main part. Nevertheless, by the end of the year, she could feel confident; she had marked her territory at the Bouffes-Parisiens. If she could fine-tune her skills as a performer, this could be the start of a glittering career. It was the opportunity she had been waiting for to mix with influential figures who could help her continue her social ascent.

  In the 19th century, the theatre was an institution apart from any other. It was structured around a social code unique to itself. Gas lights now lit the stage more brightly than the candles of the 18th century had been able to do.32 Their warm glow made costumes sparkle, brought sets to life and transported enchanted audiences to another world for an hour or two. In the auditorium, everything centred around appearance and status. Even the seating was socially codified. High above the crowd, beautiful women adorned in luxurious silks and furs edged their way to the front of expensive boxes, glittering with diamonds, self-aware and determined to be seen. Men stood back chivalrously, offering their status-affirming partners the best possible view – and affording themselves a discreet vantage point from which to peer down at other women through their opera glasses. Young dandies celebrated their bachelorhood by taking a seat in the male-only orchestra pit, the closest point to the action. And between the boxes and the orchestra pit, a whole cross-section of Parisian society could be seen looking, whispering, assimilating, judging.

  Valtesse soon came to understand the complex code that governed the auditorium. She explained to a later readership:

  A first night, oh Parisians, is not what frivolous, foolish people might think. It is an occasion of utmost importance […] For gallant ladies, it is a chance to display their charms […] Tout-Paris, that chicest fraction of Parisian society, is there: the one which writes, which thinks, which pays.33

  But to meet the individuals who coul
d truly propel her forward in society, Valtesse needed to familiarise herself with another domain: backstage. This was a world apart from the activity in the auditorium and on stage. It demanded a very different kind of protocol. In his novel Nana (1880), Émile Zola describes:

  the heavy, overheated, backstage atmosphere, with its strong underlying stench of gas, stage-set glue, squalid dark corners, and the smell of the female extras’ unwashed underwear. The passageway was even more suffocating; from time to time the sharp scent of toilet-water and soap drifting down from the dressing-rooms blended with the pestilential odour of human breath […] Upstairs there was a sound of wash-basins, laughter, shouts and banging doors releasing female smells in which the musky odour of make-up mingled with the harsh animal scent of hair.*34

  This shady warren of passages and side rooms was inhabited by two kinds of people: performers and wealthy men. Men who subscribed to the main – most expensive – boxes were granted virtually unlimited access to the backstage area. Theatre managers were keen to stay in favour with wealthy and prestigious patrons, so these men could be found in the green room, or roaming the corridors, the theatre wings and even the dressing rooms.

  The stereotype of the rich older man and the young female performer had long been the stock in trade of caricaturists by the time Valtesse negotiated the stuffy corridors backstage at the Bouffes-Parisiens. The theme received renewed attention in the 1870s and ’80s. Few men were better placed than Offenbach’s own librettist, Ludovic Halévy, to take an ironic view of the social interaction that went on backstage. His satirical novel, La Famille Cardinal (1883), playfully sketched the exchanges between young female dancers, their male admirers and their domineering mothers, to the delight of tickled readers. ‘Ah,’ exclaims Mme Cardinal after a series of calamities between her cosseted daughters and a succession of male suitors, ‘two daughters dancing at the Opéra, what a trial for a mother!’35 The world backstage made an impression on artists as well, notably Edgar Degas, in whose pastels the viewer peers voyeuristically through the cropped doorway of ballerinas’ dressing rooms to see pretty young dancers changing before their elderly male admirers.

  Sexual commerce was an accepted part of the social fabric backstage. It was what earned actresses and dancers their dubious reputation. However, for a girl wishing to secure the financial support of a prestigious benefactor, this was their means of doing so. It was the very crux of what made acting an attractive profession. The Duc de Morny (the illegitimate son of Napoleon Bonaparte’s stepdaughter, Hortense), the military professional the Comte de Castellane, and the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer were regular visitors to the Bouffes-Parisiens when it first opened, Meyerbeer invariably requesting an orchestra seat on the second night of every new production.36

  But for all the important, well-placed men she was now encountering backstage at the theatre, Valtesse remained attached to Fossey. Other men could admire her body, but they could never have her heart. Her dream of marriage still flickered tantalisingly. She was not prepared to give it up.

  When writers like Zola taunted the middle and upper classes over their social hypocrisy, their criticisms were not unfounded. If they relished their secret forays backstage, in public, men of Fossey’s background often found acting a problematic profession to accept. But Valtesse showed her heart to be loyal, however much she longed to climb the social ladder. In turn, Fossey continued to protect her and ensured that she was never led too far astray. Finally, Valtesse could begin to look to the future with hope in her heart. Everything seemed possible.

  But then a surprise befell her. It threatened to destroy all she had worked for over the last two years. She discovered she was pregnant.

  Footnote

  * © By permission of Oxford University Press.

  CHAPTER 4

  Creation

  Valtesse appeared in her last performance at the Bouffes-Parisiens in the spring of 1866, and she did not return for the summer season. She disappeared entirely from the public scene. Her pregnancy was veiled in secrecy, concealed from all but those directly affected.

  On 3 March 1867, Valtesse gave birth to a baby girl. She was still a teenager, and entirely unprepared for motherhood. For the last three years, all her thinking, energy and focus had been channelled into establishing her stage career. She had tenaciously pursued auspicious contacts, taken care to appear in the smartest places, and made sure that she was seen by the most influential people. And Valtesse was punctilious: wherever and whenever she appeared, she always looked her very best.

  Motherhood had not featured in her plans. Still, her predicament offered one consolation: it might prompt Richard Fossey, the baby’s father, into marrying her at last.

  But there were further complications. Fossey had yet to establish himself in a career. When Valtesse gave birth, he had no salary to support a family, and he was frivolous with the little money he did have. A young man in Richard Fossey’s position often received an allowance from his parents until he embarked on a career. But Fossey knew his father’s stance. Any financial assistance would cease if he married Valtesse. His father would never allow a prostitute-turned-actress to sully the family name. He would forbid a marriage.

  Valtesse understood the implications of her past. A woman who had resorted to prostitution was thereafter branded with an indelible stigma. The courtesan Céleste Mogador explained in her memoirs: ‘Love cruelly retaliates against women who have profaned its image! […] For the woman who has fallen so low, there is no family. […] Marriage is out of the question.’1 For Fossey to marry Valtesse, he would need the courage to cut his ties with his family – and their money.

  Maternal sentiment did not come naturally to Valtesse. Her own mother had never provided an inspiring maternal role model, so motherhood carried no positive associations for her. She could survive on the street and defend herself against the drunken advances of lecherous men. She knew how to negotiate the complex internal politics of the theatre. But maternity was a strange and unfamiliar domain. Valtesse had no notion of what was required or where she should begin.

  Adhering to common practice, Valtesse sent her newborn baby away to be cared for by a wet nurse. While etiquette manuals and social discourse encouraged maternal breastfeeding, it was primarily among the upper classes that this trend was taking hold. Working-class mothers relied heavily on wet nurses, and even in the upper classes many women still employed a nourrice sur lieu or live-in nurse.2 For a young woman in Valtesse’s position, this was considered the natural thing to do with your child.

  But sending the infant away did not absolve her of responsibility. A nurse would only care for the child until it was weaned, and she must be paid for. Valtesse had to accept her new role. And she had scarcely begun to acclimatise to it when she discovered that she had fallen pregnant to Fossey again. Within a year, a second daughter was born.

  Neither infant was strong and healthy. If the firstborn, Julia-Pâquerette, was a delicate child, her sister Valérie-Albertine was even weaker and more sickly. There was at least something interesting about Pâquerette’s fine little features. But Valérie was more concerning. It soon became clear that her weakness extended to her mental faculties. Valtesse had never wanted to be a mother. Now, she had two frail children to support and no reliable source of income. Her situation was becoming desperate.

  Aside from Fossey, Valtesse’s sole financial resource depended on her achieving success in the theatre. She had seen the dedication, commitment and energy that demanded; and for a young woman, looks counted for everything. While she was pregnant and convalescing, such a career was impossible. Valtesse urgently needed to marry. Fossey was her only hope. The young man’s father, however, had very different ideas.

  Knowing his father, Richard Fossey can hardly have been surprised. When the news reached M. Fossey senior that his son had a mistress, he was outraged and immediately forbade a marriage. A girl of such humble origins who was caught up with the suspect world of the theatre? It was unthinka
ble. M. Fossey wasted no time. Using his connections, he speedily negotiated a respectable position as a civil servant which his son could take up immediately. The job was in Algeria. Unable, or unwilling, to challenge his family’s wishes, Richard Fossey boarded a ship and left France.

  Valtesse was devastated. Fossey wrote to her, assuring her that he would return, that all would be well. He made her swear that she would wait for him. She waited.

  Eventually, another letter arrived. Fossey was not going to return. He had met a girl in Algeria. The Parisian press reported, approvingly, that they were to be married, ‘respectably’.3

  The blow validated Valtesse’s deepest fears about society and the opposite sex. Fossey’s kind treatment had restored her faith in men. It had encouraged her to hope. She had started to view the future optimistically. Now, this dream too had been snatched away.

  Hurt, angry, she vowed that she would never allow herself to be deceived again. Henceforward, Valtesse trusted no man. The best were weak and spineless. Even a good-natured man like Fossey buckled under family pressure and became powerless in the face of financial need. With Fossey’s departure, Valtesse’s whole outlook changed. So did her identity.

  While ‘Valtesse’ had been making her way in the theatre, off-stage, ‘Louise’ had continued to love and to hope. Valtesse now resolved that Louise must disappear for good, and her stage persona should rise triumphant. The final traces of the delicate, curious little girl were buried once and for all and a resilient woman with an unshakeable self-preservation instinct took her place.

  Valtesse stopped communicating with her remaining siblings and repudiated her role as a mother. Life had taught her to trust nobody. Her faith in society had been shattered. She needed to think of herself now. She developed a fierce attachment to her independence, convinced that her survival depended on her ability to fight for what she needed.