The Mistress of Paris

by Catherine Hewitt

  Édouard Manet, Mademoiselle Lucie* Delabigne, called Valtesse de la Bigne, 1879, pastel on canvas, 55.2 × 35.6cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H.O. Havemeyer Collection, bequest of Mrs H.O. Havemeyer, 1929. N. inv.: 29.100.561.

  Lucie Emilie Delabigne aka Valtesse de la Bigne, c. 1880, photo Anatole Pougnet.

  Henri Gervex, The Civil Marriage, 1880–81, oil on canvas, 83 × 99cm, Salle des Mariages, Mairie of the 19th arrondissement, Paris.

  Close-up of The Civil Marriage showing Valtesse.

  Henri Gervex, La Toilette, 1878, oil on canvas, 55.5 × 38.2cm, private collection. Experts are now confident that the model in this painting is Valtesse.

  Designed by Édouard Lièvre, Lit de parade belonging to Valtesse de la Bigne, c. 1875, Paris, gilt bronze, beechwood and velvet, 410 × 260 × 200cm, Les Arts décoratifs – Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris.

  Two photographic portraits of Valtesse.

  Henri Gervex

  Édouard Detaille

  Liane de Pougy

  98, Boulevard Malesherbes, 1877 drawing by M. Huot.

  Jean Rostand (1894–1977), the biologist and philosopher, and subsequent owner of Valtesse’s home Rayon d’Or in Ville-d’Avray, pictured in front of her former property.

  Henri Gervex, Portrait of Madame Valtesse de la Bigne, 1879, oil on canvas, 205 × 120.2cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

  Valtesse’s tomb at Ville-d’Avray.

  Only the square base and the first circular mounting remain in place today.

  Footnote

  * Valtesse is referred to as ‘Lucie’ in certain gallery records. I have retained this reference where appropriate.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Thickness of Blood

  With her political acuity showcased and her public profile glittering, Valtesse should have felt quietly relieved. Her social prestige had always deflected attention away from her past. Parisians were far more interested in the whispered names of the notable men who had been spotted pulling up outside – and furtively leaving – 98, Boulevard Malesherbes. But behind her public face, Valtesse was haunted by her past. She assured people that she was uncomplicated, that she had no past.1 But this was not true. The contact she maintained with her mother, her daughter’s guardian, was a constant reminder of the life she had left behind, the life she had felt she must erase to succeed as a courtesan. The revelation of her humble origins and her vice-ridden youth could sully – or even destroy – her carefully constructed public image. It was an appalling possibility, the kind of niggling fear which could consume the mind in quieter moments. She was successful, renowned, secure – why should she worry? But then finally, in 1881, her greatest fear became reality: her past and present collided.

  When Valtesse had given birth to Julia-Pâquerette in 1867, she was still a teenager and quite unprepared for motherhood. She had lacked the maternal instinct women were supposed to find natural, and besides, experience had taught her to distrust close, affectionate ties. At the time, she had believed her most promising career path to be rooted in the theatre, a profession whose lifestyle was incompatible with motherhood. Entrusting her daughters’ care to her mother was at once professionally shrewd and personally liberating.

  Valtesse did not sever her link to Pâquerette, her remaining daughter, once she became a courtesan and her career began to blossom. However, she was cautious; she ensured that a comfortable distance was maintained between them. She retained only indirect contact with the little girl, through letters and the monthly allowance which she supplied for her maintenance.

  But when Pâquerette became a teenager, Valtesse suddenly changed her mind. At the beginning of 1881, just months after she visited Gambetta and her report on Annam and Tonkin appeared in the papers, she announced she wanted sole custody of her daughter. Her reason was simple: she had begun to doubt her mother’s trustworthiness. In fact, she now feared that her little girl’s safety might be in serious danger – and she was determined to do everything in her power to protect her child.

  Mme Delabigne’s refusal was steadfast. She would not give up the little girl to whom she had become a surrogate mother. Valtesse was furious. She confronted her mother in a heated dispute. Each was as stubborn as the other. So in February 1881, Mme Delabigne turned to a tribunal in Mantes and arranged to have a family pact drawn up.

  The pact set out that Pâquerette would be placed in Saint-Joseph’s school for girls in Boulogne-sur-Seine, where she would be a boarder until she was eighteen. Mme Delabigne would take her during the holidays and if she fell ill, and Valtesse would cover all expenses. Valtesse would be allowed to write to her daughter and to visit her if she liked. But she could not take her out of the school or involve her in her decadent lifestyle.

  Valtesse inspected her mother’s proposal closely. She disliked restrictive rules. But agreeing to them would enable her to stipulate a proviso of her own. It was a condition born of a paralysing terror – the very fear which had prompted her demand for custody. On no account was Pâquerette to be taken to spend time with one particular woman, a woman Valtesse despised and whose influence filled her with dread: her own sister, Emilie Tremblay.

  Of Valtesse’s six siblings, only two were still alive by the 1880s. Valtesse had a younger brother, but there is no evidence to suggest that the siblings maintained contact. That left her sister. Emilie had watched her older sister’s rise to fame. Any pangs of jealousy she felt would have been justified. But there was little point competing: Valtesse’s position held firm – she reigned over Paris. Perhaps, though, Emilie reasoned, her sister’s success could be tapped into and channelled to the rest of the family’s advantage. Following Valtesse’s lead, Emilie assumed the name Marquesse. She set herself up as a madam, establishing a brothel in the Rue Blanche which soon became notorious. As her enterprise began to prosper, she realised that she could flaunt her connection with her older sister to secure clients. What did it matter if the sisters did not get on? There was money to be made.

  To Valtesse, Emilie represented everything she had sought to eradicate from her life: her past, the sordid world of low-level prostitution, unbridled corruption and classlessness. This woman embodied her deepest fears.

  Mme Delabigne was only too aware of the tension between her girls. She could see that this was a condition on which the obstinate Valtesse would not yield. Keeping Pâquerette depended on her agreeing to it. Mme Delabigne and Valtesse both signed and the pact came into force.

  Valtesse was ruled by her meticulously timetabled schedule of clients and social appearances, but she would visit Pâquerette when she could. She was a great letter writer too, and the little girl would often receive a letter written in her mother’s elegant hand. Curiously, Valtesse always began her correspondence addressing Pâquerette as ‘my little sister’, never ‘my little girl’. ‘She thought it made her seem younger,’ Valtesse’s critics scathingly affirmed.2

  But Valtesse’s relationship with her daughter was more complex than journalists allowed. Valtesse was not immune to affection. She never failed to respond to a letter or to make every possible provision for the little girl’s material needs. But she had suffered great hurt. Genuine closeness and intimacy unsettled her. And she simply had no personal experience of a flawless maternal role model, and still less a conception of how it might feel to be one. The very notion was mysterious to her. Her letters to Pâquerette are those of a woman torn, a woman longing to express affection, yet wary, anxious that the recipient should not get too close. It was an approach to potentially intimate relationships that Valtesse would replicate throughout her life.

  However, Pâquerette was under no illusions. She knew Valtesse was her mother. And much as the arrangement subverted traditional family roles, all parties seemed content with its terms – until the summer of 1881.

  Through her correspondence with her daughter, Valtesse learned of some alarming news: the child had been making visits with her grandmother to see Marquesse and attending flamboyant eveni
ng soirées. Sometimes, it would get so late that they would be obliged to spend the night there, Pâquerette innocently told her mother. As Valtesse read her daughter’s words, the truth began to dawn on her: Pâquerette was being led towards a life of prostitution. To her horror, Valtesse could see her own past replaying before her eyes.

  Valtesse knew she must act quickly. There was not a moment to spare. She immediately demanded that a tribunal be brought in to resolve the issue. As the child’s natural mother, Valtesse had the odds stacked in her favour and, to her delight, she won. Armed with the results of the appeal, she set off triumphantly for the boarding school one day in the summer term of 1881. Upon arrival, she demanded her daughter, and Pâquerette and her belongings were hurriedly gathered together. Valtesse promptly removed her from the institution and enrolled her in another boarding school in Seine-et-Oise. When the news reached Mme Delabigne, she was enraged. Now, she was going to fight to win the child back – and she would do so in public, so that everyone would be able to see the great wrong she had suffered.

  When news of the forthcoming hearing was made public, the papers pounced on the story. What a scandal! One of the most prominent courtesans of the day was not a countess after all, but a commoner. What would all those distinguished gentlemen who had listened to Valtesse’s touching tales of her noble father and her honourable mother say now, Albert Wolff asked maliciously?3 ‘I have always been told that Valtesse was of noble birth,’ wrote another bewildered journalist.4 ‘She is a mother,’ exclaimed Le Figaro.5 She had been keeping two children secret, ‘young fruit born of a young love’.6 So why would an unmaternal demi-mondaine suddenly decide to embrace her maternal instinct? What appeal could this long-neglected child now have for her? Clearly, the press riposted, the courtesan had seen that the young girl was blossoming into a ravishingly beautiful teenager. Valtesse must have mercilessly calculated her daughter’s beauty to be a marketable asset. She was grooming her to become a courtesan.

  But best of all, this renowned beauty with aspirations of grandeur was going to fight her own mother in public, where all the sordid family history would no doubt be exposed. It was a journalist’s dream. Word quickly spread across the city.

  Paris was charged, and Valtesse’s name was splashed across the front pages of all the newspapers. This publicity threatened her very livelihood. Valtesse knew she had an onerous challenge ahead of her if she were to keep her reputation intact and at the same time safeguard her daughter’s future.

  As dawn broke on 15 November 1881, the sky over Paris was grey and overcast, and there was an icy nip to the air. It was the day of the hearing.

  The cold was not the only factor Valtesse needed to consider as she selected the outfit she would wear that morning. As usual, her appearance must please her supporters. But it was vital that she look dignified, sober – as though she were a worthy mother. And as she dressed, with these requirements in mind, there was every reason for her feelings to be mixed. Here she was, preparing her toilette to make yet another public appearance, where she would be looked at and admired, where she must once again use her charms to cast a spell over an expectant audience. It was familiar territory. But the intrusive exposure of the past she had worked so hard to erase was a new experience. It was unknown and it was frightening. Anything could happen.

  The prospect justified a torrent of emotions as Valtesse stepped outside into the unforgiving cold. Standing outside her home on that crisp winter morning, Valtesse would have seen her breath on the air in front of her as she prepared to board her carriage. Then, having climbed into the vehicle and settled back into the leather seat, she began her journey through Paris’s familiar streets, passing swiftly along Haussmann’s sparkling new boulevards, the freshly painted modern apartments flashing past the window in quick succession. In a smart horse-drawn landau like Valtesse’s, the journey would have taken little more than 30 minutes. Still, it was precious time to reflect and compose herself. At last, the city’s imposing Palais de Justice came into view.

  Undeterred by the sombre weather, flocks of curious Parisians had also wrapped their coats and scarves around them more tightly than usual that morning. And then, bracing themselves against the biting cold, they hurried briskly through the streets to take up their seats at the hearing all of Paris was talking about.

  As spectators arrived at the première chambre, the magnificent, high-ceilinged courtroom quickly took on the appearance of a fashionable soirée. Once Valtesse had taken her place and began to look around her, she could see the audience brimming with artists, politicians and courtesans. They filled the room, jostling, all talking at once, trying to catch a glimpse of her as she knew they would. The event had become a veritable social occasion.

  As silence was called, the room fell into an anticipative hush, broken only now and then by an ill-timed cough or the creak of one of the dark mahogany pews as a viewer shifted to get comfortable in his seat. Everyone was watching with bated breath to see what the verdict would be and how the courtesan would react. The tension was almost palpable. The hearing began.

  Mme Delabigne’s lawyer was Maxime Napias, a familiar figure on the Parisian legal circuit. He was the first to speak. Pâquerette, he declared firmly, should be restored to her grandmother’s care according to the terms of the original agreement. His case was built on one simple argument: Valtesse was unfit to be a mother. He began his attack.

  Valtesse was not 25 or 26 as she claimed, but 34, Napias objected. (Some papers would later report this as 33.) With her beauty and her fortune, she had become a well-known figure in the art world. To think that she was even known as ‘The Union of Artists’! Napias pointed out that she owned not one, but two extravagant homes. She had failed to impress in her theatre performances – at least as far as her acting ability was concerned. And furthermore, she had a penchant for radical politics. Did the court not remember the outrageous scandal caused by her Bonapartist fireworks display in Ville-d’Avray only a few years earlier, when the words ‘Long Live the Emperor!’ were shamelessly spelt out in glowing colours across the sky? They should. This woman was dangerous. A woman who dabbled in politics was not to be trusted. And her reputation as one of the most notorious courtesans in Paris went before her.

  Then came the most absurd – and alarming – part of Napias’s defence: did the jury know that this woman had published a novel using the pseudonym ‘Ego’, a name which could be seen on all her stationery? He produced a copy of Isola. ‘Isola is Mme Valtesse,’ he proclaimed. ‘To know Mme Valtesse, all one need do is read her portrait written by her own hand.’

  Incredibly, Napias proceeded to quote passages of Isola, presenting them as hard evidence of Valtesse’s character.

  ‘Isola is a monster. She has mastered the art of seducing, charming, captivating anyone fascinated by her beauty. Defenceless, he becomes her slave; she forces him into submission, […] Beware he who looks into her feline eyes’.7

  Napias paused for a moment, allowing his words to make their impact. ‘Further on,’ he continued, ‘we find this:’

  ‘Give me your word of honour that you have never loved.’

  ‘The most beautiful girl in the world can only give what she has; I have no word of honour.’

  ‘Look now, be frank.’

  ‘In my situation, frankness is a capital fault which leads to ruin.’8

  Napias was now in his stride:

  ‘I do not love and I do not get bored. I live alone, ego is my motto and I am effortlessly true to it.’9

  It was enough to make the pulses of Valtesse and her lawyer race. They sat helplessly in silence as Napias’s accusations echoed round the courtroom. Surely the court would not base their decision on the behaviour of a fictional character?

  But Napias was not finished with the novel. There were other characters he sought to assassinate through its pages.

  ‘In this volume,’ he pursued, ‘there is a woman to whom attention must be drawn. In the novel, she is called Clairette. I
n reality, she is named Mme M., and we shall have more to say about her shortly.’10

  Napias was talking about Camille Meldola. He had carefully selected passages from Isola which described how Clairette managed the debauched ways of her mistress. This ‘friend’, Napias concluded, was responsible for introducing Valtesse to Pâquerette’s father. ‘Today,’ he pursued, ‘M. and Mme. M. live under the same roof as the opulent Isola.’11

  His character assassination under way, Napias realised that he must account for the behaviour of his own client as well. There was much to criticise. It was important to pre-empt the opponent’s attack.

  Mme Delabigne’s life thus far, the lawyer insisted, had been one of martyrdom and hardship.12 She was now 61. Back in 1844, she was unwittingly seduced by a teacher named T. at the school where she worked. This despicable character fathered her seven children despite being married to another woman. When she finally severed contact with him, Mme Delabigne continued to live a life of poverty, admirably raising her seven illegitimate children single-handedly.

  Napias explained how Pâquerette had been the fortunate recipient of his client’s natural instinct for maternal nurturing. When the little girl’s mother selfishly abandoned her, Mme Delabigne generously took care of her as though she were her own daughter.

  Still, the lawyer knew that powerful words needed supporting evidence. And he believed he had just the proof he needed. He unfolded a piece of paper and began to read. It was a letter from Mme Delabigne to Meldola, warning her to stay away from Pâquerette and accusing her of corrupting Valtesse when she was a little girl. ‘I loved my daughter as today I love hers,’ Napias finished before returning his attention to the audience.13 Mme Valtesse, he concluded firmly, was as unfit to be a mother as his client was worthy of this post. With that, he returned to his seat.