The Mistress of Paris

by Catherine Hewitt

  Bigue (Mlle de la) [sic]

  First name: Valtesse

  Qualities: all

  Student of Émile Élu

  98, Boulevard Malesherbes

  30 – Lézards cohérents or Coherent Lizards

  The title of Valtesse’s canvas was a humorous play on the wording of the movement’s name. Despite the organiser’s stipulations, her painting was playfully risqué. It showed ‘two little animals playing a game which the artist seems to understand,’ exclaimed C. Chincholle in Le Figaro.29 ‘This pair of reptiles assume a pose that my pen could not describe without the ink turning red,’ wrote a titillated Félix Fénéon in La Libre revue.30 Still, Valtesse managed to elude the sign ‘concealed for reasons of morality’ that Lévy placed over certain of the more offensive pieces. And the critics agreed that her cheeky painting was one of the most original exhibits on show.

  Over the course of the month, more than 20,000 of Paris’s trendsetting elite swarmed to the gallery to see the works. Journalists rhapsodised over the event, which was declared an extraordinary success.31 ‘What would Paris become if we could not laugh, even at the great painters!’ Le Figaro commended.32 ‘Long live jolly people,’ seconded the journalist in L’Europe Artiste.33 ‘Let’s celebrate them, they are a rare breed.’

  ‘Les Arts Incohérents’ soon fixed itself in people’s minds as the most forward-thinking and witty art movement of the day.

  Drunk on its own success, the group began to organise fantastic burlesque balls, which quickly became the fashionable event of the spring. Paris’s fun loving artistic crowd flocked to the parties, intent on dancing away their troubles. At the first ball, the walls of the venue in the Rue Vivienne were decorated with earnest signs:

  ‘Melancholy not permitted.’

  ‘Please do not spit on the ceiling.’

  ‘Boredom prohibited at the penalty of a fine.’

  ‘Never pick up a fallen woman! You might pick up your mother-in-law.’34

  Two orchestras installed at opposite ends of the room struck up polkas and quadrilles, as a colourful sea of guests arrived wearing fabulous masks and costumes.35 There were clowns, bearded ladies, men dressed like Bonaparte, women disguised as chambermaids and even a golden man. By midnight, every corner of the room was bustling, yet still a steady stream of enthusiastic latecomers flowed through the doors. At two o’clock, the most spectacular masks were paraded and the grand entrance of courtesans took place. Only at five in the morning was dinner announced, and as guests squeezed around small, preset tables, or arranged themselves cross-legged on the floor, the food that appeared was as fantastical as the costumes.

  Valtesse and her friends, like fellow courtesan Léontine Godin, danced and laughed and sang late into the night, for no fashionable Parisienne discarded her champagne glass before six the next morning. This was what Valtesse had yearned for; this was real fun. Here, she could flaunt her wit, her artistic talent and her contemporaneity.

  Among the fashionable faces dancing alongside Valtesse and Léontine at the Incohérents’ events was journalist and writer Jules Hippolyte Percher, better known by his pseudonym, Harry Alis. When Alis had come to Paris as a teenager, he had begun frequenting popular circles of fashionable young writers, and was immediately welcomed into the fold. His career path decided, he had pursued his dream to write while maintaining a day job as an administrative employee for the highways department. Within a few years he had founded a monthly journal, formed intimate acquaintances with esteemed literary personalities like Paul Bourget and Guy de Maupassant and written a handful of short stories and novels. With his literary connections and his passionate commitment to France’s colonial expansion, Valtesse and Alis shared many points of contact.

  Valtesse fascinated Alis. Where did her culture and self-composure come from? This ethereal red-haired beauty radiated purity and light. And yet what strength of character and determination it must have taken to drag herself from the cesspit of Parisian society – apparently unscathed – and scale her way to its summit. Could ruthless blood really flow beneath such a porcelain-white complexion?

  Léontine was happy to supply the answers to the questions Valtesse dismissed. She was even more compliant when the girlfriends had had a dispute, as sometimes happened. Léontine had been heard to call her friend a ‘man eater’ after a drink or two.36

  Valtesse’s tale captured Alis’s imagination. It was a novel begging to be written. He could not resist answering the call.

  In 1884, Reine Soleil, une fille de la glèbe, or Sun Queen, A Country Girl, was published. It told the tale of a young girl from the rural Savoy region of France who comes to Paris to work, only to have her innocence shattered by heartbreak and the cruel reality of working life in the city. Deceived by love, Reine falls into a life of prostitution, developing a stoical approach to human relationships, flaunting her beauty and educating herself with the aim of amassing as much wealth as possible from her lovers (many of them painters).

  The novel was fast paced and exciting – and it was unashamedly based on Valtesse. Readers were told how Reine could captivate an audience with her intelligence and spirited conversation. She is ‘viciously desirable’, with her ‘superb body of a peasant who glows with the health of her ancestors and a childhood spent outdoors’.37 She has ‘long golden hair’ that, when loose, gives her the appeal of a ‘mystical virgin’.38 Cold-blooded and practical, Reine keeps ‘an exact account of her income and expenses, increasing one, forcing herself to decrease the other, all the while observing her strict, self-imposed rule never to touch her accumulated fortune’.39 Alis described Valtesse perfectly.

  Readers soon believed they had cracked Alis’s code. In November, a Gil Blas report on the activities of ‘a pretty and flamboyant demi-mondaine with flavescent hair’ was able to describe her as ‘this young lady who is now referred to as the character in the book by Harry Alis, Reine Soleil’, confident that readers would make the link to Valtesse.40

  The model for the main character was clear. However, for readers, the fun began when it came to identifying the men concealed behind the secondary characters. It became a gripping detective game, and the prize was scandalous gossip.

  There was the undemanding Souterre, the painter of panoramas and portraits, who was an Officer of the Legion of Honour and whose payments were made with military punctuality. Painfully aware of his mistress’s sexual magnetism, Souterre takes an apartment near Reine for fear of losing her. Everybody spotted Detaille.

  Then there was the modernist painter Morris, ‘who passed for Reine’s amant de coeur. Not that she truly cared for him; he simply amused her, and made her other lovers wildly jealous.’41 Reine helps promote Morris and his work by presenting him in artistic circles and exhibiting his paintings. The likeness to Gervex was uncanny.

  Reviews of the book were mixed. ‘It would be unfair to deny M. Harry Alis’s talent; his talent for detail, at least, and his talent as a writer. He clearly aspires to create a work of literature and succeeds; but a work of art, no.’42 Critics agreed that the writing showed ‘great powers of observation’, but that it remained ‘a second-rate novel’.43

  Reine Soleil did not generate the controversy Nana had, and Valtesse greeted the interest with cool reserve. Steered in the right direction, public curiosity had always been her faithful friend. The thinly veiled identities of Alis’s characters turned the book into an unexpected, but welcome, promotional tool.

  Valtesse had proved that she could adapt to life’s ebb and flow with dignity. The public’s support was reaffirming. But by her late thirties, Valtesse was growing restless. Paris was glorious, but it could be tediously safe and predictable, and society tiresome. Valtesse decided that she wanted something – somewhere – different. And as the 20th century drew closer, an exciting new project began to take shape in her mind.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Thrill of the New: the Comtesse in Monte Carlo

  As Paris looked towards the new century, Valtes
se remained spirited, lively and, for many – as Jules Claretie observed – ‘always beautiful’. But she did not grow complacent. Valtesse knew she could not afford to waste the last years of her youth. Time was running out. Soon, her earning capacity would dwindle to nothing. Driven and determined, Valtesse made her future material and financial security her priority. She sought out opportunities that would bring comfort, attention, and, wherever possible, intellectual diversion. In a city as rich in entertainments as Paris, such occasions could always be found.

  The summer was the best time of year to enjoy an open-air concert. The Thursday and Sunday afternoon concerts at the Jardin d’Acclimatation came highly recommended by guidebooks, and were a wonderful opportunity to exchange gossip with friends while being admired in public.1 Meanwhile, in June, the world-famous Grand Prix at Longchamp brought together wealthy men and the adrenaline rush of horseracing in one delightful package, while offering Valtesse the perfect chance to show off her chic summer wardrobe. When Valtesse’s smart victoria drew up at the 1884 races, heads turned; she was positively ‘resplendent’ in a becoming mauve dress with a pearl grey overcoat and a soft, Rembrandt-style hat decorated with pink ribbons.2 Conversing as easily with a group of high-ranking dignitaries as she did with her close female acquaintances, Valtesse’s seemingly effortless ability to please impressed her fellow racing enthusiasts. But then mastering the art of conversation was one of the courtesan’s first lessons, and Valtesse had graduated with distinction.

  During the autumn, Parisians could be sure of ample exhibitions, plays, concerts, balls and circuses. And whenever Valtesse found her week to be lacking in pleasant diversions, Ville-d’Avray was only a short train journey away. The town was superb when the trees burst into warm clouds of russet and orange, and she could invite just whom she pleased.

  In the springtime, the streets and boulevards of Paris exploded into avenues of colour, as fashionable men and women paraded freshly painted carriages and wardrobes of crisp new clothing. As one journalist observed, the arrival of spring was undoubtedly ‘the Parisian event par excellence … Let the glorious symphony of light clothing commence!’3

  The Association of Dramatic Artists’ annual ball was one of the most keenly anticipated social events of the spring season, where ‘all the elegant women from the big and small theatres in Paris’ competed for the unofficial title of the city’s most glamorous female.4 Valtesse never failed to appear. She would plan her costume weeks in advance to ensure that she looked her best, and the 1885 ball in March was no exception. However, that year, Valtesse had something rather different in mind. With her 40th birthday ever closer, she wanted to create a sensation. To achieve that, she required the compliance of three of her friends.

  On the evening of the ball, crowds of established celebrities, aspirational newcomers and fashion-conscious socialites flowed through the doors of the Opéra-Comique. Class boundaries disintegrated as monde and demi-monde rubbed shoulders, united in their common goal to see and be seen. Diamonds glittered, chandeliers sparkled, perfume and laughter lingered in the air, and with the light and cheerful melody of Johann Strauss’s Blue Danube resonating through the theatre, the evening promised to be the social highlight people had come to expect.5

  Valtesse arrived surrounded by six of her girlfriends, like a queen with her ladies, and all eyes followed them as the chattering party made their way to the box Valtesse had taken. The box would be ‘one of the picturesque curiosities of the ball’ if the beauty and costumes of its occupants were anything to judge by.6 Valtesse, Mme Faure, Mme de Benard and Mme de Bornay had been enchanted by the idea of appearing together as the four seasons, and Valtesse had elected herself to be the radiant summer. Guests agreed that she looked ravishing in ‘a cream tunic made of Indian crêpe and transparent gauze, tied at the waist by sprigs of willow’.7 The base of the tunic was a witty testimony to Valtesse’s sense of fun. It had been adorned with a garland of baby artichokes, potatoes, cabbages, tomatoes and Brussels sprouts, and her shining red-gold locks were crowned with a headpiece of Morel mushrooms. The costume suited her to perfection.8

  Gossip at the Association of Dramatic Artists’ ball invariably turned on the events that had taken place during ‘the season’ (generally agreed to comprise December through to April) in the south of France. For in spite of all the entertainments Paris had to offer, Valtesse was not alone in finding herself bored during the winter months; nowadays, as soon as the monotony of winter restricted outdoor activities, curtailing the capital’s usually busy social calendar, every fashionable Parisian with means packed their bags and headed for the Riviera.

  Ever since rail links had opened up the country mid-century and the Treaty of Turin saw Nice annexed to France in 1860, the Riviera had been drawing expedient, sun-seeking Parisians.9 With its balmy climate, cloudless blue sky, lush flowered gardens and array of entertainments, from theatres to concert halls and sporting events, the Mediterranean coastline had become a magnet for tourists – and sovereigns – across Europe. ‘The Riviera is certainly one of the loveliest spots on this fair earth,’ commended an English travel guide, and thus ‘visited by streams of human beings, lovers of nature and students of art’ as well as ‘thousands of sick invalids’.10 Press coverage of the royal sojourns of the Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, Queen Victoria, her notoriously fun-loving son the Prince of Wales, and countless European princes gave France’s southern coastline added prestige. By the late 1880s, the Riviera had firmly established itself as the favourite tourist destination of the Parisian elite. In fact, the area soon to be baptised the Côte d’Azur grew so fashionable that, one weekend, Le Figaro saw fit to replace its popular weekly literary supplement with a special illustrated number on Nice and Menton.11

  The rail company Chemins de Fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée were quick to respond with a host of special deals. A privileged few passengers could even travel in luxury on the overnight train from Paris, in a carriage fitted with a private salon, bathroom and toilet. The rich, pleasure-seeking Parisian could board a train leaving the capital at seven o’clock on Tuesday night and be sure to arrive in Menton at 3.15 the next morning, in time for a hearty breakfast and a day of uninhibited pleasure.12

  Valtesse adored the Riviera. She had long been a convert to the attractions of Nice, having holidayed there often. The Riviera was colourful and vibrant in the months Paris became grey and dull. In January, Paris felt empty and tired, like the morning after a party which had gone on just a little too long; by contrast, Nice and Monte Carlo were the dizzying climax of a perpetual celebration, where all the guests were friends and the champagne glasses never ran dry. And with the soothing lap of the ocean in the background, the feeling of warmth on her back and the fresh, citrus scent of lemon trees, to Valtesse, the Riviera felt worlds away from the grey drudgery of winter in the capital.

  Valtesse’s mind was made up. Bored with Paris, yearning for change and anxious to keep up with emerging fashions, Valtesse decided that she would like her very own property on the Riviera. She could join the aristocracy and the fashionable elite during the winter months. She could entertain guests and impress her girlfriends with her charming holiday retreat. It would be immense fun. And where better to spend the final years of her youth and beauty than the favoured holiday destination of the richest, most powerful men in Europe?

  But deciding where to have the property built was less straightforward. Cannes was the favoured winter haunt of her old acquaintance the Prince of Wales, with whom she had posed for Gervex’s The Civil Marriage (1880–81). But people in Paris had begun to snigger: the area was becoming self-consciously British. Nice was certainly charming, but Valtesse was acutely aware that she lacked sufficient local knowledge. Perhaps there was somewhere beyond Nice that she had not considered, a town that would soon soar to the height of popularity. She did not want to miss out. Wary of making a mistake, Valtesse wondered how she could be sure of choosing wisel
y. She needed someone she could trust, a person familiar with the southern coast, sensitive to the movements of fashionable society, and dedicated to pleasing her. Gervex fitted the job description as though it were designed for him.

  In 1886, a letter arrived for Valtesse in Paris from the ever-dutiful painter. The previous year, Gervex had travelled along the Mediterranean coast in the company of Maupassant, a memorable trip which furnished the bachelors-in-arms with countless tales of gripping adventures. Gervex was well placed to advise on the area that interested Valtesse, and his appearance in Cannes that January was enthusiastically reported by the local press.13

  But by the second half of the 1880s, Gervex was growing exasperated with Cannes. The weather was miserable and so was he; he pined for his former mistress. Valtesse had cooled towards him, yet professionally, Gervex was on the crest of a wave. It was bewildering, almost as though her interest had expired as the artist ceased to struggle and need her help. The intimate studies of young women he was producing did little to alleviate his longing for the tender touch of Valtesse’s skin.14 And society on the Riviera made Gervex incredulous: people paid visits, entertained, and gossiped about others’ wealth, breeding, relationships – in short, anything and everything. Life was just as it was in Paris. Still, laying his grumbles aside, he had some useful information to impart.

  Valtesse had wanted to know about the prospects of the area along the coast from Nice towards Sainte-Maxime and further inland. Gervex urged her to reconsider. The location was far from desirable. ‘To begin with, Rochebrune is an hour and a half from Cannes by train, and the area does not seem at all likely to become fashionable, it is isolated and deserted.’15