The Mistress of Paris

by Catherine Hewitt

  ‘You are still receiving!’ Valtesse exclaimed with admiration.

  The courtesan’s example left its impression. After all, Valtesse reasoned, a woman could never have too much wealth, and, as she told friends with a smile, she did not want to lose her touch. At the Cirque Molier that year, Valtesse’s accessories sent her competitors a triumphant message: she had not lost her ability to seduce the opposite sex. The ‘sparkle of her jewels and the size of her pearls testify princely affections,’ one commentator observed, without speculating which prince that might be.30

  But even an expert man-pleaser must guard against complacency. One regrettable occasion when Valtesse failed to heed that rule was sufficient reminder that the press were still watching her.

  Early one May, Valtesse decided to make one of her forays over to Ville-d’Avray with her latest admirer, a high-ranking military man, for her attraction to men in uniform remained as healthy as ever.31 The couple boarded the train, the gentleman floating on the happy promise of the romantic interlude which awaited. But his desire burned so intensely that he found himself unable to suppress it until the train reached its destination. The carriage door clanked shut. Conversation ceased. As the train pulled away from the station, the man in the next carriage compartment leaned forwards. He felt certain he could hear noises coming from the neighbouring compartment – breathy noises, the moist sound of lips urgently searching, meeting and parting, searching, meeting and parting. Only when the train pulled into the station at Ville-d’Avray did the rhythmic accompaniment cease. Valtesse should take more care when travelling by rail, advised the journalist who smugly reported the incident in Gil Blas. Particularly, the writer continued, when the man in question held an elevated rank and shared his name with a certain town in the Cantal department. With even a hesitant grasp of his country’s geography, the average Frenchman would have known that department’s prefecture to be located in Aurillac.

  The indiscretion was out of character for Valtesse, who usually drew such a clear divide between public dignity and private eroticism. She would be more cautious in future. Vigilance was as crucial as ever. Nobody was in any doubt about her profession, but she was determined people should think of her as an educated romantic, not a common cocotte. Being spotted visiting her favourite bookshop, Floury, on the Boulevard des Capucines, certainly helped advertise her bright mind.32 But Gil Blas’s call for writers, artists and celebrities to share their thoughts on the value of the kiss provided a more direct opportunity to flaunt her poetic side. Valtesse rose to the occasion.

  ‘A kiss is only precious when it is given,’ Valtesse affirmed. ‘If it is sold, whether by a young girl, a married woman, or a widow, it is worth no more than was paid for it, a kiosk kiss.’33

  But such opportunities to remind Paris of her wit were growing fewer and farther between. At nearly 55, Valtesse knew herself to be clinging precariously to the life she had built in Paris and the position she had secured. She would always have her friends, her dedicated admirers and the loyalty of the journalists she had befriended. But as a new generation began filling familiar roles with unfamiliar faces, Valtesse’s network of contacts was faltering. Once past her prime, a courtesan could still ride on her reputation and her connections – for a time. But when she was no longer pretty, when her story was all but told and there seemed nothing left to know, she simply ceased to be interesting – unless her demise was spectacular.

  The still-recent downfall of poor Cora Pearl, with whom Valtesse had often socialised and even shared lovers, continued to be cited as a cautionary tale in fashionable salons. Fellow courtesans shuddered when Cora, the Princess of Paris, was cast out of the society she had once ruled. When a disgruntled lover, Alexandre Duval, accidentally shot himself in an attempt to maim her, a self-centred and heartless woman was publicly exposed; people learned how Cora had shamelessly ruined Duval financially before casting him aside.34 As her friends disappeared and her fortune dwindled, Cora was once again reduced to common prostitution. Eventually, Cora died of intestinal cancer. But by the time news of her death broke, more than ten years had passed since she was considered part of fashionable society; for Paris’s social elite, she had already died.

  It was a chilling tale. Valtesse was determined that that should not be her fate. She had always sought perfect control over her public profile, and nothing had changed. She refused to become a victim of chance. Her story would be completed by the most competent author she knew – herself. With foresight and pragmatism, Valtesse began to choreograph her own departure.

  In the middle of May 1902, Parisians opened their newspapers to read a shocking announcement, news nobody could have predicted.35 Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne was going to auction off all her property: 98, Boulevard Malesherbes, Villa les Aigles and her home in Ville-d’Avray were all to be sold. There would be no more ‘five o’clocks’ and scintillating conversations in front of great masterpieces on the Boulevard Malesherbes; no more coffees on the sun-drenched balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, no more officers strolling around her personal Eden in Ville-d’Avray on a Sunday afternoon as their cares of the week evaporated in the revitalising country air. Everything Valtesse had worked for, her homes, her precious paintings, furniture and carriages; everything was to go.

  The news sent shock waves across Paris. Why would a woman who had attached so much importance to material objects suddenly sell everything? It made no sense. To withdraw from Parisian society was to hasten one’s own death – and that was precisely how the newspapers treated the departure.

  Under Richard O’Monroy’s admiring pen, Gil Blas took the lead. The first article on the front page gripped readers’ attention with a dramatic headline printed in large letters: ‘The Woman Who is Disappearing’.36

  Parisians, brothers, pray, show your respects to the woman who is leaving. A fascinating figure is about to disappear, one who is almost a symbol, the last representative – and with what supreme charm – of that special caste which we can rightly call ‘the great courtesans’.

  O’Monroy’s glittering eulogy continued. Valtesse was a true courtesan, he explained, like those who had once ruled ancient Greece: a woman who combined seductive beauty and fierce intellectual capital. Modern-day demi-mondaines were pretty, but they lacked taste and refinement, and were seldom educated. Valtesse was different. She was the last of a distinguished breed. With unshakeable self-knowledge, Valtesse never sought a place among the bourgeoisie. She was proud to be a courtesan. A fairy princess with her huge blue eyes, the luminosity of her lily-white skin was startling. Her tiny mouth silently mocked those she considered inferior, while her arched eyebrows gave her face a look of permanent surprise. Unusual, inaccessible, and full of good sense and grace, Valtesse was unique.

  But now, lamented O’Monroy, ‘all that is over. Madame Valtesse de la Bigne, la Valtesse whom we have known and admired, is disappearing by voluntary abdication, further proof of her coquettish nature […] Some melancholic words by way of farewell: Valtesse is no more,’ wrote the journalist, before offering his heartbroken conclusion: ‘Oh, my youth! It is you they are burying!’

  Valtesse knew that her decision would rouse questions and malicious gossip. She could not rely on her friend’s mock obituary to elevate her, and in any case, O’Monroy denied all knowledge of her motivations. People would want answers. If she did not provide them, society’s gossips certainly would. So Valtesse took control. Seizing her pen, she began to write her own introduction to the sale catalogue. Referring to herself in the third person, Valtesse opened the piece by laying out her reasons for leaving Paris:

  ‘A beautiful woman’s capriciousness,’ some will say. ‘A very sound and carefully thought-out decision,’ better-informed people will reply. Life in Paris, hectic life, with its landscape criss-crossed by rails, the air saturated by car fumes and the deafening sound of horns […] all that seems to lack serene elegance, and it is in Ville-d’Avray […] that she will seek the asylum of peace, the relaxin
g spectacle of nature she so cherishes. […] ceasing contact with outsiders, retaining only her friends, she wishes to live that rare dream of solitude without isolation.37

  Valtesse had found the perfect property in which to begin her new life. It was the house formerly occupied by Augustine Brohan, the celebrated actress who, like her sister Madeleine, had made a name for herself at the Comédie Francaise and was said to have been the mistress of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. Besides the contented shiver of prestige at that association, the house offered Valtesse an irresistibly blank canvas to decorate and adapt as she pleased. However, her new home could hardly accommodate a town house and two villas’ worth of treasures. That, Valtesse declared, was the true motivation for the sale. But of course, people were understandably curious. And, she conceded slyly, a true artiste would not sell all their possessions if these ripples of interest did not invoke a small frisson of pleasure.

  She meticulously detailed all her fabulous works, using powerful rhetoric and glorifying each item’s assets, particularly where her bed was concerned. The catalogue was a glorious exercise in self-promotion. Now, Valtesse could only hope that the sale would be a success.

  On that front, O’Monroy’s forecast proved accurate: the sale became the must-see Parisian event. For weeks before, interest was drummed up by a fervent advertising campaign, with stirring military paintings by Detaille heralded as the key attraction.38 Huge adverts in the leading newspapers in France and England set amateur collectors salivating greedily over the delicious treasures they would be able to own.39 But Paris’s celebrity-tailing public needed little persuasion to inspect the legendary town house of such a renowned courtesan. Parisians rushed to acquire copies of the sale catalogue, and before long the auctioneers ran out. The interest boded well.

  Over two frantic days of private and public viewing, hordes of curious citizens flocked to 98, Boulevard Malesherbes. Men and women jostled through the rooms, inspecting the layout of the apartment and craning their necks to examine the splendid works on view. When the sale officially opened on 2 June, the response was phenomenal. Collectors fought to outbid their competitors and on the first day alone the auctioneers took over 250,000 francs (approximately £2,800,000 in modern currency).40 At the end of the fourth day, the running total exceeded 470,000 francs (equivalent to just over £5 million today).41

  As the sale progressed, Valtesse could feel content. She was reducing her encumbrance and increasing her fortune. Besides, she much preferred to oversee the dissemination of her property herself than that it should take place after her death when she would have no control. If she retreated now with her reputation intact, her legend could continue to flourish.

  But it also occurred to her that she would remain all the more memorable if she left her public wanting more. So, relishing her power over so many nosy Parisians, Valtesse decided that her bed would have a different fate from the one originally intended: she would take it with her to Ville-d’Avray. The public could read about it, view it, admire it and imagine – but never know – what it might feel like to lie beneath its canopy. Valtesse knew there could be nothing more tantalising.

  The sale was an extraordinary success. Detaille’s paintings alone earned Valtesse nearly 280,000 francs (just over £3 million in modern currency), even after she had carefully cherry-picked the finest pieces to keep for herself.42 With takings from the auction totalling more than half a million francs and her properties being sold, Valtesse had ample funds with which to remodel, furnish and decorate her new home to her taste.43 No expense need be spared. Naturally, she told Jules Claretie with a smile, it would be decorated in ‘Valtesstyle’.44

  Perched high on a hill in Ville-d’Avray, La Chapelle-du-Roy was already a masterpiece of Louis-Philippe-style mock Gothic architecture when Valtesse bought it.45 With Sèvres just below and the reverberating metropolis of Paris a reassuring distance away, the castle of Valtesse’s dreams enjoyed spectacular panoramic views of the landscape she had first discovered through Corot.

  No sooner had she become the owner than Valtesse set her team of builders to work. In her mind, she held an image of her ideal home on which she refused to compromise. Her obstinacy brought a spectacular marble palace rising up through the trees.

  The old Gothic pavilions were demolished and a brand new structure built. Corinthian columns, each topped with a statue, flanked the majestic, tree-lined driveway leading up to Valtesse’s grand chateau. The white, column-fronted building with its magnificent balustrades and balconies overlooking the grounds recalled the Mediterranean elegance of Villa les Aigles. The two main rooms on the ground floor were bathed in light which flooded in through the glass doors opening out on to the terrace.

  For the salon and the dining room, Valtesse sought the decorative expertise of Louis Majorelle, the celebrated art nouveau furniture designer and artist.46 Ornate mahogany furniture, elaborate rugs, potted ferns, and dark wood architraves gave the spaces the same rich intensity Valtesse had appreciated at 98, Boulevard Malesherbes, and barely a wall was left without a mural or decorative pattern. Detaille agreed to paint a number of scenes for the spaces, while a frieze ran along the edge of the ceilings; and throughout the rooms the letter ‘V’ could be seen embossed, painted or carved. Valtesse’s bed took pride of place in her new bedroom, and when she lay down, she could look up and admire the late Pierre-Victor Galland’s painting of a dancing bacchant playing a tambourine – a work so exquisite that she insisted it accompany her when she moved from Paris.47 Adjoining the salon was an enormous library, which Valtesse filled with her favourite volumes. She hardly wanted for furniture and fittings, but her new home provided an irresistible excuse to add some new pieces to her collection. Most treasured among her new additions was a clock with the letters of her name embossed around its face in place of the hours and the two hands fashioned to replicate the branches of the printed letter ‘V’.48

  Valtesse was taken by the idea of turning the salon into a gallery of family portraits, and the ever-biddable Detaille was happy to oblige. Soon, noble faces began to fill the walls. There was the proud-looking Etienne-Michel, Marquis de la Bigne, Louis Antoine-Michel de la Bigne, an 18th-century commander of the National Guards in Caen, Sigismond-Tancrède, Comte de la Bigne, Jean-Baptiste Gabriel François, Marquis de la Bigne, a colonel of the cavalry killed in 1814, and Horace de la Bigne, a member of the General Council of the Seine in the 18th–19th century. Valtesse’s ancestral heritage included an enviable line-up of dignitaries and officials, and there, standing defiantly on a barricade, was Cyprien-Georges de la Bigne, a combatant from the 1830 revolution.49

  ‘Oh, him,’ Valtesse would say dismissively and with feigned disgust as visitors toured her gallery, ‘his portrait should be veiled like that of Marino Faliero. He is the black sheep of the family. We call him “the insurgent”.’50

  But as she spoke, she could seldom suppress a giggle: all but one of the painted ancestors were fictitious creations. Only Gacé de la Bigne had really existed. Of Normandy extraction, he had been King John II’s chaplain during the 14th century. He had tutored the Dauphin and written poetry and two books. His inclusion had been carefully calculated. So had the appellation Etienne, the name conferred upon all the eldest male children in the true, noble de la Bigne family.51 Valtesse had done her research. The most implausible fiction could be believed when it contained a grain of truth.

  It was now more than 25 years since Isola had declared ‘With your fortunes, I will buy myself family, parents, friends, children, the world if it takes my fancy.’52 At last, the author had honoured her heroine’s promise. Finally, Valtesse had a family she could be proud of.

  The grounds of La Chapelle-du-Roy were transformed into a magnificent park. It boasted pavilions, greenhouses and the mystical ‘Salon Vert’, a clearing where overhanging trees met, forming a romantic woodland alcove in the middle of which stood an elegant statue of a couple embracing. The shaded avenues were perfect for summer strolls when guests visited fro
m Paris, and around every corner there was a statue to delight and surprise. Valtesse even had a small studio constructed on the property for Detaille to work in when he visited. Her company was a powerful incentive, and once Valtesse left Paris, the painter could more often be found at La Chapelle-du-Roy than in his studio on the Boulevard Malesherbes.53

  Valtesse was delighted, and the workmen from the construction company CLEDAT were duly rewarded with the most covetable gift she could conceive of: each man received a copy of her portrait.54

  Valtesse soon settled into a peaceful daily routine with her two faithful white greyhounds. Close friends would visit, bringing news from the capital. Valtesse listened intently, but felt no urge to return to Paris. The tranquillity in Ville-d’Avray suited her. She could do as she pleased. ‘You know, my friend,’ Valtesse wrote to Richard O’Monroy, ‘our lives now, less noisy, no doubt less youthful, are nevertheless still full of a thousand good things, which we will reveal … in time.’55

  Valtesse’s home in Ville-d’Avray offered all the luxury to which she had grown accustomed in Paris, with none of the inconveniences. It was just the serene existence she had yearned for. She had completed her career and made her fortune; press attention had lost its appeal. In Ville-d’Avray, journalists no longer pursued her and her name seldom appeared in the papers. To Parisians, it was as though she had died.

  Some people wondered what had become of the great comtesse, particularly when 98, Boulevard Malesherbes was demolished the following year. ‘Valtesse (de la Bigne) is still with us,’ Le Supplément reassured its readers, ‘something I am very pleased about, because I am told she is a charming woman. She has wisely retired to her home in Ville-d’Avray, and leaning on her balcony like a fairytale princess, she daydreams of passing love.’56

  It was precisely the image Valtesse had wanted to leave. Besides, she could still correspond with the capital from a distance when she desired. In 1906, she sent the satirical publication Le Rire an anecdote that had amused her. A dazzling necklace that she had donated to the Musée de l’Armée had been displayed with the inscription ‘Gift from Mlle Valtesse de la Bigne’.57 A visiting general declared the glorification of a demi-mondaine an outrage. The necklace was hastily removed from display. A few years later, it reappeared, with a smaller, barely legible inscription: ‘Gift from Mme V. de la Bigne’. A curious journalist wrote to the museum seeking a fuller explanation. He received the response: ‘Gift from Mme Bigne’. Living outside the capital, Valtesse could now smile at such Parisian hypocrisy and pettiness.