In time he came to realize that “Lenin turned [Russia] upside down the way I turn my pictures.”16
Meanwhile, Matisse was desperate for news of his mother and other family members, who were stuck behind German lines in northeastern France. He had learned that they were subjected to prisoner rations while the Germans stripped their homes and lands of everything edible or otherwise usable in the war. His brother, first deported to a German prison camp, had been sent home with other deportees to do forced labor. Matisse responded to intermittent word from his brother by canvassing actively in the United States as well as Paris to raise funds from a series of his etchings for the relief of French prisoners. Matisse’s wife, Amélie, became a whirlwind of activity for relief distribution, especially food and knitted socks.
In addition to these family anxieties, Matisse’s oldest son, Jean, who had disappointed him by wanting to work as an airplane mechanic, turned eighteen and received his mobilization orders—as an airplane mechanic. When Matisse visited Jean in his training camp a few months later, he was shocked to find the young man and his fellow conscripts hungry, cold, dirty, and “living like pigs.” Somehow they managed to survive in ankle-deep mud, without access to latrines or showers.17
Late in 1917, after Jean was posted to an airfield near Marseilles, Matisse immediately caught the overnight train to Marseilles, where—despite his precautions of having gotten an introduction to the camp commandant—it took four days for permission to see Jean. When Matisse finally got through, he discovered that, much as he had feared, it was “a prison camp.” He finagled a twenty-four-hour pass for Jean, fed him well, and sent him back wearing clean, dry clothes. It was all he could do for the moment, although he would continue to send food parcels and try to pull all possible connections to arrange for a transfer.
By 1917, Helen Pearl Adam noticed more and more women in the workplace, something that was “very remarkable” in France. France had never had the women’s auxiliaries of the armed services during World War I as in Britain, and Adam noted that at one time there even was a groundswell to withdraw young women from service in French hospital wards, “on the grounds that the sights they saw there were not fit for ‘well-brought-up young girls.’”18 It remained permissible for older women to serve in the various branches of the Red Cross. Yet women in any sort of uniform drew curious eyes in Paris, even toward the end of the war.
Still, by 1917 Adam noted that women were delivering the mail in Paris—conservatively dressed in black overalls and black straw hats, and carrying little square boxes. She also noted a growing trend of tram conductresses, women ticket collectors, and women watering the public gardens—the latter dressed in black overalls, big hats, and sabots.
Women—as well as older male workers—had by now filled the ranks in a variety of occupations. When strikes broke out in a number of wartime factories in 1917, around the same time as mutinies broke out on the front, women played a prominent role. These strikers were largely motivated by rising prices rather than antiwar sentiment, although grim news from the front had by now filtered back to Paris, dashing hopes that the war’s end was near. In André Citroën’s munitions factory, it was the women who went on strike, demanding higher pay and shorter working hours. Citroën managed to defuse the situation by listening to his workers’ grievances and referring the dispute to arbitration by a council presided over by the socialist minister of armaments. This council soon negotiated a settlement and return to work.
Meanwhile, women’s fashion had followed women into the workplace. Skirts went up, hair went back into neat buns or even (daringly) was cropped, and styles featured increasingly easy and comfortable movement. At the forefront of this formidable fashion trend was Coco Chanel, whose first shirtwaist dress made as much news as her jersey jackets, straight skirts, and sailor blouses, drawing the raves of Harper’s Bazaar for her emphasis on stylish simplicity. Chanel later commented that “fashion should express the place, the moment.” For her, this particular place and moment in fashion encompassed far more than an accommodation to wartime stringencies. Instead, she was “witnessing the death of luxury, the passing of the nineteenth century, the end of an era.”19
While Chanel was revolutionizing fashion, François Coty continued to revolutionize his perfume as well as his perfume business. Despite the horrors of war, this was the year he presented his famous Chypre perfume, one that aficionados consider his masterpiece. Coty was betting that, in the face of constant death and destruction, women needed something to remind them of art, beauty, and seduction. He also was busy propping up and expanding his perfume and cosmetics empire, which that year suffered the huge loss of its Moscow branch, destroyed by the Bolsheviks—for whom he would retain an abiding hatred. To mollify critics of his burgeoning wealth and easy escape from military duty, Coty helped found an association to aid the war wounded and installed a military hospital in his château at Montbazon.
Like Citroën rather than Coty or Chanel, Gabriel Voisin and Louis Renault were profiting directly from rather than despite the war—Voisin from the manufacture of airplanes, and Renault from the production of trucks and a wide range of war materiel. By 1917, Renault’s contribution to the war effort starred his invention and production of the first functional lightweight armored tank.
Others had envisioned and developed tanks, and the British had launched a cumbersome thirty-ton monster the year before, at the Somme. Yet unlike its rivals, Renault’s six-ton version was sufficiently lightweight to climb slopes, crush barbed wire and trench revetments, and maneuver well, all the while its gunner (preferably less than five feet eight inches in height) fired the gun. The army first ordered one thousand, then increased the order to thirty-five hundred. The premature use of the British tanks had alerted the Germans, who used the intervening months to develop armor-piercing bullets and other devices. Still, the Germans did not anticipate anything quite so mobile or fast, and the arrival of these lightweight tanks on the front in 1918 would be a much-needed response to the final German offensive of the war.
Another much-needed response was the development of sonar for submarine detection—although it came a little late for use in this particular war. One of the key figures here was Paul Langevin, who pursued his scientific career with much the same dedication as Marie Curie pursued hers after their disastrous affair ended in 1911. He and Constantin Chilowski filed for U.S. patents for ultrasonic submarine detection in 1916 and 1917.
Langevin and Marie Curie never resumed their love affair, but in one of those coincidences that may not be a coincidence at all, given the closeness of the scientific community, Langevin’s grandson, Michel Langevin (a nuclear physicist), married Marie Curie’s granddaughter, the nuclear physicist Hélène Langevin-Joliot. Their son, Yves, is an astrophysicist. Langevin’s remains, as well as those of Pierre and Marie Curie, are enshrined in the Panthéon.20
On the afternoon of May 18, 1917, Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes presented the premiere of Parade—the joint production of Cocteau, Satie, Picasso, and Massine—at a gala benefit for several war charities at the Théâtre du Châtelet. It was the first Paris season for the Ballets Russes since 1914, and Misia Edwards (looking like the mother of the bride, as Cocteau waspishly observed)21 had come around sufficiently to agree to subsidize the production. The young Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet presided, while Apollinaire contributed a program note in which he described the ballet as “surréaliste,” thus giving a name to the surrealist movement soon to come.22
In a short article appearing that day, Cocteau wrote that “laughter is natural to Frenchmen: it is important to keep this in mind and not to be afraid to laugh even at this most difficult time.”23 It was indeed a most difficult time, for Parade was premiering during the height of the slaughter on the western front, which at that very moment was creating widespread mutiny among the troops. Yet beyond Parade’s dalliance with the volatile moods of wartime Paris, it was the audience’s incomp
rehension of what was happening on stage as well as in the orchestra that caused the trouble.
A mad mix of the circus and the streets, Satie’s music combined the sounds of the music hall and ragtime with the noise of typewriters, sirens, and airplane propellers. This, along with Picasso’s Cubist set and costumes (described as “ambulant chunks of Cubist scenery”) and Massine’s bizarre dance steps, created bedlam in the theater. Montparnasse and Montmartre artists bellowed their approval of Picasso, and young musicians such as Francis Poulenc and Georges Auric shouted “Vive Satie!,” but less enlightened members of the audience were simply bewildered and appalled. Still, Diaghilev’s challenge to Cocteau, to astound him, had at last found an answer. “Finally, in 1917,” Cocteau wrote, “the opening night of Parade, I did astound him.”24
Parade may have inspired the degree of scandal that Cocteau longed for, but it certainly bombed with the critics, especially Jean Poueigh, who lambasted Satie so thoroughly that Satie sent him a series of postcards in which he vulgarly told Poueigh what he thought of him. Poueigh immediately sued Satie for libel, on the grounds that Satie’s postcards had publicly humiliated him, having been open to the eyes of Poueigh’s concierge and, thereby, having exposed Poueigh to the ridicule of his entire neighborhood. The young Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, who was present at the trial, wrote home to his parents that “it was hilarious listening to the cards being read out indignantly by Poueigh’s lawyer and repeated in judgment by the president, who looked distinctly cross at being obliged to read out such epithets.”25 Of course the last word resided with the court, which by this time seemed entirely out of sorts with the defendant and his noisy supporters. Satie lost the case and was sentenced to a week in prison plus a stiff one-hundred-franc fine and one thousand francs in damages. In the aftermath, Cocteau slugged Poueigh’s lawyer and in turn was roughed up by the police.
Fortunately, Satie’s prison sentence was suspended and the Princesse de Polignac paid the fine and damages, but the entire episode deeply depressed him. He had enjoyed being at the center of an artistic scandal, especially in league with such renowned collaborators, but the threat of bankruptcy and a police record alarmed him. Although he eventually won his appeal, this did not come until late November, leaving him under a cloud for many months. Fortunately the appeal judge also waived the damages, leaving the perpetually broke Satie with an unexpected windfall at year’s end, which the Princesse de Polignac graciously allowed him to keep as an advance on Socrate.
Still, Satie was as notoriously thin-skinned as he was poverty-stricken, and Debussy’s reaction to Parade stung him. They had been friends—often at a distance, but still friends—for many years. Satie had even served as a witness at Debussy’s first marriage, in 1899. Louis Laloy later noted that their friendship was “turbulent but indissoluble,” a “brotherhood” and yet a “rivalry”—one exacerbated by Debussy’s success.26 Debussy’s opinion clearly mattered to Satie, and Debussy—who attended Parade—did not like it or what it portended for music’s future. He never reviewed Parade, but word of his disenchantment reached Satie, who was infuriated. Opinions differ on whether they made up before Debussy’s death.27
Despite opposition and opprobrium, Parade’s enthusiasts continued their support, organizing an homage to Satie in June in Montparnasse’s tiny Salle Huyghens, an artist’s studio that had become the venue for the newest in new music as well as in poetry and art. As Cocteau later wrote, “We listened to music and poetry standing—not as a matter of respect, but owing to a lack of chairs.”28
Cocteau had successfully linked the world of fashionable society to Bohemia, with Misia and José Sert and all the others crowding together, much to the amazement of the elegant and wealthy young writer Paul Morand, who noted that Cocteau “is completely at ease in this milieu that is quite new to me.”29 It was from this energized gathering that there emerged a loose affiliation of young avant-garde composers led by Satie, who named them the Nouveaux Jeunes. Starting with Georges Auric, Louis Durey, and Arthur Honegger, they would soon include Germaine Tailleferre, Francis Poulenc, and Darius Milhaud—the future Groupe des Six. As Georges Auric pointed out: “Art continues to go forward and no one can prevent her.”30
It was not until the last week in April that the cold finally disappeared, only to be replaced by sweltering summer heat. By that time, Debussy’s health was rapidly deteriorating. He had already declined a request from Fauré to perform, “due to the simple reason that I can no longer play the piano well enough to risk a performance of the Etudes. . . . I haven’t enough fingers any more.”31 Although he would play the first performance of his sonata for violin and piano on May 5 (for the benefit for blind soldiers), it would be his last concert in Paris.
Sleep did not come easily, and he wryly noted that he had taken to reading the Civil Code in hope of nodding off—a remedy that did little good, as he found the Code sufficiently disturbing to keep him awake. More relaxing was G. K. Chesterton, especially The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which Debussy recommended for its “delightful imaginative touches.”32
Another who notoriously found sleep difficult was Marcel Proust, who was known to awaken sleeping friends with a midnight visit (“to verify some fact or idea or to see again one of the models for one of his characters,” as Céleste Albaret recalled).33 Or he occasionally roused a particular quartet of musicians from their beds to come and play soothingly for him. Yet sometime during 1916 or 1917, friends noticed a change in him. Proust now began to socialize more, astonishing those who had not seen him in years. Some attributed this turnaround to the increasing danger from German attacks on Paris, which they concluded had flushed Proust out of his reclusive ways. But a more likely cause was that it was about this time that Proust completed In Search of Lost Time.
His housekeeper and confidante, Céleste Albaret, recalled that the momentous date when Proust finally wrote the words “The End” to his huge novel was in the early spring of 1922, but she may have been mistaken—she had not kept a diary or other exact record of these years.34 Proust biographer William Carter argues for an earlier date, falling somewhere between 1916 and 1919—with the addendum that Proust (as always) made changes, additions, and corrections right up until the last minute.35 Certainly by early 1918, Proust was anticipating a six-volume work.36 If he had indeed given his masterwork its ultimate, if not final, shape by 1916 or 1917, that would explain the remarkable change in his routine starting around this time. Once again he could be seen several times a week at his own or others’ much-diminished dinner parties at the Ritz or the Hôtel de Crillon, or at private soirées around town.
It was at one of these dinner parties at the Ritz that Proust first encountered Abbé Mugnier, who was as delightfully witty, engagingly literate, and shabbily dressed as ever. Jean Cocteau had earlier praised Swann’s Way at a dinner that Mugnier attended,37 and Mugnier was eager to make Proust’s acquaintance. They talked of cathedrals, especially those of Chartres and Reims (whose angel statues “have da Vinci smiles”),38 and discovered common interests in Chateaubriand, George Sand, and flowers—in particular Proust’s beloved hawthorns. It was the start of a friendship that would continue to bloom throughout the remaining years of Proust’s life.
Art struggled to survive during these difficult months. Monet continued hard at work on his grand paintings of water lilies (in his studio during the winter, in his garden during the summer), and Modigliani had his first one-man show in the tiny gallery of Berthe Weill, who had long ago discovered and championed Picasso and Matisse. Yet Georges Méliès’s reverses grew increasingly heartbreaking. During 1917, the French army turned his main studio into a hospital and confiscated many of the original prints of his films, melting them down for their silver and celluloid content and using the reduction to make heels for army boots. Pathé took over his business, and in despair, Méliès burned most of his archive of film negatives as well as his extraordinary sets and costumes. Driven out of business, h
e would at length resort to running a small candy and toy shop in the Gare Montparnasse.39
There were too many funerals this year—not only of the fallen in battle, but also of giants from days gone by: Mirbeau in February and Degas in September, followed by Rodin on November 17. An age was passing.
In the south of France, an unlikely friendship took hold late in the year when Henri Matisse met and became firm friends with Pierre-Auguste Renoir, one of the titans among Matisse’s predecessors—and one of the few who still was alive. Renoir had retired to the south of France several years earlier, for his health—although he never had enjoyed northern winters (“Even if you can stand the cold, why paint snow? It is a blight on the face of Nature”).40 Over the course of Renoir’s remaining months of life, the two would chat endlessly about their work, analyze each other’s paintings, and probe their differences in a spirit of ever-growing friendship and respect. It was a golden gift in the twilight of Renoir’s life, and a blessing for Matisse.41
Meanwhile, the spotlight had turned on yet another major figure from the past: the famed Tiger, Georges Clemenceau, who in November 1917, at the age of seventy-six, became prime minister of France for the second time in his long career. It was without question the most difficult challenge of his entire life, and he was ready for it. As everyone knew, he was a feared fighter, with no tolerance for defeat—in war or in anything else. He had contemptuously refused to join previous wartime coalitions, which he lambasted for wishy-washiness, and flatly rejected any talk of a compromise peace. Now it was his turn, and he took to the leadership of wartime France with gusto. American support had not yet arrived, Italy was doing badly, and Russian participation had virtually ended, with every indication that Russia was preparing to make a separate peace with Germany. Yet upon presenting his governmental team to the Chamber, Clemenceau unhesitatingly declared: “We present ourselves to you with one thought—total war. . . . Just war, war, and nothing but war.”42
Twilight of the Belle Epoque Page 42
