Empty Mansions

by Bill Dedman

  For the lovely pastry shop please send the following: waffles, babas, tartelettes, crepes, tartines, palmiers, galettes, cups of milk, tea and coffee with milk, small butter jars, fake jam and honey, small boxes of chocolate, candies and candied fruits, and small forks. Thank you.

  The dolls needed costumes. From Paris, Huguette ordered satin for her antique dolls with musical recordings inside them. She was having trouble finding the right satin for the Jumeau dolls, famous for their great beauty and big, soulful eyes.

  On August 9, 1962, in a cable to “Mme. Gervais, La Maison Christian Dior, Paris,” she wrote:

  Received your nice letter with the samples. If Sample B2 could be slightly darker and in satin it would be fine, as the color is the closest to the original. Sample A2 for the singer doll is perfect when it comes to softness and lightness, but is too dark. The color of Sample A3 is perfect, but the fabric is too heavy. I think it would be better to wait until you find the perfect fabrics for those little costumes. Please send me your new sketches. With all my thanks.

  • • •

  Rudolph, her dollhouse cabinetmaker, found Huguette charmingly frustrating. But she paid so extravagantly that he could never say no. In addition to paying for his time, she sent gifts to his children and grandchildren, including an early computer, a puppet theater with one hundred fairy-tale characters, and a second puppet theater so large that the family gave it to a school. She sent monetary gifts to the family as well.

  At Christmastime, Huguette would take three weeks to send out her dozens of Christmas cards, carefully redrafting each one until it suited her. (“I don’t like holidays,” she said with mock suffering, “because there is so much to do. Too much!”) Rudolph’s family was one of many to receive her “small gift,” a check for $20,000. Later, the little gifts grew to $30,000, then $40,000.

  When Rudolph died in 2000, Huguette kept sending the checks to his widow. When his widow died, the checks kept arriving in the names of their children. All the grandchildren of Rudolph and Anna Jaklitsch went to good colleges, paid for by Huguette and her “little people.”

  A LITTLE PECULIAR

  IN JAPAN, a rare type of cedar was reserved by the so-called sumptuary laws for use only in imperial buildings and castles, where a roof made of its bark could last for seventy years. But a wealthy woman in the United States sought permission to buy and export a small quantity of this cedar. After months of discussion, the normally formidable bureaucracy of the prefecture finally knew it was beaten.

  The cedar was purchased, and an aging Japanese artist cut the valuable wood into tiny slivers. He was making tiles for the roof of a dollhouse-size castle. This authentic model took two or three years to construct and cost $80,000.

  One of Huguette’s great enthusiasms, for half a century, was authenticity, in the form of designing tabletop models of real-life Japanese buildings—castles, teahouses, cake shops—which she commissioned from Japan. These were pieces of art in wood and fabric, miniatures with exquisite detail and authentic materials. She insisted that they have detachable roofs so she could see the interior surfaces and furnishings.

  Through a go-between in California and several translators, Huguette corresponded with the Japanese artist who cut the cedar for her roof, an old man she knew simply as “the artist.” The man, Saburo Kawakami, took long trips for her in Japan, once changing trains four times in a single day to reach Hirosaki Castle, so he could take photographs and measurements of each wall and tower.

  The measurements in her detailed designs had to be converted from English inches to metric centimeters to traditional Japanese shaku, and then the artist’s replies had to be converted back again. The costs were considerable. In 1991, she accepted an additional charge of $38,600 just to add doors to a wood house. In 1992, she sent $67,000 for a castle, and on they went to the next project.

  “She knew what she wanted to have done,” said her go-between, Caterina Marsh. “If she was not pleased, not that many times, she was gracious, but you understood you were going to have to redo it. If we believe in something, we’re not going to take a poor substitute for it.”

  Mrs. Caterina, as Huguette called her, had married into the family of an old-line dealer in Asian art and artifacts, G. T. Marsh and Company. Though she and Huguette enjoyed hundreds of letters and phone calls through the years, she never had Huguette’s phone number.

  “She had a very happy voice,” Caterina said. “It was cute. One of her favorite words was ‘peculiar.’ ‘Isn’t that peculiar, Mrs. Caterina,’ she’d say.

  “I still have that voice in my ear. She was always polite, always asked about my husband and my son. She was just a delightful person. I think she had fun—don’t you think?—doing these projects that were not easy.”

  “The artist,” Saburo Kawakami, was a bit overwhelmed by the relentless requests from his “Clark-san.” At one point, Caterina cautioned Huguette, “It seems the artist is becoming more and more nervous every time he receives our letters.”

  The castle projects continued nearly to the end of Huguette’s life. For example, in February 2004, when she was nearly ninety-nine, she had the artist working simultaneously on a small palace, a garden with a red bridge, and new screens for a theater. Eventually she wore out her Japanese artist, who was becoming too ill to continue. A new artist was brought on, but Huguette wasn’t happy with his work, finding his style too modern.

  • • •

  Huguette was an avid collector of rare, historic Japanese dolls, particularly the tiny ones representing the emperor, the empress, and their ladies-in-waiting and court musicians. These figures are known as hinaningyo, or hina dolls.

  These are not merely playthings, as they might be in the West—young Japanese children usually aren’t allowed to handle them—but rather objects of religious celebration and national pride. On March 3 of each year, the third day of the third month, Japan celebrates the festival known as Hina-matsuri, or Girl’s Day, an ancient day of purification for the nation. The hina serve as protective talismans, absorbing malevolent spirits.

  IN CONVERSATION WITH HUGUETTE

  In a conversation in 1999, Huguette started by telling me about her Japanese dolls. She seemed uninhibited in expressing her interest in topics normally thought of as juvenile. I was unfamiliar with these dolls, so she patiently explained.

  Paul: So, well, now, now, what are you doing for fun these days?

  Huguette: Well, nothing special, you know. I’m getting my hina dolls together. I’m making a collection of hina dolls. I don’t know if you know what they are?

  Paul: No, I don’t know. How do you spell that?

  Huguette: H-I-N-A.

  Paul: H-I-N-A.

  Huguette: It’s a festival that takes place in Japan.… They have a festival in March and they have all these dolls.

  Paul: Are these a big part of your doll collection—Japanese dolls?

  Huguette: Yes, the hina collection. They are hard to get. They go way down to the Meiji period.

  Paul: Where will these be shown? Where will they be exhibited?

  Huguette: They’re not exhibited. I mean to say, people collect them. But they’re hard to get, very hard to find. You’ve never heard of them?

  Paul: No, I haven’t. I’ll have to read about it.… Are you contributing to a show for this purpose?

  Huguette: No, no, they have it in their home, you see? For three days they exhibit these dolls. They invite all their friends.

  Paul: And will you be having a celebration in your home for this?

  Huguette: No, no, no.… But, I mean, they’re very lovely dolls, you know.… I think you’ll enjoy them for your little granddaughter. Does she still dance the ballet?

  I asked Huguette how many times she had visited Japan. Had she gone to the doll temple in Kyoto? Seen Hirosaki Castle?

  Oh no, she answered cheerfully, I’ve never been to Japan.

  Huguette prized her hina dolls, especially the tiny ones—called mame-bina, about f
ive inches high, with heads the size of a bean—and the three-inch keshi-bina, with heads the size of a seed. She said one of her favorite movies was Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, which has a sequence about hina dolls that come to life to punish a boy’s family for cutting down some sacred peach trees.

  Huguette said her favorite novel was The Hidden Flower, a love story written by Pearl S. Buck. Huguette corresponded with Buck in the 1940s and gave money to her humanitarian efforts for children in Asian countries.

  The Hidden Flower, published in 1952, describes a forbidden love between an American serviceman and a young Japanese American woman living in postwar Japan. The woman, Josui, was born in the United States but returned to her ancestral home rather than submit to a life behind barbed wire in the Japanese American internment camps established during World War II. Now, however, Josui finds herself feeling as out of place in Japan as she did in America. Hers is a story of beauty and pain, of a woman’s quiet, dignified courage as she attempts to move from one culture to another—not unlike Huguette’s own story.

  • • •

  Caterina Marsh said that neither Huguette nor her hobbies seemed the least bit odd—once you talked with her.

  “We are all taken by customs and culture,” she said. “I have a brother who became fascinated by trains. There’s nothing strange about having a fascination like collecting stamps.

  “She developed an incredible knowledge about the art and culture of Japan. It was astonishing what she knew, all the legends and folklore. To me, she was the last of an era.

  “We are all a little peculiar, as she would say.”

  THE GOOD FAIRY

  HUGUETTE’S FAVORITE MAGAZINE in her youth was a popular French weekly for young girls, La Semaine de Suzette, which holds an important place in the collective memory of France. Suzette included games, crafts, recipes, and dress patterns for the doll Bleuette. Available only through the magazine from 1905 to 1960, Bleuette was about eleven inches high, about half the size of today’s American Girl dolls. Most important, the magazine included stories with lavish color illustrations.

  Huguette did more than fondly remember or collect these souvenirs of her youth. In her middle age, she applied her own brand of generosity, reaching out to the magazine’s illustrators, becoming their patron, their friend, and their savior. An entire generation of the greatest illustrators in France found themselves blessed by an unseen benefactor from America.

  She remembered one illustrator in particular from Suzette, and also from her books of fairy tales and fables, filled with “Le Maître Chat” (the mischievous Puss in Boots), “Le Petit Poucet” (the tiny Tom Thumb), and “Cendrillon” (the underdog Cinderella). His name was Félix Lorioux. American audiences may not know that name, but they’re certainly familiar with this one: Walt Disney.

  Lorioux was an early inspiration to Disney, who worked in France after the Great War in 1919. Lorioux was hired by Disney to illustrate early Mickey Mouse books, including the French version of Mickey and Minnie. In 1916, Lorioux had created the character of a comic goose in a sailor suit, a goose that looks a lot like Donald Duck. A humble man, Lorioux was often credited by others for creating Donald Duck, but Disney published his illustrations for decades without crediting him. As a silent protest or wink, Lorioux would hide the names of his family in his drawings for Disney.

  In France, Lorioux is as well known as, say, Beatrix Potter is in England. Lorioux illustrated more than one hundred books and has been called one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. Whom did he influence? Well, to name one, Picasso, who riffed on Lorioux’s tragicomic Don Quixote.

  In her forties, Huguette went looking for Félix Lorioux. In 1950, Artine Courbalk, a French bookbinder in New York who had known Huguette since childhood, sought out Lorioux on her instructions. Courbalk was the intermediary, a courier for instructions from Huguette to the arts. In his many letters to Lorioux, Courbalk offered a detailed portrait of Huguette’s personality. He described her, in French, as a “rare bird,” very kind, compassionate, and generous, who “always keeps her smile, the smile of a child.” She doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, never seems to age, and doesn’t wear makeup—“she is ravishing and does not need it.” Courbalk explained that Huguette lived in a separate apartment from her mother, though they were “very close and inseparable.” He said Huguette suffered from epistolophobia—the fear of writing letters—which is why she mostly used the telephone and sent telegrams. He tipped off Lorioux that Huguette was “rich, very rich,” and capricious, confiding that her whims “are really a command, and will be well paid for.” He said she wants light colors, pastels, and fairy scenes and doesn’t like to hear bad news or to express any criticism. In short, Courbalk described Huguette as “a comet.”

  Through Courbalk, Huguette commissioned works from Lorioux—starting with illustrated legends of France, then a series of fairy tales—“except the unpleasant scene where Snow White is laying down poisoned,” and without the witch, she cautioned—and sought his help in finding all the back issues of La Semaine de Suzette, particularly those for the years 1912 and 1913, when she was six and seven. The artist’s daughter-in-law sent Huguette her personal collection. Lorioux and Huguette exchanged lively letters for decades, and he opened the door for her to support an entire generation of illustrators in France.

  Like Huguette, Lorioux was a bit uncomfortable among people, feeling more at home with his fantasy figures and insects. He painted vivid watercolors for Huguette’s eyes only, portraying her as a princess among the fawning inhabitants of a miniature world of lovable insects in fancy clothes.

  One hand-painted birthday card, sent to her in 1952, shows a royal grasshopper, sitting high on pillows in the blossom of a giant purple flower, studying herself in a mirror, while a colorful host of ladybugs scramble up a rickety ladder carrying, and spilling, gifts for her: jewels, jelly beans, a picnic, a bouquet of flowers. In 1954, Félix sent Huguette a drawing of an aging butterfly suitor giving flowers and jewels to a bashful butterfly princess.

  Huguette supported Lorioux and his wife, Lily, with her generous “little gifts” for many years, and in 1989 she gave an arts group $100,000 for an exhibition in New York of his scholarly crows, pompous bureaucrats, and robins wearing spats. Lily called Huguette “our benevolent fairy.”

  When Félix died in Paris in 1964, at age ninety-one, Huguette cabled Lily:

  Dear Madame, very sad to learn of the sad news of your great loss and immense sorrow. What a loss also for the whole world to lose dear Mr. Lorioux, such a great artist and a great soul. Allow me to kiss you tenderly with all my affectionate sympathy.

  • • •

  Félix Lorioux was not the only French artist to benefit from Huguette’s patronage. She sought out others. At least four illustrators—Jean Mercier, Manon Iessel, J. P. Pinchon, and the pen-named Chéri Hérouard—were all supported by Huguette until they died. She commissioned illustrations of children’s songs, drawings of all the female saints of France, and maps of the history of each region of the country. “You know how loyal I have remained,” she wrote to Pinchon, “to the French traditions and folkloric past of France.”

  Huguette became closest to Hérouard, known for his lighthearted and fantastic covers and illustrations for the society magazine La Vie Parisienne. He was a specialist in fairy godmothers, witches, ogres, and dragons. He also, under the pen name Herric, illustrated erotic books with scenes of sadomasochism: sex with the maid, sex between the maids. He sent Huguette a crate of his original drawings, including a few of his “daring” ones.

  Huguette put Hérouard to work painting watercolors of Sleeping Beauty, instructing him to make the costume changes historically accurate when the princess wakes up after a hundred years. She also sent him to Petit-Bourg to draw the ruins of her family’s summer castle, which the retreating Nazis had burned during World War II. And she had the old man tracking down more old copies of Suzette. At age seventy-five, the artist was placin
g classified ads for the magazines in French newspapers, supplementing his effort with prayers to Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of seekers of lost items. After finding the last issue of 1912, Hérouard was philosophical, thinking of that innocent time before France was plunged into conflict:

  In spite of their fragile state, these Suzettes from such a distant era went through the two most important wars in history. And as I was looking at these slightly yellowed pages, I was thinking that many little girls, who would open them with delight and carelessness, were to cry two years later at the sight of their father going away toward a most dangerous fate.

  He did have just one request, from the Frenchwoman who was giving up her Suzette collection to the heiress in America: “The person who provided them is a widow. She has been keeping them since her youth, and in her response to my purchase offer, she asked if she could keep them for another two weeks to give her a chance to look at them one last time.”

  After Hérouard’s death in 1961, his widow sent along his last drawing, which he had intended for Huguette’s birthday.

  Another of the artists, J. P. Pinchon, summed up his relationship with the American heiress. He wrote to Huguette in 1953, accepting in his eighties a new commission, even as he recognized he was near death. “The fairy tale continues, and you make my life beautiful. At the beginning of our acquaintance, I compared you to a good fairy who made the dream of any artist at the end of his career come true. Your magic wand never stopped, and I work with joy.”

  These artists never knew what their good fairy looked like. The Lorioux family sent photos to Huguette but never received any in return. They knew only her telegrams and her high voice, as Huguette would call to inquire about the illustrator’s grandchildren. The Lorioux family had invited Huguette to France many times, but she always begged off. No, she said, she wouldn’t be able to return there. They asked why. She explained: the French Revolution.