Celeste

by Roland Perry

  Lionel was distressed at Céleste being away and feared she might not return. In a letter he said:

  I reproach myself for letting you go. This life at the other end of the earth, which pleases me because you seem to belong to me more truly and completely here, may not be enough to make you happy. I have broken the vow I made to God and to myself not to part from you for a single day of my life. Everything makes me anxious, even my dreams!

  On the 4th of January [1857] at midday, send me a loving thought: it’s our wedding anniversary. At the same time here, I shall send you all my wishes, all my desires, and all my thoughts. Don’t forget from 11 a.m. to midday to shut yourself off alone for an hour to think of me. Our thoughts are sure to cross.

  Yours until my dying day.

  Céleste was so moved by the last lines that she wished to ‘fly’ to him immediately, leaving all the court cases, publishing deals and other obligations unfinished.

  ‘On reflection,’ she said, ‘it would be folly to have made such a long and arduous journey only to be faced with the same problems again.’

  However, she could not resign herself to being separated from him for any longer. She called on the distinguished Ferdinand-Marie Viscount de Lesseps, the minister handling diplomatic appointments, and an influential member of the French Academy. She begged him to consider giving Lionel leave after three years, which would be up soon, rather than the regulation five.

  ‘You’re making a very difficult request,’ the viscount said, wilting a fraction.

  ‘But it’s not impossible?’ Céleste pressed.

  ‘I shall see what I can do.’

  Céleste was pleased that she had made an impression without resorting, as she had on occasions in the past, to her seductive powers to achieve her aims. She mused that perhaps her new reputation as an author was taking over her old one as a sex symbol.

  Her charm and strong character won through. Three days later she received a letter containing the notification that Lionel’s leave could start immediately. She was overjoyed and wrote a long letter to Lionel, closing with, ‘Come to me! First of all I need you, and then so do our affairs. I shall be very happy to go back with you.’

  Lionel was on his way back to France by late January 1857 and so was unaware that on 1 February, his beloved sister and favourite sibling Louise, the Marquise de Chabrillan, had died. Céleste shed a tear for Lionel, who would not learn of this until he reached France. But she had no love for her sister-in-law. They had not met, but Louise had never forgiven her brother for ‘besmirching the family name by marrying that whore’. She made her attitude reach beyond the grave by cutting Lionel out of her substantial will.

  CHAPTER 41

  The Battle for Mémoires

  Despite the ongoing success of Mémoires, Céleste continued with her efforts to have its publication stopped. Desmarest advised her to engage the celebrity president of the French Bar Association, Maitre Liouville, whose mere presence in court as her barrister would, he was convinced, mean she would win—probably. But he seemed to be resting on decades of laurels. Céleste was amazed at Liouville’s lack of interest in the case, but Desmarest maintained he would deliver a grand performance when it was required in court. Desmarest explained it was ‘all about form’ in front of a judge on the day. She was less and less swayed with every meeting. She began to worry that ‘age, fatigue and pain had worn out Liouville’s faculties’.

  Céleste would arrive at his home and stand in front of his study desk, pleading her case against the Librairie Nouvelle to him. Liouville would go through a ritual of having his dressing gown, slippers and Greek cap brought to him by a maid. Then he would sip a warm saucepan of milk. After that he would invite her to sit, not having absorbed a word of her explanation. She was so discouraged that she complained to Desmarest.

  ‘He doesn’t listen to me,’ she said.

  ‘He hears everything,’ Desmarest assured her.

  ‘He doesn’t even respond to me.’

  ‘He’s saving his words for your case.’

  ‘If he does speak, he’s always hoarse.’

  ‘No matter,’ Desmarest said with undiminished confidence. ‘People listen to him with such attention. He’s a great man, I tell you.’

  ‘Scarcely five feet tall!’

  ‘Do you think that genius is measured in feet and inches?’

  ‘I don’t wish to appear disagreeable about your president of the Bar, but you exaggerate his worth. He has Maitre Senard against him.’

  ‘Oh, you’re acting like a typical woman!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Appearances are everything to you. You have no conception of what a fine mind he has.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s imperceptible.’

  ‘You need someone delivering fine phrases; high hopes.’

  ‘I don’t deny it. They help you be patient . . . You should get me another barrister.’

  ‘You can’t be serious. Take a file away from Liouville? You might as well take it away from the emperor himself!’

  ‘But would you do it for me?’

  Desmarest refused. The case was heard a week later. Liouville, all theatrics and little substance, didn’t help his cause in front of the judge by sipping alternatively from two flasks of whisky and brandy in his pocket. Then he pleaded, Céleste said, ‘the very opposite case to the one he should have’.

  Senard won the case. She was forced to hand over the rest of the Mémoires manuscript, volumes six, seven and eight, to the publisher, who now wanted to bring out a second edition of eight volumes. Desmarest was obliged to agree with Céleste that Liouville’s capacities as a barrister had declined. He was on the verge of senility.

  ‘Liouville was very pleased with himself,’ Céleste wrote later. ‘He received his cheque with the aplomb of a man sure that it was well earned.’

  Céleste was now compelled to allow her complete memoirs to be printed in a second edition. The publisher had the delicate task of asking her if she would like to make additions to it. At first she refused to have anything to do with it, but on reflection she decided that since the book was coming out anyway, she would improve it by updating the story with twenty extra chapters. They included her life with Lionel before their marriage and the letters he wrote to her on his first trip to Australia in 1852. She justified the book by adding a preface claiming that she wished to stop innocent girls falling into prostitution. It was an afterthought and a bit lame given she had not mentioned this in the first edition. But it may have been a reminder to the publisher that she had not wanted her memoirs made public. Now that they had to come out again, she wished to have this ‘warning’ label in the book.

  It was a draining experience and it spurred Céleste on to work harder, despite her illnesses, when she really needed complete rest. She measured her lack of wellbeing by the increased number of visitors, who made her feel as if she did not have long to live. They included a priest, Father Mullois, who made frequent visits. He mentioned a passage in her memoirs concerning reformatories for children. Céleste had claimed that these places, and especially the agricultural institution at Mettray for juvenile offenders, only increased delinquency. The priest told Céleste that Napoleon III, the moral guardian of all France’s reformatories, had read everything she had written about them with great interest. Céleste was surprised but flattered that the nation’s most powerful individual had read her memoirs, and it lifted her flagging spirits. The priest, concerned with her illness, promised to return, which only served to deflate her again. He was also concerned about some passages in her book and recommended, as she later recalled, ‘some changes regarding certain admissions that I should only have made to my confessor’.

  Céleste listened attentively but would make no deletions of future editions. She didn’t want the more juicy elements to be read or heard only by Father Mullois.

  ‘I no longer count my existence in years or months,’ the 32-year-old told her diary. ‘I live from day to day.
Let us hope that Lionel does not linger too long!’

  This was not simply melodrama. She was too ill to be doing anything other than convalescing, but she continued to work feverishly, up to fifteen hours a day, writing and rewriting as she attempted to polish the books that she hoped would follow The Gold Thieves. She was pushing her limits and the work made her ‘delirious’.

  ‘It was passion!’ she wrote. ‘Like love, drink, gambling, and it got worse and worse.’

  Céleste worked through most of the night, losing sleep, appetite and strength, and could only revive herself with black coffee.

  ‘My mind overheated my blood,’ she observed, ‘but Lionel would be arriving soon. I needed fame, money and heavens knows what else. I was mad!’

  Céleste wrote three short novels and six ‘bad’ plays in a manic creative assault. Her sudden rising star upset some fellow authors, such as Henri Murger, who complained to their mutual publisher, Lévy, that Céleste was being paid more than he, a more experienced author.1 But there were others who gave unqualified support, such as Alexandre Dumas Sr. He restored her ‘faith’ in herself, and her ‘energy and zeal’.

  During this frenetic burst of creativity, a letter of reconciliation from the solicitor representing Lionel’s difficult cousin arrived. Her pressure, coupled with the fact she’d let it be known that Lionel was returning and would be prepared to act as a witness in court, had won the day. Céleste’s celebrity was taking on more substance because of her writing and the news snippets about expectations for The Gold Thieves. The family had influence, but in the fluid world of personality and celebrity in the post-revolutionary era, the famous and their connections had intrinsic if intangible power. There would be big press coverage for whatever she did now. For a proud, patrician family this would be a horrendous development, best avoided.

  The cousin’s solicitor brought with him a cheque for 40,000 francs, plus interest and costs, for an out-of-court settlement. This was not quite the moment of ecstasy Céleste had experienced when Lévy said ‘yes’ to her novel. It was more like relief, followed by delight. Céleste paid off Lionel’s debts for the failed flour-import operation, then got rid of the mortgage on her house at Châteauroux. This left her with just 6000 francs, but she was debt-free.

  Once more she had saved herself, Lionel and their relationship.

  CHAPTER 42

  Golden Moments; Lionel Returns

  The Gold Thieves proved to be another literary success for Céleste, whose title as the Countess de Chabrillan, author, was usurping her sobriquet of Mogador, heroine of the Hippodrome and courtesan. It was what she wanted, especially with Lionel’s imminent return. The book was published in May 1857 to a string of good and even rave reviews. There was a degree of surprise, some had patronising comments, but for most critics it was Céleste’s skills and freshness that lit up the literary scene with her coverage of a new world.

  The novel was a roller-coaster rather than a rollicking yarn that included unrequited love, violence, a rape, a hanging, two births, three natural deaths, three weddings and a dozen murders. This meant twenty-two scenes of emotional pull that ensured it was a page-turner. Though the book was fiction, there was integrity to the tale. It had an authentic feel of Melbourne and the goldfields, having often drawn on her diary or memoir entries exactly as she’d written them.

  Nestor Roqueplan, a humorous observer of the time, would not erase her past, even if it displeased Céleste, but nevertheless praised her.

  ‘Those who have not read Céleste Mogador’s very unusual memoirs, and who do not know the author, will read the whole of The Gold Thieves with unflagging curiosity,’ he wrote in La Presse. ‘They should be doubly satisfied with the book itself and with the worthy aims of the author . . . Australia is a land where poverty struggles, angry and disillusioned, against uncontrolled and insatiable wealth; where the fierce energy of murder is pitted against the heroism of noble sentiments . . . The style is simple and elegant, the narrative is fast-moving and the dialogue lively. There is no sentimentality, no recourse to that romantic flirtatiousness that is a weakness of so many works written by women. Madame de Chabrillan has lived in contact with this civilisation that has its beginnings in greed and violence . . . She has sought two titles: that of countess and that of writer. She has won them both.’

  Alexandre Dumas Sr paid her a grand compliment by reviewing her in his Monte Cristo in the same column as the outstanding French writer of the era, Gustave Flaubert, who had just produced his most popular book, Madame Bovary. After dealing favourably with Flaubert, Dumas wrote:

  Another work of a quite opposite kind, but most extraordinary, has been published by the same firm . . . Madame de Chabrillan is a courageous soul, one of those creatures that God has destined for dedication and struggle . . .

  Dumas said that he saw the dawn come in the two nights he read The Gold Thieves. He went on to compare her work with that of the very popular adventure writer, Gabriel Ferry, saying she had the ‘same energy in the characterisation, the same life in the characters, the same feverish activity in the plot. Both writers have been eye witnesses, and being able to see is a tremendous thing when one is a gifted observer.’

  The reviewer for Revue de Paris, Léon Laurent-Pichat, said ‘there is in this novel an intelligence, or rather a quite perfect conception of dramatic motivation’.

  Céleste loved and was humbled by these reviews, but the remarks by Jules Janin, the finest French literary critic of the era, moved her most. They touched the integrity of her transformation without patronising her:

  This is a real book . . . Only a very gifted and intelligent woman can transform herself, redeem herself by intelligence, give up the free and easy life and win an honourable place among the distinguished women and good writers of her time.

  Céleste backed it up by selling a second novel, Sapho, to Lévy. This had a French setting and drew on her youthful experiences. Lévy wasted no time in getting another publication by the countess into the market. Inspired by this confidence in her skills, she laboured on two more novels on Australia, The Emigrants and Miss Pewell. The latter centred on an anti-heroine, a gossipy, spiteful, snobby and vindictive spinster.

  Early in June 1857, Céleste received a telegram from Marseilles:

  ‘I have arrived from Australia,’ Lionel wrote. ‘I will be in Paris at seven tomorrow evening.’

  ‘Feverish impatience was followed by convulsive nervous trembling,’ she recalled. Her prolonged illness could hardly take such excitement. She felt faint and could ‘scarcely think’.

  She arrived at the station three hours before the train was due. Lionel stepped off the train and ran towards her, arms open.

  ‘My beautiful darling Céleste!’ he said, hugging her and almost in tears. ‘You look so thin.’

  ‘I’ve been very ill. I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d worry yourself into a state if you knew.’

  ‘At least we’re together again. These breaks are too long. They’re bad for both of us.’

  ‘I promise to get better now you’re here.’

  At that moment Lionel was not so sure.

  In the carriage en route to their apartment (at Rue de Ventadour) Lionel asked, ‘Have you heard from dear sister Louise?’ Before she could answer, he added lightheartedly, ‘I don’t expect her to rush to me with open arms. She really objected, even more than my brother, to us getting married.’

  ‘Lionel,’ Céleste said, taking both his hands, ‘she died.’

  ‘No! When?’ he asked in anguish.

  ‘The first of February.’

  He began to cry.

  ‘I’m so sorry. We had no way of letting you know.’

  Lionel was devastated.

  ‘My Louise is dead,’ he wailed, ‘without forgiving me. It’s not possible!’

  Again, after all the time and everything they’d been through since the worst pressure from his family, Lionel’s feelings and allegiances reverted to them first, ahead of the love o
f his life.

  That night in bed, ‘he turned away from my caresses and perhaps regretted having loved me’, she noted. She had not seen him for half a year and his rejection was nearly impossible to take, especially as she had worked herself into such poor health that it was now threatening her life. Seeing the unnecessary pain he had inflicted, he apologised. But ‘it was too late’, she wrote. ‘It hurt me dreadfully.’

  To make her point, she gave him a full accounting of receipts, bills and everything that was evidence of how she had turned their financial affairs around, even to the point of them now having a modest bank account in the black. Lionel was more contrite and tried to counter by informing her of his ‘success’ in selling their St Kilda house. But that was due to simple market forces and property prices rising, rather than any cleverness or good management on his part.

  ‘I’ve paid off everything back there,’ he told her. ‘I’m no longer in anyone’s debt, except yours.’

  He promised that one day he would pay her back for everything. But at that moment, Céleste only wanted his declaration of continued love for her. There was just a little reserve on his part and Céleste thought she found the reason when she discovered two of her books in the bottom of his trunk. He had bought The Gold Thieves and Sapho in Marseilles and had devoured them on the trip to Paris. Yet he had not mentioned them. Perhaps he had mixed feelings. He should have been proud of her, but her freedom, acceptance and success in France may have threatened his security. He would have realised that his wife had more fame, earning power and independence than he would ever have.

  Céleste sent for Solange in an effort to restore the nuclear family, which was a sensible move.