Not quite the Mona Lisa. A portrait of Céleste, age 40, at the peak of her writing career in the 1860s. The life she was leading was etched in her face. The artist has captured her melancholy and quiet determination in this drawing, which frequently accompanied newspaper reviews of her work.
Dedication
For Frederique Lallement
and
Annette and Peter Dezarnaulds,
two lovers of Paris and Céleste.
Contents
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
Young Queen of the Demimonde
CHAPTER 1
A Providential Escape
CHAPTER 2
Vincent the Predator
CHAPTER 3
Saint-Lazare Prison
CHAPTER 4
Denise the Dominant
CHAPTER 5
A Thespian Born
CHAPTER 6
Not Quite Heaven
CHAPTER 7
Musset, the Not So Magnificent
CHAPTER 8
Medical Road to Liberty
CHAPTER 9
Dancing Destiny
CHAPTER 10
Horsewoman Extraordinaire
CHAPTER 11
Mogador, Courtesan
CHAPTER 12
Chariots of Desire and Ire
CHAPTER 13
Céleste We Forget
CHAPTER 14
Love at First Chivalry
CHAPTER 15
Love’s Roller-coaster
CHAPTER 16
Castle of Broken Dreams
CHAPTER 17
Return to the Castle
Roulette or Ruin
CHAPTER 19
The Riot that Ate Paris
CHAPTER 20
Rural Realities
CHAPTER 21
Love in the Time of Cholera
CHAPTER 22
Richard: Another Fallguy
CHAPTER 23
Actress
CHAPTER 24
A Platonic Solution
CHAPTER 25
Crime of Passion
CHAPTER 26
The Lawyer’s Incentive
CHAPTER 27
Dalliance with Dumas Sr
CHAPTER 28
Lionel’s Voyage of Discovery
CHAPTER 29
Céleste’s Haut Couture
CHAPTER 30
The Near Gatecrasher
CHAPTER 31
Courtesan Countess
CHAPTER 32
Croesus Crossing
CHAPTER 33
Distractions and Dangers
CHAPTER 34
Watertight
CHAPTER 35
Trials in a Wild Southern Town
CHAPTER 36
Memoirs of Another Life
CHAPTER 37
A Hanging and Miner Rebellion
CHAPTER 38
Whatever Lola Wants . . .
CHAPTER 39
Counted Out
CHAPTER 40
Solvency Solutions
CHAPTER 41
The Battle for Mémoires
CHAPTER 42
Golden Moments; Lionel Returns
CHAPTER 43
Lionel Departs; Dumas Inspires
CHAPTER 44
The Long Farewell
CHAPTER 45
Title Fight: Return Bouts
CHAPTER 46
Author–Actor–Producer
CHAPTER 47
Working-class Revival
CHAPTER 48
Creative Transition; More Battles
CHAPTER 49
War Changes and Service
CHAPTER 50
Commune with the Devil
CHAPTER 51
Muse and Munificence
CHAPTER 52
Battling On
CHAPTER 53
The Extended Goodbye
NOTES
WORKS BY
Céleste Vénard, Countess de Chabrillan
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PHOTOS SECTION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRAISE
ALSO BY ROLAND PERRY
COPYRIGHT
PROLOGUE
Young Queen of the Demimonde
When Céleste Vénard strode into Paris’s Café Anglais in the winter of 1846–47, heads turned almost in unison to stare at this most celebrated beauty, the City of Light’s most sought-after courtesan. The more discerning onlookers searched for imperfections but could find none in this 22-year-old femme fatale. The popinjays at the café were struck by Céleste’s sensual face: the large green eyes, her petite nose, full ruby lips and alabaster skin. Her light auburn hair was long and combed back over neat ears so as not to hide any of her exceptional features. Her full figure did not need the corset under the red dress, which only served to accentuate alluring proportions of lush breasts, slim waist and rounded derrière. Céleste’s long, slim arms, often noted as the most striking of her many physical features, were fully exposed. She undulated just short of a swivel to a table with her friend Frisette, herself eye-catching but a mere shadow in this moment. Céleste removed her bonnet and off-white shawl, then ceremoniously slid off white gloves to expose her slender fingers.
The young men were nervous about approaching her, even though they were among the wealthiest members of France’s aristocracy. Some were afraid because it took courage to accost her, despite the well-accepted fact that women entering the café were seeking paying paramours. Others knew her reputation for saying Non, Monsieur, merci. They feared her rejection beyond a drink or a meal. Such was Céleste’s fame that this once low-level prostitute could pick and choose any man with whom she wished to take favours, no matter how wealthy or important; an unusual situation even for the well-known actresses of the era. But then she was more beautiful than Empress Eugénie, Napoleon III’s Spanish wife; even Queen Victoria, who made a hobby of describing the appearance of notables she met, thought so. It was said that the real princesses of France were the courtesans, who ruled by conquest. Céleste Vénard surpassed these so-called members of royalty. She was more like a queen. She dominated.
The corseted male fops and exhibitionists, with their overly styled hair, tangled cravats, body-hugging trousers and effeminate shoes, stared at the new arrivals but were guarded. Céleste was the unattainable prize, who treated them with neither disdain nor contempt, but who nevertheless rebuffed them with a cold stare or maybe a glance of careless disapproval. Both women knew the onlooking debauched species well enough. These men wanted playthings, not relationships of substance. Their dissolute, privileged lives did not lend themselves to responsibility or work of any kind. Yet Céleste and Frisette remained in search of worthy lovers, who might keep them for a few months, even a year or more in a salubrious apartment. If they met no one suitable, they might at least enjoy a drink, a dinner and banal, flirtatious conversation.
This night it began with something else: abuse. Two degenerate types, knowing they would have no hope of ever dating, let alone bedding Céleste, resorted to obnoxious remarks in an attempt to hurt her, ridiculing her clothes and hair. She returned serve with remarks about their bad teeth and unkempt appearance. This was unexpected. The courtesans were supposed to accept being the butt of this low form of amusement, but not Céleste. She had a tangible power because of her risky, courageous bareback horse riding at the Hippodrome and her fame, which extended back beyond her brave circus acts to her days as Paris’s most notable performer at the popular dance halls. She had created her own high-kicking version of the polka, which would later be accepted as the precursor to the cancan. Her outstanding looks and character had made male spectators at the halls, and later
the open-air riding circus, fantasise about having her. Her image, active and in repose, inspired myriad artists, poets and writers of the creative period in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as those of the belle époque and beyond. They included composer Georges Bizet, who was driven to operatic genius and fury over her with Carmen. Henri Gervex was motivated by her to deliver sensuality in his painting Rolla; Céleste was the muse for, and in, Thomas Couture’s masterful painting Romans During the Decadence; and she rekindled public enthusiasm in Alfred de Musset’s poetry. The press reported her every performance, and the occasional dalliance.
Her licence to thrill gave her confidence to stand up to her tormentors. Céleste’s sharp tongue cut deep.
‘You mindless slobs have nothing better to do tonight, eh?’ she goaded. ‘Alone you are cowards. Together you urge each other on without finesse or finery of words. Your champagne-and gin-soaked brains have shrunk to allow you to squeak out attempted cruelties only, which reveal your idiocy. We don’t laugh at you. We scorn your unmanliness, which dare I say, would most certainly reach to physical inadequacies!’
A dozen dandies at other tables clapped at these remarks.
‘Who brought this whore to the party?’ one of her tormentors asked with a vicious glare of defeat. Frisette wanted to leave, but game Céleste refused. At this moment, a dashing, dark-haired man intervened and demanded reparations from the main offender for his unpleasant remarks. Céleste had never seen the man before. There was something intriguing about him. He had none of the effete accoutrements of the dandies, nor their patronising manner which exposed insecurities. He was chivalrous, and clearly an aristocrat. In fact, he was 25-year-old Count Lionel de Chabrillan, the only man who could possibly take Céleste away from her notorious past. Would he be her first true love, and at last help her forget her miserable childhood?
CHAPTER 1
A Providential Escape
It was 1832 on a winter’s late afternoon in France’s industrial southern city of Lyon. Eight-year-old Céleste was coming home in the failing light with her small white dog, Lion. She heard movement behind her. Lion barked a warning but Céleste was no match for the heavy-set brute who grabbed her from behind. She was shocked, but when she realised it was her stepfather, Guy, she punched and kicked and screamed. In her fury, she showed surprising strength as Guy tried to hoist her onto his shoulder. Brave Lion snapped at the man’s ankles, and he was kicked hard in the side, causing him to yelp and back off in pain. Guy slapped the little girl across the face and head, subduing her to sobs. He then hurried off with her to a narrow passage in the southern part of the city and a working-class brothel, La Belle du Sud, which, given the shuttered windows, appeared closed at least until night. But Guy, his unshaven face masking several scars from bar-room brawls, knew his way around this place. He pushed through the front door, staggered upstairs past rooms where men were indulging their carnal urges with grunts of pleasure and crude language, and into a large, smoke-filled sitting room and bar. There were five prostitutes with clients playing strip poker. Guy dragged the stunned and frightened Céleste into this scene. Four of the women didn’t care about the child’s presence. But a fifth, Marianne, saw the fear and shock on Céleste’s face and protested to Guy, who replied, ‘But she’s my daughter! I must hide her from some wild men who would take her from me!’
Marianne took the child to her room, leaving Guy to drink and join the card game. Céleste was so distressed that Marianne gave her a sip of sherry to settle her. After twenty minutes of cajoling the girl into telling her what had happened, Céleste opened up.
‘He is not my father!’ she whispered and repeated it several times. ‘He lived with my mother in Paris. He beat her up so badly once that she couldn’t walk! She was taken to hospital. When she was better, she had to leave. We came here to Lyon . . . Guy must have discovered where we were . . .’ Céleste broke down. She was shaking badly. Marianne took her in her arms and comforted her. Through choking sobs, Marianne managed to learn that Céleste’s mother, Anne-Victoire, worked in a Lyon silk-weaving factory. After reassuring the petrified child, Marianne locked her in the room. She left the brothel in search of Anne-Victoire. But she could not find her and so left a note at her home, telling her to come for her daughter early in the morning, when Marianne hoped Guy would be comatose from drinking and physical exertion.
Anne-Victoire arrived at the brothel at dawn and was shaken to find Guy still up and cavorting with the women of the house. Although drunk, he was steady enough to attempt to attack Anne-Victoire in the bar room, but not strong enough to push off the other prostitutes, who closed around Anne-Victoire. She escaped the room and hurried to Céleste, who had been alerted by the commotion. They made a dash for it. The prostitutes managed to restrain Guy, who was in no real state to give chase.
Mother and daughter were forced to move from one friend’s home to another to avoid the disreputable Guy. Anne-Victoire still worked at the factory, owned and run by the kindly bachelor Monsieur Raoul, who eventually gave her and Céleste lodgings in his big home next to the factory. It stood on a quay overlooking a river bridge with two large customs buildings at either end. Raoul lived on the ground floor, an elderly lodger lived on the first floor and mother and daughter took rooms on the second floor. But there was nothing Anne-Victoire could do with Céleste during the long hours at the factory, which meant that the little girl had to stay in a bedroom all day.
‘I don’t want to be locked up,’ Céleste protested. ‘I want to work with you!’
‘You’re too young,’ Anne-Victoire replied.
‘But you said I looked twelve,’ Céleste said, clasping her budding breasts. ‘I’m taller than girls who are twelve . . .’
Anne-Victoire spoke to Raoul, telling him Céleste was ten.
‘The law is strict,’ he replied, ‘I have a few under twelve already and don’t want to attract the attention of the authorities.’
‘Could you at least give her a trial?’
Raoul relented. Céleste was asked to wind the silk threads over the bobbins and she proved as competent as the older children. She was given the standard ten sous (equivalent to a farthing, or quarter penny) a day, and a few extra if she worked overtime when her mother did more than the standard ten hours a day. Even as a child, Céleste loved fashion and she coveted the colourful silk dresses on display in the factory’s foyer. Anne-Victoire encouraged her to save her money and buy one for herself. After two weeks’ work Céleste managed to do this and it generated her first feelings of pride in being independent.
A month later, Guy discovered their whereabouts and turned up at the house. His appearance had changed. He wore a smart suit and he was not reeking of alcohol when he met Raoul for the first time in the front garden. Cap in hand, he ingratiated himself as much as possible.
‘I am reformed,’ Guy said, ‘I’ve found God, and good employment.’
‘Always a useful combination,’ Raoul said, with a trace of cynicism.
‘I’ll help out around the house as much as you like,’ Guy said. ‘I love working in the garden.’
Raoul observed him, saying nothing.
‘I’ll . . . I’ll pay you seven months’ rent in advance,’ Guy said and added as if crestfallen, ‘I just want to be with my wife and daughter. I miss them terribly!’
‘There, there, old chap,’ the compassionate Raoul said, patting Guy on the back. ‘I’ll have a word to your wife.’
Raoul later put Guy’s case to Anne-Victoire.
‘No,’ she said, ‘he can’t be trusted. He’s a bullying, drunken oaf!’
‘But he says he has changed for the good. He won’t be drinking anymore . . .’
‘He’s said that before.’
‘He claims to have a good job, and to have found the good Lord.’
‘That’s new.’
‘Could you give him a second chance?’
Anne-Victoire looked at her daughter, who shook her head in disapproval.
‘No, Mama, you mustn’t!’ Céleste cried. ‘He’ll beat you again. He’ll never change. Please don’t do it, Mama, please!’
Anne-Victoire reflected overnight. She wanted the security of a man, especially if he brought much-needed income into the house. She relented.
In the first three weeks, they were surprised at his almost civil behaviour. Twice he did not come home at all, and when he did he claimed he stayed away because he was drunk and he did not wish to upset Anne-Victoire. She wanted to believe him, but she had wanted to trust her husband, Alain, too, before he disappeared when she’d been pregnant with Céleste. She had made bad choices in partners, which she said in her self-effacing way was due to her own lack of intelligence. Anne-Victoire, thirty-two, a good-looking, shapely woman, had always been attracted to the adventurers and the brash, the braggarts and womanisers, those who took rough pleasure in the moment.
Guy inexplicably seemed to have plenty of cash. He even handed some to Anne-Victoire, but she was wary, even nervous of how he’d acquired it. Guy had never been more than an itinerant labourer. His flash clothes and patent-leather shoes were suspect. Nevertheless, she accepted the money and hid it in a hatbox under loose floorboards in her daughter’s room, telling Céleste that when they had enough money they would make another escape.
After a month, Anne-Victoire became suspicious that Guy’s earnings were ill-gotten when he locked her out of their room and ‘entertained’ two tough-looking characters. Through the keyhole, Anne-Victoire saw the three men examining bags of money and other proceeds from a robbery, including jewels and expensive clothing. She was distressed but kept calm, and, the next day at the weaving factory she told Raoul about what she had witnessed. He felt guilty for having believed that Guy had reformed. He then devised a clever if daring plan so Anne-Victoire and Céleste could escape his home.
That evening Raoul asked two of his weavers, both big, strong lads, if they would do him a favour and pose as policemen, come to the house, and act as if they were there to arrest Guy. One pouted.
‘You want to get rid of him?’
‘He treats his wife and child badly.’
‘We’ve noticed. He’s a notorious thug and thief, you know.’