Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris

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European Women Writers Series

Editorial Board: Marion Faber, Swarthmore College Alice Jardine, Harvard University

Susan Kirkpatrick, University of California, San Diego Olga Ragusa, Columbia University, emerita Céle e Mogador

Mem
M

oirs of a Courtesan in

Nineteenth-Century

Paris

Translated and

with an introduction by

Monique Fleury

Nagem

University of Nebraska Press

Lincoln and London

Publication of this volume was assisted by The Virginia Faulkner Fund, established in memory of Virginia Faulkner, editor-in-chief of the University of Nebraska Press.

Previously published as Mémoires de Céleste Mogador by Les Amis de l’Histoire, . Translation and introduction

©  by the University of Nebraska Press. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chabrillan, Céleste Vénard de, comtesse, –.

[Adieux au monde. English] Memoirs of a courtesan in nineteenth-century Paris / Céleste Mogador ; translated and with an introduction by Monique Fleury Nagem.

p. cm. – (European women writers series) Includes bibliographical references.  ---

(cl.: alk. paper) –  --- (pbk.: alk. paper)

. Nagem, Monique F., – . Title. . Series.

.   .''—dc

[] 



Acknowledgments

vii

Translator’s Introduction

ix

. My Stepfather



. The Hunter and the Hunted



. The Lyon Insurrection



. M. Vincent



. Thérèse



. Denise



. The Fall



. Effects of a Hospital Stay



. The Bal Mabille



. A ‘ Queen’s’’ Destiny



. The Hippodrome



. Lise’s Yellow Dress



. A Chariot Race



. Travel Impressions



. Acts of Desperation



. Lise’s Return



. Dinner at the Café Anglais



. Lionel



. In the Country



. Gust of Wind at Le Havre and

Masked Ball at the Opera



. Hooray for Reform!



. Roulette



. La Pépine



. The June Insurrection



. Château Life



. Richard



. Cholera Gives Me a Godchild



. Dramatic Follies and

Folies-Dramatiques



. Proud Women, Passionate Men



. London



. Unfortunate Encounter



. The Girl from the Provinces



. Death Throes of a Fortune



. To the Antipodes



. My Law Lesson



. The Variétés Theater



. A Dead Woman and a Ghost



. A Miner’s Diary



. Let My Destiny Be Done!



Notes



Works by Céleste de Chabrillan





My thanks to the Collège International des Traducteurs Littéraires in Arles, France, for giving me the opportunity to start on this translation in the company of helpful translators and in select surroundings; the Department of Languages at McNeese State University for giving me a sabbatical to begin the work; to McNeese State University for awarding me the Shearman Professorship in Liberal Arts in support of the translation project. A special thanks goes to Judy A. Savoie for her critical reading of the project and to my husband, Robert A. Nagem, for his support

during the project.

Translator’s Introduction

The lives of nineteenth-century Parisian courtesans sparkled with glamour, splendor, and excitement. Many of these women were ardently pursued by young and not-so-young admirers, some of whose names are found today in history books and literary annals. With the rise of a wealthy middle class and the presence of a bored, dissolute aristocracy, Paris between  and  was awhirl with dinner parties, masked balls, stage productions, and gambling fever. The young men of this society were vying with one another for the chance to be seen with the most beautiful courtesan of the day, the one whose exploits on the stage or in the dance hall had placed her name on everyone’s lips. For if a young man was seen with this woman, it meant she was his, and showering her with extravagant gifts of jewelry and fancy carriages was a way to keep her. Those men were the dandies of the era and they spent their evenings in pursuit of pleasure and intoxication. Some were talented writers or musicians, some were rich aristocrats (prominent among them was Prince Napoleon, nephew of the emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and cousin of Napoleon III), and others were the sons of merchants and high level bureaucrats. Many of them squandered whole fortunes and often were forced to go into debt, join the army, or emi-grate as a result.

The courtesans so in demand were for the most part women who had managed to rise above the level of common brothel prostitutes through their beauty, cleverness, and a lot of good luck. For women whose op-tions were limited because of their poverty or their social status, such a step up seemed to be a dream come true; the reality of their situation, however, was less than glittering. Once their youthful good looks were gone (no later than age thirty or so in those days) or they became ill (tuberculosis and cholera were still common), they became a burden to their admirer and protector instead of an asset and were cynically discarded. Among these women competition precluded most friendships, so they were left alone to return to the brothel or the streets, or to commit suicide, or to die lacking medical care.

Their notoriety, their glamorous lives, and the fascination these pam-pered and envied women held for the public were the source of inspi-ix

Translator’s Introduction

ration for the writers and musicians of the century. One of the most famous literary renditions of the drama of a courtesan’s life is Alexandre Dumas’s La Dame aux camelias, known in English as Camille. The play was first performed in Paris in  and scandalized many people because of its daring dramatization of the redemption of a courtesan through her love for her young penniless lover. Greta Garbo made the character of Marguerite memorable to twentieth-century moviegoers in the  film Camille. The Italian composer Guiseppe Verdi based his popular opera La Traviata, first performed in , on Dumas’s drama.

Henri Murger, the French writer who took part in the revelries of this demimonde, penned a series of idealized scenes based on his experiences, later published under the title La Vie de bohème in . In 

the scenes were performed on stage with musical accompaniment. This work, which enjoyed great popularity, became a symbol of this free-and-easy social milieu and inspired Giacomo Puccini’s famous 

opera, La Bohème.

Today we are still fascinated by the lives of these merry rakes and their lovely courtesans, but we are also repelled by the double standard that prevailed. Men enjoyed the freedom to navigate between a life of re-spectability, possibly including marriage, and a nightlife of promiscuity and revelry without incurring the condemnation of society. However, many of the courtesans were forever reminded of their past as prostitutes by having to appear periodically before the prefect to sign the

‘‘vile book’ in which they were registered and were unable to appear in respectable company without risking public insult. Unlike the romantic or idealized versions created by the writers of the day, the truth of these women’s lives was not glamorous. That might be why, when one of these famous courtesans published her boldly frank memoirs in , the book caused a scandal and was seized, a fate also suffered by the second edition in .

The author of these memoirs was born Elisabeth-Céleste Vénard on

 December , was dubbed Céleste Mogador during her heyday as a dance hall darling, became Comtesse de Chabrillan when she married Comte Lionel de Chabrillan, and once she had become a widow and a published novelist and playwright was known as either Mme Lionel or Mme de Chabrillan. Several elements combine to make the story of this courtesan exceptional: Mogador’s personality and intelligence, her fortuitous escape from the tyranny of prostitution and dependency on various men for her livelihood to a proper marriage to an aristocrat, and a long life as a reasonably respected woman of letters. This x

Translator’s Introduction

bare-boned Cinderella plot, however, overlooks the fierce struggle, the tenacity, and the fortitude this woman displayed on her journey to re-spectability. Her story as told in her memoirs is not the romantic tale of a courtesan saved by a redeeming love, but a female Bildungsroman, as Claire Marrone justly claims. She states, ‘ Céleste’s journey toward freedom and her quest for a new sense of self constitutes a portrait of the

‘exceptional’ nineteenth-century heroine, one who is more gifted and intelligent than most. . . . Céleste confronts a public that has branded her a ‘fallen woman,’ and hers is a ‘success story.’ Satisfaction only occurs, however, after surmounting serious personal and societal hurdles.’

Mogador wrote her memoirs at the suggestion of her attorney who was defending her in several lawsuits brought against her by the family of her lover and soon-to-be husband, Comte Lionel de Chabrillan. The de Chabrillans were a rich and powerful family descended from the Knights of Dauphiné who in the twentieth century would be pretenders to the crown of Monaco. Lionel’s father, born in , had been attendant to Charles X and married Mlle de Choiseul-Gouffier, daughter of the French envoy to Constantinople. Their elder son, Marie-Olivier-Théodore, held a position at the Council of State. One of their daughters married the Marquis Edouard de Colbert-Maulevrier; the other married the Comte de Montholon-Sémouville. The younger son, Gabriel-Paul-Josselin-Lionel, Mogador’s lover, was the typical spoiled rich boy who had a penchant for gambling. Before his father’s death, which occurred soon after Lionel met Céleste, he had already squandered much of his inheritance. In the family’s opinion, the only solution to his pen-ury was marriage to a wealthy aristocrat. The obstacle to this marriage, however, was Lionel’s attachment to one of the famous courtesans of the day, Céleste Mogador. Although they tried to pretend breaking up, the two were so passionately in love that separation was out of the question.

Extravagant as she was in her taste for pretty things, Mogador possessed a natural instinct for thriftiness and, ironically, ended up lending money to her profligate aristocrat lover, including a large sum that she borrowed from her grandfather. In addition, the two lovers bought a small house near the de Chabrillan family estate in the Berry region and furnished it with some of Céleste’s furniture. The intermingling of their assets and money, as well as Lionel’s decision to make Céleste his proxy while he optimistically sailed to Australia to pan for gold in the New South Wales territory, gave his irate family reason to suspect Céleste’s motives in her attachment to Lionel. They attacked her in court xi

Translator’s Introduction

in Paris and in Châteauroux, the community near the family estate, and in Bourges.

How does an uneducated twenty-five-year-old woman, whose life has consisted of one struggle after another to survive in a world hostile to her kind, defend herself ? In a letter to his mistress before boarding his schooner for Australia, Lionel had recommended Céleste hire a shrewd attorney named Desmarest. Desmarest, who became her lover before her marriage to Lionel and again after Lionel’s death, ably defended the courtesan against the powerful de Chabrillan family, who in its arrogance made a few mistakes. But Mogador was not leaving anything to chance. Unschooled though she was (as a young girl she demonstrated an allergy to studies and was indulged by her mother), Céleste began to educate herself by reading, studying law books, and attending trials so she could keep track of her legal proceedings. On the advice of her attorney, she wrote her memoirs to explain her life. This autobiogra-phy, which Desmarest most certainly helped her write, was shown to Mme de Girardin, a French writer of note who was known as France’s muse; to her husband, Emile de Girardin, a prominent politician; to Camille Doucet, also a writer; and to the great Alexandre Dumas père, the author of The Three Musketeers. Their verdict was unanimous; the readers compared the text to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions and deemed it worthy of publication. An editor was found and the courtesan became a published author.

In a very direct and simple style replete with reported dialogue, the memoirs present a portrait of an extraordinary woman full of intelligence, passion, compassion, and generosity who was fond of glamour and the theater and possessed uncommon courage. In her memoirs Mme de Chabrillan gives her readers a vivid portrait of the life of a courtesan, but also a quite rare first-hand account of the life of a prostitute in a brothel. In these memoirs, the older woman, although not so old yet, only twenty-eight, looks back with a critical eye and candid self-examination on the journey that brought her to her legal troubles.