Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (11 page)

Twice he asked my name without my being able to answer. He decided to look at me and, probably noticing that I was in no state to speak, he said more gently, ‘ Calm down. . . . You were arrested yesterday with a bad woman who was giving you shelter so she could corrupt you. What did she advise you to do? What did you see at her house?’’

Thinking about this poor girl who had compromised herself out of the goodness of her heart, I had recovered and answered firmly.

He looked at me with suspicion.

‘‘Were you in a state of vagrancy when she found you? Why did you not go home to your mother’s?’’

He looked at me as if he wanted to read deep into my soul. Apparently this examination went in my favor because he then said, ‘‘I shall have to keep you until she comes. I shall send an aide.’

He rang and someone came to get me. Thérèse was waiting for me impatiently.

‘ So,’ she said, ‘‘what happened?’’

‘‘I have to wait for my mother here.’

Thérèse was called. I shook her hand.

She came back all cheerful: she was going to leave! This thought woke me up. I looked at her with envy: she was free, and I had to stay.

After roll call we went into the house of detention.

When we walked through this cursed door and I heard it shut behind me, it seemed like its hinges had just crushed my heart.

  

The door opened and someone called out, ‘ Céleste!’’ I thought they were coming to get me and I ran to the door. I was handed a package and a piece of paper. I read:



Thérèse

My dear Céleste, do not worry, I am going to see your mother. I am sending you a comb, some soap, a towel, a scarf. I am leaving but I shall not forget you. I am sorry I am what I am. You will soon hear from me.

Thérèse

Night was falling and we arranged the mattresses on the floor like cots. The singer was gone, and there were two new ones—two children—who began to quarrel. They were sisters.

‘‘It is your fault. I told you to be careful.’

‘‘No, it is not my fault. The lady had wrapped her purse strap twice around the chair rung and I thought it was loose. The chair moved and the old woman woke up. I brought you the purse. She let me do it and then she had us arrested.’

‘‘Be sure to say you found it on the floor, or you will see!’’

And, saying this, she walked toward her. The little one backed up, and I let her hide behind me.

‘‘Why not leave this little girl alone. Are you planning to beat her now?’’

She started to hurl insults at me and wanted to get through anyway.

I have never had much endurance, but I have always been strong: with one shove, I sent her rolling to the other end of the room.

Luckily for her, the mattresses were spread out, but she returned to the attack, furious, saying that she would stab me with a knife.

‘ Try it,’ said my beggar. ‘‘I am going to call, and I shall say why you want to beat us.’

I stayed there six days and six nights, without news, without a word.

Finally the four of us were sent for. We were told to take all our things, that we were leaving the house of detention.

I saw a large car, like a bus, but with wire mesh all around it.

Someone tugged at my skirt: it was Thérèse, who, huddled on the stairs, watched me leave.

‘ Oh,’ I said, ‘ have you not seen my mother?’’

‘‘No, she has not returned and I could not write you: there are no letters in correction. Be patient, I shall not forget you. This man knows where you are.1 I told him. He did not want to give me your mother’s address, but I am watching for her return.’

The women were coming out so she ran off.

‘‘Well!’’ The warden told the municipal guard, ‘‘Why do you let the prisoners talk?’’

‘‘Really now! Do they look like state prisoners?’’



Thérèse

‘‘You must be joking! I would rather have traitors than these women.

Some are quite devilish! Come on, aboard. . . .’

And he pushed me up.

I was horrified to find myself in this sort of iron cage. I wanted to throw myself out of it.

‘ I do not want to stay in here!’ I shouted. . . .

And I was struggling among five or six women.

‘‘If you do not sit still, I shall have you sent to solitary confinement,’

said the guard.

He pushed the door saying, ‘ She does not belong in prison, she belongs in Charenton.’ 2

The car departed. I rolled under the others’ feet. I felt someone pick me up and try to make me sit down. I did not fight back, but I started to cry.

‘ Cry,’ said my little beggar, ‘ cry, it will make you feel better.’

I had not noticed her yet in the car. Her presence was a comfort and I hugged her tight.

The car stopped and we heard a voice shout, ‘ The door, please!’’

We were entering Saint-Lazare! 3



6

o

Denise

Saint-Lazare—Special Friendships—Fair Marie—

Galley Slaves at Prayer—Corrupting Prison—A Not-Very-Helpful M. Vincent—To the Pistole

    , ‘‘Here comes the paddy wagon, come see the new ones. Are there many?’’

Another voice, probably that of our driver, answered, ‘‘In fact, I am full up.’

We got out. One man came toward us. He was handed a sheet of paper.

‘ Oh,’ he said, ‘ there are some candidates for the house of correction.

Where are the thieves?’’

The thought that I could be confused with them made me look toward the two sisters.

We went through gates, courtyards, halls, and then up to a large room.

There was a double wire fence in the center. It was a visiting room where we could talk only from a distance.

The condemned women did not yet know the length of their sentence.

‘‘I hope I have only one month!’’ one said. ‘‘I had a fight with my man at the wine merchant shop.’

‘ Oh,’ an old one whispered, ‘‘I have only one fear, that my sentence will be too short. I have been out just one week and I have no shelter.

I am happy only at Saint-Lazare.’

I had a chill at the thought that it was possible to like a prison. I asked one woman, ‘‘Madame, do you know, when you are sent to the house of correction, how long you have to stay there?’’



Denise

‘‘It depends on your age. They can keep you until you are twenty-one.’

‘ Six years here!’ I exclaimed. . . . ‘ Oh! You must be saying that to scare me.’

I had been addressing a girl of the Cité, one of those dreadful women, heartless, soulless, who glory in their vices, who tell each other, ‘‘I drank a whole bottle of brandy! I stabbed or was stabbed this many times! My lover is a famous thief.’ These women wear a scarf over the ear and other rallying signs. Often there are very dangerous fights between them and the guards.

I had addressed one of these creatures, so she took pleasure in torturing me.

‘All those little tramps,’ she said out loud, ‘ are not good for us. You are done for! It will be a long while before you get to laugh again!’’

-

It was nighttime. The man who came in turned up the light so he could see us, and recognizing several faces, he said, ‘ Oh! A few regulars!’’

We were led into an office, and each name was called out one after the other.

‘‘La Huche!’’

The woman of the Cité moved forward, head held high, one fist on her hip.

‘‘La Huche, for fighting on a public street, three months.’

She ran at the guard, fists clenched. The attendants took her away.

She was fuming.

‘ One week in solitary confinement,’ said the guard, still pale, as he was writing at the bottom of the sheet.

And so each one’s sheet was read. Then it was the two sisters’ turn.

‘ Thion girls! For stealing a lady’s purse on the Champs-Elysées, three years in reformatory.’

‘ Take them where the little ones are.’

That left only me and the beggar.

‘‘Which of you is called Céleste?’’

‘‘I am, monsieur,’ I said approaching the light.

‘ You have never been arrested?’’

‘ No, monsieur.’

‘ Take these two to the insubordinates’ section,’ he told the boy. ‘‘You will recommend this Céleste.’

Then he added, as if he were speaking to himself, ‘Although what



Denise

is the use. If she is only partially lost now, amid that lot she will be totally lost.’

We went around lots of corners before reaching a huge hallway. All along it were small numbered doors. Each one of us was made to enter a cell.

I felt my way in and found an iron bed. I sat on it and finally fell asleep with my clothes on.

It was almost dawn when I was awakened by someone speaking in hushed tones.

In each cell there was a large square window without a glass pane, just wire mesh. That window was on the hallway side and it was there that the voices were coming from.

‘‘I say, go away,’ said a voice. ‘‘You know very well that it is forbidden to speak to the insubordinates. But if you want to add a month to your sentence, go ahead.’

Complete silence! I did not go back to sleep. A bell rang. My door opened and a woman entered carrying things.

She told me to undress and made me put on the house shift. On the chest were the words ‘ Saint-Lazare Prison.’

‘ Stretch your arms out so you can try on this dress.’

And then she slipped some sort of gray homespun sack on me, a blue apron with thousands of stripes, a three-piece black wool bonnet, without lace, and a cotton print fichu. She took the liberty of keeping my shoes.

We went up to what is called the refectory. There were three very long tables with wooden benches on each side.

We said a prayer together, then we were served some soup. We moved to a classroom designed so we could take writing, voice, and math lessons. Those lasted two hours. Then we went to a workshop where we embroidered crepe de chine.

Between the two windows was an elevated desk where the mistress, Mlle Bénard, was seated. She was approximately thirty years old and too gentle, too nice for the devils she had to instruct.

At noon we had another meal, after which we went downstairs for recess in some sort of treeless and flowerless enclosure with fifty-foot-high walls around it.

We would play all sorts of games. The oldest girls would pair off and rarely spoke to the younger ones. Their love for each other was so strong they would become jealous.



 

Among us was a Denise who from the first day had become attached to me. She would give me little presents: sometimes it was a needle, sometimes feathers.

One day her friend became so jealous she made a scene. Mlle Bénard asked me not to speak to Denise anymore.

She would write to me. One day one of her letters was found and she was put in the isolation room.1 When she came out a week later, she came to my loom, kissed me, and said, ‘ They can put me in the isolation room my whole life, but that will not prevent me from loving you always.’

Mlle Bénard scolded me for letting myself be kissed like that.

That Denise had a boy’s disposition. Her look was bold and daring.

Nothing scared her. When she was being punished, she would sing.

Since she was forbidden to speak to me, she would make dates on the sly. She was so affectionate with me that I had become attached to her, and instead of avoiding ways of seeing her, I looked for them.

It was now my turn to feel dejected when she would speak to others.

I would pout.

She would send me charming drawings she made with the multi-colored flat silks that we used to embroider shawls. Or else she would draw flowers or birds on white paper, and we would exchange them.

The mistress did not see a thing.

When in the evening, after work, the others played, I would go sit by a window to listen to the carriages going by and the merchants shouting.

The Normands selling lettuce in baskets seemed so happy to be free!

Denise would come near me and say, ‘‘Ingrate! You would like to leave! To abandon me. What do you care that I have to stay here?’’

Then she would cry.

‘‘It is true that I would like to leave. I shall try to help you go also.’

‘ Oh! Me, not a chance. I still have six months. I want to be registered.

You have to be sixteen. If no one comes for you, you can do the same.

I know some nice houses where we could make lots of money.’

She gave me the address of the one where she wanted to go.

I did not pay attention to it—not then.

‘‘You will come see me, of course?’’

She was so insistent that I promised I would.

Still, I told her to give up this idea. I was thinking of Thérèse.

‘ You are wrong,’ she said. ‘ You have seen only the lower class of these women, the ugly and the dumb. But I have known some who had



Denise

lovely apartments, jewelry, carriages, who associated only with people from high society. What will it get you to marry a laborer who will beat you or make you work for two. And besides, you have been here. No matter what you do, that will be held against you.’

All she had told me danced through my head all night. I saw myself rich, covered with jewels and lace. I looked in my little shard of mirror.

I was truly pretty, and yet my attire was not flattering.

 

It was a Sunday. As usual we went to mass. Every Saint-Lazare group was there, but separated.

The chapel was built somewhat like the auditorium of the Théâtre Chantereine. On each side of the altar there was a staircase leading up to a balcony enclosed with wire mesh. On one side were the young thieves who were called les petites jugées.2 On the other side, where I was, were the insubordinates. The jugées and the insubordinates deeply reviled each other. We were closely supervised. Communication was severely punished.

The space below was also set up like a theater. There were sections, the loges, the orchestra pit, and the orchestra seats.

Behind me, Denise was giving me explanations.

‘‘Look, those who are entering now and who are being placed in front are the adulteresses and the batteries.3 The ones being placed on the other side are the prévention.4 Some have been here for six months. Perhaps they will be acquitted!’’