Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (13 page)

Then, pulling out his purse, he gave me two francs.

M. Régnier’s kindness and compassion did not protect him from grudges.

Many times I heard death threats leveled against him.

In those days, the women who were arrested were taken to his office.

In their presence he announced the administrative punishment imposed on them.

One of these women threw a huge marble paperweight at his face, which luckily did not hit him.

It is in fact since then that this practice has been modified, and that the condemned learn the duration of their time only when they get to Saint-Lazare.

I heard it said, not by one woman, but by hundreds, ‘ Oh! If there is a revolution, we shall take Régnier.’

On his orders, I was sent to the pistole. It was a four-foot-square room with a barred window, a trestle bed, and a little table.



Denise

If they pay one franc a day, all prisoners have the right to go to the pistole. Many prefer the common rooms; they are not as somber as this cell.

At eleven o’clock I was called. I went into M. Régnier’s office, and my mother was there.

‘ You are leaving now, my child. Your mother promises to take good care of you. Now, be careful. Do not let yourself be led astray by any of these women that you have met here, because if you come back here, you will find in me a very stern judge. I would have to send you to the Saint-Michel convent until you are twenty-one.’



7

o

The Fall

‘‘I shall leave him, but . . .’ —A Trap—Her Sixteenth Birthday—Neither Depravity nor Pleasure—Vile Book—

A Lunatic—Premature Despair and Belated Remorse—

Smallpox—‘‘Coachman, to Saint-Louis!’’

   fragrant to me. I breathed it in as if it were an intoxicating flower.

I was yanked from my rapture by my mother pulling on my arm, who said, ‘‘Where are you going? This is not the way.’

‘ Oh! Forgive me, dear mother,’ I said kissing her several times, ‘ forgive me! I must look like a mad woman, but it feels so good to be free!’’

‘‘I am very glad that you prize your freedom so, then maybe you will be good from now on.’

I was not paying attention to what she was saying.

‘‘We are going to go home. You will work with me.’

‘‘Yes, Maman.’

‘ Do not be ugly with poor Vincent.’

That drew me out of my reverie.

‘And,’ she said, ‘ try to live in peace with him, for the love of me.’

‘ Oh yes, you know only what you have been told. I am going to tell you the truth.’

During my narration, she turned red, pale, cried. I had just made her suffer terribly.

‘    ,  . . .’

We had arrived. Vincent was at that window where I had gotten hurt.

It all came back to me at the sight of that house and the air was stifling.

But finally I went up the stairs with determination.

I went in looking Vincent straight in the eyes. I thought he would flinch, but not a muscle in his face moved.



The Fall

My mother turned toward me and said, ‘All right now, repeat in front of him what you told me on the way here.’

It was my turn to turn pale and lose my composure. I saw my mother’s face brighten. She doubted me. I was appalled.

I walked on, head held high, eyes forward. Vincent showed no emotion.

‘‘Have you become mute? Why do you not say why I left here? Why do you not say what happened?’’

And I repeated everything I had told my mother.

Vincent became even more impassive. ‘‘I do not have much to say.

You know that your daughter hates me. I, on the other hand, have known her since she was a child and I love her very much. She came home looking very sad, and I tried to comfort her. I do not know what she might have interpreted, but she ran away.’

My mother must have been afraid of the state she saw me in, because she asked him to leave us alone.

He picked up his hat and walked by me. On his lips was a smile that infuriated me.

‘‘You believe him instead of me, right? Well, he can have my place.

I do not want to live here anymore. You are set on keeping him. I am leaving.’

My mother positioned herself in front of the door.

‘‘Now, Céleste, listen to me.’

‘‘No, not if you do not throw this man out.’

‘‘Well, yes, I shall leave him, but listen to me. He just inherited a few thousand francs and he promised them to me so I can get settled. Be patient for a little while.’

I was at the end of my strength. The sleepless nights, the events of the past few weeks had exhausted me. These notions of self-interest and calculations my mother was telling me about so she could delay making a decision dulled my heart. In those days I did not understand what power this emotion called love can have over the soul of women of her age. My mother was forty-seven then. I stopped fighting. That was all my mother wanted. She kissed me with more warmth than she had in a long time.

I went to bed before Vincent returned, and when I got up, he had already left. I avoided all possibilities of seeing him, because when we met there were unending quarrels.

One day he came back during the day, and finding me alone he had the gall to say to me, ‘ Come on, now, let me kiss you, and stop pout-

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The Fall

ing. I told you your mother would not believe you. If you wish, there is still time.’

‘‘Listen,’ I said, ‘ someone is coming up, I think it is my mother. . . .

Dear mother, come here and give me some advice. This is what this man was proposing just a minute ago. What do you think I should do?’’

‘‘No doubt about it, your daughter is crazy,’ he said. ‘ She will invent anything to put us on bad terms.’

My mother did not reply.

‘‘Now, really,’ I said, ‘‘you promised me you would leave him. Do you think I would have stayed here without that promise?’’

My mother became angry at me, saying that she was tired of all this, and that those who wanted to leave were free to do so.

I walked toward the door. Vincent positioned himself in front of me and prevented me from going out.

 

Where could I have gone? I did not know anyone. I had no family in Paris.

I went back to my cabinet. Through the window I saw him kissing my mother.

‘ Oh! If only I could run away, if only I were sixteen!’’

An awful idea had just crossed my mind, and I went to sleep calculat-ing my age to the day.

After each quarrel, I would say, ‘‘Fine, fine! Just two more months, just two more weeks, and I shall leave you and never see you again. I shall come back rich and I shall not need you anymore.’

Having witnessed only the narrowest and most miserable side of life, I yearned to move on toward a wider horizon that I filled with ghosts evoked from all that I had seen on the stages of the boulevard theaters!

Then a dreadful idea came to me. Before leaving everything, I wanted to try one last test.

‘‘You see,’ I told my mother, ‘‘I want to convince you. Pretend to spend the day out and hide in my room. Listen and you will know whether I lied to you.’

She hesitated for a long time, then finally she consented. We agreed on everything for the next day.

Vincent came in at nine.

‘ Where is your mother?’ he asked.

‘ She is not back.’

He walked around the room without saying a word, then picked up a book.



The Fall

I looked toward my cabinet with anxiety, thinking that my mother must be rejoicing to see the test turn against me.

‘‘You were right,’ I said, ‘‘when you said she would not believe me.

You must have put a spell on her. If I had loved you as much as she loves you, what would have happened to you?’’

He looked at me without responding. I thought I saw my curtain move. I moved closer to him.

‘‘You do not tell me anything anymore. You see that I was right not to give in. If I had left with you, you would already be tired of me.’

‘ Try it,’ he said.

‘‘Try what?’’

‘ To follow me, to be my mistress.’

‘‘Well, what about Maman?’’

‘‘Pooh! She will get over it.’

We heard a noise in my room. He looked at me and I started to laugh without answering him.

He rushed to open the door. My mother had fallen sideways. He carried her to her bed. She had lost consciousness.

And he was truly sad. He kissed her, asked for her forgiveness. ‘ Oh,’

he shouted, ‘‘I am a scoundrel! Poor woman! I killed her. Please, God, forgive me!’’

My mother opened her eyes and looked around. ‘‘Leave,’ she told us.

‘‘Leave, both of you. I want to be alone.’

Only Vincent heeded her request.

‘ Where do you want me to go,’ I said.

And I sat down.

She hid her face.

My heart was jumping for joy in my chest. It seemed to me that I had regained my rightful place in the house. Alas! I did not know Vincent yet. Not only did he not leave, but I am certain he did not even entertain that likelihood.

There are some people one cannot ever get rid of, and he was one of them.

My mother kept to her bed for a week. He took care of her the whole time with passionate tenderness. To draw him away from her bed, I would have had to cause a scandal. I would have been bold enough, because I was not scared of him. But in the state she was in, such a scene would have killed my mother.

She would tell him to go away, would reproach him bitterly. All of that would just slide off him. He would beg my mother to forgive him.



The Fall

He would get on his knees before her and make solemn promises for a beautiful future. He even asked me to intercede for him!

My mother was gently relenting . . . in his favor.

He had asked for some time to put his affairs in order, but he was dragging things out and my mother was not pressing him anymore. All hope was lost. He was the winner.

  

I was sixteen less one month! . . .

There was talk of marrying me to a laborer, to be rid of me. I refused. I disliked the man in question. Laborers scared me. The insurrection scenes in Lyon were still fresh in my mind. For me, one who says ‘ laborer,’ says ‘‘insurgent,’ an absurd notion that I would not rid myself of until many years later.

One more month went by. I was sixteen . . . and my mind was made up.

I am dealing with an atrocious event and a dreadful day in my life.

There has been in my life one really horrid day. In the morning I was pure. In the evening I was ruined.

The next day I would have given half my life to take back the step I had taken, but there are ladders we can never go back up. . . .

It is impossible to be more humble than I have been, and than I still am, before the sacred quality of the virtues I did not have the strength to exercise.

Although I never got what is called an elementary education, I have always liked to be aware of my thoughts.

But having reached this point, I realize that if there are some horrible memories, by the same token there are some things that are very difficult to confess.

I do not know how public these pages will be, but even if they have only one reader, I do not want that person to be able to accuse me of having concealed a single shameful act of my life.

The emotion that will guide me through this narration is much superior to the various motives that inspired my conduct. I am going to try to recount, as chastely as possible, the most unchaste life in the world.

I left the house promising myself not to come back if I found Denise where I went looking for her.

Going down the stairs I felt my pocket to make sure my fortune—

five francs—was still there.

Outside there was a fine mist. I had put on my best attire, and to



The Fall

protect my bonnet, I hailed a small carriage. I gave the coachman the address. When he heard the name and number of the street, he was dumbfounded.

‘ Do you not know where that is?’

‘ Oh, yes!’’ he replied, laughing.

The route seemed long. We arrived in front of a lovely house, and the coachman helped me down.

‘‘Is that really where you are going?’’

‘‘I think so,’ I replied, embarrassed. ‘‘Would you wait five minutes for me? . . .’

He nodded and sat on his running board, which was still down. Past a carriage entrance I found an iron gate, which I opened. A bell tinkled.

At the far end of the courtyard were huge kitchens. I was about to go back out because Denise could not possibly live in such a beautiful house, but the moment I pushed the door, a voice said to me, ‘‘Who are you looking for?’’

‘‘Excuse me, madame, I am looking for Mlle Denise. Do you know if she lives here?’’

‘‘I do not know. I do not know the women. I never go upstairs, I am the cook. Fanny! . . . Wait a minute, the chambermaid is coming down.’

Mlle Fanny appeared. She seemed very unpleasant. However, after looking me over, she addressed me in a very gentle tone.

‘‘Who are you looking for?’’

‘‘I am looking for Mlle Denise.’

‘‘I do not know that name. Wait here a minute,’ she told me, pointing to the peristyle at the bottom of the stairs. ‘‘I shall have you speak to Madame.’

I entered. A little later, I heard voices on the mezzanine discuss-ing me.

‘‘Is she pleasant?’’

‘ Better than that.’

‘ Have her come up.’

Mlle Fanny came to get me and led me into a pretty little room.

A tall, fat woman entered at the same time, but through another door.

Her hair was gray, coiled around her head and tied with a little chain adorned with diamonds and rubies. Her hands, sparkling with rings, leaned on each piece of furniture because her size made walking difficult. She was covered in silk and lace.

She asked me for the surname of the person I called Denise. . . . I told her.



The Fall

‘‘Yes, she is here, but what do you want with her?’’

‘‘I would like to see her, to kiss her.’

‘ Thank goodness. I was afraid you had come to try to take her away.