Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (50 page)

‘‘I do not understand what you are telling me or what you want to tell me my dear Victorine. I need friends who mitigate my violent tendencies, who polish my mind, and that is not your way, on the contrary.’

‘‘In other words you do not want to see me anymore.’

‘As little as possible!’’



Let My Destiny Be Done!

She left without my noticing.

One of my friends came to invite me to dinner with Maria.

‘‘No, I am not going out today. Come dine here tomorrow if you wish; I am having a few people over.’

      

At six o’clock the next day my guests arrived. Since I kept watching the door, I was asked if I expected one more person.

‘‘No, but I am so distracted, I do not know what I am doing.’

It was about nine o’clock when my maid entered looking shaken.

My concierge was right behind her.

‘ Madame! . . . If you knew . . . M. le Comte. . . .’

‘ What?’’ I asked abruptly.

‘‘Well! Madame, he is in Paris. Since he was told you had guests, he did not want to come up. He is in the Passage du Havre.’

There was champagne bubbling in glasses, lights were reflected in the silver platters he had given me, and he was at my door like a beggar.

He had let his beard grow; his face was thin and darker, his eyes were lifeless, his brow was pale. Pain was written all over him.

I wanted to kiss him, but he stopped me with a look.

‘‘You are entertaining; I have disturbed you.’

‘ I invited a few friends to dinner.’

‘‘I have no right to ask you who is at your house. Do you want to come to my hotel? We need to talk business.’

I followed him, not daring to utter a word, but he could see that my soul was at his feet.

Once we were at his hotel he uncovered cages full of darling little birds of all colors.

‘‘For four months,’ he said, ‘‘I have been taking care of them so I could offer them to you. At night I endured the cold so I could protect them from the wind with my blanket.’

I started to cry because he had not kissed me. His hand bore the traces of long scars barely healed. He rolled up his sleeve and showed me my name and the date of his departure tattooed in blue ink on his right arm.

‘‘It is not possible to work a mine alone. Like the others I had a partner, a miner named Faubare, a former sailor who had deserted his ship.

He had heard me addressed as M. le Comte by this captain of industry who had sold me my claim, and he would say to me, ‘Hey there, Lecomte, hand me my pickax!’



Let My Destiny Be Done!

‘ Since my worst aggravation was lacking clean clothes, I would do my wash in the river.

‘ Often it was necessary to wade in up to the waist. This water is a sort of corrosive sludge that burns your skin. I had sores up to my elbows, my legs were peeling, and all our efforts were in vain.

‘‘When Faubare saw me in this condition, he refused to let me continue.

‘‘I would have died there with just the charity of this nice boy if a young man I had met in London had not come to my help. He said to me, ‘I am going to lend you enough to make the trip; go back to France and come back with materials.’

‘At first I would not leave, but it was not very difficult to convince me that this trip was essential to my interests. When I left, I gave Faubare everything I owned: my tent, my tools, my pistol, and the title to the claims.

‘‘Nothing will match his complete surprise when I signed the transfer over to him.

‘ ‘Comte de C

! What? You are . . . but I thought your name was Lecomte. And I was raised on one of your grandfather’s estates!’

‘‘I cried and kissed Faubare, then I went back to Sydney.

‘‘I should have stayed, I should have died over there, but I was thinking of you. You said you were being sued, and I wanted to arrive in time to be useful to you. No one has the right to take back what I gave you when I was rich.’

      

He would not come live with me in the apartment that had partially been his.

I understood the feeling that made him act this way. He was too poor to pay his rent, and I had too much heart to splatter him as I passed in the streets with the carriages he had given me.

Without telling him, I sent everything to be sold off.

Someone who was interested in my apartment was accepted by the owner, so I was released from my lease.

For one thousand francs a year, I rented a ground-floor apartment on Rue de Navarin where I had a little yard for my godchild.

I sold most of what I had left in cashmere shawls and jewelry so I could live near him without being supported by him during his stay in France.

Lionel rented a little room in a hotel on Rue Lafitte, but he spent his days with me. My work in the theater bothered him.



Let My Destiny Be Done!

I had bought back everything that Lionel’s creditors had put up for sale: paintings, belongings, pistols.

A judgment was going to be rendered on the proceedings on appeal at the imperial court of Bourges.

I still could not dispose of my house at Poinçonnet, the pretty little cottage to which the townspeople had given the pretentious name of château, a name that my adversaries insisted on to make trouble.

The Châteauroux magistrates knew better, but in Bourges? I summa-rized these Memoirs for the court. Lionel wrote a note, but he stayed in Paris.

As I entered the lobby of this large palace built by Jacques Coeur,4

the cold from the vaults enveloped me like a shroud.

Hidden behind a pillar, I overheard myself spoken of with such disdain that I lost my head and dropped to my knees in tears.

The deliberations, which lasted three days and caused more stir than if the case had been that of a notorious criminal, were closed, and judgment was due in two weeks. I went back to Paris.

A week after the proceedings in Bourges, my lawsuit at the commercial court in Paris was under way.

It concerned forty thousand francs that Lionel owed me and for which he had written me bills of exchange. The court at Place de la Bourse declared these bills of exchange nothing more than bills of kindness and so could not be regarded seriously.

Then the court in Bourges ruled in my favor.

That was a great day for me and created much confusion among my adversaries.

I was going to appeal the Paris judgment when things took a turn I had not counted on. During my absence my residence was invaded by five persons who were all in league with one another; they took what they wanted among my papers and Lionel’s.

I complained to the public prosecutor; the Châteauroux court sentenced the bailiff who accompanied them in this unfair search to one month suspension and expenses. In his defense all he could say was, ‘‘I was only obeying the orders of the Paris attorney!’’

That was enough to frighten these gentlemen. They returned mortified and embarrassed to ask me to withdraw my complaint; they sent some of their friends to plead with me to stop.

Not only did I get free of the responsibility I was required to bear, but in addition I insisted that the jeweler annul the debt of the young man for whom Lionel had vouched.



Let My Destiny Be Done!

Then, asking them how much he owed them personally, I paid them the whole sum in his name. It amounted to twenty thousand francs.

 

Lionel did all he could to find that sum so he could reimburse me.

No one helped him pay back what he thought he must call his gratitude toward me. And yet he did not owe me anything since part of those debts must have been incurred for me without my knowledge.

Everywhere Lionel faced mistrust and disbelief. He looked for a position to fill upon his return to Australia, and he was turned down. He looked for supplies to take back with him, and he was taken for a captain of industry.

Finally, after much research and perseverance, he found a prominent merchant, M. Bertrand, who was willing to help him. When Lionel had been assured of work, he proposed taking me back to Australia with him.

I admit that I had never entertained the thought of such a trip without fear. If he took me with him, that would cast even more disapproval on him; his family would be aghast and would persist in letting him live in this rejection that had been so painful to him.

But he was determined.

‘‘I have only you in the world,’ he said. ‘‘If you refuse to follow me, I shall not leave. My courage is you! My country will be where you will be. What do I care for the opinion of my relatives? I am glad of this rejection because it sets me free.’

I imposed only one condition, that my adoptive daughter would follow me everywhere. I did not want to entrust her to anyone. His reply was two big kisses on the child’s cheeks.

 ’  

However, I had not dared confess to the existence of these memoirs. Not knowing whether he would come back, I had put them to use. During the worst of my trials, one of my friends, M. A

, asked me to lend

them to him. He passed them around without my knowledge.

When he returned my six volumes, they had been read by ten people.

The first one was M. Camille Doucet.5 His kind and delicate temperament was alarmed by these brutal revelations, but he did not condemn them.

Mme Emile de Girardin, that great lady so compassionate for those who suffer, spent the night reading these pages that had streamed from my hand like tears from my eyes.



Let My Destiny Be Done!

‘‘It does not matter who cried,’ said the author of Marguerite or the Two Loves. ‘‘We must listen to the lamentations of all who suffer.’

M. Dumas read them also and mentioned these memoirs to everyone.

He even included a few lines liable to pique the curiosity and interest of his numerous friends in his paper Le Mousquetaire.

In those days I had the opportunity to meet a woman whose reputation had made a big stir and of whom a witty man, her friend of twenty-five years, said, ‘ She is either a witch or a fairy.’

This same friend, whom we had in common, got in touch with an editor.

When Lionel came back, it was too late for me to stop what was in motion already.

I began preparations for our departure.

My furniture and all that I owned had been sent to Le Havre when Lionel received his nomination to a post he had sought.6

He wanted to turn it down because of me. I refused to leave if he did not accept it. For him it was a matter of his future; mine, I did not worry much about.

I am very afraid of going so far away from my country, my beauty, my youth. Soon they will all be just a memory. Only virtue and goodness can be loved for a long time. To love a woman who grows old, she must be respected, she must be the mother of your children.

What if Lionel would once more become violent and hot tempered as in the past!

Perhaps I will die abandoned over there, under the burning sun that devours plants and men.

In this as in all things, may God’s will be done! May my destiny be fulfilled!

If my memoirs appear after my departure, Lionel will not know about it since we shall be at sea for four months.

In the course of this long crossing, I am going to tempt the mercy of the one who judges us all. Only God condemns on the ocean!



Notes

The following currencies are mentioned throughout the memoirs: centime: coin equal to one hundredth of a franc sou: former coin equal to one twentieth of a franc franc: the basic unit of money in France since the French Revolution pound: former coin

louis: gold coin bearing the image of the king; in the nineteenth century it was worth  pounds

Editor’s notes are translated from the  Les Amis de L’Histoire edition.

.  

. Today rue Aubriot (rd arrondissement, then th arrondissement). Ed.

. An acute, infectious disease affecting the skin or mucous membranes.

Trans.

. Plain outside of Lyon, site of a  revolutionary battle. Trans.

.     

. A glassworks district of Lyon. Trans.

. Name for the silk weavers in Lyon. Trans.

. Archaic: a small room. Trans.

 . . 

. Lace made by hand in the town of Mechlin, Belgium. Trans.

. Any of various silver and gold coins. Trans.

. Faubourg du Temple was then the center of the theatrical world. Trans.

. Today, at this location, the canal is covered by Boulevard Richard-Lenoir.

The Ménilmontant bridge was at the present intersection of that boulevard and Rue Oberkampf. Ed.

. The former Rue Neuve today is an extension Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, which then did not go beyond Rue Payenne. Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine has become Rue de Sévigné. Ed.

. 

. M. Vincent. Trans.

. Insane asylum south of Paris. Trans.



Notes to Pages –

. A women’s house of correction and a former convent built by St. Vincent de Paul in the seventeenth century. Trans.

. 

. A little room with a boarded-up window where no visitors are allowed, not even the guard. Ed.

. The young accused. Trans.

. Women arrested for fighting. Ed.

. Women waiting to be judged. Ed.

. Preferential treatment in a prison (which, originally, was obtained against payment of one pistole, an old monetary unit); name of the prison where such treatment was available. Trans.

.  

. Located on Boulevard d’Enfer, a sort of amusement park frequented by the young. Trans.

. That man was the celebrated French poet Alfred de Musset. Trans.

. On the rue Montorgueil, it is one of the most famous restaurants catering to an international clientele. Trans.

. Today Place Gustave-Toudouze, in the th arrondissement. Ed.

.   

. The Turkish sultana, wife of Suleyman the Magnificent. Trans.

. A sheer fabric of silk and cotton. Trans.