The Girl Who Loved Camellias: The Life and Legend of Marie Duplessis (32 page)

“plush white hat”:
Docteur Lucien-Graux,
Les factures de la dame aux camélias
(Clichy: Paul Dupout, 1934).

“Our cousin Marie”:
In Charles A. Dolph,
The Real “Lady of the Camellias” and Other Women of Quality
(London: T. W. Laurie, 1927).

“Rare lorettes”:
Roqueplan,
Regain.

“I felt myself tapped on the shoulder”:
Roqueplan,
Parisine.

“The Gs have retired”:
Benjamin Disraeli,
Letters
(University of Toronto Press, 1982).

A portrait of him as a student:
Puzzlingly, both Nestor Roqueplan and Agénor’s biographer, Constantin de Grunwald, describe the young duke as blond.

“absolutely without fortune”:
Dorothée Dino,
Chronique de 1
831 à 1862 par la princesse Radziwill
(Paris: Librarie Plon, 1909).

“The Duke de G.”:
Column signed “Méjannes,”
Gil Blas
, 18 October 1887.

“beautiful lion” … “On a day of mourning”:
Matharel de Fiennes,
L’Entr’acte
, 10 and 11 February 1852.

Barely disguised in his memoir:
There are several inaccuracies in Vienne’s account of “Tiche,” who was twenty-two at the time, not “about thirty,” but the description of him as a “beautiful man with an impressive moustache and superb black side whiskers” exactly mirrors the handsome figure in Count d’Orsay’s portrait.

Aware that a sense of shame prevented Lili:
In the 1921 silent film
Camille
, the bisexual movie star
Alla Nazimova introduced a charged encounter with a trusting ingenue played by a pretty actress whom she was pursuing offscreen.

If their intimacy was a sapphic interlude:
The practice of lesbianism by “tribades” was defined by Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet, author of the renowned 1836 survey
Prostitution in 19th-Century Paris
, as “the basest degree of vice of which a human being is capable.” Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet,
La prostitution à Paris au XIXe siècle
(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1981).

“Her presence produced”:
Courrier de la Ville
, 20 May 1842.

“another person” … “the delirium of transformation”:
Stefan Zweig,
Post Office Girl
, trans. Joel Rotenberg. (London: Sort of Books, 2009).

“an oracle of fashion”:
Lady Blessington—whose lover was Ida de Gramont’s brother the Count d’Orsay—gives an amusing account in her memoirs of the duchess taking her shopping. Her dress and bonnet, which she had always considered perfectly wearable, drew a contemptuous look from the couturier at Herbault, “the Temple” of Parisian fashion. “The Duchess, too quick-sighted not to observe his surprise, explained that I had been six years absent from Paris, and only arrived the night before from Italy.” After proceeding to
another boutique to order lace jackets and morning dresses, the pair returned to Lady Blessington’s hotel, “my head filled with notions of the importance of dressing à la mode … and my purse considerably lightened.” Countess of Blessington,
The Idler in France
(London: Henry Colburn, 1841).

“Who can explain”:
Matharel de Fiennes,
L’Entr’acte
, 10 and 11 February 1852.

“Someone you don’t know”:
Letter dated 24 July 1842. Original copy in the Frederick R. Koch Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

“What should I do?”:
Quoted in Baron de Plancy,
Souvenirs et indiscretions d’un disparu
(Paris: Paul Ollendorff, 1892).

“History of His Own Times”:
Quoted in R. R. Madden,
The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessingham
(London: T. C. Newby, 1855), vol. 1.

“a modern Raoul de Courcy”:
Letter of 3 January 1845, in ibid., vol. 2.

“My dear Agénor”:
Frederick R. Koch Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

“Adieu my darling angel, don’t forget me too much, and think sometimes of her”:
Instead of “celle” Marie writes “sel” [salt]—the only conspicuous slip in her otherwise polished, if poorly punctuated, French.

Like the two single Englishwomen:
If Vienne is correct in saying that Marie still lived in the rue d’Antin, then the address she gave in
Badeblatt
of “St Germain” was false (perhaps explained by a remark in a book of Parisian mores that an “Honest Young Girl” would live only in the faubourg Saint-Germain). More confusing is the address in her passport, which is given as 28, rue Mont du Thabor: the Archives de Paris provide no name of owner or lessee of the property but details this only as “a boutique and other residences.” It may, however, have been Guiche’s address—as claimed by the Count de Contades in an article published in
Le Livre
(10 December 1885, no. 72).

But while she was in her element:
On July 25,
Badeblatt
records that the Marquis de Rodes was still at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, but General Duke v. Skarzynsky had left Baden-Baden.

“Do not fear”:
Judith,
La vie d’une grande comédienne.

“He has just rented” Letter of 21 December 1802, in Comte de Nesselrode,
Lettres et papiers, 1760–1850
(Paris:
A. Lehure, 1904), vol. 2.

As special envoy for the czar:
With his customary “tetchy” expression, Stackelberg is seated on the extreme right of Isabey’s sepia drawing, seen remonstrating with a German confederate who is taking notes. The count’s main aim was to unite Poland with Russia—which was successfully achieved.

“He’s a unique character”:
Grande-Duchesse Hélène to Countess Charles de Nesselrode, 26 December 1828. Nesselrode,
Lettres et papiers
, vol. 7.

“The feelings of this father”:
La dame aux camélias
(Paris: Collection Folio Classique, Gallimard, 1975).

“The count, in spite of his great age”:
Alexandre Dumas fils,
Théâtre complet
, vol. 3:
Notes
(Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1898).

“The essential fact”:
Francis Gribble,
Dumas Father and Son
(London: Eveleigh Nash & Grayson, 1930).

“they were taught not only to dance”:
Maria Czapska,
Une famille d’Europe centrale 1772–1914
(Paris: Plon, 1972).

“From this moment”:
Judith,
La vie d’une grande comédienne.

Sporting chain-mail breastplates:
From Lucien-Graux,
Les factures de la dame aux camélias.

Still renting cheap lodgings:
The platonic friendship that the novel’s narrator forms with Sally Bowles, a bohemian English cabaret singer, is founded on the same blend of fondness, trust, and exasperation. She too openly confesses her noctural adventures until he protests, “If you go to bed with every single man in Berlin and come and tell me about it each time, you still won’t convince me that you’re
la Dame aux Camélias
—because, really and truly, you know, you aren’t.” Christopher Isherwood,
Goodbye to Berlin
(London: Hogarth Press, 1939).

Still addressing her as Alphonsine:
A change of name was not unusual among women of the demimonde as a way of protecting the honor of their families, but Alphonsine’s choice was a tribute to her late mother, Marie Plessis. Duplessis—or du Plessis—is a common name in Normandy, though the addition of a prefix may have been Agénor’s idea (the mother of Armand de Guiche was a du Plessis—Françoise-Marguerite). It seems fitting in Marie’s case that the original definition came from the language of courtly love and meant a “park of pleasure.”

“Call it a project, a fantasy”:
Situated just outside the village of Nonant-le-Pin, “Le Plessis” is now a working farm whose owners, M. and Mme Ruault, offer bed-and-breakfast accommodation.

could never confess his feelings:
The English journalist Albert Vandam was someone else whose company she welcomed because he avoided flattering her. Albert Vandam,
An Englishman in Paris
, vol. 1 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1892).

“For some time”:
Judith,
La vie d’une grande comédienne.

“like fits of madness”:
January 1821. Nesselrode,
Lettres et papiers
, vol. 6.

“a duchess could not have smiled differently”:
Dumas fils,
La dame aux camélias.

“retired existence”:
Vandam,
An Englishman in Paris
, vol. 1.

“Mixing only with men of wealth and education”:
Parent-Duchâtelet,
La prostitution à Paris.

“In novels”:
Arsène Houssaye,
Man about Paris
, trans. Henry Kepler (London: Victor Gollancz, 1972).

“the poem of Paris”:
Quoted in Philip Mansel,
Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution 1
814
–
1852
(London: John Murray, 2001).

“culinary glory”:
Jacques Castelnau,
En remontant les grands boulevards
(Paris: Le Livre Contemporain, 1960).

“Nobody was tolerated”:
Claudin,
Mes souvenirs.

“I gave in”:
Quoted in Joanna Richardson,
Rachel
(London: Max Reinhardt, 1956).

“
Le tout Paris”
:
Jules Bertaut,
Le Boulevard
(Paris: Jules Tallandier, 1957).

“Alphonsine Plessis interests me very much”:
Quoted in Vandam,
An Englishman in Paris.

“I wanted to know the refinements”:
Judith,
La vie d’une grande comédienne.

“Whoever dares”:
Quoted in Arsène Houssaye,
La pécheresse
(Paris: M. Lévy Frères, 1863).

“friend of the Café de Paris band”:
Bertaut,
Le Boulevard.

“without intellect, but with a rich instinct”:
Roqueplan,
Parisine.

“but she talked nothing but nonsense”:
Houssaye,
Man about Paris.

His main talent was as an observer:
Vandam’s anecdotal “Notes and Recollections,” entitled
An Englishman in Paris
, was first published anonymously in 1892 and then reprinted several times under his own name.

“something provoking and voluptuous”:
Claudin,
Mes souvenirs.

“The Irish woman”:
Ibid.

Lola’s phony Spanish look:
The painter is likely to have been either Jean-Charles Olivier, a pupil of Delaroche, who exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1840 to 1848, or Louis-Camille d’Olivier, who specialized in portraits and whose work was shown at the Salon between 1848 and 1870.

“Only the large black eyes”:
Paul de Saint-Victor,
Le théâtre contemporain
(Paris: C. Lévy, 1889).

“a woman of unnerving contrasts”:
Jennifer Homans,
Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet
(London: Granta, 2010).

“the devotion of the erotic Boulevard”:
Claudin,
Mes souvenirs.

“Disciples of Eros”:
Roger de Beauvoir,
Voluptueux souvenirs; ou, Le Souper des Douze
(Paris: Romainville, no date).

“the most audacious”:
Castelnau,
En remontant les grands boulevards.

“thrice rich”:
Preface to Roger de Beauvoir,
Les soupers de mon temps
(collection of Jean-Marie Choulet).

“not one had the verve of Roger de Beauvoir”:
Ibid.

“My dear Arvers”:
Quoted in Léon Séché,
Alfred de Musset: L’homme et l’oeuvre—Les camarades
(Paris: Société du
Mercure de France
, 1907).

“At first glance”:
Houssaye,
Man about Paris.

“the consecration of Marie Duplessis”:
Johannes Gros,
Alexandre Dumas et Marie Duplessis
(Paris: Louis Conard, 1923).

“From the stage”:
The Goncourt Journals, 1851–1870
, ed. Lewis Galantière (London: Cassell, 1937).

“All these girls wanted to be actresses”:
Houssaye,
Man about Paris.

Marie studied for a short time:
I’m indebted to Kristine Baril for finding the reference to Marie’s link with Ricourt in Henry Morel,
Le pilori des communeux
(Paris: E. Lachaud, 1871). Ricourt studied painting with Géricault and Delacroix and founded the journal
L’Artiste
before concentrating on teaching drama.

“Mademoiselle, you”:
Charles Monselet.
Le musée secret de Paris
(Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1870).

“The theatre, you understand”:
Le Mousquetaire
, 1 April 1855.

“It’s there above all”:
Saint-Victor,
Le théâtre contemporain.

It was sent to the
distributeur des faveurs
:
Marie addresses the recipient as “My little monsieur Amant,” which may be her misspelling of the Christian name “Amand
”
(she even misspells her own name at the end), or it may be a deliberate play on the word
amant
, French for “lover.”

“Once again I’m asking”:
Quoted in Lucien-Graux,
Les factures de la dame aux camélias.

“Vendu a Madame Dupleci”:
Gros,
Une courtisane romantique.

It is her way of alluding:
In
Frederick Ashton’s ballet
Marguerite and Armand
,
Margot Fonteyn, “for reasons of modesty connected with the novel,” insisted on wearing only white flowers. The designer Cecil Beaton, however, appears not to have known about the tradition linked to the display of red blooms, as he intended, says his biographer Hugo Vickers, “to put red camellias on most of Margot Fonteyn’s gowns.”

And with several friends and acquaintances in common:
George Sand makes no mention of Marie in her journals and letters—not even during the course of her long correspondence with Alexandre Dumas fils. Dumas, though, must have read
Isidora
, as he answered the scholars who had criticized him for spelling camellia with a single ‘l’ with the comment “It’s because Madame Sand used this word as I did, and I would rather write badly with her example than write well with that of others.” Marie, however, may also have been guilty of plagiarism. One of the habitués of the Café de Paris was one M. Lautour-Mezeray, known as “l’homme au camélia” because of his habit of never appearing in public without a single white bloom in his buttonhole (as in Lami’s
Le foyer de la danse
, where he is pictured leaning against a pillar, languidly eyeing a ballerina). She would undoubtedly have known Lautour-Mezeray, who belonged to her set, and they might even have discovered that they came from the same Orne district of Normandy. Albert Vandam implies, however, that he would not have approved of Marie’s “usurpation” of his signature camellia, on which he must have spent no less than fifty thousand francs. “It was more than an ornament to him … he looked upon it as a talisman.” When Dumas fils’s novel appeared, l’homme au camélia voiced his resentment of its title: “It injures my own.”