Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (23 page)

It had never been in my nature to bargain with a situation. I could see that everything was over between the duke and me. I had no desire to humiliate myself in order to be in his good graces again, but I wanted justice from Joséphine.

I wrote to the duke to come talk to me the next day and informed him that he could withdraw his affection afterwards, but that I wanted one last meeting.

He was prompt, to the chagrin of my dear friend who, since the night before, was ill at ease. She wanted to go out, but I asked her to do nothing of the sort. Since she insisted, I forbade her to leave.

‘‘You will leave in a few minutes, but I want to clear up a suspicion.’

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Lise’s Yellow Dress

She straightened up with incredible assurance.

I did not have time to say more; the duke was coming in.

‘‘It is very kind of you to come and I thank you. I do not want to thwart your will. It is possible that I did all that you were told. I could try to justify myself, but if your mind is made up, I would bore you without convincing you. I just want to know the author of all these lovely tales. . . . I see only one woman who is in a position to malign me in your esteem, and that is Joséphine, but I cannot believe that it is she. I met her when she did not know where to eat and was ready to stand on the street corner to offer her beauty to passersby. As you can see, she is wearing my stockings. She would be wearing my shoes if her feet were not so big. She wears my chemises, my dresses, my collars! I have been feeding her for several months. I found her a job. So if it were she, you must admit that it would be very bad and that I was right to ask you to come here.’

Joséphine was not moving. She was certain of the duke’s protection, but he had a fair mind and an honest heart. Seeing me pale with anger, he asked that we go into my room. There he tried his best to calm me down, then, ringing for the servant, he told him to send Joséphine away.

Once she was gone, he told me he had wanted to spare my feelings, that he would always be my friend, and that if ever I needed anything from him all I had to do was write him.

He told me he would be leaving for the country but did not say when he would return.

I was surprised to see the carriage appear the next morning as usual.

The coachman told me that payment had been made for three months.

The pleasure of going around in a carriage helped console me.

I was bored by myself. Almost every day I had dinner with B

.

It was certainly not for the food because I have never liked macaroni, and that was the base for the dishes. I hate cheese, and there was some on everything, but I found lots of company there.

We sang and played wonderful music.

Even the police commissioner decided it was so good, he banned it.

B

had rented a beautiful furnished apartment at  Rue de Richelieu so he could be near the Opera.

When he would sing with his friends, people would gather in the street and on the corner of the boulevard. There would be such a crowd, carriages could not circulate. He was asked to close his windows and not sing so loud.

Often he would show me letters he received about me:



Lise’s Yellow Dress

How can you be so blind as not to see with whom you are in love, and to be connected with a woman who does not even have the respect of the horse she rides on.

I asked him curtly to keep his little love letters to himself.

The day the Hippodrome reopened, the Roman chariot races were a hit. The costumes were magnificent.

I wore a red Phrygian cap adorned with gold stars, a knee-length white tunic trimmed in gold, slit to the hip on the side, red sandals with buskins, an ample coat on my right shoulder, the sleeve pinned on the left shoulder with a cameo brooch.

This routine, in fact, was dangerous and tiring.

After the first one, I went home with a monstrous headache.

B

, who had come to congratulate me on my success, was a nuisance because of his attentions.

The doorbell rang. My maid entered frightened.

‘‘Madame, the duke!’’

‘ Oh! My goodness!’’ I said, startled. ‘ I do not want him to see you here. . . . Go in there.’

I showed him the door to a little cubicle at the foot of my bed.

He frowned and replied bluntly that he did not want to get in.

‘ Get in,’ I said sternly, ‘ or I shall never see you again.’

Just in time because the door was opening.

‘‘You are making me wait in the anteroom,’ said the duke. ‘‘You must have had someone with you then?’’

‘‘No,’ I replied pointing to a foot bath still near the fireplace. ‘‘I did not want to receive you barefooted. . . .’

‘‘What does that matter? You handled your chariot admirably! I promised my friends to have you dine with them tonight.’

‘‘I am sorry, but the excitement and the bouncing on the chariot gave me a headache.’

‘ Oh, my dear! I promised. You must come.’

‘ I must! . . . All you great lords are really amazing! I find ‘you must’

really charming! How do you know I do not have another engagement?

I have not heard from you in two weeks.’

‘‘I am rich enough to have you go back on your word to others. Get dressed and be at the Café Anglais at six.’

He left without waiting for my answer.

B

got out of his cubicle, seething with anger and his eyes fixed on the door.



Lise’s Yellow Dress

‘ To live like that, one cannot have a heart! . . . And I thought you had a big one! This man does not love you!’’

‘‘You are not telling me anything I do not already know, but what can I do? . . . I need a small fortune to achieve a goal I cannot tell you about.’

‘‘Why do you not settle down? This life is disgraceful. Go to this dinner. The order was explicit. . . . I shall accompany you there if you wish and then I shall take leave of you forever at the door.’

Although it was said in bad French, the declaration touched me deeply, but it was not in my nature to give in.

‘ Take heed, my friend. You are saying that if I go to this dinner, you will not see me anymore. It is not because of this ultimatum that I give in. I am not going because I do not want or cannot go. I shall write the duke a polite letter.’

And then I dryly asked B

to let me rest.

The duke came the next day to check on me. He was cold and dour.

Used to making everything bend before his will, he could not understand the word ‘‘impossible.’ I believe however that because of my nature and my frequent opposition to some of his whims, he grew to have a certain affection for me.

   

I fell back into deep despair. Around me I could see rising and falling all those women whose fates I had envied from afar. The old ones are devoid of everything. The young ones have a gorgeous wardrobe that does not belong to them most of the time. If they were to die, not a single piece of fabric would be found in their armoires to bury them in.

A diversion arose to distract me from the discouragement I was about to let myself sink into.

Lise often went horseback riding.

She was quite happy. She had an apartment at  Rue Saint-George.

She too had plunged into a courtly affair. Her new lover was Count de V

.

One day, coming out of the Hippodrome, I saw a lot of people in groups.

‘ Sir, can you tell me what is going on?’’

‘An accident, but the loss is not great.’

‘ What happened?’

‘ Oh,’ he replied halfway laughing, ‘‘it is Pomaré who was showing off among the carriages. Her horse got spooked and took off.’

Some other people who were coming from the fence came up to me



Lise’s Yellow Dress

to say, ‘ Oh! The poor woman! She tried to jump off, her foot got caught in the stirrup, and the horse dragged her so far her head is injured.’

I jumped in my carriage and went in the direction indicated. There was a gathering around blood stains. I told the coachman, ‘ To Rue Saint-Georges!’’

Her maid told me she had been gone since morning dressed in her street clothes. That did not mean anything because her amazon outfit was at the stables, Rue Duphot.

At the stables I was assured that she had not been seen all day. I was shown her outfit. I went home to change. I was drenched with perspiration. I was about to go back out, when the doorbell rang. It was Lise!

After hugging her tight, I told her the rumor going around and the fright I had. I did not leave her for two days.

The poor woman who fell off her horse died of her injuries.

Lise told me a lot of good things about her lover, that his name was Ernest, and introduced him to me.

Her sister was pregnant and had come to live with her to receive better care.

The four of us had dinner.

M. Ernest was a forty-five-year-old man, blond, and partially bald.

He wore his hair long and brought it back over his head to hide the bare parts.

Eulalie was close to giving birth. She had Lise, who was going to be the godmother, knit her baby clothes. A cradle was purchased and Camille had requested to be the godfather.

She told me about a ball she had to attend at Passy and asked me to come by for her.

I told her I would, but that, since it was a week away, if she changed her mind to let me know.

After a week, not hearing from her, I went to see her at two o’clock.

‘‘Well, are you still going?’’

‘ Oh, certainly,’ she said. ‘ Come in here, I am arranging the flowers for my hair.’

I entered her dressing room. I saw burning candles. Her sister was lying on a sofa that doubled as a bed.

‘Are you sick?’’

‘‘Yes,’ she said, ‘ but it is nothing.’

‘‘Look,’ said Lise, ‘‘I am going to wear these pomegranate flowers.’

I saw other flowers strewn on the cradle. I felt something like the head of a child, and I saw a little cross and blessed palms.



Lise’s Yellow Dress

‘‘What does this mean?’’

‘‘My sister miscarried last night. It is a girl. She will be buried tomorrow.’

I backed out of the room and said, ‘ Come by for me if you wish, I shall not be coming back here.’

She arrived that night, all set, seemingly unaware that death resided with her.



13

o

A Chariot Race

An Accident—‘‘Why would I give you

a raise?’’—Quarrelsome Deligny

   July and the heat was unbearable, making my task at the Hippodrome very unpleasant.

I had already had two or three falls with my horses. Twice I had to be bled. All that had exhausted me.

I earned very little. I decided to ask for a raise. Would I get it? They had more women than they needed because many offered their services for free to make a name for themselves. They had never received any training, but what did that matter to the administrators, so long as they made money? They despise the ones who make them rich. If it were not for the police keeping an eye on them, they would get four out of ten killed. No effort was made to avoid accidents. We were given lame horses who fell when pushed. While performing the Berny Cross, an Englishman and his horse fell in the center ditch, which was about twelve feet deep. The man passed out. His teeth were broken and he had a large gaping wound on his forehead. The doctor ordered him to lie down. One of the directors, more concerned about the possibility of the routine being banned because it was dangerous, said, ‘‘Put him on a stretcher and take him to the hospital.’

‘‘How disgraceful!’’ I said. ‘ That is the fate that awaits us if we have no other resources. Not only is our pay docked when we are sick, but those who take a fall like this, if they are not killed on the spot, are forced to die in misery. Take this poor man to my apartment. I shall take care of him and put these callous hearts to shame.’

One of the directors admitted I was right and ordered the wounded man taken to his house. He was a good soul with exceptional generosity.

The name of Ferdinand Laloue has stayed in the memory of those he has helped and those who have known him.



A Chariot Race

To perform this routine, one has to be a good jockey. Since the good ones are expensive, they hire shady characters who cannot stay in one place and who are almost always tipsy.

Two weeks earlier I was asked to try out a steeplechase horse. To train him I was provided with two jockeys to sit by me. They were dead drunk. They took off at such speed that my horse got excited and made me go around eight or ten times. I jumped over twenty three-and-a-half-foot hurdles. My hands were bleeding.

It was not out of pure enjoyment that I endangered myself in this way. If I could have done otherwise, I would have quit the Hippodrome with no regrets.

 

The race promised to be impressive. The chariots were taking turns passing each other. I had overtaken Louise and I was about to overtake Angèle. It was the last lap.

In the curve near the stables, out of the corner of my eye I saw Louise riding very close to me. I was about to whip my horses to spur them on when I felt a powerful shock.

Louise had gotten her wheel tangled with the back end of my chariot.

If she had stopped immediately, the cramp could have pulled out of the rims, but she whipped her horses to pass me, and, dragging me with her, caused me to whirl around. My chariot’s shaft jabbed my horse on the right; he reared against a post, emitting an earsplitting whinny, then fell over backwards dragging the other horse down with him, which, trying to get back up, pulled sideways and overturned my chariot.

I was still holding on to the reins, but one of the struggling horses hit my shoulder. I let go, stunned by the pain. I could hear jumbled sounds.

‘ She is dead!’’

The horses were dragging me face down in the dirt. Twice something ran over my leg.

Someone stopped the struggling horses. One had a broken leg and had to be destroyed to put an end to its cries of pain.

The scene must have been excruciating for the spectators. Some women were crying, others had fainted. The audience had climbed on top of the fences and was questioning the doctors who surrounded me.