Strapless (23 page)

 

Caran d’Ache was the assumed name of Emmanuel Poiré, a Russian who moved to France and gained fame with his satirical cartoons. By mentioning Caran d’Ache and Canova, Montesquiou was commenting that Amélie had lost her figure and was a more appropriate subject for caricatures than compliments. With his barbed reference to her “golden trowel,” he was accusing her of putting on her makeup with a shovel.

Perhaps Amélie did have a heavy hand when it came to her toilette. But she was trying to compensate for age, and for the fact that she was the mother of a grown woman. Her daughter Louise, at twenty-two, was as beautiful as her mother had been at the same age, and much more animated. No one ever described Louise as resembling a statue.

Louise’s combination of good looks and lively personality attracted the interest of Olivier Jallu, a lawyer who was rising in French politics. They were married in 1901. Amélie apparently did not attend the wedding—her signature is nowhere to be found on the marriage certificate. Yet her absence on this significant day seems not to have affected her relationship with her daughter: Amélie and Louise remained close, and continued to summer together at Les Chênes every year.

After Louise left home to live with her husband in Paris, Amélie and Pedro examined their relationship, which for both had always been a union of convenience. They had had small estrangements over the years, first spending evenings apart, then taking separate vacations. Amélie routinely traveled to Nice and other fashionable destinations in France, while Pedro retained his taste for South America. He traveled often to Chile, and even wrote a monograph on Franco-Chilean arbitrage, an important study that established him as an expert in the field.

The Gautreaus decided that their separate lives dictated separate residences. In the new arrangement, Pedro remained on the Rue Jouffroy, while Amélie moved into an apartment building on the Rue de la Tour, a narrow street leading to the Eiffel Tower. Her new address was not as prestigious as the previous: the building had an undeniable bourgeois air about it, with its utilitarian entrance and unadorned façade. But there was one good feature—a large courtyard and garden that perhaps reminded Amélie of the Avegno residence in New Orleans.

Essentially single, a woman of a certain age, and the mother of a married daughter who was poised to have her own children, Amélie seemed condemned to the unfortunate status of forgotten matron. More than a decade would pass before she received an unexpected reprieve. In 1905, after refusing many requests to exhibit
Madame X
over the past twenty years, Sargent had finally been persuaded to show the painting at the Carfax Gallery in London. The news reached Amélie, and although she had no plans to attend the show, she must have experienced conflicting emotions when she imagined the public showing: she worried that there might be another controversy, yet at the same time she desired the attention the portrait would bring her.

Madame X
had developed a cult following over the years, its reputation promoted by insiders who had seen the portrait in Sargent’s studio and by the 1903 publication of a book of photogravures of Sargent’s works. The Carfax exhibition generated fresh interest in the painting, inspiring a new generation of critics to approach it without the prejudices of the academy or the hypocrisy of the previous years. Roger Fry, reviewing the show for
Athenaeum,
called the portrait a masterpiece.

Kaiser Wilhelm II saw the exhibition and pronounced
Madame X
his favorite painting. He knew Amélie from diplomatic circles and asked her whether she could use her influence to persuade Sargent to send the painting to Berlin for a special exhibition. She and Sargent had not been in touch over the years, and she had no influence over him, but Amélie agreed to make the request, thrilled to be in league with a head of state.

Amélie wrote to Sargent, explaining that the Kaiser, who was “such a dear,” thought Sargent’s portrait of her “the most fascinating woman’s likeness he has ever seen.” She hoped Sargent would recognize the importance of the request and make this portrait, as well as other selected paintings, available for an exhibition in Germany.

Sargent replied that he was “abroad and couldn’t manage it.” But he confessed to a friend that it was simply too much trouble and that Berlin held no attraction for him. Amélie was sorely disappointed that she could not deliver the favor the Kaiser wanted. When she realized that the portrait was coming to be both acclaimed and in great demand, she may have understood that not purchasing it in 1884 was a mistake. If she owned
Madame X,
she would not have to depend on Sargent’s largesse, but would be free to send it to the Kaiser or anyone else who wanted to display it.

Perhaps it was the renewed interest in the painting that inspired Amélie to invite two more artists, and two more portraits, into her life. She arranged to sit for Édouard Sain and Pierre Carrier-Belleuse. Sain, a minor artist who generally did landscapes, painted a charming if conventional portrait, showing Amélie in daytime dress and flowered hat. He posed her looking straight ahead, so her nose was not the identifiable one of previous portraits. The overall effect of Sain’s painting was demure but unimpressive. Amélie looked like any attractive Parisian matron; there was little evidence of the arresting beauty.

Instead of painting her, Carrier-Belleuse chose to draw Amélie with pastels, softening her features almost to unrecognizability. The artist was being kind in blurring the lines. By the time his portrait was finished, in 1908, Amélie was almost fifty and needed the help.
Femina,
a French newspaper, used this very drawing to illustrate an article about women aging gracefully—a slap in the face to Amélie, who did not want to acknowledge that she was aging at all.

Amélie realized the portraits were a mistake. The earlier ones, the Sargent and the Courtois, would remind the world of her glorious, youthful self. The later ones, the nondescript Sain and Carrier-Belleuse’s hazy pastel, would show all too clearly how she had changed. Either way, the portraits mocked her. With those images in circulation, she would always be competing with herself.

The ultimate insult came when Amélie was vacationing in Cannes. While strolling on the beach, she overheard a conversation between two women who had been watching her for some time. One loudly observed to the other that Amélie’s “physical splendor had totally disappeared.” The words shook her more than any insult ever had. She was probably stunned at first, then sad and wounded. Amélie retreated into her carriage, lowered the shades, and returned to her hotel. She ordered her maid to pack her bags and hired a private car on a train to transport her to Paris.

Previously, Amélie had delighted in being seen, by everyone. Now she wanted to be left alone. In the hours it took to return to Paris, she made up her mind never again to subject herself to public scrutiny. She would be a recluse.

Amélie became obsessed with avoiding her image. In her homes in Paris and Brittany, she had the mirrors removed from every room, so she would never have to look at herself. The woman who had once lived in front of the mirror, happily attending to every detail of hair, makeup, and wardrobe, could not bear the thought of seeing her own face.

As Amélie withdrew from the world,
Madame X
continued to step out. Three years after the Carfax showing, it traveled to the London International Society. In 1909, as the Kaiser had hoped,
Madame X
went to Berlin. Sargent gave in to the ruler’s request after having denied Amélie the satisfaction of making the arrangement.

With every exhibition, the portrait was winning new supporters and growing more renowned. Amélie, by contrast, was fading.

During a routine visit to Paramé, where his family still maintained a home, Gabriel Pringue saw Amélie after she had withdrawn from society. She was no longer the woman who had dazzled an impressionable teenager. Amélie almost never received anyone, and Pringue had not seen her in several years. But on this occasion, while he was visiting Louise, she surprised her daughter and other guests by dispatching a servant to summon him to her room. Perhaps she was making an exception because of a fond memory of her night with him at the opera.

With no idea what to expect, Pringue walked nervously up the stairs leading to Amélie’s boudoir. He found her dressed in white from head to toe, surrounded by white furniture. The shutters were closed, blocking the light. The effect was ghostly and disturbing; she looked like a statue. She seemed so otherworldly, in fact, that Pringue was startled when she spoke.

She welcomed him imperiously and kept their conversation formal and distant. When Pringue opened his mouth to pay Amélie a compliment, she raised a finger to her lips in protest and stopped him before he could get any words out. “One must never lie to women, even to please them,” she cautioned. After decades of praise and adoration, Amélie could not bear to hear empty flattery, even if it was well intentioned.

At fifty-one, Amélie existed at the center of a small cluster of companions, consisting primarily of her mother and her daughter; her trusted personal maid, Gabrielle; and on occasion, when he was at Les Chênes, her husband. They made her feel comfortable and secure. When Marie Virginie died in 1910, at age seventy-three, Amélie’s world grew even smaller. Marie Virginie left her jewels, laces and silver, and home furnishings to Louise, and her Parlange plantation property to both Amélie and Louise.

One year later, Louise died suddenly in Paris, only thirty-two years old. Losing both her mother and her daughter within twelve months, Amélie must have been devastated. Marie Virginie had been a faithful companion, dedicating herself to her daughter’s future when she could have made a life for herself. Louise had been indulgent of Amélie too. She overlooked her mother’s inattentions and petty vanities, staying close to her despite her faults. Without Marie Virginie and Louise, Amélie was alone.

Amélie rarely emerged from her self-imposed prison, venturing out only under cover of darkness. Late at night, swathed in white veils, she would walk the beach at St.-Malo, remembering the crowds who once gathered to watch her when she was young and beautiful. The beaches were empty now, with no traces of admirers—or detractors. But even if she had run into people during her midnight excursions, they would likely not have known who she was.

On July 25, 1915, Amélie died in Paris. No cause was noted on her death certificate, but it is believed that she had suffered a serious fever. Soon after she died, her body made a last trip from Paris to Paramé. Although she and Pedro were estranged, he allowed her to be buried in the Gautreau family mausoleum, in a cemetery not far from Les Chênes.

Amélie’s will detailed instructions for the distribution of her property. Gabrielle, the faithful maid who stayed with her until the end, was to receive 1,000 francs, a generous amount for a domestic. Amélie left nothing to Pedro. She named two men, Brigadier Amédée Caillaux and Dominique “Henri” Favalelli, as her principal heirs.

Sixty-four-year-old Victor-Amédée Caillaux, who inherited 2,000 francs, listed his residence as the Ministry of Finance in Paris. He gave sworn testimony that he had met Amélie in 1890 and had enjoyed “very friendly relations” with her since then. He said that he saw her every New Year’s, and at other holidays.

Henri Favalelli identified himself as a sixty-year-old tax collector. He testified that he had met Amélie in 1906 and that he saw her yearly in the months of September and October. He had seen her more frequently in the past few years, and he offered to produce letters as proof of their relationship. Favalelli inherited everything Amélie owned, including her three-quarter share of the Avegno tract of Parlange plantation. Pedro held the other quarter, which he had inherited from Louise.

Amélie’s will was a mystery. These two men seemed to have come from nowhere—had Amélie been so alone in her final years that mere acquaintances took the place of loved ones? Her relatives in America had never heard of Favalelli and were shocked by the prospect of having a total stranger in their midst. But Favalelli and Pedro were not sentimental about their legacies. They had no interest in owning land in America and no affection for Parlange plantation. They sold their property in 1918 to Pelican Realty Company and a man named Thomas Madison Baker for $20,000.

Amélie was condemned to live in the shadow of
Madame X.
Like Dorian Gray, she was tyrannized by her own image, driven to new levels of vanity in her endless, and ultimately foolish, pursuit of fame and immortality. Sargent’s portrait compelled her to be painted over and over, by Courtois, Gandara, Sain, Carrier-Belleuse, and others, first in an unsuccessful attempt to obliterate Sargent’s painting, and then in an even more futile attempt to equal it. Both painting and woman were works of art. But
Madame X,
not Amélie, proved the real and enduring masterpiece.

Sargent returned to London in the fall of 1885 with vivid memories of the summer and renewed faith in himself and his future. He delighted Henry James by announcing his decision to give up his Paris studio and move permanently to London. His studio on the Boulevard Berthier was taken over by Giovanni Boldini, an Italian artist whose career trajectory would unfold as Sargent had once imagined for himself. Boldini became a portraitist in Paris and elsewhere on the continent, sought after by prominent men and women.

Sargent’s family had fallen back into the habit of moving frequently. They wintered in Nice and traveled to Venice, Florence, and other European cities the rest of the year. While Sargent remained in constant touch with his parents and sisters, he lived on his own, planning trips that did not include them.

In London, Sargent moved into a studio on Tite Street, near James, who was ready as always to take charge of his friend’s social life. The Millets and others at Broadway were already talking about the next summer, when the painter would return to finish
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.
Sargent sent lily bulbs to Lucia Millet during the spring so he would be assured of having the right flowers to paint the following summer. It was a practical act that demonstrated how carefully Sargent planned ahead. Whenever possible, he left nothing to chance.