The Art of Seduction (74 page)

the woman, who smiled and bowed in return.

only one to throw you on

A few days later Liane began to receive cards and flowers from a
this bed of moss. . . .
twenty-three-year-old American named Natalie Barney, who identified
We'll find each other again
in Lesbos, and when dusk

herself as the blond admirer in the Bois de Boulogne, and asked for a ren-
falls, we'll go deep in the
dezvous. Liane invited Natalie to visit, but to amuse herself she decided to
woods to lose the paths
play a little joke: a friend would take her place, lounging on her bed in the
leading to this century. I
want to imagine us in this

dark boudoir, while Liane would hide behind a screen. Natalie arrived at
enchanted island of
the appointed hour. She wore the costume of a Florentine page and carried
immortals. I picture it as
a bouquet of flowers. Kneeling before the bed, she began to praise the
being so beautiful. Come,
I'll describe for you those

courtesan, comparing her to a Fra Angelico painting. All too soon, she
delicate female couples, and
heard someone laugh—and standing up she realized the joke that had been
far from the cities and the
played on her. She blushed and made for the door. When Liane hurried
din, we'll forget everything
out from behind the screen, Natalie chastised her: the courtesan had the
but the Ethics of Beauty.
face of an angel, but apparently not the spirit. Contrite, Liane whispered, —NATALIE BARNEY, LETTER TO

LIANE DE POUGY,QUOTED IN

"Come back tomorrow morning. I'll be alone."

JEAN CHALON,
PORTRAIT OF A

The young American showed up the next day, wearing the same outfit.
SEDUCTRESS:THE WORLD OF

She was witty and spirited; Liane relaxed in her presence, and invited her to
NATALIE BARNEY,
TRANSLATED

stay for the courtesan's morning ritual—the elaborate makeup, clothes, and jewelry she put on before heading out into the world. Watching reverently, Natalie remarked that she worshiped beauty, and that Liane was the most
Terrible Natalie, who used
beautiful woman she had ever seen. Playing the part of the page, she fol-
to ravage the land of love.
lowed Liane to the carriage, opened the door for her with a bow, and ac-
Formidable Natalie, feared
companied her on her habitual ride through the Bois de Boulogne. Once
by husbands since no one
could resist her

inside the park, Natalie knelt on the floor, out of sight of the passing
seductiveness. And one
gentlemen who tipped their hats to Liane. She recited poems she had writ-
could see how women
361

362
•
The Art of Seduction

would abandon their
ten in Liane's honor, and she told the courtesan she considered it a mission
husbands, homes, children,

to rescue her from the seamy career into which she had fallen.

to follow this Circe of

That evening Natalie took her to the theater to see Sarah Bernhardt
Lesbos.
•
Circe's method

was to concoct magic
play Hamlet. During the intermission, she told Liane that she identified
potions. Natalie preferred

with Hamlet—his hunger for the sublime, his hatred of tyranny—which,
writing poems; she always
for her, was the tyranny of men over women. Over the next few days Liane
knew how to blend the

physical and the spiritual.

received a steady flow of flowers from Natalie, and telegrams with little po—-JEAN C H A L O N ,
PORTRAIT OF

ems in her honor. Slowly the worshipful words and looks became more
A SEDUCTRESS: THE WORLD
OF

physical, with the occasional touch, then a caress, even a kiss—and a kiss
NATALIE BARNEY,
TRANSLATED

that felt different from any in Liane's experience. One morning, with

Natalie in attendance, Liane prepared to take a bath. As she slipped out of her nightgown, Natalie suddenly flung herself at her friend's feet, kissing her ankles. The courtesan freed herself and hurried into the bath, only for
There once lived in the
Natalie to throw off her clothes and join her. Within a few days, all Paris
town of Gafsa, in Barbary,

a very rich man who had

knew that Liane de Pougy had a new lover: Natalie Barney.

numerous children, among

Liane made no effort to disguise her new affair, publishing a novel,
them a lovely and graceful

Idylle Saphique,
detailing every aspect of Natalie's seduction. She had never
young daughter called

Alibech. She was not

had an affair with a woman before, and she described her involvement with
herself a Christian, but

Natalie as something like a mystical experience. Even at the end of her
there were many
long life, she remembered the affair as by far her most intense.
Christians in the town,

Renée Vivien was a young Englishwoman who had come to Paris to

and one day, having on

occasion heard them extol
write poetry and flee the marriage that her father was trying to arrange for
the Christian faith and the
her. Renée was obsessed with death; she also felt there was something
service of God, she asked

wrong with her, experiencing moments of intense self-loathing. In 1900,
one of them for his opinion

on the best and easiest way

Renée met Natalie at the theater. Something about the American's kind
for a person to "serve

eyes melted Renée's normal reserve, and she began sending poems to Na
God," as they put it. He
talie, who responded with poems of her own. They soon became friends.
answered her by saying

that the ones who served

Renée confessed that she had had an intense friendship with another
God best were those who
woman, but that it remained platonic—the thought of physical involve
put the greatest distance
ment repulsed her. Natalie told her about the ancient Greek poet Sappho,
between themselves and

who celebrated love between women as the only love that is innocent and
earthly goods, as happened

in the case of people who
pure. One night Renée, inspired by their discussions, invited Natalie to her
had gone to live in the
apartment, which she had transformed into a kind of chapel. The room
remoter parts of the
was filled with candles and with white lilies, the flowers she associated with
Sahara.
•
She said no

more about it to anyone,

Natalie. That night the two women became lovers. They soon moved in
but next morning, being a

together, but when Renée realized that Natalie could not be faithful to her,
very simple-natured

her love turned into hatred. She broke off the relationship, moved out, and
creature of fourteen or

thereabouts, Alibech set out

vowed to never see her again.

all alone, in secret, and

Over the next few months Natalie sent her letters and poems, and

made her way toward the

showed up at her new home—all to no avail. Renée would have nothing to
desert, prompted by

nothing more logical than a

do with her. One evening at the opera, though, Natalie sat down beside
strong adolescent impulse.

her and gave her a poem she had written in her honor. She expressed her
A few days later,

regrets for the past, and also a simple request: the two women should go on
exhausted from fatigue and

a pilgrimage to the Greek island of Lesbos, Sappho's home. Only there
hunger, she arrived in the

heart of the wilderness,

could they purify themselves and their relationship. Renée could not resist.
Use Spiritual Lures
• 36
3

On the island they retraced the poetess's steps, imagining they were trans-
where, catching sight of a
ported back into the pagan, innocent days of ancient Greece. For Renée,
small hut in the distance,
she stumbled toward it,

Natalie had become Sappho herself. When they finally returned to Paris,
and in the doorway she
Renée wrote her, "My blond Siren, I don't want you to become like those
found a holy man, who
who dwell on earth. . . . I want you to stay yourself, for this is the way you
was astonished to see her in
those parts and asked her

cast your spell over me." Their affair lasted until Renée's death, in 1909.
what she was doing there.

She told him that she had

been inspired by God, and

Interpretation.
Liane de Pougy and Renée Vivien both suffered a similar
that she was trying, not
only to serve Him, but also

oppression: they were self-absorbed, hyperaware of themselves. The source
to find someone who could
of this habit in Liane was men's constant attention to her body. She could
teach her how she should
never escape their looks, which plagued her with a feeling of heavi-
go about it.
•
On
observing how young and

ness. Renée, meanwhile, thought too much about her own problems—
exceedingly pretty she was,
her repression of her lesbianism, her mortality. She felt consumed with
the good man was afraid to
self-hatred.

take her under his wing

lest the devil should catch

Natalie Barney, on the other hand, was buoyant, lighthearted, absorbed
him unawares. So he
in the world around her. Her seductions—and by the end of her life they
praised her for her good
numbered well into the hundreds—all had a similar quality: she took the
intentions, and having
given her a quantity of

victim outside herself, directing her attention toward beauty, poetry, the in-
herb roots, wild apples, and
nocence of Sapphic love. She invited her women to participate in a kind of
dates to eat, and some
cult in which they would worship these sublimities. To heighten the cult-
water to drink, he said to
like feeling, she involved them in little rituals: they would call each other by
her:
•
"My daughter, not-
very far from here there is a

new names, send each other poems in daily telegrams, wear costumes,
holy man who is much
make pilgrimages to holy sites. Two things would inevitably happen: the
more capable than I of
women would start to direct some of the worshipful feelings they were ex-
teaching you what you
want to know. Go along to

periencing toward Natalie, who seemed as lofty and beautiful as the things
him." And he sent her
she held up to be adored; and, pleasantly diverted into this spiritualized
upon her way.
•
When she
realm, they would also lose any heaviness they had felt about their bodies,
came to this second man,
she was told precisely the

their selves, their identities. Their repression of their sexuality would melt
same thing, and so she
away. By the time Natalie kissed or caressed them, it would feel like some-
went on until she arrived
thing innocent, pure, as if they had returned to the Garden of Eden before
at the cell of a young
the fall.

hermit, a very devout and

kindly fellow called

Religion is the great balm of existence because it takes us outside our-
Rustico, to whom she put
selves, connects us to something larger. As we contemplate the object of
the same inquiry as she
worship (God, nature), our burdens are lifted away. It is wonderful to feel
had addressed to the others.
Being anxious to prove to

raised up from the earth, to experience that kind of lightness. No matter
himself that he possessed a
how progressive the times, many of us feel uncomfortable with our bodies,
will of iron, he did not,
our animal drives. A seducer who focuses too much attention on the
like the others, send her
away or direct her

physical will stir up self-consciousness, and a residue of disgust. So focus
elsewhere, but kept her
attention on something else. Invite the other person to worship some-
with him in his cell, in a
thing beautiful in the world. It could be nature, a work of art, even God
corner of which, when
night descended, he

(or gods—paganism never goes out of fashion); people are dying to be-
prepared a makeshift bed
lieve in something. Add some rituals. If you can make yourself seem to
out of palm leaves, upon
resemble the thing you are worshiping—you are natural, aesthetic, noble,
which he invited her to lie
and sublime—your targets will transfer their worship to you. Religion and
down and rest.
•
Once he

364 • The Art of Seduction

had taken this step, very

spirituality are full of sexual undertones that can be brought to the surface
little time elapsed before

once you have made your targets lose their self-awareness. From spiritual
temptation went to war
ecstasy to sexual ecstasy is but one small step.
against his willpower, and

after the first few assaults,

finding himself

Come back to take me, quickly, and lead me far away. Pu-

outmaneuvered on all

rify me with a great fire of divine love, none of the animal

fronts, he laid down his

kind. You are all soul when you want to be, when you feel

arms and surrendered.

Casting aside pious

it, take me far away from my body.

thoughts, prayers, and

—LIANE DE POUGY

penitential exercises, he

began to concentrate his

mental faculties upon the

youth and beauty of the

Keys to Seduction

girl, and to devise suitable

ways and means for

approaching her in such a

fashion that she should not
R eligion is the most seductive system that mankind has created. Death is our greatest fear, and religion offers us the illusion that we are im
think it lewd of him to
mortal, that something about us will live on. The idea that we are an infini
make the sort of proposal
he had in mind. By

tesimal part of a vast and indifferent universe is terrifying; religion
putting certain questions to
humanizes this universe, makes us feel important and loved. We are not ani
her, he soon discovered that
mals governed by uncontrollable drives, animals that die for no apparent
she had never been

reason, but creatures made in the image of a supreme being. We too can be
intimate with the opposite

sex and was every hit as

sublime, rational, and good. Anything that feeds a desire or a wished-for il
innocent as she seemed;
lusion is seductive, and nothing can match religion in this arena.
and he therefore thought of

Pleasure is the bait that you use to lure a person into your web. But no
a possible way to persuade

her, with the pretext of
matter how clever a seducer you are, in the back of your targets' mind they
serving God, to grant his

are aware of the endgame, the physical conclusion toward which you are
desires. He began by

heading. You may think your target is unrepressed and hungry for pleasure,
delivering a long speech in

which he showed her how
but almost all of us are plagued by an underlying unease with our animal
powerful an enemy the
nature. Unless you deal with this unease, your seduction, even when suc
devil was to the Lord God,
cessful in the short term, will be superficial and temporary. Instead, like
and followed this up by

Natalie Barney, try to capture your target's soul, to build the foundation of
impressing upon her that of

all the ways of serving

a deep and lasting seduction. Lure the victim deep into your web with
God, the one that He most

spirituality, making physical pleasure seem sublime and transcendent. Spiri
appreciated consisted in
tuality will disguise your manipulations, suggesting that your relationship is
putting the devil back in

Hell, to which the

timeless, and creating a space for ecstasy in the victim's mind. Remember
Almighty had consigned

that seduction is a mental process, and nothing is more mentally intoxicat
him in the first place.
• ing than religion, spirituality, and the occult.
The girl asked him how

this was done, and Rustico

In Gustave Flaubert's novel
Madame Bovary,
Rodolphe Boulanger visits
replied:
•
"You will soon

the country doctor Bovary and finds himself interested in the doctor's
find out, but just do
beautiful wife, Emma. Boulanger was brutal and shrewd. He was some
whatever you see me doing
for the present. "And so

thing of a connoisseur: there had been many women in his life." He senses
saying, he began to divest

that Emma is bored. A few weeks later he manages to run into her at a
himself of the few clothes

county fair, where he gets her alone. He affects an air of sadness and
he was wearing, leaving