MISIA's FIRST MARRIAGE TO THADEE NATANSON : DID HE ENCOURAGE HER TO BE A MISTRESS TO ALFRED EDWARDS

Raised in France and Belgium by relatives acquainted with Belgium royalty, Misia Sert was ethnically Polish and an expatriot born in Russia to a father who had a mistress and a mother who died after having her.  She had one Jewish grandparent.  Her first husband Thadee Natanson was from a family that were friends with hers.  He was half Jewish.

Years later when the Nazis were occupying Paris during World War II, Misia was for the Resistance. She also volunteered, arranging cars to be used as ambulances and physically carried wounded to the cars during World War I.  (And her good friend CoCo Chanel, who has been featured here at Mistress Manifesto as Mistress of the Month twice - who is in contemporary times accused of being a Nazi collaborator?  It seems to me that if CoCo were truly anti-semitic she would not have had Misia as a friend.)

Wealthy enough to be part of a young social crowd involved in literature and the arts, who frequented the theatres and the music halls,  Misia and Thandee Natanson were members of Parisian society. She was a pianist and asked to sit as model for paintings. Thandee and his brothers started a prestigious literary magazine.  While other business enterprises kept them in money, they also spent a fortune on the magazine.

And the day came when Thadee realized he could not refuse the offer of businessman Alfred Edwards, who had become obsessed with Misia, and so the young husband went off to Hungary to a coal mine that had yet to be productive. The financially successful Edwards, thirty years older than Misia, was probably seeking a way to get rid of Misia's husband so he could pursue her.  She states in her memoir that Thadee encouraged her towards "arranging everything" with his boss, Alfred, which she took to mean that he was OK'ing she be Alfred's mistress.  Author's Fizdale and Gold state that in her memoir she gives the impression of a whirlwind relationship from when she met Edwards - while out shopping - and she completely left Thadee and married him actually took four years. 

Looking back at her marriage to the family friend when she was just a bit older than fifteen, she saw that it was more of a friendship than erotic connection.  Yet she had to be compelled to stay married as was expected of society women at least for a while.  

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References for this post include Misia's memoir and the book on her by Fizdale and Gold.