WAITING

 

DESPITE TUBERCULOSIS TWENTY YEAR OLD MARIE DUPLESSIS HAS ILLUSTRIOUS AND RICH LOVERS INCLUDING ALEXANDRE DUMAS THE YOUNGER

1844, and lasting a year, Alexandre Dumas "the younger" was twenty, like Marie. He could not support her and could not deal with the facts of her life, that she was a Courtesan and had other lovers.  He was too jealous and perhaps too in love. This man immortalized Marie when he used her as inspiration for a novel he published in 1848 which was called La Dame aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas the younger. (She loved that flower.) The book may very well be a romantic fantasy in which Dumas also is a character. In 1952 the book was turned into a play and then the play inspired the opera by Verdi called La Traviata.  La Traviata translates to The Fallen Woman. 

La Traviata is currently the most performed opera in the world. Marie's life, perhaps because she died so young, is a tragedy. 

Perhaps it is the book and the play and the opera that has made Courtesan/ Mistress  Marie Duplessis famous, for there were others we have heard about and many others we have never heard about and never will.  This blog depends on the books and other information on those who became famous but some say the most successful Mistresses are the ones we never hear about.

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MARIE DUPLESSIS

 Image is in Public Domain in the United States and provided by Wikimedia/ Wikipedia.

 Source : Čeština: Obrázek Marie Duplessis, dámy s kaméliemi

Her extremely white, pale skin contrasted with her thick black hair.  

She was slim and not especially voluptuous.

In this image of Marie, the young woman might even be called "Tubercular."

MARIE DUPLESSIS MOVES INTO A BETTER APARTMENT : COUNT EDOUARD DE PERREGAUX

As Marie Duplessis moved up in the world, she attracted Count Edouard De Perregaux as a new love and perhaps he was the man she would come closest to becoming a Mistress of. His father was a financier who had been made a senator by Napoleon Bonaparte and was attached to the Bank of France. Edouard himself had been in the military in Africa and had earned a good reputation and inherited a sizable fortune but he also seemed to be determined to spend it and go into debt.

Excerpts pages 41 - 42 : He first encountered Marie at a masked ball at the Opera House in the rue Le Peletier, the tradition of masked balls having been revived there in 1839, such events being held every Saturday evening during the carnival time before Lent. Edouard and Marie were intregued by one another, and Edouard rapidly dropped another courtesan, Alice Ozy, in order to take up with her.

The apartment in which he installed her at 22 rue d'Antin comprised a drawing room, a boudoir, dining room and two bedrooms. The widows, and Marie's bed, were curtained with muslin and silk. Marie ordered her goods and services from a wide range of providers" wines from Madame Tisserant, just opposite in the rue d'Anton; cakes delivered by Rollet from the passage de l'Opera, glace fruits from Broissier, mint pastilles from Gouache in the boulevard de la Madeleine. Edouard would join in the consumption of all these luxuries, not stopping to make the calculation that by spending at the rate of three thousand francs a month, which was the absolute minimum Marie required to live on, he would rapidly use up his already depleted fortune. 

Marie felt flattered because Count de Perregaux seemed to be only interested in her but eventually also felt she had been deceived into thinking his fortune was substantial enough to last past her spending. He was estranged from his family and friends over his unrequited passion and extreme spending in order to keep her happy. She didn't cut him off completely but took on other lovers willing to keep her in the accommodations she desired. Considering his fixation on Marie, it must have taken some expertise to both disappoint him and keep him in her life.

At a time in which concerns about venereal diseases such as syphilis, for which there was no real cure, prevailed and during which contraception was limited, women especially paid the price for sexuality and pregnancy. But there was another disease that people feared and that claimed countless lives for which there was no cure and that was tuberculosis. Young Marie Duplessis must have realized she was seriously ill by this time as she was spitting up blood. 

Count Edouard de Perregaux is important to the story of this Courtesan though because towards the end of her life, as she was dying of tuberculosis, it was he who she married.

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DESIRE

 

MEN "CLUB" TOGETHER TO SHARE THE BOUNTY OF THEIR FAVORITE COURTESAN MARIE DUPLESSIS

I wonder: is there a correlation between being a shopaholic and a Courtesan?

In 1842 Marie Duplessis might have been at the height of her earning power, if you choose to look at it that way.  She had many lovers and huge expenditures.

Excerpt pages 39-40 : ... Hippolyte de Villemessant tells how seven members of fashionable Paris decided to club together to purchase her favors, since she was so expensive to maintain.  To inaugurate this arrangement they bought Marie a present: a dressing table with seven drawers so they could each have one to keep their things.  In the early days Marie's management of her multiple lovers sometimes went adrift.  Shortly after Agenor de Guiche's return from England she made the mistake of taking him for a drive in the blue carriage which had been given to her by another lover, Fernand de Montguyon....  Subsequently she managed her affairs better and took care not to offend those who were paying the bills. Agenor was a t this stage what was known as an amant de coeur - that is, his and Marie's relationship was not a monetary transaction but a matter of genuine affections and mutual enjoyment...

This excerpt reminds me that anyone can attract many others at any one time but must somehow keep it all ... compartmentalized.  And be tactful. 

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POISED

 

VICOUNT DE MERIL BECOMES THE FATHER OF MARIE DUPLESSIS SON

Viscount de Meril was the man to introduce Marie Deplessis to a vice - gambling.

In 1840, she had what is called "an affair" with this man, who introduced her to Spa, a resort in Belgium. As a result of their relationship, the young mother of a son she gave birth to in 1841 had to send the baby away to be raised by a nurse. A version of the story is that the baby died - not at all uncommon in those days before modern medical treatments - but perhaps not.

It is said that she was given to lying, which she claimed was good for whitening the teeth. (Perhaps she thought her lies were "white lies?") It's also said, from descriptions of her beauty and comportment, that her moods shifted from serenity to jubilance. My words; I do wonder if  Marie Duplessis was bipolar. Her behavior is often considered a consequence to having a horrible childhood.

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VERDI'S OPERA LA TRAVIATA (THE FALLEN WOMAN) IS A TRAGEDY AND THE MOST PERFORMED OPERA IN THE WORLD

Royal Ballet and Opera - United Kingdom, YouTube station, posted this video.

Excerpt:  Richard Eyre;s stunning naturalistic productions contrasts the superficial glamour of the 19th century Parisian high life with intimate scenes for Violetta with Alfredo and Giorgio Germont, culminating in the heart-breaking final act  Verdi's sublime score contains some of his most inspired arias and duets, including Violetta's introspecive 'Ah forse'e lui and hedonistic 'Sempre libera' Violetta and Germont's poignant Act II encounter and Alfredo and Violetta's 'Parigi, o cara', in which they dream of a happy future.

Missy here! 

True love or a crush that would always be unrequited because the one fantasized about has died? Alexandre Dumas The Younger's book inspired by his year long romance with Maria Duplessis spawned plays and this opera, as well as other productions into the present time.

MARIE DUPLESSIS : AGENOR DE GUICHE MAKES AN APPEARANCE IN THE TEENAGER'S LIFE AND SHE CHANGES HER NAME FROM ALPHONSINE PLESSIS

Grand Horizontals by Virginia Rounding is a primary reference for this month's post.

Excerpt page 20 : "The women of the uppermost ranks, the most desirable demi-mondaines, were also often referred to by the epithets grands or hautes - grandes cocottes, for instance, rather than simple cocottes. The pseudonymous writer "Zed" refers in his Le Demi-monde sous le Second Empire of 1892 to grandes abandonnees (The great abandoned ones) while Frederic Loliee in his Les Femmes du Second Empire of 1907 uses the term grandes horizontales (literally, great horizontals, or women flat on their backs). Collective expressions for the great demi-mondaines included la jaute glanterie (literally high gallantry, chivalry, or intrigue, and colloquially the top rank of kept women) and la Haute Bicherie..."

What I found interesting is that Agenor De Guiche made an appearance in the lives of many courtesans and seems in Virginia Rounding's book to be credited with being the man who turned Alphonsine Plessis into a grandes horizontales. Although De Guiche's family was aristocratic, they had lost their wealth during the French Revolution and so he was not an especially rich young man. When he met Alphonsine he was 21 years old and she was 16. He had finished a couple years of higher education and wanted to bring her up to his intellectual level, though he was not an especially bright student himself. This young man paid for Alphonsine to have lessons in dancing and piano and improved her reading and writing; she became an avid reader who eventually developed an impressive collection of 200 or so books and held literary and intellectual salons. His interest in her seems to have been sincere. The young man spent about 10,000 francs on her in three months but then, in 1840, went to England and took a break from their relationship. By the time he returned, he was not the only man interested in the budding courtesan. 

According to author Virginia Rounding many a mother feared her son would spend his fortune away and acquire venereal diseases by having sex with prostitutes and courtesans.

Excerpt page 36 : She was not unusual, among the grisettes and courtesans of Louis Philippe's reign, in deciding to change her name; it was also a very common practice among the ranks of ordinary prostitutes.  The choice of a new name could serve both to add a touch of glamour and to depersonalize the prostitute, so that she could feel she was merely performing a role, disconnected from her real self.  There was also often a desire to disconnect from her previous life and from her family, either out of shame or from a desire to escape and not be easily traced...

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ADORING

 

THERE ARE TIMES WHEN I AM SO PROUD OF OTHER WOMEN AND TODAY IS ONE OF THEM : CONTACT YOUR POLITICIANS : EPSTEIN FILES TRANSPARENCY ACT

Among the things I admire about these women is the mention of other women who are not believed and may not be able to speak out or get justice in other countries, who don't speak English, from Russia, Ukraine, and other countries, women who were also sex trafficked by or for Jeffrey Epstein. These women have courage and they ask that others come forward if they too were abused and/or trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein - Ghislaine Maxwell - or others we have not heard about. There are hundreds of women who have been silent or silenced.

In this blog, MISTRESS MANIFESTO, we explore some women who were no doubt raped, sexually exploited, some who made the best of their situation in their place and time when, overall, women had little to no opportunity to have education, careers, or opportunities for independence - even marriage could rarely be avoided. We would not know about most of them if it were not for literature, that they or someone else thought they were interesting and important enough to write about. 

Overall, life has improved for women, but there are still many who find themselves in situations they can't easily get out of, if at all.

Choice has expanded in Western culture, but it always rests in truth - information. There are so many situations in life were a person not only feels powerless, they are powerless.

As some of these women have stated they were fourteen years old, or sixteen years old, when they went to give "massage" to a rich older man who made it sexual abuse, intimidated them, and told them they had to bring other women to him. This is one of the reasons I suggest that it's probably not a good idea to consider becoming a Mistress until one has lived a while, completed an education, started a career, and explored one's own sexuality with consensual partners.

I'm linking to information on the EPSTEIN FILES TANSPARANCY ACT which is house bill #4405

This bill was introduced by
Representative Ro Khanna,  California, District 17 115th-119th

MERKLEY SENATE : TEXT OF THE EPSTEIN FILES TRANSPARANCY ACT

HOUSE GOV FIND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE

Give a call or send an e-mail. Get behind legislation that may lead to further protections for women.

MY POST FROM 2019 ABOUT THE SCANDAL on 8/13/2019 is titled THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN SEX TRAFFICKING SCANDAL - HOW YOUNG IS TOO YOUNG TO HAVE SEX?

MARIE DUPLESSIS : GRAND HORIZONTALES : PARISIAN COURTESANS OF THE NAPOLEAN III ERA

Virginia Rounding's book Grande Horizontales begins with the assumption that Courtesans were prostitutes of the highest quality and because of this, the most expensive. So, her book begins with quite an interesting expose on prostitution in 19th century Paris. Here at Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot, we yearn to define what being a Mistress means, and I acknowledge that the assumption of prostitution is there along with the idea that a Mistress is Kept for sex - only or primarily for sex. After many years of blogging I still find the question to be one that has many answers, but I think mistresses are in relationships that are more interesting than "just sex." That said, a prostitute can become a mistress and visa versa but exactly at what point does a woman become a Courtesan, since some of these women did "rise up" out of prostitution? Maria Duplessis's story has an answer to when.

Grande Horizontales focuses on four Courtesans, and this month I will focus on Marie Duplessis who died at the young age of twenty-three of tuberculosis. One of her lovers, Alexandre Dumas, based his main character in the novel La Dame Aux Camelias, which was published in 1848. Camelias were Marie's favorite flowers. She was married in 1846 to Count Edouard de Perregauz, until her death.

MARIE DUPLESSIS

"The Virtuous Courtesan"

"La Dame aux Camélias"

Alphonsine Plessis

Countess Edouard de Perregaux (She kept her name Marie Duplessis though.)

1824 - 1847

Her father was the illegitimate son of a priest and a prostitute who was abusive to his wife, Alphonsine's mother. The poor woman took off to Paris hoping to support herself and, eventually, her daughters but she died when Alphonsine was only six. Abandoned into the care of relatives, rumor was that the girl was sexually abused from the age of eleven and a half.  Accused of being a seductress, she was sent back to the father who didn't want her. He left her and her sister to become apprentice laundresses. At thirteen and fourteen years old she was a blanchisseuse. This was the fate of many girls in those days.

Excerpt Page 32 : "Such an apprenticeship involved long hours of hard and repetitive physical labour... First piles of dirty linen would be sorted and washed, the actual washing sometimes done in a communal washroom by a washerwoman, a lower level of work than the blanchisseuse.  Much of the work of the blanchisseuse consisted of ironing, which would be done at a large table covered with a heavy blanket, itself covered with calico.  Several irons were heated on the large cast-iron stove, and it would be the job of the apprentice to keep this stove filled - always being careful not to overfill it - with coke... The blanchissuese herself and her older employees would be busy ironing intricate objects such as caps, shirt-fronts, petticoats, and embroidered drawers, while the apprentice would be put to work on the plain items, the stockings and the handkerchiefs..."

What happened next would shock today. Her father then gave her over to a man who was sixty to seventy years old and might have actually sold her to him. When her employer realized the situation, she was fired. To escape this man Alphonsine took a job as a hotel maid. Her father than gave her over to another man. Marie would not talk about it, but there is a strong possibility that her father than took her for himself, committing rape and incest on his own daughter. In 1839 The father and daughter suddenly upped and went to Paris.

As I read these passages I do wonder if Alphonsine's father intended for her to become a prostitute as his mother had been. As author Rounding describes it, French Parisian culture had an understanding of prostitution, and many prostitutes' were legally registered. In Paris the father again left her with relatives and, now only fifteen, she was placed as an apprentice with a dressmaker. She worked long hours - 7 am to 8 pm six days a week. She attached lace and embroidery to decorate dresses there. A dressmaker did not want apprentices who became prostitutes but it was not unusual for them, due to the low, unlivable pay to become grisettes - a woman who took on a paying lover.

Alphonsine, despite her hard work, may have been going hungry. 

Then one day she and two friends accepted the offer of a day away by the owner of a restaurant who probably knew they were hungry.

Excerpt Page 35: "Quite who seduced whom, who exploited whom, is debatable: Alphonsine, with her precocious sexual experience, was an easy prey for a man with a certain amount of sophistication on the look-out for a young and pretty mistress, while she was quick to realize that, if she played her cards right, Nollet was in a position to offer her a way out of a life of drudgery and relative poverty. Events progressed rapidly. Within a month Monsieur Nollet had installed Alphonsine in a small apartment in the rue de l'Arcade and given her three thousand francs for her initial needs."

Poverty, hard physical labor, and sexual abuse would give Alphonsine motivation to improve her life, quite obviously. Her relatives in Paris, realizing also what she had done, outcasted her. She was alone in the world. Nollet was her first known patron and she soon overspent for his means and took other lovers as well. It was as if she gave in to her fate, or realized there was only one way to survive.

Alphonsine Plessis would fashion herself Marie Duplessis and rise out of poverty and obscurity by becoming an honored Courtesan. To do that she needed the patronage of a man and one known to other Courtesans came into her life. The next seven years or so of her short life would be dramatic and, perhaps because she had to know she was dying, gravely ill, she earnestly sought entertainments.

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Notes: The image on the book is not that of Maria Duplessis.

Here at Mistress Manifesto I've featured a great many Courtesans and Paris seems to have been the epicenter of Courtesan culture. You can click on the tag below to bring up posts such as Paris, or Courtesan.