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.

C 2025 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

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.

C 2025 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

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. 

C 2025 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

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.

C 2025 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

 

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...

C 2025 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights