LINK TO MUSEE D'ORSAY MUSEE d' ORSAY OFFICIAL SITE
Showing posts with label French Mistresses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French Mistresses. Show all posts
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
FRANCOIS MITTERAUND to ANNE PINGEOT ON DISCRETION
TELEGRAPH CO UK: MITTERANDS PASSION FOR SECRET MISTRESS by Henry Samuel
"There will always be a speech, an election or a congress in the air. I have fatigue, daily worry. If you love me, you must try and make me happy. And to make me happy is to make yourself more discreet."
"There will always be a speech, an election or a congress in the air. I have fatigue, daily worry. If you love me, you must try and make me happy. And to make me happy is to make yourself more discreet."
Monday, January 13, 2020
INTERVIEW WITH ANNE PINGEOT in FRENCH
FRANCE CULTURE: INTERVIEW OF ANNE PINGEOT - in French
The article is in French and can be translated with Google translator.
It is titled "Anne Pingeot Confides to the Historian Jean-Noel Jeanneney."
There is also an audio option to listen to part of the interview - in French.
EXCERPT: During this free, confident, exciting, sometimes joyful and sometimes serious conversation, Anne Pingeot and Jean-Noel Jeanneney go through a half-century of a great love story from the first encounter until the death of Francois Mitterrand. They talk about everything, with modesty but without taboo: love and politics, culture and friendships, secret and Republic. It is about happiness, surprises, exceptional moments but also difficulties, sorrows, and doubts.
The article is in French and can be translated with Google translator.
It is titled "Anne Pingeot Confides to the Historian Jean-Noel Jeanneney."
There is also an audio option to listen to part of the interview - in French.
EXCERPT: During this free, confident, exciting, sometimes joyful and sometimes serious conversation, Anne Pingeot and Jean-Noel Jeanneney go through a half-century of a great love story from the first encounter until the death of Francois Mitterrand. They talk about everything, with modesty but without taboo: love and politics, culture and friendships, secret and Republic. It is about happiness, surprises, exceptional moments but also difficulties, sorrows, and doubts.
Friday, January 10, 2020
THE FRENCH REACT TO THE CLINTON/LEWINSKY FLING - WHO CARES?
OVERALL the FRENCH ATTITUDE about the Monica Lewinsky and President William Jefferson Clinton affair was "Who cares?"
EXCERPT from the text under this AP (Associated Press) video:
But in France, people are showing a distinct lack of concern about the Clinton scandal - and some are even wondering why a leader might lose his office over a fling. Popular feeling seems to hover between bemusement and skepticism, with the dominant feeling being that politicians should be entitled to a private life. And the French certainly do not think that concerns over a president's private life should lead to drops in world stock markets. Far away from the hyperinterest in Washington over the latest developments in the Lewinsky scandal, French people are wondering what all the fuss is about. France acknowledged its own former president Francois Mitterrand's mistress with a shrug. And the French cannot understand how Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky can destabilize his presidency and affect world economies. ...
Missy here! I can say that I WISH Americans had the same attitude because if we did MONICA LEWINSKY would not have had (or have) such a horrible time. It was so dishonorable for President William Jefferson Clinton to allow her to take the blame. In March 2012 I entitled that month GET OFF THE BACK OF MONICA LEWINSKY - Why Not Blame President Bill Clinton?< which you can find in the archives here.
Sunday, January 5, 2020
ART HISTORIAN ANNE PINGEOT MISTRESS OF FRENCH STATESMAN AND PRESIDENT FRANCOIS MAURICE MITTERRAND
One of the references for this month's posts, Philip Short's book on Mitterand, is well regarded. Upcoming are links to articles about this book, YouTube videos, and information from general research on the internet.
Anne Pingeot: French Art Historian. A woman of personal accomplishment. Long time Mistress of an important man on the world stage.
She and their daughter came to Francois Mitterrand's State funeral, as did his wife of over 50 years and their children, and so a second family and long term Mistress who was known to his family, his inner circle, and the press (who had focused on his politics), became known to the world. Mitterand, not known for his warmth, was the the President of France for more years than any previous President - from 1981 to 1995. He lead a double life and was actually capable of great love and feeling. His Mistress was so often on his mind, he wrote her letters, hundreds of them, and these letters were finally published and read with relish. Yet my feeling is that Anne is still an intriguing mystery, that there is and will long be more curiosity about her and their relationship than knowledge. In search of information about Anne on YouTube, I found lots - but only in the French language.
Mitterand was born in 1916 and married his one and only wife, Danielle, in 1944. He died in 1996 from prostate cancer, which he had for years and also kept secret. It's said that keeping Mazarine Marie Pingeot, the daughter born in 1974 to Anne (when he had been married for 30 years), a secret, was the real reason behind some illegal wiretaps he ordered at one time. Mazarine appeared on the cover of Paris Match (a bit like the old American Life magazine) a few months before he left office when she was twenty. So you could say that he chose to be discreet because he wanted privacy in his personal life, even with the attitude about affairs and Mistresses to be more liberal or open minded in France than in other cultures. Anne too is said to have loved her privacy. But eventually, especially with a beautiful and intelligent daughter coming to age herself, their relationship had to come out.
Anne was 27 years younger than he. They met because her father and Mitterand both loved to golf.
According to the article that appeared on line from France 24 on 10/17/2016, a decade after his death (Which has a good photo of Anne and Mazarine at the funeral), and then 74 years old, Anne said that her parents were a couple generations behind the times when she was growing up in a farming region where the farmers were still using scythes. People were Catholic, Right-wing, and reactionary, She was 14 years old when her father brought around Mitterand who was only a year younger than him. Six years later they began an affair that lasted 33 years. Why was she speaking to the press after so many years of living so very privately? The book contains 1218 of them.
Though he had a wife and a Mistress, Mitterand also had affairs. Anne waited until Mitterand had been deceased for five years before she herself released the book of love letters, which you could say she curated, translating them as well for an English language edition. As a French art historian, she specialized in sculptures done in the 1800's and was a curator at the Louvre, department of sculpture as well as st the Musee d'Orsay. In her lifetime she has written a number of books on French sculpture.
According to an article in France 24, "But French respect for la vie privee (private life) is so sacrosanct that Pingeot's amazing story as the longtime mistress of France's first Socialist president in the Fifth Republic has been dismissed with a Gallic shrug. Powerful men, especially presidents, are almost expected to have mistresses, and Henry Kissinger's contention that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac" is taken quite seriously in France...",
Anne is still alive as I write this.
Let's start the New Year with our Mistress of the Month, Anne Pingeot!
Missy
*(Mazarine changed her name to Mazarine Marie Mitterand Pingeot. She is the mother of three children with a now-ex partner. Very well educated and literary herself, Mazarine is said to have been named after a favorite bookstore of her very literary parents, has published some of her own books, and works as a philosophy professor.
FRANCE 24 : LOVE LETTERS OF MITTERAND
FRANCE 24: MITTERAND MISTRESS BLAMES SILENCE ON UPBRINGING
C 2020 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot. All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
Anne Pingeot: French Art Historian. A woman of personal accomplishment. Long time Mistress of an important man on the world stage.
She and their daughter came to Francois Mitterrand's State funeral, as did his wife of over 50 years and their children, and so a second family and long term Mistress who was known to his family, his inner circle, and the press (who had focused on his politics), became known to the world. Mitterand, not known for his warmth, was the the President of France for more years than any previous President - from 1981 to 1995. He lead a double life and was actually capable of great love and feeling. His Mistress was so often on his mind, he wrote her letters, hundreds of them, and these letters were finally published and read with relish. Yet my feeling is that Anne is still an intriguing mystery, that there is and will long be more curiosity about her and their relationship than knowledge. In search of information about Anne on YouTube, I found lots - but only in the French language.
Mitterand was born in 1916 and married his one and only wife, Danielle, in 1944. He died in 1996 from prostate cancer, which he had for years and also kept secret. It's said that keeping Mazarine Marie Pingeot, the daughter born in 1974 to Anne (when he had been married for 30 years), a secret, was the real reason behind some illegal wiretaps he ordered at one time. Mazarine appeared on the cover of Paris Match (a bit like the old American Life magazine) a few months before he left office when she was twenty. So you could say that he chose to be discreet because he wanted privacy in his personal life, even with the attitude about affairs and Mistresses to be more liberal or open minded in France than in other cultures. Anne too is said to have loved her privacy. But eventually, especially with a beautiful and intelligent daughter coming to age herself, their relationship had to come out.Anne was 27 years younger than he. They met because her father and Mitterand both loved to golf.
According to the article that appeared on line from France 24 on 10/17/2016, a decade after his death (Which has a good photo of Anne and Mazarine at the funeral), and then 74 years old, Anne said that her parents were a couple generations behind the times when she was growing up in a farming region where the farmers were still using scythes. People were Catholic, Right-wing, and reactionary, She was 14 years old when her father brought around Mitterand who was only a year younger than him. Six years later they began an affair that lasted 33 years. Why was she speaking to the press after so many years of living so very privately? The book contains 1218 of them.
Though he had a wife and a Mistress, Mitterand also had affairs. Anne waited until Mitterand had been deceased for five years before she herself released the book of love letters, which you could say she curated, translating them as well for an English language edition. As a French art historian, she specialized in sculptures done in the 1800's and was a curator at the Louvre, department of sculpture as well as st the Musee d'Orsay. In her lifetime she has written a number of books on French sculpture.
According to an article in France 24, "But French respect for la vie privee (private life) is so sacrosanct that Pingeot's amazing story as the longtime mistress of France's first Socialist president in the Fifth Republic has been dismissed with a Gallic shrug. Powerful men, especially presidents, are almost expected to have mistresses, and Henry Kissinger's contention that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac" is taken quite seriously in France...",
Anne is still alive as I write this.
Let's start the New Year with our Mistress of the Month, Anne Pingeot!
Missy
*(Mazarine changed her name to Mazarine Marie Mitterand Pingeot. She is the mother of three children with a now-ex partner. Very well educated and literary herself, Mazarine is said to have been named after a favorite bookstore of her very literary parents, has published some of her own books, and works as a philosophy professor.
FRANCE 24 : LOVE LETTERS OF MITTERAND
FRANCE 24: MITTERAND MISTRESS BLAMES SILENCE ON UPBRINGING
C 2020 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot. All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Saturday, September 3, 2016
CELESTINE EMAROT, MISTRESS OF BARON CHARLES de CHASSIRON and FERDINAND De MONTGUYON and BALLARINA COURTESANS
THE BALLARINA COURTESANS? The Paris Ballet was called a Brothel.
To become a ballerina in the 19th century, a young woman often also had to be a Mistress of a well-to-do man. An average dancer made between 3,000 and 6,000 francs a year, while having to afford her own toe shoes, clothes, and much else on a very low income. Many as teenagers become prostitutes, but with the hope that they would through the long and hard physical work of becoming a dancer, rise up to the top. Being Kept, having a Patron, being one man's Mistress was a better option.
Ballerinas often started in the corps, where the girls, about ten to fourteen years old, were called "Petit Rats," not just because they had to work like rats to develop their dancing skill and be competitive to advance, but because they often ate like rats! Half starving and too thin and sickly much of the time, putting in extremely long days, the corps required endurance while in survival mode. Celestine Emerot, our Mistress of the Month here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, was one of those girls.
Born illegitimate and impoverished in 1824 as Marguerite-Adelaide Emerot, her own mother hoped she would save them both from destitution and encouraged men to interest her and patronize her. When she was fifteen years old, and he twenty-four, Baron Charles de Chassiron, a French Diplomat who hung out at The Jockey Club (apparently the hang out of a number of men who had mistresses), began their affair. But maybe they didn't have sex right away. He got her pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter, Jeanne-Emma, on September 23, 1842, which was supposed to be nine months from their first sexual encounter. He abandoned them.
The Baron's genes were better than Celestine's, and their daughter, Emma, said to look just like him, though no beauty, turned out to be a natural dancer, with the flexibility and grace perfect for ballet that her ballerina mother never had.
Celestine danced in minor parts for fourteen years and at best got mixed reviews. You could say she was a lousy dancer but had little choice. She had to find another ballet patron of her own, to protect herself from having to prostitute, and to protect her daughter more than herself. Celestine then became the mistress of a man of less wealth than the Baron, Ferdinand de Montguyon, also a member of the Jockey Club.
She became a controlling mother, while Montguyon, a ballet fanatic, took fatherly interest in Emma's education. As he financed a fine education for the young girl at a convent, called Institute des Demoiselles Cathonnet (Catholic School for Girls), it was expected that she would escape the ballet. But she became a dancer anyway, one that outshone Celestine's ability by far. And Montguyon turned out to be quite the PR man. He managed to get Napoleon III and his wife interested in Emma, who renamed herself Emma Livry, and used his influence so that she was taken on by the Paris Ballet, skipping the corps, as a Principal Dancer!
(1824-1892 approx.)
An 18th century photo identified
as Celestine Emarot from
To become a ballerina in the 19th century, a young woman often also had to be a Mistress of a well-to-do man. An average dancer made between 3,000 and 6,000 francs a year, while having to afford her own toe shoes, clothes, and much else on a very low income. Many as teenagers become prostitutes, but with the hope that they would through the long and hard physical work of becoming a dancer, rise up to the top. Being Kept, having a Patron, being one man's Mistress was a better option.
Ballerinas often started in the corps, where the girls, about ten to fourteen years old, were called "Petit Rats," not just because they had to work like rats to develop their dancing skill and be competitive to advance, but because they often ate like rats! Half starving and too thin and sickly much of the time, putting in extremely long days, the corps required endurance while in survival mode. Celestine Emerot, our Mistress of the Month here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, was one of those girls.
Born illegitimate and impoverished in 1824 as Marguerite-Adelaide Emerot, her own mother hoped she would save them both from destitution and encouraged men to interest her and patronize her. When she was fifteen years old, and he twenty-four, Baron Charles de Chassiron, a French Diplomat who hung out at The Jockey Club (apparently the hang out of a number of men who had mistresses), began their affair. But maybe they didn't have sex right away. He got her pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter, Jeanne-Emma, on September 23, 1842, which was supposed to be nine months from their first sexual encounter. He abandoned them.
The Baron's genes were better than Celestine's, and their daughter, Emma, said to look just like him, though no beauty, turned out to be a natural dancer, with the flexibility and grace perfect for ballet that her ballerina mother never had.
Celestine danced in minor parts for fourteen years and at best got mixed reviews. You could say she was a lousy dancer but had little choice. She had to find another ballet patron of her own, to protect herself from having to prostitute, and to protect her daughter more than herself. Celestine then became the mistress of a man of less wealth than the Baron, Ferdinand de Montguyon, also a member of the Jockey Club.
She became a controlling mother, while Montguyon, a ballet fanatic, took fatherly interest in Emma's education. As he financed a fine education for the young girl at a convent, called Institute des Demoiselles Cathonnet (Catholic School for Girls), it was expected that she would escape the ballet. But she became a dancer anyway, one that outshone Celestine's ability by far. And Montguyon turned out to be quite the PR man. He managed to get Napoleon III and his wife interested in Emma, who renamed herself Emma Livry, and used his influence so that she was taken on by the Paris Ballet, skipping the corps, as a Principal Dancer!
Celestine Emarot's daughter Emma Livry from WikiCommons
Emma Livry distanced herself from her mother's reputation with a name change.
LINK TO 19th Century Photos for IMAGE OF CELESTINE EMAROT
BALLARINA by Deirdre Kelly
"Sex, Scandal and Suffering Behind the Symbol Of Perfection"
is a primary source for information
on this Month's Mistress of the Month, Celestine Emerot,
her Ballarina daughter, Emma Livry,
and the lifestyle of French Ballarinas.
A retired famous ballet dancer, and Italian named La Taglioni, came to see Emma dance and instead of seeing her as a rival, saw her as the Next Great. In 1858, Emma danced "La Sylphide," a dance La Taglioni was known for, and the reviews were fabulous. Emma Livry was known to be of the Romantic tradition.
Taglioni in a Ballet called "Gypsy Girl"
Image from WikiCommons
Now La Taglioni decided that she would invent and choreograph a ballet just for Emma, called "La Papillion" (The Butterfly) which would emphasize her Romantic aspect, her breathtaking grace. The ballet premiered on November 26, 1860 and was a success. She continued to dance this signature ballet.
But on November 15, 1862 the worst possible thing that could happen to a dancer on stage did, during a dress rehearsal for "La Muette de Portic." While Celestine and Montguyon watched from a private box, Emma fluffed her skirts which fanned the flame of a gaslight, also called a limelight, the light stages were illuminated by before there was electricity, and a known hazard, and she caught on fire. In her terror she ran, screamed, panicked and pushing away a backstage fireman and others who tried to come to her rescue. Finally, she was tackled and rolled in a wet blanket. (This is how we have come to say to someone who is hushing out our enthusiasm "Don't be a wet blanket!) Alive but burned over 40 % of her body, with only a fringe of clothing still covering her, her corset bones deep in her burnt flesh, it was the beginning of the end. Celestine fainted at the sight of her precious daughter.
For 131 days Emma lay on her stomach, with her hands stretched to her sides to avoid her rib cage, as doctors and nuns oversaw her agonizing treatment, afraid to cry out in pain which would make it worse. Celestine even paid the city of Paris to cover the noisy street outside her daughter's bedchamber with straw, trying to kill the sound. Montguyon, PR man as always, claimed she was healing and would return to dancing.
Emma wanted to live. Her main concern being her mother, Celestine, what would happen to her if she died. Finally, having been given the courtesy of the use of a country house by Napoleon III, in the spring of 1863 she made her first appearance, dressed all in white, and waved to those assembled along the road to see her. But blood poisoning prevailed and she never made it. Emma died having convulsions at Celestine's rented apartment in Neuilly -Sur-Sienne on the way. Her funeral was at in Notre Dame-de-Lorette and she was buried all in white - called a virgin's funeral - in the Montmarte Cemetery with a corps of ballet girls in attendance.
The "now what" began for Celestine. She pawned her jewelry to pay 27,000 francs for her daughter's medical bills. Montguyon asked Napoleon III for help and she was granted 40,000 francs plus another 6,000 of an annual pension. Celestine Emerot was all right until 1871 when the Second Empire fell and the Third Republic began. She lost the pension. Her relationship with Montguyon wasn't the same after Emma died, and when she died 30 years later at the age of 68 of cancer, she was in a small apartment and alone in life.
Many feel that when Emma died it was the end of Paris as the World Capital of Ballet, the end of a 200 year rule, with French dancers going to Russia.
As this fascinating book by Deirdre Kelly suggests, suffering, sex, and scandal are still part of the world of the ballerina. Here's her site! Deirdre Kelly
C 2016 Missy Rapport / Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
If you're interested in dancer mistresses you might want to go into my archives and read about ISADORA DUNCAN, MISTRESS OF THE MONTH FOR February 2016.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
MADAME LEONTINE PAULINE "NINETTE" AUBERT : MISTRESS OF BENJAMIN GUGGENHEIM ; MISTRESS OF THE MONTH AUGUST 2014
Image from Google Images
MADAME LEONTINE PAULINE "NINETTE" AUBERT
(May 20, 1887 Paris - October 29, 1967 Montmarte, France)
Her millionaire lover, Benjamin Guggenheim, called her "Ninette." He was a married Jewish man from a wealthy New York family, the second most wealthy man on the ship after Jacob Astor, and she was a Parisian night club singer and his mistress. Benjamin bought tickets for himself and his valet (who shared a room), his chauffer, and Madam Aubert and her maid, Emma Sagesserm, so they could stay in separate cabins, and keep up appearances. They all boarded the ill-fated Titanic on April 10th, 1912 at the port in Cherbourg, France expecting to spend their voyage in the first class areas of the ship and arrive in New York City in high style.
Ninette spoke no English. She was just 24. Benjamin, born in America in 1865, was a bit more than a decade older than she. His father had made the family wealth in industry and Benjamin had retired from actively attending to business. He had semi retired from his marriage.
When the Titanic hit the iceberg that would tear into it, Benjamin and his valet, in stateroom cabin #B82, slept through the impact. But soon after midnight, Ninette and Emma, her maid, who had felt the collision while in their room, #B35, came into his room worried. Benjamin dressed and was given a life jacket and a heavy sweater and they all walked out to the lifeboats.
When it was time to get into one, she and Emma entered boat #9. Benjamin and his valet stayed behind, perhaps realizing how desperate the situation really was. Last seen sitting on deck chairs by the women, it was later reported that Benjamin had managed to get a message to his wife through another passenger who survived. He said, "Tell my wife, if it should happen that my secretary and I both go down, tell her I played the game out straight to the end. No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward." Secretary?
In the famous film "TITANIC" by film-maker James Cameron, one perhaps never to be outdone, Ninette was acted by Linda Leisher in a scene in which she is mentioned as a bit of a society scandal. In the scene in which Benjamin and his valet are joining other wealthy men who will go down with the ship to their death, he changes into his best evening suit. Ever aware of his high class status, the character says, "We have dressed in our best, and are prepared to go down like gentlemen." (That was a quote from an interview with Ninette after the sinking.) The men drowned in the early hours of April 15th, just hours after the ship, which was branded and marketed erroneously as "unsinkable," hit into the berg. Their bodies were never recovered.
Taken aboard the Carpathia, the steamship that made it to the scene of the lifeboats, Ninette sent a Marconigram (a radiogram) to Paris to let everyone know she was a survivor.
She was interviewed and depicted the scene of the gentlemen calmly puffing their cigars and having brandy while watching the women and children get into the lifeboats.
Maybe the men appeared calm because they were in denial, shock, or held to the belief that a rescue ship would come in time to save them.
Ninette told others that once on the Carpathia she was near a nervous breakdown, and that her nervous system was permanently shattered by the ordeal and the loss. At the time she may not have been exaggerating. She wasn't the only person to be so effected by the horrific scenes of the sinking nor the only one to make an insurance claim.
When the Titanic sunk Ninette suffered great loss; Benjamin, her hopes and dreams as a Mistress, her jewelry, clothing, and her millinery (hats!) all went down with the ship. She did make an insurance claim to receive some money for her personal possessions emphasizing that that it had been necessary to leave things behind and hadn't even been properly dressed for her escape.
I've yet to learn if Madame Aubert got any inheritance from Benjamin Guggenheim, if there was any plan for what would happen if he died, but it seems unlikely.
It's said that she stayed in New York until May of the next year and then, upset and afraid, but unable to continue living in New York without anyone to support her, boarded another steamship, the Adriatic, back to France, leaving her trunk and railway tickets behind because of her nervousness.
In the end she recovered herself and lived a long life. Madam Leontine Pauline Aubert outlived Guggenheim by 55 years!
(This article was researched and put together from information that is repeated on many web sites and in books.)
C 2015 All Rights Reserved on original writing. Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot/ Missy Rapport
Sunday, January 11, 2015
JULIAN HALE'S "THE FRENCH RIVIERA" HAS THE BEST HISTORIES OF THE GRIMALDI FAMILY I'VE READ
THE FRENCH RIVIERA - A Cultural History by Julian Hale
is C 2009 by the author and published by Oxford University Press.
This book focuses on the development of a stretch of France that butts up against Italy, just about where Monaco is, beginning with the ancient history of first the Greeks and then the Romans, who built towns, monuments, forts, and even a fish farm, but maybe most important roads. The steep and unstable precipices in the area certainly gave the Romans, the great road builds, many challenges. By the 1730's the carriage road was still a rocky ride but had been built between Monaco and Menton. The Grimaldi family had lost some of their property and then regained it.
The Grimaldi ethnic heritage includes both French and Italian ancestors. And as the author explains "The Grimaldi family have been big players in the South of France and what is now Italy from Genoa to Naples for the past nine centuries. They are the longest serving reigning dynasty in Europe (and probably the world.) (Page 33)
From the official family website you will note "the Grimaldi's emerged from the Crusades as one of the four major ruling families of the Genoese urban nobility, especially warriors, ship owners, and bankers." (Some things never change!)
The Grimaldi ethnic heritage includes both French and Italian ancestors. And as the author explains "The Grimaldi family have been big players in the South of France and what is now Italy from Genoa to Naples for the past nine centuries. They are the longest serving reigning dynasty in Europe (and probably the world.) (Page 33)
From the official family website you will note "the Grimaldi's emerged from the Crusades as one of the four major ruling families of the Genoese urban nobility, especially warriors, ship owners, and bankers." (Some things never change!)
Saturday, October 18, 2014
HOW W.A. MET ANNA : THE OFFICIAL VERSION?
EXCERPT FROM EMPTY MANSIONS by BILL DEDMAN and PAUL CLARK NEWELL JR.
(page 47)
"W.A.'s eyes fell on Anna, who was fifteen or sixteen. After she was well into her twenties she would become his second wife and the mother of two daughters, Andree and Huguette.
There are competing stories of how W. A met Anna. The family version, the official version, has W. A. spotting her of the Fourth of July in a community pageant in which she played a chaste statue of Liberty. Anna loved to sing and play music, but she was shy and reserved in public. The teenager stood a shapely five feet four with cascading brown hair, a prominent round chin, and an inviting gap toothed smile. W. A recognized her talents immediately.
The unofficial version, printed in Anti- Clark newspapers casts Anna as the forward one... According to this story, Anna called on a banker in Butte, asking him to sponsor her acting career. That man declined but suggested that she contact another banker who might receive her more generously, W.A. Clark.
The family also put forward another story about Anna, one describing her as the daughter of an honored physician who had died before the wealthy W.A. Clark became her guardian and she his ward, as though she were an orphan and in need of his legal and financial protection. The facts were quite different, however. Anna's father wasn't quite a doctor, and he was very much alive.
Anna Eugenia LaChapelle was born in the Michigan copper mining town of Red Jacket, now known as Calument, on March 10, 1878. Her parents were immigrants from Montreal, in French-speaking Quebec, who had arrived in the United States six years earlier as part of a great French Canadian wave of immigration. The family later moved to Butte, settling in one of the rougher neighborhoods on the Butte hill, right below the smoke-belching smelters... Anna was the oldest of three children... "
The LaChapelles rented out rooms to miners."
(page 47)
"W.A.'s eyes fell on Anna, who was fifteen or sixteen. After she was well into her twenties she would become his second wife and the mother of two daughters, Andree and Huguette.
There are competing stories of how W. A met Anna. The family version, the official version, has W. A. spotting her of the Fourth of July in a community pageant in which she played a chaste statue of Liberty. Anna loved to sing and play music, but she was shy and reserved in public. The teenager stood a shapely five feet four with cascading brown hair, a prominent round chin, and an inviting gap toothed smile. W. A recognized her talents immediately.
The unofficial version, printed in Anti- Clark newspapers casts Anna as the forward one... According to this story, Anna called on a banker in Butte, asking him to sponsor her acting career. That man declined but suggested that she contact another banker who might receive her more generously, W.A. Clark.
The family also put forward another story about Anna, one describing her as the daughter of an honored physician who had died before the wealthy W.A. Clark became her guardian and she his ward, as though she were an orphan and in need of his legal and financial protection. The facts were quite different, however. Anna's father wasn't quite a doctor, and he was very much alive.
Anna Eugenia LaChapelle was born in the Michigan copper mining town of Red Jacket, now known as Calument, on March 10, 1878. Her parents were immigrants from Montreal, in French-speaking Quebec, who had arrived in the United States six years earlier as part of a great French Canadian wave of immigration. The family later moved to Butte, settling in one of the rougher neighborhoods on the Butte hill, right below the smoke-belching smelters... Anna was the oldest of three children... "
The LaChapelles rented out rooms to miners."
Saturday, June 28, 2014
THE ARTFUL LINEAGE OF THE FRENCH MISTRESS by RUSSEL SMITH
THE GLOBE AND MAIL : THE ARTFUL LINEAGE OF THE FRENCH MISTRESS by Russell Smith
EXCERPT:
"You see why the French don’t like to criticize leading men and their mistresses too much. They think there are big ideas at stake. Mistresses, in French artistic history, are evidence not of boorishness and sexism, but of sensitivity and cultivation. In the higher realms of power, it is not unusual to see art as essentially feminine. Yes, these are rather conservative ideas...."
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
THE LADY AND THE DUKE : A FILM ABOUT GRACE ELLIOT
I tried to watch this film.
I was struck with the sets, for it seems that in capturing the architecture and landscape of the times, every scene appears to be on a stage set because the scene painters must have had work for months recreating backgrounds and backdrops. That was artistically interesting but something about it also made me feel I was watching a play that was filmed rather than a film based in historical reality... Many critics (Toronto Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and New York Film Festival) would disagree with me...
I also tried to follow it in French but was unable to!
From the back of the DVD: "THE LADY AND THE DUKE" is a suspenseful, visually opulent story based on a true story about an unusual friendship during a dangerous time. From highly acclaimed director Eric Rohmer... Beautiful aristocrat Grace Elliot enjoys her comfortable upper-middle class life and warm friendship with her former lover, the Duke of Orleans, until the turbulent French Revolution of the 1790's frighteningly begins. Their friendship unravels as Grace risks her life taking in a fugitive against the Duke's wishes..."
I was struck with the sets, for it seems that in capturing the architecture and landscape of the times, every scene appears to be on a stage set because the scene painters must have had work for months recreating backgrounds and backdrops. That was artistically interesting but something about it also made me feel I was watching a play that was filmed rather than a film based in historical reality... Many critics (Toronto Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and New York Film Festival) would disagree with me...
I also tried to follow it in French but was unable to!
From the back of the DVD: "THE LADY AND THE DUKE" is a suspenseful, visually opulent story based on a true story about an unusual friendship during a dangerous time. From highly acclaimed director Eric Rohmer... Beautiful aristocrat Grace Elliot enjoys her comfortable upper-middle class life and warm friendship with her former lover, the Duke of Orleans, until the turbulent French Revolution of the 1790's frighteningly begins. Their friendship unravels as Grace risks her life taking in a fugitive against the Duke's wishes..."
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