OLGA RUDGE VIOLINIST MISTRESS OF POET EZRA POUND : WRITING LETTERS TO EACH OTHER BEGAN AND PRESERVED THEIR LONG RELATIONSHIP

WHAT THOU LOVEST WELL by Anne Conover Carson is a primary reference for this month's posts.

OLGA RUDGE

(Olga Ludovica (Louise) Rudge)

1895-1996  (one hundred and one years old!)

EZRA POUND  

(Ezra Weston Loomis Pound)

1885-1972

Olga outlived the love of her life by twenty-four years. She did not consider herself to be his mistress because, she said, he never supported her. That's attitude is of interest here at Mistress Manifesto as we attempt to define and understand unconventional and alternative relationships. Does being a Mistress require being Kept?  I don't think so! Both Olga and Ezra earned some money but also depended on money from family - in his case from his wife's - and patrons of the arts.

Ezra's grave is at San Michele cemetery in Venice, Italy. Olga was taken in my their daughter Mary when she could not longer live alone, but she was buried next to decades-long love.

***

Anne Conover Carson's book is about the love story of an accomplished poet and his accomplished violinist mistress, both American ex patriots, his fame enduring, her's not as well known. He was a married man who never divorced. She never married but when it came to their daughter, saw the positives in him divorcing and marrying her. Early in their relationship, but when she was closer to thirty than twenty, Olga made the exceptional choice to bear a child by Ezra and had a daughter they named Mary Rudge. Mary would have children and Olga, who lived to be 101, became a grandmother and great-grandmother.  

Olga Rudge experienced conflict with Ezra, who may have had narcissistic personality disorder and clearly had episodes of mental illness. He may have wavered in his intentions or may have keenly felt himself between his wife and mistress.  No doubt the women had to share him.

Ezra and Olga met in Paris at the famous salon held by Natalie Clifford Barney.   

Excerpt: page 3

Barney was some twenty years Olga's senior and was the leader of a freedom-loving and bohemian group of intellectual women in the early 1900's - Collete,  Anna de Noailles, and the spy Mata Hari. Another generation, Olga's contemporaries, succeeded them : English suffragettes, militant feminists and lesbians, tolerant heterosexuals and asexual androgyns. .......  Musical reputations were established at Barneys; salon, and Renata Borgatti, Olga's accompanist, incited her there after the two women returned from a sun-filled action on the Isle of Capri.  Olga recognized Ezra, the tall American wearing a signature brown velvet jacket, as someone she had seen at concerts in London the year before.  

***

In 1895 when Olga Ludovica (Louise) Rudge was born in Youngstown, Ohio, of Irish heritage, it was a polluted mill town but boasted an opera house. Her mother, Julia, studied voice in London and Paris and had aspirations to have an operatic career but married at twenty-nine, then considered to be spinsterhood, to one of the most eligible bachelors in town. Olga's father's family traced their origins to 17th century England and had been Anglicans but had converted to Catholicism in Youngstown. In Olga's early childhood her mother was on tour. 

Olga didn't think of marriage as a career and hated Ohio. From an early age, perhaps influenced by her mother's attitude, despite her parents obviously traditional marriage, she had other ideas. In 1904, when she was nine, her mother sent her to boarding school in England. Olga saw the voyage and all else as a great adventure and was not resentful of being sent away to the convent. She was already learning to play the violin. In 1910 her mother moved the family to Paris and they began to vacation in Italy. Olga's was an advantaged upbringing, though the assumptions about her family's wealth was exaggerated.  Olga did need to earn a living and was able to do so as a violinist playing recitals and converts primarily in Europe.

Olga's first love began in Florence, where she fell for a young man named Egerton Grey, a friend of the family, who also lived an international life.  He went to one of Olga's concerts and then began to pursue her with romantic ardor but after he married and then annulled his marriage, she was left conflicted. Egerton was slow to give up on marrying Olga.

In 1910 Olga's mother decided it was time to send her to the Paris Conservatoire to study under Maestro Leon Carambat who was the 1st violinist at the Opera Comique. She moved the family - sans her husband who remained doing business -  into an exclusive and beautiful six story apartment building.  It could be said that Olga's had the perfect mother for her own aspirations.  Julia Rudge was perceptive, she honored her daughter's talent and sought her development as a musician, and she was a companion to her daughter who furthered their acceptance by society where important patrons could afford to support the arts and the artist. Olga started performing at afternoon teas, gaining experience in front of small audiences, and the patronage of important hostesses.   

Ezra Pound was married to Dorothy Shakespear, and English woman who was reportedly austere.  In January 1921, Ezra and Dorothy were living in Paris, though they also traveled to and lived in London and would move to Italy. Though he was 36, he and his wife rented and lived humbly, almost impoverished, on stipends from his publications, his wife's money, and contributions from his parents. Ezra had respect as a poet, musician, and all around creative.  American ex-patriots writer Ernest Hemingway and his then wife were visitors, the influential Gertrude Stein (who also ran a salon) was negative, but Ezra Pound was welcomed and admired at Barney's.  He and Barney had been writing to each other about literature and poetry for over a decade. Ezra wrote the score for an opera, his contribution to the new music trends of Paris just as there were new poetic rhythms. He was a pianist and also played drums. Olga was a violinist of talent and skill and her work in the new music of Paris in the 1920's composed by another American ex-patriot, George Antheil, was remarkable.

Pound met many important and famous artists and writers at the Barney salon. He had long been seen socializing around town without his wife and what must be assumed is that she was dedicated to their marriage but left alone quite a bit. They were childless when Ezra met Olga and there was speculation that Dorothy had never warmed up to sex. 

Ezra and Olga began a correspondence in 1923, which is known, but exactly when and how their love first bloomed or they began to have a sexual relationship or if continued one, or for how long is not. The evidence of it is the birth of their only child, Mary. (Mary de Rachewiltz was her married name.)

Please check in again here at Mistress Manifesto as I continue the story of Ezra Pound and Olga Rudge!  Can you understand their unconventional love?  

Here is a question I have, which ties into our exploration of defining Mistress. I've heard of this relationship called a 'menage a trois' but I think that is incorrect, unless there is evidence that Dorothy and Ezra and Olga went around together, and perhaps included sexuality in the relationship.  Yes, at one point the three of them lived uncomfortably together, but only out of necessity.

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The introduction of this book mentioned the names of people who have already appeared here at Mistress Manifesto. I just knew this was my kind of book, and the kind of book that my loyal readers would want to read. If any of the books I've read and featured here at Mistress Manifesto appeal to you, please do the authors the honor and get a copy!

These archived subjects may be of interest to you. Living in Italy, Olga Rudge played her violin for Mussolini.  At Barney's salon, Mata Hari was one of the people she socialized with.  Isadora Duncan was a contemporary in Paris who mixed with some of the same artists.

November 2014
MATA HARI

Tantalizing Courtesan and Spy Who Got the Death Penalty

September 2015
NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY : Lesbian in Paris who Kept Other Women

You might also be interested in: 

February 2016

ISADORA DUNCAN

Mother of Modern Dance and Mistress of Paris Singer; She Did Positive Affirmations to Attract a Wealthy Patron

March  2011   

CLARETTA PETACCI

Mistress who Died By Hanging With Her Man, Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini

NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY - AN INTERVIEW OF HER AS AN OLD WOMAN

It's 1966 and she is 90 something.  She says loyalty is the most important virtue.  Friends have given her up but she never gives up her friends.

WHAT LIANE DE POUGY HAD TO SAY ABOUT NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY WHO SHE CALLED "MY FLOSSIE."

EXCERPT page 122

From Dec 22, 1920

I have written a hai-ku in honor of Nathalie-Flossie, whom I also used to call Moon-Beam.  I am sending her a picture of a little woman in a short frock smelling flowers in the moonlight; and because of our mutual longing to see each other is not stronger than the times, places and circumstances which keep us apart, here is my work.

O brilliant moon

We see each other better

From afar

***

EXCERPT page 140  January 28 1922

On Wednesday, lunch with Balthy.*** Louise was very gay, she had been dancing until three in the morning.  At present she is collecting blue and white from China and Persia.  She has blinds made of ostrich feathers and cushions made of fur.  I caught her in bed, having herself daubed with oil of turpentine by her masseuse as she reclined on pink crepe de chine sheets!  Nathalie came with Romaine Brooks to pick me up; they wanted to see her close too, and seemed disappointed.  Romaine was sporting the Legion of Honour.  Nathalie took me to Madeleine Vionette, the great dressmaker of the moment.  A plain dress of black crepe de chine, with no embroidery or decoration; 2,600 francs!  'What would its sale price be? - $1,600 francs.'  Nathalie was able to wrangle it and got it for 1,000 francs. But that's still dear, for a reduction.

The Flossie took us to Madame R., who was giving a tea party in my honor.  It was big, grand, cold, and comfortable.  I'm enormously fond of Madame R... but my Flossie!  What a matchless creature she is, what a rare wit!  She has it and inspires it.  When someone said her house is very dusty she answered :'But dust is pretty, it's furniture's face powder.'  We saw her little old mother, frisky, alert, sparkly.  Georges is mad about her.  An incredible youthfulness runs in her veins, shines in her eyes, curls her white hair and vibrates the feather in her hat  Long ago, in our wild young days, she disapproved of my relationship with her daughter.  I can hardly blame her.  We didn't stir up the past, pressed each others hands and paid each other compliments.

*** Notes

Flossie is Liane's nickname for Natalie Clifford Barney, who she uses Nathalie, the French version of her name, also.

Romaine Brooks is a woman that Natalie Clifford Barney had a long relationship with. 

Georges is Liane's husband, a Prince.  She goes by the name Princess Anne-Marie Ghika of Roumania.

Louise Bathy is the courtesan who first inspired Liane to choose the life of a courtesan.  As a young woman new to Paris she lived across the way from Louise, who was successful and rich as a result of her Courtesan lifestyle.

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NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY THE HEIRESS WITH A FASHIONABLE SALON

When Colette, who Natalie had a relationship with, published the book Claudine s'en va, Natalie's reputation as a lesbian was affirmed. In the book she wrote, Colette depicted Natalie, and in what seems to have been a literary tradition, though disguising her under another character name, and calling the work fiction, readers guessed right. This was the third time that she had appeared as a character in a book and this was not Liane de Pougy's writing but that of a woman of literary strength who well captured Natalie's personality and mannerisms. 

Natalie's mother lived in Washington D.C. and her father lived in Europe. Natalie was still depending on her father's generous hand-outs, when he died in Monte Carlo in 1903.  She had him cremated and traveled to America with his ashes. As it turned out he had split his fortune (which would be about $63 million today) into three parts, one for his wife, Alice, one for Natalie's sister, and one for Natalie, and all in trust, which would prevent any one of them from spending foolishly. Natalie would never have to worry about his rages, his attempts to silence her, or him buying up copies of books so that no one could read them. 

I find it interesting that her father made his will this way, because he could have punished Natalie since he was so conservative and upset about her lesbianism.

Natalie had been living with her lover, beautiful Eva Palmer, for some time when she became an heiress. The women had met at a time when Renee Vivian was involved with an aristocratic and married woman, perhaps the wealthiest woman in Europe, who had already done her duty by providing two children in the marriage. Though not entirely disconnected from Renee, Eva and Natalie had lived in an apartment together, and eventually the two of them bought small houses near each other in Neuilly, near Paris.

Natalie's urge to meet new and fascinating people meant turning her little house into a Salon where the artists, musicians, and other creatives and their admirers could turn up and read their poetry, and otherwise test and show off their skills. She was a wonderful hostess who sometime planned special events to entertain, and Eva participated as an actress in the plays that Natalie scripted for it was her desire to act professionally. ***.

EXCERPT page 154 "The hostess stood serenely in the midst of the crowd. Dressed completely in white, her long hair glinting in the sunlight, she held herself with the straight back and self-assured regality that would still be remarked upon in the tenth decade. She made a point of talking to everyone at least once, focused upon each her ice blue eyes, variously described as kind or cruel, depending on how one felt about her.  She spoke in a soft murmur, never raising her voice and her infectious, melodic, laughter rang out often.

Natalie had other, passionate affairs, beginning immediately.

Perhaps more so than her affairs or her writing, it is her Salons that she is noted for.

*** Isadora Duncan and her brother Raymond came to these events and participated in them.  The names of dozens of creative people and liberals.  February 2016 was devoted to Isadora Duncan, our Mistress of the Month, for her relationship with Paris Singer.

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The primary reference for this book report post is Wild Heart by Suzanne Rodriguez.  My notes were taken especially from pages pages 150, 152, 154.

NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY and RENEE VIVIAN : NATALIE WASN'T MONOGAMOUS, and VIVIAN ?

Though the relationship with Courtesan Liane de Pougy put an end to the rumors and outed Natalie Clifford Barney to the world, especially after Liane published a 'fiction' novel that faintly disguised herself, Natalie, and other characters, that was popular, perhaps the relationship that Natalie was most known for was with Renee Vivian.  This is because, though there were others, it was the most enduring.

Born plain old Pauline Mary Tarn in 1877, Rene was the daughter of an American woman and English man who settled in Paris. After her father's death, her mother sent her off to live in England and her mother lived beyond her means. When Vivian finally got her inheritance at 21, she moved back to Paris and rented a small apartment. As she did not keep a chaperone, she became a persona non gratis to society.  Even some Americans in Paris snubbed her and she no longer received invitations. Preferring to have a small group of friends was more her style anyway.

The two women were different enough to be considered an odd couple. What they had holding them together was first, that they met young and were contemporaries, the same generation and lesbian. Secondly, they both adored poetry and wrote it, especially French poetry, though their poetry also revealed their differences. Last but not least, the two women were part of the wave of feminism that came out of the Victorian era. It was a time in which most women did not go to college or have careers. It could be argued that the restrictions were worse for elite women than poor women. It helped that they shared a sense of humor.

Temperamentally the two women were opposites. Natalie was outgoing and loved the social scene and going places and travel while Renee so loathed engaging with others that she was capable of staying in her room reading and writing while a party was taking place in the other rooms. She was shy and introverted and no doubt experienced depression. Rene was also a drug addict and alcoholic who ruined her body. She mixed a drug called Chloral Hydrate, a hypnotic, with booze, and that started when she was in her teens.  It was a sleep medication and she overdosed at least once. So, her mother had tried to put her into a mental hospital.  

Renee was also in love with Natalie. She put her on a pedestal and wrote all her love poetry to Natalie, while Natalie's poetry was to or about the various women she had loved. Young, she published a book that was titled Quelques Portraits - Sonnets de Femmese.

Was Natalie in love with her?

There are many ways to love.

Natalie's nature was not so sensitive. It was said that while the free spirit had her feminist ideals and could be a great friend to those who she chose to have in her life, she was not especially concerned with the masses. She was a bit oblivious to how most people had to live. She left her exclusive boarding school, Les Ruches, in France as a teenager with a sense of entitlement and knowing she was part of the upper crust. She went through her debut without fuss, even though she had an aversion to marriage and would soon decide that it was not even her nature to be monogamous. She even flirted with men, and the suspicious and jealous Renee wondered about Natalie's relationships with men.  In America, though there was gossip, she also continued to participate in society functions.

One of the issues in their relationship was sex. Renee was disgusted by the idea of sex with men. Natalie's role was to be the pursuer, in today's way of thinking, she took the dominant role, the male role if it were a traditional heterosexual relationship. She had sought out many experiences and became a great lover, but Renee was, shall we say, indifferent. She was a challenge to Natalie because she was difficult to impossible to stir.  The challenge frustrated Natalie.  It also meant that Natalie could not be satisfied with Vivian in that way.  Would Natalie ever be able to settle down with just one person anyway?  She was considered a "conquering Amazon."

The Quelques Portraits - Sonnets de Femmese.book got reviewed in Town Topics, Natalie got called a Sappho, her father saw the article, and his rage had no end. He blamed her mother. While he bought out the publisher and tried to destroy any copies of the book, Natalie's mother wrote to her in great distress, telling her she had sinned against nature and the law. Yet, she did come to accept her daughter as lesbian. The Barney family had allowed Natalie and Renee to move in together in Paris, so long as chaperone was present.  They hired an older lesbian to be the chaperone.

While Renee was known to have other affairs, she and Natalie were never quite through with each other.  Believe it or not Renee did get around to having an affair with... Liane de Pougy!

When Renne commit suicide, it was thought that her love for Natalie, perhaps her obsession, was the reason for it. Natalie was asked to write about it when she was 83 years old, and though her emotions and thoughts may have been all over the place about Renee, from the distance of a life well lived into old age, she typified Renee as a weak person, sad and tragic, and that only enhanced her reputation as being a Lady Killer.

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The primary reference for this book report post is Wild Heart by Suzanne Rodriguez.  My notes were taken especially from pages 191, 122-123.  It's a highly interesting book and I do hope you will read it!

NATALIE WITH FLOWING HAIR - A PORTRAIT BY ALICE PIKE BARNEY OF HER DAUGHTER

Mentioned in the book Wild Heart, I was elated to find the portrait her mother did of Natalie available on the Internet.  The link below will take you to other works by artist Alice Pike Barney.

Alice Pike Barney, Natalie with Flowing Hair, 1900, pencil and pastel on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Laura Dreyfus Barney and Natalie Clifford Barney in memory of their mother, Alice Pike Barney, 1951.

AMERICAN ART - SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM

NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY : LIBERTINE AMERICAN EX-PAT WHO PERSUED LIANE DE POUGY and RAN A LITERARY SALON IN PARIS FOR DECADES

These days, at least in intellectual, artistic, and progressive hotspots in the United States, many lesbian women choose to live their lives openly. What about a girl born in 1876, the Victorian era, who knew before puberty that she was not interested in the opposite sex and loved other women? Natalie Clifford Barney became an American expatriate who almost lost her inheritance because she refused to satisfy her family's concern for their reputation. Then she got on with the life of her choice, that of a lesbian woman who played the pursuer of other women. Although during the time that she was involved with Liane De Pougy, the famous Courtesan had no need to be Kept financially, Natalie had to cope with Liane's bisexuality and the sex work she was in. Of course, that was the relationship that outed her, because Liane published a book about it soon after!

NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY

1876-1872

Natalie Clifford Barney was born to a sweet artistic mother, born Alice Pike, and an alcoholic and womanizing father, Albert Clifford Barney, who defended himself by accusing her mother of cheating on him and went into rages. At a time when divorce was not a consideration for society people of wealth and prestige, Natalie witnessed her parent's arguments, her mother being verbally abused, and empathized with her mother's entrapment. After her mother, Alice, had Natalie and her sister, her parents started to live separate lives. Her father traveled for business and was most often in America or London. Alice was slowly able to develop her talent as a painter, eventually being acknowledged for her fine, museum-worthy paintings. 

Though the family had money from the start, once her father received his inheritance, he became truly rich, with about 60 million. He joined exclusive clubs in every city he had business in. Noteworthy is that Albert founded the Chevy Chase Club that was so 'men only' that women were allowed in only once a year for a Thanksgiving tea and were unable to contact their husbands there through any means. Was it odd that men cooked for each other there? Such a refuge, to me, makes me wonder if perhaps her father also had a secret gay life. Perhaps it simply speaks to the entrapment in wrong marriages men of the era and class also felt or the notion that Victorian wives were too needy.

The author of the book Wild Heart, our primary reference for this month's posts, Suzzane Rodriguez, does not seek to explain that Natalie may have had homosexual ancestors or genetics but she does show that Natlie's genealogy is a fascinating study of diverse ethnicities and religions. Early to America, her ancestral roots could have kept her in Cincinatti or Washington D.C., but because of her advantage she adopted Paris, France as her true home.

As a ten-year-old Natalie went to an exclusive boarding school there, Les Ruches, the same one that Eleanor Roosevelt, who would marry a cousin and become a First Lady of the United States, had been sent to. The most exclusive all-girls school in Europe at the turn of the century, Les Ruches was where Natalie first got a taste for sexual experimentation among the girls. Was that because there were no boys? Victorian era thought was that it was just natural in a girl's development to have a crush on another girl. Girls talked openly about these crushes. At school Natalie also began to develop as an intellectual though she mostly loved riding horses. People were shocked when she stopped riding side-saddle as a Victorian lady was to do and rode a horse like a man. At school she also took part in theatrical and musical productions and became known for her witticisms and energy. She trained as a violinist and would, throughout her life, develop her own writing. It's thought that her father was ignorant of the motives of the school. The intent was to encourage students to claim their independence.

At sixteen Natalie was sent to finish her education at Miss Ely's, another exclusive boarding school, this one in New York City. Soon she would be expected to marry.

When as a teenager she learned that her natural attraction to other females was considered an aberration, she was stunned.  While other teenagers found sexual experimentation just something that was part of the passage into heterosexual womanhood, Natalie had experiences with young women who were lesbian. The problem was that it was absolutely not allowed. There were suspicions about her and gossip but Natalie went through her debut to society well enough. With gorgeous long blond tresses and deep blue eyes, striking, well-educated, and the family fortune well known, even her recent adventures in Europe and her father's brusk ways were not an issue to prevent her from making a fine marital match.

There were others, male and female, who found themselves not interested in replicating their parent's marital situations or who tried to find a way around marriage. One of those ways was to marry someone who, for their own reasons, could accept a White Marriage, the term for a marriage that would not include sexuality. Such partnerships made sense for they preserved a family's reputation and often inheritances. To see this from their perspective, these families were very concerned about breeding and the continuation of their lineages and preservation of their wealth and gay people did not reproduce. Natalie had never liked playing with dolls, had an aversion to marriage, a horror of childbirth, and so, at first, she did not entertain the advantages of a White Marriage. However, the nephew of artist Mary Cassatt, Robert Kelso Cassatt, also an heir from a family of tremendous fortune, did pledge to marry her and they became unofficially engaged for a time.

"Natalie's Bar Harbor debut was the first private ball of the island's social season. More than five hundred people, "every one of social and diplomatic distinction summering at Bar Harbor, came to Ban-y-Bryn (the family home) that night, their carriages ascending a steep pathway lit by hundreds of Japanese lanterns.  Natalie dazzled in a white satin dress by Worth.  The drawing room was crowded with dancers, conversations took place on the silk-draped balconies overlooking the ocean, and food was served in the Great Hall with its trailing pine boughs and silk- shaded candlelight."  (Page 71 of the hardback book)  

Now that her lavish debut was covered by the press, the pressure was really on to marry and conform.

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There are three ways to pull up past posts in the Google Blogger. You can click on a tab, you can search the whole blog using the search feature embedded, or you can go through the archives and see what titles spark you!  Natalie Clifford Barney was the feature her at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot in September of 2014 as well.

THE PRINCESS ANNE-MARIE GHIKA OF ROUMANIA and STAYING IN AN UNHAPPY MARRIAGE

EXCERPTS page 202-203 

It's 1926 and Liane de Pougy has left her husband, Prince Georges Ghika of Roumania. Throughout the book she does have many complaints about the man, who is fifteen years younger than she and seems to be, by my way of thinking, mentally ill, and was alcoholic. Nathalie as below is Natalie Clifford Barney.

October 18

... As soon as I arrived in Paris, in Margot's  charming little flat, I called Nathalie who came to me, affectionate and approving: "You have done the right thing, Liane, I am so glad. You must keep it up....' She held me in her arms, listened, advised, sent flowers, took to the Duchess's, showed me the sweetest and most compassionate tenderness.  My friends rallied around, adorable to me and indignant at Prince Ghika, saying "It's abominable!  How could he fall so low! You were his whole truth.  He will be sorry - but don't ever take him back!  He was such a bore; he got on everyone's nerves' he diminished you." I heard endless versions of this.  In short I was made much of, comforted, smothered in flowers, almost celebrated.  Jean Cocteau came, very shocked, to pour out calming words, floods of healing poetry with which to express my agony.  As he will also come, I hope, to sing my deliverance.

... And Nathalie was there.  I - who am so scared of her thunder and also so afraid of doing her the least harm because through it all I love her deeply - this is what I did or rather had done to me, because nothing was started by me except a loyal and determined struggle in which I was defeated because my Mimy is here, she's asleep in the room next to mine as I write these words and I shall soon be going in to kiss her awake.  (She means Mini Franchetti

Nathalie, sitting  by my bed one day: 'Liane, the one I love is waiting outside. You are so beautiful, you have been so great, so admirable, may I bring her in to see you for a moment so that she can contemplate you, so that you can see her?' - 'Yes,' I said without much interest. 'Bring her in, go and fetch her.' And in she came, tall, slender, white as a magnolia flower, her enchanting gestures so graceful, small, rare, precise, fiery eyes, and almost unreal fineness.  She bent over me, over my cruel suffering. Natalie smiled.  It was Nathalie herself who prepared her own fate.

We talked. I told my pitiful story to Mimy. She didn't say a great deal. Nathalie wanted them both to carry me off to the country....

______

Liane and Mimi got involved with each other, and Nathalie became jealous.

______

EXCERPT: Page 213

Mimi Franchetti was dreadfully unhappy when I left her.  I was unhappy,  Our sensuality had its dear little habits.  I tore all that up in one minute.  ______

Liane's divorce proceedings continued.  

EXCERPT: Page 215  ... 

"Georges tells me that he adores me, that he can't look at me without wanting to burst into tears (and there are tears in his eyes), and that he is unable to control himself any longer.  He begs me to shut him up in a mad-house, or to kill him,  It is a complete disaster.   ______

My notes: It seems that sex is part of their problem.  He wants to have an open relationship and to have other women, including going to prostitutes.

Liane, who had been raised Catholic, returned to the faith of her upbringing in her later years.  Her connection with Mother Marie-Madeleine of the Faithful Company of Jesus had a long history to it. The Nun had known Liane, then Anna-Marie, since she was an eight year old. The aging Courtesan had confided in Mother Marie-Madeliene that she was miserable in her marriage and the nun advised her that taking back her husband was the best thing to do because it was a renouncement of self.  In 1928 Mother Marie-Madeleine died. 

Liane became an active Catholic, doing confessions and communions. Prince Georges was a non-believer.  However in 1935 the couple celebrated their 25 years of marriage, a Silver Jubilee. The Prince died in 1945 and the Princes outlived him about five years.

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Note October 17th... Alas, sometimes editing does not work...  At least we noticed it fairy early into this post...

MY BLUE NOTEBOOKS - AN INTIMATE JOURNAL by LIANE DE POUGY aka PRINCESS GHIKA OF ROUMANIA

 Liane De Pougy authored a few novelesque books in her time, including one in which the thinly disguised Natalie Clifford Barney was portrayed.

This book covers a period from 1900 to World War II when the famous Paris courtesan, born in 1869 and married to her Prince, who was fifteen years younger than she, was getting older.  She reports needing eyeglasses and a cane and having a number of ailments including colitis.  Princess Anne-Marie Ghika of Roumania, as was her title then, died in 1950 and at that time was associated with a nunnery devoted to taking care of severely disabled children.

The book was published after Liane De Pougy's death and is a diary.  

Here are excerpts from pages 14-15-16 of the Introduction by R.P. Rzewuski.  (He was a priest she admired and befriended.) 

"To everyone's amazement the career of 'the most beautiful courtesan of the century' came to an abrupt end while still at its most brilliant.  Her marriage to Prince Georges Ghika (who was younger than herself) was announced.

Once she was a Princess, Liane had the good taste never to parade the fact.  Besides which, her relationships with her husband's family would hardly have allowed it, because they never fully accepted her.  By the same token she was never able to create an authentic place for herself in society."

Liane sincerely wanted to consign the years of her worldly success to oblivion, and even to forget them herself.  Forget the princes, the grand-dukes, the politicians the financiers who had heaped their crowns, fortunes, celebrity, and talent as her feet  That world, however, continued on in its way and was neither able or willing to forget her and - cruel as it can be sometimes be - it did not do so.

___

What more can I say about her? Some two tor three years after we met in Lausanne, on the death of her husband***, she confided in me her desire to be received under the name of Sister Anne-Marie into the Order of Saint Dominic, as a tertiary lay sister. ***

***Prince Georges Ghika of Roumania died in 1945

*** The Dominicans are nuns who are cloistered and live contemplative lives.  A lay sister is not a person who lives cloistered but in the regular world, but is still devoted to their religious beliefs. 

VALTESSE PROTECTS HER PROTEGE'S COURTESAN CAREER BUT LIANE DEFIES HER

From my notes:

Liane began a passionate affair with Emilienne d'Alencon, a French courtesan who was also a dancer, actress, and a gambler. She said it was Emilienne who had been her "teacher in the ways of pleasure."  As well the two women were seen out in public together and the gossip columnists loved it that the two were, as we say today, 'out.'   (Notes from page 256.)

Valtesse warned her protoge Liane that lesbians aged badly!  She though Liane was a fool, but worse, in her opinion that Emilienne was when Liane got seduced by the American ex-patriot lesbian Natalie Clifford Barney.

Barney was a pretty woman who had endured her parent's displeasure at her growing reputation as a lesbian. Upon seeing the beautiful Liane, Natalie sent the courtesan letters -signed with a fake name - and flowers until Liane would grant her an in person meeting. Natalie arrived dressed as a Prince.  (I've seen photos of Natalie in this outfit and so I think it was her costume of choice at the time, implying that she was a rescuer of women.)  Liane granted the meeting but Valtesse made sure she was there too, just to send a message to Barney as to who was 'in' on the situation.  The stage was set, Valtesse and Liane in cahoots.

Liane hid herself while Valtesse lingered in the dim light as if she were the prize.  Then Liane floated out 'dressed in diaphanous white and extended her equally pale delicate hand, which gripped Natalie's shoulders with surprising firmness." (Notes from page 238)

Liane was in on this game as well as she set up the situation to tease the besotted Natalie with her intimacy with Valtesse.

As it turned out the affair between Liane and Natalie was brief but they remained known to each other throughout their lives. The day came when Liane would decide to write books.  She would write about Natalie, thinly disguised as a character with a different name.  The day would come when Natalie would also write about her life in Paris and the famous people she had known and befriended, including Liane.  They had made impressions upon each other.

*****

NOTE  in June 2011 our Mistress of the Month was CoCo Chanel

COCO CHANEL : DESIGNER WHO CHANGED WOMENS FASHION GOT HER START AS A MISTRESS.  Here is an excerpt from the first post that month:

Did Balsan move the seamstress CoCo into his "decadent lifestyle", perhaps father a child or insist she have an abortion?

Certainly he was the person who first funded her ambitions to have a millinery shop, and then design clothes.

There were other women for him - and eventually other lovers also for her - In particular a man called Boy Chapel. Most intelligently CoCo and Etienne continued to be friends until he died in 1953. When she came to Royallieu he already had a mistress there, an actress and beauty known to be well kept by men, Emilienne d'Alecon. So perhaps the romance between them has been exaggerated.

Emilienne was 14 year older than CoCo, and perhaps if not her mentor, an example. She showed CoCo how to get along with and remain friends with ex lovers and providers. (We see this characteristic also in mistress Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman.)

*****

 Emilienne d'Alencon was born in 1870 and lived until 1945.) 

C 2022 Mistress Manifesto Blogspot

Our primary reference for this month's subject, Courtesan Laine De Pougy, is the book titled the Mistress of Paris by author Catherine Hewitt.

LIANE DE POUGY : BISEXUAL PROTOGE OF VALTESSE DE LA BIGNE in BELLE EPOCH PARIS : FROM COURTESAN TO PRINCESS TO NUN?

Our primary reference for this month's subject, Courtesan Laine De Pougy, is the book titled the Mistress of Paris by author Catherine Hewitt. who did excellent research on Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne, one of the famous Parisian Courtesans who retired very rich.  As promised in the teaser I posted a couple days ago, Hewitt's book turns out to include Liane De Pougy, who Valtesse mentored.  Rereading that book, which I've featured before, from cover to cover, I focused on Liane.  Her life entwined with American ex-pat lesbian Natalie Clifford Barney and others who've been mentioned here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot.

We will also look into Liane's own diary called Blue Notebooks, which she wrote in her later years as a Princess.   

                                                         Photo is a WIKIMEDIA COMMONS download

Anne-Marie Chassaigne

LIANE de POUGY

Princess Anne-Marie Ghilka

1869 - 1950

In the book, The Mistress of Paris, we get to focus on something we don't often get to and that's the relationships between one courtesan/mistress and another.  We are so used to the idea that women always compete with each other for the attention of men, be that as boyfriends or husbands or clients, but in every profession, there are some women who mentor others. In my opinion those women who mentor are the most secure in themselves and their position.

Valtesse de la Bigne*, along with the rest of Parisian society in the late 1800's, took on the new rage for British 'tea at five o'clock." It was a time to visit, nosh, gossip, meet and mix with others. Valtesse and all her friends had 'five o'clocks' and had become the talk of Paris, with people vying for invitations, even people who would never consider becoming courtesans themselves but wanted some notice because of their association with a Courtesan. The newspapers reported who attended. Valtesse's women-only 'five o'clocks" were popular but she intentionally remained mysterious about her attraction to other women. The 'Grand Horizontales' in Valtesse's circle usually experienced casual lesbian sex and she had no doubt been seen out and around town at concerts and the theater with lesbians, but her close friends knew there was only one favorite and that was Liane de Pougy.

Around the same time bars and eateries in the Montemartre district were whispered to be lesbian hang outs.  One, called Le Hanneton, had a décor that featured dark red curtains, small tables, and low lighting, for intimate meet ups.  Then there was Le Rat Morte (The Dead Rat!) which was open 24 hours and had second door to enter or exit through discreetly.  

Liane, who started out plain, skinny, and androgynous, graduated from a convent school and was married at seventeen to a navy officer who she was miserable with. Then she suffered the traumatic birth of her first baby. She could have had a financially secure life if she could put up with him, but she sought out adventure, love and sex, with other men. When her husband caught her in bed with another man he shot at her. In 1890 she left her child in the care of others and went to Paris, with some startup capital, to stay with a friend. She was twenty-seven years old. Unlike so many other courtesans, she had not started out as a teenage sex worker, a street walker at the bottom of the profession. Across the street was a famous and rich courtesan named Louise Balthy who she watched with great interest. She made the decision to become a courtesan and began with changing her name.

After they met and instantly took to each other, Valtesse, about twenty years older than Liane, decided to take the totally inexperienced newcomer under her wing and "taught her young protégé everything she knew, from how to secure a client, to managing her career and finances, even teaching her techniques to employ in the bedroom." (Page 251)

The two women had a great rapport and went out on the town - Paris - together, though they were distinctly different in appearance and generation. They acted like a couple light-hearted schoolgirls. Valtesse told Liane that going out to Maxims restaurant, the opera in Nice, and other elite venues was business; she had to be seen. She also cautioned the younger woman that she could not give sex away - not even if it was just that a man wished to see her ankle - and to not accept being ripped off by merchants either. This was business. She had to be focused on her goal to be rich and not allow herself to be blinded by feelings of love.

Liane De Pougy was courted by the Princes and Dukes who had money as well as the playwrights and artists. She could hold her own in conversations about the arts, but it was fashion that thrilled her as a young woman. She became known for her hat collection and spending 33,000 francs a year on clothing. Valtesse told her that a Courtesan's bedroom was a stage set and that her décor needed to reflect her appearance and style. Liane decorated her first apartment in luxury including a Louis XV bed. She vacationed on the Riviera in Menton where she stayed at a villa she called La Perle Blanche (The White Pearl.) Liane's trademark was the pearl.

Eventually she would author several books that the public eagerly consumed.

Liane could have failed to succeed and ended up sickly and on the street as so many of the sex workers did, so she was grateful to Valtesse for mentoring her and considered her an excellent friend.  

Liane De Pougy, was not heterosexual.  She was bisexual, but careful to keep her involvement with women a secret from the men who paid to play. Valtesse believed strongly and so advised Liane that to remain a successful courtesan she could not become known as lesbian. An occasional affair with another woman was fine but a serious liaison would ruin her career. ame the day when Valtesse would make a point of that when a famous American lesbian came calling.

This month we will explore the life of Liane De Pougy who, as the title of this post says, became a Courtesan, married a Prince and became a Princess, and ended her years associated with a nunnery. 

Missy

C 2022 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

*an aristocratic name that she took hoping to elevate her status, Changing names was common among those is any form of sex work.

If you are interested in the Courtesans of Paris, you may want to read the following months.

Valtesse de la Bigne was featured in April 2018 

American lesbian in Paris, Natalie Clifford Barney is first featured in the September 2014 issue. 

You may also be interested in Marguerite Alibert, who was the subject of January 2019.  

Or search for the word Paris using the search feature in this Google Blogger.

COMING UP : PARIS AGAIN !

Her life intersected with some other women we have covered here including the Valtesse de la Bigne, who faked a noble heritage and ended up rich, in April 2018, and American lesbian in Paris, Natalie Clifford Barney, in September 2014. 

She was a Courtesan who chose as an adult to start at the middle and made it to the top.  But was she happy?

NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY and COURTESAN LIANE DE POUGY

Much of my  knowledge about this coupling comes from reading around the Internet.  Some of the text I read was referenced and some was not.  Consider this post to be a paraphrase!

*****

It is said that in about 1899, after seeking Liane in a Paris dance hall, Natalie showed up where Liane was then living, wearing a royal page costume. She said she had been sent by Sappho, a famous ancient Greek lesbian who also wrote poetry.  Liane was bisexual and accepted Natalie as a lover and patron, and though it was a brief affair, she eventually wrote a memoir about it called "Idylle Saphique."

HERE IS WHAT GOOGLE BOOKS HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE BOOK: "In spring 1899, Liane Pougy, friend of the writer Jean Lorrain and sworn enemy of Caroline Otero, meeting an American twenty-three, Natalie Clifford Barney. C'est aussitôt le coup de foudre. It was immediately hooked. Pendant l'été qui suit, les deux femmes vont vivre une véritable passion. During the summer following, the two women will experience a true passion. C'est cette passion que Liane écrit au fur et à mesure qu'elle la vit. It is this passion that Liane written as she saw her. Idylle Saphique, paru en 1901, est un brillant témoignage de cette époque " fin de siècle ", tellement décadente et tellement tumultueuse, où le plaisir et son assouvissement règnent en maître à Paris. Sapphic romance, published in 1901, is a shining symbol of that era "fin de siècle", so decadent and so tumultuous, where pleasure and satisfaction reign supreme in Paris."

GOOGLE BOOKS/TRANSLATE Idylle Saphique by Liane De Pougy

According to Wikipedia, this book became the talk of Paris and was reprinted at least 69 times in its first year.

SUITE 101 PAGE ON LIANE DE POUGY - Quoting Souhami, Diana. Wild Girls: Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. London 2004

"She became quite wealthy. According to The New York Times, Liane ‘acquired a handsome house with magnificent furniture’ in Paris. She also owned houses in Brittany and St.Germain. ... She fell very much in love with the notorious lesbian, Natalie Barney, who was an American heiress. When Natalie’s father found out about the affair he threatened to disinherit her and ordered her to return to America. She refused. However Natalie was eventually unfaithful to her so the affair ended badly..."

QUOTES OF NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY

You can learn a lot about a person's character and sensibility hearing their quotes. 

I loved this video!

NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY : WAS SHE OR WASN'T SHE KEEPING OTHER WOMEN?

    Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972)

image from http://www.arcamax.com/knowledge/quotes/s-34416

"When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks."  - Natalie Barney

As gay marriage becomes more acceptable (and legal) we may soon forget that lesbians have long had to live in a secretive manner in order to survive. 

Gay life compared to heterosexual life is rather undocumented. 

It's only in our contemporary culture that coming out or being out has been popularized. So, when you try to find literature or news or some documentation of lesbians who lived openly and kept other women it's a hard go.  Really you must listen to whispers, speculations, and read around the subject to get a clue. 

When I do this one of the names that comes up is NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY, an American who grew up in Ohio, accepted her lesbianism at a young age, became an independently wealthy heiress who took herself to Paris, France and lived the expatriate life there among the creative who understood. 

Natalie Clifford Barney was highly involved in the artistic and literary scene there, running a Salon for about fifty years. Because she was rich, she was in position to reach into her money and give it to women who were both amorous and deserving of help. They weren't all also independently wealthy heiresses or rich from their own creative pursuits.  It was worse then than it is now for women in the arts; the arts may be one of the most discriminatory areas to work in.

Natalie had affairs that are well known and long term with other literary and poetical lesbians such as Renee Vivien and Romaine Brooks, but she was seductive and, if not promiscuous, and she may've been that too, unapologetic about being polyamorous with other women.  She sometimes seduced women who were primarily heterosexual, and those whispers extend to the dancer Isadora Duncan as well as the Courtesan Liane de Pougy.  SInce Liane would accept financial help from men, why not women?

Isadora Duncan, never a greedy or materialistic person, was always broke, always in need of the help of friends or rich patrons for her dancing schools, and once tried affirmations to bring a rich man into her life*, and it's my strong suspicion that there may've been a financial aspect to her affair with Natalie.  Saying there is a financial aspect is not to say it was only financial just that realistically Isadora always needed money.

July 2011 was KEPT GAY MEN MONTH here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO... 

This month I'd like to focus a little on WOMEN KEEPING WOMEN.  I hesitate to say Lesbians keeping Lesbians because sometimes a Woman Keeps a Woman who is straight, bisexual, or not sexual at all.  Sometimes it can be a situation such as the late heiress Doris Duke who Kept a younger woman, Ms. Hefner, adopted her as a daughter, had a falling out, but who gave millions to this younger women, both in or out of a good relationship.

If mistresshood is a well-kept secret among the heterosexuals, imagine if you will being a man who is married to a woman who also keeps another woman as a mistress. It happens just as it happens that married to heterosexual women men have boyfriends they also keep on the side.  With gay marriage more acceptable and legal it's my notion that fewer people than will ever be marrying "for cover" and perhaps these kinds of "arrangements" will die out.

From what I hear listening to those whispers, lesbians keeping lesbians have an emphasis on mentoring, patronage, and helping another person achieve their life's work, just like gay men do.  There are women who give mentoring and patronage to other women without it being a very personal, romantic, or sexual relationship. But since men, straight or gay, make so much more money than women - still - lesbian women couples continue to be marginalized enough to face having two low incomes!  Therefore, by my way of thinking it's less likely that a lesbian is kept by another lesbian than other couple combinations because of this financial fact.

That's where independently wealthy lesbian women heiresses are exceptional and can keep other women.

NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY moved to Paris in 1920.  Paris itself has sometimes been called A MISTRESS AND A MUSE to artists!

* I read Isadora Duncan's memoir in which she accounts saying affirmations to attract a rich patron into her life.


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