TITANIC'S INTERIORS WHERE LAVISH

This book can be purchased from Dover Publications.

 Many of the images I use here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

come from Dover Publications.  

This is one of several steam ship - ocean liner themed

books they publish for sale.

BILLIONAIRE CLIVE PALMER BUILDING TITANIC II - FOR A ROMANIC BYGONE ERA VOYAGE - BUT WITH PLENTY OF LIFEBOATS AND TOILETS

NPR - THE TITANIC II - BEING BUILD FOR A BILLIONAIRE BY THE CHINESE - TAKE A LOOK!

EXCERPTS:  "There will be capacity for 2,435 passengers and 900 crew. There will also be lifeboats that can carry 2,700 and a life rafts with an additional capacity of 800...."Just like in 1912 there will be three classes of passenger and those with different tickets will not be able to move between the classes, though there will be more toilets for the lower decks than the original. Everyone on board will however be provided with early-20th-century-style clothes and undergarments in their cabins to get them in the mood. Whilst there will be air conditioning there will be no TVs and no Internet in a bid to get back to the 'romance' of a bygone age."

***
Ship board affairs and romances can still be had today,  though the grounding and flipping of the Costa Concordia and other boat disasters like the Korean ferry, are cautionary tales.  It may be difficult to get the whole truth from booking agents, but if you are a woman and you are hoping to meet a man on a cruise, be aware that some cruise lines/ships/itineraries cater to families and children, others to senior citizens (where the women outnumber the men greatly), others to singles.  Some vacations are more exotic than others with visits to various ports.  WHAT YOU DON'T WANT TO DO IS TURN IT INTO OVEREATING THREE MEALS A DAY and disembark five to ten pounds heavier!   - Missy

TITANIC ERA MUSIC : SONGS THE SHIP'S BAND PLAYED

One of several videos on the same subject by a YouTube Contributor, the first one is called The Mosquito Parade.  I'm not sure  all the photos are of the actual Titanic interiors or not but certainly some are!  1912, pre World War I, is identified as the Edwardian era.

NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE - TOLEDO NEWS BEE ARTIST RENDERS THE TITANIC DISASTER - SHIP WHENT DOWN APRIL 16

THE "UNSINKABLE" FLOATING HOTEL

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

 

COMING UP... HER LOVER WENT DOWN ON THE TITANIC IN 1912 : SHE SURVIVED INTO THE 1960's

In the "TITANIC" movie starring Leonardo Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, we see that the ship, like much of society, was divided by class.  Millionaires were on that ship in first class, segregated so they wouldn't ordinarily have to mix with those in cheaper tickets or the barest of accommodations.

In one scene in the movie a millionaire says, "We have dressed in our best, and are prepared to go down like gentlemen."

That's the millionaire and his mistress I'll be giving next month to!