The Mistress of Paris

by Catherine Hewitt

  Would you be so good as to offer these to this charming… young lady?

  A quick message to confirm would be greatly appreciated.54

  Suppressing any sense of self-satisfaction, Zola good-naturedly dispatched two tickets to Valtesse. On 28 January 1881, Valtesse’s carriage drew up outside the Théâtre de l’Ambigu, and she stepped out to take her place among a host of Paris’s most fashionable elite for the premiere of Nana. She saw her attendance neither as an endorsement of the play nor an admission of defeat; rather, this was her chance to prove her superiority.

  As the curtain rose and the play began, Valtesse could feel encouraged. The audience around her were not enjoying themselves, and the scene in which a fire broke out in one of the characters’ properties caused genuine alarm. Mme Zola was reduced to tears. The last few scenes were better received, but Valtesse felt relieved. The tale appeared even more ridiculous on stage than it did in the novel, and she delighted in openly expressing her amusement. When the curtain fell, Valtesse left with her curiosity satisfied, content that an unbridgeable chasm separated her from Zola’s anti-heroine.

  In the long run, light-hearted gossip about her link to Nana did Valtesse’s reputation no harm; if anything, it helped publicise her self-image. She soon returned to a life of soirées, social engagements and brilliant salon conversations. A courtesan had to ensure that she put herself where the public would see her. Valtesse was bright enough to approach that goal creatively – and she knew just who could help her achieve it.

  Footnote

  * © By permission of Oxford University Press.

  CHAPTER 11

  A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

  Nana brought Valtesse a flurry of attention, but she remained stoical. She was under no illusions: public curiosity would soon turn to something – or someone – else. Her image needed constant attention if she were to hold her position as one of Paris’s leading courtesans.

  The written word was not the only promotional tool available to a cultured courtesan. As she circulated in the art world, Valtesse was increasingly struck by the power of the visual image, and by the time she reached her late 20s, she had learned how to make it work for her. Harnessing its power depended on maintaining excellent relations with painters.

  Throughout the furore surrounding Nana, Valtesse continued her relationship with Édouard Detaille. Their affair had lost something of its original intensity, but in Valtesse’s eyes, the painter’s companionship, prestige and renown made the connection worth maintaining. However, she kept her natural impulses carefully in check and insisted that she was respected at all times. It was a delicate balance to strike.

  While Valtesse was not the only woman Detaille pursued, his devotion remained firm. He showered her with gifts, painted canvases for her and dined with her as often as he could. Just a few months after Nana appeared, he was busy working on a watercolour which he intended for Valtesse.1 Detaille realised that his mistress’s affection must be earned. He had learned the hard way that she would not tolerate a man’s neglect.

  Nor did Valtesse have patience where competition was concerned; Detaille found he was seeing less of her in the months preceding Nana’s publication when he began an illicit affair with another woman.2 Still, Detaille’s enigmatic ‘Mme X’ turned out to be merely a passing folly, a fleeting irritation. Shortly afterwards, Valtesse found herself facing a far more serious rival for the artist’s affection: the actress Réjane.

  Daughter of a director and a box office assistant, Réjane had the theatre in her blood. With her cherubim features, sultry eyes and arched eyebrows, which animated her face with a curious blend of confidence and surprise, Réjane won admirers when she first stepped on to the stage at the tender age of fifteen. Before long, she had established herself as one of the darlings of the Parisian theatre scene and was heralded as the next Sarah Bernhardt. Her star continued to rise as the final years of the 19th century approached. Réjane was attractive, charismatic and, born nearly a decade after Valtesse, she also had youth on her side. Réjane caught Detaille’s attention – and Valtesse noticed.

  Detaille started spending more and more time with Réjane from the spring of 1880. When he took a trip to Brussels later in the year, true to his punctilious nature, Detaille wrote to the actress every day. On his return to France, he made plans to see Valtesse, and on 6 July 1880, the pair met for dinner. However, Detaille’s evening did not end when he left Valtesse; he spent the rest of the night with Réjane. Valtesse watched the couple’s relationship unfold. She had sworn never to commit herself to just one man, and she knew she could not expect monogamy in return. But Detaille was one of her most reliable benefactors. The actress was threatening her resources.

  Valtesse knew Réjane. The women mixed in similar circles. Both had enjoyed the company of Offenbach, and they were often spotted at the same opening nights and soirées.3 Valtesse had a great deal of knowledge about her rival. She also knew just how to keep a man when she considered him worth keeping. The time had come to put those skills into action.

  Valtesse noticed that Detaille and Réjane fought often, and she made sure that she was there to soothe the artist’s troubled mind whenever the couple had an argument.

  ‘Very stormy scene with R,’ Detaille reported in his diary on 17 July.4 He immediately turned to Valtesse for consolation. Her commitment reaped handsome rewards: for all the attraction he felt towards the actress, Detaille could not bring himself to sever contact with Valtesse. His love ran deep. Réjane had good cause to fume with jealousy.

  The tension was finally broken on 23 July, when the two women confronted each other. The showdown took place at Detaille’s home.

  Met V with whom I was meant to have lunch at my place. R had installed herself in my bedroom. I did not go in. V insisted on coming into the house. I did not know what was going on. V and R had a conversation! V came to find me and we went for lunch together at Payot’s. R took V’s letters away with her… Thank goodness today is over!5

  Just what Valtesse said to her rival remained a mystery. But she had marked her territory and emerged victorious. The painter spent no more time with the actress that day – he spent it with Valtesse. Valtesse was determined not to be displaced by the younger actress. And now, having philandered, the artist would have to prove his commitment to her.

  Detaille was only too keen to comply. His visits to Ville-d’Avray became more frequent towards the end of the month and the sums of money he lavished on Valtesse grew even greater. He ensured that she wanted for nothing. His dedication was unshakeable, and all his friends could see. Fellow painter Alphonse de Neuville was sure to send his greetings to Valtesse when he wrote to Detaille after the confrontation between the artist’s mistresses: ‘My regards to Mlle Valtesse who I presume is still the reigning sovereign. It would be hard to find better.’6

  Valtesse could appear demanding and even spiteful. She loved dogs, and when she decided to buy a pair of sleek white greyhounds, she named one of them after the artist. But the relationship was far from one-sided; Valtesse found Detaille attractive and interesting. His profession brought other, practical advantages, too. A painter could create a world. He could choose what it included and shape how viewers perceived things – and people. That was a powerful skill. Valtesse saw that it could be used to a person’s advantage.

  ‘The role of painting is first and foremost to assist history,’ was the wisdom Detaille’s tutor, Ernest Meissonier, had sought to instil in his protégé.7 The obedient pupil seldom painted civilian subjects or women, and made a name for himself as the painter of the French army. This aversion to female subjects worked in Valtesse’s favour. It made her appearance in The Passing Regiment (1875) all the more noteworthy. When she agreed to pose, Valtesse made a quick calculation: as one of only a few civilian women among military men, she would be noticed. Viewers might even recognise her. Those who did would be impressed by her patriotism and her association with such a prestigious artist.

&
nbsp; The painting brought Detaille attention and acclaim. His ‘deep love of precision and sincerity in execution’ were praised; the same ‘meticulous and solid qualities’ that people admired in his tutor were commended.8 Many declared it the artist’s finest work, and Valtesse’s presence in the painting was a source of immense pride.

  Still, however, she remained one of a number. Valtesse knew that if a woman truly wished to make a bold affirmation of her status, there was a more powerful way of achieving it: portraiture.

  Portraiture remained a popular artistic genre throughout the 19th century.9 As an awareness of individual identity filtered down through the class hierarchy, more and more people felt compelled to make their social position manifest. Capturing an image of the self proved an effective way for a person to make a visual statement of their identity. Photography made the portrait accessible to the masses, but it had one frustrating limitation: it ‘shows you as you are, not as you should be’, exclaimed one horrified journalist.10

  The painted portrait could create a flattering yet believable fiction, and it continued to adorn the walls of the Salon during the second half of the 19th century.11 Having a portrait painted declared power, status and wealth, and the greater the artist, the more prestigious the subject appeared.12 Through careful selection of portraitist, venue and time of exhibition, a portrait could act as a powerful marketing tool. The fact had not escaped Valtesse’s attention.

  Conscious that she was often seen mixing in bohemian circles, Valtesse realised that commissioning a portrait by the esteemed Salon artist Gustave Jacquet would flag her respect for traditional values and officially sanctioned art too.

  Jacquet had trained under the revered William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and his early works reflected his master’s classic, highly finished style.13 Once he began exhibiting at the Salon, he made a name for himself with his anecdotal, romantic period scenes and his painstakingly observed costumes. Jacquet’s lightness of touch sometimes brought him criticism, but he enjoyed the support of some loyal admirers. As a critic observed of one of his canvases, ‘do not look at it as a painted canvas: it is the most gracious decorative vision.’14 By the time Valtesse sat to have her portrait painted by Jacquet when she was in her 30s, he had already won his first medal. Jacquet was an estimable artist.

  Jacquet’s representation imbued her with all the elegance and class she hoped to convey. Facing the viewer, Valtesse smiles gently. With Jacquet’s feathery brushwork, her skin appears soft and her eyes inviting. Her hair is scraped back, and wispy streaks of gold and white capture where the light catches it. Valtesse’s pale décolletage and shoulders melt into the background, and with her elegant posture, a single, rich gold choker gives her a lofty, aristocratic appearance. But for all the refined dignity of the finished piece, Jacquet still succeeded in making his subject appear gentle and approachable – quite the opposite of the cold, reserved persona Valtesse usually enjoyed projecting.

  It was certainly different from Gervex and Detaille’s representations of her, but Valtesse was full of praise for Jacquet’s work. It showed ‘such grace’, she found it so ‘bewitchingly seductive’, that she could only enthuse about it.15 Why, she exclaimed, it flattered the artist nearly as much as it did the model.

  The academic-style portrait filled her with gratification. However, scandal still served a purpose – and what’s more it thrilled Valtesse, for her mischievous streak was incorrigible. The controversy that helped propel another portrait of her to prominence was just to her taste.

  In 1878, the same year Zola had visited her in the course of his research for Nana, her other dinner guest, and lover, Henri Gervex, had outraged the Salon jury with his painting Rolla. The work may have shocked, but it firmly established Gervex’s reputation. The following year, two of his paintings were accepted by the jury. One of them was a portrait of Valtesse.16

  In a sun-drenched summer garden, dappled light animates verdant foliage and illuminates a single female figure. Valtesse stands demurely clutching a blue parasol, and from beneath a chic white bonnet, her hair tumbles down her back – just as Gervex preferred. Coyly, confidently, her eyes fix firmly on the viewer. Borrowing the lighter palette and looser brushwork of the Impressionists, Gervex made a bold move with the portrait of his beloved, for it was the first plein air canvas he produced. His efforts impressed the critics.17 ‘It is actually easier,’ observed one reviewer, ‘to paint interior scenes, however complicated one might think them to be, than to paint a full-length figure outside.’18 People found it reminiscent of Claude Monet’s Women in the Garden (1866–67). It was a comparison to be proud of.

  Gervex’s renown brought Valtesse instant attention. ‘Mlle V… is a blonde with fiery hair,’ commended one reviewer.19 Her elegance was remarked on, and the way the background foliage highlighted her beauty impressed critics.

  When the painting was shown again at a later exhibition, Gervex post-dated it, flattering Valtesse by ten years. But any fashionable Parisienne would have spotted that her costume, a pretty lilac afternoon dress with fitted bodice and a ruched skirt which restricted leg movement, was typical of the late 1870s.20 Valtesse was careful that she always remained abreast of fashion. So to the original Salon viewers, the painting confirmed Valtesse, the epitome of the modern courtesan, to be an arbiter of fashion. Valtesse was delighted by the accolade.

  When the painting was shown in the exhibition Portraits of the Century in 1883, it firmly established Valtesse’s place among the greatest faces of France. ‘A hundred years ago, artists painted politicians, great ladies,’ Jules Claretie wrote in his review of the exhibition. He went on:

  Under the Empire, soldiers with shaven chins and well-trimmed sideburns appeared […] between pretty pink creatures in gauze dresses. With the Restoration and the reign of Louis-Philippe, men of state […] literary figures and poets […] Under the Second Empire, it was pretty women painters fought over. Today it is actors and actresses […] This is very significant. M. Gervex has even given a place among these Portraits of the Century to a beautiful person with golden hair, Mlle Valtesse de la Bigne, who seems to smile spiritually at these great, official honours. A sign of the times, a philosopher or a cynic might complain. I do not frown upon it, but I note it as a curious symptom of our times.21

  Claretie was right: times were changing. For centuries, a Frenchman’s status had been determined by birth. Now, Valtesse, a courtesan, took her place alongside kings and queens. She was thrilled with her likeness, and when she acquired the portrait, it was hung in pride of place in her grand sitting room, where all her guests could admire her lover’s homage to her.

  Gervex had an important acquaintance he especially wanted his favourite model to meet: Édouard Manet.

  Valtesse was impatient to be introduced to the great artist. Manet’s very name resounded with excitement and modernity. He was known by all and criticised by many, but to Paris’s artistic avant-garde, Manet was a hero. For an image-conscious Parisienne, having her portrait painted by Manet was the ultimate fashion statement. With his charm and vivacity, the painter set female hearts fluttering. He suffered from a condition known as locomotor ataxia, which involves a gradual deterioration of the spinal column and nervous system. In Manet’s case it had been brought on by syphilis. By the 1870s, this malady (which would prove fatal) had already affected his legs, rendering movement difficult. But Paris’s female population were undeterred; they simply came to him. A constant stream of women of all classes flowed through the doors of his studio to have their likenesses captured.22 Manet was magnetic. ‘Once one has come to Manet’s studio,’ remarked his cousin René Maizeroy, ‘even for a casual visit, one cannot make up one’s mind to leave.’23

  Like Gervex, Manet too had caused yet another scandal in 1877 when Nana, his painting inspired by Zola’s fictional character, was rejected by the Salon jury. While rumours circulated that the anti-heroine of Zola’s Nana was based on Valtesse, she agreed to an exhilarating proposition: the great Manet himsel
f, the creator of the painted Nana, wanted to paint her portrait.24

  It was deeply flattering. Valtesse now felt confident that her reputation had not been tarnished by her connection to Zola’s novel, and she could never resist teasing the public’s appetite for gossip once she felt secure. She was excited by the idea.

  A day for the sitting was agreed upon, and when it arrived, Valtesse carefully selected the outfit she wished to be shown in. Manet was both an admirer of contemporary female fashion and a master of representing it; Valtesse wanted to be seen at her best. She settled on one of her most flattering, tight-bodiced blue dresses, with a high lace collar, which recalled the dignified clothing of latter-day royalty. She ensured her russet hair was perfectly styled, held back from her face in a neat, braided bun – she liked the rather severe, serious edge it gave her. However, a few stray curls of her red-gold locks escaped, betraying her less inhibited side. Finally, in her ears, she fixed a pair of dazzling gold earrings, a nod to royalty and a symbol of power. The effect was striking. Valtesse looked the very essence of a contemporary monarch.

  Satisfied with her appearance, Valtesse prepared herself to receive the famous artist. She waited patiently for his arrival. The agreed time came and went. Manet did not appear.

  Then all at once, Valtesse realised in horror that there had been an embarrassing misunderstanding: Manet was expecting her to visit him.

  Anxious that she might have annoyed the great master and jeopardised her chance of being immortalised by his brush, she quickly penned a letter to be delivered immediately.

  ‘I am a goose,’ she confessed. ‘I thought that you wanted to paint me at my home, and I waited. Would you be so good as to grant me another day, sir? I will come to you. I really am the silliest thing. A thousand apologies, yours, Valtesse.’25