by Roland Perry
Lionel could not resist a double-edged comment to Céleste before heading west when he wrote, ‘It seems that my love for you has increased in [inverse] proportion to the pain you have caused me.’
Lionel ended this letter with, ‘I love you as I have always loved you.’
CHAPTER 29
Céleste’s Haut Couture
After dealing with Céleste for some time, her advocate Desmarest fell under her spell and they began an affair, with her reminding him, as she had Richard Maylam, that she would never care for another as much as she did Lionel. The lawyer, like those before him, would happily forgo any declaration of love if they could have regular sex. Bedding Mogador was hardly a national sport, but those who accomplished it would be hard-pressed not to boast of their achievement. Desmarest also sensed that her creative skills beyond the mattress might make her famous in another career. He did his best to help her to this end, acting as her literary adviser and editor, and in the process fell in love with her. Céleste paid him for his legal services in kind, which had him wanting to win the cases for her more than ever.
Some of the cases Desmarest worked on were against the powerful Chabrillan family. Desmarest found that he had inherited a more-than-competent, quick-learning, even brilliant assistant in Céleste. She had been on a self-education reading binge for seven years. Now she was studying legal books, attending trials and keeping track of legal procedures. She even began pointing out mistakes in the cases backed by the Chabrillans, particularly where they objected to Lionel’s decision to make Céleste his proxy when he sailed for Australia. The Chabrillans viewed this as a deliberate and wily attempt by Céleste to entangle her assets with Lionel’s. She was able to show this was a fabrication in the family’s sloppily researched and arrogant court declarations.
This helped Desmarest in the second of four cases brought against her, which concerned the cottage. The proceedings were pleaded in a Châteauroux courthouse and Céleste had to make the trip back to Poinçonnet, in Berry, again. She was shocked to find the cottage had been seized legally. It was guarded and she was not allowed to enter at first. A few days later five agents working for the plaintiffs forced their way into the cottage and sifted through Lionel’s papers in the hope of discovering that Céleste was not his proxy. They only found evidence that backed her claim.
Céleste complained to the public prosecutor. It ended with the Châteauroux court sentencing the bailiff, who had accompanied the plantiffs’ agents, to one month’s suspension and court costs.
This was more than simply a legal win for Céleste. It was a victory against the Chabrillans and the creditors. The strong-arm tactics and overbearing approach from the plaintiffs had proved counterproductive. Desmarest, who joined Céleste at Châteauroux, had shrewdly made sure that the case was contested where Count Lionel de Chabrillan was most popular with everyone.
The judge did not present his summary and verdict for several months, but when it came in June 1852 it was in Céleste’s favour and she was delighted. It was an even sweeter victory than the furniture at Rue Joubert. Céleste had shown the family she was no pushover. She was a fighter. She received 40,000 francs in compensation and all expenses, and another 45,000 for the furniture from the first case, which she sold. Desmarest warned her that the plaintiffs would appeal and choose a more propitious court for them at Bourges, the main city of the Berry region, where they had all the right connections.
But Céleste didn’t care. That would take months, perhaps more than a year to be heard. In the meantime she could afford to buy a more modest apartment on Avenue de Saint-Cloud. It had a garden for Solange to play in when she was brought for a visit. Céleste celebrated her victories in the courts with a party in March 1853. It was attended by many Paris celebrities, including Plon-Plon and another luminary of the demimonde, the lean, dark-haired and good-looking Thomas Couture, thirty-eight, whom she had met recently after one of her shows at the Théâtre des Variétés. He was a painter and history teacher, who instructed Édouard Manet, among others. He had offered to draw Céleste, like the sketches he had done of George Sand and Pierre-Jean de Béranger, a poet and writer of popular and patriotic songs. Couture followed through.
‘Because it is signed by a great artist,’ Céleste said of the drawing, ‘it is probably the only thing of me that will endure.’
Enchanted, and her vanity flattered by his artistic attention, she displayed the portrait drawing at the party. Couture received many compliments for it.
Another of her guests was young writer Alexandre Dumas Jr, so-called to distinguish him from his illustrious father. He impressed Céleste, who may have had an eye to making him a conquest, just for the sake of having had her only father-and-son combination.
‘He was distant and had a sceptical, discerning mind,’ she noted. ‘He could be mean, but if he paid you a compliment, you could believe it. He never gave them readily.’
Dumas Jr had been at the premiere of the Variétés stage show The 1852 Revue, in which Céleste starred. He remarked in a critique that ‘She sang, played and recited divinely; if she is willing to work, she will have a true talent.’1
CHAPTER 30
The Near Gatecrasher
Céleste, very much in a festive mood because of the court-case windfalls, held a dinner party for six friends, a week later. It began at 7 p.m. The main course had been served and desserts were on the table when her maid rushed into the room looking shaken, followed by the hand-wringing concierge.
‘The Count de Chabrillan is in Paris, Madame!’ she said.
‘What?!’
‘Oui, Madame. Since he was told you had guests, he did not wish to come up. He’s in the Passage du Havre.’
She left the maid to explain the situation to the guests and hurried from the building to locate the count. She found him lurking in the Passage du Havre. He had a beard like a bushranger. His face was thin and his skin tanned; his eyes were lifeless. She saw ‘pain written all over him’.
Céleste moved to kiss him but he stopped her with a look.
‘You’re entertaining,’ he said, ‘I have disturbed you.’
‘Just a few friends for dinner . . .’
‘I have no right to ask you who is at your house.’
‘Oh, there was—’
‘Do you want to come to my hotel?’ he interrupted her. ‘We need to talk business.’ It was his way of speaking about everything except business.
Céleste followed without saying a word. Her manner of immediate compliance would have been obvious to him. Her feelings had not changed in the six years they had known each other.
‘Here, these are my special present for you,’ he said at the hotel as he uncovered a cage to reveal small, colourful birds. ‘I smuggled them back. They all lived!’
‘They’re all darlings!’ Céleste exclaimed as she took one from the cage and fondled it. She began to cry. Lionel did not move to comfort her. She noticed long scars on his hands.
‘How did you get those?’ she asked, attempting to touch him. He pulled away, rolled up his sleeve and showed her a tattoo.
‘That’s you,’ he said, ‘in case you don’t recognise yourself. I had it done on the trip. Here see, the date . . .’
Céleste embraced him. Lionel hardly responded and it was clear to her that the hardships in the New South Wales bush had squeezed all the passion and much of the life out of him. But he had returned and that was all that mattered to her. Without hesitation Céleste wanted to renew their relationship.
‘I want you to move into my apartment, right away,’ she said, holding him.
‘No, I can’t pay the rent. I will not be a burden to you.’
They spent the night together, and then Céleste moved quickly to make living arrangements that would not offend Lionel’s sensibilities. With her usual resourcefulness, she passed her lease on to a new tenant and ‘sent everything (including cashmere shawls and jewellery) to be sold off’. The proceeds helped as she rushed about Paris buyin
g back everything that Lionel’s creditors had put up for sale, especially paintings and pistols that were dear to him. She also paid off all his debts.
Once more, without hesitation, she was uprooting her existence for Lionel, but this time going down-market to a 1000-francs-a-year ground-floor apartment on Rue de Navarin, which had a small yard for Solange’s visits. Lionel rented a small room in Rue Laffitte, but spent his days with Céleste. To her delight, she found he had mellowed. Gone were the slights and verbal abuse directed so monotonously at her. The harshness of his experiences in Australia had had a positive impact on his mind, not initially obvious from his weather-beaten and downtrodden appearance. As he regained his strength and dignity, he had the odd grumble about her performing at the theatre. But Céleste assessed this in a good light. He was snobbish about it and not a little jealous of her popularity and of who might be attracted to her before and after the shows.
As expected, the appeal by the Chabrillan family and Lionel’s creditors against the ruling over the cottage was heard at Bourges. Céleste applied herself with her usual diligence and summarised her case for the court. Lionel wrote a strong note in support of her case but did not appear. It was embarrassing enough that he was supporting his partner in a legal fight against his own family. Had he appeared, there would have been massive press interest. As it was, Mogador’s involvement caused more of a stir over the three days ‘than if the case had been that of a notorious criminal’. But Lionel’s written assistance boosted Céleste’s confidence in the change in him. Until his trip, he had been bullied by his elder brother the marquis, and dominated by his sister the countess. Now he was showing the moral courage Céleste had always believed was in him.
Two weeks later the Bourges case again went in her favour, despite the expected home-town advantage.
‘This was a great day for me,’ she wrote in her memoirs, ‘and created much confusion among my adversaries.’
It was a significant victory in her war with the Chabrillans. However, it was just one battle in an ongoing conflict.
‘I’m not done with Australia,’ Lionel said a month after returning.
‘But it nearly killed you!’ Céleste exclaimed.
‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I grew up a lot in the bush. It was a great leveller. I will go back, but on my terms.’
‘But how?’
‘I’ve had some business meetings and have found a prominent merchant, Monsieur Jacques Bertrand. He’s willing to assist.’
‘What about me?’ Céleste asked, fearing the worst.
‘I won’t go without you, I can assure you.’
‘What about your family? If you take me with you, there will be even greater disapproval of you. Your siblings will be aghast.’
‘My courage is you,’ he said. ‘My country will be where you will be.’ Then he uttered the words Céleste never really thought she would hear.
‘Will you marry me, please, and come with me?’
She had seen this coming with his fresh declarations of love, but she was still speechless. But she prevaricated, bringing up again the problem with the Chabrillans.
‘What do I care for the opinion of my relatives? I’m glad of this rejection. It sets me free.’
This articulation of his thoughts was as sweet to her as the proposal. But Céleste had to think hard. Her career in the theatre was steady, though without rave notices. She had re-established her finances by solid work in the courts and shrewd management of her assets. Still not thirty, she was able to perform her duties, if necessary, as a top courtesan. Céleste had a large and growing number of friends and admirers of both sexes. She would be leaving all that for struggle and hardship a world away from Gay Paris and the good life she had established. It was a real sacrifice and gamble on a man who appeared to have changed for the better.
‘What if Lionel became bad-tempered as in the past?’ she asked herself.
‘I am afraid of going so far away from my country, my beauty, my youth,’ she wrote with a perspicacious, gloomy interpretation of what it meant to her. ‘Soon they will all be just a memory.’
‘Only virtue and goodness can be loved for a long time,’ she noted in a moment of introspection and doubt. Would Lionel love her as she matured? Would he respect her? In the end she gave him the benefit of her love, placing only one provision on marrying him and sailing to Australia: they had to take Solange. His reply was to kiss the child twice on the cheeks.
Lionel had told his sister and brother that he was intent on returning to Australia without letting them know that he was taking Céleste, let alone that she would be his bride. They readily agreed to help with their excellent diplomatic contacts, believing that his removal from France for an extended stay would end the affair with his scarlet woman. They secured him a position as the first French Consul to Melbourne in the Victorian Colony. It was a new position and there were few places held in less regard by the diplomatic service, although Melbourne had rapidly become one of the world’s richest cities. But this modest role and the merchant’s support meant he would go with at least some financial backing, and to a fresh frontier in the free-settled colony.
‘I only accepted the consular role so that I can speculate on stocks and commodities,’ Lionel told Céleste to ease her fears about how long they would be away. ‘I want to make a lot of money in a short time . . . Love me as I love you and when you are my wife, the future will be my responsibility.’
Céleste had one pressing issue she wished to resolve before setting sail: to stop the publication of her memoirs. Now that she was back with Lionel she was distressed at what he would think of the book. Would he see it as a betrayal? She could not ask Desmarest to get the rights back or prevent the book going public. They were still connected, but he had been cast off now that Lionel was back on the scene, and Céleste judged he would not work quite as assiduously as before for her. Instead, she chose Émile de Girardin, the brilliant 47-year-old political journalist and polemicist, and founder of La Presse. He had changed the nature of journalism in France by lowering the price of newspapers and boosting the role of advertising. But he found dealing with the two principals at the publisher Librairie Nouvelle, Messrs Jocottet and Bourdilliat, a tough task.
De Girardin and Céleste pored over a copy of the contract. She would receive no advance against the rights, but she would take half the profits after all printing costs were paid. It was a typical deal for the time, but a good one originally negotiated by Desmarest. The contract was watertight.
‘I was left with no transaction or repurchase rights, even judicially,’ she noted in her diary.
The publishers would not countenance giving up the publication. Céleste tried to play down the value of her work, but the publishers insisted the book was bestseller material. Bourdilliat saw it as ‘the love story of the century’. Céleste feared it would destroy her hard-won relationship with Lionel.
Céleste, as usual, would not give up. She went to see her good friend Alexandre Dumas, who was secretly back in Paris plotting against the French president, Louis-Napoleon. Just as she was about to leave, a servant announced that ‘His Highness Prince Napoleon’ (Plon-Plon) had arrived. Dumas suggested she enlist his help in preventing the publication. Céleste had no idea that Plon-Plon was considering ways to wrest the throne from his cousin, and that he and Dumas were about to have a clandestine meeting concerning it.
These two lovers of hers delayed their talk of overthrow and listened to her pleas about her memoirs. She was surprised to learn that Plon-Plon knew about the problem.
‘There’s simply nothing I can do,’ Plon-Plon said. ‘It’s a business matter and the publishers are within their rights.’
‘But, Your Highness,’ she said, ‘I’m about to be married!’
‘And that’s another act of folly!’ Plon-Plon said. ‘I have said so to your Lionel, whom I’ve seen several times since his return from Australia. But he will go on with it, unless you’re more sensible tha
n he is.’1
Plon-Plon’s forthrightness dismayed Céleste, who looked at Dumas.
‘Folly or not,’ the ever-generous Dumas said in her defence, ‘they’ve known each other for years. Their love has stood the test of time. That’s a mutual guarantee for the future.’
Plon-Plon was about to comment, but Dumas added, ‘Lionel is handsome, noble and brave. Céleste is intelligent and courageous. I can guarantee that she will prove herself worthy of him. But these wretched memoirs must be withdrawn. Everything depends on that.’
‘Are they likely to create a scandal?’ Plon-Plon asked Dumas. ‘Have you read them?’
‘Yes, in manuscript. They’re a kind of confession. Quite captivating! And they can hurt no one but herself.’
‘Well, then,’ Plon-Plon said, turning to Céleste, ‘let matters take their course. We shall review the situation after your departure.’2
Prince Napoleon’s decision not to help meant that Céleste was forced to give up the fight. She consoled herself that she and Lionel would be almost in Australia before the book was in Paris stores. She refused to help in any way with the promotion. There would be no comment from her at all to journalists. She believed that only a few friends would bother to read it. Critics would either refuse to review it or ignore it altogether. It would be forgotten by the time she and Lionel returned to France in a few years’ time, if all went according to plan.
Lionel demonstrated his commitment to their relationship by engaging a top specialist in family law to draw up a marriage contract. He decided on separate ownership of property in case of any future divorce settlement, which would favour Céleste in their current circumstances. He also decided to pay her an annual allowance of 6000 francs if they separated. This was again generous, but his financial position at that moment could not justify such a figure. Yet if nothing else it was a significant gesture of his dedication to her.