The Girl Who Loved Camellias: The Life and Legend of Marie Duplessis

by Julie Kavanagh

  Ned was the first to succumb to the pull of the beau monde. For a week in June, an exodus of Parisian dandies, society beauties, “women of little virtue and an abundance of viveurs” crowded the little town of Chantilly for the Prix du Jockey Club, the culmination of the season’s horse races. As a laureate of Chantilly himself, winner of the coveted prize in 1842 with his horse Plover, he would have felt it was a huge sacrifice not to be present. Aware of this and tempted by the fun they would have, Marie said that she would be delighted to accompany him. The seven-day fete, with its marquees of amusements, grand ball, and climactic fireworks display, was an opportunity for her to meet old friends—or even future clients, since she knew this was still a possibility. Marie was singled out among the modish women on the lawns of Chantilly as the best dressed and most radiant. Ned had been mentioned the previous summer in Le Siècle’s account of a game to the death at the Reine-Blanche: “There were enormous bets and terrifying losses.… P. won ten or twelve million louis.” This year was no different. He gambled addictively, squandering his winnings on Marie, who assumed that this source of funds was inexhaustible, that her lover still had his inheritance of a hundred thousand francs.

  The return to Bougival was anticlimactic for them both. By now she was tiring of their solitary, monotonous existence and wanted some kind of diversion. She began pressing Ned to marry her. But, although she was well aware of her hold over him, Marie may not have realized the extent to which her lover valued his name and reputation. Intending to investigate her background, Ned set off for Nonant, where he had reserved a room at the Hôtel de La Poste. Marie may have told him that the owner’s son was a friend, but Ned did not make himself known to Mme Vienne. Her suspicions were aroused by his enigmatic silence, and she ordered all the servants not to speak to him, to give only the vaguest answers regarding the information he wanted. The mayor’s office delivered a copy of Marie’s birth certificate to the inn, which confirmed her status as a minor without rights, and that same morning Ned paid a call on Agathe Boisard, who had raised Alphonsine between the ages of eight and eleven. Puzzled by the elegant stranger’s attitude and questions, Agathe said very little, and Marette, the coachman who drove him there, said even less.

  Delphine told Vienne that she did not receive a visit from her sister’s lover, which was unlikely, given that his mission was to research her family—and, if the anonymous benefactor mentioned in Marie’s undated letter was indeed Ned, then this was simply untrue.

  It’s a very agreeable surprise that this Monsieur has paid you a visit in my native country, to give me news and to have left you ten francs to buy a dress. Always address your letters to this Monsieur when you write, because I intend to leave soon for Baden, where he will have the kindness to pass them on.

  Soon after, the couple left in a chaise de poste for Germany. They may also have visited Switzerland, where Ned had several relations. His grandfather Jean-Frédéric de Perregaux, founder of the Bank of France, had been brought up in Neufchâtel. An ancestor, Béatrice Perregaux, had heard about Edouard visiting the family at Domaine de Fontaine André, a restored Cistercian abbey. “But he kept Alphonsine out of sight and installed her for the duration of his stay in the nearby village of Saint-Blaise, at a hotel which still exists.”

  On their return to Bougival a shock awaited them. Several sheets of stamped official papers had been sent by the Perregaux family’s notary outlining Ned’s expenditure and warning that the family was taking legal measures to prevent his complete ruin. Pressed by Marie, he admitted that he no longer had an income and that he had been drawing on the last fragments of his property inheritance. He had less than fifteen thousand francs left. For Marie this would last about a month, and she saw that life together would not be possible. It was only a question of time.

  At a similar turning point in Manon Lescaut, the practical-minded heroine tries to make des Grieux see sense:

  There’s no one in the world whom I could love the way I do you; but don’t you realize, my poor dear soul, that in the state to which we are reduced fidelity is a ridiculous virtue? Do you really believe that we can still be tender with each other when we don’t even have bread to eat? … I adore you—you can count on that—but let me have a little time to arrange our fortunes.

  Dumas’s Marguerite, declaring that she could never behave as Manon does, secretly pawns her horses, diamonds, and cashmere shawls for love of Armand. And Marie? Vienne knew only too well. “She was a thousand times more likely to leave her lover—even her future husband—than renounce her luxurious habits and lifestyle.” In this respect, she bore more than a faint resemblance to Cora Pearl, an English courtesan (the model for Zola’s Nana) who readily abandoned a suitor when she had exhausted his fortune. And yet, there was still a reason to prolong the relationship. Ned may have reached the limit of his resources, but he did have a title, and by marrying him, Marie would become a countess. This became her only goal.

  Realizing that he was on the point of losing her, Ned agreed to go ahead with the marriage and told the Perregaux family of his intentions—news that was greeted with shock and unhappiness. Appeals were made to his honor and to the affection he felt for those close to him, but these were as ineffective as the numerous promises and the proposition of an exceptionally advantageous alliance. One word or glance from Marie dispelled every argument and generous offer. One wonders, though, which member of the family had so opposed the match. Ned was an orphan (his young mother had died when he was seven), and his older brother, Alphonse, had made a less than brilliant marriage to a bourgeoise, the daughter of a Boulogne customs inspector. Their late father, for the last few years of his life, had lived openly with a “lady companion,” a Mlle Delacombe, and so was clearly unrestrained by propriety. The most likely source of resistance is Ned’s aunt, the Duchess de Raguse, one of the most feted women of the First Empire. The duchess was a fierce custodian of her father’s fortune and was also defined by her craving for luxury and frivolity. Then there was the fact that in February of that year the Perregaux lawyers had been forced to pay a substantial sum to the old count’s mistress, who had taken care of him during the course of his long illness. The day after his death, Mlle Delacombe submitted a claim for 10,600 francs—three percent of the estate—which she said had been promised to her by the count. She won her suit, setting a legal precedent in Delacombe v. Perregaux.

  It was decided to send a family representative to Nonant (almost certainly Ned’s guardian, M. Delisle, whom Vienne calls “Monsieur B.”). He stayed at the Hôtel de La Poste and announced that he was making inquiries about Alphonsine Plessis with a view to her marriage but did not reveal the name of her fiancé. He learned only that she was the child of poor parents and had been left to fend for herself. But there was something in particular that he and his ward wanted to investigate. Ned went back to Nonant, where his identity became known when a local jockey had recognized him. Having learned no more than on the first visit, he agreed to return for a third time with his guardian, staying in the village until they had obtained the information they were after. They employed as a postilion Roch Boisard, Marie’s cousin. He and Alphonsine were the same age and for more than three years had slept under the same roof, exchanging childhood confidences. Roch not only knew which of the small tracks were suitable for carriages; he could have answered many questions for the Perregaux family. But Roch, too, had been warned by Mme Vienne and so listened to his passengers’ conversation without saying a word.

  Their latest appearance in Nonant was practically an event, with everyone wondering about the significance of these mysterious trips. It was well known what they wanted, but why these subsequent visits when it would take 24 hours to find out all there was? … As the lover, [Ned] was received with a certain sympathy mixed with a strong dose of feminine curiosity. Monsieur B., on the other hand, was viewed with cold reserve.… The information in Nonant and Saint-Germain-de-Clairefeuille was as favorable as could be hoped: no one, in effect, felt
hostile toward this unhappy young girl who could not be blamed for her background. People had sympathetic memories of her well-loved mother, and almost nothing was known of Marie’s Paris life.… The old nun Françoise Huzet who had taught her to read and prepared her for her First Communion was full of touching praise for her dear little Alphonsine and asked the two messieurs to pass on her affectionate memories.

  This was not what they were there to hear. Clearly, they had got word of the iniquitous behavior of Marin Plessis. They asked to be driven to Exmes, which was the hometown of the depraved old man to whom the twelve-year-old Alphonsine had been sold by her father. They also went to Ginai, where Marin had met his miserable end. His reputation was the only dishonor they could bring to Marie, but with no evidence and hearing nothing else but favorable reports, the pair were forced to conclude “that poverty is no vice.”

  During the trip Ned, understandably afraid that his own financial crisis would drive Marie away, had appealed to his guardian for help. Monsieur B. seized on this opportunity for a pact, volunteering to prevent the liquidation of Ned’s assets on condition that he give up the idea of marriage to Marie. He also guaranteed an annual income of eight thousand francs. On their return to Paris, not trusting his weak-willed charge to see this through, he went to Bougival to reason with Marie in person.

  This moment—or rather, a romanticized version of it—is the turning point in the novel, play, and opera based on her life. In The Lady of the Camellias, it is Armand’s father who implores the young courtesan to give up his son. He has a daughter, he tells her, “young, beautiful, pure as an angel,” whose future would be ruined by the disgrace brought about by her brother’s liaison. He asks Marguerite to martyr herself, and this act of charity, to which she ultimately assents, is conveyed with a quasi-religious sense of exultation—“I seemed to become transformed,” she says. In La Traviata, the exchange becomes the duet “Pura siccome un angelo / Iddio mi die’ una figlia” and one of the most moving scenes in opera, with the weeping Violetta vowing to make the sacrifice that will shatter her own happiness.

  The facts were far more prosaic. Ned did once have a sister (named Adèle after their mother), but she died at the age of thirteen. There was no venerable old man to win Marie’s respect, just a financial adviser, whom Vienne dismisses as an idiot. He was there to talk business, not to appeal to Marie’s spiritual courage, and he outlined his ward’s prospects in the grimmest terms. Edouard had borrowed money from all his friends, and although his resources were not completely exhausted, he had been reduced to the legal status of a minor by the ban now imposed on his spending. Marie remained inflexible. Assuming that written proof would convince her, Monsieur B. returned a second time with documents to back up his claims, saying the family would be taking legal action to prevent the marriage. This final threat was too much for Marie. Vienne describes her rising from her chair, and saying, “with a superb air of dignity and formality: ‘If M. de [Perregaux] cannot marry without your consent, what are you afraid of? … Occupy yourself with M. de [Perregaux] and do not bother me. I believe I have the right to hope, Monsieur, that you will cease these visits which are useless for you and disagreeable for me.’ He was insensitive enough to return a third time, but was not received.”

  If Marie comes across as ruthlessly self-serving, it should be argued in her defense that she was a woman of her time. This was the epoch of the fortune seeker, a world defined by self-indulgence, frivolity, and a febrile quest for excitement. (In George Sand’s definition, the beau monde was “a free, blissful society … devoid of any ideal, reduced to the enjoyment of sensation.”) But even a century earlier, Marie would still have been a creature of luxury and joy—it was why she identified so strongly with Manon, “as passionate for pleasure as her lover was for her.” The Bougival sojourn had come to seem intolerable to her, a kind of interment. It was something her friend Albert Vandam had intuited and discussed with Dumas père, who said:

  At the beginning of the third act I was wondering how Alexandre would get his Marguerite back to town without lowering her in the estimation of the spectator. Because, if such a woman as he depicted was to remain true to nature—to her nature—and consequently able to stand the test of psychological analysis, she could not have borne more than two or three months of such retirement. That does not mean that she would have severed her connection with Armand Duval, but he would have become “un plat dans le menu” after a little while, nothing more.… Depend on it, that if, in real life and with such a woman … la belle Marguerite would have taken the “key of the street” on some pretext.

  Dumas could not have been more astute. The hectic, urban life that Marie had renounced to please Ned now appeared more seductive than ever. She yearned for daily promenades in the Bois, the homage from admirers in her box at the theater, the excitement of first nights, stimulating conversation during midnight suppers at the Maison d’Or and Café de Paris. With summer reaching its end, she decided to reestablish herself in Paris, her sense of resignation that she had loved only superficially mixed with a degree of irritation that she had been misled into “an intoxication of false hopes.”

  In mid-August, Ned was listed on Spa’s register of visitors as staying alone at the Hôtel au Prince de Liège, but two bills in Marie’s keeping suggest that he had indeed remained un plat dans le menu. One, made out in his name and dated Septem-ber 29, is for a haircut by Marie’s coiffeur; another, of October 4, is from a grain merchant and addressed to “Mme la Comtesse Deperegaud” [sic]. Evidently, Marie had not yet given up her ambition.

  Part Four

  Marguerite

  ONE DAY TOWARD the end of 1844, Romain Vienne’s concierge gave him a note, a characteristically terse single line from Marie, asking him to visit her the following evening. When he arrived she was waiting impatiently, saying that she wanted to have a long talk with him and had ordered dinner from Chez Voisin. They fell into conversation, but it was not long before Marie broke off to fetch something from the mantelpiece. It was a cameo of a young woman. With a tiny beribboned waist and light brown hair curling onto her shoulders, she was exceptionally small and delicate, with an oval face, neat little mouth, and melancholy, heavy-lidded eyes. Romain recognized her instantly as Marie’s mother.

  The portrait had been given to her by an Englishwoman who had visited earlier that week, saying that she was there on behalf of “Madame la baronne Anderson,” for whom Marie Plessis had worked as a lady’s maid after fleeing Nonant in 1828. Over two years Marie had become more of a companion than a servant to her employer, who could sympathize with her lasting sadness as she, too, had lost a child, a daughter who had died at the age of fifteen. While spending the summer months of 1830 on Lake Geneva, Marie became fatally ill, a cause Vienne attributes to her broken heart. As she was slipping away, she took Madame Anderson’s hand and begged her to find the two daughters she had left behind in Normandy.

  This had seemed impossible, due to a series of errors of name and address, but more than a decade later, following her return from England, the baroness made a trip to Normandy and tracked down the elder sister. By then Delphine had become engaged to a local weaver named Constant Paquet (they married the following year), and so Marie became her primary concern. She had been shocked and saddened to learn of the girl’s occupation but was determined to honor her pledge. “The baroness wants to meet you and get to know you,” the woman said. “And if you are prepared to renounce your current life, and take the place of her own daughter, she will put an end to her mourning and start a new existence with you and for you. Her house will be yours … she will start an immediate fund to make provision for your future, and she will adopt you, as she promised your mother that she would.” She then gave Marie the miniature, explaining that it was one of two portraits that the baroness had especially commissioned. “She kept one, and she begs you to accept the other as the first token of her affection.” Exquisitely rendered in pale pastel crayon, it is so much in the style of miniat
ures by the portraitist Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, a favorite of Marie Antoinette, that it is tempting to wonder if it could be her work. Vigée-Lebrun claims in her memoirs to have been a friend of a Madame Anderson, whom she saw in London, and they may well have resumed contact during her travels to Geneva and Chamonix. Vienne, however, says that the miniature was painted by a man, “a gifted artist” whom the baroness met at the Chamonix baths.

  To what extent can this story be believed? Vienne’s is the only account of Marie’s offer from the baroness, although Charles du Hays, whose mother was responsible for helping Marie Plessis to escape, confirms the existence of a wealthy English benefactress. In one version, while protecting the woman’s identity by calling her “Lady B.” du Hays alludes to the possibility of the loss of a child by saying that she found in her maid’s situation “a great similarity with her own.” (A subsequent version deletes this personal reference, saying instead that she regarded her duty to help Marie “as a work of charity,” but names the baroness as “Lady Henriette [sic] Anderson Yorborough [sic].”

  There was indeed a Lady Henrietta Anderson Yarborough, who would have been thirty-eight years old at the time of employing Marie Plessis, but she had died in 1813, at the age of twenty-five. The true identity of Marie’s benefactress remains a mystery, and yet two pieces of evidence corroborate Vienne’s narrative. One is a certificate recording the death in Châtelard, Montreux, of “Marie Louise Michelle Deshayes, wife of Duplessis [sic]”; the other is the miniature itself. Mounted as a gold medallion, it was passed on to Delphine and her descendants and is now on display in the Musée de la Dame aux Camélias in the Normandy town of Gacé.