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

by Julie Kavanagh

  Marie’s news that night delighted Romain Vienne. They had had many conversations on the subject of her future during which he would express his concern about what would happen once her beauty and youth had faded. There were disturbing stories of wealthy kept women who had fallen into abject misery. Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet cites one, describing a courtesan whose protector had once provided her with two to three thousand francs a week. “She was discovered twelve years later in a slum house on the rue de Macon, frequented by the scum and filth of the population.” Not being part of Marie’s world, Romain found it hard to understand her obsession with luxury since his own friends were professionals—doctors, journalists, colleagues from the Bourse—and in the rue Saint-Lazare lodgings that he shared with two actresses they had just one maid among them. Inevitably, his appeals to Marie’s sense of reason resulted in a bantering exchange:

  —Mr. Moralist, I’m waiting for you to scold me roundly, and criticize my extravagances.

  —To what purpose? I’d be preaching in the desert.

  —Oh but you’re wrong. I always listen, and without displeasure, to your sermons because they’re meant well. If I don’t act on them it’s because I don’t have the strength to resist habits which have taken over from my more prudent impulses—but that doesn’t prevent me from recognising the truth of what you’re saying.

  Marie had come to rely on the frankness and genuine devotion of her “severe, sincere friend” as a welcome contrast to the flattering vacuities of her admirers. Not only could she reminisce with Romain about her youth, family, and friends, she also valued his sane outlook on life, addressing him sometimes as Mr. Philosopher and once, when introducing him to Lola Montez, describing him as “a financier, a journalist, a man of letters … and above all a wise man.” Nevertheless, his constant entreaties to prepare herself “for a more tranquil future” could be exasperating.

  How obvious it is that you’re a financier … you only talk to me about pension schemes! Next you’ll be telling me that I should use the wealth I’ve acquired to establish an annuity. Well, think about it: if I sold my horses, my carriage, dismissed my staff, took on a modest apartment; reduced my expenditures to a minimum, the following day all my suitors would disappear. It’s not our virtues that attract them but our faults, our extravagances, our opulence … and to renounce all this would be to lay down one’s arms and serve for nothing. It’s only with sumptuous clothes, jewels and horses that we can be assured of conquering the debauched adventurers, and above all the blasé old men for whom refinement and luxury are essential.

  But this, Romain argued, was shortsighted. “Don’t you ever feel a sense of human mortality? You’re the victim of a life which comes at a terrifying cost … and your opulence is a lie. It’s not yours alone, it belongs to another—or rather to others.… Look into your heart. Why is it that you want to see me so often? It’s certainly not to receive my compliments.”

  It was clear that Marie needed Romain to force her to confront brutal facts. Although only twenty years old, she often found herself brooding about “the abyss and the horror that awaits those who grow old and lose their charm.” After he left, she would spend hours in a state of melancholy contemplation, but come the evening, when she was surrounded by smiling adorers, her anxieties would vanish. “Your lecture is too somber, in fact I find it not harsh enough,” she told him. “I take your estimation of my character seriously … and I know that the body quickly wears itself out in this métier. But when you’re young and full of passion, you don’t control your destiny the way you should, you live only for the moment.”

  Now, though, Marie was being given a real chance of redemption. She had felt profoundly moved by Mme Anderson’s offer, but had asked for time to reflect. Different scenarios kept playing through her mind. She thought of the strain she would be under in becoming a surrogate for the baroness’s beloved daughter, and she was convinced, as she pointed out to Romain, that her past would be revealed.

  Imagine that I am her protégée, maid of honour, friend, companion, or what you will.… In a very short while her household, among whom no ill doing goes unnoticed, would have been informed that this young lady was none other than a well-known courtesan.… A fortnight later the baroness would find that her salon was deserted, that the women and young girls were no longer visiting her and only the men were turning up from time to time. The mansion would be blacklisted; the benefactress reproached for her indulgence and generosity toward a girl of light morals.… Do you think for a moment that she would renounce old friendships and put up with the mutiny of servants for my sake? What would happen is inevitable: she would not regret her fine act of charity, but she would turn against a protégée who, rather than compensating for her cruel loss, would bring nothing but discord. Instead of adopting her, she would let her return to her old ways.

  There was also the fact that Paris was a city Marie adored. She told Romain that the stiff severity of society in London, where she would be required to live, had as much appeal for her as the foggy Thames air. “It would kill me quicker than any penal colony, because the calm of such an existence would not be a deliverance but the peace of the tomb. I have neither the energy nor the inclination to bury myself there at the age of twenty. It would expose me to too many physical and moral deprivations.”

  She had already made up her mind not to accept the baroness’s offer when she went to visit her on the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, but she had not prepared herself for the emotional turmoil she went through. The warmth of Mme Anderson’s greeting—a spontaneous, motherly embrace—was disarming enough, while Marie’s plan to express her gratitude and repeat the arguments that she had outlined to Romain, “adding others more convincing and more conclusive,” now seemed brutally calculating.

  Warring sentiments shook my entire being: I trembled with joy and was overwhelmed with distress. My refusal made me suffer horribly.… The dear woman was sadly affected, and when she spoke to me of her daughter, whom she said I resembled, she threw herself into my arms once again, and we both shed tears. How was I able to resist? I don’t know. I knew that I dared not visit her again, the intensity of my feelings had frightened me.… Our parting was cruel, and when I returned home my heart was broken. I went to the Bois hoping to rid myself of the somber reflections which had overwhelmed my spirit, but I saw only Mme Anderson, and heard only her tender appeals.… I went to the theater … but found I was infuriated by the chatter and intrusive compliments; and so finally I went home and barricaded the door. I waited until daylight for sleep.

  But of all the reasons that had influenced Marie’s decision, she had not told Romain the most decisive of all. She now had no need of a wealthy patroness: Count von Stackelberg had come back into her life.

  There is no way of knowing how long Stackelberg had stayed away, but the death of his twenty-three-year-old daughter, Elena, in February 1843—the third daughter he had lost in three years—may well have driven him to Marie for consolation. An account published in Gil Blas claims that when Stackelberg, ever possessive, visited her at rue d’Antin, one of the first questions he asked was what had become of her portrait by Olivier. “Have you given it to your monsieur Duval?” he is quoted as saying—a reference not to Ned Perregaux but to Agénor de Guiche. During the young duke’s exile in England, Marie is supposed to have hung the painting in his apartment—a touching attempt to sustain a presence in his life. But, according to the article, Agénor still felt great tenderness toward her, and after his return to Paris was “so impatient to make love to his beauty” that he went to call on her in the morning. What followed could be a scene by Feydeau. “Everything was calm … Ding! The bell rang.… It’s the count! Quick, there—behind this curtain!” When Stackelberg interrogated Marie about the Olivier, it was her maid—“the most alert of soubrettes”—who came to the rescue, whispering that she would run to Agénor’s apartment to fetch it. Fifteen minutes later it was back in rue d’Antin, hanging between an unfinished por
trait of Marie and a framed print of her look-alike, the plaintive black-haired Marix, in a reproduction of Mignon aspirant au ciel. “The count immediately went on his knees swearing never to forgive himself for his unworthy and unjustified suspicions.”

  If this incident really happened, then Stackelberg’s way of making amends was to set Marie up in even greater splendor. On 1 October 1844, at a cost of eight hundred francs a quarter, she began renting an apartment at 11, boulevard de la Madeleine, today’s number 15. Situated on the ground floor, it was not large but was unusually light with five windows onto the boulevard and more overlooking a courtyard at the back. Redecoration went on for several months while Marie continued living on rue d’Antin (15 January 1845 is the date of her last rent bill there—a more moderate sum of 540 francs). She had erected an unusual trellis of gold wood interlaced with flowering plants to cover the length of the entrance hall, and the salon had also been designed to give an impression “of brilliance, of freshness and lively colors.” This was achieved by daylight filtering through handmade lace curtains, Venetian mirrors on the walls, and more flowering plants, including camellias, planted in jardinières around the room. At night an antique chandelier gave a rich opulence and gravity to the room, enhanced by the cerise damask curtains and matching wallpaper, while perfume pans and scented candles produced a musky ambiance. To Marie’s actress friend Mme Judith, the Louis XV interior was as grand as a palace or museum. “There were sofas covered in Beauvais tapestries, small rosewood tables displaying Clodion pottery, divine Riesener trinkets with copperware chiseled by Gouthière [sic]. She showed me each room with the passion of a connoisseuse.”

  Predictably, Marie’s bedroom created the most impact. With caryatids on every foot and four posts sculpted with vines, the Boule bed was her stage, raised on a platform and curtained with sumptuous pink silk drapes. The adjoining cabinet de toilette was also a courtesan’s natural habitat, its dressing table a jumble of lace, bows, ribbons, embossed vases, crystal bottles of scents and lotions, brushes and combs of ivory and silver. To one awestruck young admirer, it was “an arsenal of the most elegant coquetterie … a profane little altar consecrating the cult of feminine beauty.”

  A Boucher-like boudoir element had infiltrated elsewhere, and even the sofas were “softened with a snow-covering of embroidered muslin,” a profusion of pink satin, lace, braid, tassels, and gilded furniture was painted with flights of birds and garlands of flowers. It was not to everyone’s liking. One observer ridiculed Marie’s ornate rosewood furniture and her collection of porcelain figurines and platters painted with sentimental bucolic scenes. Signed and extremely valuable, many of these pieces would have been given as gifts and did not necessarily reflect Marie’s own taste. Mme Judith recalled her burst of laughter as she pointed to a Sèvres biscuit container showing a drunken bacchante being teased by a faun, while in the Dumas novel, Marguerite finds a Saxe statuette of a shepherd holding a bird in a cage “hideous” and wants to give it to her maid.

  Only the dining room was austerely masculine with dark walls of Córdoba leather, plain Henri II cabinets, and sculpted oak bookshelves with folding glass doors encompassing her extensive library. Here Marie began to play the role of hostess, running up huge accounts for feasts au domicile from nearby restaurants such as Chez Voisin and La Maison d’Or. There is little chance that Stackelberg was present at the dinners he funded. Marie was his private obsession, and like the duke of the novel, he would have gone out of his way to avoid large, high-spirited gatherings. (Marguerite’s old duke arrived one day for a rendezvous à deux only to find that he had interrupted a luncheon party for fifteen, “his entrance greeted by a burst of laughter.”) During this period, Stackelberg’s extravagance knew no limits. His Christmas gift to Marie was a diamond ring priced at 4,364 francs. “I had a hard time reining him back,” she told Mme Judith. But was this just largesse with no return? One report suggests not. “She particularly owed her fortune of several years to the little services she delivered,” claimed an article in Le Corsaire: “Marie Duplessis played the role of a Russian secret policeman for the benefit of [Czar] Nicolas.”

  If Marie was being used by Stackelberg as a spy, she was not alone. “I do not positively assert that [the courtesan] Esther Guimont had a direct and clearly defined mission of espionage,” wrote Albert Vandam. “But several of her letters … prove beyond a doubt that at least on one occasion she was engaged in very delicate negotiations on behalf of the Government with certain journalists of the Opposition; while her salon during the middle of the forties was looked upon in the light of a political centre.” Marie herself would have been party to topical intrigues, as two new young admirers, Baron de Plancy and Henri de Contades, were both embarking on ministerial careers, while Agénor de Guiche was now deeply embroiled in foreign affairs. Not only had he come under the wing of Prince Friedrich Schwarzenberg (a protégé of Metternich and soon to be Austria’s prime minister) but he was also growing very close to the future Napoleon III. The title Stackelberg had once held of Secret Adviser would have given credibility to this theory were it not for the fact that the Secret Council (Tainii Soviet) for which he had worked was a largely honorific body in the czarist era—the equivalent of the Privy Council. Now seventy-eight years of age and long retired from diplomatic duties, he seems as unlikely to have been involved in state espionage as Marie was to have been an informant. Whereas the politically powerful Esther Guimont had reveled in her access to “a thousand plots, clandestine adventures and secret machinations,” Marie made it known that government figures, however eminent, “interested her far less than gens du monde, artists, and writers.”

  A more plausible motivation for Stackelberg’s excessive indulgence of Marie may have been guilt. During the past few months, her resemblance to his daughters had only increased as she began to reveal alarming signs of tuberculosis, the disease that had killed all three. Could he have been a latent carrier? The cause of tuberculosis would not be discovered until 1882, but even though it was not considered contagious, Stackelberg, being Russian and innately superstitious, must have felt himself jinxed.

  A bill for nightwear, including a cashmere nightdress and three bonnets, suggests that Marie may have been experiencing night fevers as early as March 1844, though Romain Vienne was made aware of her symptoms only at the end of that year. “They came on with immense speed as she led an impossible life of parties, balls, dinners and every sort of pleasure without any kind of break.” Certainly by autumn she almost always had a temperature and suffered from appalling insomnia. A chemist’s account details the remedies to which she resorted: laudanum, belladonna ointment, ether, leeches, opium patches, and—most poignant of all—an “elixir of long life.”

  To fill the hours after midnight Marie frequently called on her new neighbor, Clémence Prat, whose dressing room window looked directly onto hers. Once a courtesan herself, she was now a well-known procuress, a heavily built woman in her forties, who operated under the cover of a millinery business that she ran from her apartment. In the Dumas novel and play she is Prudence Duvernoy, so thinly disguised that everyone who knew of Clémence recognized her. She had made a brief, unsuccessful attempt at acting, and in an 1859 revival of La dame aux camélias she took on the role of Prudence, playing herself “with perfect mediocrity.” To Marie she was a reminder of what Dumas fils called “the coming of old age, that first death of courtesans,” a grim example of what happens to yesterday’s kept women who still have expensive tastes.

  Their friendship was based on mutual gain: Marie depended on her company, while Clémence relished the perks that no longer came her way, grateful to ride in Marie’s carriage, borrow her cashmere shawls, and share her box at the theater. In a tellingly cynical portrayal, Marguerite tells Armand that women such as Prudence are companions rather than friends, adding that her ingratiation was always self-serving. When Prudence acted as go-between to squeeze extra cash from the old duke, she would ask also to borrow five hundred franc
s, which she did not return. “Or else she pays it off in hats which never get taken out of their boxes.” Prudence cannot understand why Marguerite refuses to take on as her protector the wealthy “count de N.,” an ardent young aristocrat, instead of the duke, “an insipid old man” who watches her every move. “She says he’s too stupid,” Prudence tells Armand, “Well, he may be stupid, but he could provide her with a good position, whereas the old duke will die one of these days.”

  This was presumably the young dandy scorned by Vienne as “an idiot … a badly brought up fop of deplorable ignorance.” In his account, the “Baron de Ponval” first made contact with Marie on New Year’s Day 1845, when among the gifts she received was a box delivered by a groom dressed in grand livery. Opening it, Marie found a dozen oranges, each wrapped in a thousand-franc note. The card, which read, “Hommage from M. le baron de Ponval to Mme Marie Duplessis,” intrigued her, but she heard no more for a fortnight. On January 14, the eve of her birthday, the groom reappeared, this time bringing a casket containing a number of jewels and a note in which the baron asked to be received the following day.

  Vienne, who met the young man, describes him as tall with reddish blond hair and the gaucherie of a grown‑up schoolboy. A spoiled only son whose chief interests were hunting and fishing, he had been orphaned at twenty-five and was now squandering his parents’ fortune. Marie took an instant dislike to him. Although gracious about the presents he had given her, complimenting him on his choices, she let him struggle to formulate his sentences and made it clear after only twenty minutes that their meeting was over. He, on the other hand, appeared enchanted by his visit, particularly since Marie had given him permission to return. But when, on this second occasion, he stammered out his wishes, she bluntly declared her own conditions:

  Monsieur le baron, I realise that mine is a sordid profession, but I must let you know that my favours cost a great deal of money. My protector must be extremely rich to cover my household expenses and satisfy my caprices. At the moment I have about thirty thousand francs of debts.