[She was] the most elegant of women, having the most aristocratic taste and the most exquisite tact: she set the tone for a whole area of society. – from her obituary
As we have seen before, it’s not unusual for the lives of whores to become the stuff of legend, often to the point where the real woman is either lost under the embellishment or people forget there was ever a real woman in the first place. Such a woman was Marie Duplessis, whose real story was far more interesting than the romantic legend later created from it. She was born Alphonsine Plessis on January 15th, 1824 to a ne’er-do-well Norman father and a mother who was the last of an impoverished noble family which had been reduced to servility; her mother died when she was six and her father raised her alone until she was fourteen, when he sold her to a band of gypsies. Yes, this is her actual story, stranger than the fiction by which most modern people know her, and as you will see it only gets better.
The gypsies took her to Paris and put her to work in a dress shop, but by fifteen she discovered that prostitution was far more lucrative and allowed her to pay off her indenture in less than a year (many “trafficked” women still make the same choice for exactly the same reason today). Her exceptional beauty and charm won her a devoted following, and at 16 she attracted her first important client: Agénor de Guiche, later one of Napoleon III’s ministers. It was at this time she took the name Marie Duplessis (the “Du” prefix connotes a noble family, an honor she felt her mother’s ancestry entitled her to) and wisely invested in tutors who taught her not only to read and write, but also educated her in history, geography and other subjects she needed to converse intelligently with men of the ruling class. By the age of 17 she was involved with Comte Edouard de Perregaux, but because he could not give her all she needed she did not devote herself to him exclusively; another patron, the Count Von Stakelberg (a Swedish diplomat in his eighties) bought her a house in the Boulevard de la Madeleine.
Like so many other courtesans, she established a salon in her residence, and many of the Parisian cognoscenti gathered there; among them was Alexandre Dumas fils, the as-yet-undistinguished son of the famed adventure novelist. The two fell in love in September of 1844 (only a few months after the publication of his father’s most famous work, The Three Musketeers), but the relationship was not to be; Dumas was far too poor to support her, and by August of 1845 she had had quite enough of his jealousy toward those who could. But as we will see, the relationship actually worked in reverse, and Marie brought Dumas far more wealth than he ever gave her. Her next lover was the famous composer (and infamous womanizer) Franz Liszt, but by spring of 1846 he had moved on and she entered into a marriage of convenience with Perregaux. Because this was an English registry-office marriage transacted without benefit of clergy it was not considered binding in France, which suited Marie just fine: she could share her husband’s title without having to observe any of the restrictions that come with matrimony.
Her brilliant career was not to last, however; like so many 19th-century children of poverty she had contracted tuberculosis (or as it was called in those days, “consumption”), and by the summer of 1846 she knew she was dying. She visited every specialist in Europe, but there was no cure. By September she was no longer able to work, and none of the clients who eulogized her after her death did anything to ease her suffering; as Nickie Roberts wrote in Whores in History, she was “abandoned by all her former lovers and friends except her faithful maid Clothilde – and her creditors.” She died on February 3rd, 1847, less than three weeks after her 23rd birthday. And though her lavish funeral (paid for by Perregaux and Von Stakelberg) was attended by hundreds, her possessions still had to be auctioned off to pay her debts.
That was the real story: a motherless young woman, “trafficked” at 14, who paid for her own education and became one of the most successful members of her profession at an age when modern women are still called “children”, then died of an incurable malady which would have claimed her no matter what because antibiotics had not yet been invented. But a spurned lover decided to twist that into a morality play, making Marie – or as he renamed her, “Marguerite Gautier” – a “fallen woman” who dies young as a result of her dissolute life; he also created a fictional version of himself named “Armand Duval”, who convinces her to give up her life as a courtesan and thus saves her “virtue” before she dies. The lover was of course Alexandre Dumas fils, and the novel was La Dame aux Camelias (“The Lady of the Camellias”), published only a year after Marie’s death. It soon made him far wealthier than she ever was; it became a bestseller, then an extremely popular play, then in 1853 a Verdi opera named La Traviata (“The Fallen Woman”). The book has remained constantly in print since then, the play and opera have been performed innumerable times, and there have been three different ballets and a dozen movie adaptations (the most famous being Camille (1936), with Greta Garbo as “Marguerite”). I’m sure most of you have seen or at least heard of one or more of these fictional representations of Marie Duplessis (especially if you read Tuesday’s column), yet I doubt more than a few of you – if any at all – knew anything of her real story before today. Some things never change: today, as in the 19th century, most people prefer to embrace romantic nonsense about “fallen women” and how awful it is to be a whore, than to recognize the simple, unvarnished truth.
Sold to a band of gypsies!?!
My mom used to threaten me with that when I would get out of control. I never knew people actually did it!
Fascinating. You are quite correct, I never knew Marie/Alphonsine/Marguerite/Violetta’s true story. Thank you, Maggie, for educating and enlightening as you so frequently do. 🙂
Yes, my Mom mentioned “sell you to the gypsies a few times,” though I thought that sounded like an adventure.
My mother who was raised on a reservation in Arizona used to threaten to “give [us] away to the Indians.”
I dated a gypsy who was a swimsuit model and did work in the 80’s on “Magnum PI” and “Murder She Wrote”. Probably the hottest girl I never paid. She had an intellect that was rivaled only by garden tools, however.
Heh … I’m one to ding on stupid people ain’t I?
Anyway – she was hot so yeah … sell my ass to the Gypsies!!
Krulac wrote: “She had an intellect that was rivaled only by garden tools”
What! You callin’ her a hoe?
ROFL. Well played, C andrew. 🙂
😀
It’s gift. I think…
😉
Because history, unlike fiction, doesn’t have neat, tidy endings. Bad people flourish, good people suffer injustices and die young; all sorts of events that conflict with the concept of a moral, just universe. Fiction can be much more comforting.
Hehe … yeah. I used to teach ethics in the Navy to new Cheif’s. I took the Navy curriculum and threw it in the trash every year. First words out of my mouth on the podium each class was … “History is littered with the bodies of men and women who did the right thing.”
There seems to be this myth that doing the right thing means you’ll always be rewarded and everyone lives happily ever after.
The truth is something other. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do the right thing anyway but always expect incoming!
hmm, here’s one for you Maggie, how much damage do you think Dumas’ story did, ultimately, to the reputation of the profession of courtesan? It’s seems like it was hugely influential, on the other hand it was probably only successful because it confirmed prejudices that folks already had.
The Lady of the Camellias was so called because of her custom of carrying a bunch of the flowers to the opera. Most days they were white, but on a few days a month they were red.
The Dumas’ family history is almost as exotic a story as Marie’s. Alexandre fils’ grandfather was the son of a nobleman, and rose to the rank of general in the French revolutionary army. Unsurprising perhaps, yet it shows an acceptance in revolutionary France that we’re not accustomed to: his grandmother was a slave; General Dumas was black. And there’s much, much more.
Somebody once challenged Alexandre Dumas pére over his African ancestry, and this was his response:
I was thinking along these lines this morning in the gym when Bon Jovi’s “Someday I’ll be Saturday Night” song came on …
Cheap, gratuitous lyric.
Meaningless …
People like to believe in made-up shit though – it’s agravating.
Maggie,
I didn’t know about the real lady of the camellias or that Dumas had been such a dick about it. But I still enjoy the opera. I think it interesting that operas have been linking sex and death long before biologists demonstrated the relationship.
One book on opera (Opera: Desire, Disease, Death (Texts and Contexts) points out that the horror movie staple of the “experienced” girl getting murdered is a continuation of the same esthetic from opera.
There was a movie, Cherry Falls, where the killer went after virgins. That’s a reversal that I don’t think we’ve seen before, or since.
I checked, and Netflix hasn’t got it. I’ve never seen the whole movie.
Coincidentally, I happened to hear an NPR profile of Marie Duplessis yesterday. It was funny listening them try to talk about her life without mentioning what she actually did. The called her a ‘courtesan’ a couple times and once mentioned one of her ‘lovers’. If your only information on her came from that profile you would have thought she wandered into Paris, tripped over a bag full of money and landed in the bed of a few wealthy men.
I always look forward to reading your harlotographies.
And I noticed that I am now officially less than two months behind! Except for LINKS, of course. Danged wildcat. 😉
There’s a newish biography of her available:
http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Who-Loved-Camellias-Duplessis/dp/0307270793/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378375748&sr=1-1&keywords=the+girl+who+loved+camellias
I’ve just read this, and at times got completely lost between the real Marie and her fictional alternatives. The author discovered Marie from her researches in ballet — Frederick Ashton choreographed one for Fonteyn and Nureyev. The author has tried to untangle the real and the fictional; but she clearly disapproves of Marie’s life, given the frequency with which she writes ‘vice’ and ‘sleaze’; your ‘harlotography’ tells me far more about Alphonsine than this book.
I’m not surprised; I’m always wary when a conventional woman writes about sex workers, even if she pretends to be sympathetic. I saw a recent article on whores in the Old West which at first seemed positive…then quickly descended into myths, disease and even the “debut at 13” myth.
The book says that she wasn’t entirely abandoned by her friends when she was dying; Count Olympe Aguado, the proto-photographer, remained loyal, supported her financially, and went to her funeral, as did her biographer Romain Vienne. And the author makes an interesting suggestion, that Maire was infected with tuberculosis by Count Gustav Stackelberg, two (or was it three, I got lost) of whose daughters died of the disease. This is certainly plausible, though whether the Count realised exactly what he might have done is speculative — the infectious nature of TB was unknown then. Tuberculosis, alas, is not a ‘virus’ as the author describes. She also relates that Marie met Lola Montez several times, though she says that Lola was born in Sligo, which is probably incorrect. There is no mention of Nickie Roberts’ Whores in History in the bibliography.
[…] *’Grande horizontale’ was the title given (in French) to high end call girls – Courtesans. I am ‘grande’ (being a large lass) but not in the French sense of status – great or high. Far from it. I would be a rubbish Courtesan – being as elegant as an elephant on rollerskates. Though I do have the pale complexion and dark rings round my eyes of someone with Consumption – associated with Courtesans in the modern mind via the story of the La Dame aux Camelias and La Traviata – the story of Marie Duplessis . https://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/marie-duplessis/ […]
[…] doch durch einen Mann zumindest moralisch gerettet wird. Dazu schreibt auch Maggie McNeill in ihrem Blog The Honest Courtesan (sie erwähnt in Marie Duplessis Jugend allerdings auch noch eine Entführung durch […]
Mourir à 23 ans lorsqu’on est si belle et que tout Paris est à ses pieds ! Ce fut pour moi LA courtisane dans toute sa splendeur. Si quelqu’un peut m’éclairer sur son éventuelle descendance, je serais heureuse de bavarder avec cette personne.
[…] https://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/marie-duplessis/ (accessed October 20th, 2018) […]
[…] doch durch einen Mann zumindest moralisch gerettet wird. Dazu schreibt auch Maggie McNeill in ihrem Blog The Honest Courtesan (sie erwähnt in Marie Duplessis Jugend allerdings auch noch eine Entführung durch […]