another
performance she was so thickly covered in diamonds that one critic wrote:
“This is not an actress we see on the stage before us but a jewelry store.
” The size of her personal wardrobe was legendary, too. The journalist
Callias tells us that her departure for a tour to Baden caused a traffic jam
when the thirty-seven coaches required to carry her dresses and hats obstructed
the rue Ecuries-d’Artois.
But size and expenditure were only part of the story. The fabrics and gems, the
colors, cuts, flounces, and feathers that she draped, pinned, and arranged
around her body touched and moved a nascent spirit in her audience. You can
sense this in the enthusiasm with which Théodore de Banville describes the
dress Antigny wore in the brief comedy,
On demand des ingénues
.
“Green, the color of waves . . . it does not seem to
have been cut and stitched . . . but trimmed and tossed
into shape by the delicate hands of a fairy.” By his account, the dress
excited perception itself to action: “[I]n every little corolla of green
crepe . . . a diamond shines and glitters and sparkles in
sidereal whiteness, and the light audaciously comes and kisses it.” Of
course, gowns and jewels cannot create such effects by themselves. Blanche’
s passionate love for beauty was behind it all, an insatiable desire that
against so many odds was fed again and again in increasingly lavish proportions.
If de Banville was to write after her death that she “wore fiery diamonds
and rich clothes like the natural accessories of her triumph,” the
triumph was collective. Using the magic of couture and her own elegant carriage,
she created a beauty made to be shared and shared bountifully. Her decorated
body offered and gave “all that could be desired,” as de Banville
wrote, “for the pleasure of the eyes.” A cup overflowing with sweet
salaciousness, she embodied a fantasy of realization, of wishes immediately
satisfied—one that was cherished by many successful men during the
prosperous days of the Second Empire. She became, in the words of another
critic, “the Venus who characterized an age.”
The character in question, however, was given multiple readings. No matter how
fervently satisfaction was sought, still the age was ambivalent about its
pleasures. In a famous painting for which she was the model, though Paul Baudry
partially revealed her lush body and captured the opulent style of her clothing
by draping her hips in a swath of shiny azure fabric, he fashioned her as a
repentant Magdalen, newly awakened to the holiness of chastity. Zola went in
the other direction. As depicted through his heroine, Nana, the courtesan
became a femme fatale, leading one man after another to financial ruin.
But Blanche was neither. She did not repent. Nor did she have cold blood
running in her veins. In the end, she ruined her career for passionate love.
Which should not be entirely surprising if we consider how much erotic love
resembles the love of beauty. Like eros, beauty opens the heart, softening not
only the gaze but intent itself. Under either the influence of beauty or love,
induced to linger, as we sink into the realm of feeling, we forget to calculate
our losses.
When she fell in love with Luce, a tenor who performed at the Folies
Dramatiques, Blanche dismissed her most wealthy benefactor so that she could
spend all her time with her new lover. He was a short, round man, described by
one observer as resembling a small ball. Perhaps it was the beauty of his voice
that drew her to him. Yet their time together was to be brief. Already ill from
consumption, he died within two years.
She was stricken then not only with grief but with poverty. During the period
when she was faithful to Luce, and therefore without benefactors, Blanche lost
her savings, her credit, her extravagant collection of jewelry, and every one
of the carriages that had once transported her in style along
performance she was so thickly covered in diamonds that one critic wrote:
“This is not an actress we see on the stage before us but a jewelry store.
” The size of her personal wardrobe was legendary, too. The journalist
Callias tells us that her departure for a tour to Baden caused a traffic jam
when the thirty-seven coaches required to carry her dresses and hats obstructed
the rue Ecuries-d’Artois.
But size and expenditure were only part of the story. The fabrics and gems, the
colors, cuts, flounces, and feathers that she draped, pinned, and arranged
around her body touched and moved a nascent spirit in her audience. You can
sense this in the enthusiasm with which Théodore de Banville describes the
dress Antigny wore in the brief comedy,
On demand des ingénues
.
“Green, the color of waves . . . it does not seem to
have been cut and stitched . . . but trimmed and tossed
into shape by the delicate hands of a fairy.” By his account, the dress
excited perception itself to action: “[I]n every little corolla of green
crepe . . . a diamond shines and glitters and sparkles in
sidereal whiteness, and the light audaciously comes and kisses it.” Of
course, gowns and jewels cannot create such effects by themselves. Blanche’
s passionate love for beauty was behind it all, an insatiable desire that
against so many odds was fed again and again in increasingly lavish proportions.
If de Banville was to write after her death that she “wore fiery diamonds
and rich clothes like the natural accessories of her triumph,” the
triumph was collective. Using the magic of couture and her own elegant carriage,
she created a beauty made to be shared and shared bountifully. Her decorated
body offered and gave “all that could be desired,” as de Banville
wrote, “for the pleasure of the eyes.” A cup overflowing with sweet
salaciousness, she embodied a fantasy of realization, of wishes immediately
satisfied—one that was cherished by many successful men during the
prosperous days of the Second Empire. She became, in the words of another
critic, “the Venus who characterized an age.”
The character in question, however, was given multiple readings. No matter how
fervently satisfaction was sought, still the age was ambivalent about its
pleasures. In a famous painting for which she was the model, though Paul Baudry
partially revealed her lush body and captured the opulent style of her clothing
by draping her hips in a swath of shiny azure fabric, he fashioned her as a
repentant Magdalen, newly awakened to the holiness of chastity. Zola went in
the other direction. As depicted through his heroine, Nana, the courtesan
became a femme fatale, leading one man after another to financial ruin.
But Blanche was neither. She did not repent. Nor did she have cold blood
running in her veins. In the end, she ruined her career for passionate love.
Which should not be entirely surprising if we consider how much erotic love
resembles the love of beauty. Like eros, beauty opens the heart, softening not
only the gaze but intent itself. Under either the influence of beauty or love,
induced to linger, as we sink into the realm of feeling, we forget to calculate
our losses.
When she fell in love with Luce, a tenor who performed at the Folies
Dramatiques, Blanche dismissed her most wealthy benefactor so that she could
spend all her time with her new lover. He was a short, round man, described by
one observer as resembling a small ball. Perhaps it was the beauty of his voice
that drew her to him. Yet their time together was to be brief. Already ill from
consumption, he died within two years.
She was stricken then not only with grief but with poverty. During the period
when she was faithful to Luce, and therefore without benefactors, Blanche lost
her savings, her credit, her extravagant collection of jewelry, and every one
of the carriages that had once transported her in style along
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