the Champs-
Elysées. She tried with some success to regain her career in the theatre,
until soon after her mother died. She fell seriously ill and found herself
alone in a hotel room while her fever rose dangerously. But she was not the
only courtesan with a heart. It was because of the kindness of another
cocotte
, Caroline Letessier, who dispatched a carriage to carry her to
her own luxurious mezzanine apartment on the boulevard Haussmann, that Blanche
lived out her last days in relative comfort. She was still beautiful when she
died at the age of thirty-four.
We might be tempted here to make death itself the moral of the story, if it
were not for the fact that all of us die. This is a peril that beauty promises
us, even with the first sight of a tree in blossom, a green field, an
innocently beautiful face; though we may not be fully aware of the thought, we
consider time, and the effects of age, of death. In the contemplation of beauty,
no matter how quickly the knowledge of mortality passes through consciousness,
a thread of subtle and almost sweet sadness will be embroidered there.
A Collaboration
Against a background of hellish light, or if you prefer an aurora borealis—red, orange, sulfur yellow, pink (to express an idea of ecstasy and frivolity) . . .
there arises the protean image of wanton beauty.—Baudelaire
,
The Painter of Modern Life
I have come to recognize that in Baudelaire’s work, Jeanne [Duval]
is often depicted as a mirror of the Voudou goddess, Ezili.
. . .
—Randy Conner
, Mirror of My Love
As with everything that is fabled, the famous beauty of courtesans
continues to haunt us today. Even when no image remains, the words of witnesses,
recorded in memoirs or letters from the times, tempt us with what we can no
longer see. In the portraits we have of Marie Duplessis, for instance, where
her smiles all have an air of sadness, her mouth remains closed. Thus, we can
only try to imagine the dazzling white teeth that were so often mentioned in
the descriptions we have of her.
Yet some of the words which have been written about courtesans far outshine
any physical likeness. Think for instance of the sculpture of Madame Sabatier
that can be found on the ground floor of the Musée d’Orsay. It is
called
La Femme piqué par un serpent
. From the expression on her
face, it is easy to guess what kind of snake did the deed. She is in a swoon.
But as successful as the sculpture may be, Jean-Baptiste Clésinger’s
stone is no match for the lines Baudelaire wrote about Sabatier in
Les
Fleurs du mal:
Your head, your mood, the way you move,
With a beauty like the beauty of the countryside
As laughter plays across your face
Like fresh wind in a clear sky.
If it is in the epistemological nature of all perception to be subjective,
this is especially so where the perception of beauty is concerned. When he
wrote those lines, Baudelaire was obsessed with Sabatier. He would have a
friend leave the poems he addressed to her at the door of her apartment.
Apollonie Sabatier, or Aglaé-Joséphine Savatier, as she was named
by her mother, was the natural child of a vicomte and a seamstress. It was
because the vicomte, who was also the prefect of the Ardennes, was able to
arrange a marriage between her mother and a sergeant in the 47 th Infantry, André Savatier, that she was
christened with his name. The family lived in Mézières and Strasbourg,
before finally moving to Paris, where, since Aglaé showed promise as a
singer, she was sent to study with a great performer, Madame Cinti. Indeed, she
seemed destined for a career as a concert artist or opera singer, until at a
charity concert she was introduced to a former Belgian diplomat, the
industrialist Alfred Mosselman. Captivated by a beauty soon to be legendary and
by her light, charming manner, he set Aglaé up as his mistress in an
apartment on the rue Frochot, in quartier Bréda, on the slopes of the hill
Elysées. She tried with some success to regain her career in the theatre,
until soon after her mother died. She fell seriously ill and found herself
alone in a hotel room while her fever rose dangerously. But she was not the
only courtesan with a heart. It was because of the kindness of another
cocotte
, Caroline Letessier, who dispatched a carriage to carry her to
her own luxurious mezzanine apartment on the boulevard Haussmann, that Blanche
lived out her last days in relative comfort. She was still beautiful when she
died at the age of thirty-four.
We might be tempted here to make death itself the moral of the story, if it
were not for the fact that all of us die. This is a peril that beauty promises
us, even with the first sight of a tree in blossom, a green field, an
innocently beautiful face; though we may not be fully aware of the thought, we
consider time, and the effects of age, of death. In the contemplation of beauty,
no matter how quickly the knowledge of mortality passes through consciousness,
a thread of subtle and almost sweet sadness will be embroidered there.
A Collaboration
Against a background of hellish light, or if you prefer an aurora borealis—red, orange, sulfur yellow, pink (to express an idea of ecstasy and frivolity) . . .
there arises the protean image of wanton beauty.—Baudelaire
,
The Painter of Modern Life
I have come to recognize that in Baudelaire’s work, Jeanne [Duval]
is often depicted as a mirror of the Voudou goddess, Ezili.
. . .
—Randy Conner
, Mirror of My Love
As with everything that is fabled, the famous beauty of courtesans
continues to haunt us today. Even when no image remains, the words of witnesses,
recorded in memoirs or letters from the times, tempt us with what we can no
longer see. In the portraits we have of Marie Duplessis, for instance, where
her smiles all have an air of sadness, her mouth remains closed. Thus, we can
only try to imagine the dazzling white teeth that were so often mentioned in
the descriptions we have of her.
Yet some of the words which have been written about courtesans far outshine
any physical likeness. Think for instance of the sculpture of Madame Sabatier
that can be found on the ground floor of the Musée d’Orsay. It is
called
La Femme piqué par un serpent
. From the expression on her
face, it is easy to guess what kind of snake did the deed. She is in a swoon.
But as successful as the sculpture may be, Jean-Baptiste Clésinger’s
stone is no match for the lines Baudelaire wrote about Sabatier in
Les
Fleurs du mal:
Your head, your mood, the way you move,
With a beauty like the beauty of the countryside
As laughter plays across your face
Like fresh wind in a clear sky.
If it is in the epistemological nature of all perception to be subjective,
this is especially so where the perception of beauty is concerned. When he
wrote those lines, Baudelaire was obsessed with Sabatier. He would have a
friend leave the poems he addressed to her at the door of her apartment.
Apollonie Sabatier, or Aglaé-Joséphine Savatier, as she was named
by her mother, was the natural child of a vicomte and a seamstress. It was
because the vicomte, who was also the prefect of the Ardennes, was able to
arrange a marriage between her mother and a sergeant in the 47 th Infantry, André Savatier, that she was
christened with his name. The family lived in Mézières and Strasbourg,
before finally moving to Paris, where, since Aglaé showed promise as a
singer, she was sent to study with a great performer, Madame Cinti. Indeed, she
seemed destined for a career as a concert artist or opera singer, until at a
charity concert she was introduced to a former Belgian diplomat, the
industrialist Alfred Mosselman. Captivated by a beauty soon to be legendary and
by her light, charming manner, he set Aglaé up as his mistress in an
apartment on the rue Frochot, in quartier Bréda, on the slopes of the hill
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