19 Feb Scandalous French Women of History
Paris is the great city for the history of racy women. Certainly, other places have contributed—particularly Italy during the Renaissance. But from the time the Renaissance took off in France, scandalous French women have taken most of the world prizes for raciness.
The Royal Mistress
Diane de Poitiers by Primaticcio at Chenonceau
A great example from the early years is Diane de Poitiers. Diane was the mistress of King Henri II. Henri is probably most famous today as the husband of Catherine de Médicis. Catherine is famous for importing Italian cuisine to France (which she did not do), for slaughtering Protestants (which wasn’t really her idea), and for practicing black magic (which she probably did).
Henri however was not very interested in his wife, perhaps because she was unattractive—but also because he was so in love with Diane. The interesting thing about this, from a modern perspective, is that Diane was 20 years older than him. Indeed, she seems to have become his mistress when he was 15, and she was 35.
Unlike Catherine, Diane was famously beautiful and remained so, we are told, into her 50s. Like the king, she was also ultra-athletic, which is to say that she rode and hunted enthusiastically. Henri met her when she was a lady-in-waiting to his mother.
He became obsessed with her already when he was 7, when he was sent to Spain as a hostage, and Diane gave him his farewell kiss. While he was in Spain, he read knightly romances and dreamed of being a courtly knight in the service of Diane. And when he came back to France, he lived out that fantasy.
Indeed, he died of a wound which he got in a jousting match in which he wore Diane’s colors instead of his wife’s.
The Courtesan
The tomb of the real Lady of the Camellias
Another great example, three centuries later, is Marie Duplessis, the high end courtesan who inspired Dumas’s The Lady of the Camellias. This in turn inspired Verdi’s La Traviata, which then inspired movies like Greta Garbo’s Camille and Pretty Woman.
She was, in short, the model for the ideal of the “whore with the heart of gold.” Marie came to Paris at the age of 15, in 1839, as a starving farm girl with the more plebeian name Alphonsine Plessis (as seen on her tomb). But she was strikingly pretty and clever, and she quickly became not a low-class hooker, like most starving farm girls of the time, but one of the most famous high-end courtesans of Paris.
She had affairs with the wealthy and aristocratic, like the Duc de Morny, Emperor Napoleon III’s illegitimate half-brother, who was also the Speaker of Parliament and one of France’s top businessmen. But she also had affaire with mere artists, like Alexandre Dumas fils, the novelist and son of the famous author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.
When she died at 23 of tuberculosis, Dumas almost collapsed, and he immortalized her.
The scandalous writer
Colette’s childhood home
One of the great scandalous French women of the 20th century is the author Colette. Colette’s writing (which you may know from novels like Gigi) is racy enough to earn her the title, but her life was quite racy as well. Indeed, there is some cross-over between the two. One of her most famous novels, Chéri, is about a young man, son of a courtesan, who is the lover of a colleague of his mother’s. Colette was not a courtesan, but she did have an affair with a much younger man—her 16 year old stepson by her second husband! Her scandalous reputation came mostly however from her life between her first two marriages, when she performed, often semi-nude, in vaudeville routines. In particular, she created a big scandal in 1907, when she kissed her lesbian (or perhaps trans, in today’s terms) lover “Missy” de Morny on stage. Note that “Missy” was the daughter of Marie Duplessis’s Duc de Morny!
Where to meet them
Henri II and Diane were great builders and patrons of the arts, and you can see object connected with Diane in several places in France. There are, for instance, many reminiscences of her at the most beautiful of France’s royal chateaux, Chenonceau—famous because of the way in which the Cher river (a tributary of the Loire) flows underneath the castle. It was Diane who built the bridge across the river, connecting the original castle with the far bank—though Catherine built the section of the castle on top of the bridge when she took the castle over from Diane after Henri’s death.
For a person of mythic stature, Marie Duplessis is hard to learn anything about. She has as it were disappeared into her myth. One thing you can see is her elegant white marble tomb, which plays an important role in the Lady of the Camellias, and is in the Montmartre cemetery—frequently with bunches of camellias left by her admirers.
Colette lived for many years in the Palais Royal, a nice, quiet place for a stroll when you are near the Louvre. But you can also visit her childhood home, in the small Burgundy village of St-Sauveur en Puisaye, which plays a large role in the movie Colette, in which Keira Knightley plays Colette. The house has been lovingly restored in recent years, with many of her family’s possessions.
Want to learn more about the scandalous French women of art and history? And to see these sights and more? Come enjoy an amusing and elegant romp through France with our founder Professor Andrew Lear and our Paris guide extraordinaire, Edith de Belleville, on the Shady Ladies of Paris tour.
