Marie Duplessis, French Courtesan
Luxury Lifestyle, Famous Lovers and the Lady of the Camellias
Mar 11, 2009
From an apprentice laundress prostituted by her father at the age of 13, Marie Duplessis, born Alphonsine Plessis in Normandy, France, in 1824, transformed herself into a highly prized courtesan. She led a luxury lifestyle, took famous lovers and after the end of her short life, her image became a mix of myth and reality, a product of male writers’ and playwrights’ ideas about femininity, prostitution and fallen women.
Luxury Lifestyle of Marie Duplessis
Marie Duplessis died of tuberculosis at the age of 23 leaving behind one or two letters and several invoices which tell of the French courtesan's extravagant luxury lifestyle: an apartment draped in muslin and silk, a carriage and horses, servants, wines and food including an excess of sweets, a wardrobe full of dresses, hats and shoes, and jewellery – all costing thousands of francs monthly to purchase and upkeep.
Marie spent her days choosing what to wear, riding her carriage at the famous Bois de Boulogne, going to balls, the theatre and to concerts and entertaining her lovers on whose generosity her livelihood depended. And lovers she had many since she could never rely only on one or not for too long. Some of the features of her character and lifestyle later find their way into Dumas’ Lady of the Camellias.
Famous Lovers of Marie Duplessis
Among Marie Duplessis’ famous lovers was the Duke de Guiche or Agénor, who educated her in the ways of the world; the Viscount de Méril with whom she had a son; Count Edouard de Perrégaux, whom she later married; Edouard Delessert, son of the Prefect of the Police and later a man of letters; Baron de Plancy, Henrie de Contades, Count von Stackleberg, a former Russian ambassador to Vienna, the composer Franz Liszt and other illustrious men.
The man who was instrumental to the French courtesan’s posthumous reputation was Alexandre Dumas fils, the illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas and the future writer of the Lady of the Camellias. Dumas was an amant de coeur (lover of the heart), that is, he never paid for Marie’s services. Their relationship which lasted for a year (1844-5) was ended by Dumas who could not bear not being the only man in her life.
Lady of the Camellias
Alexandre Dumas fils was the one who made the real-life courtesan into the fictional Marguerite Gautier, the Lady of the Camellias. Marie Duplessis is transformed into a tragic, consumptive heroine who can never be with the man she loves. Dumas’ contemporaries also contributed in creating the myth that surrounds her.
The image of Marie Duplessis and of the Lady of the Camellias is part of the 19th century’s obsession with romantic redemption through tuberculosis. Duplessis is described as pale, slim with long, black hair and an expression that gave rise to dream. The French courtesan has been atrributed all the positive stereotypical traits of the prostitute: whimsical, nervously agitated, pious and charitable, with a gambling habit and child-like behaviour.
Marie Duplessis becomes the Lady of the Camellias: modest and gracious, simple in her dress (despite a full wardrobe), chaste (despite a string of lovers), a fallen woman who redeems herself through physical death. Transformed thus into a fragile exotic being, the French courtesan fed the appetites of French and English audiences craving after fallen women atoning themselves through consumption.
Sources
Virginia Rounding, Grandes Horizontales, Bloomsbury 2004
John Stokes, The Cambridge Companion to the Actress, Cambridge University Press 2007
Bernadette Lintz, "Concocting La Dame aux camelias: Blood, Tears and Other Fluids", Nineteenth Century French Studies - Vol. 33, Number 3&4, Spring-Summer 2005, pp. 287-307
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