Episode 23 - Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt, the darling of the Paris stage of the 19th century had a life filled with ups and downs. Born on October 25, 1844 (maybe) in Paris to a mother that was a courtesan and never really knowing who her father was. Later in her life when she was to receive the Legion d’Honor a proof of citizenship was needed. Her original birth certificate was destroyed in the Commune fire at the Hotel de Ville. It was the perfect chance for Bernhardt to rewrite her story yet again.

In the new version she lists Edward Bernhardt as her father who was a wealthy shipowner and changed her birthday to October 23. Just a few steps away from Odeon on the Rue d'École de Médecine at number 5 is a plaque marking the location as the site of her birth on October 25, 1844. Like Moliere, there are a few other locations in Paris that also claim to be her birthplace. 

Due to her mother's profession, she had a few other children, all which she adored a bit more than Sarah. As a young child she was sent to live with a nanny in Quimperlé, Brittany. Growing up away from her mother, a kind gentleman and client of her mother, Duke of Morny offered to pay for Sarah’s education at a convent school in Versailles. Thriving at the school, she set her sights on becoming a nun, until her lizard died. Holding a full Catholic mass for her dead lizard, it didn’t go over with the nuns and they let her know she should maybe look into another line of work. 

In 1859 the Duke paid for her to join the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Paris, where she fell in love with acting. In just a few years she was performing on the stage of the Comedie Francaise. From very early on, Bernhardt had issues with her temper. At the Comedie Francaise she slapped a fellow actress on stage in the middle of a play and hit a guard on the head with her umbrella when he called her “little Bernhardt”.  She would slowly work her way through each of the stages of Paris, each taking a risk on her but knowing s69he would pack the seats. 

In 1869 she joined the Theatre de l’Odéon, just a few months before the Siege of Paris began. As it neared Paris, she had the theater turned into a makeshift hospital. Adding 32 beds in the foyer and lobby for the wounded and even assisted doctors in surgery. Her personal chef cooked soup and when the coal ran out they began to burn the stage scenes and furniture. As the Prussians were in Paris she had the patients moved to hotel rooms where they could be taken care of. 

An affair with a Belgian prince, Henri Maximilian Joseph de Ligne resulted in a pregnancy. She was living with her mother at the time in Paris. Her mother (the courtesan) told her she needed to leave, she didn’t want an unwed mother living in her home. Sarah moved out and found a lavish apartment on the Boulevard Malesherbes. Henri wanted to marry Sarah and raise their child together, but his family told him he would be cut off financially if he did, that was the end of their relationship. 

Returning to the stage of the Theatre de l’Odeom she performed in Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas which drew large crowds. A huge fire raged through her Boulevard Malesherbes apartments destroying everything. Without insurance she was left with nothing but the few diamonds she picked out of the ashes. The manager of the Theatre de l’Odeon organized a fundraiser for the actress. So much money was raised that she was able to buy a larger apartment on Rue de Rome. With a staff and multiple rooms she was living in luxury and at times sleeping in a coffin she purchased to prepare for roles. 

In 1878 she returned to the Comedie Francaise much to the chagrin of the manager. A huge star and a slight temper made her difficult to deal with. One day she took a balloon ride at the exciting Universal Exhibition with artist George Clairin. The owner of the balloon had named it after one of her most famous characters and asked her to take the maiden voyage. As she and George took the short trip up a wind storm moved in, tearing it from its anchor and sweeping the balloon out over the Paris skyline. By the time it was able to come down it was outside of Paris. When she returned to the Comedie Francaise for her play the manager was waiting for her. There was a strict clause in her contract that she was never allowed to leave Paris without his permission. She was fined 100 francs that she refused to pay. She was the star of the show, what were they really going to do. 

Within two years she left the Comedie Francaise, breaking her contract and starting her own touring company and toured the world. Arriving in New York to perform at the Booth’s Theater to a packed crowd in 1880 and charging $40 a ticket which was a fortune at the time. Although the New York elite didn’t approve of her lifestyle, they weren’t going to miss a chance to see her on stage. In a year she traveled to more than 50 cities in a custom made luxurious train. WIth two maids, cooks and personal assistants in tow crossing the US she made $194,000, more than 5 million dollars today. 

When she returned to Paris she was no longer the darling of the stage, none of the theaters wanted to work with her. At a performance at the Paris Opera in 1881 with the president and local dignitaries in attendance, dressed in a white dress and holding the French flag she sang Le Marseillaise. There was a standing ovation and cheers for her to sing it again. She sang it two more times, and with that she was back in the good graces of the Parisians. 

Whenever she needed money she went on another “farewell” tour. All over Europe, Russia and Austria although she was met with anti-semitic crowds shouting slurs at her. On her return to Paris she decided she needed her own theater and on January 1, 1899 she signed the lease for the Theatre des Nation at the Place du Chatelet. Restoring the entire building and adding more that 5500 bulbs to the facade she made it into the theater of her dreams. Replacing the red velvet with gold velvet, turning the lobby into a showplace of its own complete with the lifesize lithographs created by Mucha. 

At the start of World War I the French ministry was worried for her safety as one of the most popular people in Paris. She found a home in Andernos-Les-Bains in the southwest of France. While there a nagging injury she suffered on stage became too much. After jumping down from a scene she hurt her knee that continued to get worse with repeated injury. In seclusion gangrene moved in and she had to have her leg amputated just above the knee. She refused to wear a wooden leg or any braces and for the rest of her life she would perform on stage either seated or leaning against something so nobody would ever notice she lost her leg. 

In the final years of her life she turned to the film world for her roles. While on the set of a film by Sascha Guitry she collapsed and fell into a coma for over an hour. Worried about her health they moved the film set to her home at 56 avenue Pierre in the 17e. On March 21, 1923 in the middle of filming she collapsed again, but this time she wouldn’t pull out of the coma. On March 26 she died in her home in the arms of her son. 

A large service at Saint Francois-de-Sales was held followed by a large procession to Pere Lachaise.More than 30,000 people walked behind her through the streets of Paris to her final resting place.  

Episode 22 - Camille Claudel

The story of Camille Claudel is one of heartbreak and sadness. A genius of an artist she never got her due and ended her life alone. 

Born on December 8, 1864 to Louis Prosper Claudel and Louise Athanaise in Fère-en-Tardenois in the Aisne department. The oldest child of three, later they would have Paul in 1868 and Louise in 1866.  At just 12 years old she began to play with clay and her talent got the attention of artist Alfred Boucher. Her father supported her pursuit and agreed to move to Paris so she would be able to study under Boucher. Her mother on the other hand did not and never would support her. 

In 1882, when she was 18 she rented a studio at 117 Rue Notre-Dame des Champs, giving it another forty years and she could have been neighbors with Ernest and Hadley Hemingway. Working each day with a group of female artists under the guidance of Boucher until he left for Rome.  Winning the Salon prize, he went to Rome and asked his friend and fellow sculptor Auguste Rodin to take over. If you know her story, you may have taken a gulp at this moment knowing where it will go. At 19 years old in 1883, her affair with Rodin began. Rodin was fascinated with the young lady who was incredibly talented and inspired his own art.  

Working close together Camille would assist Rodin on some of his most famous pieces. The Kiss, the Gates of Hell and on Les Burghers de Calais. For ten years they were together in the studio and in the bedroom. Twenty-four years older than Camille, Rodin was also involved with Rose Beuret, a relationship that began in 1864 and would last until the end of his life. Camille wanted to marry Rodin, but he never agreed, staying with Rose and marrying her in the final year of his life. 

In 1892, Camille became pregnant. Ending the pregnancy and also ended their affair. The two artists continued to work together but after years of Rodin taking credit for her work, even taking some of her sculptures as his own.  She decided to find her own studio at 31 Boulevard de Port-Royal near the Gobelins. 

It was in this studio that she created one of her most beautiful and haunting sculptures. L’Age Mur. It depicts an older woman leading an older man away while his arm reaches back to a young woman on her knees pleading with him to stay.  Many including Roden thought this was a message to their relationship and was outraged. The French government had originally commissioned the piece in 1895 but cancelled it when they saw the subject and how it offended Rodin. Camille would still complete it and it would be exhibited in 1899, much to the chagrin of Rodin.  Up until this point Rodin supported her financially but that ended with L’Age Mur and her final break from the sculptor. 

That same year she moved to the Hotel de Jassaud on Ile Saint Louis at 19 Quai de Bourbon into a ground floor apartment and studio. Commissions for private pieces kept her going but eventually her mental health started to crumble. Alone in her apartment she was convinced Rodin was out to get her. With paranoia too much to handle she never walked out her door and began to destroy many of her sculptures. 

In 1910, her apartment at the tip of Ile Saint Louis was flooded followed by her taking a sledgehammer and destroying all her plaster molds. The neighbors were getting tired of her antics and loud noises and contacted her brother Paul Claudel. Her parents were still alive and her father was the only one in the family that supported her and her art. 

On March 2, 1913 her father,  Louis Prosper Claudel died. Paul, Louise and their mother decided not to tell Camille of his passing or his funeral. Paul took action and had Camille committed and convinced their mother to sign the papers placing her in an asylum. On March 7, 1913 she was diagnosed with dementia, malnutrition, alcoholism and paranoia. Placed in the Ville Evrard asylum in Seine St Denis, Paul told the doctors that no one was allowed to visit and letters were never to be given to her. Back at her studio on Ile Saint Louis, her family destroyed what was left of it. Nothing was spared. 

Later in September of that year a journalist published an article in L’Avenir de l’Aisne that Camille was being held against her will and should be released. Her doctors told Paul and her mother that she didn’t need to be there and Rodin even did all he could to intervene and have her released. Paul, Louise and their mother were steadfast in their plan to keep her locked up.  Her sister Louise wanted her cut out of the will and out of the family and her brother and mother felt the same and did just that. 

For thirty years Camille was locked up and alone and at two in the morning on October 19, 1943 she died alone of a stroke brought on by malnutrition at the age of 78. For thirty years she rarely had a visitor including her family. When she died, Paul declined to pay for a tomb or marker and the beautiful artist was buried in the cemetery at the asylum with only a few staff in attendance. 

When Paul protested even a small grave she was dug up and tossed into a mass grave of fellow patients. The family never came. In 2008 her niece Reine-Marie Paris Claudel, granddaughter of Paul, had a stone erected where she once lay in memory of her aunt. Reine-Marie hadn’t learned about her aunt until she was older and married. Nobody in the family was allowed to talk about her or even speak her name. Later an art dealer contacted Reine-Marie to see if she would be interested in buying some of the work of Camille Claudel. It sparked a passion and a mission she would fight the rest of her life and even take her to court.   

Tirelessly amassing a catalog of all her aunts' work, she was able to track down more than 67 of the 110 sculptures said to have survived since her death in 1943. Reine-Marie helped create the Musée Camille Claudel in Nogent-sur Seine where their family once lived that opened in 2017. In order to raise money she sold copies of Camille’s work which would land her in court for 17 years charged with counterfeiting. Today she still works to make sure her aunt, her art and her pain are never forgotten. The Musée Rodin has a room dedicated to Camille and the large bronze version of L’Age Mur can be found in the Musée d’Orsay. 

In 2017, two of her pieces sold for 4.1 million dollars, far over asking. Guess her horrible family should have saved more of her work instead of destroying the woman and all her work.

Episode 21 - Edith Piaf

Edith Giovanna Gassion, the French singer we know as Edith Piaf had quite the life. Starting on a doorstep in Belleville where her mother Annette Giovanna and Louis Alphonse Gassion lived. She famously told the story that her mother gave birth right there for all the world to see. It makes for a great story but it is believed that she was born in the nearby Hopital Tenon. Annette, a circus performer, walked out shortly after she was born leaving baby Edith with her father. 

While World War I raged through Europe, Louis enlisted in the army leaving the Edith without a parent. Her father left her with her maternal grandmother where she was treated terribly. It seems the motherly genes missed that side of the family.The poor child was rarely bathed and instead of water or milk was given bottles of wine. After some time, when it was discovered how badly she was treated her other grandmother took her in. 

The paternal grandmother may not have been much better as a madame of a brothel in Besnay, Normandy. The ladies of the brothel looked after her and kept her fed, clean and healthy. At three years old, Edith went blind and was diagnosed with Keratitis and suffered for more than four years. The ladies had heard of people being cured by visiting Lisieux where Saint Therese had lived her final short years and saved money for their young friend. Saving up enough money for Edith and her father to make the pilgrimage, they traveled to Lisieux with high hopes. Once they arrived,  her eyes were wrapped in bandages and  rubbed with the dirt of Lisieux. Given a bucket of dirt they were sent home and told to wrap her eyes each night and continue to rub dirt into the bandages. After eight days, her sight was restored and she was heeled. She would wear a Saint Therese medal for the rest of her life. 

In 1929, her father, the street performer, took her on the road with him touring all over France. Extremely shy, she began to sing on  the streets with her father and draw large crowds. Months later Simon “Momone” Bertreaut joined the act. The two girls that may have been half sisters started making so much money they branched out on their own and sang around Montmartre. 

At 17 years old Edith met and fell for Louis Dupont who quickly moved into the girls' Pigalle apartment. Before long Edith was pregnant and Louis did not like the idea of her signing on the streets and convinced her to take a job at a wreath factory. In February 1933, her daughter Marcelle (Cecelle) was born and much like her mother and grandmothers before her Edith wasn’t really the mother type. She took the baby from Louis when he told her he didn’t want her singing in the streets and with Simone they checked into a hotel. The two girls would leave the baby alone to sing in the streets all night. Once Louis heard he took the baby back and told her if she wanted to see her she needed to come home. She made her choice and it wasn’t baby Marcelle. Two years later Marcelle died of meningitis. Years later she would be buried with Edith in Pere Lachaise.

Louis Leplée, owner of Le Gerry’s nightclub just off the Champs Elysees spotted Edith on the streets of Pigalle and asked her to perform at the club. Terrified to take the stage he gave her lessons in stage presence, to dress in black and gave her the nickname Piaf since she was so tiny. Her one week booking turned into seven months and ended when Leplée was murdered on April 6, 1936. Edith was arrested and held for two days as they investigated the mobsters that pulled off the hit. Living in brothels and performing on the streets brought her into contact with many unsavory characters over time, and a few of them were thought to have killed Leplée. Cleared of all charges but it had impacted her short live fame she had achieved. 

Getting serious she hired Raymon Osso, a songwriter that helped revamp her image. He banned her from seeing any of the unsavory characters of her past and had to focus on her music. It was at this time she began to write many of the lyrics for her songs. As WWII started, her career had reached new heights. Performing in the clubs and cabarets of Paris attended by German soldiers and collaborators she would also be labeled a collaborator herself. So popular with the officers she went to Berlin in August 1943 to perform in the clubs. When she returned to France she was put on trial and the people campaigned to pull her music from the radio. 

As a  woman raised on the streets essentially she was a smart cookie. She began to perform for the Germans in the prisoner camps and during her performance Resistance members were able to break a few lucky soles out. 

After the war and back in everyone's good graces she kept writing and performing and also helped nurture other young singers like Charles Aznavour and Yves Montand. In the summer of 1948 she met French boxer Marcel Cerdan. Cerdan was married with three children, but that didn’t keep the two apart. For a little over a year Cerdan and Piaf were inseparable and the talk of France. In October 1949, on a flight to New York to meet Edith his plane crashed killing everyone on board. She was devastated and never really recovered. 

In 1951 a  horrible car accident with Charles Aznavour broke her arm and two ribs. Quickly followed by two more accidents that would begin her lifelong journey of addiction to morphine and alcohol. With another chance at love she married Jacques Pells the following year with close friend Marlene Dietrich serving as her maid of honor. 

With the years of addiction taking their toll on her tiny body and slowing down,  Bruno Coquatrix, close friend and owner of the Olympia, asked her to help him save the historic venue. She had performed there many times but this time she took the stage and debuted her newest song, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. It was recorded and released and saved the Olympia. 

Her marriage to Pells didn’t last long and in 1962 she married again. This time to the much younger Greek singer and actor Theo Sarapo. She seemed to finally find the perfect match although he was more than 20 years younger. The marriage wasn’t too last long when on October 10, 1963 the little sparrow would take her last breath at the age of 47. At her villa in Grasse she died of liver failure and an aneurysm at such a young age. 

With a lifelong tie to Paris, Theo acted quickly and decided against doctors wishes to take her body back to Paris. Driving all through the night she was returned to her home at 67 Boulevard Lannes. Such a beloved figure in French history she was denied a funeral mass by the Cardinal Maurice Feltin. Even the Pope weighed in and said “She lived a life in a state of public sin” and the church would not recognize her. Fifty years after her death on October 10, 2013 at the Saint Jean-Baptiste Church in Belleville she was finally given permission by the Catholic church to have a mass in her name. 

Her funeral procession wound its way through the streets of Paris starting at her apartment on the far end of the 16th to Pere Lachaise cemetery. More than 500,000 people lined the streets of the 10 kilometer route with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Aznevour leading the way.

For more Edith Piaf, check out the amazing movie La Vie en Rose staring the wonderful Marion Cotillard playing Edith Piaf. Half way through it you will know exactly why she won an Oscar for the role. I get the chills just thinking about this movie. It’s so good!

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Episode 20 - Johanna Bonger van Gogh

Some of the women that we talk about on La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec A Hemingway podcast I get really attached to, Johanna Bonger van-Gogh is one of them that I adore so much and her amazing story that everyone should know. 

Johanna Bonger was born on October 4, 1862 in Amsterdam to a musical family. The fifth of seven children, she showed a keen mind at a very early age. While her older sister stayed at home, Johanna’s parents let her pursue her studies focusing on English which would lead her to the British Museum in London working in the library. 

Returning to Utrecht she began teaching at a girls boarding school when one day her brother Andries asked her to meet some of his friends.. Andries had been living in Paris and met many artists including Vincent and Theo van Gogh. For Theo it was love at first site, but Johanna didn’t have the same feelings. Months later Theo paid her a visit in Utrecht and let Johanna know he was in love with her. Johanna was taken back by such a pledge of love by a man that she didn’t even know. 

Theo must have worn her down and on April 17, 1889 the two were married. Johanna would move to Paris with Theo and nine months later on January 31, 1890 their son, Vincent Willem van Gogh was born, named after his uncle. 

Theo, the champion of his older brother Vincent and his art was also a great art dealer in Paris. He had started working in the Hague for Paris art dealer Goupil & Cie when they asked him in 1884 to work in the Paris gallery. With any money that Theo made he purchased paint and art supplies and sent to his brother. In 1886, Vincent moved to Paris sharing Theo’s very tiny Parisian apartment and through Theo would meet many of the greatest artists of the time. Pissarro, Seurat, Cézanne, Rousseau, Toulouse-Lautrec and Gauguin. 

In 1888, Theo convinced Gauguin to visit Vincent in the south of France. Vincent wanted to set up an artist colony like the Japanese artists had,  but Gauguin wasn’t so sure of the idea. Theo paid for all of his travel expenses while Gauguin sent Theo letters letting him know how Vincent was doing. The two brothers would also write to each other every day. Vincent's letters also include sketches of paintings he was working on with details of the colors he would use and his daily thoughts. Theo would save every single letter. 

Johanna adored her brother in law and saw how close the two brothers were and was happy to support him in any way she could. On June 8, 1890, less than two months before he died, Theo, Johanna and baby Vincent went to see him in Auvers-sur-Oise, it would be the only time Vincent met his nephew. Vincent was in very good spirits but a short time later on July 29, 1890 Vincent died. Theo was devastated and just four months later he was admitted to the Den Dolder asylum in the Netherlands. On January 25, 1891, Theo would die, just six months after his brother. The notes as his cause of death are heartbreaking, “Heredity, Chronic disease, overwork and sadness”.

Johanna and Theo had been married for less than two years when it all ended. Left with a baby and an apartment filled with paintings she wasn’t sure where to start. Her brother told her she should just toss all the paintings out, but Johanna loved Theo and Vincent and couldn’t do it. Vincent only sold one painting while he was alive so the outlook at the time didn’t look good. 

Returning to the Netherlands she moved to the small town of Bussum to open a boarding school for girls, but Johanna was also a smart business woman and knew that the town also had a high concentration of art critics and dealers. She had worked very closely with Theo and knew what to do. Women in the art world,  just before the turn of the century were mostly unknown which worked in her favor. The mens art club didn’t see her coming. Before he died Theo told her to never sell Vincent’s paintings in groups, bring them out one at a time to generate interest. 

In 1901, Johanna married Johan Cohen Gosschalk, a Dutch painter that was a great support. Later that year, with art dealer Paul Cassirer and his cousin Bruno she helped create an exhibition of Vincent’s paintings in Berlin. Germany was an early market that discovered Vincent long before anyone else including the wealthy Helen Kroller-Muller. Muller over time would build the largest personal collection with 91 of Vincent’s paintings.

Controlling the circulation of paintings she created the narrative of Vincent’s story and was just getting started. Remember all those letters Vincent sent Theo? After Theo’s death in a box she found piles and piles of letters, Theo saved every single one. Johanna started to transcribe each of the letters with Vincent's thoughts, state of mind and sketches. You have to remember at the time that nobody outside the artist community knew who Vincent was, he wasn’t famous when he was alive or after his death and many thought his paintings were horrible and his use of color shocking. However, that was about to change. 

Johanna began to release pieces of the letters and the Vincent we all know now with all the ups and downs came to life. Suddenly his paintings began to sell and the interest in his life was a topic at the local cafe. In 1915 she would lose her second husband and decided to go to New York with her son. Johanna spent all her time on the letters, for four years she diligently transcribed them and also translated them into English. She was very careful not to let the letters overshadow the paintings, the two had to go hand in hand building interest into Vincent and his paintings. 

Johanna also kept a detailed diary that her son would later release after her death. One entry she wrote “Imagine for one moment my experience when I came back to Holland realizing the greatness and the nobility of that lonely artist's life”, She held her responsibility to Theo  & Vincent very close to her heart. As Vincent Willem grew up he was surrounded by more than 200 paintings of his uncle covering the walls. Out of all of them one was the most important to his mother, Sunflowers painted in 1888. When news of Gauguin's arrival came, Vincent decided to paint a series of paintings to surround his friend's room. Seven paintings, three of which were copies he did himself all of the happy sunflower that would jump off the wall.

After his death alongside all of his other paintings, Theo would hang Sunflowers of sixteen stems in a vase on his wall, it was his favorite. After their deaths, Johanna had held onto this painting and would never part with it or let it be exhibited. In 1924 Jim Eend working for the National Gallery in London was given a large amount of money from Samuel Courtauld to purchase paintings of modern artists. Jim went to visit Johanna and wanted to purchase her beloved Sunflowers. She told him no, and it wasn’t for sale,  “I have seen this painting everyday of my life for 30 years and can’t part with it”. Jim persisted and just before Johanna died she sent him a letter that she would sell it to him. Vincent had spent time in London at the National Gallery and her goal was to get his paintings into the public museums so generations could enjoy them. 

On September 2, 1925 Johanna died in Laren, Netherlands at 62 years old. Her son Vincent continued the legacy of their family and in the 1960’s created the Van Gogh foundation. The over 200 paintings that she could never sell that surrounded their home would become the basis of the collection in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 1973. 

In 1914,she had Theo’s body moved to lay beside his brother in Auvers-sur-Oise, the two brothers together once again. 

Johanna wrote in her diary, “I wish I could make you feel the influence Vincent had on my life”. If it wasn’t for Johanna van Gogh, we would never know the life and genius of Vincent and for that gift she gave us all she should be remembered as a saint. 

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Episode 19 - Sylvia Beach

This weeks podcast is all about Sylvia Beach the American that would become one of the most important literary connections in Paris for the “Lost Generation”. Born on March 14, 1887 in Baltimore Maryland, her father was a minister whose job would take the family to France in 1901. Her first taste of France would stay with her like it does with so many and would bring her back in 1917. 

Towards the end of WWI she returned to Paris to study French literature when one day she stumbled across a lending library on Rue de l’Odeon, La Maison des Amis des Livres run by Adrienne Monnier. Beach would spend a lot of time at the shop and the two would become involved. She was going to return to Baltimore and open up her own shop but she decided to stay in Paris after her parents told her it would be easier to open her own shop in Paris and gave her $300. 

Original location at 8 Rue Dupuytren

Almost 101 years ago on 19 November 1919 on 8 Rue Dupuytren she opened the very first Shakespeare and Company. Beach said the name came to her one night as she lay in bed and had her friend Charles Winzer create a sign and an oval portrait of Shakespeare to hang above the door. Furniture from flea markets filled the shop and books Beach found at bookshops in the Chevillet, Bourse and Boiveau filled the shelves. Friends in the states sent her boxes of books and Sylvia would visit London and return with trunks full of books whenever she had the money. She never set an opening date deciding the doors would open when she was finally ready.  A friendly nearby waiter assisted in opening her shutters and in the windows the works of T.S. Eliot, Joyce and Whitman as she waited for her first customer. Her friends flooded in immediately and never stopped coming.  Opening as a bookshop but also a lending library worked much better at this time in Paris. Customers could purchase a subscription and would allow them each month to borrow a few books. 

Sylvia would remain at this location until May 1921  when she would move to the nearby Rue de l’Odeon where a young american writer, Ernest Hemingway would discover her as soon as he arrived in Paris. Hemingway and Beach had a close relationship that would last until he moved back to the US and one he always looked back on fondly with the literary trailblazer. 

Second location at 12 Rue de l’Odeon

Many of the American expats spent hours in her store a day and  served as a post office for them as well. Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ford Maddox Ford and James Joyce could be found every day getting all the latest news and gossip. James Joyce, the rather melancholy author would sit at the small table by the window each and every day, working on Ulysses and sharing his frustration on his lack of publisher. The book that had already been seen in excerpts in the United States  and was banned as soon as copies appeared. As an author of an English book it was a huge problem. One day Sylvia offered to publish Ulysses for Joyce, and he was of course over the moon. 

To fund the project Sylvia began to pre-sell advanced copies and a printer in Dijon was happy to work with her. Joyce unfortunately wasn’t so easy to work with. He constantly kept changing the text and as soon as an edition was printed. Sylvia lost most of her money and without a contract for the first seven years she had very little protection. Joyce would later find a publisher and would walk away from Sylvia and all the work she had done that almost cost her Shakespeare & Co. When Andre Gide walked in one day and asked how she was and she let him know she may close, he organized all of the writers to sell tickets to live readings So much money was raised she was able to save her shop. She also created a catalog selling many of her first editions. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises had been released and was in high demand. 

Sylvia and James Joyce

When World War II began she kept her doors open until a German officer came in one day and wanted to buy her copy of FInnegans Wake that was sitting in the window. She refused to sell it to him which enraged him and he told her he would return. Two weeks later he arrived looking for the book that was no longer in the window or on the shelves. She told him it was gone but he didn’t like the answer and said she needed to find it and he would be back later that night for it. 

Sylvia told all her friends who arrived with baskets and boxes. Within a few hours her shop was emptied into an apartment above including every piece of furniture, the shelves were removed  and the sign painted over. When they came back weeks later they came this time for Sylvia herself. She was arrested and sent to an internment camp in Vittel where she would remain for six months. Thankfully she returned to Paris and hid in a student hostel on Boulevard Saint Michel. She was able to sneak out once a day to visit Adrienne but couldn’t return home until after the Liberation. 

As soon as she returned to 18 Rue de l’Odeon her old friend Ernest Hemingway arrived barreling down the street calling up to her. It was August 26, 1944 and he would run up the stairs to his dear friend and ask what he could do for her.  Sylvia and Adrienne asked him if he could remove the Germans still firing from the roofs of Odeon.  Hemingway returned to his liberated Mercedes, grabbed some men and guns and returned to the roof of her building. Gun fire was heard for a few minutes and then total silence, Odeon was liberated and the nightmare was over. 

Adrienne and Sylvia lived out the rest of their life on Rue de l’Odeon. Adrienne died on June 19, 1955 after she overdosed on sleeping pills. Sylvia would live on alone until October 5, 1962 of a heart attack. She wasn’t discovered for days. Such a sad ending to a woman that meant so much to so many and shaped many of the greatest American writers in history. 

18 Rue de l’Odeon

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Episode 18 - Barbe-Nicol Ponsardin- Veuve Clicquot

On December 16,  1777 Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, the mother of champagne  was born.  Ponsardin came from a wealthy family in Reims, France. Her father Ponce Jean Nicolas Philippe Ponsardin was a textile merchant and politician who worked with Philippe Clicquot. Clicquot was also an important textile merchant and they decided to strengthen their companies and families through the arranged marriage of their children. At 21 years old Barbe-Nicole married François Clicquot uniting the family. Clicquot also owned some vineyards but hadn’t been too serious in the winemaking game yet but his son François saw it had great promise. 

 François began work right away in the champagne business with his father expanding the company to 60,000 bottles a year and shipping throughout Europe at the start of the 19th century.  On March 20, 1799, their daughter Clémentine was born and six short years later her husband François would die of typhoid or suicide on October 23, 1805. Now with a small child and a champagne house Barbe-Nicole, now Veuve Clicquot had to decide what to do next. 

Her father-in-law Philippe wanted to sell the company but Barbe-Nicole wanted to take it over. At the time the new Napoleonic Code didn’t allow for women to work or head a company, unless you were a widow. She had enough family money that she would be able to take on the business on her own, something that women did not do at the time. One of the first women to lead an International business, forever known as Veuve Clicquot was born in that moment. In 1810 she launched Veuve-Clicquot Ponsardin and became the first female champagne producer and the first to lead a champagne house. 

 A keen head for business and the help of lifelong employee Louis Bohne, she discovered that the Russian royalty loved her Champagne and shipped thousands of bottles to them. When Napoleon’s naval blockades thwarted her business, she used other boats to get her liquid gold to them. On the brink of losing everything she would charter a Dutch boat to sneak down the rivers to Russia with over 10,000 bottles. Selling out in just a few weeks she would do it again and again. This decision would change her business, surviving on the waterways of France and why you see the anchor on the bottle today. As for that distinct yellow color of the label,  well that comes from a perfect French chicken egg yoke.

While many Champagne houses waited for the conflicts to be over she used the time to build her brand and when things eased up she was ready to take on the world. By 1814, she was producing 400,000 bottles a year. 

 One day when they were trying to figure out a better method to remove the lees (yeast) from the bottle. Sitting around her kitchen table she came up with an idea and began to cut holes into her table. She created the technique of riddling that allowed the bottles to be placed at a 45 degree angle so the yeast would gather in the neck of the bottle, frozen and removed, thus ending in that perfectly clear glass of bubbles. 

La Grande Dame de la Champagne would die on July 29, 1866 at 89 years old, leaving behind a legacy that would last until this day. At the time of her death she was now producing 750,000 bottles a year. Today the house is owned by LVMH, the largest luxury brand in the world and produces more than 4,000,000 bottles a year. I think Madame Clicquot would be pretty proud how beloved her champagne is today. 

 On my first visit to France a trip to the motherland was on the top of my list. As we drove into Reims it was straight to the golden gates of the Madame herself. A tour of the champagne house includes a visit down into the caves that have been used for hundreds of years. Along the rows and rows of riddling racks keep an eye out at the chalk walls. During World War I they were used as a hospital and red crosses still remain to remind us of the past and especially important today when we need to know what we can survive. 

I’ll keep my Vueve colored heels following in  her steps everyday with a glass of Champagne bien sur.

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Episode 17 - Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was the woman behind many of the greatest writers and artists in Paris of the 1920’s and her famous catch phrase, the “Lost Generation”. However, there is of course much more to her life and in this week's episode of La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec A Hemingway we explore her entire story. 

The youngest of five children born to upper class parents in Pennsylvania. Her father was very wealthy from his wide ranging real estate holdings. At just three years old the entire family picked up and moved to Europe. First landing in Vienna for a few months before they ventured to Paris with nannies and tutors in tow for the five children. The Stein’s wanted to raise there children with an appreciation of art and culture and there wasn’t a better place than Europe to do that. It was the 1880’s, the days when the Impressionists were branching out to shake up the art world and create their own exhibition.  

A year later the family returned to America, settling in Oakland where Mr. Stein became the director of the San Francisco Market Street line. He would have been working alongside my Great-Great Grandfather Henry Casebolt who also had the Sutter and Bush lines and designed the cable car break still used today. 

At 14 years old, Gertrude would lose her mother and three years later her father. As one of the youngest her older brother Michael looked after her and decided to send her and her sister Bertha to Baltimore to live with family. It was in Baltimore that she would meet the Cone Sisters. Two worldly and progressive women that loved art and hosted a weekly salon in their home, and were the inspiration of her very own in Paris. 

Gertrude was incredibly smart and enrolled in Radcliff college to study psychology from 1893-1897. Her professor Williams James said she was one the most brilliant students he had and encouraged her to study medicine at John Hopkins. While she may have excelled she didn’t fit in and found the school to be far too patreolistic for her taste. She became more and more outspoken about the role of women in medicine and John Hopkins wasn’t pleased. In her fourth year she dropped out and decided to travel to London with her brother Leo. 

In 1903 Gertrude and Leo found an apartment and studio at 27 Rue de Fleurs perfect for the two of them and Leo who fancied himself an artist as well.  Leo already had been collecting art on his trips to Europe and Gertrude also caught the bug. Through their friend Bernard Bereson who was also a collector and friends with many of the artists and art dealers of the time. 

Ambroise Vollard, a gallery owner with a personal relationship with Cézanne; Renoir and Picasso but also with an odd way to do business. He would only sell to people he knew and his gallery was always a mess and hard to even walk through. He warmed up to the Stein’s and when their brother Michael gave them 8,000 francs from the family business they knew exactly where to spend it. 

They couldn’t afford the well known painters like Delacroix, Ingres and Manet but they could afford some of the other less known artists. With the money they purchased six Cézanne paintings and also a few from Renoir and Gauguin. Whenever they had any money they visited their friend Vollard and bought whatever they could, mostly more Cézanne’s.  

In 1905 Leo discovered the young Spanish painter and visited his studio at Le Bateau Lavoir in Montmartre. Picasso was in the midst of his Rose Period and sold Leo a few of his Blue Period paintings as well as the Acrobat Family from the Rose Period. This wonderful painting was on display a few years ago at the Musée d’Orsay’s Picasso Rose et Bleu exhibition. Gertrude wasn’t so sold on the Spanish painter at first but would eventually sit for him for a portrait. A process that took a year as he kept restarting it over and over, but gave the two lots of time to get to know each other. Many said later it didn’t look anything like her to which he would say “it will”, and he was right. 

In 1907 Gertrude met Alice B Toklas on her first day in Paris. They had an instant connection and were rarely apart. In 1910 she would move into the Stein’s apartment on Rue de Fleurs and the three would live together as every space on the wall began to be covered with paintings. Leo and Gertrude discovered Matisse and began collecting everything they could and also created a close and lasting friendship. Matisse would stop by and bring friends to visit the apartment and the walls covered with not only his work but also Picasso, Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro and Toulouse-Lautrec. It was so often that Gertrude couldn’t have a moment to herself to focus on her writing. It was then that she decided to recreate the salon of the Cohn sisters here in Paris. 

Leo couldn’t take it much more and decided to move to Florence and the split of the siblings and their art began. He let her keep the Matisse paintings and  all but one of the Cézanne’s that he loved. It was an amicable split but the two would only see each other one time and not even speak. He was bothered by her writing which was beginning to take a controversial route and she seemed to have little regard for anything but herself. 

In the 1920’s the expats of America began to arrive and many came knocking on her door. The young Ernest Hemingway armed with a letter of introduction from Sherwood Anderson would meet Gertrude in Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company on Rue de l’Odeon and the Hemingway’s were quickly a fixture in Stein’s apartment.  They became so close that Ernest and Hadley named Gertrude and Alice their son Jack’s godmothers. Many say that Gertrude was the one that molded many of these writers and didn’t want anyone to forget that. 

Hemingway pushed her to writer the Autobiography of Alice B Toklas but in the end may have not been his best idea. In the pages Stein lashed out Hemingway saying she is the one that created him but he never wrote anything of worth after the Sun Also Rises. He wasn’t the only one, she also went after Picasso. When the book was released they were not happy and let her know.  The book was a success and even got her back to America for a book tour funded by her friend Mabel Dodge. Exerts of the book were released and the feud between Hemingway and  Picasso was ignited. 

During World War II Gertrude and Alice looked up her art collection in her apartment at 5 rue Christine and left for a house she rented in the Rhone Alps. Gertrude as a Jewish lesbian woman thought she was untuchable to what others in her same situation had to go through. Thinking her money would keep her above any of that and her friendship with Bernard Fay, Vichy collaborator and friend of the Gestapo.  He made sure that Stein and Toklas arrived safely. With only her portrait by Picasso and Cézanne’s Madame Cézanne with Fan they were able to stay undisturbed until the end of the war. As for her art collection, it was one of the only one in all of Paris that escaped the hands of the greedy Nazi’s. That wasn’t at all by luck. 

While in the Alps she spent time translating Marshal Petain’s speeches into English and found a publisher in America. As soon as her editor saw the opening and her analogy of comparing Petain to George Washington they turned it down. Stein also felt that Hitler should be nominated for a Nobel Prize and even while Petain was on trial and sentenced to death  she still supported him. It’s stunning to think a Jewish, lesbian, anti-Semitic woman that was against women’s independence could have these feelings, her entitlement and wealth in the end really did warp her entire vision of reality. 

On July 27, 1946 at 72 years old after surgery for stomach cancer she would die. Alice would live on until 1967 and would spend the years in bitter fights over art with Gertrude’s surviving family.  The two women were later interred together at Pere Lachaise. 

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Episode 16 - Catherine de' Medicis

Catherine de’ Medicis the other Florentine queen that would leave her mark on France. Catherine and Marie de’ Medicis are often mixed up and we hope we can help you tell the two apart like a pro in no time. 

Catherine was born in Florence to Laurent II de Medicis and Madeline de la Tour d’Auvergne on April 15, 1519. Her mother,  Madeline would die after giving birth to her and her father died just days later. The newborn Catherine was now the sole heir of the Medicis grand banking fortune.  Raised and educated by her aunt, Pope Leo X and Pope Clement VII while many suitors looked to align themselves with the Medicis. 

At 14 years old it was decided she would marry the son of French king Francois I, Henri II.  Second in line to the throne, the marriage would wipe out the debt France had with the Medicis and provide a large dowry. Francois also had a fascination with all things Italian, including of course Leonardo da Vinci and bringing the Renaissance to France. 

On September 1 with Pope Clement she headed to France where they had a grand wedding in Marseilles at the Eglise Saint-Ferréol des Augustins on October 28, 1533. After the lavish party the  young 14 year old couple were taken to their royal chambers by his father and remained until the marriage was consummated. Henri even at the age of 14 was in love with another, the older Diane de Poitiers.  It would take ten years before the first royal heir was born. 

 In 1536, the Dauphin and Henri’s older brother Francis died and suddenly Henri was next in line to the throne. Catherine and king Francois I were very close. He loved to talk with her about art, architecture and appreciated her guidance. Henri didn’t share the same relationship with his wife. On March 31, 1547 Francois I died and now Catherine was the queen of France. Henri II kept her out of any state business giving her time to hatch plans against Diane and other members of the court that she didn’t care for. 

 Henri II and Catherine finally had a child and heir, Francis in 1544 and then quickly more children came. In fifteen years she had ten children. Three would become kings and two queens adding to her power over time that Henri II wouldn’t give her. 

 Catherine was known to have a long fascination with the dark arts, psychics and astrologers and more than a few people met their end from her hand. She couldn’t get rid of her main rival Diane de Poitiers until June 30, 1559. In a jousting tournament on the Rue Saint Antoine, Henri II was injured in the eye by a splinter from his opponent's lance. While he lay dying of sepsis he called out for Diane, but Catherine would have none of it. She banished Diane from his bedside, court and his funeral. We will have another episode all about the fascinating Diane. 

On July 10, 1559 the widowed mother helped her oldest son Francis, now king of France and his bride Mary Queen of Scots by controlling many of the ministers of his court. Five months later Francis would die and her son Charles IX took the throne but at ten years old, Catherine needed to serve as regent, now she finally had the power she thought she so richly deserved. 

 It was under the reign of Charles IX that one of the bloodiest episodes in Paris occurred, the St Bartholomew Day massacre on 23 August 1572. Just days after the marriage of her daughter Margaret to the Protestant Prince Henri III of Navarre on the 18 August 1572 at Notre-Dame de Paris a horrible choice would be made.  Henri, was the son of the Huguenot Jeanne d'Albret and would become King Henri IV of France, first Bourbon king and later marry her distant cousin Marie. Following the assassination of Admiral and Huguenot leader Gaspard Coligny, Catherine and her son King Charles IX was worried that there would be a Huguenot uprising as many of the most prominent leaders  were in town still for the royal wedding. During the dark of night just outside the Palais du Louvre, on the 23rd of August Charles IX with the urging of his mother ordered "Kill them, kill them all". It would last weeks and thousands would die in what was one of the worst moments in the French Wars on Religion. 

Following the untimely death of her husband King Henri II at the Hotel des Tournelles in 1559 wanting to distance herself from the bad memory she left the palace and had a new one built, just outside the Palais du Louvre, the Palais du Tuileries. Catherine was a big believer in astrology and counted Nostradamus as one of her closest friends. One of her advisors, Como Ruggeri, told her she would die near Saint-Germain. In the midst of building the Palais du Tuileries, near the Eglise Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, she abruptly moved to the Hôtel de Saissons on the right back near Eglise Saint-Eustache. 

On the 5th of January 1589 on her deathbed she called for a priest. In the last hours of her life she asked him his name, he whispered, Julien Saint-Germain.  She is laid to rest alongside her husband Henri II in not one but two monuments built to them inside the   Basilique Saint-Denis, where most of the Royal history of France can be found.  

The first tomb depicts Henri II & Catherine in their coronation robes laying on a bed made of bronze with their royal symbols and initials created by French sculptor Germain Pilon. As you stand looking at these amazing marble effigies look straight up and see the very large second tomb. 

 The day after her husband's death she ordered the large rectangle temple to be built by Francesco Primaticcio. With the help of Germain Pilon the temple would include nude full sculptures of the king and queen laying on a bed. On each corner are bronze allegories guarding them as they lay in their final slumber and on the top are two large bronze statues of the king and queen knelt in prayer. It's stunning to see in person, the entire Basilique Saint-Denis is.  Just a short metro ride out of Paris, it’s not to be missed. 

 After his death Catherine did everything she could to rewrite the story of her marriage. Trying to erase the influence of Diane de Poitiers, but Henri II would leave his own marks behind, those of he and Diane.

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Episode 15 - Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot, one of the few women of the Impressionist Movement, with her dark locks and stunning gaze, was the perfect model for Édouard Manet.  However, she would become an artist in her own right stepping behind the canvas to create paintings that showed everyday family life, forging her own path among  the male dominated Impressionists    

Born on January 14, 1841 to a wealthy family, her father was the prefect but also studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Her mother was the niece of the Rococo master Jean-Honoré Fragonard, she was born with art running in her veins. In 1852 they moved to Paris and her parents let Berthe and her sister Edma take art lessons from Joseph Guichard. 

The two girls visited the Louvre as art students and spent their day copying the great masters under the watchful eye of Guichard.  One day artist Henri Fantin-Latour took his friend Édouard Manet to the Louvre to meet the Morisot sisters who were copying a Rubens painting. It would be the start of a very long friendship. 

Following Manet’s shocking of the Parisian Salon with Olympia and Déjeuner sur l’herbe he was looking for  a new model, and Berthe would have everything he wanted. In 1868, Manet painted The Balcony for which Berthe would pose after much apprehension. Being a model for an artist was not the profession for a woman of society in Paris at the time. Continuing to work with Manet for six years, he would capture her many times including his hauntingly beautiful painting, Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets that can be seen in the Orsay. Painted in 1872 Morisot is in black mourning attire after her father's death. You almost miss the violets as you are so drawn to her striking face. Morisot and Manet had a relationship built on great respect and love between two artists. I can stand in front of this painting for hours and lose all track of time. 

In the summer of 1874, Manet’s brother Eugène spent time painting in the country with Berthe. On December 22, 1874 the two were married, joining her to the Manet’s forever. The marriage gave her the luxury of time to focus solely on her art.  Painting the simple moments of a woman’s everyday life and those between a mother and child often outside under the trees or in an open field.  Her soft inviting images and lighter colors moved away from Manet’s style and rivaled that of many of the men of the Impressionist movement.  

1874 was also the first exposition of the Impressionist Painters at 35 Boulevard des Capucines in the former studio of photographer Nader. Of the 29 artists that exhibited, Morisot was the only woman. With more than 20 pieces on display she would leave quite the mark on visitors. Although, at the time it still wasn’t acceptable to be an artist for a woman in those days, she was protected by her fellow Impressionist artists.  Later in that year at an auction at the Drouot auction house, twelve of her works were up for sale. It caused a scandal and one viewer even called her a prostitute. Fellow artist and friend Camille Pissarro took such an offense he punched the man. 

Julie Manet, their only child was born on November 14, 1878 would be the subject of many of her mother’s paintings as well as her uncle Edouard and also dear family friend Renoir. Her young life was well documented on canvas and thankfully  we are able to see her grow up.  When Julie was just 5 years old, Eugéne Manet died of syphilis, the same thing that took his brother and father. He was just 59 and Julie would have a wide group of “uncles” that would look after her. Degas, Monet, Renoir and poet Stéphane Mallermé were always close if they ever needed anything. 

Sadly three years later Berthe would also die on March 2, 1895 at 54 years old. It is normally mentioned that she died of pneumonia as she was also nursing her daughter who was suffering the same illness. However, her husband's death of syphilis is thought to be what actually ended her life, but kept it hidden to protect her reputation. 

Morisot would be buried in the Manet family tomb at the Passy Cemetery in the Trocadero in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. With her husband Eugène and brother in law Édouard, the two artists would spend eternity together Through Julie and a large family of artists that looked after her, Berthe’s art lived on. Whether she was in front or behind the canvas she was an amazing woman who we are lucky to enjoy today. 

You can find many of her pieces in the Musée d’Orsay , Petit Palais and the Musée Marmottan Monet where you can also find some of the sketches Manet did of her.

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Episode 14 - Marie de Medicis

Once upon a time there were two Florentine queens that left their mark on Paris. In the newest La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec A Hemingway episode we talk all about one of them, Marie de Medicis from her childhood in Florence to her life in exile. 

She was born on April 26, 1575 to Francois I de Medicis and Joan of Austria in the Pitti Palace in Florence. Joan of Austria would die by the time she was two years old and her father married his mistress Bianca Cappello, but the two would die ten year later hours apart. A touch of the Medicis poison and the urge to get ahead by another brother. 

Le Mariage par procuration de Marie de Médicis et d'Henri IV par Rubens

Marie now an orphan was raised by her uncle Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany who took the throne. As a young girl there were many suitors looking to attach themselves to the Medicis fortune but they waited until Henri IV, king of France turned in his dancing card. Marie was 25 years old when the marriage was arranged, to not only join the two families but also eliminate the debt France had to the Medicis. 

It was the second marriage for Henri IV who had first married the daughter of her distant cousin Catherine de Medicis, Marguerite de Valois. Unable to provide an heir to the king, a new more fertile wife was needed. On October 5, 1600 by proxy her uncle stood in for the groom at the ceremony and was followed by  a lavish party lasting for days, without Henri IV. 

Marie headed to France later in the month and on November 3, 1600 arrived in Marseilles thinking she was leaping into the arms of her new husband, but Henri wasn’t there. Continuing onto Lyon it would take until December 12 before Henri IV would set eyes on his new bride.  A little over 9 months later, the heir, Louis XIII was born followed by five more children. Her role was complete but everything was about to  quickly change. 

Le Couronnement de la reine à l'abbaye de Saint-Denis par Rubens

The kings of France for hundreds of years were crowned at the Notre Dame de Reims and the queens would have their own ceremony at the Basilique Saint Denis. After many years of asking, Henri IV finally gave in and a grand ceremony was held on May 13, 1610. It was quickly overshadowed the next day when Herni would be killed in his carriage close to the Louvre by  Francois Raviallac, a religious zealot. Marie was under suspicion  at first due to the timing but was quickly ruled out. 

Louis XIII was only eight years old and not old enough to take the throne. Marie would serve as regent until he was of age, but she wasn’t going to be so quick to let go of the reigns of power. In 1617, when he finally pulled the crown from her clutches he sent her into exile at the Chateau de Blois. After two years she escaped out her window and eventually was allowed back into Paris. 

Photo taken by my grandfather in 1978

Happily returning to oversee the building of her palace that was a reminder of her days growing up in Florence. In 1612 she purchased the vast location on the left bank owned by Duc de Luxembourg. Bringing in Italian artists she had a palace designed just for her. On April 2, 1615 she laid the first stone but would be exiled within two years. Upon her return in 1621 she poured herself into finishing and by 1625 moved into the first floor of the west end in the mostly unfinished palace. 

In 1621, she commissioned Peter Paul Rubens to create four paintings telling the story of her life to fill the walls of her palace in the Jardin du Luxembourg. She loved the first four so much she asked him to create twenty more based on major moments of her life. Working with Rubens and wanting to please his royal patron, her life was redesigned a bit and some of the less than lovely events were given a new rosy outlook. Filling the paintings with allegories, royal icons and the color red to direct your attention it is an amazing walk through her life. Today those paintings are in the Louvre, in the Galerie de Medicis, one of my favorite rooms to visit.  

Galerie Medicis, Musée du Louvre 2nd floor Richelieu wing

Her days back at court were made difficult by Cardinal Richelieu who had more of an influence over her son. Trying to get him ousted it would only backfire and once again she was sent away. On her way to Germany she stopped for the night and unbeknownst to her, Louis XIII had set a trap for his mother. Stripped of her title and pension she would never return to Paris or her palace. On July 3, 1642 Marie de Medicis would die of pleurisy, leaving her palace and the land to her other son, Gaston Duc d’Orleans. 

The palace would finally be finished and passed down within the family. During World War II the Germans took it over as a headquarter and is now the home of the French Senate. Opened once a year on the Journee de Patrimoine in September it is a must see if you are in Paris. Some of the rooms have been left unchanged since the days of Marie and you can see a rare slice of life in the early 17th century of Paris. 

Salles des Conférences, Palais du Luxembourg. Redesigned under the second empire

The Jardin du Luxembourg however is open for anyone to walk through. The Medicis fountain tucked away under the trees is different from what she originally envisioned but it is still one of the most beautiful places in all of Paris. 

Fontaine Medicis

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Episode 13 - Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, the woman that is known by only her first name and her reputation as the life of the party.  Like many of the ladies we talk about each week on La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec A Hemingway there was much more to her than just the image that remains. 

Zelda was born in Montgomery Alabama on January 24, 1900, the youngest child of Minnie and Anthony who served on the supreme court of Alabama. A conservation family that was not for the strong willed Zelda. 

Studying ballet from an early age it was the only thing she did that pleased her parents. She later decided she was more interested in spending her days drinking, smoking and being adored by all the boys. Always pushing her boundaries she would swim in a skin tight nude colored swimsuit causing the town to think she was skinny dipping. Girls were to be quiet and pretty and Zelda wanted none of that. 

In July 1918 at a country club dance she met F. Scott Fitzgerald who was stationed at Camp Sheridan outside of Montgomery. He was instantly attracted to her and would visit her as soon as he had a day off. With dreams of becoming a famous author, F. Scott would use Zelda as his inspiration for his main character in This Side of Paradise. 

However, F. Scott wouldn’t stop there with his “inspiration”. Zelda was a beautiful writer and sent him letters filled with flowery descriptions. F. Scott would pull entire pieces of her letters and diary and use them in his book. It was something he never stopped doing. 

F. Scott wanted to marry her, but she wouldn’t until he became a published author. With This Side of Paradise with his editor, he pleaded with him to publish it as fast as possible. On March 26, 1920 it was published and four days later Zelda was on a train to New York and they married on April 3, 1920.

The toast of the town, they were at every party in New York and held endless parties in their suite at the Biltmore Hotel until they were kicked out. The party just moved to the Commodore Hotel until they also were tired of their extravagant ways. The parties ended in February 1921 when Zelda discovered she was pregnant and they returned to St Paul Minnesota to be closer to his family. Francis “Scottie” Fitzgerald was born on October 26, 1921 and a few years later they set off for Europe. Arriving in Paris they quickly moved down to Antibes where F. Scott worked on The Great Gatsby. While Zelda practiced her ballet and spent days on the beach and met a handsome pilot Edouard Julan. She was tired of being ignored by F. Scott and asked him for a divorce, he answered by locking her in a room until she got over it. 

In April 1930 Zelda was diagnosed with schizophrenia and would spend over a year in a Swiss hospital. Returning to Alabama to see her ailing father she would remain with her daughter while F. Scott left for Hollywood. 

F. Scott would die on December 21, 1940 and neither Zelda or Scottie would attend. Her last years were spent in and out of psychiatric hospitals and on March 10, 1948 she died in a fire locked in her room before she was to have electroshock therapy. Few cared at the time she and F. Scott died, but today their lives are those of legends. 

F. Scott and Zelda, just their names paint a picture of life in the 1920’s with plenty of champagne straight from the pages of his most famous book, The Great Gatsby. However their marriage was far from it. F. Scott took her writing as his own in every book he wrote but would later blame her for ruining him and cheating him of his dream. I don’t think we ever would have a F. Scott Fitzgerald without a Zelda, a fact that is quickly overlooked. 

Listen to her full story on our newest episode of La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec A Hemingway  

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Episode 12 - Julia Child

Julia McWIlliams Child, the woman who brought French cooking to America, fell in love with France as generations have fallen in love with her. Born on August 15, 1912 in Pasadena into a wealthy family that had very very tall children. Julia would attend Smith College and due to her 6” 2 ‘ frame she was perfect for the basketball team but would also play golf, tennis and even act. Graduating with a degree in history in 1934 she wanted to become a writer and moved to New York to chase her dreams but her vision of being the next big novelist wasn’t in the cards. Instead she settled for working in the advertising department for the W & J Sloane furniture firm. 

As World War II broke out she wanted to join the Women’s Army Corp but due to her height she was turned away. Joining the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS that would later become the CIA, she worked directly with the head of the OSS. She would also assist in creating a shark repellent, yes you read that right. Apparently the sharks were getting too curious with the underwater explosives and would set them off so a repellent was needed to keep them away. 

The job with the OSS would take her to Sri Lanka where she would meet Paul Child in the summer of 1944. Paul was ten years older than her and a man of the world. He had lived for a short time in Paris where he painted and enjoyed the amazing food and wine and Julia found him fascinating. Julia herself was a delight and even was awarded for her “inherent cheerfulness” in the OSS. 

The couple married on September 1, 1946 in Lumberville, Pennsylvania. The day before they were in a minor traffic accident and in true Juila and Paul fashion it didn’t stop them even in bandages. For their first meal as man and wife, Julia who never really cooked before decided to really take a leap by cooking calf brains in red wine. Paul was such a love, but they both found it horrible, luckily her skills would vastly improve. 

In October of 1948 Paul was offered a job with the OSS in Paris setting up the visual presentation department building the Franco-American relations. Paul was an avid photographer as well as artists so it was the perfect job for him. At 4:45am on November 3, 1948 they arrived in Le Havre to begin one of the most exciting chapters of their lives. Complete with “the Blue Flash”, their Buick station wagon packed with everything they needed, they headed towards Paris. Stopping in Rouen for lunch at the Restaurant La Couronne, one of the oldest restaurants in France dating back to 1345. It was at that meal that she enjoyed her first French baguette, cheese and sole meunière, the dish that would change her entire life. 

Early in the evening they arrived in Paris and to their apartment at 81 rue de l’Universite or Roo de Loo as she called it. The two floor apartment with its wonderful large windows was the perfect place to start their French adventure. Filling the days was the hardest part for Julia. Playing bridge and making hats was a bore to her and she wanted something more fulfilling. As a post war wife who didn’t know how to cook she enrolled in the Cordon Bleu much to the chagrin of Madame Elisabeth Brassart. Madame Brassart enrolled her in the general class for housewives that was not challenging to Julia at all and spoke with her again. With her powers of persuasion she convinced Mme Brassart  to let her join the chefs class taught by Max Bugnard. Filled with only men, she would win them all over and begin a close friendship with Max Bugnard.

During her years at the Cordon Bleu she joined Le Cercle des Gourmettes and met Simca Beck and Louisette Bertholle, two French women who were writing a French cookbook for Americans. The trio hit it off and started their own small cooking school, L'école des Trois Gourmandes. Offering classes out of Julia’s kitchen for 20 francs, they immediately drew women to their classes and became a hit with the expat Americans in Paris. Simca and Louisette constantly filled Julia in on the trouble they were having  with their American consultant and asked Julia to help them with their book. 

The project would take up all of her time, researching every detail and testing each recipe over and over and as the only English speaker took over all the writing. It would take almost ten years to complete the book filled with ups and downs with publishers, moving to Marseilles, Germany and Oslo and finally on October 16. 1961 Mastering the Art of French Cooking was released. 

Having returned to the US, Paul retired from the OSS and spent his days helping Julia and focusing on his art and taking photos. Traveling around the country promoting the book, she met James Beard and Jacques Pépin and of course her cheerful demeanor created life long friendships. 

In February 1962 she was invited to appear on the WGBH show I’ve Been Reading in Boston. Given a thirty minute spot she had no idea how to fill the time so she decided to bring a copper bowl, whisk, eggs and mushrooms. During the show she whipped up an omelet and after the station was flooded with letters and calls asking for more. WGBH asked Julia to come back for three, half hour episodes which was the basis of The French Chef. Premiering on July 26, 1962 it ran for ten years and 191 episodes. Today you can stream every one of them on the PBS app online. Julia would appear in 11 different tv shows and was on tv every week from 1963 - 2000. 

The Child’s hearts were always in France and in 1963 after a long visit  to Simca’s home in Plascassier, a small Provincial town near Grasse in the south of France they were given the greatest gift. Simca and her husband offered them part of their land for their own home. La Pitchoune was built and was the perfect place for the Child’s to escape too but also for Julia and Simca to work on volume two. Today you can rent that home on Airbnb and have your own Julia Child moment cooking up a quiche or coq au vin. 

On October 22, 1970 Mastering the Art of French Cooking volume two was released after many years of work by Simca and Julia and a diligent timeline by Judith Jones. On the road, filming tv shows and writing more books kept Julia busy and Paul was more than happy to follow along. 

In October of 1974 after having some healthy issues, Paul was diagnosed with having had a small heart attack. The years were followed by chest pains and his brain that was getting foggier as time went on. The love that they had for each other was more important than any book or tv show. Paul was the ultimate support to her at a time when it was the role of a woman to stay home and raise children. 

In 1989 Paul had a series of strokes that forced his move to a nursing home. Heartbroken at the idea of being apart, no matter where she was in the world she would call him on the phone every day at 2pm. Paul would die on May 12, 1994, the love of her life would be gone. 

After his death she packed up their Cambridge home and moved to Montecito, California where she would stay the rest of her life. In her final years she sat down with her nephew Alex Prud’homme and her stack of many letters between Paul and his brother and wrote her final book about their years in France. My Life in France released after her death is a lovely stroll through their love of each other and of France. 

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On August 13, 2004 just two days before her birthday she would die of kidney failure. The night before her final meal would be a bowl of her beloved soupe a l’oignon. I remember waking up that day to the news that she died and gasped and cried and that was long before I fell in love with her. 

In 2001, Julia donated her entire Cambridge kitchen to the Smithsonian institute complete with the peg board that organized her pots and pans and the raised counters Paul designed just for her. 

In 2009, Meryl Streep portrayed her in Julie & Julia based on her book My Life in France. The movie does an amazing job depicting their life and love in Paris and Meryl Streep brings her back to life. I could watch that movie, especially the Julia parts hundreds of times. 

Julia was in her late 30’s when she discovered the meaning of her life and would follow it until she took her last breath. So many of the women we talk about in the podcast lived in the shadows of their husbands and even watched them take credit for what they did. Paul Child couldn’t have loved her more and supported her to become the Julia Child that dreamed of sharing her love of France with generations to come. Thank you Paul and Julia.

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Episode 11 - Colette

French author Colette has been a household name in France for more than a hundred years.  Sidone-Gabrielle Colette was born on January 28, 1873 in the Burgundy region to Captain Jules-Joseph Colette and Adele “Sido”..

One day her father's old friend Henri Gauther-Villars “Willy” would stop by for a visit and return many times to visit the young Colette. Fourteen years older, he would take her to visit Paris showing her the theater, parties and the glitz and glamour of the city of lights. On May 15, 1893 they would marry and move to Paris. Colette was in a hurry to get away from her overbearing mother but things would not turn out how she hoped. 

After a visit in 1895 to her former school in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye Willy encouraged her to write down some of her stories from her school girl days. Willy was a music critic and writer, or he at least took credit for others writing as his own. Colette wrote the book and Willy tossed it into a drawer for four years. One day he found it and read it again but asked her to spice it up a bit. Colette did just that and in 1900 it would be published under Willy’s name only as Claudine at School. It was an immediate hit and Colette was forced to write another one. She didn’t like the writing process, so Wily would lock her in a room to write each day.  In 1901 Claudine in Paris debuted.  

Willy was fast to capitalize on the success and had a stage adaptation created that would premier at the Theatre des Bouffes-Parisiens with the young actress Polaire starring as Claudine with her short dark hair. Colette cut her hair short too and Willy would parade around Paris, basking in his literary glory with his “twins” at his side. He would let people know that Colette partially inspired his books “he wrote”. 

Colette would go on to write two more, Claudine Married in 1902 and Claudine and Annie in 1903. By 1906 they separated, without any rights to her semi-autobiographical series of books. 

After the separation, Colette trained to be a mime and one night on stage she would kiss Missy de Morny a woman who she was involved with shocking all of Paris. Remarried again in 1912 to Henri de Jouvenal, editor of Le Matin, they would have a daughter she would name Colette, but would spend very little time with. 

All of her writing was woven with the themes and stories of her life and her book Cheri was no exception. After her marriage with Henri was going downhill she picked up with her stepson Bertrand. The older woman and the much younger man relationship would head straight to her pages. In 1925 she met  Maurice Goudeket and they would have the most stable relationship of her life. 

Colette had lived in many places in Paris but her favorite was her home in the Palais Royal. In an article she mentioned how much she missed her former home, a few days later the current owner contacted her and asked if she would like it back. 

Colette would look out her window everyday as she wrote into the garden of the Palais Royal, hearing the gardeners rakes scraping up the leaves and the birds singing. She and Maurice would live out the rest of her life here, being treated to the wonderful meals from Raymond Oliver chef and owner of Le Grand Véfour and popping bottles of Pommery champagne. 

Colette would die on August 3 1954 in her beloved home in the Palais Royale. Denied a Catholic funeral due to her multiple divorces she would be the first female writer to be given a state funeral. More than 10,000 people paid their respects and a funeral was held in the courtyard and garden of the Palais Royal. She is buried in Père-Lachaise today with her daughter. 

Listen to her whole story with many more twists and turns on the newest episode of La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec A Hemingway.

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Episode 10 - Hadley Richardson Hemingway

Long before she was a Hemingway, Hadley Richardson was a smart, quiet and talented young lady. The youngest of five children, her mother had been a singer and musician and would pass the gift onto Hadley as a pianist. Due to financial difficulties her father killed himself when she was just twelve years old leaving her with her very overprotective mother.  

Hadley enrolled in Bryn Mawr where she was finally able to spread her wings a bit, but it would be short-lived. Her sister Dorthea was married and had a child and another on the way. One day while sitting on her porch the nearby field was on fire. Dorthea wearing a long dress ran to the field to put it out, the flames touched her dress and stockings and she was quickly engulfed in flames. She would sadly die a few days later, causing Hadley’s mother to panic and force her home from Bryn Mawr. 

Hadley’s mother Florence, criticized her most of her life and she fought against the inferiority complex her mother instilled in her. After returning from school, it was even worse. Her mother got sick and Hadley spent all her time taking care of her until August 1920 when she would pass. 

In October 1920, Hadley was finally free to live her life and went to Chicago to visit her friend Kate Smith for three weeks. One night at a party she would meet the young Ernest Hemingway. Instantly attracted to each other they would see each other often before her return to St Louis. After that they would send letters to each other every day, sometimes 2 to 3 a day. Hadley felt her life had finally begun when she met Hem. 

Less than a year after they met, they would get married in Bay Township Michigan on September 3, 1921. Spending a few short months in a small apartment at 1239 North Dearborn in Chicago before leaving for Paris on December 8, 1921. 

Much has been written of Hadley’s time in Paris, most of it painting her as the weak woman who went along and was pushed aside. That is far from the truth. Hadley was an amazing, smart, talented and patient woman. Supportive of Hemingway and his writing and travels, but she also had her gift as a wonderful pianist. While Pauline Pfeiffer befriended her, locked in her claws and took advantage of Hadley’s sweet disposition, it was Hadley in the end that would put the screws to Pauline. 

Hadley would go on to marry again to a wonderful man, Paul Mowrer and live out her life happy and content. Ernest and Hadley would stay in touch and share a close relationship until he died. Writing “Hadley was the only woman in his life that didn’t give me trouble”, I believe she was his one true love but he figured it out much too late.  

Listen to the newest episode of La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec A Hemingway out today all about the amazing Hadley RIchardson Hemingway.

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Episode 9 - Rose Valland

If there is one woman that deserves a monument, parade and her face on a euro it is Rose Valland. She isn’t a name that is widely known and if I can do just one little thing in this life it is for others to know her story.  Rose Valland was born in 1898 in the Auvergne region, an only child that showed promise from a very early age. Her mother would apply for special grants that allowed her daughter to enroll in university, something that was hard for women to do at that time.  Rose would excel in school  from the Fine Arts school in Lyon to the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris where she would also teach, the University of Paris for Medieval archaeology and then the Ecole du Louvre. 

In 1932 she would take on a job that would alter the lives of thousands of people. As a volunteer to the curator of the Jeu de Paume she would write and curate exhibitions to be sent internationally. In 1940 Jacques Jaujard, the director of the Musée Nationaux asked Rose to stay at the Jeu de Paume. It was 1940, the Nazis had arrived and occupied France. Gorhing was looting the homes, galleries and museums of Paris and needed a place to store the stolen goods. The Jeu de Paume, the freestanding building in the Jardin des Tuileries, became their personal depot. Transformed into their personal gallery, the paintings stolen from the Jewish gallery owners and homes lined the walls before being shipped off to Germany. 

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Rose Valland was quiet &  meek, who wore her hair in a bun and glasses and disappeared into the woodwork. She was a brilliant woman, with a photographic memory and also spoke German. All these things combined made her one of the greatest assets France and the lovers of art ever had. Each and every night, Rose would return to her small apartment near the Jardin des Plantes and would write down every single detail of the day. 

In her many legers she noted the painting and its owner, the German code given to each one, crate and destination and even the date and train they were shipped out on. Through her notes the allies knew which trains and routes to secure. She did this every day for the entire length of the war. They had no idea this quiet amazing woman was doing, if they knew she would have been killed. 

Following the war her notes were used to recover thousands of looted art and personal possessions taken from Jewish homes. She would be sent to Italy and Germany to aid the Monuments Men in the recovery. The French government made her a Fine Arts Officer and was given awards by Italy, Germany and the US. 

Because of Rose Valland more than 60,000 works of art were returned to Jewish families, museums and galleries. Sadly just as many if not more are still missing and many sit in museums across France waiting to be returned to their rightful owners. 

The love and respect I have for this woman and what she did is immense. She put her life on the line every single day to protect the treasures of France and the world. If it wasn’t for her heroic act hundreds of thousands of pieces of art and the property of thousands of families would have been lost to the Nazi greed forever.  

In her later years she wrote Le Front de l’Art about her time during the war and today her entire inventory and notes can be found online. Restitution workers all over Europe and America still use her notes daily in their attempt to reunite the many pieces recovered. 

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And you can check out all her hardwork in the Rose Valland database and the entire list of MNR works still in the French state or missing.

Listen to even more about this amazing woman on this week's episode of La Vie Creative - Paris History Avec A Hemingway 

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Episode 8 - Coco Chanel

Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel would start out a poor orphan and would become one of the richest women in the world. Her life and the narrative she tried to rewrite many times is well known, well most of it. Starting out chasing a dream of fame she wanted to be on the stage. It was the stage that would give her the now famous name Coco when she would sing Who Has Seen Coco every night between headliners in a small club. 

Sent to a convent at 12 by her father and left behind she would learn to sew and when she was 18 left and began working as a seamstress. She would meet Etienne Balsan and move to his chateau in Compiegne introducing her to the world of high society. She didn’t fit in and began to design her own clothes and hats. While her clothing shocked the women in the corsets and dressed as a wedding cake as Chanel called them they did love her hats. 

While she was living with Balsan she met his friend Edward Boy Capel, the two fell in love and the affair lasted 9 years, even after he married another woman. Capel was supportive of her and paid for her first store at 21 Rue Cambon, followed by stores in Deauville and Biarritz. She began to make so much money with her new more casual style of clothes and hats that she was able to pay him back everything he loaned her 18 months later. In 1919 after spending a few days in Paris with Chanel, Capel left to go to London. On his way he was in a horrible accident and died. Chanel was heartbroken. 

In the 1920’s she would continue to amass her fortune. Working with perfumier Ernest Beaux Gaven, he brought her nine samples of the perfume he was creating for her. She chose her favorite number, no. 5. For the bottle she wanted it invisible and shaped after one of Boy’s old toiletry bottles, for the cap she would later change the design to the shape of the Place Vendome. In 1924, after the urging of her friend Theophile Bader, the founder of the Galeries Lafayette she met with the Wertheimer Brothers, Pierre and Paul. Without any guidance or a lawyer she signed away her perfume and only kept a 10%  ownership. 

Her love life after Boy was one horrible decision after another. In 1922 she met the Duke of Westminster Hugh Richard Grosenor or Bender. He was a huge anti-semite that gave her jewels and even a home in London. Their relationship lasted ten years. Then there was Paul Irbe, another anti-semite who started an ultra right wing newsletter against Jews and foreigners in France. Coco paid for the publishing of it.  It was the late 1930’s and Hitler was marching through Europe. One day her employees went on strike because of low pay, Chanel was outraged and when the war started a few years later she closed her atelier putting 3000 employees out of work. Many of the other designers in Paris kept their going as long as they could. 

Chanel had an apartment above her store at 31 Rue Cambon but preferred to stay at the Ritz just across the street. In 1940 the German’s also loved the idea of staying in the poshest hotel in Paris. Living on the Vendome side in a lavish room while all the other rich guests were kicked out should have tipped many people off. She began a relationship with Baron Dinklage a Nazi spy. The two would spend each evening together over dinner and he even took her to work with him meeting Gorhing and other high ranking Nazi leaders. 

Coco’s true colors began to be seen and since 2011 and again in 2014 when government officials released sealed documents we really can see what she really was. Those employees she had locked the doors on, well the Jewish ones she turned into the Germans. She and Dinklage would spend afternoons “shopping” in the home of Jewish families sent off to die, the richest woman in the world at that time was in need of nothing. She even spied for the Nazi’s using one of her oldest and cloests friends Vera Bate who was also friends with Churchill and the Duke of Winsdor. Telling Vera they were going to Spain to look at a location for a shop she was actually on a German errand. When they were arrested and Chanel told her what their real mission was she wanted nothing to do with her. Chanel was released but Vera was detained. She denounced Chanel and told them she was a Nazi spy. The two would never speak again. 

As the war was nearing an end and in fear for her life she placed a sign on her store offering free bottles of Chanel No. 5 to all the GI’s. It was a grand publicity move and bought her some time and the American soldiers protected her. 

She and Spatz would disappear to Switzerland where she would be arrested but released. Many collaborators were put on trial, jailed and even killed. Coco would escape all of that but the French weren’t soon to forget.  In 1954 after 15 years away she presented her first collection. The foreign press loved it, the French had nothing nice to say about it or her. 

On January 10, 1971 at 87 years old after degrades of morphine use she would die in the Ritz. The president's wife Madame Pompidou wanted to hold a large tribute to her a year after her death. When they figured out all her hateful acts during the war, it was cancelled. 

Coco Chanel, the woman so many people love and admire was not at all what many think she was. While she was an amazing business woman who created a style that is still worn today and the creator of the little black dress, but the woman herself was a hateful horrible person.  Can we separate the company from who the woman was?

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Episode 7 - Victorine Meurent

Victorine Meurent was born in Paris on February 18. 1844 and from an early age she was drawn to art. In 1862 Edouard Manet walked into Thomas Couture’s studio and met a young girl. Couture would teach Manet & Henri Fantin-Latour and feature many young models. On this one day, Victorine-Louis Meurent was in Couture’s studio when Manet arrived.

She was just 16, with red hair and nicknamed La Crevette and would go on to become the muse for some of the biggest artists at that time. He would paint her for the first time in The Street Singer, with her piercing eyes that we would come to know so well in two of his most famous and controversial paintings.  Victorine would sit for him 8 or 9 times, we will come back to that in a minute. 

 Many may know her name because of one fantastic painting, Olympia. The painting that rocked the Salon of 1863 with its suggestive subject of the courtesan laying naked on her bed while her servant brings her flowers from one of her admirers. Given the name Olympia, a name associated with prostitutes and the many small elements that hint at her wealth, many of which transferred over to the model herself. Victorine was nothing close to the woman in the painting, Born to a well established artistic family she would become an artist herself and present her work at the Salon in 1870. 

However it is her Manet paintings that we know so well. Now the other most famous painting may or may not even be her. In 1862 when Manet painted Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, another painting that would shock the art world he may have used her as the model, but it is more likely that he used his lover Suzanne Leenhoff. However at the end he would use the face of Victorine to conceal the woman he was in a secret relationship with.

 She would sit for him a last time in 1873  for The Railway before they parted ways. Through her own art classes she preferred the academic style and Manet never liked being defined by any style. 

 She would sit for Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas while she chased her own painting dreams. Sadly only two of her paintings remain at the museum in Colombes. Other than Berthe Morisot and Suzanne Valadon, Victorine is a beautiful face we know so well from the brush of Manet and I never miss a chance to stand in front of her and admire such a stunning piece of art and a more amazing woman.

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Episode 6 - Dalida

Iolanda “Dalida”  Gigliotti was born in Egypt to Italian parents in 1933.  The young beauty would be named Miss Egypt in 1954 and a few months after she headed to Paris. Dalida, one of the biggest international stars at a young age, was in awe of Rita Hayworth when she saw her in her iconic role Gilda. With the help of radio host Lucien Morisse her songs began to play on the radio and in a few short years she had her first big hit, Bambino. Before long she was performing on the Olympia stage with Charles Anzavour. Recording songs in French, German, Italian, Spanish she would tour the world for decades.

The major star of the stage, known for her amazing outfits was barely known in the United States, turning down major contracts. Her tragic love life on the other hand left her broken and depressed with one partner after another killing themselves. Sadly her own life would end in her Montmartre home when she couldn’t take it anymore. On May 3, 1987 she would overdose on pills washed down with whisky.  

Today she is remembered with a bust in the Place Dalida at the base of the winding road in the shadow of Sacre Coeur. Created in 1997 on the ten year anniversary of her death by Alain Aslan, it is customary to give her a little rub for good luck. Aslan also created the life size statue for her grave in the Montmartre cemetery, with a gold sun as a halo behind her, also evoking an Egyptian tomb of a queen.  To visit her home, follow the small Rue d’Orchcampt  and just as the road bends look up to the white house with its wonderful windows. 

I first became fascinated by Dalida after seeing an exhibition at the Palais Galliera of her years of costumes. From the young girl and her sweet dresses to the international star in all her glitz and glamour.

 Learn more about Dalida in the fantastic podcast that I teamed up with my friend @missparisphotos on, @laviecreative and the new Paris History avec a Hemingway. Each week focusing on fantastic female artists that left their mark on Paris. And when you stroll the streets of Montmartre and you come across Dalida, give her a little rub for luck.

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Episode 5 - Marie Antoinette the Final Moments and the Daughter that Lived On

In the last episode in our series of Marie Antoinette we are in the final moments of her life. Convicted and sentenced to death they didn’t give her much time. In the early hours of the morning she wrote a long letter to her sister in law Madame Elisabeth asking her to look after her children. The letter would never be delivered. 

At 8am on October 16, 1793 a priest arrived at her cell followed by the executioner, Samson. She was dressed in a simple white dress from her dressmaker Rose Bertin and her best black satin shoes. Samson cut her hair short, tied her hands behind her with a rope and led her up the stairs to a cart in the courtyard of the court house. Her husband Louis XVI was taken in a carriage, but Marie Antoinette sat in an open cart, seated next to the priest. 

The streets were lined ten people deep on the entire route as they slowly meandered through the streets. In the window of the Café de la Régence on the corner of Rue Saint-Honoré artist Jacques-Louis David sketched the last known image of the queen as she went by inching closer to the guillotine. 

Arriving at the Place de la Revolution, she walked up the scaffolding and stepped on the executioner's foot. Her last words were “I am sorry sir, I did not mean to put it there”. At 12:15pm on October 16, 1793 the blade fell and her life was over. Her body and her head were placed in a coffin and tossed into the Madeleine cemetery. 

The Dauphin of France, Louis XVI would die in jail as her daughter Marie-Thérèse Charlotte was in the cell below him. She would remain in jail until December 19, 1795 when she was sent to Austria in exchange for French prisoners. Dressed in black and mourning the death of her family she kept to herself living in the former home of her mother. Axel von Fersen would pay her a visit and she slowly began to smile again. Spending the days with her younger cousins she regained a bit of happiness. 

The Vienna court wanted to marry her off to the Emperor's brother but she had her own ideas. She wanted to marry her cousin Louis-Antoine d'Artois, the Duke of Angouleme and son of her uncle Charles X. Russian Emperor Paul I stepped in and convinced the Vienna court to let her marry who she wished. 

Her uncle Louis XVIII was now in exile and Madame Royale as she was known followed him around Europe while her husband was away. In 1814 during the Restoration she was finally allowed to return to France. As soon as she arrived she asked to be taken to her parents graves. A kindly neighbor watched over their spot they tossed her parents in and when Louis XVIII arrived he let them know where they were. The next year Louis XVIII ordered the construction of the Chapelle Expiatoire to be built on the site. Marie-Thérèse would visit every day and would personally pay for two statues of her parents. 

Marie-Thérèse traveled all over France as Madame Royale even when her uncle Louis XVIII fled to Belgium. Trying to rally the people as Napoleon made his way back to France, she would even give the women of the villages the ribbons and feathers off her own dress. Napoleon hadn’t been up against many people, especially a woman like her before and said she was the only “man” in the Bourbon family. She eventually fled France and headed to England. After Waterloo, Louis XVIII returned to France with Marie-Thérèse at his side, stepping into the role of queen following the death of his wife. The people loved her, although she was always reminded of what they did to her parents.  In 1816 her brother in law married the Duchess de Berry, a young, fun and sexy reminder of the future, while Marie-Thérèse was a reminder of the past. 

In 1823, Louis XVIII died and her other uncle Charles X took the throne, she was now the Dauphine of France. On August 2, 1830 when he abdicated she was for 3 minutes the queen of France. Louis-Philippe d’Orleans took the throne and ousted her once again.  Leaving for Italy with Charles X and her husband they settled into a quiet life. As for the Duchess de Berry, now a widow she traveled to France to try to gather some favor for Charles X.  Fleeing arrest she hid in a fireplace and was discovered when her dress caught on fire and her screams could be heard. She was also pregnant and unwed and ousted from the Bourbon family. Her children were sent to live with Marie-Thérèse who spent her time educating them on the principles of the ancient regime. 

She and her husband had a wonderful marriage but never any children of their own. He would die in 1844 at the age of 64. On October 16, 1851 on the 58th anniversary of her mother's death after attending mass she returned to her bed and died three days later. According to her wishes she was buried with her husband and her uncle in the small monastery of Nova Gorica laying on a slab of French stone. 

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Episode 4- Marie Antoinette From the Palace to the Guillotine

Out today for your listening pleasure on La Vie Creative Podcast, Paris History Avec A Hemingway, part trois in our series on Marie Antoinette.  When we left off in part deux, Marie was embroiled in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace which led to her downfall although she had nothing to do with it. Part trois began in Spring 1789, when the Estate General opened with an attack on the queen, it was going to go downhill from here.  

On June 4th upon the death of their son, they were not able to be with him when he died or attend his funeral at the Basilique Saint Denis due to the optics of spending more of the state's money. 

On October 1 and 3, two large parties were held for the king's guards and the Flanders Regiments. While the people of Paris were starving and unable to get bread, a lavish dinner at Versailles was the final straw. Before dawn on October 5, a large group met in front of the Hotel de Ville. Breaking in and stealing more than 600 weapons a group largely made up of women took off from Paris. In the pouring rain for over 5 hours they walked in the mud arriving at Versailles. Demanding to be let into the National Assembly their spokesperson Stanislas Maillard read their demands of wheat, floor and to stop blocking the route into Paris. They agreed and took it to Louis XVI to sign. The king agreed and we could be done with this story, but we know it ends differently. 

Overnight the crowd gathered outside grew restless, the guards pushed back. The crowd rushed the palace, killing the queens guards and calling out her name. The royal family would agree to go with the crowd back to Paris. Moved to the Palais des Tuileries where they can be watched closely. Things went along for two years until June 20, 1791 when they decided to escape. The Flight to Varennes, the escape to freedom would begin with one delay after another and end with their return to Paris. After being recognized from a coin with the image of Louis XVI in the small town of Viels-Maisons. On June 22 they would return to the Tuileries, this time closely watched. 

On August 10, 1792 the Tuileries were stormed, the Swiss guards were killed and the royal family sent running for their life through the garden. Arriving at the National Assembly, the king was given wine and treated like a king. Marie and her children were put into a small locked room. That night as they ran, the monarchy slipped through their fingers. The next day they were sent to the Temple prison and in a few short months the king would be killed. 

On January 21, 1793 with the sounds of canons in the distance Marie Antoinette, her sister in law and their two children knew their dad was dead. 

In the summer her children would be taken from her, Marie would be taken to the “antechamber of death” the  Conciergerie in August. After a failed attempt to break her out, she was moved to a tighter cell. In October in a sham of a trial, she was convicted and sentenced to death. The next morning she was taken on a cart through the city of Paris and to her death in the Place de la Revolution, today's Place de la Concorde. 

Coming up next week, part 4, the only surviving member of the royal family.

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