jenny amenaide brecourt was born in paris in the year 1837. her father was a printer, her mother sold vegetables. the parents neglected the child, but a lady of title took pity on her, and when she was five years old adopted her. even as a little girl she was haughty and imperious. at the age of eight she refused to play with another child on the ground of her companion's social inferiority. "the daughter of a baroness," she said, "cannot play with the daughter of a wine-merchant." when she was eleven years old, her parents took her away from her protectress and sent her into the streets to sell gingerbread—a dangerous experience for a child of tender years. after six years of street life, amenaide sought out her benefactress and begged her to take her back. the baroness consented, and found her employment in a silk manufactory. one day the girl, now eighteen years old, attended the wedding of one of her companions in the factory. she returned home after the ceremony thoughtful.
she said that she wanted to get married. the baroness did not take her statement seriously, and on the grocer calling one day, said in jest to amenaide, "you want a husband, there's one."
but amenaide was in earnest. she accepted the suggestion and, to the baroness' surprise, insisted on taking the grocer as her husband. reluctantly the good lady gave her consent, and in 1855 amenaide brecourt became the wife of the grocer gras.
a union, so hasty and ill-considered, was not likely to be of long duration. with the help of the worthy baroness the newly married couple started a grocery business. but amenaide was too economical for her husband and mother-in-law. quarrels ensued, recriminations. in a spirit of unamiable prophecy husband and wife foretold each other's future. "you will die in a hospital," said the wife. "you will land your carcase in prison," retorted the husband. in both instances they were correct in their anticipations. one day the husband disappeared. for a short time amenaide returned to her long-suffering protectress, and then she too disappeared.
when she is heard of again, amenaide brecourt has become jeanne de la cour. jeanne de la cour is a courtesan. she has tried commerce, acting, literature, journalism, and failed at them all. henceforth men are to make her fortune for her. such charms as she may possess, such allurements as she can offer, she is ready to employ without heart or feeling to accomplish her end. without real passion, she has an almost abnormal, erotic sensibility, which serves in its stead. she cares only for one person, her sister. to her jeanne de la cour unfolded her philosophy of life. while pretending to love men, she is going to make them suffer. they are to be her playthings, she knows how to snare them: "all is dust and lies. so much the worse for the men who get in my way. men are mere stepping-stones to me. as soon as they begin to fail or are played out, i put them scornfully aside. society is a vast chess-board, men the pawns, some white, some black; i move them as i please, and break them when they bore me."
the early years of jeanne de la cour's career as a phryne were hardly more successful than her attempts at literature, acting and journalism. true to her philosophy, she had driven one lover, a german, to suicide, and brought another to his death by over-doses of cantharides. on learning of the death of the first, she reflected patriotically, "one german the less in paris!" that of the second elicited the matter-of-fact comment, "it was bound to happen; he had no moderation." a third admirer, who died in a hospital, was dismissed as "a fool who, in spite of all, still respects women." but, in ruining her lovers, she had ruined her own health. in 1865 she was compelled to enter a private asylum. there she is described as "dark in complexion, with dark expressive eyes, very pale, and of a nervous temperament, agreeable, and pretty." she was suffering at the time of her admission from hysterical seizures, accompanied by insane exaltation, convulsions and loss of speech. in speaking of her humble parents she said, "i don't know such people"; her manner was bombastic, and she was fond of posing as a fine lady.
after a few months jeanne de la cour was discharged from the asylum as cured, and on the advice of her doctors went to vittel.
there she assumed the rank of baroness and recommenced her career, but this time in a more reasonable and businesslike manner. her comments, written to her sister, on her fellow guests at the hotel are caustic. she mocks at some respectable married women who are trying to convert her to catholicism. to others who refuse her recognition, she makes herself so mischievous and objectionable that in self-defence they are frightened into acknowledging her. admirers among men she has many, ex-ministers, prefects. it was at vittel that occurred the incident of the wounded pigeon. there had been some pigeon-shooting. one of the wounded birds flew into the room of the baroness de la cour. she took pity on it, tended it, taught it not to be afraid of her and to stay in her room. so touching was her conduct considered by some of those who heard it, that she was nicknamed "the charmer." but she is well aware, she writes to her sister, that with the true ingratitude of the male, the pigeon will leave her as soon as it needs her help no longer.
however, for the moment, "disfigured as it is, beautiful or ugly," she loves it. "don't forget," she writes, "that a woman who is practical and foreseeing, she too enjoys her pigeon shooting, but the birds are her lovers."
shortly after she left vittel an event occurred which afforded jeanne de la cour the prospect of acquiring that settled position in life which, "practical and foreseeing," she now regarded as indispensable to her future welfare. her husband, gras, died, as she had foretold, in the charity hospital. the widow was free. if she could bring down her bird, it was now in her power to make it hers for life. henceforth all her efforts were directed to that end. she was reaching her fortieth year, her hair was turning grey, her charms were waning. poverty, degradation, a miserable old age, a return to the wretched surroundings of her childhood, such she knew to be the fate of many of her kind. there was nothing to be hoped for from the generosity of men. her lovers were leaving her. blackmail, speculation on the bourse, even the desperate expedient of a supposititious child, all these she tried as means of acquiring a competence. but fortune was shy of the widow. there was need for dispatch. the time was drawing near when it might be man's unkind privilege to put her scornfully aside as a thing spent and done with. she must bring down her bird, and that quickly. it was at this critical point in the widow's career, in the year 1873, that she met at a public ball for the first time georges de saint pierre.(16)
(16) for obvious reasons i have suppressed the real name of the widow's
lover.
georges de saint pierre was twenty years of age when he made the acquaintance of the widow gras. he had lost his mother at an early age, and since then lived with relatives in the country. he was a young man of independent means, idle, of a simple, confiding and affectionate disposition. four months after his first meeting with the widow they met again. the end of the year 1873 saw the commencement of an intimacy, which to all appearances was characterised by a more lasting and sincere affection than is usually associated with unions of this kind. there can be no doubt that during the three years the widow gras was the mistress of georges de saint pierre, she had succeeded in subjugating entirely the senses and the affection of her young lover. in spite of the twenty years between them, georges de saint pierre idolised his middle-aged mistress. she was astute enough to play not only the lover, but the mother to this motherless youth. after three years of intimacy he writes to her: "it is enough for me that you love me, because i don't weary you, and i, i love you with all my heart. i cannot bear to leave you. we will live happily together. you will always love me truly, and as for me, my loving care will ever protect you. i don't know what would become of me if i did not feel that your love watched over me." the confidence of georges in the widow was absolute. when, in 1876, he spent six months in egypt, he made her free of his rooms in paris, she was at liberty to go there when she liked; he trusted her entirely, idolised her. whatever her faults, he was blind to them. "your form," he writes, "is ever before my eyes; i wish i could enshrine your pure heart in gold and crystal."
the widow's conquest, to all appearances, was complete. but georges was very young. he had a family anxious for his future; they knew of his liaison; they would be hopeful, no doubt, of one day breaking it off and of marrying him to some desirable young person. from the widow's point of view the situation lacked finality. how was that to be secured?
one day, toward the end of the year 1876, after the return of georges from egypt, the widow happened to be at the house of a friend, a ballet dancer. she saw her friend lead into the room a young man; he was sightless, and her friend with tender care guided him to a seat on the sofa. the widow was touched by the spectacle. when they were alone, she inquired of her friend the reason of her solicitude for the young man. "i love this victim of nature," she replied, "and look after him with every care. he is young, rich, without family, and is going to marry me. like you, i am just on forty; my hair is turning grey, my youth vanishing. i shall soon be cast adrift on the sea, a wreck. this boy is the providential spar to which i am going to cling that i may reach land in safety." "you mean, then," said the widow, "that you will soon be beyond the reach of want?" "yes," answered the friend, "i needn't worry any more about the future."
"i congratulate you," said the widow, "and what is more, your lover will never see you grow old."
to be cast adrift on the sea and to have found a providential spar! the widow was greatly impressed by her friend's rare good fortune. indeed, her experience gave the widow furiously to think, as she revolved in her brain various expedients by which georges de saint pierre might become the "providential spar" in her own impending wreck. the picture of the blind young man tenderly cared for, dependent utterly on the ministrations of his devoted wife, fixed itself in the widow's mind; there was something inexpressibly pathetic in the picture, whilst its practical significance had its sinister appeal to one in her situation.
at this point in the story there appears on the scene a character as remarkable in his way as the widow herself, remarkable at least for his share in the drama that is to follow. nathalis gaudry, of humble parentage, rude and uncultivated, had been a playmate of the widow when she was a child in her parents' house.
they had grown up together, but, after gaudry entered the army, had lost sight of each other. gaudry served through the italian war of 1859, gaining a medal for valour. in 1864 he had married.
eleven years later his wife died, leaving him with two children. he came to paris and obtained employment in an oil refinery at saint denis. his character was excellent; he was a good workman, honest, hard-working, his record unblemished. when he returned to paris, gaudry renewed his friendship with the companion of his youth. but jeanne brecourt was now jeanne de la cour, living in refinement and some luxury, moving in a sphere altogether remote from and unapproachable by the humble workman in an oil refinery. he could do no more than worship from afar this strange being, to him wonderfully seductive in her charm and distinction.
on her side the widow was quite friendly toward her homely admirer. she refused to marry him, as he would have wished, but she did her best without success to marry him to others of her acquaintance. neither a sempstress nor an inferior actress could she persuade, for all her zeal, to unite themselves with a hand in an oil mill, a widower with two children. it is typical of the widow's nervous energy that she should have undertaken so hopeless a task. in the meantime she made use of her admirer. on sundays he helped her in her apartment, carried coals, bottled wine, scrubbed the floors, and made himself generally useful. he was supposed by those about the house to be her brother. occasionally, in the absence of a maid, the widow allowed him to attend on her personally, even to assist her in her toilette and perform for her such offices as one woman would perform for another. the man soon came to be madly in love with the woman; his passion, excited but not gratified, enslaved and consumed him. to some of his fellow-workmen who saw him moody and preoccupied, he confessed that he ardently desired to marry a friend of his childhood, not a working woman but a lady.
such was the situation and state of mind of nathalis gaudry when, in november, 1876, he received a letter from the widow, in which she wrote, "come at once. i want you on a matter of business. tell your employer it is a family affair; i will make up your wages." in obedience to this message gaudry was absent from the distillery from the 17th to the 23rd of november.
the "matter of business" about which the widow wished to consult with gaudry turned out to be a scheme of revenge. she told him that she had been basely defrauded by a man to whom she had entrusted money. she desired to be revenged on him, and could think of no better way than to strike at his dearest affections by seriously injuring his son. this she proposed to do with the help of a knuckle-duster, which she produced and gave to gaudry. armed with this formidable weapon, gaudry was to strike her enemy's son so forcibly in the pit of the stomach as to disable him for life. the widow offered to point out to gaudry the young man whom he was to attack. she took him outside the young man's club and showed him his victim. he was georges de saint pierre.
the good fortune of her friend, the ballet-dancer, had proved a veritable toxin in the intellectual system of the widow gras. the poison of envy, disappointment, suspicion, apprehension had entered into her soul. of what use to her was a lover, however generous and faithful, who was free to take her up and lay her aside at will? but such was her situation relative to georges de saint pierre. she remembered that the wounded pigeon, as long as it was dependent on her kind offices, had been compelled to stay by her side; recovered, it had flown away. only a pigeon, maimed beyond hope of recovery, could she be sure of compelling to be hers for all time, tied to her by its helpless infirmity, too suffering and disfigured to be lured from its captivity. and so, in accordance with her philosophy of life, the widow, by a blow in the pit of the stomach with a knuckle-duster, was to bring down her bird which henceforth would be tended and cared for by "the charmer" to her own satisfaction and the admiration of all beholders.
for some reason, the natural reluctance of gaudry, or perhaps a feeling of compunction in the heart of the widow, this plan was not put into immediate execution. possibly she hesitated before adopting a plan more cruel, more efficacious. her hesitation did not last long.
with the dawn of the year 1877 the vigilant apprehension of the widow was roused by the tone of m. de saint pierre's letters. he wrote from his home in the country, "i cannot bear leaving you, and i don't mean to. we will live together." but he adds that he is depressed by difficulties with his family, "not about money or business but of a kind he can only communicate to her verbally." to the widow it was clear that these difficulties must relate to the subject of marriage. the character of georges was not a strong one; sooner or later he might yield to the importunities of his family; her reign would be ended, a modest and insufficient pension the utmost she could hope for. she had passed the meridian of her life as a charmer of men, her health was giving way, she was greedy, ambitious, acquisitive. in january she asked her nephew, who worked as a gilder, to get her some vitriol for cleaning her copper. he complied with her request.
during jeanne de la cour's brief and unsuccessful appearance as an actress she had taken part in a play with the rather cumbrous title, who puts out the eyes must pay for them. the widow may have forgotten this event; its occurrence so many years before may have been merely a sinister coincidence. but the incident of the ballet-dancer and her sightless lover was fresh in her mind.
early in january the widow wrote to georges, who was in the country, and asked him to take her to the masked ball at the opera on the 13th. her lover was rather surprised at her request, nor did he wish to appear with her at so public a gathering. "i don't understand," he writes, "why you are so anxious to go to the opera. i can't see any real reason for your wanting to tire yourself out at such a disreputable gathering. however, if you are happy and well, and promise to be careful, i will take you. i would be the last person, my dear little wife, to deny you anything that would give you pleasure." but for some reason georges was unhappy, depressed. some undefined presentiment of evil seems to have oppressed him. his brother noticed his preoccupation.
he himself alludes to it in writing to his mistress: "i am depressed this evening. for a very little i could break down altogether and give way to tears. you can't imagine what horrid thoughts possess me. if i felt your love close to me, i should be less sad." against his better inclination georges promised to take the widow to the ball on the 13th. he was to come to paris on the night of the 12th.
