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- Herausgeber: Icon Books
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
In the 1880s, Suzanne Valadon was considered the Impressionists' most beautiful model. But behind her captivating façade lay a closely-guarded secret. Born in poverty in rural France, as a teenager in Montmartre, Suzanne began posing for – and having affairs with – some of the age's most renowned painters. Then Renoir caught her indulging in a passion she had been trying to conceal: the model was herself a talented artist. Some found her vibrant still lifes and frank portraits as shocking as her bohemian lifestyle. At eighteen, she gave birth to an illegitimate child, future painter Maurice Utrillo. But her friends Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas could see her skill. Rebellious and opinionated, she refused to be confined by tradition or gender, and in 1894, her work was accepted to the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, an extraordinary achievement for a working-class woman with no formal art training. Renoir's Dancer tells the remarkable tale of an ambitious, headstrong woman fighting to find a professional voice in a male-dominated world.
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Contents
List of illustrations
FIGURES IN THE TEXT
The Place and Saint-Léger church in Bessines.
The former Auberge Guimbaud in Bessines.
Le Moulin de la Galette.
Young women in the Rue Cortot, c. 1900.
Suzanne Valadon, Paris, c. 1880.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, c. 1875.
Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec, c. 1894.
Suzanne Valadon, Paris, 1885.
Edgar Degas in his library, 1895.
Suzanne Valadon, c. 1890.
Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo, c. 1890.
Suzanne Valadon, Paul Mousis and His Dog, 1891.
Suzanne Valadon, Nude Girl Sitting, 1894.
Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo, c. 1894.
André Utter.
Maurice Utrillo as a young man.
André Utter and Suzanne Valadon at her easel in the studio, c. 1919.
Suzanne Valadon painting.
Suzanne Valadon in 1925, her 60th year.
Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo and André Utter sharing a drink in the studio of the Avenue Junot, c. 1926.
Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo and André Utter, c. 1930.
Suzanne Valadon with her dogs at the property in the Avenue Junot, c. 1930–1.
Maurice Utrillo with his wife Lucie Valore.
COLOUR PLATES
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Bougival, 1883.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance in the City, 1883.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance in the Country, 1883.
Suzanne Valadon, Self Portrait, 1883.
Suzanne Valadon, The Grandmother, 1883.
Marcelin Gilbert Desboutins, Portrait of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, 1895.
Pierre C. Puvis de Chavannes, The Sacred Grove of the Arts and Muses, 1884.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Large Bathers, 1884–1887.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, La Natte (The Plait), 1886–1887.
Santiago Rusiñol, Portrait of Miguel Utrillo, 1890–1891.
Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo, 1886.
Suzanne Valadon, Portrait of Erik Satie, 1892–1893.
Santiago Ruisiñol, Una Romanza, 1894.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Hangover, 1887–1889.
Suzanne Valadon, Adam and Eve, 1909.
Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo, his Grandmother and his Dog, 1910.
Suzanne Valadon, Joy of Life, 1911.
Suzanne Valadon, Family Portrait, 1912.
Suzanne Valadon, The Future Unveiled, 1912.
Suzanne Valadon, Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, 1912.
Suzanne Valadon, Marie Coca and her Daughter Gilberte, 1913.
Suzanne Valadon, The Casting of the Nets, 1914.
Suzanne Valadon, The Sacré-Coeur seen from the Garden of the Rue Cortot, 1916.
Suzanne Valadon, The Abandoned Doll, 1921.
Maurice Utrillo, Bessines Church in the Snow, 1927.
Suzanne Valadon, Bouquet of Flowers, 1930.
Suzanne Valadon, André Utter and his Dogs, 1932.
Prologue
When dawn broke on 2 October 1949, a thick mist had descended over the wooded valleys of the Limousin countryside, obscuring the little town of Bessines-sur-Gartempe and its 4,000 hectares of fields and hamlets.1 In the pastures, the warm russet of Limousin cattle appeared muted; from street level, chimneys and steeples were all but lost. Yet from the peaks of the surrounding granite hills, a milky autumn sun could be seen rising slowly against a cloudless sky. It promised to be a fine day.
The cobbled place at the heart of the town was still deserted. Not one of the surrounding buildings showed signs of life. The doors of the mairie were firmly bolted and not a soul entered the medieval church. Silence reigned.
But behind painted shutters, the people of Bessines were stirring. Already in the stillness, the sense of expectation was almost palpable.
Coloured bunting had been stretched across the streets, cheering the grey and beige stonework of the buildings as it flapped and fluttered in the gentle breeze. A short walk from the place, at a house especially brave in banderols, a section of 17th-century wall was concealed by a curtain. Nearby, a kind of platform had been erected, and several chairs covered in red velvet upholstery had been arranged on top. And right in the middle of this makeshift stage, there was a marvel to behold. The trickle of spectators who had now started arriving stopped to gaze in awe at the quintessence of modern innovations: there stood a microphone in dazzling metallic white paint. Many houses in Bessines still did not have running water.2
The annual festival of Saint Léger, the town’s patron saint, was always a great event. It was celebrated with all the enthusiasm generated by a year spent awaiting its arrival. When it came round, music, dancing and gaiety became the residents’ guiding principles for one glorious day. But this year, the people of Bessines were expecting a very important guest – a famous guest. The whole town was poised in anticipation. The main road had been closed, the press had been alerted and someone even said that they had heard an American accent among the crowd. Bessines was a rural community which took altruism as its unspoken ethos and where hard work earned respect. The cult of celebrity was at once bewildering, wonderful and entirely out of the ordinary.
Before long, the men of the local band were arranging themselves in a corner by an arched doorway. With their top hats, trumpets and polished shoes, the group lent a sense of pomp and ceremony to the occasion. The testing of brass and the impromptu rehearsal of the drum signalled that it would not be long now. They were a jolly group, known as ‘Les Gueules Sèches’ or ‘Dry Mouths’ – an ironic choice, locals could not help observing, considering the guest they were about to receive.
The people of Bessines were now filling the streets in droves, and the band struck up a cheerful number to set the mood for the day. The crowd looked quite the part. Best shirts had been pressed, women had curled their hair; young boys had been made to scrub their knees and little girls permitted to wear frocks reserved for special occasions.
The school term had only just resumed, so the event was a welcome sweetener to a bitter pill. Young necks were craned in curiosity as children edged their way to the front of the crowd.
‘Let me tell you,’ one little girl solemnly informed the boy standing next to her, ‘the plaque is under that curtain. You’ll see soon enough. I know what it says by heart. My father fixed it in place.’
Older spectators looked on with battle-weary eyes. The war was still chillingly fresh. Just a few miles away, the similar-sized town of Oradour-sur-Glane had found unsought fame when Nazi troops stormed in one Saturday afternoon and locked the town’s women and children in the church and its men in the barns and outbuildings. Grenades and machine guns were turned on the men and the church set on fire. 642 people were massacred. That was just five years ago. For the townsfolk of Bessines, celebration still felt a surreal concept. They participated apologetically.
All at once, the church bell struck half past eleven. The ceremony commenced.
The light-hearted melodies ceased, and as the band shifted register, the crowd recognised the triumphant opening bars of La Marseillaise as a stirring call to patriotism. Older residents liked to boast that, at halfway between Paris and Toulouse, Bessines was at the centre of the world. Today, it really felt true.
Emotions ran high as an official-looking group stepped forward en masse. More cultured spectators could recognise notable personalities among them, including the local poet Jean Rebier and the painters M. Edmond Heuzé and M. Rosier. There was the secretary of the ‘Friends of the Municipal Museum of the Limoges’, Robert Daudet, as well as some more familiar local faces such as M. Donquiert, the newly appointed sous-préfet of the nearby town of Bellac, and M. Duditlieu, Bessines’ own mayor. They made an impressive group. But one figure in particular held the people’s attention. All eyes were fixed on the man in the centre of the group, right at the front.
He was slim, in his mid-60s and visibly uneasy in his smart suit and tie. As the group advanced, he tottered slightly as he walked. An attempt had been made to tame his dark hair, but some unruly strands had escaped, giving him a wild appearance. A whole lifetime of suffering and experience was etched on his weathered face, while the creases of skin around his eyes told of a thousand dramas lived and emotions endured. His dark eyes darted about him rapidly, like those of a startled quarry. And when for a moment they came to settle on another person, his penetrating stare seemed to read their very soul. Never had a man looked so ill at ease before a crowd. And this was the celebrity everyone had come to see.
He had not come to Bessines for the attention. These days, his life was structured around a strict routine; this trip upset it. But he had had no choice. A woman had drawn him here.
By his side marched a formidable female. Matronly in appearance, her robust frame had been squeezed into a tailored dress and jacket, while a matching beret had been carefully positioned on her head. Two strings of pearls around her neck brought a touch of glamour, and her jewelled brooch bespoke wealth as it glinted in the mid-morning sunlight. She moved with confidence, supremely self-aware, as comfortable in the limelight as the man next to her appeared out of place. It was a curious contrast; they were husband and wife.
But it was not for the woman next to him that the man had made this trip. He was haunted by another, a woman not even his wife could rival. ‘A Goddess,’ he had once called her, ‘a sublime creature full of goodness, integrity, charity, selflessness, intelligence, courage and devotion.’3
There was indeed something rather mythical about this woman.
His ‘Goddess’ had come from nothing. Born into poverty, the illegitimate daughter of a humble linen maid, her very birth was clouded with disgrace. Nothing in her genealogy had predestined her for greatness. But determination causes the most stalwart of obstacles to crumble. Refusing to accept that the opportunities she most desired were those least open to her, she surmounted the constraints of class and gender. At a time when ‘respectable’ women did not even work, she entered one of the most precarious professions possible, attempting to live by her creative gifts alone. This poor countrywoman’s daughter found fame and unimaginable fortune. With her golden hair, dramatic eyebrows and intense, blue-eyed stare, her beauty bewitched the Impressionists. She was courted by famous painters, she befriended a prime minister, she became mistress of her very own château and her private life caused a scandal. She even danced for Renoir. But most importantly, she revolutionised the art world and irreversibly altered the place of women within that world.
Her dramatic tale begins here in the rural backwater of Bessines 100 years earlier. It starts with another woman and a seemingly insignificant decision which was to alter the course of history.
Notes
1. The following is drawn from the local paper’s report of this event in Bessines in 1949. A.R. Soulier, ‘D’une manière simple et touchante Bessines a honoré Suzanne Valadon’, Le Populaire du centre, October 1949. See also A.R. Soulier, ‘Après l’hommage rendu à Suzanne Valadon’, Le Populaire du centre, October 1949. Marie-Louise Peyrat, ‘Suzanne de Bessines’, Limousin Magazine, March 1965, pp. 16–19.
2. Suzanne Courdesses-Betout, Bessines au fil des siècles (Limoges: [n. Pub.], 1990), p. 272.
3. Maurice Utrillo, Histoire de ma jeunesse jusqu’à ce jour, published in Valadon Utrillo: Au tournant du siècle à Montmartre – de l’Impressionisme à l’École de Paris, exhib. cat. (Paris: Pinacothèque de Paris, 2009), pp. 65–131 (p. 68).
CHAPTER 1
Life-cycles
Ne pura pu, bravo novio, rizio dounc! Faras pa maû sechâ to grimaço, rizio dounc!1
(Do not cry, sweet young bride, laugh; You would not be unwise to dry your eyes, laugh!)
COUPLET FROM A TRADITIONAL LIMOUSIN WEDDING SONG2
When eighteen-year-old Madeleine Valadon awoke on 13 February 1849, she knew to expect a thick morning fog to have enveloped the town of Bessines, while the frosty air would sting and redden her bare hands once she stepped outside.3 It was a Tuesday; soon, the deserted place in the town centre would spring to life, as labourers, shopkeepers, artisans, seamstresses and laundresses hurried across the cobbles in all directions to take up their posts. The tap of wooden clogs on stone was a familiar sound as men in blue smocks made their way through the streets. White bonnets bobbed in time with female footsteps, subtle variations in each cap silently declaring its wearer’s social standing and origin. The skirts and capes beneath them were sombre, often being worn for mourning.4
The festivities of Christmas had now long passed; calls of Boun Anado in the local patois which resounded through the streets on 1 January were just a memory; Easter was late that year and the colour of Mardi Gras would pass all too quickly.5 February days were short and the nights could be bitter. And in just a few weeks, the truly hard work would begin. The following month, the whole town would be absorbed as the task of preparing the fields and then planting the year’s turnip crop commenced.
In one way or another, everyone in Bessines was affected by agriculture and the rearing of livestock. Most households were self-sufficient, and those individuals who did not work the land themselves had a husband, brother or son who surely did.6 All would need meals prepared and clothing mended. Then there were the associated trades, so vital in the struggle to turn out bountiful yields of crops and herds. Born as she was to the local cartwright, Madeleine belonged to one of the many families whose livelihoods were dependent on the town’s dominant commercial activity.
Moneyed, upper-class families were in a minority in the Limousin and countryfolk led a rude existence.7 Poor soil and a variable climate made it difficult to obtain good crops. Spring frosts could bring tragedy to farms and winters were glacial; hamlets were frequently cut off by snow, and heating the stone-walled cottages was a relentless task. Better off families might boast a home of two or three rooms with adjoining outbuildings, such as a barn, stable and bread oven (for most households had to be able to bake their own; often they would take turns with neighbours to bake for the whole hamlet for the week). There might also be a dryer for chestnuts, that important Limousin staple. Even the poorest peasants owned a shelter for the pig kept in readiness for sacrifice at Christmas. However, the less fortunate among them could be reduced to just one room. For many families, the chief objective was simply to survive.8
In such circumstances, the spectre of death cast a shadow over everyday life. The Limousin was a region steeped in folklore and ruled by superstition. All manner of rituals and customs were employed to anticipate and forestall death’s arrival. Placing a jar of honey in the stable was reputed to be a good way of protecting a cow, while a nut shell containing a live spider worn round the owner’s neck was said to safeguard the wearer from the fever. Rural superstition held that a creaking piece of furniture presaged an imminent death, while a hen that crowed like a cockerel was an equally sinister omen; the creature should be dispatched without further delay and served at table.9
But such methods did not always prove reliable deterrents. Indeed, death was an uninvited visitor Madeleine knew only too well. That winter, it had plunged the Valadon household into despair. In early October, just days before his 44th birthday, the young girl’s father had died.10
Aside from the emotional distress, Mathieu-Alexandre’s death had sobering practical implications for Madeleine, her mother and her brother Clément, who at fifteen was still a minor. That Valadon owned several parcels of land gave a deceptive impression of affluence. He was proprietor of some ten plots besides the family’s house and garden, which included heathland, grazing and even a small chestnut wood. Yet with some fields located several miles away from the family home, Valadon’s property betrayed a patchwork estate of land acquired and reapportioned through inheritance. Such plots were often financially inconsequential; the Valadons were not a wealthy family.
Madeleine had already been put out to work as a linen maid by the time her father died. It was a low-paid, physically gruelling profession, liable to attract sniggers and disdainful looks from the daughters of better-off families. Every channel of income available to the Valadon family was already being exploited, and Madeleine was still unmarried. The loss of the household’s head and main breadwinner would have terrifying repercussions.
Even for Limousin girls who had not lost a father, finding a husband was a primary goal from adolescence. Whereas a single man could work and make a living, a woman, with her sphere accepted as the domestic environment and wages meagre even when they were earned, was dependent on male income. Women enjoyed little status outside marriage. The daughters of artisans and peasants alike felt the same sense of urgency when it came to the question of matrimony. Much was at stake, and for many more people than the young couple directly concerned. The family remained the basic social unit in the 19th century, and the marriages of its younger members was its principal means of shaping its identity. The fortunes and future of the entire family rested on the kind of marriage made by its teenagers. This was because marriage determined the distribution of that scarce resource: land. In selecting (or, as was increasingly common in the 19th century, approving) a partner for their offspring, parents needed to feel confident that the match ensured that their own needs in old age would be met. Then there was the question of status; opportunities for social advancement were limited, so it was vital that a youngster did not marry below his or her station. A mésalliance could shatter reputations and squander resources where they could never be reciprocated. The burden of duty and expectation weighed heavily on young shoulders. Personal pride naturally came into the equation, too. And living in small, isolated communities, the range of marital options was painfully restricted.11
For all these reasons, life for the typical Limousin girl became a veritable man hunt once she reached marriageable age. With such limited pickings, competition between village girls could be fierce. And no means were considered too outlandish when it came to ensnaring a husband. Mystical legends, magic and ancient traditions were still a very real part of everyday life in the Limousin. Many villages and towns had their own ritual practices which young girls were advised to adopt if they wanted to be sure of finding a husband. In the village of La Villeneuve near Eymoutiers, gaggles of single girls were to be found dancing wildly in the mud at the January fair, and the more soiled their skirts became, the better; they would undoubtedly secure a husband within twelve months. Meanwhile, seamstresses in the town of Ambazac, a short distance from where Madeleine lived, swore by a different technique. Whenever they were commissioned to make a wedding dress, they would stitch a lock of their own hair into the hem of the garment to guarantee that they too would become a wife before the year was out.12 Every community defended the unparalleled efficiency of its own method. But the girls of Bessines had the advantage of a very special tool for performing their ritual, an object few other villages could rival. It took the form of a vast monolithic stone basin, which locals had baptised Pierre Belle.
Nobody could explain how the enormous circular stone of 5m diameter and 80cm depth had arrived on the north bank of the Gartempe river.13 Some believed it was an ancient fountain, others insisted that it was a monument from Druid culture, perhaps some kind of sacrificial stone. It had a curious lean on one side, which one legend attributed to the occasion when six fairies had tried to move it. Only three of them called on the Virgin for assistance, and the other three were crushed under its massive weight as punishment for their impiety. But however conflicting the explanations of Pierre Belle’s origin, its talismanic properties were undisputed. The townsfolk maintained that all a single girl needed to do was to visit the stone on the night of the full moon, hoist herself up onto its rim and run round it seven times. With a rim of little more than 15cm in width, simply staying upright was an achievement worthy of requital. But if a girl took the trouble (and kept her balance), she would be rewarded with a husband within twelve months.
But despite the persistence of these traditions, the Limousins were steadfastly practical people. Where divine intervention failed, rural ingenuity often triumphed.
With marriage paramount and chances to form new acquaintances scarce, every opportunity was taken – or engineered – to propagate meetings and nurture potential relationships. There was the veillée, that timeless rural custom, when family and neighbours would gather together and while away the long winter evenings.14 Huddled around a crackling fire, a whole cross-section of generations could be found laughing, singing, playing cards, passing on traditions and telling stories, tales of ferocious werewolves and gruesome murders and supernatural happenings. The square after Mass was another valuable place to share news and foster connections. With its welcoming heat and constant flow of customers, the blacksmith’s was also a hive of social interaction and a breeding ground for gossip.15 In all instances, family had a key role to play in encouraging auspicious romantic unions. It was in the group’s interest. And when a young man had set his sights on a particular girl, he nervously awaited his first meal with her family; if he arrived to find coq au vin cooking, it was a sure sign that he had been approved.16
Though the father was the undisputed head of the Limousin family, in cases of this figure’s untimely death, his wife would assume this role, and with just as much authority.17 Hence, when Mathieu-Alexandre died, Madeleine’s mother Marie automatically acquired the right to manage the family’s money and estate, oversee the distribution of responsibilities, and crucially for Madeleine, to make decisions concerning the choice of spouse of the younger generation. But even if Marie faltered in her new task, the wider family could be counted on to provide vital support.
The extended family was considered deeply important in rural Limousin society, with several generations often living together under the same roof. It was quite usual to find married couples and their offspring living in the paternal home. Children were used to living with grandparents, and while the average household in the 1830s contained five people, at the upper extreme it was not uncommon to find as many as fifteen people packed into the same house. Even when family did not live together, the bonds were typically ferociously strong. Aunts, uncles, and in particular, godparents, played an important role in the lives of the family’s younger members. This was especially true in cases where a father had died, when a youngster was advised to far sounar soun peiri (or to ‘call one’s godfather close’).18 Madeleine’s grandfather, Martial Dony, was also a dependable presence, there for all his granddaughter’s important rites of passage. In short, Madeleine was not going to be left without the sound guidance of a mentor or a paternal figure in her father’s absence.
So it was that despite the early morning chill and the bleakness of a season made even more melancholy by the still recent loss of her father, the young girl had every reason to feel full of hope and expectation that February morning. It was no ordinary Tuesday; that day, she was to be married to one of the most eligible young men in the village.
Léger Coulaud was a man many a girl would be proud to call her husband. A local lad from a respectable family, he plied one of the most highly prized trades in the town: he was a blacksmith. In an agricultural town like Bessines, lu faure (as he was known in the local dialect), commanded universal respect.19 Not only did he repair the shoes of both horse and rider; he fixed broken machinery, mended farm equipment and could turn his hand to any task where welding was required. It was a valuable skill – a potentially lucrative skill. Without lu faure, the very heart of the town would stop beating.
For Madeleine, that mattered. Urgent though securing a match might have been, her family were not the kind of people to accept any man for their latest marriageable member.
While they were not rich, Mathieu-Alexandre Valadon and Marie Dony were a good, honest couple with estimable ancestral heritage.20 Mathieu-Alexandre’s father was a military man, and his grandfather had enjoyed the honour of being one of the town’s first municipal officers. Marie Dony’s family tree boasted all manner of figures considered ‘notable’ in rural society, such as master masons, millers and notaires.21 Though they were by no means bourgeois, the Valadons came from good stock.
Nor would Madeleine make an undesirable wife. She had high cheekbones, and though she was plain and her face rather angular, and she was hardly the prettiest girl in Bessines, her features were at least even. Furthermore, she could read and write, and being trained as a linen maid, she could boast a skill. Etiquette manuals stipulated that linen maids should be quick, strong, neat and above all, keen to please – attributes which rendered a woman equally appealing as a spouse.22
However, in Léger Coulaud, Madeleine could feel confident that she would be taking a husband whom her family considered worthy. Strength and physical stamina were a professional requisite in Léger’s trade, important considerations when selecting a spouse on whose income a female would come to depend; no right-minded young girl wanted a husband who was incapable of work.23 And besides his profession, Léger too benefited from favourable family connections; the names of two Coulauds appeared on the list of teachers approved by the local council in the 19th century.24 One of them was also called Léger, a name passed down the male line in the Coulaud family, so undoubtedly a relative. To possess even the rudiments of education was considered impressive at the time, particularly in a rural community like Bessines. ‘Public instruction,’ wrote the new sous-préfet or sub-prefect to the mayor in 1816, ‘wisely directed, is the seed of social virtues; the sowing of pure morality, the tie that binds together all citizens, the guarantee of happiness and the glory of nations.’25 Educated men and their associates were looked on with respect. And as if those attributes did not suffice, Léger shared his name with the town’s patron saint and was born in the nearby hillside commune of Le Mas Barbu, where Madeleine’s family hailed from. Those facts alone surely boded well. What did it matter if the young girl’s fiancé was thirteen years her senior, and the civil ceremony, the legally binding part of the marriage contract, was to be performed on the 13th of the month? Superstition was surely immaterial when set against such auspicious circumstances. Besides, the presence of a white hen throughout the proceedings and a pinch of salt in the pocket, both traditional amulets said to bring marital harmony, would allay the concerns of the most paranoid of wedding guests.26 The match was decided.
Following the Revolution of 1789, marriage had been secularised, and couples were obliged to officialise their union at the mairie as well as having a religious ceremony. Sometimes the two ceremonies took place on the same day, but more usually there was a day or two between them. According to custom, Léger Coulaud and Madeleine Valadon’s banns had been read twice outside the mairie, first on 28 January and then on 4 February at ten in the morning. None of the locals had made any objection, and so on 12 February, a small ceremony had been conducted in the local church. Then at 11 o’clock on 13 February, Madeleine officially became the wife of Léger Coulaud. Two of the couple’s mutual friends stood as witnesses along with one of Madeleine’s cousins, while the bride’s mother and grandfather also signed the register. So did Léger’s father, Léger senior, but his mother, Thérèse Thoumassonet, did not; like so many women in rural society, she could neither read nor write.27
Limousin weddings were big affairs. Once the formalities were complete, a copious meal was traditionally offered to guests in one or other of the family members’ barns, which would be decorated with swathes of white sheet and laurel leaves.28 Normally sparse tables strained under the weight of steaming pot-au-feux, meat pies, veal and mutton casseroles, roast pork and spit roasted poultry. Then came apple tarts, prune tarts and clafoutis (the region’s cherry and batter dessert), and the whole meal was washed down with formidable quantities of wine. Once all the guests had eaten their fill, there would be singing, which would be opened by the maid of honour, before the rest of the diners joined in to congratulate the bride and groom. But under no circumstance were the couple to lend their voices to the throng: that was bad luck. After the singing came dancing, which would often take the form of special regional dances (of which there were several in the Limousin). The bride and groom would take the lead, and it was not unusual for the dances to continue into the small hours of the morning. The physical exertion was sufficient to rekindle waning appetites, so the dancing was invariably followed by more feasting. By the time the revellers were ready to begin the next round of dancing, the bride and groom would be preparing to make their discreet exit. But even if they managed to escape unnoticed, the couple would be subject to all kinds of teasing and pranks, the next day if necessary.29 And they would also be compelled to partake in some more serious rituals, not least walking beneath the requisite loaf of bread, held aloft as they passed through the doorway of the new marital home, while good fortune was invoked on the household with the words ‘Qué jamais vous manca!’ (May bread never be lacking).30
After the deluge of rituals and festivities, it was often a relief for couples to begin their new life together in peace and establish their routines, all the while hoping that the measures taken to ensure happiness and prosperity would prove effective. M. Coulaud and his new wife moved into a property in Bessines and began to settle into married life. With Madeleine continuing to work, as well as having to keep house and make sure that her husband was well fed, there was much to do. But both husband and wife working meant that there was money coming in, and as they began their first year of marriage, fortune seemed to smile on the newlyweds.
Still, however, Madeleine’s happiness was not yet complete. Something was missing. The dearest hope of every young Limousin wife was to provide her husband with a healthy son to continue the family name. As with marriage, there were a number of different methods at a woman’s disposal if she wanted to ensure she became a mother. Bessines had its own sacred fountain named after the town’s patron saint. Drinking its water was said to guarantee that a woman would give birth to an attractive baby and that the labour would be free of complication.31 Whether due to unearthly powers or just good luck, within a year of their wedding, the couple’s joy was complete. By the end of the summer, Madeleine had fallen pregnant and the following April, she gave birth to a baby boy, who was named after his father.
In a society where the best guarantee of autonomy was work, a son was considered the ultimate boon. Baby girls were frequently referred to pejoratively as no charamello (the whiner) or no pissouso (the pisser). The baptism of a girl would be announced with a single bell; for a boy, the joyous peals would go on and on.32
Madeleine could not ignore what a blessing the child was. In impoverished rural areas like the Limousin, the loss of a child was all too common, so common in fact that at the time Madeleine gave birth to her infant, throughout France, parents still did not wear mourning following the death of a child.33 Generalised poverty in the Limousin led to its mothers acquiring a reputation for breast-feeding their babies well beyond the time deemed appropriate by women in other regions – up to twenty months in some cases.34 With children being raised on a diet that became less nutritionally sufficient as they grew, those very early years were fraught with risk. Still, there was no shortage of country wisdom available to an anxious new mother like Madeleine when it came to safeguarding her precious newborn baby. She should not show the child a mirror; that was to summon the devil. On no account should he be allowed to kiss a girl of similar age, for his speech would surely be retarded. And mothers should never cut their babies’ fingernails in the first year unless they wanted the child to become a thief. Only once the child began toddling could a parent start to have a little more confidence in his or her physical stamina.35
To Madeleine’s relief, two years passed without significant problems. The Coulaud family grew more and more used to each other’s company. But a week before Madeleine’s 22nd birthday, her little boy, aged just two and a half, died unexpectedly.
People who knew the family were horrified. For all that infant mortality was common, losing an only son seemed a particularly cruel blow. A glimmer of hope came to lighten an otherwise dark period in the New Year, when Madeleine became pregnant again. The baby was delivered safely in October 1853, but the joy of the second child’s arrival could not match that of the first: it was a baby girl. That meant not the promise of a second male income, but another mouth to feed, then a dowry to find, and it was far more difficult to marry off a daughter than a son. By this time Madeleine was no longer working; the growing family were having to survive on a single income.36
Madeleine had another grievance, too. All was well so long as things worked in Coulaud’s favour, but Madeleine soon learned that when displeased or intoxicated (or both), her husband was inclined to fly into a fearful rage. On one occasion, a violent outburst had resulted in his arrest, and Madeleine was forced to cope alone for two months as Coulaud served a short prison sentence.37 His volatility boded ill. After such an auspicious beginning, the family’s future now looked decidedly bleak.
While the Coulaud family struggled to adapt to their altered circumstances, broader changes were taking place on a national scale. On 2 December 1852, Louis Napoleon made himself emperor, promising to repair the damage left in the wake of the Second Republic by restoring the authoritarian order of the Bonapartist regime. By the 1850s, agriculture had become stagnant in the Limousin and the region’s industry was concentrated in Limoges.38 Disillusioned by the Second Republic, eager for change, the people of the Limousin showed overwhelming support for the new emperor.39 Three days after the coup, the Empire was officially declared in Bessines. The announcement was greeted by enthusiastic calls of ‘Vive l’empereur!’, thunderous applause and sincere hopes for a brighter future.40 Napoleon’s mission to boost internal prosperity found keen support in the region.41 Few recognised his campaign as an ingenious ploy designed to deflect attention from the staggering loss of liberty. The people of Bessines found it impossible not to be swept up in the heady allure of the new Empire. Indefatigable Republicans made themselves scarce. On 13 February 1853, the municipal council voted on a congratulatory message for his Highness following his recent marriage, and it was agreed that the town should find 45 francs to fund a bust of the emperor.42 As the new Empire started to thrive, religious sentiment withered in the Limousin, and a distinctly materialistic mindset took its place.43
Léger Coulaud was not the only man swayed by the prevailing mood of optimism and possibility. Disguising its structural flaws with a gloss of gaiety and frivolous living, the Empire fostered a climate where self-improvement and prosperity seemed not only desirable but achievable. Coulaud found a kindred spirit in his neighbour Pierre-Louis Planchon, a watchmaker and jeweller.44 The two men established a firm friendship. Madeleine had every reason to feel alarmed. Planchon was a confirmed scoundrel in his business dealings, and had already served a six-month prison sentence in 1845.45 But the Limousin wife had no business telling her husband with whom he could and could not mix. She knew her place.
Sure enough, one impassioned bar-side conversation led to another, and before long, Coulaud and Planchon had devised a plan to guarantee a better future for themselves and their families. With their combined skills and business nous, they could surely fashion a coin which would pass for authentic currency. It needn’t be a large operation, just the odd coin here and there in lieu of genuine payment to the innkeeper’s wife, and soon their families could be enjoying comforts previously unknown to them. The risk seemed small. But one fateful day, Coulaud and his companion were caught.
Towards the end of October 1856, Coulaud and Planchon decided to visit the village fair in the nearby town of Ambazac.46 Afterwards, they stopped at one of the local inns for dinner, and once they had eaten, Coulaud produced a 40 franc coin to pay their small bill, which only amounted to 5 francs. Growing suspicious, the landlady objected that she did not have enough change, and when one of the regulars entered the inn, she whispered to him to take a look at the coin which still sat in the middle of Coulaud and Planchon’s table. Coulaud immediately leapt on the coin, determined that it should not be examined. Planchon had to think quickly to explain his companion’s haste; Coulaud was not from the area and did not speak the local dialect, Planchon told them. The friends attempted to persuade the landlady a second time to take the coin, but by then, her trusted regular was certain: Coulaud’s 40 franc payment was merely a 2 franc coin on which an attempt had been made – unsuccessfully – to alter the figures. It was a shoddy counterfeit, and the man gestured to the landlady not to accept the payment. Coulaud and Planchon were outraged. They became aggressive. Ambazac was a poverty-stricken town indeed, the men declared, for the sight of a 40 franc coin to cause such a stir!
In rural society, a slight on a countryman’s pays was taken as a personal insult. Defensive, the regular suggested that the mayor be asked to check the coin, upon which Coulaud and Planchon hastily settled the bill with legitimate currency and left. But their concession came too late. The pair had already aroused concern. The police were promptly alerted, and the friends were stopped before they could leave the town. Coulaud was found to have more false coins on him, and it transpired that the pair had attempted the same ruse in another inn at lunchtime. Things quickly spiralled. Madeleine was startled when the authorities arrived at the couple’s home to carry out a full search. Their personal belongings were ransacked, and in their bedroom, further damning items were found, including a receipt for the chemicals needed to carry out the forgery and the instructions for fashioning medals. Coulaud and his companion were certainly determined; from the evidence found in Coulaud’s workshop, it became clear that they had attempted three different methods to produce their counterfeit currency.
In a small community like Bessines, such a crime was considered appalling. That it was committed by one of their number – an ostensibly respectable family man no less – rendered it particularly shocking. The authorities were severe. Léger Coulaud and Pierre-Louis Planchon were taken to trial in February 1857, where they were found guilty and banished to a penal colony in French Guyana to begin a sentence of hard labour.47
Separated from her husband, Madeleine Valadon was left in Bessines to bear the shame of Coulaud’s offence and to bring up their three-year-old daughter, Marie-Alix, on her own without the support of her husband’s income. It was at such times that the strength of the Limousin family network proved invaluable. But however much pity Madeleine’s family felt for her plight, nobody had the resources to support an entire family. What they could offer was care for little Marie-Alix and employment for her mother.
By chance, one of Madeleine’s distant cousins ran an inn at the centre of town. Although it was not an official coaching inn, when the nearest auberges at Morterolles and Chanteloube were full, Catherine le Cugy’s establishment provided travellers with a comfortable alternative.48 Separated from the road by a small courtyard, the 17th-century stone building did not appear vast from the outside. However, once a traveller stepped through the heavy front door, they would find that the rooms, divided over four floors and linked by a sprawling warren of dimly-lit corridors and passageways, were considerably bigger than those of the competitors. They were also reputed to be better kept, and the horses more spirited. Widow Guimbaud, as Catherine was known, ran the inn with a firm and capable hand, and she was helped by her childhood friend, Jeanne Dérozier, also a widow. To her mind, it was hardly heroic to assist a family member in difficulty; it was the natural thing to do. Besides, Madeleine’s training as a linen maid gave her instant value to the business. Widow Guimbaud needed someone younger and fitter than herself with Madeleine’s skills. And Madeleine needed employment which provided accommodation. It was a simple calculation.
Entrusting the care of Marie-Alix to the child’s paternal grandparents in Le Mas Barbu, Madeleine began her new employment.
In a large establishment, the linen maid’s role would have taken on a more administrative character, and consisted largely of checking in and distributing laundry, making minor repairs and ensuring all linen was in good order. But in a small enterprise like Widow Guimbaud’s, the linen maid’s responsibilities often encompassed those of a laundress and a chamber maid, too. These duties demanded far more physical stamina. Washing was done in huge vats known as bujardiers or bujadous, and women used a hot solution containing ash to clean the clothes.49 The linen was then rinsed in the Gartempe river before being heaped onto a cart. Heaving great bundles of soaking linen resulted in aching limbs and the task became even more arduous when the weather turned cold. However, the shared experience of this onerous duty turned the riverside into an important space of feminine sociability. As they toiled by the water’s edge, the women shared news, gave advice and gossiped to their hearts’ content. It was a place to make companions and form alliances. Madeleine was not an extrovert, and many found her taciturn.50 But if not friends, she made acquaintances, which was just as well. Madeleine needed the support of her peers now more than ever, for early in September 1859, a shocking piece of news reached Bessines: Léger Coulaud was dead.
How Madeleine’s husband was killed remained a mystery. All she was told was that he had died on Montagne d’Argent (Silver Mountain) at five o’clock on 26 April.51 The news had taken four months to reach Bessines. Now, Madeleine was truly alone.
But neither creditors nor hunger would show deference to grief. Madeleine had to continue working, and at Widow Guimbaud’s, there was plenty of physical labour to divert melancholy thoughts.
Limoges had long been treated as a convenient halfway point to break the journey between the South of France and the capital. And by the mid-19th century, painters like Corot were frequenting the region in search of landscape subjects.52 Then in 1856, the Châteauroux–Limoges train line had opened, bringing with it an influx of engineers while it was worked on, and drawing even more visitors to the region once it was complete.53 Situated as it was on the main route through Bessines, the Guimbaud inn attracted many passing travellers. There was no shortage of company for Madeleine while she worked – and much of it was male.
Madeleine turned 30 in 1860. Though a mother and a widow, she had retained the fresh-faced complexion so often associated with countryside youth, while her work had kept her body lean and supple. She was not unattractive, and as one of the younger women working at the inn, it was often on Madeleine that the roving male gaze first alighted.
‘Don’t go drawing attention to yourself,’ Jeanne Dérozier warned when she noticed the interest her colleague was attracting.54
But Madeleine had no time for interference. And, just as she was inclined to become stubborn and quick-tempered when she felt cornered, it was not her way to meekly comply when others interfered in her business.55 Why should anyone begrudge her pleasure? After all she had suffered, did she not deserve the flattery of male attention if the opportunity presented itself ? Madeleine was defiant. She would do as she pleased.
The winter of 1864/65 was especially cold. Snow first fell in early December.56 For much of January 1865, the sky was dreary, the snow flurries persistent and the cold unrelenting. And by February, Madeleine was pregnant.
‘If only you had not drawn attention to yourself,’ Jeanne lamented.57
The riverside was soon abuzz with Madeleine’s news. A widow’s pregnancy six years after the death of her husband was a titillating scandal. But by far the most intriguing question remained: who was the father?
Stories began to circulate. It was some local Don Juan; no, it was a painter, visiting from Paris; certainly not, it was one of those travellers who had been staying at the inn. With limited staff, a variable client base and all those dark, shadowy corners, the auberge was fertile ground for sordid affairs.
Madeleine steadfastly refused to satisfy curiosity. Intrusion annoyed her. As her pregnancy advanced, she enjoyed goading the village gossip machine by baiting it with red herrings. She had been seduced that cold winter by a miller, Madeleine would tell some people, later adding that the offender had subsequently been crushed under his own millstone, which she felt to be suitable penance for his crime.58 Then, she would assure someone else that her seducer was a construction engineer, and that justice had been served when he fell from a bridge.
Accounts varied so widely that locals had to resign themselves to ignorance. And when all was said and done, Madeleine was a local girl, and village loyalty took precedence in such cases, particularly if the culprit was an outsider as people suspected. Nobody ostracised the cartwright’s daughter, and Widow Guimbaud stood firmly by her cousin, allowing her to stay on at the inn and to see out her labour and convalescence there.
Finally, after months of struggling up and down the hefty, dark stairs to complete her chores under the weight of her swollen belly, at six o’clock in the morning on 23 September 1865, Madeleine gave birth to a baby girl.
That poignant first encounter between mother and child was intensified by circumstance. The baby had a strong little body, clear blue eyes and a well-defined chin – a tiny person already.59 Motherhood was familiar territory to Madeleine, but this time she was an only parent. There would be an inherent closeness to this helpless infant, a bond different from that which she had previously experienced. And yet now more than ever, Madeleine needed her child to be capable of surviving without her constant attention.
As Madeleine lay contemplating the new bundle of life in her arms, her mother’s cousins François Peignaud and Clément Dony went to the mairie to make the requisite declaration of the child’s birth, and a neighbour, Armand Chazeaud, agreed to join them to act as a witness.60 Peignaud and Dony had performed the same service after the birth of Marie-Alix. But the sisters’ birth certificates had crucial differences. Where Marie-Alix was a Coulaud, Madeleine’s new baby took her maiden name, Valadon. She was given the forename Marie-Clémentine, combining the names of the two godparents Madeleine already had in mind, Clément Masbey and Marie-Céline Coulaud.61 But those names could not efface the significance of two other words: ‘father unknown’.
So much importance was placed on the father’s role in the Limousin, that some parts of the region upheld the custom of the father taking to bed and receiving visitors following his wife’s safe delivery of a child.62 From the very first, Marie-Clémentine was a social deviant. Fatherless, her identity was incomplete, unstable, mercurial.
And the only parental bond the little girl had was about to be put to the test.
Notes
1. Local dialect or patois was still the main form of social communication in the rural Limousin in the mid-19th century.
2. Georges Cerbelaud Salagnac, Histoire du Limousin (Paris: Éditions France-Empire, 1996), p. 271.
3.The Green Guide Dordogne, Berry, Limousin (Herts: Michelin Apa Publications Ltd, 2007), p. 20.
4. On traditional costume, see Musée René Baubérot – Archéologie & Ethnographie – Châteauponsac, Haute-Vienne, visitor guide, pp. 16–17. Bérangère Guilbaud-Rabiller, Le Grand Almanach du Limousin 2016 (La Crèche: Geste éditions, 2015), semaine 23. Maurice Robert, La Maison, Le Village, Le Paysan en Limousin, 4th edn, 2 vols (Pageas: Société d’Ethnographie et de Sauvegarde des Patrimoines en Limousin, 2007), vol. II, pp. 159–60.
5. Georges-Emmanuel Clancier, La Vie quotidienne en Limousin au XIXe siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1976), p. 91.
6. Robert, p. 129.
7. Clancier, p. 159.
8. On the Limousin’s climate and traditional dwellings, see Clancier, pp. 29–31.
9. Clancier, pp. 85–6.
10. I am indebted to l’Association Racines à Bessines for allowing me to access all the Valadons’ birth, marriage and death records and particularly for helping locate the original plans of Mathieu-Alexandre Valadon’s estate.
11. On marriage in rural society during the 19th century, see Roger Price, A Social History of Nineteenth-Century France (London: Hutchinson, 1987), pp. 165–70. Clancier, p. 78.
12. On Limousin superstition and traditions regarding engagement, see Clancier, pp. 78–9.
13. Suzanne Courdesses-Betout, Bessines au fil des siècles (Limoges: [n. Pub.], 1990), pp. 287–91.
14. Clancier, pp. 53–75.
15. Clancier, p. 33.
16. Guilbaud-Rabiller, semaine 7.
17. Robert, p. 185.
18. On Limousin household size, see Robert, pp. 181–4.
19. Clancier, p. 44.
20. Birth, marriage and death records reveal that women tended to use their maiden name rather than that of their husband on all official documents.
21. Courdesses-Betout, p. 258.
22. Esther Copley, The Young Servant’s Friendly Instructor or A Summary of the Duties of Domestic Servants (London, 1827), pp. 75–82.
23. Price, p. 169.
24. Courdesses-Betout, p. 212.
25. Courdesses-Betout, p. 212
26. Clancier, p. 80. Salagnac, p. 270.
27. Robert, p. 185. I am grateful to Père Nicolas Sabléry for making the church records accessible to me and to Mme Blanche Brisset for taking time to study them with me.
28. On Limousin weddings, see Salagnac, pp. 271–2.
29. On Limousin wedding rituals, see Robert, pp. 213–15.
30. Clancier, p. 81.
31. Courdesses-Betout, p. 281.
32. Robert, p. 184.
33. Anne Martin-Fugier, ‘Bourgeois Rituals’ in A History of Private Life, ed. by Philippe Ariès and George Duby, trans. by Arthur Goldhammer, 5 vols (Cambridge, MA, London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987–1991), vol. 4: From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War, ed. by Michelle Perrot (1990), pp. 261–337 (p. 305).
34. Price, p. 81.
35. On birth and superstition in the Limousin, see Clancier, pp. 76–7.
36. Evidenced by Marie-Alix Coulaud’s birth certificate.
37. ‘Cour d’assises de la Haute-Vienne’, Le 20 Décembre – Courrier de Limoges, 1–2 March 1857, p. 3.
38. Salagnac, p. 253.
39. Salagnac, p. 254.
40. Courdesses-Betout, p. 132.
41. Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris (London: Pan Macmillan, 2003), pp. 262–3.
42. Courdesses-Betout, p. 132.
43. Salagnac, p. 256.
44. June Rose, Mistress of Montmartre: A Life of Suzanne Valadon (London: Richard Cohen Books, 1998), pp. 12–13.
45. ‘Cour d’assises de la Haute-Vienne’, Le 20 Décembre – Courrier de Limoges, 1–2 March 1857, p. 3.
46. The trial was reported in full in ‘Cour d’assises de la Haute-Vienne’, Le 20 Décembre – Courrier de Limoges, 1–2 March 1857, p. 3.
47. Courdesses-Betout, p. 258.
48. Courdesses-Betout, pp. 258–9.
49. Courdesses-Betout, p. 259.
50. John Storm, The Valadon Drama: The Life of Suzanne Valadon (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1959), p. 19.
51. Courdesses-Betout, p. 258.
52. Guilbaud-Rabiller, semaine 38.
53. Clancier, p. 292.
54. Courdesses-Betout, p. 259.
55. Courdesses-Betout, p. 259.
56.Impressionists in Winter: Effets de Neige, exhib. cat., (Washington DC: The Phillips Collection, 1999), p. 221.
57. Courdesses-Betout, p. 259.
58. Storm, p. 19.
59. Maximilian Ilyin, Utrillo (London: A. Zwemmer; Paris: Fernand Hazan, 1953), p. 4.
60. Courdesses-Betout, p. 259.
61. There is no evidence in the village archives to suggest that Marie-Céline Coulaud was a relative of Léger Coulaud. Coulaud was a common surname.
62. Robert, p. 213. Clancier, pp. 77–8.
CHAPTER 2
Places to Call Home
Si l’un pourtàvo sà penà ô marcha per là vendre, obe là changeà, chacu s’en tornario en la souà.
(If everyone took their troubles to market to sell or exchange, each would return with his or her own.)
OLD LIMOUSINPROVERB1
Marie-Clémentine Valadon spent the first few months of her life in a cradle, tucked discreetly out of view at the busy Guimbaud inn. As soon as she was able, Madeleine resumed her duties, stopping every so often to breastfeed her newborn daughter before returning to her work. She tried as best she might to engineer a seamless blend between her new, unplanned role as a mature single mother and her old life as a capable linen maid without obvious attachments. But it soon became clear that Marie-Clémentine’s place at the Guimbaud inn could only be a temporary solution. A sleeping baby, recently fed and satisfied, might pass unnoticed; a tearful, hungry infant was less easily concealed. No longer the energetic girl just out of her teens who had given birth to little Léger and Marie-Alix more than ten years ago, Madeleine could not help but feel the strain. It was decided that as soon as she was weaned, Marie-Clémentine must be found an alternative home and carer.
The little girl’s grandmother, Marie Dony, seemed the obvious choice. Lo grando-maï, the grandmother, commanded infinite respect in Limousin families. Even when she was not the primary carer, the grandmother was typically consulted on all matters relating to the successful rearing of the family’s younger members.2 In addition, Marie Dony lived nearby, and she was widowed and did not work, so would surely be glad of the company and distraction.
And so, no sooner was she weaned from breast milk than Marie-Clémentine was separated from her mother and sent to live with her grandmother.
At times, it seemed as though Madeleine courted tragedy. Marie-Clémentine had barely been living in her grandmother’s home a few months when the old lady died.3 Madeleine had now lost both her parents – and at only one-and-a-half, Marie-Clémentine became homeless for the second time in her life.
Becoming a full-time mother was not an option, and so Madeleine took the only choice available to her: Marie-Clémentine would have to be sent to Le Mas Barbu to be cared for, just like her half-sister. Little Marie-Clémentine would be looked after by Madeleine’s ‘cousins’, a deceptive term, since it was often applied loosely in rural society to refer to a relative so distant that nobody could recall the precise connection.4 The move would take Marie-Clémentine even further from her mother. Le Mas Barbu was situated only two miles out of Bessines, though working long hours and lacking transport, daily trips down the winding roads between the town and the commune were out of the question. Still, Madeleine’s determination to keep her child, even at the cost of physical separation, was valiant under the circumstances. In the first half of the 19th century, there was one infanticide every 320 births in the department of the Haute-Vienne, and one in 24 infants was abandoned.5 Those figures were startlingly high by comparison with the neighbouring departments of the Corrèze and the Creuse. The offenders were nearly always impoverished single mothers. Poverty and shame could be a deadly combination, enough even to override the usually unshakeable Limousin sense of family. But Madeleine held firm. She would not give Marie-Clémentine up.
Marie-Clémentine’s new home was a substantial commune, a cluster of stone cottages, farmhouses and barns clinging to a steep hillside. At the entrance to the village was an ancient stone cross, an edifice used in times gone by to mark the first stopping point of both funeral processions and the ceremony of Rogations, when the priest would bless the crops before Ascension.6 The main road running through the village twisted and turned its way up the hillside, weaving around the buildings and creating a network of sloping streets and narrow passageways. It could be perilous underfoot when the first frosts arrived, but on fine days, the views down into the valley below were glorious, while the steep incline of the streets provided the perfect terrain for simple children’s games. Buttons, stones, marbles, and for the more fortunate, even coins, could be rolled down the hill.7 Streams provided hours of entertainment when frozen in the winter and refreshed hot little feet in the summer. Boys would play catch around the buildings and in the road, while girls sat in doorways nursing crude corn dollies. This was where Marie-Clémentine would take her first uncertain steps, where she would be introduced to many local peasant foods and would make her first social encounters.
The toddler had a rounded face with clear skin, a pretty little mouth with soft, rosebud lips, and that firm jawline. Her enormous eyes were an exquisite shade of light blue, becoming darker at the edge of the iris, and above them, her jet black eyebrows gave her a dramatic appearance. Her hair soon settled into delicious tones of golden brown, which fell in soft, loose curls about her face. Though still only small, it was already clear: Marie-Clémentine was going to be a striking child.
