harrowing. Since in
that century without welfare, when wages for working women were so low a single
woman could not survive on what she earned, it is easy to see why Anne would
stay with the man who was the first lover she found, even though he would often
drink until he could hardly stand and then return home to beat her. It was only
when he beat her so badly she had to be brought to the police station on a
stretcher, and after he threatened to kill her along with her daughter, that
Anne finally decided to leave him.
She managed to get as far as Lyon, where she took a job in a milliner’s
shop; but he followed her there, and while he was searching for her, found
Céleste alone in the street one day. He kidnapped the child and brought
her to a brothel, where he held her hostage. She was saved only because a kind
and quick-witted prostitute locked her in her own room and secretly sent for
the mother. Together, all the women in the brothel held him at bay, while
mother and child made still another escape.
It must have been a terrible time in Céleste’s life. But hearing the
story, we should take note of the rush of energy that fills these two episodes.
There are so many narrow escapes in her story. She is so often rushing with her
mother through the streets of Paris or Lyon, around the corner, or to a railway
station, moving breathlessly to the sound of doors slamming and cries of
threatened violence, barely eluding capture. As, years later, Céleste
whirled about the dance hall to the insistently jubilant sounds of the small
band that accompanied polkas and quadrilles, the exhilaration of these two
escapes must have livened her steps.
The exuberance might have been dampened but still not erased when Anne’s
lover finally caught up with them once again. He promised to behave better when
Anne, probably as much from exhaustion as love, took him back. Soon she found
out he had joined a gang of thieves, but before she could make still another
escape, fate stepped in with an unpredictable ending. He was killed suddenly in
a riot in Lyon. With some money that her father had sent her, Anne returned
with her daughter to Paris, taking a room on the boulevard du Temple.
But now, even while destiny was robbing Céleste of any sense of safety,
like the careening rise and fall of the polka, it also conspired to tempt her
with something grander than simple security. A glittering life, sparkling with
the same celebrity to which the young girl was soon destined, dominated the
boulevard du Temple. All the great popular theatres were nearby: La Ga"té,
L’Ambigu, the Variétés, the café-theatre Bosquet. Peddlers
and showmen set up booths outside, and occasionally, actors performed in the
street. Inside the Théâtre des Funambules, on the same bill that also
featured acrobats and animals, the great mime Debaru performed as the sad-faced
clown Pierrot. In the Variétés there were vaudeville acts, comedians,
dancers, and musicians following each other onto the stage.
The melodrama to be seen at the Ambigu or the Théâtre de la Porte
Saint-Martin was perhaps the form that was most beloved, by common audiences
and critics alike. Because of the great many scenes of murder and mayhem acted
out in the neighborhood, the boulevard du Temple was also called the boulevard
of crime. According to Dumas
fils
, Frédéric Lema"tre was
capable of inspiring real cries of terror among the members of his audience.
For a small fee, you could sit in the highest balcony of the theatre, the place
reserved for the poor that was called, ironically, “Paradise,”
perhaps to watch the woman who was George Sand’s favorite actress, Marie
Dorval, perform a suicide with such alarming accuracy that while she was
sinking to her nightly death, the members of the audience scarcely breathed.
Indeed, she was not breathing either. To achieve the effect of realism, she
nearly asphyxiated herself for each
that century without welfare, when wages for working women were so low a single
woman could not survive on what she earned, it is easy to see why Anne would
stay with the man who was the first lover she found, even though he would often
drink until he could hardly stand and then return home to beat her. It was only
when he beat her so badly she had to be brought to the police station on a
stretcher, and after he threatened to kill her along with her daughter, that
Anne finally decided to leave him.
She managed to get as far as Lyon, where she took a job in a milliner’s
shop; but he followed her there, and while he was searching for her, found
Céleste alone in the street one day. He kidnapped the child and brought
her to a brothel, where he held her hostage. She was saved only because a kind
and quick-witted prostitute locked her in her own room and secretly sent for
the mother. Together, all the women in the brothel held him at bay, while
mother and child made still another escape.
It must have been a terrible time in Céleste’s life. But hearing the
story, we should take note of the rush of energy that fills these two episodes.
There are so many narrow escapes in her story. She is so often rushing with her
mother through the streets of Paris or Lyon, around the corner, or to a railway
station, moving breathlessly to the sound of doors slamming and cries of
threatened violence, barely eluding capture. As, years later, Céleste
whirled about the dance hall to the insistently jubilant sounds of the small
band that accompanied polkas and quadrilles, the exhilaration of these two
escapes must have livened her steps.
The exuberance might have been dampened but still not erased when Anne’s
lover finally caught up with them once again. He promised to behave better when
Anne, probably as much from exhaustion as love, took him back. Soon she found
out he had joined a gang of thieves, but before she could make still another
escape, fate stepped in with an unpredictable ending. He was killed suddenly in
a riot in Lyon. With some money that her father had sent her, Anne returned
with her daughter to Paris, taking a room on the boulevard du Temple.
But now, even while destiny was robbing Céleste of any sense of safety,
like the careening rise and fall of the polka, it also conspired to tempt her
with something grander than simple security. A glittering life, sparkling with
the same celebrity to which the young girl was soon destined, dominated the
boulevard du Temple. All the great popular theatres were nearby: La Ga"té,
L’Ambigu, the Variétés, the café-theatre Bosquet. Peddlers
and showmen set up booths outside, and occasionally, actors performed in the
street. Inside the Théâtre des Funambules, on the same bill that also
featured acrobats and animals, the great mime Debaru performed as the sad-faced
clown Pierrot. In the Variétés there were vaudeville acts, comedians,
dancers, and musicians following each other onto the stage.
The melodrama to be seen at the Ambigu or the Théâtre de la Porte
Saint-Martin was perhaps the form that was most beloved, by common audiences
and critics alike. Because of the great many scenes of murder and mayhem acted
out in the neighborhood, the boulevard du Temple was also called the boulevard
of crime. According to Dumas
fils
, Frédéric Lema"tre was
capable of inspiring real cries of terror among the members of his audience.
For a small fee, you could sit in the highest balcony of the theatre, the place
reserved for the poor that was called, ironically, “Paradise,”
perhaps to watch the woman who was George Sand’s favorite actress, Marie
Dorval, perform a suicide with such alarming accuracy that while she was
sinking to her nightly death, the members of the audience scarcely breathed.
Indeed, she was not breathing either. To achieve the effect of realism, she
nearly asphyxiated herself for each
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