Among the shameless debauchees that secretly visited me was one who, whilst in a very bad humor, tried to make me responsible for a certain very critical indisposition he had suddenly contracted. I arrogantly listened to his wild accusations. His rantings became louder and louder and he treated me in such a shameful manner that two or three whores in the neighborhood who were very jealous of my success ran to the police and blackened my reputation. They were so successful that I was picked up and carted off to Bicetre.
The first ceremony to which I had to submit myself consisted of an examination with more than the necessary touching and feeling by four or five medical students at Saint-Come. They decided unanimously that I had spoiled blood and they condemned me to undergo immediately and without contradiction a sanitation experiment. Hie et nunc; here and now. After I had been properly prepared, which means I was given a bloodletting, an enema and a bath, I was rubbed all over with that certain powerful greasiness in which many globules are suspended that divide and thin out the lymphatic fluids by their activity and heaviness and thus restore the natural flow.
One does not have to be surprised that I am so conversant with the professional terminology. I had plenty of time to learn them all during the more than a month I spent with those blood cleansers. And, moreover, is there anything about which we pleasure girls are not able to talk since we have received our education from the public? Is there any profession or trade or craft about which we don't have the constant opportunity to hear conversation? The warrior, the lawyer, the financier, the philosopher and the man of the cloth… all these people try to do business with us in the same time-honored manner. And every one of them speaks the special language of his class. How is it possible to become well educated by so many means and then to pass up the opportunity? I don't know.
During my stay at Bicetre I had the honor to make the acquaintance of several demoiselles whose names I would not dare mention for fear of incurring the wrath of some of the highest ranking men in the kingdom whose idols these girls had become. There are personages that have to be respected despite the depravity of their inclinations. It is not fitting for us to criticize the way of life of the great men of the world. When they prefer to consort with abject, base, vile and despicable people rather than pay their respects to those who deserve to be honored by everyone and those who possess cultivated sentiments, that is their business.
Every time I was outside in the water basin of Saint-Come I was gripped by the intense desire to run away from my imprisonment. I wrote to all my influential friends in the most ingratiating manner begging them to do their utmost to try to achieve my release. But my letters never reached them, or rather, my friends pretended that they had never received them. I was desperate at the thought that all of them let me sit there. Then I suddenly thought about M. President de L
…, the one who had 'deflowered' me in such an unnatural manner. I begged him to help me and my pleas were not without results. Four days after I had sent my letter I was told that I was free to go. I was so overcome with joy and filled with such intense gratitude for the great service which this magnanimous High Justice rendered me, that it would have greatly pleased me to sacrifice twenty more of my virginities, and each one of them better than its predecessor, he had expressed such a desire.
When I returned to society I could have ended more than ever before upon my harms. It seemed as if the medicine that flowed through my veins had made an entirely different being out of me. I had become a breathtaking beauty though I still lacked one important ingredient. I knew next to nothing about those indefinable secrets which would bring out the advantages Nature had given me with the help of art and cosmetics. I was truly stupid and I believed that a nice complexion, a pleasant facial expression and a good figure were enough to be pleasing. Completely inexperienced and without any knowledge of certain tricks and little frauds the fairer sex employs, I left it up to my pretty face to supply myself with admirers. But I did not draw a single glance. On the contrary, I had to suffer the indignity of being pushed into the background by faces that were tainted with debauchery, thickly covered with white and red make-up, and since I did not want to run the risk of sinking back into the gutter out of which I had so recently crawled, I was forced to become a painter's model in order to earn a livelihood.
During the six months that I carried on this beautiful trade, I had the honor to be the object of studies and of recreation for practically every dauber and paint dribbler in Paris. There was hardly any profane or sacred subject for which I had not posed. Now I was portrayed as a penitent Magdalene, then I was Pasiphae about to conceive by a white bull. Today I would be a Saint and tomorrow a whore, completely depending upon the mood of these gentlemen or upon the commission they had received. But even though I possessed one of the most beautiful and well-built bodies, a laundress by the name of Marguerite — who now calls herself Mademoiselle Jolie — suddenly got the better of me and took all my clients away. The reason for this was that my body had become thoroughly known and Marguerite, though she was in every respect inferior to me, was a novelty. Nevertheless, whatever charms she possessed did not come out in the portraits as well as the painters had hoped for. She was so incredibly lively that it was near to impossible to contain her in any particular pose. She had to be caught, so to say, in flight. One of her indiscreet pranks so truly characteristic of her, was the following:
One day, Monsieur T… painted her as “Chaste Susanna,” which means she did not wear a stitch of clothes. He had to leave his studio for a moment and just about the same time a procession of barefoot penitent monks came by. The foolish girl completely forgot about her state of undress and rushed onto the balcony displaying all her charms in a rather unseemly manner. The people out in the street who became far more excited about the indecency of her behavior than the gentlemen of the Church, greeted Marguerite with a hail of stones. This adventure almost had terrible consequences for poor Monsieur T… They insisted upon accusing him of being an accessory to the crime. Fortunately he got away with excommunication only.
CHAPTER SEVEN. MONSIEUR DE MEZ
Meanwhile, the reputation Marguerite gained every day in our mutual profession, caused me to accept the suggestion of a soldier to become his boarder for one hundred francs per month. Monsieur de Mez.. (this was the name of my protector) loved me to the point of adoration. I loved him just as much, which is considered an exceptional phenomenon among kept girls, because usually an unconquerable feeling of disgust is the reward for the man who keeps a mistress. However it might have been, I certainly did not swear eternal fidelity and I did not have to keep myself available for him alone. A young wigmaker and a broad-shouldered baker's journeyman took turns acting as a substitute for him. The first one could enter my room any time he pleased under the pretense of having to coif me, and the other gained the same rights by claiming to bring me my bread, without ever causing Monsieur de Mez… to entertain the slightest shadow of a doubt.