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.
Everything seemed to work together to give me the greatest happiness. If fate had supplied me nicely with all the necessities, love gave me more than my salacious desires needed. I had every reason to be very content with my position. And I really was, till a confounded mix-up brought nothing but wild confusion into our little household. The court had been transferred to Fontainebleau and Monsieur de Mez… belonged to the detachment and had to stay in his quarters throughout the duration of the journey. My landlady, who counted upon his absence, asked me to give up my room for a private party and his wife who wanted to stay in Paris for a couple of days. I did not want to embarrass the dear lady and agreed to her request. We decided to sleep in her room as long as the two strangers used my bed. And that same evening those two good people took up lodging in my room in the hope that they could recoup some of their strength which they had lost during the many sleepless nights of their journey.
Monsieur de Mez…, who was obviously driven by a deep desire to spend the night with me, arrived at just about the time when we all had fallen asleep. He had the keys to the house and to the room. He entered very quietly, but his gentle soul was shaken to its very foundation when he heard a sonorous loud snoring. Overcome with fury he tiptoed toward my bed. Fumbling, he felt… two heads! Suddenly the demon of jealousy and the spirit of wrath took possession of his mind and he attacked the sleeping couple with terrible blows from his walking cane. He broke the arm of the poor devil of a husband who tried to protect his better half from this sudden onslaught. One can well imagine that this scene did not exactly unfold in deepest silence. Soon the entire household and neighborhood were awakened by the terrified screams of the unlucky couple. Everyone cried out, “Murder!” “Thieves!” Soon the guards arrived and Monsieur de Mez… who discovered his mistake too late, was arrested and taken to the City Hall. Since the whole uproar had broken out on account of me, I did not deem it advisable to remain and wait what turn the whole affair was going to take. I quickly grabbed my underwear and threw a house dress over my shoulders, and fled under the protection of the general turmoil to the home of the canon of the Saint-Nicolas church.
CHAPTER EIGHT. THE CANON
It had taken quite a while before this devout man had shown any desire for me. God knows, maybe it irritated him to find such a beautiful opportunity to release the lewdness which burned him up. However, he received me in a very Christian manner. And after he had made me drink a glass of delicious aquavit, from which he had also taken a hearty draught to appease his conscience, the old libertine laid me charitably in his canonical bed. It is certainly not without good reason that the particular talents of these eaters of Holy Water soup are so widely renowned. Compared to them, secular people are just plain, stunted, miserable wretches. That worthy priest performed, throughout the night and well into the day, true miracles of Nature. Whenever he threatened to wear out and be overcome with exhaustion, sheer desire made him go to pieces and his voluptuous fantasies — which were endless — gave him unending vigor. Every single area of my body was for him the object of adoration, devotion and sacrifice. Neither the writings of Aretino nor the immodest paintings of Clinchtel, despite the knowledge these gentlemen possessed, would have been capable f inventing even half of all the postures and positions into which the canon forced me.
The occasion did give me the opportunity though to become fully intimate with the canon, and he offered to share the fruits of his maintenance with me which, to tell the truth, were not too large. But the distressing situation in which I found myself did not allow me to be too choosy and so I accepted his offer wholeheartedly.
That same evening, at dusk, he loaned me an old pair of trousers in which his venerable reproductive tools must have dangled for at least ten years. And after he had thrown an old short cassock of about the same age around me and made me put on a woolen jacket with holes in it and bands under my chin, we left the house without being challenged; without anybody even talking to us. The devil himself would not have recognized me in this farcical disguise. My girl's figure was hidden so completely that I looked less like a woman and more like one of those poverty-stricken, pockmarked Irishmen who earn their livelihood by celebrating Masses.
Dear reader, you will never guess whereto my new lord and master brought me: to the rue Champ-fleuri, up to the fifth floor where a woman named Thomas lived who dealt in old hats. A few years ago this venerable old lady had been the canon's housekeeper. She had left him to marry a water vendor who lived in this quartier. However, that poor man did not need much time to exchange this life for a better one soon after the wedding ceremonies. And since he did not leave the widow Thomas much more than the fog of the river which had been his only means of livelihood, the lady had become a member of the guild of secondhand dealers. My priest left me in the of this honorable burgess for the time being till he would be able to find a suitable hideout for us.
Madame Thomas was a strong, pug-nosed, fairly heavily built woman. Nevertheless, one could detect, despite her massive fullness, that once upon a time she had possessed a figure which made men take notice of her. The dear little old woman had a secret affair going with a mendicant friar of the seraphim order of St. Francis. He paid homage to her charms whenever the stimulus of the flesh became unbearable to her.
It is incomprehensible how fate uses peculiar means to work miracles and guide us poor mortals along the path which we are destined to walk. Could anyone ever get the notion that the imaginative God reached me with his blessings in the home of an old female dealer in secondhand hats? Yet nothing is more true than that.
Brother Alexis raised me up out of the dust and became the first source of the abundance which I enjoy today. But what is even more surprising, and eludes our mere human understanding, is that the chain of events
