Lille
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Pref ...
– 14 June 1916,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
demimondaine
is French for "half-world". The term derives from a play called , by Alexandre Dumas , published in 1855. The play dealt with the way that prostitution at that time threatened the institution of marriage. The was the world occupied by elite me ...
''. She was the
mistress
Mistress is the feminine form of the English word "master" (''master'' + ''-ess'') and may refer to:
Romance and relationships
* Mistress (lover), a term for a woman who is in a sexual and romantic relationship with a man who is married to a d ...
, model, and heir of the sculptor and painter
Auguste Clésinger
Jean-Baptiste Auguste Clésinger (22 October 1814 – 5 January 1883) was a 19th-century French sculptor and painter.
Life
Auguste Clésinger was born in Besançon, in the Doubs department of France. His father, Georges-Philippe, was a scu ...
.
Life
Born Caroline Louise Victoire Courrière in June 1852 in Lille, de Courrière set out for Paris at age 20 and first became the mistress of General
Georges Boulanger
Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger (29 April 1837 – 30 September 1891), nicknamed Général Revanche ("General Revenge"), was a French general and politician. An enormously popular public figure during the second decade of the Third Repub ...
and several
ministers
Minister may refer to:
* Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric
** Minister (Catholic Church)
* Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department)
** Minister without portfolio, a member of governme ...
. The sculptor
Auguste Clésinger
Jean-Baptiste Auguste Clésinger (22 October 1814 – 5 January 1883) was a 19th-century French sculptor and painter.
Life
Auguste Clésinger was born in Besançon, in the Doubs department of France. His father, Georges-Philippe, was a scu ...
, son-in-law of
George Sand
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand (), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, bein ...
, remarked on Courrière's full form and gigantic proportions, bringing her the nicknames ''la grande dame'' ("the big woman") or ''Berthe aux grands pieds'' ("Bigfoot Bertha"). She was his model for the
bust
Bust commonly refers to:
* A woman's breasts
* Bust (sculpture), of head and shoulders
* An arrest
Bust may also refer to:
Places
*Bust, Bas-Rhin, a city in France
*Lashkargah, Afghanistan, known as Bust historically
Media
* ''Bust'' (magazine ...
of
Marianne
Marianne () has been the national personification of the French Republic since the French Revolution, as a personification of liberty, equality, fraternity and reason, as well as a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty.
Marianne is displayed i ...
for the
Sénat
The Senate (french: Sénat, ) is the upper house of the French Parliament, with the lower house being the National Assembly, the two houses constituting the legislature of France. The French Senate is made up of 348 senators (''sénateurs'' a ...
as well as for the colossal statue of the Republic for the 1878 Exposition Universelle. On Clésinger's death, in 1883, Berthe was his sole heiress and found herself with a large fortune.
In 1886, she met
Remy de Gourmont
Remy de Gourmont (4 April 1858 – 27 September 1915) was a French symbolist poet, novelist, and influential critic. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars and Georges Bataille. The spelling ''Rémy'' de Go ...
, then making his literary debut, and commissioned him to write a memorial of Clésinger. She became Gourmont's mistress and muse. Gourmont lived with her, at first on
rue de Varenne
''Ruta graveolens'', commonly known as rue, common rue or herb-of-grace, is a species of '' Ruta'' grown as an ornamental plant and herb. It is native to the Balkan Peninsula. It is grown throughout the world in gardens, especially for its bl ...
then at 71 rue des Saints-Pères, until his death in 1915. de Courrière had him buried in the same vault as Clésinger. She died in 1916 and was laid to rest beside the two men in Clésinger's vault at the cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Gourmont's passionate letters to her during the year 1887 were published together in one volume as ''Lettres à Sixtine'' (1921).
Occultism
de Courrière was interested in
occultism
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism an ...
and found herself involved in a Black Mass affair that nearly went awry and earned her a month 's stay in a psychiatric hospital. In the early morning of 8 September 1890 the Bruges police were informed that a naked woman was parading on the fortresses near the Smedenpoort. She showed signs of mental disorder and was taken to the Sint-Juliaan psychiatric institution in the Boeveriestraat where she was identified as Berthe de Courrière. On 6 October, Gourmont travelled from Paris and removed her from the institution. It turned out that de Courrière had spent the night of 7 to 8 September at Moerstraat 36, the house of Canon Louis Van Haecke, rector of the chapel of the Holy Blood and alleged exorcist. She was also in touch with ex-Father
Joseph-Antoine Boullan
Abbé Joseph-Antoine Boullan (Saint-Porquier, Tarn-et-Garonne, 18 February 1824 – 4 January 1893, Lyon) was a French Roman Catholic priest who was later laicized, and was often accused of being a Satanist although he continued to defend his stat ...
, who was
laicized
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, the loss of clerical state (commonly referred to as laicization, dismissal, defrocking, and degradation) is the removal of a bishop, priest, or deacon from the status of being a member of the clergy.
The t ...
as a heretic.
de Courrière was, it seems, quite unbalanced. She had to be interned a second time in Brussels in 1906, and she wrote a violent booklet, ''Nero Prince of Science'', against
Jean-Martin Charcot
Jean-Martin Charcot (; 29 November 1825 – 16 August 1893) was a French neurology, neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology. He worked on hypnosis and hysteria, in particular with his hysteria patient Louise Augustine Gleizes. Charcot ...
, which is characteristic of the hatred that patients sometimes devote to their psychiatrist.
She had a morbid passion for