CONTEXTUALIZATION
MADEMOISELLE’S SECRETS : Professional Lover During the second half of the nineteenth century, under Louis Napoléon’s Second Empire, Paris became associated with an ostentatious theatricality and a luxuriant, new kind of spectacle. Louis-Napoléon’s mission was to promote his country’s magnificence and superiority to the world, and in this he was assisted by his urban planner, Georges-Eugène Haussmann. This promotion of magnificence in turn contributed to a period of feverishly self-absorbed luxury. Gratification was the imperative, and entertainments of all kinds proliferated. One form of entertainment — prostitution — also grew dramatically. At that time, Paris had one of the most highly organized and regulated systems of prostitution in the world. The penal code discriminated against women, and female adultery was considered far worse than adultery committed by a man. The state’s double standard assumed that male extramarital sex was inevitable — in fact, necessary. While Etienne had already brought the celebrated courtesan Emilienne d’Alençon to the Château de Royallieu, he had now asked Gabrielle to join her. Gabrielle eschewed the path of the courtesan and became an irrégulière, a mi-
stress, entirely dependent upon her lover. She was groping her way toward an idea of self-determination that might bring her a more genuine autonomy. The courtesan Emilienne d’Alençon and Gabrielle amicably shared Etienne and his home. Emilienne knew she would eventually be deposed as one of the most fêted grandes courtisanes, but what did she have to fear from this young Gabrielle Chanel? Unlike Britain, France didn’t punish homosexuality, which was a major feature of Belle Epoque society. Indeed, by 1900, French tolerance had not only made Paris an international refuge for homosexuals, it was also dubbed ‘Paris-Lesbos’ for its reputation as the lesbian world capital. The courtesans’ sexual attitudes, in combination with the cheerfully liberated sexual atmosphere at Royallieu, may have a bearing on what we will discover about Gabrielle’s own sexuality. Gabrielle wanted independence and didn’t see the role of professional lover as her way to secure it. Work indeed became Gabrielle’s new conviction; it was her only possibility of escape from her position as a demimondaine. She would later recall how, as a mere twelve-year-old, she had realized that “without money you are nothing, that with money you can do anything… I would say to myself over and over, money is the key to freedom.” Preoccupied with her sense of powerlessness, by 1908, Gabrielle’s ambition to get to Paris was forming into a plan.
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