Coco Chanel_ An Intimate Life - Lisa Chaney [18]
While Gabrielle complained that the resort was full of the elderly, she remained enchanted by its fantasy, admiring everything, even the engraved glasses used for the foul-smelling water gushing from the curative springs. Marveling at the cosmopolitanism of the town, she was entranced by the unintelligible foreign tongues she heard all around: “It was as if they were the passwords of a great society.” And in the midst of this “great society,” Gabrielle was led to a crucial personal insight: “I watched the eccentric people parade past and I said to myself, ‘There exist in the world things that I should be and which I am not.’”4 But for an epiphany to really change a life, it must be acted upon, and that would take some time.
At the end of the season, gravely disappointed, Gabrielle had to admit that no one was going to hire her, and she followed Adrienne back to Moulins. In spite of her retreat, she would always say it was Vichy that had taught her about life, opening her eyes and giving her a new goal. Meanwhile, Adrienne had fared well.
Maud Mazuel was a woman whom Adrienne and Gabrielle had known before they left for Vichy. Of undistinguished origin and unprepossessing looks, she had, nonetheless, created a discreet position for herself as chaperone and matchmaker at the center of local society. In her pleasant villa near Souvigny, outside Moulins, she brought women together with their lovers, without rousing the suspicion of their families. The local gentry and officers from the Moulins garrison knew that at Maud’s gatherings, they would find an entertaining mix of people appropriate to their own caste. In addition they could find attractive young women whose backgrounds had none of the luster of the other guests. Adrienne was beautiful, well dressed and sparkled in company, and Maud had made her the offer of respectability by inviting her to be her live-in companion.
No less strong-minded or characterful than Gabrielle, Adrienne combined her quiet ambition with an uncomplicated femininity. Yet without a name or a dowry behind her, unless Maud Mazuel could find her a well-to-do suitor, Adrienne knew her prospects were few. She loved her family, but like Gabrielle, she wished to move beyond her roots. Unlike many socially ambitious women, Adrienne was also in search of love.
She was soon courted by no fewer than three aristocratic admirers and became one of the daring, finely dressed beauties seen with their lovers at the Vichy races. Adrienne’s three most ardent admirers invited her to Egypt, where, away from prying eyes, she would be free to choose her man. Gabrielle was also invited on this adventure, but she said it would gain her nothing.5 By the time the Egyptian party returned, Adrienne had made her choice. She had become mistress to the Baron Maurice de Nexon, and would faithfully devote herself to him for the remainder of her life.
A courtesan might bankrupt a family’s son and also break his heart, but she rarely lived with her lover for any length of time. An irrégulière (a permanent mistress), on the other hand, was a threat involving a family’s honor in a different way: a son might be mad enough to ask for his lover’s hand, leaving his family’s name stained for a generation and more. Adrienne’s lover, the Baron de Nexon, would do just this. Despite his parents’ outrage and the lovers’ subsequent humiliation when the Nexon family refused to “receive” Adrienne, the young baron stood firm by his choice. He wanted Adrienne. But he also wanted his inheritance, which he would forfeit should they wed. Thus the couple lived discreetly in Paris and Vichy for many years, until the baron’s parents’ deaths meant he was finally able to marry.
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