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Pozzi and Les Belles Femmes |
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Rare pencil sketch of Samuel Pozzi by Jules Bastien-Lepage |
Pozzi cut quite a swath through the glittering society of the Belle Epoch for he was not
only a brilliant physician but was the most charming man in Paris. Of course, Pozzi had his detractors.
The notoriously anti-Semitic, right wing journalist Leon Daudet once described Pozzi as “hollow,
talkative and reeking of pomade” then adding insult to injury wrote “I would not entrust him
with my hair, especially if there was mirror in the room.” Since Daudet lacked a uterus and ovaries,
his dislike for Pozzi was undoubtedly tainted by partisan politics.
That Pozzi mesmerized many, especially the fairer sex, has never been debated, yet the veracity of the portrait of him as a heartless lothario does not hold up to under close examination. While Pozzi’s amatory activities have been the subject of persistent rumors among modern writers, with the exception of historian, Gustave Schlumberger, who wrote about Pozzi’s affair with Sarah Bernhardt when both were young and single, his contemporaries are generally mum on his love life. Art historian Trevor Fairbrother attempted to discover an amatory connection between the seductive doctor and John Singer Sargent whose sexuality he questioned in John Singer Sargent: The Sensualist. Fairbrother’s search yielded no erotic activity between Dr. Pozzi, Sargent or anyone else for that matter, though he admitted Dr. Pozzi was extremely gay friendly but not bisexual. As a footnote in The Sensualist, Fairbrother wrote ‘Pozzi enjoyed flirting with numerous female acquaintances and patients, although it is less certain that he had affairs.” |
Pozzi entered Parisian society as an outsider from a one-horse town and quickly allied himself with the great feminine personalities in the society, women of impeccable pedigrees, empresses of the arts, the world of letters and the stage. While terms such as “womanizer” and “seducer” have been used to describe him, his interest in women went far beyond the physical and was as complex as the man himself. Women were his confidants and mentors, his surrogate sisters, wives and mothers. Romance, whether physical or intellectual, appeared to be as important to Dr. Pozzi as air or water; however, the social constraints of the 19th Century make it difficult to determine the true nature of many of his relationships; in short, we can not be sure who he was sleeping with.
The sexual politics of 19th century French society were rigid and clearly drawn; with the exception of the wealthiest of society matrons or members of the demimonde, propriety was everything in Victorian era France. Though Pozzi grew up in relatively humble circumstances, because of the discipline of his upbringing, he quickly cultivated a veneer of graciousness and sophistication. He was never crude or full of manly braggadocio as opposed to Jean Mounet-Sully, another beauty who was raised in the Calvinistic traditions of regional Bergerac, a actor who loved to crow about his sexual conquests. It was Mounet-Sully who, at the age of sixty, who bragged about his potency. “That thing down there was a rigid bone.”
Flaunting the rules could wreck havoc on reputation as poor Madame Gautreau learned unfortunately too late. Pozzi was typical of many men of his social strata, carefully compartmentalizing his life between his family, his work and his mistresses. In his role as a surgeon, he operated on the great families of Paris; he was the doctor of the Rothschild family, of writer Guy de Maupassant, of Dreyfus; if Pozzi had been a jaded roué with an unsavory reputation, the social restrictions of French society would have prevented entry into respectable homes. Rumors abound that Dr. Pozzi romanced his patients; however, While all the salacious conjecture is intriguing, in a period when males handled the purse strings, when people of culture had their ears open to rumor and innuendo, is it possible that any Frenchman would have been so naïve as to pay to be cuckolded by the infamous Pozzi?
It is also important to note the nature of gynecology at the time Pozzi practiced and his place in Parisian society. Pozzi was one of the great surgeons of the late 19th century and undoubtedly was the great gynecological surgeon in the world. He operated on his patients before an audience of medical professionals. He specialized in endometriosis, uterine cancer, fibroid tumors, hysterectomies, obstetric fistulas, tubular pregnancies and Caesarean births. The very nature of those afflictions would certainly preclude an interest in erotic gymnastics despite his charm. It is doubtful his patients would have been keen on a sexual liaison, even after the ether wore off and the stitches were removed. No contemporary source noted any improprieties in his professional demeanor.
The League of the Rose
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The only information about the so-called League of the Rose, a quizzical erotic cabal from la Belle Epoch, was a brief note in the memoirs of Misia Sert that were published in France shortly after W.W. II. Misia was the daughter of well-born Polish émigrés, the Godebskis, who hosted numerous salons and soirees. As an adult she was one of the grand muses of fin de Siecle Paris but the League of the Rose pertains to a particularly kinky childhood memory of events that Misia insisted happened prior to her teenaged years. Since Misia was born in August of 1870, (she constantly lied about the date of her birth, often shaving ten years from it) the meetings of the League, if it existed at all, would have occurred sometime during the late 1870’s or early 1880’s, when Pozzi was the reigning beauty of Paris and she was a child.
Misia Sert
According to her biographers, Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale,“After the Second World
War, Sert, in her late seventies, unhappy, addicted to drugs and almost blind, dictated her memoirs
to the devoted friend and companion of her later years, Boulos Ristelhueber.”
| Apparently,at least in her memoirs, her father and stepmother shared more than their love of music and culture with their guests. Gold and Fizdale wrote that “Distinctly more equivocal were the pleasures introduced into the Godebski circle by Dr. Samuel-Jean Pozzi, man-about-town and inseparable friend of Napoleon’s niece, the Princess Mathilde. Invitations to watch the world surgeon perform his revolutionary gynecological operations were much sought after by his society friends. Dr. Pozzi organized a secret society called the “League of the Rose”, whose members met at the Godebskis and, following Pozzi’s rules, played a kind of orgiastic truth game. Misia was aware that the grown-ups were not just playing doctor, for the players were not only made to answer questions about their sexual preferences but to act them out as well.” |
By the late 1940’s, the few surviving members of Sert’s social circle disputed the claim, whispering that her memoirs were a “tissue of lies, episodes romanticized, outline blurred”. Apparently if the League existed at all, it was quite short-lived but since Pozzi was at the peak of his beauty and in his sexual prime, it is not unreasonable that he may have also been an erotic puppet master, maneuvering the willing into a bit of sexual mischief; however, one questions why Sert’s childhood recollection is the only reference to the League of the Rose and why no one has been able to authenticate her claim.
The Divine Sarah
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The Divine Sarah Bernhardt |
While the existence of the League of the Rose is questionable, no one challenges the fact that one of Pozzi’s earliest loves was the famed actress Sarah Bernhardt whom he probably met and befriended in 1869 while still a young intern and student of medicine. Schlumberger, a fellow medical student at the time, wrote of the great passion that flowered between these two beauties, both as dedicated to their work as to each other. Sarah was two years older than young Sam and was already renowned as an actress, whereas Pozzi’s medical career had not yet begun. Their romance pulsed with erotic energy and high drama; on one occasion Pozzi wrote to say that he could not see her for some time because he had to prepare for an examination. The examination was for the post of prosector, a doctor who prepares cadavers for dissection. Sarah received his missive and rushed to his apartment, where she occupied him for sixteen hours; while their lovemaking was probably earthshaking, it proved a small disaster for Sam for he missed the exam and never became a prosector. Hopefully the memories of his night of love with the Divine Sarah made up for it.
Sarah was a woman of tremendous intensity who was very much a 19th Century prototype of Madonna; like the famed singer, Bernhardt defied the conventions of her time, choosing and discarding paramours at will. Legends adored her but she paid for her freedom dearly and was not welcomed into all areas of Victorian society. She never listed Pozzi among her amazing pantheon of lovers, but he became her Doctor Dieu (Doctor God) or Doctor Cherie (Doctor Dear) after he saved her life when she turned to him for a gynecological issue. Pozzi discovered a huge ovarian cyst, removed it, earning her undying gratitude. On February 20, 1898, after successfully operating on the Divine Sarah, Pozzi dashed off a letter from the Senate to their mutual friend, Count Robert de Montesquiou.
Dear Friend, Sarah is convalescing well, cutting corners as usual. Decisive, courageous, firm and obedient…she will recover more quickly than most. Having played every other role, from Phaedra to Joan of Arc, she wished also to play the role of surgical patient, which she has done to perfection! Her cyst was no common one – elegant, deep-seated, with numerous extensions into the broad ligament, from where I had to dig them out (excuse the vocabulary!) – it was quite a struggle. The cyst was the size of the head of a fourteen-year-old child. What a relief to have it done. I felt as “delivered”, as operated upon, as my dear friend. In six weeks she will be on stage again….
While it is clear that the Divine Sarah and Pozzi continued an impassioned correspondence and maintained an ardent relationship that spanned decades, Bernhardt, like many of the women in Pozzi’s life, eventually joined a small but select coterie of women who became his surrogate mothers, sisters and wives.
1877
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Gabriele Réju |
1877 was also the year Pozzi began a tempestuous relationship with the beautiful actress Gabriele Réju who seduced France under her stage name, Réjane. Pozzi was thirty, footloose and unattached; Régane was nineteen and unknown. The relationship appears to have been passionate and probably burned itself out; however, like the majority of the women he became involved with, Pozzi and Réjane remained friends until his death. Apparently, despite his flaws, it was difficult to remain angry with the charming Samuel, known as Sam to those closest to him.
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While examining the massive amount of correspondence that Pozzi amassed over the years,
his biographer, Claude Vanderpooten, discovered a stack of sixty perfumed letters
bound in a blue envelope. All were written by Louise Ackermann, a poet famed for her
dark verse, a woman who fell madly in love in love with him though she was thirty-two
years Pozzi’s senior. Born November 30, 1813, she was the cherished daughter of a
father who brought her up on Plato, Rousseau, Shakespeare, Byron and Schiller.
She had a brief but happy marriage to a German philologist who forbade her to write.
Her husband died within three years of their nuptials and Louise subsisted for three
more decades with her sister in a small house in Nice surrounded her books, the works
of philosophers and poets. Finally she put pen to paper and wrote a number of dark verses
that revealed the great well of loneliness that was her life. Her Stories in Verse were
published in1855 with Philosophical Poems following in 1874. In 1872, Madame Ackermann
left Nice and set up in Paris and in order to support herself gave lessons in German,
the 19th century’s language of science.
In 1877, a devastatingly handsome young doctor seeking German lessons was referred to her. Dr. Pozzi strode into her home and awakened passions that the widow had long thought dormant. Pozzi was preoccupied with preparing for his medical examinations and consumed by an active social life but the two became devoted to each other. When balls, soirees and romantic interludes began to intrude on his time, Pozzi spoke of giving up his German studies, Madame Ackermann would not hear of it. My dear Monsieur, you will not give up German. You will regret it too much later on. Indeed it would be truly unfortunate if a man of your intellect were ignorant of this language. A temporary interruption is not a complete renunciation…you can choose your own time. Sundays would certainly be very suitable since you would have no examinations or consultations to perform, but it seems to me that on that day, rather than Church, your social pursuits absorb you entirely! The lessons continued. Her charming student continued to captivate Madame Ackermann, not only with his beauty but also by his great personality and tremendous charm. She was surprised by his intellect and culture and provided an ear for his romantic adventures as he regaled her with stories of passion and intrigue. She resigned herself to becoming his surrogate mother and signed her letters to him “your old mother” and later, “Catherine’s grandmother” in English and addressed him as “my darling” in German. As for the future, my darling, send me neither telegram nor messenger. If at 11 o’clock you have not arrived, I will understand clearly that you have been held up and don’t have to wait. The term of address “my darling” that I so maternally gave to him allowed him to relax with me. A bit of nerve in such circumstances would be on the contrary a test of confidence and friendship… |
Le positivisme Il s'ouvre par-delà toute science humaine Un vide dont la Foi fut prompte à s'emparer. De cet abîme obscur elle a fait son domaine ; En s'y précipitant elle a cru l'éclairer. Eh bien ! nous t'expulsons de tes divins royaumes, Dominatrice ardente, et l'instant est venu Tu ne vas plus savoir où loger tes fantômes ; Nous fermons l'Inconnu. Mais ton triomphateur expiera ta défaite. L'homme déjà se trouble, et, vainqueur éperdu, Il se sent ruiné par sa propre conquête En te dépossédant nous avons tout perdu. Nous restons sans espoir, sans recours, sans asile, Tandis qu'obstinément le Désir qu'on exile Revient errer autour du gouffre défendu. 
Louise Ackermann (1813 - 1890) |
Translation by Bruce S. Winslow
By Louise Ackermann
dedicated
to Samuel Pozzi
By chance upon an old, minute globe cast,
Abandoned, lost as if I’m out at sea,
Floating flower, drifting in the void
I’m nothing but an ephemeral, worthless wreck.
And yet, when an eternal shipwreck seemed
To threaten me on immense and shoreless seas,
A voice cried out from the depths of Being: “Arrive!
I’m waiting for you, so that I may think.”
The thick and heavy cloud of Unknowing
Envelopes sadly all of nature still.
I appeared; and immediately over matter,
Spirit dawned.
Shaking off my torpor, I’m astonished to be alive,
I’ve overcome my turmoil and my first distress.
Precipitated into the great All,
I assert and recognize myself, say “Me!”
Although still in the sway of impure flesh,
I severed the network of the blindest urges,
I created Decency, conceived of Justice:
Cradled in my heart.
Alone I enquired of ends, returned to causes,
The universe, a futile spectacle in my eyes.
So as to fool myself I did confer
Upon the veil of things, a sense divine.
Defying death and suffering as I wish,
In vain do you refute me, merciless nature,
Only in my vows do I believe,
Even from my agony deriving hope.
If breathing for a moment is the way
To fill this void, this empty, gloomy chasm,
Then here I am! I scorn this nether world.
It surrounds me, hems me in, I need the beyond!
I want the eternal, I who am so fleeting,
When savage reality commands and bombards me,
Can’t I take refuge, if needed, in the mirage,
Which we call the Ideal?
With haughty pride, I’m able to gaze upon
The splendor of the cosmos full of stars,
Keep your infinity, your distant skies,
Keep your vast worlds, mine is within my heart.
Portrait of Judith Gautier by John Singer Sargent |
The
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Judith Gautier was the daughter of Théophile Gautier, a brilliant man of letters. An intellectual prodigy, she was exposed to the great writers of the period including Flaubert, Baudelaire, Champfleury, Arsène Houssaye and Gustave Doré all of whom were frequent visitors to her home. Her first article, a critique of Baudelaire’s translation of Edgar Poe, was published and earned her the nickname “the hurricane” for Baudelaire predicted that as a critic, she would "sink" many. As a child, she was tutored by a Chinese mandarin and learned Chinese, translating and copying Chinese books and manuscripts. Later she extended her expertise to Japan and all of the Far East. In 1866, she wed writer, Catulle Mendès, but divorced him after four years, concluding that he was neither faithful nor talented. Beautiful, brilliant and voluptuous with a mane of chestnut hair, the newly single Judith did not suffer from a lack of admirers including Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner and Dr. Samuel Pozzi whom she met in 1877. It is probable that she was as beguiled by the young physician as he was of her but it is unclear whether their physical relationship went beyond flirtation; however, Gautier and Pozzi remained intimate friends until her death.
| Geneviève Halévy, one of the most fascinating personages in Pozzi’s inner circle, was the daughter of a noted musician, a woman of tremendous sophistication, a Jew who refused to assimilate into the Catholic society. She was the widow of composer Georges Bizet but later wed lawyer Emile Straus and became known to history as Madame Straus. Thought not conventionally beautiful, the twenty-seven-year–old Genevieve was witty, erudite, politically adroit and most importantly, hosted one of the most celebrated salons of Belle Époque Paris. Her social connections alone would have kept a man like Pozzi entranced but it is unclear that they had a sexual relationship. What is clear is that the two became fast friends separated only by Pozzi’s death. After Pozzi’s passing, their mutual friend, writer Marcel Proust, composed an exquisite letter of comfort to the grieving Madame Straus: |
Geneviève Halévy |
Dear Madame Straus,
The day before yesterday I had sent for news of you and M. Straus from rue Miromesnil, and then last night I heard the terrible news. I hesitated to write to you, remembering the death of Hervieu and the precautions, which had to be taken before giving you the news. In the end I sent somebody round to your house. Your concierge said that you knew the bad news and that it had not been possible to hide it from you. And my pain was so deep, I who had always known Pozzi, who saw him when he came to dine at the house when I was fifteen years old, who dined out in town for the first time at his house in the place Vendôme (besides you will remember that it was at the house that you met him, and it was I who he had charged with asking if he could come to visit you, at the same time you would have seen him at the duchesse de Richelieu's - or at the duchesse de Rivoli's. Yes, I say my pain was so deep, but it was surpassed by the worry of how much pain such an awful end for such a great friend it would cause you. There is no chance of me coming to Saint-Germain; I have been refused all safe conduct, and in any case you would not receive me as my visit would cause you even more fatigue. And yet I suffer from being far away from you in similar times. In the first moment, even before the sadness, the awful singularity of the event made me think of those ruined towns like Soissons which were the pillars between which the battles unfolded; and much in the same way as after the death of Calmette, an innocent victim who was mysteriously sacrificed, one sensed the coming of war; it made one wonder whether after the death of Pozzi there wasn't going to be Peace; if they haven't been the twin bloody pillars which bound the start and finish of the war. Alas I am not thinking about these absurd conjectures any more, but about his kindness, his intelligence, his talent, his beauty, of everything the veneration of which constantly sustained in me in the old days and of which I spoke with you about, then about my brother (Robert Proust, the partner in Dr. Pozzi’s practice) who adored and worshipped Pozzi, then above all about our meetings at your house. I am writing a long letter to his son. As for his wife I am hesitating, I don't know to what extent exactly they were separated, never having wanted to ask questions or to hear any gossip about such delicate questions so that I don't know at all. Dear Madame Straus, I who am always in your heart in my imagination cannot tell you how much all these blows it suffers upset me. Allow me to say as well that if I find that you are too far away from me at Saint-Germain, at the same time I think that you are a little but too close to the Germans; and as you have Trouville, Pau, Biarritz, Monte-Carlo to choose from why don't you go there? Is Monsieur Straus not sufficiently recovered to make the journey? In that case would you like me to install myself at Saint-Germain with him so that you could go to the Midi or Trouville? But I know perfectly well that I could not replace you in any way. How happy I would be in my grief all the same to know that you were a little further away. Please accept my very great respects and very deep sympathy.
Marcel Proust
| Pozzi had the ear and affection of two members of the Bonaparte family, Princess Mathilde and years later, Princess Marie. Mathilde Bonaparte was the flamboyant daughter of Napoleon's brother, Jerôme and Catharina of Württemberg. The plump beauty caught the eye of the Russian Prince, Anatole Demidoff di San Donato, married him, found wedded life a bore then fled his home for Paris with both her new lover and Anatole's jewelry. Somehow she managed to negotiate a generous alimony and lived the sweet life in Paris as a prominent member of the new aristocracy during both the Second and Third Empire as a hostess to men of arts and letters. Following the death of Prince Demidoff in 1870, Mathilde wed the artist and poet, Claudius Marcel Popelin. Plump and motherly, Mathilde was twenty-six years older then Pozzi and eagerly welcomed the handsome young doctor into her entourage with open arms. While it is doubtful that they ever shared a bed, they remained friends until her death in 1904. |
Mathilde Bonepart |
Georgette Leblanc | Réjane and Bernhardt were not the only actresses Pozzi became involved with. Soprano, Georgette Leblanc, made her debut was at the Opéra-Comique, in, 1893 at the age of eighteen. Claude Vanderpooten did not mention her in Pozzi’s biography; however, Pozzi scholar Henri Meric believes that Pozzi and Leblanc may have had an affair prior to her long-term relationship with playwright Maurice Maeterlinck, a romance that began in 1895. Intelligent and cultured as well as beautiful, at the time of she met Dr. Pozzi, Leblanc was married to a Spaniard who refused to divorce her. In later years, she became an accomplished writer, publishing two volumes of autobiography and several children's books and travel accounts. She was a close friend of Jean Cocteau and after her relationship with Maeterlinck ended in 1918, Georgette became the companion of Margaret Anderson, founder of The Little Review. |
| Prince Rainier was not the first member of the House of Grimaldi to marry a blonde American beauty. Prince Albert I of Monaco ascended to the throne of Monaco on the death of his father and that same year he married the dowager Duchess de Richelieu née Marie Alice Heine. Alice was the daughter of a German Jewish building contractor and like Madame Gautreau was born in New Orleans in 1858. She converted from Judaism to Catholicism to marry the Duke de Richelieu but was widowed by age 21, with a young son, Armand. She took up residence in Paris in and hosted one of the most brilliant salons in the city. It is probable that Pozzi met her through their mutual friend, the Count Robert de Montesquiou, and like every woman in Pozzi’s circle they have been linked romantically though it is doubtful that they had an affair. Alice had already begun a courtship with Prince Albert and her every move was monitored by Grimaldi retainers. |
The Duchess de Richelieu | Her wedding to Prince Albert proved an equal blessing for him and the tiny principality of Monaco. In addition to being beautiful, Alice possessed strong business acumen, showing an understanding far beyond her years. After putting her husband's principality on a sound financial footing, she went on to devote her energies to making Monaco one of Europe's great cultural centers with its opera, theater, and the ballet. Unfortunately, despite the initial success of their union, her marriage ended in 1902, due to the princess's affair with the composer Isidore de Lara, a liaison that resulted in the princess publicly being slapped in the face by her husband during an evening at the opera. The couple separated but never divorced and the Duchess remained a fixture in French society until her death in 1925. |
| Madame Lydie Aubernon was a short, zaftig woman addicted to showy gowns and elaborate footwear festooned with pompoms. Soon after separating from her husband, Madame Aubernon received the Paris literati in the most flamboyant salon in the city. Every personage of intellectual, theatrical and musical worth in the city flocked to her home where she hovered over the proceedings like a mother confessor. The subjects of conversation were strictly determined and if the conversation deviated, the tyrannical salonnière agitated her fateful bell to bring back to the order her flock. Hoi polloi were never allowed to cross her threshold and despite the imperious personality of the plump martinet, her salon was considered the wittiest and most glamorous in the city. It was Madam Aubernon who nicknamed Dr. Pozzi “the love doctor” and referred to Thérèse as “Pozzi’s mute”. Despite her airs and acid tongue, Pozzi adored her and the two were extremely close but never lovers. |
Madame Lydie Aubernon (1825 - 1899) |
| Sadly, Lydie Aubernon died horribly, her neck swollen with enormous tumors, her mouth deformed by a cancer that caused her difficulty with breathing and swallowing water. The woman who loved to chat could no longer speak, and she died a recluse who refused entry to her friend as she died in intense pain, numbed by laudanum and morphine, ironically from cancer of the tongue. Pozzi was unable to save her and went into a deep depression. |
Eve Lavallière
The saucy comedienne, Eve Lavallière, is most noted for abandoning the theater in 1919, renouncing
her sinful ways by throwing herself into conservative Catholicism and spending the remainder of her
life in prayer and sacrifice as a member of the Secular Franciscans. At the turn of the century
the lovely actress was one of Pozzi’s gynecological patients but not his lover. In a letter to
Pozzi from Max Dearly, a highly acclaimed actor/singer of the day whose mother was one of Dr.
Pozzi’s patient. The letter was one of thanks, “You will surly find me at my place every day
from six to seven, and if I accept that you disturb me, isn’t it so as to see a little my dear
suffering mother that one word from you could boost her confidence in better days... my
comrade Lavallière was saying to me again yesterday how much she owes to your care and science.”
It seems that regardless of evidence to the contrary, any beautiful woman who came into Pozzi’s
life was regarded as one of his “conquests”.
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Marie Bonaparte
The ravishing Princess Marie Bonaparte was the same age as Pozzi’s daughter Catherine went they met in 1910. She was both beautiful and intellectual but Pozzi, still handsome at sixty-six, was very much involved with Emma Fischhof. At the time of their meeting, Princess Marie played a gauche practical joke on Dr. Pozzi, rediculing his Republican ideals and reputation as a ladies' man. Pozzi thought she was the spoiled, pampered product of a doomed aristocracy. Prince Marie had a fixation with older men and became consumed with Pozzi. After pursuing him for ten years, he finally softened towards her and became her close friend. Though Marie was a complex and intriguing woman, their relationship appears to have been platonic. She was deeply involved in the new science of psychology and wrote extensively on women and bisexuality; however, there is no evidence that she and Dr. Pozzi were ever romantically involved. In fact, when she went through analysis with Dr. Freud, her mentor and friend, she was treated for frigidity. Marie Bonaparte is also remembered for her 1933 biography of Edgar Allan Poe and as the subject of the film, Princess Marie, starring Catherine Deneuve.
| In spite of divorce being reinstated in France in 1884 under the Third Republic and after years of tumult, the Pozzi marriage was effectively over by 1900. After years of living in the shadow of her peacock of a husband, years of being dragged to every soiree in Paris, years of being gossiped about behind the fluttering of fans, “Pozzi’s mute” extricated herself from his shadow but apparently never fully from her heart for she continued to love him until the day she died; ironically, the woman who caused Thérèse the most pain remains largely a mystery to us. |
| Emma Fischhof, the great love of Pozzi’s life, is an enigma, at least at the present time. Her date of birth is unknown as well as her the details of her life. Described as darkly beautiful, we do know that Emma was a Jew and was raised in a milieu of culture and sophistication, the daughter of famed art deal, Charles Sedelmeyer. She was also the wife of art historian, Eugene Fischhof, but the details of their marriage are shrouded in mystery. It is thought that Emma and Pozzi first met in 1894 at her father’s Paris art gallery. The relationship was a meeting of hearts and minds as well as bodies and apparently went beyond his previous flirtations. In August 1899, Pozzi traveled to Venice and met his Emma under the vaults of the cloister of the convent of the tiny island of St. Lazarus, was joined with her in a secret Catholic wedding by the elderly Armenian Father Mimikian. According to Vanderpooten and Alain Bugnicourt, between 1900 and 1913, Pozzi and Emma took twelve “love” voyages to Italy, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Spain and Morocco and Pozzi detailed their passion in several journals. Pozzi’s relationship with Emma was responsible for many violent arguments and much of their correspondence was burned after Pozzi’s death. Were Pozzi and Emma sexually involved? Yes indeed. |
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In his later years, Pozzi entered into an intense relationship with feminist writer
Augustine Bulteau, a woman he met on Easter Sunday in 1899, four months before he
“married” Emma. Known as Toche to her intimates, Bulteau was a brilliant woman of
great gentility and intellect. A textile heiress from the town of Roubaix, at the
age of twenty Bulteau married Jules Richard, a writer of no great renown but whose
social set included Toulouse-Lautrec, Maxime Dethomas and Edouard Manet. When her
marriage ended in 1896, Bulteau, who possessed a large personal fortune, carved a life
for herself in the dazzling literary world of Paris. She entered into a lesbian
relationship with Countess de Baume-Plurneil and had residences in Paris and Italy.
She wrote under two nom de plums; “Foemina” as a journalist for Le Figaro, and “Jacques
Vontade” for her novels. Her literary salon, “The Haven of Peace and Listening” attracted
fellow journalists, politicians, foreign nobility, painters and physicians, notably Pozzi.
She became a literary mentor to Catherine Pozzi, who also attended her salons.
Bulteau was passionate about her personal correspondence to the point of obsession, writing more than ten letters a day to close friends throughout France and Italy. In her letters to Pozzi, she playfully nicknamed Pozzi “El Giaour” after a character in the epic poem by Byron while he called her “Madame Pozzi the Second”, closing his letters with forever and a day (written in English) or at your feet. Much of the correspondence between Bulteau and Pozzi survives today but Pozzi historians including Alain Bugnicourt have concluded that the Bulteau/Pozzi relationship was a passionate affair of the heart but not of the body. Bulteau appears to have been devoted to her female companion while Pozzi was passionately in love with Emma Fischhof; still, Pozzi could not remain emotionally faithful and found another surrogate wife. |
Augustine Bulteau |
Madame Aubernon may have nicknamed him the “Love Doctor”, a reference to a Moliere character, and indeed Pozzi adored women. His flirtations were the foundation of more than one violent argument with both Thérèse and Catherine and his infidelity was both emotional and physical. Pozzi was certainly a romantic, a flirt, a gentleman with an extremely healthy libido and most certainly, a clandestine adulterer, but somehow managed to keep his day activities separate from those of the evening.
Women adored him for his boyish charm, wit and charisma; his relationships with women were complex, passionate and eternal. He cherished every woman in his intimate circle, treated them with Victorian gallantry, did not abandon them, and, in the case of Louise Ackermann, Judith Gautier and Lydie Aubernon, grieved their loss when they passed away. Women continued to be his friends, mentors, surrogate wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and most regrettably, mourners; even his more transitory relationships with appear to have gone beyond simple physical encounters. On close examination, his reputation as a Casanova appears to have been greatly exaggerated.
Of course it is possible that he made mad, kinky whoopee with all manner of women but, since he was a gentleman, he didn’t kiss and tell and neither will we.
Sources for this page were Samuel Pozzi, Chirurgien et Ami des Femmes, Vanderpooten, C., Mes Souvenirs, Schlumberger, G., Strapless, John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X, Davis, D. , The Life of Misia Sert, Gold, A. and Fizdale, R. , Samuel Pozzi, le Parisien et les femmes, Address to the Meeting Devoted to Samuel Pozzi, XXXIème Foire-Exposition des Rives de la Dordogne; Centre d’Action Touristique de la Région Bergeracoise, Bergerac, August 2002, Meric, H. , The Paris Kiosque, John Singer Sargent, the Sensualist, Fairbrother, T., Victorian Women, A Documentary Account of Women’s Lives in Nineteenth Century England, France and the United States, Hellerstein, O., Parker Hume, L., Offen, K. More info on the ladies of Pozzi’s circle can be found at www.marcelproust.it Translations of the Proust letters can be found on-line at www.yorktaylors.free-online.co.uk