At Home with Sam and Thérèse

"Music from "Madame X: Ballet for Chamber Orchestra" by Patrick Soluri ©1999. used with the permission of Patrick Soluri & Soluri Music www.soluri.com/music Ballet commissioned & choreographed by Francis Patrelle of Dances Patrelle."

Samuel Pozzi

By 1877, Samuel Pozzi or “Sam” as his intimates called him, was one of the reigning beauties of Parisian society, a charmer hoisted up on the shoulders of the elite of the city in his upward climb in society. His ascent had been made all the sweeter because of a number of brilliant and well-placed ladies who took him to their bosoms and hearts. Pozzi was seduced but never abandoned by a coterie of admirers and kept an amazing social calendar. He went to every ball, graced every drawing room and courted the most desirable women in Paris. A close friend, Henri de Régnier, worried that Pozzi’s playboy ways might adversely affect his career as a surgeon. The handsome actor, Jean Mounet-Sully, another country boy from Bergerac who had also been Bernhardt’s lover, wanted to put his rival, the elegant Pozzi, out of commission. Both men declared it was time for La Sirène to retire and that a suitable spouse must be found for him.

In 1878 Louise Ackermann arranged an introduction between Pozzi and the young woman who became his wife; Marie-Thérèse Loth-Cazalis, the surviving child of a prosperous grande bourgeois railroad family from industrial Lyon. Though she has often been pictured as colorless, at 21, Thérèse was pleasing to the eye, intelligent, cultured and cosmopolitan, a Catholic virgin with a golden pedigree. Thérèse appeared to have fallen passionately in love with her handsome suitor from the start and determined to marry him but Pozzi’s reasons for marriage were more oblique. While it is possible that he was initially enticed by her wealth and connections, their courtship appears to have been an ardent one and the young doctor was entranced. Despite the differences in their religion and finances, a Dominican priest wed Pozzi, the Protestant, and Thérèse, the Catholic heiress, on November 11, 1879 in the l’hotêl de la mairie. Their parents agreed to match and even Benjamin was silent when his son agreed to raise his son’s offspring in the Catholic Church.

Thanks to the Cazalis fortune, the newlyweds lived in lavish style in Paris, first in the fashionable Boulevard St. Germain then moved into the sumptuous Palace Vendôme. Monsieur and Madame Pozzi were the couple of the moment in the bedazzled period of fin de Siecle Paris, hosting elaborate soirees for the literati in their sumptuous apartments. Pozzi was now an intimate of the leading poets, writers, artists, actors and musicians of the day and with Thérèse began to host salons with her peacock of a husband who was always a model of sartorial elegance.

Marie-Thérèse Pozzi

It is probable that Sam frequented the finest haberdasheries in Paris since he was always beautifully turned out as if he had stepped from the pages of the Journal Des Marchands Tailleurs. French fashion for males in La Belle Epoch was more formal then those worn in the United States during the same period, and Pozzi was the quintessential French dandy. After his valet carefully powdered, pomaded then sponged him with cologne, Pozzi and Thérèse undoubtedly dined at the great eateries of the period, Maxim’s, Drounat, Laderée or Le Pré Catalan and frequented the opulent Paris Opera, Les Folies Bergere and the Comédie Francaise.

It is probable that Pozzi met Count Robert de Montesquiou, a young man who would have a profound effect on his life, at one of Judith Gautier’s salons. Despite a nine-year age gap and a vast difference in temperament and personality, Pozzi had a long and complex friendship with this acerbic guru of style. A mustachioed, highborn fop who fancied himself a writer, de Montesquiou had survived all of his siblings into adulthood only to be derided by a father who detested his son’s effeminate ways. He was flamboyant in dress and manner, self-aggrandizing and always with a sardonic quip on his lips or fingertips. Pozzi seemed to be impervious to de Montesquiou’s verbal cruelties and continued their friendship when others grew weary of his sarcasms and abandoned him.

Count Robert de Montesquiou

Around 1880, Pozzi and de Montesquiou developed an interest in the spiritual and hypnosis. Dr. Joseph Recamier performed the first recorded surgical operation without the use of anesthesia in 1821 and a number of French physicians including Charcot, Bernheim and Liebault utilized hypnosis to treat their patients. Perhaps Pozzi wanted to commune with Inès and Marie or perhaps he was simply curious but in by 1881, the same year Sargent painted his portrait he developed an interest in spiritualism and séances. Ouija boards could be found in every Parisian parlor and trendsetters began hosting séances for their eclectic group of friends. Sarah Bernhardt shared this fascination with the dearly departed and along with Pozzi and de Montesquiou hosted a number of spiritual salons. Count de Montesquiou became the patron of the Czech artist, Alphonse Mucha, a twenty-seven-year-old émigré from Czechoslovakia. Mucha had a lifelong preoccupation with the occult and spiritualism and his elaborate séances took on a form of supernatural performance art. Mucha became the artist most responsible for the Art Nouveau movement that de Montesquiou helped popularize in the late 19th Century and the young Czech went on to paint a number of stunning posters of Madame Bernhardt that defined Art Nouveau.

Pozzi’s social set also included playwright Edmond Rostand, the man who brought Cyrano de Bergerac to life, composer Prince Edmond de Polignac, poet Paul Bourget who was a friend and confident as was Nobel Laureate Anatole France, an intimate who dedicated a short story, The Red Egg, to his dear friend, Dr. Pozzi. (Perhaps influenced by his friendship with so many men and women of letters, Pozzi eventually tried his hand at verse and some of his sonnets appeared in the Revue de Paris.) He was an intimate of Arman and Léontine Caillavet who later worked with him to free Alfred Dreyfus and remained magnanimous enough to count his rival for the title “handsomest man in Paris”, Mounet-Sully, as a friend.

Poet Paul Bourget

The Third Republic was birthed on the bloodstained streets of Paris after the French defeat in Franco-Prussian War. The infant regime toddled between secularism and the more conservative traditions of the Catholic Church and successful doctors like Pozzi straddled the line between secularism and the dictates of the Church. Pozzi’s days away from his wife were spent at work in the Hospital of Lourcine-Pascal and later, towards the end of the century, in the halls of the Academy of Medicine. His contemporaries were the great physicians of the day; Péan, Pouchet, Duplay, Tillaux, his fellow gynecologist, Adolphe Pinard, and the politician/physician, Georges Clemenceau, were among the luminaries who crossed his path as French medicine continued on its path of advancement.

Thérèse Pozzi

Because of his language skills, striking looks and brilliance as a physician, Samuel-Jean Pozzi became the face of French medicine and, much to Thérèse chagrin, traveled the globe. He lectured and exchanged surgical techniques in South America, Holland, German and Great Britain. Both his written and verbal skills in English language extraordinary and unlike many great writers who are lacking in oratorical skill, he was also noted for his passionate speeches. He spoke at Harvard and the Rochester School of Medicine on behalf of French gynecologists and during an impassioned speech in New York City was rewarded with a standing ovation from his American colleagues and a membership into the Association of American Gynecology. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, gynecological surgery was an established, scientifically based art, with low mortality and morbidity, a far cry from the first successful operation to treat a large ovarian cyst which had been performed without anesthetic in a Kentucky farmhouse in 1809.
Dr. Pozzi’s work as a surgeon in the opulent world of the Third Republic was the primary force in his life. Like many French doctors of note, Sam Pozzi had achieved celebrity status, a fact that helped propel his social activities and provide him with introductions to the crème de la crème of society. At the massive Place Vendôme, Sam and Thérèse led charmed existence replete with a coterie of servants, carriages, the finest furniture and objects d’art. The Pozzi’s entertained on a regular basis and the interior of 10 Place Vendôme was chock-a-block with luxuriant furnishings and beautiful objects d’ art as opulently decorated as any palace. In addition to having a discerning eye for fine paintings, Pozzi became a renowned collector of ancient coins and an expert on Grecian and Roman antiquities. He collected first editions and filled his lavish apartments with and sumptuous furnishings including paintings by Tiepoloa and Guardi, classical sculpture, oriental carpets, textiles and ceramics. After his death, many of these beautiful pieces were divided among his family, sold or collapsed into the astonishing art collection of his son, Jean.

Thérèse’s wealth opened doors for Sam Pozzi that would have been closed if he had married a woman of lesser means; unfortunately, the marriage was stormy and contentious. Thérèse’s mother, Madame Félicité Cazalis, ever the imperious widow, joined the couple in their Palace Vendôme residence and became an implacable obstacle to their future happiness. Thérèse became caught up in an emotional tug of war between two immovable forces, an adored husband and a meddling mother. The Pozzi/Cazalis union was doomed, beset with mother-in-law problems and the unfortunate indifference of the groom. Pozzi pulled away from his wife; according to his biographer, Claude Vanderpooten, Samuel was no longer in love with Thérèse even before the conception of his first child. In October of 1881, he left for Tunisia without his bride.
Pozzi’s routine of work, battles with Thérèse, intense romantic liaisons, family and social whirls would have destroyed the health of a lesser man; according to his journal, Pozzi kept physically fit with rigorous rounds of fencing, possibly at the Hippolyte Gymnase Triat, a gymnasium opened in 1847 by Hippolyte Triat, a former vaudevillian strongman. Hippolyte Gymnase Triat boasted an enormous exercise area with spectator galleries on the second and third floors. Patrons could participate in group calisthenics, jog, and use free weights or strength machines. Pozzi managed to keep his boyish figure for a number of years and more importantly, keep his robust constitution and never descended into the addictions that destroyed the lives of many of his contemporaries.

Catherine and Jean Pozzi

While Pozzi was consumed with work and his elaborate social obligations, their marital discord continued despite the birth of a beautiful baby girl, Catherine, born in Paris on July 13, 1882. Catherine inherited her father’s intellect, passion and taste for beauty; unfortunately, he did not possess his robust constitution and suffered from severe health problems. She was alternately doted upon then ignored by her workaholic father and became a pawn between the battling Pozzi’s, always siding with Thérèse and Félicité against her father.
The warring couple went on to have a son, Jean Pozzi, born May 30, 1884, the same month of the infamous Paris Salon and Sargent’s debacle with the portrait of Madame Gautreau. Like his sibling, Jean, an intelligent and charming boy, was also sucked into his parent’s on-going battles. Still, Monsieur and Madame Pozzi must have presented a portrait of wedded bliss for, despite their private war, Doctor Pozzi dragged his outwardly demure wife to every reception and soiree as he continued to ignore her complaints about his many flirtations and obsession with work. Since every peacock needs admiring peahens, Pozzi demanded to be the center of attention, while Thérèse trailed behind in his shadow. Madame Lydie Aubernon, the haughty matron renowned for her Wednesday salons, derisively referred to Thérèse as “Pozzi’s mute”.

A fellow physician, Dr. Adrien Proust, was a frequent dinner guest at the House of Pozzi along with his Jewish wife, Jeanne Clémence Weil and his two brilliant sons; the elder child, Marcel, was a precocious asthmatic with literary aspirations; the younger brother, Robert, was a boy with a scientific bent who followed his father into medicine eventually becoming Pozzi’s assistant then partner in his private practice. Marcel first met Pozzi while he was still a youth and frequently sought his counsel. While some of Proust’s earlier biographers such as Andre Maurois and Leon-Pierre Quint dismissed Pozzi’s relationship with Proust as unimportant, recently translated letters reveal the depth of his devotion to Pozzi. In addition, there has been a general consensus among modern Proustian scholars that Dr. Pozzi was not the model for the character of Dr. Cottard in Remembrances of Things Past and that the fictional doctor was modeled on several physicians including possibly Proust’s own father. On June 7, 1896, twelve years after the birth of Jean, Samuel and Thérèse welcomed another child, a son, Jacques. At the time of Jacques’s conception, Pozzi was passionately involved with Emma Fischhof, yet, was apparently cheating on his mistress with his wife. While Jacques never showed the brilliance of his two siblings, he was educated in special schools and volunteered for a special unit of the French army during W.W. I. He assisted Jean with the preparations for his father’s funeral and proudly wore his army uniform.
Pozzi’s close association with Dr. Broca had sparked his interest in the origins of man. His connection with Broca proved fruitful in 1870 when he joined the French Society of Anthropology; by 1888, he was elected President of the society and was considered one of the foremost anthropologists in the world. 1898, following the French tradition of doctor/politician and the example of his mentor, Dr. Broca, Professor Samuel Pozzi was elected a Senator from his native district, Bergerac. Perhaps remembering the death of his sister Marie, Senator Pozzi worked to ensure a modern water supply system and build a state of the art hospital. He frequently visited the town of his birth, conversing with his constituents many of whom had pleasant memories of a tall, smiling man who made life better for them.

Young Marcel Proust

The Eiffel Tower under construction
14 March 1889

By the end of the nineteenth century, Paris was not only the hub in the wheel of modern medicine but also the center of the universe for art, fashion, fine cuisine, literature, and music. The International Exhibition of Paris of 1889 had changed the face of the city with a tower of open-lattice wrought-iron that at 986 feet, prior to the construction of the Chrysler Building, was the world’s tallest building*. Designed by Pozzi’s friend, Gustave Eiffel, in a style described as “Victorian Structural Expressionism”, the Eiffel Tower quickly became a lightening rod for debate. It was considered an eyesore by the likes of Emile Zola and Guy de Maupassant who along with three hundred of Paris’s most influential citizen protested the mammoth. This was this Paris of passion and conflict that Samuel-Jean Pozzi proudly strode through, a complex and wondrous metropolis like no other in the world. La Belle Epoch was in full bloom and had blossomed with wondrous music, poetry, painting and sculpture that deviated from prescribed conventions. Pierre Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot and Edgar Degas were the leaders of a new school of painting called Impressionism and busily explored society with canvas, brush and paint while, at the same time, the melodies of Saint-Saens, Bizet, Gounod, Debussey and later Ravel transformed music forever.

The dawning of the new century also signaled that the Pozzi marriage was all but over. Sam and Thérèse never formally divorced but lived separate lives and were said to have exited and entered their Palace Vendôme apartments from different doors. Finally they separated and according to their grandson, Claude Bourdet, became cordial to each other for his sake. Pozzi took an apartment Avenue d’Iéna and had his medical offices there. Thérèse and Félicité shared an apartment on the Avenue Hoche while his parents, Catherine and stage designer, Edouard Bourdet, lived on the other side of the Arc de Triomphe, on Avenue MacMahon. The child lived in close proximity to both grandparents and visited them frequently. In 1912, Thérèse published Bottin Mondain, a Dictionary of the World, a well-received work described as a remarkable little volume of poems.
According to Bourdet, Thérèse continued to hold a torch for her estranged husband; despite her wealth and social standing, she never sought out another relationship and her apartment was filled with photographs of the wayward doctor. Perhaps Thérèse presented a public picture of subjugation but she possessed a fierce temper and continued to privately battle with her husband. After one particularly nasty confrontation in 1907, Catherine fled to St. Hugh’s Hall at Oxford but stayed only a year only to be wheedled back home by her determined mother. Catherine’s portrait of Thérèse is filtered through adoring eyes. Unfortunately, her feelings for her father were not so cut and dry and he was not always portrayed with loving eyes. Dr. Pozzi’s side of his domestic woes might not exist. After Samuel’s death, Thérèse insisted that Jean incinerate those parts of his journals that might embarrass her; much of his intimate correspondence was destroyed and his true feelings about Thérèse remain a mystery. The portrait of the inner woman is incomplete and the real Thérèse Pozzi is an enigma.
In the preface to Pozzi’s biography, Claude Bourdet, Sam and Thérèse grandson, expressed his belief that Thérèse regretted not having been more tolerant of his grandfather’s numerous indiscretions. She never recovered from his death and continued to refer to herself as Madame Pozzi until her death. Sadly, a marriage that began with such promise ended as a mute testament to the fragility of romantic love.

* Per the official Eiffel Tower Website, the tower is 1,052 feet with the television antenna.
Sources for these page were Samuel Pozzi, Chirurgien et Ami des Femmes, Vanderpooten, C., Apercu sur le vie familiale et intellectuelle de Samuel Pozzi and Malafaye C. Une vie flamboyante au destin tragique – Samuel Pozzi 1846-1918, 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, Clergeot, B. Thank you, Dr. Lawrence Joseph, for your insight into the Pozzi family. Mallarme, Manet, and the Belle Epoch in Paris, Lorenzen, J., Samuel Pozzi – Chirurgien et ami des femmes, Vanderpooten C., The Historic Restaurants of Paris, Williams, E.,. 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 and the site website www.udenap.org
Here is the link to the Red Egg written by Anatole France to his friend Samuel Pozzi -