Comtesse de Bailleul

Who she was

Mme (la comtesse) de Bailleul is a Parisian society woman, a family friend of the Bashkirtseffs from 1879 to 1883 and a constant dinner guest: in February 1880 "the mother Bailleul is a friend altogether, she dines with us three times a week, and la Mouzay calls her a sponger" (087.0488). Her first name and her husbands' identities are not given; they have not been found in outside sources, so who she was beyond the diary is not established.

What the diary gives: she is the daughter of a M. de Neuvy, eighty-four years old in April 1880 (088.0005), and she has been married more than once. In April 1880 she is engaged to a comte de Girardin, "member of the Jockey, perfect for family and alliances, 20,000 francs of income and fifty-two years old", while she "admits forty-five" (087.0832); the match was "delayed or broken" within two weeks (088.0004, which calls it her third marriage). By January 1881 Marie says she "gives herself forty-six" (091.0006). Marie's harshest description of her, in February 1883, is: "a sub-prefect's wife of the Empire, who has launched herself into the salons where people gamble... old, fat, badly made, and thinks herself young and beautiful, with powdered hair" (098.0243).

In November 1876 and in the summer of 1877 a "comtesse de Bailleul", wife of a "comte de Bailleul whom I met four months ago", moves in the circle of the baronne de Mertens (067.1275; 072.0351-0428); on 9 July 1877 she takes Marie and her aunt to the fortune-teller Dona Estephana, and Marie remarks "Mme de Bailleul or Bayole" (072.0445, 072.0461). This is probably the same woman, but the diary does not say so, and the later widow's husbands are not named.

Marie and Mme de Bailleul

1879. She is at the Bashkirtseffs' on 27 April (085.0026), promises on 17 May to take Marie to Gambetta's first reception ("but she is a joker", 085.0083), and talks to Marie of a second son of Janvier de la Motte to marry (085.0327). On 21 June, in the days of mourning for the Prince Imperial, she dines with them and is asked to drop a note into the box of Le Figaro and of Le Pays (085.0415). On 5 July Marie calls her "a charming woman; we read together and are indignant or admire" (085.0499). On 18 December the family goes with her, the Mouzays and Daillens to the press fête for the flood victims of Murcia (086.0670).

1880: Soutzo and the "evenings at la Bailleul". The Bashkirtseffs call on her on 15 February, when she has just moved (087.0488), and in May-June 1880, the weeks of the Soutzo courtship, her salon is one of the places where Marie sees Soutzo with other girls. Marie records an evening on 18 May (088.0226): an old lady, two old gentlemen, M. Verdier "as big as an elephant" who sings and "claims the hand of the châtelaine", and Bailleul in an "unimaginable" gown. The next day she is "humiliated" at being seen "at home or at la Bailleul's" (088.0230); on 19 May Marie complains that "la Bailleul" has made Soutzo and others dine together (088.0234), and on 22 May that "Mme de Bailleul does all this cooking" (088.0266); she once tried to marry Rouzat off (088.0321). Anitchkoff calls her "Mme Bisailleul" (088.0399). On 5 May Marie slips away from her family and Mme de Bailleul at the Salon (088.0104); in August Bailleul writes from the Dieppe races, where she has met Berthe, to ask whether Marie and Berthe have quarrelled (089.0402).

1881. On 26 January 1881 Marie is surprised to see her carry off Alexis, and writes frankly that "the mother Bailleul, who gives herself forty-six years, powders herself like frost and is as robust as a peasant and fond of bawdy talk ... cannot be wise" (091.0006-0007). In February 1881 she talks of Multedo, of whose mother-in-law she is "intimate" (091.0200). On 2 April she brings Mme de la Lande, who gives a costume ball on 18 April, to which she takes Marie's group; "la Bailleul knew nearly everyone" (091.0409, 091.0491). On 4 May 1881 she sits for a portrait: "she asked for it so much that it had to be done, but it is very annoying" (091.0559); on 7 May she comes with her father (091.0574); on 12 May "la Bailleul wants to marry me off ... title and a hundred thousand francs a year, or Balandard..." (091.0618).

1882-83: the Bari affair. On 11 January 1882 she suggests inviting Bastien-Lepage to the Bashkirtseffs' evening, through her friend Mrs MME_CARTWRIGHT (094.0152). She introduced the family to the Comte and Comtesse de Bari (094.0175) and, in January 1883, Marie's soirée becomes entangled in gossip: on 27-28 January Bailleul warns her of articles to be written against the Bashkirtseffs and of a scandal planned for their Saturday (098.0174, 098.0198-0199); on 27 January Marie calls her "that old hussy" (098.0174); on 1 February Marie writes that it was at Bailleul's that they met the Bari and Bargigli ladies, "women we had to drop, enemies" (098.0243); on 15 August 1883 Marie thinks she brought a piece of gossip to divert suspicion from "her dear countess-cocotte of Bari" (101.0123). Bailleul is last seen as a dinner guest on 24 June, 11 and 28 July and 11 December 1883 (100.0221, 100.0303, 100.0451, 102.0472).

Related entries

Sources

The diary only. A web search for a comtesse de Bailleul née de Neuvy remarried to a comte de Girardin in 1880 found nothing.