Prince Soutzo

Who he was

A young Romanian-Greek prince of the Soutzo (Sutu, Sutzu) family, about twenty-two or twenty-three when Marie first notes him in January 1880 ("assez beau garçon brun, pâle, carré, portant binocle", 087.0390), so born around 1857–58. She explains him to her diary in one line: "un Karageorges valaque ou roumain. Bonne famille, beau nom", with a fortune of "400.000 francs, dit-on" and a sister married to "M. de Werbranck, directeur de la Banque parisienne" (087.0390). She calls him "Casimir" from May 1880 (088.0285 onward) and notes on 18 May that "le second nom de Soutzo est Alexandre" (088.0217). In the diary he is also "le petit", "le petit chien" (087.0449), "jeune Athénien" (089.0512): the Soutzos had a branch in Athens as well as in Bucharest and Paris.

The Soutzo family were Phanariot Greeks who gave several rulers to Moldavia and Wallachia (among them Alexandru Sutu, 1758–1821, and Mihai Sutu, prince of Moldavia 1819–21; Wikipedia, "Maison Soutzo" and "Soutzos family"). Marie repeats the family claim that his grandfather "reigned in Romania" (as paraphrased in the Kernberger chronology, below), and teases him about his "origine soi-disant turque" and "ancêtres peu illustres" (088.0215).

Which Soutzo? The diary gives no full first name. Kernberger (2013), in her chronology for 1880, calls him "Prince Gregory Soutzo"; Marie herself says "Casimir" and "Alexandre" as above, and an earlier stub of this entry said "Alexandre Nicolas Soutzo (1857–1920)" without a source. None of these could be confirmed from the genealogies available to the researcher (the Soutzo/Sutu genealogies list several men called Alexandru, Grigore and Nicolae Sutzu born in the 1850s). The identification of this particular man, and the banker brother-in-law (a Baron Edmond de Werbrouck, Belgian banker, 1835–1902, is recorded as marrying a Princess Soutzo in Paris according to a family-history note and the Ghika genealogy, but this is not verified), remain open.

Marie and Soutzo

Winter 1880: the comedy and the first meetings. Soutzo is first named on 3 January 1880, when he proposes that the household stage a play on 12 January, the eve of the Russian New Year (087.0131). He reads the piece to the family, helps to cast and rehearse it (087.0133, 087.0181) and the "Pluie et le beau temps" by Gazlan is played on the 12th before their guests (087.0158, 087.0188). Marie, who has "never been less afraid", finds the prince "assez imbécile" (087.0161). He comes to dinner, plays piquet with her aunt, brings sweets and flowers, and on 21 February she learns that he has bought a newspaper and cut his hair like Arnaud de l'Ariège because she told him to (087.0519). Soutzo tells Marie that he had heard about her every day from Alexis Karageorgevitch and had imagined a tall, cold "Semiramis" (088.0110, 6 May); he knew her by repute before he met her.

31 January 1880: the proposal. At the Gavinis' ball, during a stroll, Soutzo asks what her ideas about marriage are, "très drôlement", and in effect proposes (087.0334, 087.0337). Madame Gavini tells Marie she would do well to take him (087.0400). Marie's reply is to treat him as a puppy: "Le petit chien c'est Soutzo à présent" (087.0449); on 14 February she tells him that he is "rien ... ni avenir, ni carrière, ni métier" (087.0481).

Spring 1880: the courtship. Through March and April he sends hampers of fruit, flowers, strawberries on the stem, asparagus, cucumbers in a wooden case "comme un jardin" (087.0617, 087.0772, 087.0851), lends a hand at the charity sale of April 6–9 and buys a small painting of Marie's for 300 francs (087.0799), brings the painter Comte Lepic to her studio (087.0686) and sits for a portrait. Marie draws him on 11 April (087.0829) and punishes him on 29 April, when he comes an hour late, by painting Coco the dog's head on the canvas above his fur collar; he tears the canvas off the easel and burns it in the grate with his gloves (088.0031). On 7 May he makes a declaration of love and kisses her hands, which unsettles her (088.0118); in the following days she is by turns scornful, jealous (of Marie d'Audiffret, 088.0251) and affectionate. They read Latin verses and he teaches her "Wallachian and Moldavian history" (088.0217). Marie gives him a written "manuel du parfait amoureux" of conditions (088.0651, 5 June).

In the same weeks she weighs him in her accounts: he has perhaps 20,000–24,000 francs a year, she 60,000, and she needs 100,000 to keep her style of life (088.0178, 088.0554, 088.0728, 089.0331). Adeline Gavini advises her to marry him for the title (088.0421, 30 May); Collignon, a woman friend of the family, calls him "bête et méchant" and says she would weep if Marie married him (088.0711, 12 June). "Soutzo serait une fin ordinaire" (088.0428), she writes, and compares him with Gabriel Géry: "comme un bulldog à côté d'un lévrier" (088.0426).

June–September 1880: departures. On 18 June 1880 he leaves Paris for the first time; Marie gives him a small pig as a lucky charm and keeps the bigger one (088.0827). He writes, comes back (12 July) and appears again; on 14 September he comes to say goodbye (089.0512–089.0558): he has 60,000 francs of debts, advanced by his brother-in-law, and is going to join the Greek army on 600 francs a month; he weeps, she laughs, and gives him her "fameux Saint Mathieu" with the inscription "à lire tous les soirs" (it is not said whether this is a book or a picture). He sails from Marseille on a Saturday (089.0566). Already on 11 August she had written that he would not give her "la situation nécessaire" (089.0322), and by 3 October she is horrified that she "admitted for one moment the possibility of marrying Soutzo" (090.0019).

Slander and reconciliation, 1880–82. On 13 December 1880 the Princess Karageorgevitch tells Marie that Soutzo has been saying horrible things about her; Marie answers that the family had been "imprudent" with him and that her aunt and mother had pushed her (090.0346–090.0373; the Kernberger chronology has the same). The Karageorgevitch family call him a "cochon" until, in April–May 1882, they are seen with him again and Bojidar says he is "plus fou que méchant" (094.0438, 095.0055, 095.0090); Marie meets him again on 18 May 1882 in front of a flat near the princess, and he is "très ému et bégayait" (095.0059). He dines with them in the summer (096.0010, 096.0229) and helps her place plaster casts in the studio.

December 1882–January 1883: the "compromission". On 16 December 1882 a pupil of the Académie Julian, Mlle Feurgard, passes on, through Breslau and a Mrs Cartwright, a report that Soutzo had declared Marie's marriage to him certain and, asked by Cartwright, had said "des choses si infâmes" of her that they cannot be repeated; Marie decides that he "m'a très fort compromise" and writes that it makes her "sourire avec résignation et pitié" (097.0245, 097.0250). On 13–14 January 1883, around her studio reception of 12 January, she sends him away and asks why he speaks ill of her (098.0036). Her aunt says on the 15th that before Soutzo there was never so much gossip about the family (098.0055). After this he disappears from the diary.

Related entries

Sources