Marie Biard, "Étincelle" (baronne Double)

Who she was

"Étincelle" ("Spark") is not a person's name and not a pet: it is the pen name of a Parisian society journalist, the author of the gossip column that Marie calls "son Carnet du Figaro" (094.0150-0151). The woman behind it was Henriette Marie Adélaïde Biard, born in Paris on 14 October 1840 and died there on 8 May 1897 (fr.wikipedia, "Marie Biard"). The pseudonym is listed in the contemporary directory Les Pseudonymes du jour as "Étincelle. -- Vicomte de Létorières. -- Mme de Peyronni" (Wikisource, "Dominos féminins"), which matches Marie's own parenthesis in 1881: "Mme de Peyronney (vicomtesse de Létarière)" (091.0409).

She was the daughter of the painter François-Auguste Biard and of the novelist Léonie d'Aunet (the lover of Victor Hugo, who is said to have overseen the children's education). On 2 July 1863 she married Vicomte Jules-Louis-Antoine de Peyronny, and they had a daughter, Camille; she asked for a legal separation in 1882 and the divorce was pronounced on 1 March 1887. She used several names in print: Henriette d'Isle for her first novel (1862), Georges de Létorière for plays and books, and Étincelle for the Figaro columns and later novels (fr.wikipedia). A collection of her Figaro pieces was published as Carnet d'un mondain. Gazette parisienne, anecdotique et curieuse, par Étincelle (Paris, Rouveyre, 1881) (edition-originale.com; Gallica, BnF).

Later she became the baronne Double: the diary's "baron Dauble" or "Double" is Baron Lucien Double, a wealthy bibliophile (1846-1895). Wikipédia says they married in London in 1885, while she was still married to Peyronny, and that Double's family had the marriage annulled in 1896; Marie's diary has her saying in May 1884 that she is already married to him "in Germany" (104.0210). She held a salon in the rue Jean-Goujon, later in the boulevard Haussmann, and received the Prix Montyon in 1893 for the story Josette (fr.wikipedia).

Marie and Étincelle

Étincelle matters to Marie as a publicist: a few lines in her column were, in the Paris of 1882-84, a way for a young foreign painter to be noticed in society.

Winter 1881-82. On 2 April 1881 Saint-Amand, the family's friend with newspaper contacts, tells Marie that Mme de Peyronney will visit and that they will "make a Carnet d'un mondain" of her: "I want you to be the most fashionable young lady in Paris by spring" (091.0409). When the Bashkirtseffs give a big evening on 12 January 1882, Étincelle announces it in her Figaro notebook with a eulogy of "Mlle Marie, pretty painter" (094.0150); Marie's father is delighted at appearing before "all of Europe and Poltava" (094.0151). On 15 January Marie visits her; the long article on the evening compares Marie to Greuze's Cruche cassée, which the family fears will sound like an insult in Poltava (094.0177). On 21 January Étincelle sends them a box at the Opéra-Comique (094.0196). Maman sends flowers to thank her for the article, which Marie, then and later, finds mortifying: "a little word in your next article, dear Madame!" (098.0314).

Spring 1882. On 13 February Baroness von Linsingen asks Marie to get Étincelle to mention her son's costume; Marie composes the telegram to Saint-Amand and offers it with her "minister's style" (094.0252). On 26 March Étincelle quotes a letter of Marie's in the paper but gives her big tirade to the young Princess Troubetzkoy, whose marriage to Pomar has failed (094.0350; 095.0027). Marie calls on Étincelle on 24 May and meets the princess (095.0088).

Winter 1883. On 1 January 1883 Marie writes offering to paint Étincelle's daughter, hoping for society publicity and, through the Figaro, an introduction to Wolff; Étincelle answers that she will send "Mimie" on 3 January (097.0339). Marie also sends her notes for an article and regrets it (098.0041, 14 January). On 24 January 1883 she calls on Étincelle's: a pure Louis XVI salon, Étincelle enthroned in royal-blue velvet, and a conversation in which Marie, a republican by conviction, offers "a modest apology of the Revolution"; Baron Double is there, "the quasi-husband" -- they had tried to divorce to marry, but Peyronny refused (098.0142-0149). Marie thinks of Balzac's d'Arthez and the Princesse de Cadignan.

Summer 1883 and the Salon of 1884. On 6 June 1883 Marie says her family must understand that neither Étincelle, nor Le Sport, nor Saint-Amand can keep singing her praises (100.0074). Ten days later Étincelle prints "ten very gracious lines": a remarkable painter, a beautiful girl, a pupil of Bastien-Lepage (100.0169); Marie writes to Tony Robert-Fleury so that he will not think she asked for it (100.0174). On 7 May 1884, the week of the Salon, Étincelle's front-page "premier Paris" is on "the society women painters": Marie comes immediately after Claire and gets as many lines, a Greuze with a "willful forehead", and a good realist in the manner of Bastien-Lepage (104.0131); Marie had supplied most of the information (104.0132). On 10 May she is stared at at the Théâtre-Italien "after Étincelle's panegyric" (104.0156). On 17 May Étincelle visits the studio and confides her marriage to Double (104.0209-0210); on 3 June Marie paints a flower panel for her (104.0503).

Related entries

Sources

«Mme de Peyronney (vicomtesse de Létarière)»

Marie also names her by the other pen name and by her married name: «Mme de Peyronney (vicomtesse de Létarière) devait venir avec nous» (091.0409, 2 April 1881); «le "Carnet d'un mondain" signé Etincelle, du "Figaro", que fait Mme de Peronney (le vicomte de Létorières)» (091.0321, 19 March 1881). Mon Journal t.14 index: «Peyronney (Mme), vicomtesse de Létarière». (Merged entries LETORIERE, LETORIERES.)