Gabriel Géry (and his father)

Who they were

Two men called Géry appear in the diary, and Marie tells them apart only by "le père" and "le fils". She states the relation herself on 20 July 1879: "Monsieur Géry (père, bien entendu, le fils est attaché à l'Ambassade à Bruxelles)" (085.0572). This page describes both, but since 2026-10-22 the father has his own entry, CHARLES_GERY, and paragraphs about him alone are tagged there.

Gabriel Géry (the son) was a young French diplomat. In the diary he is "attaché à Bruxelles" in October 1879 (086.0460), sits the competitive examination for embassy secretary in early December 1879 (086.0603), is named secretary at Rome in September 1880 (089.0604), is moved to the ministry and to Berlin a month later (090.0174), and by January 1883 serves at Constantinople, where the Sultan decorates him (097.0346; 102.0092). A decree of the Journal officiel of April 1882 is reported to move "M. Géry (Gabriel), secrétaire de 3e classe à Berlin" to the same grade at Constantinople (Gallica, Journal officiel); that fits the diary, but the decree text was not read directly for this page. Marie describes him as tall, dark, thin, and "honnête" (086.0460, 086.0466). In March 1881 and again in July 1882 she records that he would have an income of about twelve thousand francs on marrying (095.0364).

The father is called "le père Géry", "M. Géry" or simply "Géry". The diary gives him these traits: an intimate friend of Prince Napoléon ("Plon-Plon", Prince Jérôme) whom Marie meets at the Gavinis' in July 1879 (085.0568); one of the "deux anciens préfets de la pourriture impériale" with Saint-Amand (089.0612); the owner of a villa at Nice (094.0197); and a man with a daughter, "Mme Dupont", whose miscarriage in spring 1880 keeps him away from Marie's dinner (087.0884; 088.0113). In July 1881 Marie hears that he has quarrelled with the Prince, "c'est Lachaud qui a fait le coup", and that Gavini fares no better (092.0351). He goes to Tunis in February 1880 (087.0437). He is one of the Gavini circle that dines and goes to the theatre with the Bashkirtseffs until the last weeks of the diary.

Neither man could be identified in an independent source for this page. The father's first name, office and dates are not given in the diary; the sources searched (Journal officiel, searches on Gallica and the French diplomatic yearbook) did not yield him. The editors' index of the printed edition does name him: "Géry (Charles), préfet" and "Géry (Gabriel, fis du précédent), diplomate" (Mon Journal t.15 index; t.16 has the same two headings, "fils du précédent"). So the father is Charles Géry, a former prefect, which fits Marie's "deux anciens préfets"; the editors' source for the first name is not stated. Nothing in the diary supports the older note that Gabriel came "from the Ariège"; that was a confusion with Joseph Arnaud (de l'Ariège) (see below).

Marie and Gabriel Géry

First meeting, 1879. Marie meets the father at the Exposition and cultivates him in July 1879 because of his closeness to Prince Jérôme (085.0568, 085.0572, 085.0638). The son appears at the Opera on 31 October 1879: "Le fils Géry est un charmant garçon, attaché à Bruxelles, pas bête du tout et sympathique" (086.0460). On 1 November he stays long at the Bashkirtseffs' and she writes that he pleases her and that it is a pity she is a woman, or she would have made a friend of "cet enfant" (086.0466). On 29 November she notes that he enters the examination hall the following Wednesday (086.0603).

The archangel, December 1879. On 25 December Gabriel brings Marie a message from Joseph Arnaud de l'Ariège, Gambetta's secretary: Arnaud believes she wrote him anonymous letters and was the lady in the blue-fox coat at the Murcie masked ball. Marie writes the scene in the third person, as the Virgin Mary receiving the Archangel Gabriel from Joseph (087.0019 ff., entry of 26 December 1879). She is mortified at being taken for an adventuress, and for weeks the affair colours her view of him: she thinks of writing to him (087.0096), flirts with him in a corner on 12 January 1880 while "pataugeant dans l'affaire Arnaud" (087.0195, 087.0196), and on 8 February calls him "ce perverti de Gabriel" because she cannot ask his father for the discretion he owes her (087.0437). By March she hears that everyone finds his conduct in the matter stupid (087.0575).

Suitor on paper, 1880. In the spring of 1880 she weighs him with other possible husbands (Soutzo, Multedo, Morgan) in animal comparisons (088.0421, 088.0427), and on 1 June his father reports that Gabriel will not finish his examinations before the end of the week (088.0449). In September 1880 the "pères" Gavini, Saint-Amand and Géry make her their adopted daughter (089.0621 to 089.0632); the news that Gabriel is named secretary at Rome arrives on 26 September (089.0604), and a month later he has been changed to Berlin (090.0174).

Berlin and the marriage question, 1881. On 3 March 1881 Marie imagines a safe French marriage: "Autant vaut Géry alors qui a une patrie ... qui a une carrière et de l'avenir ... Avec Géry on pourrait aller loin, je serais française et républicaine" (091.0239). At the Salon on 1 May she meets "les deux Géry" and is deliberately cold (091.0546). During her stay in Berlin she dines with him again, and on 26 May 1881 he takes her to his flat in a house lodging only diplomats, where her portrait stands in a heavy silver frame beside his father's (092.0062). A month later she writes that "Géry serait un fiasco complet dans mon pays" (092.0330): in Russia, she means, he would not do.

Cooling, 1882. In January 1882 the elder Gavini seems to want to push the match, "Le père Géry m'adore, quant au fils nous nous quittons fort peu" (094.0160). On 23 January Marie and Dina send him a teasing telegram ("diplomate subalterne"); he answers with a box of sweets and a card in English, heals all wounds but those of the heart (094.0202). She adds that when she inspires a good feeling in someone she feels distance and sometimes aversion for him (094.0202). She writes on 26 March that she can imagine marrying him only if he had inherited five million francs of income (094.0349), and on 22 May, humiliated that "un monsieur Géry peut-être" could think of marrying her (095.0083). On 12 June she calls him "ce suave secrétaire d'ambassade" and decides she can do nothing with him, while pitying "ce pauvre père" and "ce pauvre fils si malheureux" (095.0179, 095.0180). He is in Paris again in July (095.0294). On 26 July she records that Mme Gavini never dared offer her "Gabriel Géry tout court" after she had refused more titled men, and that she had said Gabriel was too young when Adeline once suggested him for Dina (095.0363 to 095.0365).

Constantinople, 1883. The father tells Marie on 2 January 1883 that the Sultan has decorated his son (097.0346). Gabriel returns from Constantinople for two months on 3 November 1883, "plus long et plus maigre" (102.0092). Marie thinks that he is in love with her, that his father would like a rich marriage for him, and that being "Mme Géry secrétaire d'ambassade" would be a letdown (102.0109, 102.0114). On 20 November, in a dark theatre box, he brushes her shoulder with his mouth and she answers with a thump (102.0285); on 6 December he teaches her écarté (102.0440 to 102.0441); on 15 December he sends her a Turkish robe, "à l'ancienne" (102.0487). He leaves again for Constantinople before 23 December (102.0545). He does not appear in the diary in 1884.

The father in Marie's life

The father is one of the Gavini household's "vieillards" and a regular at Marie's dinners and boxes at the Opéra and Français. In July 1879 she treats him as a political connection, flattering him while the Gavinis argue about Prince Jérôme (085.0568, 085.0638). He sends flowers (096.0079, 097.0321), lends his villa at Nice (094.0197), and visits her in Paris. On 13 June 1883, two days after the telegram that her father was dead, he arrives in tears (100.0140). In July 1884 he is among the three men she takes to see wrestlers at Neuilly, "le vieux Géry" (105.0058), and Gabriel's name is rarely mentioned in his presence. On 18 October 1884 "Gavini et Géry ont dîné ici" while she is ill (106.0187), one of her last entries.

Related entries

Sources