Mme Mackay (Bastien-Lepage's friend)
Také známý jako: Mackay, Mme Mackay, la Mackay, la mère Mackay, Mme Makay, la Makay, Makay, Mme Mac-Kay, lady Mac-Kay, la Mackay Bastien
Who she was
"Mme Mackay" in the diary is, for almost every mention, the woman Marie believes to be the lover of the painter Jules Bastien-Lepage in 1882-1884. Her real identity is not established. Marie takes care, the first time she names her, to say that she is not the famous one: "Mme Mackay (pas la richissime) la Mackay Bastien" (098.0101, 21 January 1883). What the diary and Marie's informants say about her:
- She is a woman of about forty with a son of eighteen or nineteen (101.0171; 104.0323), "prussienne, mariée à un Américain" and, according to Mme Cartwright's gossip, "originaire de Cologne" with a husband who had been a telegraph clerk in New York (101.0171; 106.0040).
- She had loved Bastien "pour les prix qu'atteignent ses tableaux", while he fell in love with her as his first woman of the world and "l'avait prise pour la richissime Mackay" (101.0171). Marie later describes her as blue-eyed, square-faced, with dyed yellow hair, "un air entêté, très calme, très sûr" (104.0323).
- Marie first inferred her first name: "Cette femme doit s'appeler Stéphanie" (098.0105). Marie writes "Stéphanie" again in the following weeks (098.0106, 098.0110, 098.0380-0381, where the "Ophélie" he is painting is drawn from her) and Kernberger (2013) lists her in the book's glossary as "Mackay, Stephanie: woman whom Marie thinks Jules Bastien-Lepage loves". The name comes only from Marie's own guess.
- In 1884 Marie hears that "un nommé Spencer" pays for her house and four horses (104.0323) and that a rich Englishman bought her a townhouse (103.0473); she poses, Marie's informants say, as a respectable lady of the world (101.0122; 105.0347).
Marie and Mme Mackay
Rival and persecutor (January-May 1883). After Marie's ball on 13 January 1883, mysterious letters cancel invitations. Mme de Bailleul tells Marie that Mme Mackay is the author (098.0101): she is "furieuse et jalouse" because Bastien speaks flatteringly of Marie, and "très méchante et capable de tout" (098.0104). Marie, who barely knows her, reasons: "pour que cette Mme Mackay ait de telles inquiétudes il faut qu'elle me croie capable de lui prendre son peintre comme amant ou comme mari" (098.0176). In August she is told that the cancellation letters were in fact the work of the comtesse de Bari, and that Mme de Bailleul had spread the Mackay story to divert suspicion from her "chère comtesse-cocotte" (101.0123: "j'avais bien tort de m'imaginer que Stephanie s'occupait de moi"). Marie's friends make fun of "la mère Mackay" (099.0028); at the Salon varnishing on 30 April and 1 May 1883 she keeps dodging her (099.0299), and Mme Massalsky, wife of the Russian consul, "l'amie de la Mackay" (100.0004) is blamed for spreading the story that no one from the embassy visits the Bashkirtseffs (099.0333).
Jealousy turned inward (August 1883 -- spring 1884). Marie's feeling for Jules Bastien-Lepage grows through 1883 and Mme Mackay becomes the obstacle: "Si Bastien finit par épouser la Mackay ce sera un gros chagrin d'imagination" (101.0576); "cet artiste admirable est dévoré par une Mackay" (101.0519). On 14 September 1883 she sees Jules's brother Émile at the Salon "promenant Mme Mackay": "Elle finira par l'épouser" (101.0344). Bojidar and Dina treat the idea of a trip to America as an announcement of the marriage (102.0172). By November Marie says she is not jealous (102.0205) and still makes the rhyme "Alors lâché par la Mackay" (103.0479). In January-March 1884 the news arrives that Bastien-Lepage has been dropped, "lâché par la Makay" (103.0196; 103.0473), and Marie notes that the Bastien household never mentions the name (103.0479).
Seen once (23 May 1884). At the opening of the Meissonier exhibition Marie finds herself next to "Mme Mackay-Jules ... en noir": "mon cœur a battu très fort; je croyais Bastien oublié" (104.0304). The next day she writes down her own portrait of her (104.0323).
Bastien-Lepage's last months (June-October 1884). Back in Paris and very ill, Jules is visited by Marie's family. Marie reports from the servants that Mme Mackay sent an aspic of vegetables (104.0715) and flowers on his arrival (104.0746); she asks "Est-ce que Mme Mackay viendra le voir ?" (104.0685; 105.0065) and sees the rejoinder of Émile -- "Vous ne pouviez pas voir Mme Mackay chez mon frère !" -- when Dina asks about a visiting woman (105.0666). Marie cannot tell whether the story of a break is true: "Je suis jalouse de tous ses amis. Mais qu'il n'ait pas rompu avec Mackay ça c'est intolérable" (105.0354). In September she remarks that Mme Mac-Kay is "grande dame. Un hôtel superbe", Mme Cartwright is vexed (106.0040-0042), and Bojidar punning on the name ("lady Man-quée", 106.0138). Her last pages use the name as shorthand: "Et moi... Mme Mac-Kay et la mort" (106.0144).
The other Mackay: the "richissime"
Marie also writes "Mme Mackay (la richissime)" for a different woman, the wife of the Comstock silver millionaire John W. Mackay, in her account of the Meissonier portrait quarrel (103.0356-0365, 22 February 1884) and probably in 103.0756. That woman now has her own entry, #Louise_Mackay, and those paragraphs should be tagged there. The two must not be conflated: Marie herself separates them at first mention, "Mme Mackay (pas la richissime) la Mackay Bastien" (098.0101), and Mme Cartwright says Bastien at first "l'avait prise pour la richissime Mackay" (101.0171), a mistake about this woman, not an identity.
Related entries
- #Bastien_Lepage -- Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884)
- #Emile_Bastien_Lepage -- his brother, the architect, who escorted her
- #Mme_cartwright -- Mme Cartwright, source of most of the gossip about her
- #Louise_Mackay -- the silver heiress, a different woman
Sources
- Diary paragraphs cited above; Kernberger (2013), I Am the Most Interesting Book of All, glossary entry "Mackay, Stephanie" and diary text of 21 January and 18 August 1883.
- John W. Mackay and the Meissonier portrait: see #Louise_Mackay.
Open points
- Who Bastien-Lepage's Mme Mackay ("Stéphanie") really was is unresolved; no independent source found for the liaison (Kernberger 2013 has only Marie's text). Marie's data: about 40 in 1884, son 18-19, German-born, husband American, a house and four horses paid by "un nommé Spencer" (rumour), "KM" initials on a house/parrot (105.0340-0354; Marie thinks of Mackay, the architect says Klotz).
- To investigate: the Bastien-Lepage family archive, 1884 Gallica press on his last illness, the "Ophélie" study for which Marie says Jules used "Stéphanie" as model (098.0381).
- The "Mme Mackay" of 099.0333 and 100.0004 (via Mme Massalsky, wife of the Russian consul) is Bastien's friend.
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