The Rosière letter to Audiffret (1875)

Overview

The Rosière is a mock-formal letter that Marie composed on 9 November 1875 to tease the d'Audiffret family: it announces that Léon d'Audiffret's "fichu fils" is to be crowned Rosière -- the village girl publicly crowned with roses for her virtue -- on Sunday 14 November in the theatre of the Folies Niçoises. The joke is the crowd of attestors, a roll-call of Nice waiters, concierges, café owners and gendarmes who "ont tous témoigné de sa bonne conduite", which is to say that the young man is a known rake of every restaurant and club in town.

Text and form

It is addressed "Père fortuné !" and ends the same way (049.0186, 049.0189). The long middle paragraph (049.0187) reads like a programme: "Ton fichu fils, pour sa vertu, va être couronné Rosière par M. le souffleur du Théâtre Français en présence de M. Cresci, des chœurs ... du Théâtre Italien, qui chanteront plusieurs morceaux du 'Stabat Mater', des M.M. Piano, sieurs, Avette, Pipon et Ricci de la Maison Dorée, Gagery et Antoine du London House ... du premier garçon de café de La Victoire ... d'Andriot, Saëtone ... de Balestro concierge de Mme Gioia ... de M. le préfet des Alpes-Maritimes ... de deux gendarmes et de M. Limousin, qui ont tous témoigné de sa bonne conduite." Marie adds the date and place (049.0188) and the instruction "Ce sera envoyé à M. Léon d'Audiffret" (049.0190). The names are mostly Nice venues and staff, several of them also in the Complainte de Girofla.

Marie and this work

The letter was written in the evening of 9 November, between a remark that the Nice papers are beginning to cite her at gala evenings ("Fichu honneur !", 049.0184) and the jibe "A propos de fichu, écoutez" (049.0185). It then lay unsent. On 5 February 1876 (053.0408), on a miserable evening, she copies out "l'ancien couronnement de la Rosière qui n'a pas été envoyée jusqu'à présent", changing only the dates: she fixes the ceremony for 22 May, "jour du Saint-Émile" (Émile's name-day), signs it "Les citoyens de la ville de Nice", and draws the arms of Nice in ink under the signature -- an eagle on three hills, with the motto Nicae Civitas. The diary does not say whether the second copy was posted. It belongs with the Prédiction de Cassandre, which she was reading to Collignon at the same time (050.0359).

References in Diary

Related Entries

Sources