Mademoiselle Page 18

  —JEAN COCTEAU

  Despite her sixty-year career devoted to dressing women, Coco claimed to hold her sex in very low regard. “A woman,” she declared, “equals envy plus vanity plus chatter plus a confused mind.” She made an exception, though, for the woman known as “the Queen of Paris,” Misia Sert, née Marie Sophie Olga Zénaïde Godebska—twelve years older than Chanel, mercurial, cruel, self-absorbed, and the one close female friend she kept throughout her life, and even then, with some reservation: “I had only her as a friend, and in fact I appreciated more than liked her.”

  The unusual life of Misia Sert emerged from a concatenation of childhood sorrow, aristocratic privilege, sexual obsession and betrayal, and a nearly unbelievable parade of the greatest names in European modernism—with this last element being the most crucial. Although she possessed considerable musical talent herself, Misia earned her renown by virtue of the other people she ushered into history—the artists she discovered, nurtured, goaded, and promoted, among them Vincent van Gogh, Stéphane Mallarmé, Sergei Diaghilev, and Igor Stravinsky. Misia made a career of cultivating the talented luminaries of her era and offering them a sense of belonging to a select group. And though she came from great wealth, Misia was no snob. She could discern instantly the ineffable “x” factor of genius in people of any social class or background, as she would in Chanel’s case.

  Misia’s lifelong friendship with Coco Chanel seems inevitable. When they met in 1916, Chanel was already glamorous and rich, yet longed for access to the highest levels of artistic society. Misia represented the dazzling apex of this society; she embodied social access. Marcel Proust referred to her as a “historical monument.”

  But like Chanel, Misia was needy. Her mother had died hours after giving birth to her, leaving Misia to endure a painful, lonely childhood. As an adult, Misia had a tendency to develop mad crushes on women whose love and approval she craved. When she met Coco at a dinner party, she immediately felt one of these crushes coming on.

  The daughter of Cyprien Godebski, a renowned Polish sculptor with ties to the tsars of Russia, and Sophie Servais, a wealthy Russian Jew from a family of distinguished musicians, Misia was born into international artistic royalty. Her parents counted among their friends such luminaries as Franz Liszt, Gabriel Fauré, and Hector Berlioz.

  Wealth and glamour could not keep the Godebskis’ marriage from ending in tragedy. Long tortured by her husband’s absences and infidelities, Sophie—nine months pregnant with Misia—made an epic trek across Russia to find him, traveling two thousand miles in the dead of winter. She finally located him, living with a pregnant mistress in St. Petersburg. Even worse, that mistress was Sophie’s own young and beautiful aunt, Olga. The shock sent Sophie into labor, and she died the next day—of complications from the birth or perhaps just a broken heart. “The tragedy of that day left a deep mark on my destiny,” Misia later wrote. That tragedy was compounded in the remaining years of Misia’s childhood as she found herself shunted from one relative to another, eventually winding up at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Paris, a cold, impersonal, and severely strict Catholic boarding school that she loathed.

  We know that Chanel found Misia’s story of her mother’s death compelling, because later in Coco’s life, she simply stole it and used it as her own. With all her usual fervor of imitation, she told Marcel Haedrich that her own mother had died after traveling a long distance to find her own wayward husband. It wasn’t quite true, but it highlighted Coco’s clear recognition of the similarity between her childhood and Misia’s.

  Misia Godebska eventually liberated herself from the convent, growing into a celebrated cat-eyed, voluptuous beauty who would inspire Renoir, Bonnard, Vuillard, and Toulouse-Lautrec (among others) to paint her portrait. After a brief career as a piano teacher in Paris, she began her real career as a récolteuse de génies—harvester of geniuses—as Paul Morand put it, unerringly collecting every promising writer, composer, choreographer, dancer, and painter in her path.

  Misia often met her geniuses through her several husbands. Husband number one, Thadée Natanson, was a wealthy Jewish journalist and founder of the eminent journal La Revue Blanche. Through him, Misia befriended the most exciting figures of modern art and literature, including Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Marcel Proust, Mark Twain, and Oscar Wilde. Claude Debussy played the piano in her drawing room; Henrik Ibsen escorted her to rehearsals of Peer Gynt.

  In 1905, Misia divorced Natanson to marry Alfred Edwards, who was portly, asthmatic, and much older—but immensely wealthy and fond of bringing her precious jewels. They moved into a lavish apartment on the rue de Rivoli, facing the Tuileries, and went yachting on weekends. (Such luxuries may have helped Misia overlook Edwards’s unconventional sexual proclivities; he was famously coprophilic.) With Edwards, Misia’s salon grew only more dazzling. Renoir visited her apartment three times a week to work on his luminous portrait of her, which today hangs in London’s National Gallery. When an envious Bonnard insisted on equal access, Misia sat for him as well.

  After the Edwardses’ marriage dissolved in 1909 (Alfred also had a fondness for young actresses), Misia, thirty-six, finally found the love of her life: the opinionated, passionate, and gallant Spanish muralist José-Maria Sert. They had a protracted affair for over a decade before Misia and “JoJo” Sert finally married in 1920.

  When Sert introduced Misia to Russian impresario “Serge” Diaghilev (for whose Ballets Russes Sert had designed a number of sets), he inaugurated one of the most important artistic and business partnerships of the twentieth century. Like Misia, Diaghilev had lost his mother at birth; like Misia, he was born in St. Petersburg in March of 1872. They were kindred spirits and fell into an intense friendship at once. Diaghilev had only recently arrived in France in 1909, meeting Misia just at the moment when he began assembling his revolutionary troupe, Les Ballets Russes. With Serge, Misia assumed her greatest role—patroness of the Ballets Russes, the company that would permanently alter the course of theater, music, and, especially, dance.

  Misia introduced Diaghilev to her young musician friends and regularly funneled money to him; her home provided the venue for Stravinsky to play his new score for The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps) for Diaghilev. Misia was among the very first to understand the complexity of Stravinsky’s music. When Igor and Serge quarreled bitterly, it was Misia who brokered the peace between them. She counseled Diaghilev in his dealings with the erratic and brilliant Vaslav Nijinsky, with whom Diaghilev fell madly in love. She intervened on behalf of the young Jean Cocteau when he wanted to collaborate with Stravinsky; and after hearing an eighteen-year-old Francis Poulenc play his music at her home, she recommended him to Diaghilev, for whom Poulenc later composed the score of his ballet, Les Biches (on which Chanel would also collaborate).

  Misia felt perfectly at home amid the world of the Ballets Russes; the group—which came to include Bakst, Fokine, Goncharova, Massine, Picasso, Satie, and Balanchine—provided the familial coterie she craved. She had assumed her role as godmother to this restive group when she met Coco Chanel in 1916, at a dinner given by actress Cécile Sorel in her Quai Voltaire apartment. Chanel was thirty-two and a rising young fashion star. The evening proved momentous for both women, but Misia was downright love-struck. The chapter in her memoirs dedicated to Coco begins with a description of that dinner. Coco insisted that this chapter be omitted from Misia’s book, and it was published only years later by Misia’s biographers:

  My attention was immediately drawn to a very dark-haired young woman. Despite the fact that she did not say a word, she radiated a charm I found irresistible.… Therefore I arranged to sit next to her after dinner.… I learned that she was called Mademoiselle Chanel and had a milliner’s shop in the rue Cambon.

  She seemed to me gifted with infinite grace and when, as we were saying goodnight, I admired her ravishing, fur-trimmed, red velvet coat, she took it off at once and put it on my shoulders, saying with charming spontaneity that she w
ould be only too happy to give it to me. Obviously I could not accept it. But her gesture had been so pretty that I found her completely bewitching and thought of nothing but her.… Sert was really scandalized by the astonishing infatuation I felt for my new friend.

  As so often happens, the fine details of a first encounter augured the tenor of the entire relationship. After one dinner, during which they barely spoke, a virtually hypnotized Misia found herself wearing—however briefly—Chanel’s velvet coat. While she may have declined Chanel’s proffered gift, Misia was nevertheless soon enveloped in all things Chanel. (“Misia throughout her life was in search of tyrants,” according to her biographer Arthur Gold.) The next morning she went straight to rue Cambon to see more of Coco’s inventory and by day’s end, Misia and JoJo Sert were dining chez Coco and Boy in the avenue Gabriel. Chanel’s account of their earliest days together confirms Misia’s intense interest: “She grabbed hold of me after dinner and has never left me since.”

  Misia had found another artist for her collection, and Coco had found precisely the kind of cultural mentor she sought. “Without Misia, I would have died an idiot,” Chanel said. Misia even helped Coco refine her still-provincial accent, coaxing it into something more Parisian. She may have given her some rudimentary piano lessons, too. But the friendship with Misia was Coco’s most reciprocal to date. While Misia would wield tremendous influence over Chanel’s artistic and intellectual life, Coco held at least equal sway over Misia, molding her stylistically and socially, as was her custom with women friends. At forty-four, having weathered numerous marital storms, Sert was nearing the end of her career as a professional seductress. In Coco, she found a chic and beautiful woman whose distinctive, youthful style was specifically designed for sharing, offering a promise of renewed allure.

  For Chanel, Misia represented not only incomparable cultural and social opportunity, but also another couple to befriend. Coco found JoJo Sert as compelling as Misia did. “One felt intelligent just listening to him,” she told Marcel Haedrich. To Paul Morand she said, “Monsieur Sert was a personality, a character, much bigger than his painting. ‘Admit that everything else seems dull in comparison to Sert,’ Misia would say to me: it was true.”

  Coco and Misia (often with Sert as well) became inseparable partners in crime, dining out in Paris, attending the opera. When they appeared in public, Misia would usually be dressed in Chanel couture and, sometimes, to make a great theatrical show of their friendship, they would dress as twins, in identical Chanel outfits.

  The friendship solidified three years after their first meeting, in 1919, upon the death of Boy Capel. “Coco felt this loss so deeply that she sank into a neurasthenic state,” wrote Misia. “I tried desperately to think of ways to distract her.” Misia devoted herself to Coco, inviting her to every society party she could find, although more than a few aristocrats were still loath to include a seamstress among their guests. When the Count and Countess de Beaumont refused to include Chanel at a masked ball at their home, Misia and JoJo refused to attend and, with Pablo Picasso in tow for good measure, escorted Chanel to the entrance of the Beaumont residence, where they mingled with the waiting chauffeurs and entertained themselves watching the costumed guests come and go. “Rarely have I been so amused,” wrote Misia of that night. Etienne and Edith de Beaumont rethought their guest list in the 1930s, when Chanel—who by then had been employing Count Beaumont for some years as her jewelry designer—became a regular at their soirées, and the countess’s favorite couturière for her own wardrobe.

  Chanel (left) with Misia Sert (center) and Hélène Berthelot on the Lido, c. 1930s (illustration credit 6.3)

  In August 1920, Misia and JoJo finally married. For their honeymoon they decided on a cruise to Venice aboard a private yacht; they also decided to take the still-despondent Chanel with them. Although she was never JoJo’s lover, Coco had infiltrated the couple’s innermost sanctum. The Serts had become her new family. That summer, Venice was filled with French and Russian aristocrats, and Misia introduced Chanel to as many as possible, making the trip one of Chanel’s most definitive forays yet into the beau monde. From within her new secure and privileged position, Coco began planning her encroachment onto another part of Misia’s territory—she, too, could become a patron and muse for the arts.

  Diaghilev was also in Venice, complaining bitterly to Misia about his lack of funds to remount a new production of The Rite of Spring, for which Stravinsky’s score required a full (and very expensive) orchestra. While privy to these discussions, Coco did not participate. Instead, once back in Paris, she discreetly betook herself to the Hôtel Continental on the rue de Castiglione (just two blocks from Cambon) to see Diaghilev, who barely recognized her name when she was announced. He soon snapped to attention, though, for Chanel had come on business. For years thereafter, she was fond of recalling this brief meeting that changed both their lives.

  Asked by Chanel about his finances, Diaghilev explained that he had been soliciting donations from a variety of patrons, among them Nancy Cunard and Princess Edmond de Polignac, née Winnaretta Singer, American heiress to the sewing machine fortune. Chanel recalled their conversation thus:

  DIAGHILEV: “I’ve been to see the Princess she gave me 75,000 francs.”

  CHANEL: “She is a grand American lady, I am only a seamstress. Here’s 200,000.”

  With this, in the kind of social table turning she loved, the seamstress outstripped the grand American lady, writing out a check on the spot for a gift surpassing Diaghilev’s wildest expectations. She had only one condition: that he tell no one of her generosity, especially Misia.

  A secret among these three was very unlikely. Misia and Coco spoke every day by telephone and rarely made a move without consulting each other. Misia and Serge Diaghilev were also the closest of confidants. Nevertheless, Misia and Chanel never discussed that massive donation to the Ballets Russes. Its effect, however, was transformative for Coco.

  With that stroke of her pen, the apprentice eclipsed the master. It was, as Arthur Gold wrote, “a gesture that combined generosity, bribery, and social maneuvering.” Chanel wanted what Misia had—influence, acceptance, and respect within Diaghilev’s circle—and she got it. She had also inserted herself once more between a pair of intimates, two best friends. Chanel was well aware of Misia and Serge’s intense, intertwined relationship: “Misia never left Diaghilev,” she told Morand. “Between them it was one of those devoted relationships of whispers—evil, tender, strewn with pitfalls.” Now Coco had made sure that Serge owed more to her than he ever had to Misia. Chanel’s donation catapulted her instantly to the highest patron status; she began attending every rehearsal of the Ballets Russes.

  The backdoor transaction with Diaghilev was only the next step in Misia and Coco’s intricate pas de deux—a mixture of love, emulation, and intense rivalry. When they met, a besotted Misia had stepped at once into Chanel’s style; now Chanel had stepped just as smoothly into Misia’s entire social and aesthetic world. Misia and JoJo had helped Chanel decorate her new townhome, which henceforth served as one of Paris’s chicest gathering spots for all of Misia’s best friends, particularly Cocteau and Diaghilev—who had become Coco’s best friends, too.

  Both women were aware of the tension, but Misia may have felt it more keenly. Coco was younger, on the ascent, gaining fame, and earning ever more money. Misia, over a decade older, had traded away her own musical career for a life of the kind of arts patronage at which Chanel seemed to excel effortlessly, without forsaking her own career. Taught from birth that people (especially women) were essentially pawns in a high-stakes social poker game, Misia now sought to outplay her protégée.

  According to Chanel, when Edouard Vuillard, with whom Misia had had a bitter falling-out, asked Coco to pose for him, Misia instantly reconciled with the painter, “only to prevent him from painting me.” Coco also believed Misia had similarly intervened to break off a nascent friendship between Coco and Pablo Picasso. In 1923, when Chanel
briefly maintained simultaneous romances with Igor Stravinsky and Grand Duke Dmitri Romanov, Misia saw to it that Igor was apprised of his lover’s betrayal, which devastated the jealous—albeit married—Stravinsky and sent him packing.

  Chanel understood Misia’s conflicting impulses: “[Misia’s love for me] comes from a deep well of generosity mixed with a demonic pleasure in ruining everything she touches.… It’s a loving spitefulness, seeing me makes her unhappy, but she is desperate if she does not see me.… I sometimes bite my friends, but Misia, she swallows hers.” Yet Misia and Coco remained the best of friends, locked in an agon of mirror images. They were two hungry creatures, each ready to consume the other. Claude Delay called Misia “organically jealous.” Such intense mutual need can create a certain erotic charge, and Misia may have succeeded in leading Coco into some Sapphic experiments, about which Chanel was completely silent and biographers have differed.

  In their later years, Misia and Coco fell into the shared habit of injecting themselves with morphine. According to some accounts, Chanel made only limited use of this opiate, in the form of physician-prescribed Sedol, to help her sleep. Other sources insist that Chanel was seriously dependent on the drug as well. In either case, Misia most certainly became dangerously addicted to morphine and didn’t hesitate to shoot up in cafés and restaurants, casually hiking up her skirt to inject herself in the thigh. Still a convent girl at heart, a scandalized Coco would beg her to stop, which led to some screaming public arguments between them, complete with hair pulling.

  However vexed or amorous their friendship, it remained the one constant in both of their lives. When her beloved JoJo took up with the beautiful young Roussadana Mdivani, known as “Roussy,” Misia turned to Chanel for solace. Coco moved her at once into a wing of her Riviera villa La Pausa, in 1927, continuing their shared tradition of rescuing each other from the catastrophes of love.