“LADY OF CAMELLIAS”

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1929, Page 12

“LADY OF CAMELLIAS”

PEASANT TO PARIS TOAST

HEROINE OF DUMAS’ NOVEL.

BILL FOR ROSES SOLD. A rare document lately has been put on sale in Paris by the Salle Drouot and acquired by an . amateur for 2100 francs. This document is a bill for roses and camellias, sent more than half a century ago by a flower shop of the Rue de la Paix to the “Dame aux Camellias,” the heroine of Alexandre Dumas’ famous novel. For Marguerite Gauthier, the lady with the camellias, existed, not alone in fiction; she lived in reality in the middle of the last century. Dumas knew her well, as also did many writers and artists of his time.

Her name was Marie Duplessis. She was born of peasant parents, in Normandy. Her mother abondoned her whon she was merely a child. Her father treated her brutally. At the ago of 15 she was sent to Paris where she worked in a shop. Soon she became a “grisette,” living among students of the Latin Quarter. rich nobleman, the Count de Guiche, who became later Duke de Grammont and Prince de Bidache, one of the great dandies of that time, saw Marie and was struck by her remarkable beauty. He soon made of her the queen of Paris. All contemporaries of Marie Duplessis have described her as the most charming woman of her time. She had, it seems, beautiful dark eyes, with extremely loug eyelashes, very regular features and an air of innocence and distinction. Theophile Gauthier and other admirers say that she had “inborn tact,” “instinctive elegance,” “an exquisite air.”.

The luxury she displayed in her house was well-known in Paris. Her salon was always filled with roses and cammellias. Her dinners were celebrated.

But her reign did not last long. Marie Duplessis died of consumption at 23. Those who saw her a few days before her death spoke with sadness of the vision they had had; her beauty was gone. Only the noble air of distinction remained to that peasant girl, who inspired one of the most popular French novels and the Italian opera “Traviata.”