Elisabeth de Gramont
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Elisabeth de Gramont, also known as The Duchess of Clermont-Tonnere (b. Antonia Corisande Elisabeth de Gramont, 23 April 1875 in Nancy, France - d. 6 December 1954 in Paris), was a French writer of the early 20th century, best known for having been the long-term lesbian lover to writer and Salon operator Natalie Clifford Barney.
She was a close friend, and sometimes critic of writer Marcel Proust, whom she had met on June 9th, 1903. In her youth, de Gramont was a strikingly pretty woman. Opinionated, outspoken, she became openly bisexual despite being married by the turn of the century.
A descendant of Henry IV of France, she had grown up among the aristocracy; when she was a child, according to Janet Flanner, "peasants on her farm... begged her not to clean her shoes before entering their houses". She looked back on this lost world of wealth and privilege with little regret, and became known as the "red duchess" for her support of socialism.
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[edit] Natalie Barney
Barney and de Gramont first met in the spring of 1909, became lovers on May 1, 1910, a date that became their anniversary.[1] Although neither were faithful to the other sexually, they were devoted to one another for their entire lives. She was married to Philibert, Duke de Clermont Tonnerre and had two daughters in 1909, when she met Natalie Barney. Her husband is said to have been violent and tyrannical, but there is little confirmation to that. De Gramont accepted Barney's nonmonogamy—perhaps reluctantly at first—and went out of her way to be gracious to Barney's other lovers. For example, she always included Romaine Brooks, another of Barney's lovers, when she invited Barney to vacation in the country.
On June 20th, 1918, the two filed an "unofficial" but, at least to them, binding "marriage contract". The contract stated, in part;
- "After nine years of life together, joys and worries shared, and affairs confessed. For the survival of the bond that we believe-and wish to believe-is unbreakable, since at its lowest level of reciprocal emotionalism that is the conclusion reached. The union, sorely tried by the passing years, failed doubly the faithfulness test in its sixth year, showing us that adultery is inevitable in these relationships where there is no prejudice, no religion other than feelings, no laws other than desire, incapable of vain sacrifices that seem to be the negation of life..."[2]
In essence, the contract was a contract that would bind them together, at least in their own minds, but did not bind them to being only with one another sexually. The contract was honored by both until death separated them.
[edit] Bibliography
- Almanach des bonnes chances de France, 1930
- Le Diable chez la marquise, Littéraires, ca; 1938
- Autour de Saint-James, Du Pavois (publishers), 1945
- Barbey d'Aurevilly, Grasset, 1946
- La Famille des Clermont-Tonnerre, Fasquelle, 1950
- La Femme et la robe, La Palatine, Paris, Geneva, 1952
- Le Comte d'Orsay et Lady Blessington, 1955
- Marcel Proust, Flammarion, 1948
- Mémoires d'Elisabeth de Grammont, Grasset, 1929
- Souvenirs du monde de 1890 à 1940
[edit] References
- ^ Souhami, Diana (2005), Wild Girls: Paris, Sappho, and Art, St. Martin's Press, p. 72-9, ISBN 0312343248
- ^ Rapazzini, Francesco (Fall 2005). "Elisabeth de Gramont, Natalie Barney's "eternal mate"". South Central Review 22: 6–31.
