Colette — how far would she go to shock the bourgeoisie?

Colette’s lover from 1905 to 1911 was Mathilde de Morny, the Marquise of Belboeuf (often known as Missy). It’s interesting how many of Colette’s numerous biographers list only her liaisons with men, simply ignoring her long-term, live-in relationship with the marquise, or dismiss it as part of Colette’s love of scandalising the bourgeoisie.

I concede that a brief affair (or two) with a woman might not mean that Colette had serious feelings for women, but surely a relationship that lasted for six years must be more than a passing fad. I’ve even read about Colette’s marriage to her third, Jewish (and last) husband, Maurice Goudeket, also explained away as merely a desire to épater la bourgeoisie.

This implies that Colette could not seriously be in love with a Jewish man or with a woman. This says more about the biographer’s prejudices than it does about Colette. The implication is small-minded, intolerant and old-fashioned: all the things that Colette was not.

You only have to remember that in 1907 — almost half a century before women in France had the right to vote, Colette dared to embrace Missy in public, on stage, to a full house. When the audience turned on them, shouting and jeering, even throwing chairs at them, Colette reacted with dignity and was “applauded for her extraordinary courage”. When a journalist asked if she had been frightened, she retorted, “No, it’s not in my nature. Look: I’m not trembling at all.” (From my favourite of Colette’s biographers, Judith Thurman, in her book “Secrets of the Flesh” p.172).