Élisabeth Greffulhe

Countess Marie Anatole Louise Élisabeth Greffulhe (née de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay; 11 July 1860 – 21 August 1952) was a French socialite, known as a renowned beauty and queen of the salons of the Faubourg Saint-Germain in Paris.^[1]

Life

She was born in Paris, the daughter of Joseph de Riquet de Caraman, 18th Prince de Chimay (1836–1892) and his wife, Marie de Montesquiou-Fézensac (1834–1884). Through her father, she was a granddaughter of Teresa Cabarrús, one of the leaders of Parisian social life during the Directory, and a great-granddaughter of memoirist Émilie Pellapra, who claimed to be a daughter of Napoleon.

The countess greatly enjoyed the company of her cousin, the exquisite aesthete Count Robert de Montesquiou, in concert with whom she was in contact with the cream of Parisian society, whom she regularly entertained at her salon in the rue d'Astorg. He would describe her eyes as "black fireflies". The colour of her eyes was unusual; as Mina Curtiss, who visited her, noticed, her eyes were like "the dark purple brown-tinged petals of a rarely seen pansy."

She married Henri, Count Greffulhe (1848–1932), of the Belgian family of bankers, on 28 September 1881. He was an unfaithful, quick-tempered man. They had one daughter, Élaine (1882–1958), who married Armand, 12th Duke of Gramont, half-brother of the openly bisexual writer the Duchess of Clermont-Tonnerre, who wrote about Élisabeth: "The Comtesse Greffulhe is always beautiful and always elsewhere. But it would be a mistake to think that her life was merely the pursuit of pleasure (...) not only is she beautiful, but she is a lady. Preferring the privacy of her own house in the rue d'Astorg and at Bois-Boudran in the country, the Comtesse Greffulhe never dined out except at the British Embassy. When Edward VII came to Paris, he dined informally at her house. After a restricted youth (...) she set herself to attracting musicians, scholars, physicists, chemists, doctors."^[2]

The countess helped establish the art of James Whistler, and she actively promoted such artists as Auguste Rodin, Antonio de La Gandara and Gustave Moreau. Gabriel Fauré dedicated to her his Pavane, which received its first full performance, with the optional chorus, at a garden party she held in the Bois de Boulogne. She was a patron of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and launched a fashion for greyhound racing. Fascinated by science, she helped Marie Curie to finance the creation of the Institute of Radium, and Édouard Branly to pursue his research on radio transmission and telemechanical systems.

She is one of the main inspirations for the character of the duchesse de Guermantes in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. Her husband, Count Greffulhe, is the main and almost unique inspiration for the character of the duc de Guermantes. A recent biography demonstrates – relying in particular on research into the author's draft notebooks – that Countess Greffulhe and her family, who inspired several of the characters in À la recherche du temps perdu, played a major role in the genesis of the work and in the discovery of the "magic" name of Guermantes.^[3]

She died in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 21 August 1952.

E. Greffulhe and music

Elisabeth Greffuhle put music at the centre of her life. She organized a benefit concert as part of the 1889 Paris World's Fair with Handel's Messiah (in French, and in the Mozart arrangement) in the grand hall of the Trocadéro, on June 10 1889, with Rose Caron, Blanche Deschamps-Jéhin, Edmond Vergnet and Numa Auguez, with organist Gabriel Fauré, all under the direction of Auguste Vianesi.

The Société des Grandes Auditions musicales de France was "founded [in 1890] and chaired by Mme la comtesse Greffulhe, under the artistic patronage of MM. Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, Léger, Massenet, Delibes, etc."^[4]. It did not disappear until the First World War. Its raison d'être was "the theatrical performance of unknown masterpieces" paid for by generous donors including composer Prince Edmond de Polignac or President Sadi Carnot. She collaborated with Gabriel Astruc to produce the many concerts she organized.

The first opera given as part of the Grandes Auditions was Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict, in 1891, given 5 or 6 times at the Odéon, conducted by Charles Lamoureux, in a French premiere^[5].

Les Troyens was performed at the Opéra-Comique in June and September 1892, in its entirety for the first time since its creation, and this time with great success^[6].

In June 1902, as part of the Festival lyrique, Wagner's Tristan et Isolde was performed, with Ada Adini or Félia Litvinne (Isolde) and Ernest Van Dyck (Tuesday) or Charles Dalmorès (Tristan, Thursday and Saturday), conducted by Alfred Cortot. The show took place at the Théâtre du Château-d'Eau (the one on rue de Malte, directed by V. Silvestre, not the one on rue du Château-d'Eau), on the initiative of Countess Greffuhle^[7]. The French premiere that the Countess had long wanted to organise had in fact taken place a few months earlier, at the Nouveau Théâtre, by Lamoureux.

E. Greffuhle still continued her fund-raising activities, as announced by Le Temps in December 1904 : "A major artistic event has been organized for Thursday January 26 [1905] at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt to benefit the families of the Port-Arthur combatants. The patronage committee already includes the following personalities: Countess Greffulhe...". Pierre Carolus-Duran (the painter's son) conducted the orchestra.^[8].

The Dream of Gerontius, the oratorio by Newman and Elgar, was first performed in France on May 25, 1906 at the Palais du Trocadéro, Paris, under the direction of Camille Chevillard. It was organized by the Société des grandes auditions musicales de France, still chaired by Countess Greffulhe^[9].

On May 8, 1907, at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Richard Strauss conducted the first performance of his opera Salomé (in German) with the Colonne Orchestra. The critic of Le Ménestrel, Arthur Pougin, was stingy of compliments, sparing only the interpretation of Emmy Destinn (Salomé), "absolutely first-rate", Fritz Feinhals (Jochanaan), who "displayed excellent diction", and the dancer who performed the "Dance of the Seven Veils", Natalia Vladimirovna Trouhanowa. He added that "It goes without saying that the orchestra, under the direction of the author, is excellent" and concluded thus: "And now that the Société des grandes auditions musicales de France has given us English music, Italian music, German music, and is about to offer us Russian music, couldn't it give some thought to French music?" ^[10]

E. Greffulhe recreated Rameau's Anacréon in 1909 during a memorable evening at Bagatelle.^[11]

Gallery

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  Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952) with her daughter Élaine. Photograph by Paul Nadar, 1886.
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  Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952). Photograph by Paul Nadar, 1886.
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  Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952). Photograph by Paul Nadar.
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  Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952). Photograph by Paul Nadar.
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  Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, countess Greffulhe (1860-1952). Photograph by Otto Wegener, circa 1887.
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  Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952). Photograph by Paul Nadar in 1895.
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  Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952), double portrait photograph by Otto Wegener, 1899. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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  Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952), portrait photograph by Otto Wegener, 1899.
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  Self portrait countess Elisabeth Greffulhe (1899), Carnavalet museum, 2022.
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  Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952) and her daughter Elaine Greffulhe, photograph by Otto Wegener, 1908.
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  Countess Élisabeth Greffulhe in the Bosquet de la Colonnade in Versailles. Painting by Joseph-Raymond Fournier-Sarlovèze.
• 
  Henri Alexandre Gervex. An evening at Pré Catelan, 1909. Countess Greffulhe is seen ready to enter the car after her visit to the restaurant.
• 
  Portrait of l'abbé Mugnier. Painted by Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, Countess Greffulhe in 1921.
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  Portrait of elegant lady attributed to Comtesse Élisabeth Greffulhe, signed M. Leibovsky.
• 
  A vase commissioned by Élisabeth Greffulhe, inscribed with a quatrain by Robert de Montesquiou, her cousin.

Notes

References

• Newton, Joy, 'Whistler's French Connections: Count Robert de Montesquiou and Countess Greffulhe,' Laurels, vol. 53, no. 1
• Michel-Thiriet, Philippe, The Book of Proust, London, 1989
• Munhall, Edgar, Whistler and Montesquiou. The Butterfly and the Bat, New York, 1995
• Painter, George, Marcel Proust, Chatto & Windus, London, 1959.
• Hillerin, Laure, La comtesse Greffulhe, l'Ombre des Guermantes, Paris, Flammarion, 2014

External links

• Media related to Élisabeth, comtesse Greffulhe at Wikimedia Commons