He kept her in high style, paying her bills, importing her carriage horses from England, and providing boxes in the best theatres in Paris. She was taken up by the elderly and very wealthy Comte de Stackelberg, a former Russian ambassador to Vienna. Watercolour of Marie Duplessis at the theatre, by Camille Roqueplanīy the age of twenty, Alphonsine Plessis or Marie Duplessis as she now preferred, had reached the height of the Parisian demi-monde. By now she preferred to be called Marie and she also added the faux noble “Du” to her name making her Marie Duplessis. One of her suitors, Agénor, son of Duc de Guiche, took care of her education and turned her into a well-mannered lady. At the age of fifteen she moved to Paris where she found work in a dress shop and by the time she was sixteen she had become aware that prominent men were willing to give her money in exchange for her company in both private and social settings. She was the daughter of Marin Plessis, an alcoholic who offered her to men from the age of twelve.
Many will know her as Marguerite Gautier, the main character in La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the younger, or as Violetta Valéry, the leading soprano character in Guiseppi Verdi’s opera La Traviata but few will remember her for who she really was, Alphonsine Plessis, who died from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-three.Īlphonsine Plessis: Portrait by Édouard ViénotĪlphonsine Rose Plessis was born on 15 th January 1824 at Nonant-le-Pin in Normandy. The tomb as it once was: Image courtesy of Paris en Images
Few flowers adorn the tomb and even the picture once attached to the front of it has gone. Today, her body lies entombed in the cemetery’s 15 th Division. Halfway between the traffic-strewn Place de Clichy and the fin de siècle Moulin Rouge cabaret, the Avenue Rachel may be a calm and reassuringly quiet street today but in February 1847 this street was lined with hundreds of people gathered to mourn the passing of a French courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent and wealthy men. Charles Dickens was there and reported, “One could have believed that she was Jeanne d’Arc or some other national heroine, so deep was the general sadness.” Located near the beginning of Rue Caulaincourt in Place de Clichy its sole entrance was constructed on Avenue Rachel under Rue Caulaincourt.Īvenue Rachel looking towards the entrance to Montmartre cemetery OPENED IN JANUARY 1825 as la Cimetière des Grandes Carrières (Cemetery of the Large Quarries), Montmartre cemetery was built in the hollow of an abandoned gypsum quarry previously used during the French Revolution as a mass grave.
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