In the year 1846 there was a spectacle that caused a furore in Paris. It
was that afforded by women attired only in pink tights and a gauze skirt
executing poses that were called _tableaux vivants_, with a few men to
complete the groups. This show was given at the Porte Saint Martin and
at the Cirque. I had the curiosity one night to go and see the women
behind the scenes. I went to the Porte Saint Martin, where, I may add in
parentheses, they were going to revive “Lucrêce Borgia”. Villemot, the
stage manager, who was of poor appearance but intelligent, said: “I will
take you into the gynecium.”
A score of men were there--authors, actors, firemen, lamp lighters,
scene shifters--who came, went, worked or looked on, and in the midst of
them seven or eight women, practically nude, walked about with an air of
the most naïve tranquillity. The pink tights that covered them from the
feet to the neck were so thin and transparent that one could see not
only the toes, the navel, and the breasts, but also the veins and the
colour of the least mark on the skin on all parts of their bodies.
Towards the abdomen, however, the tights became thicker and only the
form was distinguishable. The men who assisted them were similarly
arranged. All these people were English.
At intervals of five minutes the curtain parted and they executed a
_tableau_. For this they were posed in immobile attitudes upon a large
wooden disc which revolved upon a pivot. It was worked by a child of
fourteen who reclined on a mattress beneath it. Men and women were
dressed up in chiffons of gauze or merino that were very ugly at a
distance and very ignoble _de prês_. They were pink statues. When the
disc had revolved once and shown the statues on every side to the public
crowded in the darkened theatre, the curtain closed again, another
tableau was arranged, and the performance recommenced a moment later.
Two of these women were very pretty. One resembled Mme. Rey, who played
the Queen in “Ruy Blas” in 1840; it was this one who represented Venus.
She was admirably shaped. Another was more than pretty: she was handsome
and superb. Nothing more magnificent could be seen than her black, sad
eyes, her disdainful mouth, her smile at once bewitching and haughty.
She was called Maria, I believe. In a tableau which represented “A Slave
Market,” she displayed the imperial despair and the stoical dejection
of a nude queen offered for sale to the first bidder. Her tights, which
were torn at the hip, disclosed her firm white flesh. They were, however
only poor girls of London. All had dirty finger nails.
When they returned to the green room they laughed as freely with the
scene shifters as with the authors, and talked broken French while they
adjusted all kinds of frightful rags upon their charming visages. Their
smile was the calm smile of perfect innocence or of complete corruption.