#name:colette

[ladiesalmanack]

Colette (1873-1954)

Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, known by her pen name "Colette", is one of the most famous authors in French literature. In 1945, she was the second woman to be elected a member of the Académie Goncourt, of which she served as president from 1949 to 1954. She was the first woman in France to receive a state funeral. Colette was also a journalist (over 50 years, she wrote over 1,200 articles published in some 100 newspapers) and a music-hall performer.

Her literary work was largely inspired by her childhood memories spent in the countryside of the French region of Burgundy, her love of nature, and her relationship with her mother, Sidonie "Sido" Landoy. Female friendships and lesbianism are two other major themes in her work, particularly in the series of five semi-autobiographical novels known as " Les Claudine." Colette had numerous affairs with women, including Mathilde de Morny, Georgie Raoul-Duval, Natalie Clifford Barney, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Armande de Polignac, and Mata-Hari. She was also a friend of Renée Vivien, to whom she dedicated a chapter in her book "The Pure and the Impure."

Between 1906 and 1912, Colette pursued a music-hall career, performing in orientalist-inspired pantomimes in scantily clad costumes that scandalized audiences. In 1907, her lover Mathilde de Morny, with whom she had an affair from 1906 to 1911, appeared on stage alongside her. Mathilde de Morny, who bore the title of Marquise de Belbeuf, was a well-known figure in the social circles of Belle Époque Paris. Openly lesbian, she dressed as a man in public (wearing trousers), which was illegal at the time. In the pantomime "Dream of Egypt," Mathilde de Morny played an Egyptologist who awakened a mummy, played by Colette, by giving it a kiss. This lesbian kiss caused such a scandal that the show was banned after its first performance.