Writing
Dialogue One
The
Comte Robert de Montesquiou
"Aesthetic Assassin"
by Scot D. Ryersson and Michael O. Yaccarino
Long before the Internet gave the vapid opinions of every kook with a keyboard a nanosecond of fame, there lived a man whose informed views on style and culture matter to this day. And woe to any whose opinions differed with those of the Comte Robert de Montesquiou—poet, feared art critic, style arbiter and he-bitch supreme. Never would you want to meet one of his stiletto-pointed ripostes in a dark alley.
Scot D. Ryersson: Close your eyes for a moment.
Michael Orlando Yaccarino: I seem to recall finding the gilded skull of a seventeenth-century Bavarian monk in my hands the last time I agreed to a similar request…
SDR: Trust me this time.
MOY: Continue.
SDR: It’s late 19th century Paris…
MOY: Oh, no! Not that hideous Moulin Rouge!
SDR: Nothing so crass. And keep your eyes closed. As I was saying, you are at the city’s most envied salon, having responded to an engraved invitation to a very special ceremony. The elegantly appointed room is in near darkness, its walls adorned with Japanese silks and William Morris fabrics. An A-List of literati, theatre and Russian ballet stars, and society icons of the day surround you–Stéphane Mallarmé, Sarah Bernhardt, Ida Rubinstein, the Marquise Casati…
MOY: …I’m beginning to feel at home already.
SDR: A liveried footman offers you an antique crystal goblet filled with a strange liqueur. By the glittering reflections from the shell of a living tortoise set ablaze with priceless diamonds, you sip this delectable potion—one that has been blended with the vapors of the most exquisite perfumes.
MOY: Yummy.
SDR: Now the attendees raise their glasses as your mustachioed host toasts the guest of honor—his newly christened Syrian cat.
MOY: I think I can name that most fantastic of Belle Époque hosts in one snide anecdote.
SDR: Name that host.
MOY: When a positively déclassé social climber begged for his considerable influence to gain entree into a particularly exclusive salon, he replied with one eyebrow firmly arched, "Impossible, Madame! For the moment you appear there, it will cease to be exclusive!"
SDR: Bravo!
MOY: Announcing the Comte Robert de Montesquiou.
SDR: Dubbed “The Professor of Beauty” by his peers.
MOY: When one can trace an impressive pedigree and wealth back to the Merovingian kings of France, count the genuine D’Artagnan of Dumas’ Les trois mousquetaires as an ancestor, and dream in an ebony bed custom-carved in the shape of a gargantuan dragon, you have no peers.
SDR: He would agree. And if the Comte was born in 1955, instead of 1855 Paris, it is unlikely that he would have traded in his favored quill pen and purple ink for the most fully loaded of laptops.
MOY: Surely Montesquiou’s vision deluxe of the way the world should be was never à la mode. Instead, it was dictated by one source alone–his own cultivated tastes.
SDR: Reedy thin, meticulously coiffed, and immaculately kitted out in tailored suits of almond-green and mouse-gray…
Montesquiou with pet cat, Mitaine
MOY: …of mauve and robin’s-egg blue…
SDR:
…all complimented by waistcoats of white velvet and iridescent silk.
On one finger he wore a ring, its oversize crystal holding a single human
tear, the owner of which the Comte never divulged.
MOY: Society artist Boldini immortalized a sartorially resplendent Montesquiou
in a celebrated portrait of his friend and patron. In it, the Comte is seen
holding a prized walking stick, its tip glowing the same blue as the hydrangeas,
and other botanical exotics, he so carefully cultivated.
SDR: But no blossom’s scent, no matter how potent, can mask the unmistakable musk of a truly ruthless snob.
MOY: Well, Montesquiou is quoted as once saying “However amusing it may be to speak ill of one’s enemies, it is ....even more delectable to speak ill of one’s friends.”
Montesquiou in Profile
SDR: How true…
MOY: …but at least not in public!
SDR: Not for Robert. A typical diversion for him was to pen thinly veiled character portraits in verse. Read aloud to gatherings of the grande dames that swooned over him, the ridiculed subjects of these vitriolic creations were certain to have been seated center stage.
MOY: Very Capote “La Côte Basque”, wouldn’t you say? And these were the same slavishly devoted women who followed his expert advice when selecting their couturier gowns and decorating their city mansions.
SDR: And these were also the more fortunate of the skewered. Now Winaretta Singer, on the other hand…
MOY: Ah, yes, dear Winaretta, heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune, formidable saloneuse of the serious music set, and iron-clad shrew.
SDR: Montesquiou’s wrath was incurred when sufficient deferential homage was not paid him in return for introducing her to the prominent man she would later marry.
MOY: …oh dear.
SDR: Very soon afterwards, Le Figaro ran a description of Winaretta in which Montesquiou hissed her to be “…a Nero, a thousand times more cruel then the original, who dreams of seeing his victims pricked to death by sewing machines.”
MOY: …and damage control couldn’t put her back together again. Let it be a lesson for all of us.
SDR: Yes, don’t cross the real-life inspiration for a character in A la recherché du temps perdu.
MOY: Proust’s sinister Baron de Charlus was only one of the Comte’s literary incarnations–there was the Decadent ideal personified in the preening form of the Duke des Esseintes in Huysman’s A rebours; and even, appropriately enough, the Peacock in Rostand’s Chantecler.
SDR: And with the eye of a falcon, Montesquiou’s patronage of the decorative and fine arts altered their historical course.
MOY: So true. Glass dazzlements of Gallé, Art Nouveau jewels of Lalique, the Byzantine fantasies of Moreau’s canvases–all supported by the Comte’s influential word and generous patronage.
SDR: So unfortunate then, that by the time of his death in 1921 at the French spa town of Menton, the haut monde world Robert once so enthralled had all but had forgotten him.
MOY: Not a single Parisian newspaper would print Proust’s eulogy “The Simplicity of Comte de Montesquiou.”
SDR: But even from beyond the grave, the fin-de-siècle dragonfly was capable of one last diabolical sting.
MOY: I’m getting goose bumps…
SDR: One day, shortly after his demise, a well-known dowager was summoned to the offices of the Comte’s solicitors. She was to receive a bequest in the form of an antique box. It seems that for decades, the romantically delusional lady believed that Montesquiou was in love with her.
MOY: Guess she didn’t know his amatory interests lay elsewhere or of his long-term male companion.
Montesquiou in sartorial splendor
SDR: Apparently not, since a week would not pass without Robert receiving one of her protracted letters of devotion. So, when the time came to open this final proof of his post-mortem affection, all of the friends she desperately wanted to impress were invited...
MOY: …I can’t wait any longer! What was in the box?
SDR: Every single letter that she had ever written to Montesquiou–and all of them were unopened.
MOY: Perfection.
SDR: Such purity of design and planning.
MOY: An ideal for all bitches-in-training to aspire to...
SDR: …and a hosanna to that most rare bitch of all–one with style who knows how to use it.
