WEBVTT - Colette, Part 2 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.279 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.640 of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.360 I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Today we 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.960 have part two of our episode on French author Collette 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.400 Love and Passion and pain and Loss. We're all ongoing 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.600 themes and her writing. And her writing also played a 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.720 lot with gender and sexuality, including lots of portrayals of 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:36.640 women and their physical desires and their pursuits of fulfilling relationships. 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.960 Most critics consider Collett's portrayals of women to be the 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.599 most interesting and the most fully realized, sometimes with her 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:50.040 portrayals of men being criticized as seeming weak or one dimensional. 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.120 Part one of this two part episode is highly recommended 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.080 before getting into this one because it covers the first 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.320 forty years of Collett's life, include her marriage to Ari 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:07.320 de Jouvenel. We're picking up during that marriage today heads up. 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:12.840 Today's episode includes Collette's sexual relationship with her sixteen year 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:17.160 old stepson, and we will also have some brief mentions 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:21.600 of suicide. So, as we mentioned in Part one, Colette's 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.080 second husband, Rie de Jouvenelle, was a wealthy baron and 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.880 during their marriage, he was elected to represent the Department 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.920 of Cores in the French Parliament. Colette was writing fiction 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.880 as well as writing for Lamatta, where Henri was a 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:39.720 political journalist and editor. In addition to her writing, Colette 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.360 was called on to host various officials and dignitaries and 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.280 to visit them as well. This was all a big 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.000 shift from what her life had been like before this point. 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:54.120 Prior to their marriage, Alri had a reputation as a womanizer, 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.720 and sometime during Colette's pregnancy with their daughter, he started 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.320 having an affair with an other woman. Collette found out 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.120 and was once again devastated, and this might have led 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.040 to a pretty speedy end for their relationship, But then 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.560 World War One began and in August of nineteen fourteen, 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.560 Ari was called into active service in the military. Collette 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.600 made a very brief for a into volunteering as a 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.560 night nurse before transferring to the day shift and then 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:28.480 traveling under forged identification papers to join her husband. And 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.000 when we say this for it was brief, it lasted 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.200 about a week before she asked to move to the 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:37.000 day shift and then set off a verdant Soon she 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.800 was writing about what she saw there, becoming one of 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.320 the first women in Europe to report from the front. 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.320 Her work was published at Demetta that was the publication 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.679 that her husband edited, and she published at other journals 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.280 and newspapers as well. Then this work was published as 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.480 a collection called The Long Hours after the war was over. 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.560 She focused a lot of her wartime writing on how 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.280 the war was affecting women and children. This wasn't a 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.360 subject that many other reporters were really covering. But this 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:14.200 work is also lyrical, more sentimental, and sometimes even romanticized, 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.560 especially when compared to writers who were focused more on 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:23.400 the war's horrific and violent aspects. In Secrets of the Flesh, 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.400 a Life of Colette, biographer Judith Thurman writes, quote, there 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.440 is not a single corpse in any of her dispatches. 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:35.240 There is anxiety, but no despair, hunger but no starvation. 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.440 Some of this is probably a byproduct of where Colette 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.680 was and what she personally witnessed, but it's also one 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.760 of the running themes of her life. She often did 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.360 not directly comment on or seemed to notice political crises 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:54.000 or major world events unless they personally affected her. For example, 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.440 most of what we talked about in part one of 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.520 this episode took place during the Drefist affair, which we 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.240 covered on the show as a two parter in one, 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:06.040 and that was something that divided French society, and we 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:10.000 didn't mention it because Collette's surviving writing never even mentions it, 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.520 and we don't really know what her opinions were on it, 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:14.920 although we do know Weallye, who she was married to 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.719 at the time, was anti Semitic and anti Drefussar. On 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.839 the rare occasion that Collette did directly comment on things 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:27.440 like politics, her opinions didn't really align with what a 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.400 person might expect based on what we have talked about 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.120 in her life so far, like she took dance lessons 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.000 and started publishing her work under her own name in 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.760 preparation to leave her husband, and all of that ran 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.040 contrary to what was expected of women. She tried to 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.880 make a life for herself under her own terms, and 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.760 one of the themes of her writing is that women 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:54.240 should be able to feel fulfilled, including having sexual fulfillment 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.720 in their lives. But she didn't think of herself as 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.640 a feminist or advocate for political equality regardless of sex. 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.560 In nineteen ten, she told an interviewer that she thought 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:10.320 suffragists were disgusting and said they deserved quote the whip 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.720 and the harem. After the war was over, Alrid de 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.680 Juvenna traveled to Geneva as part of France's delegation to 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:22.800 the Disarmament Commission, and Collett's role expanded at Lamenta. In 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.279 addition to working as a theater critic, she became literary editor, 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:31.159 including deciding which works of fiction Lomentin should publish. She 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.800 also turned her attention back to writing fiction herself, which 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.960 she had not done much of during the war. The 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.719 result was Cherie, published serially and then as a book 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.200 in nineteen twenty. This is about an affair between a 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.240 forty nine year old woman named Leah and a five 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:52.560 year old man named Bread, known as Cherie. This follows 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.640 their affair through to its necessary end, and the end 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.920 of that affair leaves both of them heartbroken all the 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.440 Collette originally envisioned this as a play. It became one 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.160 of her best known novels, especially in France. That same 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.200 year she was named Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:16.279 After Colette had started publishing Cherry Alri's ex wife, Sarah, 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.360 sent their son Bertran to try to convince Colette to 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.800 persuade Enri to allow Sarah to keep using her married name. 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.400 The de Juvenal name carried a lot of Prestigian influence, 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.040 and Henri seems to have felt like Sarah was abusing 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.479 that privilege and was annoyed about it. Bertran was sixteen, 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.000 the same age that Colette had been when she met 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:41.719 her first husband. Really, Collette seduced Bertran, and her behavior 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.599 toward him, and her descriptions of all this are pretty 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:49.720 manipulative and predatory. Bertron had a girlfriend his own age, Pamela, 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.359 the sister of one of his school friends, when Colette, 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.520 who was forty eight, started seducing him. This included giving 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.200 him books from her library to read, and one of 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:03.400 those books us Cherie about this affair between an older 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.680 woman and a much younger man. She later said, quote, 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:11.040 I invented Leah as a premonition. The biography we mentioned 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.400 earlier described the Villa of rose Ven, where Colette spent 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.720 her summers, as quote a hotbed of Chicovian drama. During 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.760 this time, Collette also passed letters back and forth between 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.600 Bertrand and Pamela and used their relationship as the basis 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.880 for Leblon abb or The Ripening Seed, which came out 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:35.520 in That was also the year that Ari found out 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:39.040 what was going on, either Colette admitted it to him 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:43.120 or he caught them together. He was outraged and left 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:48.080 Colette immediately. Ari had numerous affairs during their marriage, but 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:52.520 his wife sleeping with his teenage son was obviously something 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:57.400 very different from that. Bertrand described himself as horrified to 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.680 have been the cause of all this chaos and strife. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.600 Given aure's position at Lamadon, Colette had to stop working 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.440 there after a few months. She went to work at 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.000 one of the publication's rivals, Le Journal, and she and 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:17.080 Bertramp continued to have a pretty public relationship in Paris. This, 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:19.840 of course, led to a lot of scandal and gossip, 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.320 more connected to the fact that Bertrand was Colette's husband's 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:29.280 son than their respective ages. Eventually, Bertrand's engagement was announced 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.640 to Marcel Pratt, and Colette was extremely jealous and kept 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.920 trying to convince him to stay with her instead, but 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:42.840 Bertrand's wedding went on as planned. In Collette published a 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.720 sequel to Sari called The Last of Schari the following year. 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.280 In its after Years Apart, Schari returns to Leah and 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.199 finds her older and heavier, and he's no longer attracted 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.640 to her. He takes his own life at the end 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.520 of the book, which is one of a number of 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:03.199 suice sides in Colette's writing. By the time this book 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:07.000 was published, Colette had met someone else, Maurice Gudiquette, who 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.280 was thirty five. He had long been a fan of 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.599 her work, and at first he found her really intimidating, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.240 but their relationship would continue for the rest of her life. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.800 During that time, she would evolve from being thought of 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:25.239 as a perpetual source of scandal, chaos, and controversial literature 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.199 to a more mature and knowing woman whose long experience 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.120 had given her perspective on things like love and loss, 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.880 and also for having a deep love of fine things, 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.880 including good food and wine, and taking joy in indulgence. 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:45.400 She would eventually say of herself justue gourmet gourmand gluton 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:50.200 or I am gourmet greedy gluttonius. We'll have more on 0:09:50.240 --> 0:10:02.280 her life. After a quick sponsor break before his death 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.239 in nineteen twenty two, Marcel Proust had been widely regarded 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:11.080 as France's greatest living writer. After that point, in a 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:15.720 lot of people's opinion, France's greatest writer was Colette. As 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.079 the nineteen twenties progressed, Colette decided to sell the villa 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.120 of Roseven that she and Missy had purchased so that 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.880 she could purchase another place near Central Bay. She continued 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:29.160 to both write and act, including a touring production of 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:33.040 Sherry with herself in the role of Leah. She published 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.440 a series of stories about her childhood called My Mother's 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.400 House in nineteen twenty two. In ninety eight, she was 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.320 named an officer in the French Legion of Honor, and 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.280 a year later she published Sido, which was a memoir 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.439 of her mother's Sidonie, who had died in nineteen twelve. 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:54.160 We talked about how much she admired and aspired to 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.400 be like her mother, and a lot of people had 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.840 pointed out that like it took a while before she 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.640 returned to the idea of her mother and her writing. 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:07.760 After her mother's death, Colette and Maurice struggled financially after 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:12.040 the Great Depression started in Maurice had been a pearl merchant, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.079 and his business had already become a lot less profitable, 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:19.920 in part because the fashion world was turning toward costume jewelry. 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.040 He eventually gave up his pearl business and started selling 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:27.360 things like used washing machines. Then, in nineteen thirty one, 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:32.040 Colette broke her fibula. She developed ulcers around her cast, 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.640 so doctors removed it much earlier than they normally would. 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:40.720 Colette later developed arthritis, which was progressively disabling and painful, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.920 and Maurice believed this break and how it was treated 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:48.240 were a factor. Colette tried many different treatments for this condition, 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.920 including thermal baths, acupuncture, and during the nineteen forties X 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.120 ray treatments, some of which caused burns on her stomach 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.920 and legs. In ninety two, Colette published a Plezzier or 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:05.319 These Pleasures, which would later be revised and republished as 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:09.360 The Pure and the Impure. She later described this as 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.400 the closest she would ever come to an autobiography, and 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:14.920 included a lot of her thoughts on love and passion, 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:19.000 especially in terms of same sex relationships. That included an 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.640 account of the ladies of Longcotland, who we covered on 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.360 the podcast back in that one made a return to 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.880 people's feeds in as part of an episode or a 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.160 pot sort of a playlist of all of our favorites. 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.480 She also continued to appear on stage, including another portrayal 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.160 of Leiah in a production of Sherry, although by this 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.080 point she was visibly older than the character that she 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:45.560 was portraying. She also opened a beauty institute in nineteen 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:50.200 thirty two, where she made and sold perfumes and cosmetic treatments. 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.880 She framed this as giving other women the power to 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.480 enhance and preserve their beauty and stave off aging, and 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.240 a lot of people thought the whole idea was way 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.080 beneath the right or of such national stature. The institute 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.640 only lasted for about a year, though it seems like 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.640 she more or less just kind of lost interest in 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.400 Collette and Maurice got married in a civil ceremony. They 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.280 had been together for about a decade, and he was 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.720 forty five and she was sixty two. Their decision to 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.520 get married at this point was at least ostensibly a 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.319 practical one, not necessarily a romantic one. They were planning 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.640 a trip to New York and they'd heard that the 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.480 hotels might not rent them a room together if they 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:35.400 were not married. This relationship seems to have been happy, 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:39.480 stable and loving. Maurice later said of it, quote, I 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.360 set myself gently by the side of this woman whom 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.120 life had so wounded, and I did so with the 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.400 firm determination of proving to her that fidelity was not 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.160 an empty word. Year by year she grew more persuaded 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.600 of this, and her last books bear witness to a 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:58.800 serenity that she would not otherwise have acquired. The year 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.400 Collette and Maurice got married, Ari de Juvenell died, and 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.240 the year after that Colette published My Apprenticeships, which is 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.600 both the story of how she became a writer and 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.800 a look at her relationship with her first husband, Arigotie Viler, 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:17.080 also known as Really. He had died back in one 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.160 This is pretty scathing and its treatment of him. Her 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:25.120 reputation of a writer was continuing to grow. In ninety six, 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.600 she was named Commander in the French Legion of Honor. 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:32.120 By that point, Adolph Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany. 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:36.320 The Nazi Party had been made Germany's only legal political party, 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:41.120 and had passed discriminatory laws restricting virtually every aspect of 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:45.960 Jewish people's lives and stripping them of German citizenship. Tensions 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.120 were escalating in Europe and in Asia, and Italy had 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:53.000 invaded Ethiopia, but as was the case with so many 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.800 other major events, Collette didn't really seem to pay much 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.160 attention to any of it. This was true even after 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.720 Paris fell to the German army in nineteen forty, after 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.920 which the French government moved to Vichy and began collaborating 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.760 with the Nazi Party, And it was true even though 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:15.640 Maurice Gutiquet was Jewish. But then on December seven, nineteen 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.400 forty one, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the United 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.960 States made its formal entry into World War Two. The 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:28.080 French resistance increased its activities, and in response, Hitler issued 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.480 what was known as the Night and Fog Decree, allowing 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.760 German authorities to arrest people who were believed to be 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:38.760 part of the resistance or otherwise in endangering German interests. 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.000 The name night and Fog came from the idea that 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.640 these arrests, which really were essentially kidnappings, would happen during 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.560 the night, with people simply disappearing from site, they would 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.480 be detained and they would be tried in secret courts. 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.600 On December twelfth, ninety one, the Gestapo arrived at the 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.160 Paris apartment in the Palais Royale, where Colette and Maurice 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.680 were living. This is something neither of them seemed to 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:06.840 have thought of as a possibility, and they were not 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.400 at all prepared for it. Colette and their housekeeper were 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:12.920 able to pack a small bag for Maurice before he 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:18.920 was taken away. This was obviously terrifying for everyone, especially 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.400 because both Colette and Maurice don't seem to have considered 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.960 that something like this could happen. Collette said that for 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.040 the rest of her life, her mouth would start trembling 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:34.240 anytime someone unexpectedly arrived at her door. Maurice was held 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.720 at a detention camp northeast of Paris. He later described 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:39.800 this as a place where he was not given much 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.280 to eat, and their betting was infested with vermin, but 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.920 at least for fit and healthy people, things were manageable 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.240 and the guards mostly left them alone. He managed to 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.680 have notes to Collette smuggled out of the camp from 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.360 time to time, most of them asking for things like 0:16:55.480 --> 0:17:00.680 food or books. Meanwhile, Colette tried to free him, calling 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.040 in favors, talking to anybody she thought might be able 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:08.639 to help. Eventually, on February six ninety two, he was 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.879 freed on the order of Otto Abbott's, who was the 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:16.320 German ambassador to vic France. He had married a French 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:21.560 woman named Suzanne de Breiker in two She had convinced 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:26.320 her husband to intervene on Collette's behalf. After Maurice's release 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.000 from the camp, they remained in Paris. A couple of 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.439 months later, they had tea with Susanne de Breiker at 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:35.879 the German embassy. That June, the Nazis ordered Jewish people 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.160 in France and a number of other countries to start 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.879 wearing yellow stars. This is something that Colette described her 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:46.040 husband as not particularly bothered by. It was only after 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.960 Viscy authorities started deporting thousands of Jewish people from France 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.840 and one of Colett's Jewish friends took her own life 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.400 that they started to believe that Paris might be too dangerous. 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:01.200 They went to centro Pe using forged papers. Eventually, Maurice 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:03.960 made his way back to Paris and remained in hiding there. 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:06.960 Collette made her way back as well, and they were 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.680 both in Paris when it was liberated in August of 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:15.080 n Shortly before the liberation of Paris, Missy dea Bouf, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.800 who we talked about in Part one, died by suicide 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:22.760 sometime after the immediate aftermath of their breakup had subsided. 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.680 Missy and Colette had gotten in contact again. They kept 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.760 up a correspondence for most of the rest of their lives. 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.400 Missy died at the age of eighty one, having outlived 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:38.119 many close friends and also started to experience some cognitive decline. 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:40.800 As was the case with much of what happened in 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.639 the world during Colette's lifetime, she did not really comment 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.120 on the events of World War two or speak out 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:51.119 against the Nazi Party's violent anti semitism, even as it 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:55.280 targeted her husband. We do not really know her thought 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.719 process on this. Some scenarios are easy to imagine, like 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.399 she may have understood that if she were publicly vocal 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.920 on any of this, her husband's life would be at risk. 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.639 But she's described as being a passive collaborationist during World 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.360 War two, and she also published a lot of her 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.520 work in pro visy anti Semitic journals. During the war, 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.679 she also published a novel, Julie de Carnilon, which contained 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:26.240 a lot of anti Semitic language. Even generously, this was 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:30.440 not good, any of it. One of Collette's more well 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.080 known novellas, especially in the United States, was one of 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.720 the works she published in a pro VC journal during 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.119 World War Two. This was Gig, which was published in 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:43.840 This is the story of a girl in Paris whose 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.480 grandmother and great aunt are training her to be a 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.879 high class courtisan. Does not go exactly the way that 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.680 those two women are planning for her. After the war 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.520 was over, Collette chose Audrey Hepburn to play the role 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:00.800 of Gigi on Broadway, and that launched hep Barn's career. 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:05.080 She was also made into a musical film in and 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.040 that film won all nine Academy Awards that it was 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.960 nominated for. Collette did not live to see this version 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.359 of her novella, though, and we're going to talk about 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:26.199 that after we pause for a sponsor break. As we 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:30.480 mentioned earlier, Collette developed arthritis and it worsened during World 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.040 War Two. We've also talked about how Collette really hated 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.840 the idea of aging, and in her younger years she 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.480 had kept up a fitness regiment to both sculpt what 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.040 her body looked like and to hopefully prevent physical problems 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.480 later on in her life. Her body changed a lot 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.560 as she got older, but she had really hoped that 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.560 she was going to be active and physically well all 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:55.959 the way until the end. So her disability and the 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.760 chronic pain that accompanied it were just very, very upsetting 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.520 to her. She tried to remain in good spirits, and 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:07.120 if she thought she was sinking too far into despair, 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.680 she would think about when the Gestapo came from Maurice. 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.000 She thought that was the worst thing that could ever 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:15.960 happen to her, and it had already happened. She spent 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:17.959 most of the last years of her life in an 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.760 apartment in Paris that overlooked the Palais Royal Gardens, an 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:25.800 apartment that she described as quote another country home in Paris. 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.040 Her bed was pushed against the window so she could 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.280 see outside and sit in the fresh air when the 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.359 weather was good. For a time, she was still able 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:36.879 to travel, and she and Maurice would stay with friends 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.119 or in hotels, or visit spas and thermal baths with 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.399 the hope that she would get some pain relief. But 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.040 the more trouble she had with her mobility, the less 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.359 this was possible. This was an upstairs apartment, it was 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.120 not accessible to her. Getting downstairs required her and her 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.640 wheelchair to be carried. That was something that required two 0:21:56.680 --> 0:22:00.280 strong people to do. Maurice thought about moving them to 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.080 a first floor apartment where this wouldn't be an issue, 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.439 but worried that that kind of relocation would just be 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.359 too upsetting for her, and then she would also no 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:11.960 longer have the view of the gardens that she loved 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.399 so much. After World War two, there had been a 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.440 wave of effort in France to seek out and prosecute 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:22.800 people who had collaborated with Germany. Many writers who had 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.880 published in the pro Vichy press had their work boycotted, 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:30.720 and some faced death threats and violence, but Collette's reputation 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:34.639 was seemingly unaffected by her publishing in a range of 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:39.280 pro Vissy journals during the war. On May second, she 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.600 was elected to the French literary organization known as the 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.639 Academy goncur. She was only the second woman to be 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:51.760 so honored at mondegoncour who established the Academy, had specified 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:54.320 in his will that it was not open to women 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:58.800 or Jews. He also excluded poets and members of the 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:03.359 Academy fonseai Is. In ninety Colette was nominated for the 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:07.560 Nobel Prize in Literature, although that prize went to T. S. Eliott. 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:11.080 In nineteen fifty three, she was named Grand Officer in 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:14.679 the French Legion of Honor. Colette died in Paris on 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:18.040 August third, nineteen fifty four, at the age of eighty one. 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:20.639 Maurice wrote an account of her death and which he 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:24.280 said that as she was dying, she kept admonishing him 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:28.480 to look. Look. He couldn't see what was so absorbing 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:30.679 and so wondrous to her, and thought she must be 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:34.479 seeing paradise. He later said of her quote. For thirty 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:37.080 years she enabled me to live in a fairy world. 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:41.400 It is often mentioned that Colette was denied Catholic funeral 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:45.280 rites because of her divorces and remarriages, which is true, 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:48.960 but she had not left any instructions for what should 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.240 happen to her after her death, aside from the instruction 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:55.720 that no one should see her. The request for a 0:23:55.800 --> 0:24:00.560 Catholic funeral had come from Maurice. Colette wasn't dead honored 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:03.800 with a state funeral in France on August seventh, nineteen 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:08.520 fifty four. She was buried at pearl Ches Cemetery. Maurice 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:11.720 had become her literary executor. He later wrote a book 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:14.679 about their life together called pret to Colette or Close 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:18.320 to Collette. He later remarried and also became a father 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:20.960 at the age of seventy one. He wrote a memoir 0:24:21.080 --> 0:24:23.760 about this, called The Delights of Growing Old, which was 0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:28.520 published in nineteen sixty six. He died on January nineteen 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:32.240 seventy seven. Her daughter died in nineteen eighty one and 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:36.879 was buried next to Collette at Parlaches. Collette was regarded 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:39.320 as a national icon in France by the time of 0:24:39.359 --> 0:24:42.960 her death, and her work was widely read and deeply beloved. 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:46.720 She wrote at least fifty books, along with plays and articles, 0:24:46.760 --> 0:24:50.360 and a ton of letters. She was a very avid correspondent. 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:53.400 Although some of her books had been translated into other 0:24:53.480 --> 0:24:56.840