The words of Jane Avril
Reflecting on her stay at The Salpêtrière
"What sweet and melencholy memories I still have of those days...the old fashioned charm of it all sank deeper within my heart."
Reflecting on her stay at The Salpêtrière
"What sweet and melencholy memories I still have of those days...the old fashioned charm of it all sank deeper within my heart."
On the Elysée Montmartre
"Women with a shameless air danced there in a way I found indecent, arm in arm with book-makers who looked like butchers or worse...I did not like the place. I preferred the dancing at the Moulin Rouge."
"Women with a shameless air danced there in a way I found indecent, arm in arm with book-makers who looked like butchers or worse...I did not like the place. I preferred the dancing at the Moulin Rouge."
On Toulouse-Lautrec.
"Without a doubt I owed him the fame I enjoyed from that very first moment his poster of me appeared."
"Without a doubt I owed him the fame I enjoyed from that very first moment his poster of me appeared."
Jane's Philosophy.
"I was loved and in return I love, I loathe the material side of existence. I wanted life to be all love, all Happiness."
"I was loved and in return I love, I loathe the material side of existence. I wanted life to be all love, all Happiness."
On outliving many of her friends.
"Fate has decreed that I should outlive my friends."
"Fate has decreed that I should outlive my friends."
A philosophical outlook.
"Despite my gray hair, I shall be able to do it. It is perhaps one of those multiple expressions, so convenient to call “madness”. And if it is this one…it has always been sweet and comforting to me. It helped me live and to it, I shall remain its enchanted slave. If in the other world, there is dancing, then, it should not be impossible that I might be invited the interpret the dance macabre!"
"Despite my gray hair, I shall be able to do it. It is perhaps one of those multiple expressions, so convenient to call “madness”. And if it is this one…it has always been sweet and comforting to me. It helped me live and to it, I shall remain its enchanted slave. If in the other world, there is dancing, then, it should not be impossible that I might be invited the interpret the dance macabre!"
On her first visit to the Bal Bullier (formerly the jardin Bullier) in the Latin Quarter.
"I let myself be driven and directed, dumbfounded as much as dazzled, opening my eyes wide to the discovery of this new life that offered itself to me. I thought I was dreaming....And so off I went to dance and leap, like a runaway goat, or better, like the mad woman that I must have been to an extent."
"I let myself be driven and directed, dumbfounded as much as dazzled, opening my eyes wide to the discovery of this new life that offered itself to me. I thought I was dreaming....And so off I went to dance and leap, like a runaway goat, or better, like the mad woman that I must have been to an extent."
On her friendship with Théodore de Wyczéwa.
"It was the strangest and most beautiful friendship of my life."
"I'll never be able to say how much good he did for me....He had the soul of a saint!"
"I have never met a being who could be compared to him."
"It was the strangest and most beautiful friendship of my life."
"I'll never be able to say how much good he did for me....He had the soul of a saint!"
"I have never met a being who could be compared to him."
At the Moulin Rouge Jane Avril came into her own.
"Dancing solo, I created a sensation....Zidler, full of enthusiasm, offered me quite a price to accept a contract. I refused, preferring to keep my fine independence."
"Dancing solo, I created a sensation....Zidler, full of enthusiasm, offered me quite a price to accept a contract. I refused, preferring to keep my fine independence."
On La Goulue.
"It was tough to please Louise, but always easy to make her happy. Just tell her she is the Queen of France and everything will be fine...."
"She was Paris by night."
"A superb girl, with an insolent beauty, bursting with freshness and health, so desirable, yet extremely vulgar in her language and her bearing. One of the "delights of the flesh" kind."
"It was tough to please Louise, but always easy to make her happy. Just tell her she is the Queen of France and everything will be fine...."
"She was Paris by night."
"A superb girl, with an insolent beauty, bursting with freshness and health, so desirable, yet extremely vulgar in her language and her bearing. One of the "delights of the flesh" kind."
Jane Avril on Lautrec's relationships with his models.
"They were his friends as well as his models. He in turn had an uplifting effect on them. In his presence they were just women, and he treated them as equals. When he ate with them, often bringing a party of friends, they held their knives and forks daintily, restrained their conversation, had the feeling of being women of some standing. Lautrec's almost womanly intuition and sympathy shone like a light for them."
"They were his friends as well as his models. He in turn had an uplifting effect on them. In his presence they were just women, and he treated them as equals. When he ate with them, often bringing a party of friends, they held their knives and forks daintily, restrained their conversation, had the feeling of being women of some standing. Lautrec's almost womanly intuition and sympathy shone like a light for them."
On how the company she kept influenced her.
"Living in the midst of these charming beings who exuded so much brilliance...I wound up, so I have been told, having a little myself."
"Living in the midst of these charming beings who exuded so much brilliance...I wound up, so I have been told, having a little myself."
When 67 year old Jane Avril emerged to dance once more at a Toulouse-Lautrec ball the old lady wrote in 1937.
"In this retreat I have nothing to keep me company but my precious memories."
"In this retreat I have nothing to keep me company but my precious memories."
Reflecting.
"I have fluttered my way through our epoch without revealing an inkling of the depths of my innermost soul..."
"I have fluttered my way through our epoch without revealing an inkling of the depths of my innermost soul..."
One particular lover gave her the nightmares of her life. He embezzled money from her, cheated on her, even caused her bodily injuries. Brought before a magistrate, the prosecutor asked the Judge to lock him up for a very long time. But Jane objected. Not because she feared this brutal man but, as she told the Judge.
"Don't put him in jail, I want to give him another chance in life, provided that he promises me, that as soon as he leaves this courtroom, he will go looking for a prostitute, any prostitute he can find in the streets...he will give her every single penny he has in his pockets and he will get her off the street for good, no matter how he does it...he has to do it. If he can do that, if he can save her life, I will save his!"
THIS WAS JANE AVRIL!
"Don't put him in jail, I want to give him another chance in life, provided that he promises me, that as soon as he leaves this courtroom, he will go looking for a prostitute, any prostitute he can find in the streets...he will give her every single penny he has in his pockets and he will get her off the street for good, no matter how he does it...he has to do it. If he can do that, if he can save her life, I will save his!"
THIS WAS JANE AVRIL!
Jane Avril on England taken from her 1933 memoirs.
"Over there, one lives freely, without bothering others or making fun of them, as happens so often at home. There, sometimes I saw people who were comic or ridiculous in their looks or comportment, and who would have attracted a crowd of nosy-parkers in our Parisian Streets, go relatively unnoticed."
"Over there, one lives freely, without bothering others or making fun of them, as happens so often at home. There, sometimes I saw people who were comic or ridiculous in their looks or comportment, and who would have attracted a crowd of nosy-parkers in our Parisian Streets, go relatively unnoticed."
On her stay in the Salpétrière where Jane would live, play and dance.
"In those days life for me was one long remote dream in a world of my own, I knew nothing of the real life around me. I just flitted through the days, the weeks, the years like a butterfly, careless and happy, sipping honey from each flower."
"In those days life for me was one long remote dream in a world of my own, I knew nothing of the real life around me. I just flitted through the days, the weeks, the years like a butterfly, careless and happy, sipping honey from each flower."
Reflecting on her mother's treatment of her in her youth.
"I was too proud to cry, but anyway, my mother threatened me with such terrible vengeance if ever I breathed a word to anyone, that that alone froze me into silence. Ah, the nights I spent with my body black and blue and aching from her beatings! But she was clever, as clever as she was evil, for she took care never to mark my face. As the blows rained on me I used to whisper deep down inside myself "oh, stop...stop...stop" But no one ever heard my plea."
"I was too proud to cry, but anyway, my mother threatened me with such terrible vengeance if ever I breathed a word to anyone, that that alone froze me into silence. Ah, the nights I spent with my body black and blue and aching from her beatings! But she was clever, as clever as she was evil, for she took care never to mark my face. As the blows rained on me I used to whisper deep down inside myself "oh, stop...stop...stop" But no one ever heard my plea."
On the Moulin Rouge and its windmill facade.
"All it ever ground was the customer's money."
"All it ever ground was the customer's money."
Observations on the cancan
"The dancer's skirts, some twelve metres in circumference, were of panels and frothy lace, as were the drawers. The effect of the black stockings against this snowy whiteness was to emphasise the shape of the legs."
"The dancer's skirts, some twelve metres in circumference, were of panels and frothy lace, as were the drawers. The effect of the black stockings against this snowy whiteness was to emphasise the shape of the legs."
She returned to Paris for the last time in 1941 for a dinner given by old friends for old time's sake...just a friendly token to pay homage to once upon a time, the queen of France's Can Can. Excited by the occasion, she stood up while everybody was still eating, kicked a chair which was in her way and shouted.
"Allez Les Enfants, Une Fois En Plus! Une Autre Dance. Petit Etre, C'est Ma Derniere!" "Hurrah children, one more time, one more dance, maybe this is my last!"
"Allez Les Enfants, Une Fois En Plus! Une Autre Dance. Petit Etre, C'est Ma Derniere!" "Hurrah children, one more time, one more dance, maybe this is my last!"
Craig's Blog - JANE AVRIL OF THE MOULIN ROUGE - Craig's Blog
