Adèle de Bellegarde

Adélaïde Victoire Noyel de Bellegarde was born on 24 June 1772 in Chambéry,[3] the former capital of the Duchy of Savoy and its largest city on the French side of the Alps.

Adèle was the elder daughter of Robert-Eugène-François Noyel de Bellegarde, Marquis des Marches and a general in the army of the Dutch Estates. Her mother, Marie Charlotte Adélaïde Le Cat d'Hervilly,[3] was a Picard noblewoman and sister of the French general Louis Charles d'Hervilly. The Noyel de Bellegarde family were one of the oldest in Savoy:[4] since 1530, they had owned the Château des Marches, a castle constructed in 1342 on the border between Savoy and Dauphiné.[5] The family divided their time between the castle and an hôtel particulier at 1 Rue Croix-d'Or in Chambéry.[6] Her sister Césarine Lucie was born on 30 September 1774, while her mother died giving birth to her youngest sister, Françoise Eléonore Aurore (known as Aurore), on 3 July 1776.[7]

On 5 November 1787, de Bellegarde was married to Friedrich de Bellegarde, the son of her father's brother Jean-François de Bellegarde and a frequent visitor to the family home.[8] Friedrich, a freemason,[9] a native of Saxony and a captain in the Sardinian army,[lower-alpha 1] was thirty-five; she was fifteen.[8] The couple had two children — a daughter and a son — between 1787 and 1791.[8] Her father died early in 1790, leaving Adèle the title of Comtesse de Bellegarde, while Césarine Lucie died in May 1792 at the age of eighteen.[12]

After the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, tensions grew between France and its monarchical neighbours, including the Kingdom of Sardinia, of which Savoy was a part, largely over the mutual hostility between revolutionary and monarchical ideals, the perceived threat to the revolutionary state from émigré aristocrats, and European monarchs' concern for the safety and rule of Louis XVI.[13] Riots broke out across Savoy, including in Chambéry, prompted by unrest at the French abolition of seigneurial dues (which prompted calls among the rural population for the same) and at rising prices, partly caused by the immigration of wealthy French aristocrats.[14] Little is known of de Bellegarde during this period: Vermale suggests that she and her husband may have sheltered some of the numerous French émigrés who fled across the border to Savoy.[14]

On 20 April 1792, the French National Assembly voted for war with Austria and France invaded the Austrian Netherlands, beginning the War of the First Coalition.[15] In August, news reached Savoy that the French armies were preparing an invasion. Friedrich de Bellegarde, now a lieutenant-colonel in Sardinian service, was given command of the area around Chambéry, while the Château des Marches was fortified, garrisoned and equipped with cannon.[16] The château was made the headquarters of the Sardinian forces, commanded by General de Lazary.[17]

In early September, Friedrich ordered Adèle and Aurore to leave for Piedmont, to which most of the Savoyard nobility not involved in the military preparation were already in the process of evacuating.[18] According to the de Bellegardes' biographer Ernest Daudet, the sisters were reluctant to leave, as they had been hopefully expecting a French victory.[19] Their friend Aimée de Coigny later wrote that they had been "contentes de devenir Françaises" ("happy to become Frenchwomen").[20]

The Château des Marches, de Bellegarde's family seat, served as the headquarters of Sardinian forces during the French invasion of Savoy.

The Kingdom of Sardinia declared war on revolutionary France on 21 September 1792, the day after the French victory at the Battle of Valmy.[21] On the night of 21–22 September, French troops under the Marquis de Montesquiou, led by a unit of Savoyard expatriates known as the Légion des Allobroges, entered Savoy, which was abandoned without resistance by the Sardinian army.[22] By 4 October, the French were in total control:[23] the advancing Montesquiou wrote from Chambéry that "the tricolore cockade is displayed everywhere",[24] and modern historians have noted the apparent enthusiasm of the Savoyard public for annexation by France.[25]

The administration of Savoy passed to a hastily-gathered popular assembly known as the National Assembly of the Allobroges,[25] which issued a decree in October threatening to confiscate the property of those exiles who did not return by 26 December.[26] Friedrich, who was still in the Sardinian army, agreed with Adèle and Aurore that the women would return to Savoy, leaving their children with him in Piedmont.[27] Savoy was annexed to France on 27 November:[28] the two sisters had returned to Chambéry by 1 December, when they registered their return with the municipal government.[29] When asked about her husband, de Bellegarde claimed to know neither his whereabouts nor his intentions, and to have no responsibility for his absence.[29] The sisters regained both the Château des Marches and the family's hôtel in Chambéry, and made them available to revolutionary "Popular Societies".[30]

Following the annexation of Savoy, the National Assembly sent a delegation of four commissioners to organise the new administrative Département de Mont-Blanc, which would be centred upon Chambéry.[31] The commissioners were Hérault de Séchelles, Grégoire Jagot, Henri Grégoire and Philibert Simond,[32] a native of the region.[33] The delegates arrived on 14 December alongside the general François Christophe de Kellermann,[33] who replaced Montesquiou as commander of the French Army of the Alps and established his headquarters in Chambéry.[34] The de Bellegardes hosted the commissioners in the Château des Marches,[35] and they were subsequently given apartments in the family's hôtel.[34]

The Hôtel des Marches in Chambéry, which frequently served as the de Bellegardes' residence in the town.[36]

Throughout late 1792 and into 1793, revolutionary violence increased across France, leading into what became known as "The Reign of Terror".[37] Louis XVI was executed on 23 January 1793;[38] in the remainder of France, at least fifty Savoyards were executed, while others were killed in the region, which ordered — but does not appear to have used — a guillotine from Paris.[39] De Bellegarde and de Séchelles became lovers during this period,[40] and rumours arose in Chambéry that the sixteen-year-old Aurore had likewise begun a relationship with Simond — a defrocked priest who, at thirty-eight, was more than twice her age[40] — which attached to her the unflattering nickname of "the Simonette".[40][lower-alpha 2] The lavish hospitality shown by the sisters to their guests was also a source of intrigue: the de Bellegardes organised parties in honour of the delegates,[32] and Kellerman is said to have boastfully remarked, after a stay at the château, that "l'hospitalité y était aussi complète que possible" ("their hospitality was as complete as could be").[42] The sisters' influence with the commissioners has been credited with protecting several Savoyard aristocrats from execution, and securing their release from prison.[32]

The de Bellegarde sisters, perhaps aware of the dangers of being labelled as "aristocrats",[43] hosted parties and gatherings for revolutionary leaders in both their hôtel and at their château.[30] They took to wearing sans-culotte clothing and kept company with a revolutionary known as "Princess Pistol".[44] On 18 May 1793, de Séchelles and Simond, whose zealous application of revolutionary law had made them widely despised in Savoy,[45] left for Paris, accompanied by Adèle and Aurore.[35] Adèle's husband, Friedrich, was stationed in command of a grenadier regiment at the Little St Bernard Pass: his fellow officer, the marquis Henry-Joseph Costa, informed Friedrich of the news,[46] which he had heard from his own wife living near Chambéry.[47] This was the first that Friedrich had heard of his wife since March, when Adèle's letters had ceased.[48] According to Costa's great-grandson, Charles-Albert, de Bellegarde was heartened to learn that she was not dead, "but would have preferred that his wife were somewhere other than Paris."[46] Whether Costa informed de Bellegarde of his wife's infidelity is unknown.[49]

Hérault de Séchelles, painted by Jean-Louis Laneuville c. 1793

The journey from Chambéry to Paris took about a week.[50] De Séchelles moved into the house of his grandmother, Hélène Moreau de Séchelles, on the Rue Basse-du-Rempart.[50] It is possible that de Bellegarde moved in with him, at least initially,[lower-alpha 3] though Merlin states that she rented an apartment.[52] The de Bellegarde sisters lived openly and took an active part in Parisian society:[53] de Coigny later wrote "la jolie figure, la jeunesse plaisaient à tous les yeux" ("their pretty appearance and their youth were pleasing to everyone's eyes").[54] Around 1793, de Bellegarde held a fashionable salon in Paris.[55] At some point in the same year, they purchased a château in Chenoise, which had previously been the home of their mother's family but had been confiscated after their uncle, Louis Charles d'Hervilly, fled France as an émigré.[56]

The sisters became closely acquainted with the aristocrat and artist Pulchérie de Valence, then known as "citizen Brûlart", and other members of Parisian high society.[57] By October, they were living in a house with de Valence.[58] The three women also formed a close friendship with Rouget de Lisle, the composer of La Marseillaise, with whom they dined frequently and to whom Adèle wrote several letters.[57] De Bellegarde maintained her correspondence with de Lisle after he was arrested for his royalist sympathies and imprisoned in 1793.[59] On the day of his arrest, de Lisle wrote to de Bellegarde, seeking her help in persuading de Séchelles — whom de Lisle believed had ordered it — to have him set free; she wrote back that he could not help, but attempted to assure de Lisle that de Séchelles had played no part in the matter.[60] De Valence was also arrested and imprisoned, probably in February or March 1794.[58]

The Saint-Lazare prison, where de Bellegarde was held between April and July 1793, painted in 1932

De Séchelles was considered an ally of Georges Danton, whom Maximilien Robespierre (a leading figure of the Committee of Public Safety, France's de facto government)[61] believed to working with foreign powers to subvert the revolution.[62] Along with other so-called "Dantonists", de Séchelles was arrested on 16 March 1794[63] and imprisoned in the Luxembourg Palace alongside Philibert Simond, who was taken there on the same day.[64] De Bellegarde wrote on 17 March[65] to Charles-Alexis Alexandre, a high-ranking officer in the National Guard whom she knew from his time in Savoy with the Army of the Alps,[66] attempting to prove de Séchelles' innocence, but seems to have received no response.[67] De Séchelles was executed by guillotine on 5 April:[68] according to Antoine-Vincent Arnault, a woman's hand, which Daudet suspected to have been de Bellegarde's, was seen bidding him farewell from the window of a nearby building.[69] In the aftermath of de Séchelles' execution, several members of his family and a number of his associates were arrested, and some were executed.[70] Simond was guillotined on 10 April.[69]

On 23 April, the de Bellegarde sisters were arrested, according to the Committee of Public Safety, "par mesure de sûreté générale" ("as a public security measure").[71] Vermale suggests that Adèle was suspected of spying for Sardinia.[65] They were held in the Saint-Lazare prison until 27 July.[32] During this period, which seems to have been fairly comfortable,[65] they met and befriended other aristocratic women imprisoned alongside them, including their long-term friend Aimée de Coigny.[32] The fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July prompted a widespread release of prisoners detained under the "Reign of Terror",[71] including the de Bellegarde sisters and de Lisle; Coigny, who had been condemned to death, had already been released through the intercession of her future husband, Casimir, Comte de Montrond.[72] According to Armand Praviel, de Bellegarde, as with other prominent aristocratic women of the period, "only escaped the guillotine by chance."[73]

Aimée de Coigny, painted before 1811

After their release, the de Bellegarde sisters lived together with de Coigny in an apartment on the Rue d'Amboise, and also rented a country house in Épinay-sur-Orge.[53] Later, they moved to 8 Rue du Jardinet in Passy.[74] They were prominent in salon culture, and frequently called on exclusive and fashionable hostesses such as Thérésa Tallien, Germaine de Staël and the future empress Josephine Beauharnais.[53] Their own salon was popular with artists and intellectuals, and, according to de Coigny, was one of the first to resume salon culture after the Terror.[75] They hosted notables such as Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Kellerman and Alexandre — all of whom, as Adèle complained in a letter to de Lisle, she found excruciatingly boring.[76] The de Bellegarde sisters came into the acquaintance of the Vicomtesse de Laval, an aristocratic hostess and former mistress of the prominent diplomat Talleyrand,[77] who (according to Coigny) "en fit aussitôt ses esclaves" ("immediately made them [the de Bellegardes] her slaves"),[75] and on whose encouragement the sisters organised regular dinners with a group of influential artistic and literary figures, including Népomucène Lemercier, Alexandre Duval, François Gérard, and Talleyrand, which they continued for around five years.[77]

On October 7 1794,[lower-alpha 4] taking advantage of the law of 23 April[lower-alpha 5] which allowed the spouses of émigrés to obtain a divorce unilaterally, de Bellegarde was granted a divorce from Friedrich,[79] which he contested until at least 1804.[lower-alpha 6] In the winter of 1797, the sisters returned to Savoy, staying in Chambéry until February 1798.[80] Vermale suggests that they may have taken part in the ball thrown by Talleyrand for Napoleon on 15 January 1798, celebrating the general's return from Italy, to which he invited "les plus jolies femmes de Paris, les plus élégantes" ("the prettiest and most elegant women in Paris"), who attended in Greco-Roman costume.[81]

After the Republic (1804–1830)

After Napoleon's coronation in December 1804, de la Fuye writes, the de Bellegardes "waged … a campaign of resistance in the manner of Mme. de Staël",[82] whose network of contacts and salon-goers (known as the Coppet group) has been described as a "centre on the periphery" in opposition to Napoleonic Paris.[83] Their long-time associate Talleyrand had, since at least 1808, been convinced that Napoleon would eventually be defeated and secretly working with foreign powers against him;[84] in Vermale's analysis, the de Bellegarde's turned most significantly against Napoleon in 1812, during the failed French invasion of Russia.[85] According to an anecdote told by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, who visited their salon during the period, the sisters read a newspaper report on the retreat from Moscow: seeing that it ended with an optimistic comment about the emperor's health, they "jetèrent le journal au feu d'indignation" ("threw the newspaper away in a blaze of indignation").[85] A prominent figure in their social circle during this period was Bruno-Gabriel de Boisgelin, a military officer and royalist who became a lover of Aimée de Coigny: Vermale credits him with converting the de Bellegardes to his political views.[86]

Talleyrand, painted here in 1808 by de Bellegarde's associate Gérard, was a prominent patron of de Bellegarde in the Napoleonic period.

After the Bourbon restoration of 1814, they left Paris for the Château des Marches, which had been returned to Sardinia following Napoleon's defeat.[87] For the most part, they lived quietly, though they gained a reputation as royalists.[88] In September, they joined a group of Savoyards in Chambéry (which was still under French control) agitating for the region to remain part of France.[87] During Napoleon's brief return to power during the Hundred Days in 1815, the Château des Marches was the headquarters of Colonel Pierre Marin Durand[89] of the 11e Régiment de Ligne, one of the few officers in the south-east to remain loyal to the royalist government in Paris.[87] The de Bellegardes took refuge in Nyon in Switzerland.[82] While there, they met Alphonse de Lamartine, who would become famous in the 1820s as a poet,[90] and interceded on his behalf in a quarrel with a Bernese officer, who had spoken in praise of Napoleon.[91]

After the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, de Bellegarde and Aurore visited de Staël at Coppet,[91] then returned to France.[88] They lived for a while in Épinay-sur-Orge with de Coigny;[82] afterwards, they divided their time between winters in Paris and summers in Chenoise.[88] There, de la Fuye records that "elles seront la providence des malheureux" ("they were the providence of the unfortunate"), to whom they opened their home alongside the elite of French society.[82] Frequent visitors included Talleyrand, the Dukes of Polignac and Louis Henri, Prince of Condé,[92] who maintained a set of hunting equipment there.[82] They were also known for their public balls, held in front of their château.[88]

In later life, both sisters turned to religion,[93] and Aurore became a "Canoness of the Royal Chapel of Saint Anne of Munich" in 1826.[88] A regular caller at their house was the royalist political theorist turned priest Antoine Eugène Genoud,[94] who mentioned the de Bellegarde sisters in his memoirs[88] and acted as a tutor to Adèle's son Louis.[95]

De Bellegarde died on 7 January 1830 in Paris,[92] at her son's apartment on Rue Voltaire.[96] In her will, she expressed her wish to be buried in the churchyard at Chenoise, without expense, and that a hundred francs be given to the poor.[88] After her death, Aurore placed a stone in the churchyard with an inscription in Adèle's memory and the words "priez pour celle qui vous aimait" ("pray for her that loved you"), but the location of her tomb is unknown.[88] Aurore died on 7 March 1840, and was buried in Montmartre Cemetery.[88]

Detail from The Intervention of the Sabine Women: the face and hairstyle of the figure crouching to the right are de Bellegarde's, while her sister Aurore modelled for Hersilia, seen in the centre.

Jacques-Louis David began planning The Intervention of the Sabine women during his imprisonment in the Palais du Luxembourg from 29 May to 3 August 1795. According to a popular account, he was inspired to paint it in honour of his then-estranged wife, Charlotte, after she visited him there.[97] He began preparations shortly after his release, in the autumn of 1795, assisted in his research by his student Pierre-Maximilien Delafontaine.[1] From February 1796, he worked in a temporary studio in the Louvre,[1] and later moved to premises on the Champs-Élysées, where his meeting with the de Bellegardes took place.[98]

The female models for The Intervention of the Sabine Women were aristocratic women, whose appearances David blended with those of Classical sculptures.[99] Numerous apocryphal anecdotes arose in Paris about their involvement in the painting, particularly regarding how David came to meet the de Bellegarde sisters,[2] which have been described as part of the painting's "legend".[1]

Aurore de Bellegarde became David's model for Hersilia, while Adèle modelled for the crouching figure seen to her right.[2] Sources disagree as to how the arrangement began: in the version reported by Miette de Villars in 1850, the sisters and Thérésa Tallien, by then a leading figure in Parisian high society,[100] heard that David had been struggling to find female models and visited his studio in the nude, offering to model for Hersilia.[101] David is said to have exclaimed "Mesdames, me voilà comme Pâris devant les trois grâces!" ("Mesdames, here I am like Paris in front of the three Graces!").[98] In a second version reported by David's student Étienne-Jean Delécluze in 1855, the de Bellegardes were brought to the studio by Madame de Noailles,[lower-alpha 7] a friend of David's, and caught the painter's attention with their long and beautiful hairstyles.[103] Certainly, both de Bellegarde sisters were well known among the Parisian art world, and for their acquaintance with artists of various genres.[104]

In de Villars' version, David was most taken by Aurore, who sat for Hersitia, only asking Adèle and Tallien to pose "out of politeness".[105] According to Delécluze, however, it was Adèle's long, dark hair that most interested him: at the time, he had already painted the crouching figure next to Hersitia (which had been completed by October 1796),[1] and expressed regret that he had not had de Bellegarde's face as a model from which to do so. De Bellegarde accordingly allowed him to repaint the figure's face and hair after her own,[106] while he used part of Aurore's leg in his figure of Hersitia.[2] David's use of the de Bellegarde sisters as models has been interpreted as creating a link between the mythological Sabine Women and Parisian women of his own time,[107] which has itself been interpreted as "affording a familial basis for the reconciliation of a divided and warring post-Revolutionary France".[108]

According to Delécluze, the attention David paid to the painting of Adèle's face led to rumours of an affair between her and the painter, which Delécluze considered baseless.[106] Other rumours circulated as to whether she had posed fully nude.[104]

The Intervention of the Sabine Women was first exhibited at the Louvre on December 21 1799,[109] a few weeks after the Coup of 18 Brumaire,[110] in what has been described as "the major artistic event of the late 1790s in Paris."[111] Contemporaries recorded that Adèle and Aurore de Bellegarde attended the Paris Opera on the opening night of the exhibition, with their clothing and hair modelled after their appearances in the painting.[2] The two women have been a focal point of twenty-first century scholarship on the painting.[112] The diaphanous gowns worn by their characters were credited for starting a fashion for similar outfits, known as dresses à la antique ("Ancient-style")[113] among Parisian high society.[114] Such dresses formed part of the Greek Revival Directoire style of women's clothing popular during the Directoire period, a trend closely associated with the de Bellegardes' friend Thérésa Tallien and the aristocratic subculture known as the merveilleuses ("marvellous women").[115]