Colette’s lover from 1905 to 1911 was Mathilde de Morny, the Marquise of Belboeuf (a fascinating person usually known as Missy. S/he lived in men’s clothes and also liked to be called Max). It’s interesting how many of Colette’s numerous biographers list only her liaisons with men, simply ignoring her long-term, live-in relationship with the marquise, or dismiss it as part of Colette’s love of scandalising the bourgeoisie.
I concede that a brief affair (or two) with a woman might not mean that Colette had serious feelings for women, but surely a relationship that lasted for six years must be more than a passing fad. I’ve even read about Colette’s marriage to her third, Jewish (and last) husband, Maurice Goudeket, also explained away as merely a desire to shock / épater the bourgeoisie.
This implies that Colette could not seriously be in love with a Jewish man or with a woman. This says more about the biographer’s prejudices than it does about Colette. The implication is small-minded, intolerant and old-fashioned: all the things that Colette was not. You only have to remember that in 1907 — almost half a century before women in France had the right to vote, Colette dared to embrace Missy/Max in public, on stage, to a full house. When the audience turned on them, shouting and jeering, even throwing chairs at them, Colette reacted with dignity and was “applauded for her extraordinary courage”. When a journalist asked if she had been frightened, she retorted, “No, it’s not in my nature. Look: I’m not trembling at all.” (From my favourite of Colette’s biographers, Judith Thurman, in her book “Secrets of the Flesh” p.172.)
