Finding the Woman Who Didn't Exist: The Curious Life of Gisèle d'Estoc

Chronology

167 Chronology 1836 September 23. Birth of d’Estoc’s future husband, Paul Joseph Parent Desbarres, in tenth arrondissement of Paris. 1841 June 16. Marriage of d’Estoc’s parents, Jean Pierre Courbe, thirty-three, a locksmith of Nancy, and Anne Marthe Mienville, twenty, also of Nancy. 1845 March 27. Birth in Nancy of Marie Paule Alice Courbe. 1869 April 26. Birth in Nancy of Louis Joseph Pillard. Marie Paule Courbe of 12 rue du Regard (sixth arrondissement of Paris) first exhibits in the Paris Salon. She exhibits again in 1870. 1871 Death of d’Estoc’s friend Marie Edmée Pau, aged twenty-five. Marie Paule Courbe does not exhibit at the Salon this year. 1872 Marie Paule Courbe resumes exhibiting her work at the Salon, and continues to do so for the next few years, until 1878. 1875 September 22. D’Estoc (thirty) marries Paul Joseph Parent Desbarres (one day before his thirty-ninth birthday), industrialist , of 358 rue St. Honoré (first arrondissement). His parents live at 28 rue Cassette (sixth arrondissement). D’Estoc is living at 99 rue de Rennes (sixth arrondissement) with her parents, now “rentiers” (landowners). December 20. Death of Paul Parent Desbarres, now of 66 rue de Rennes. 1880 After a two-year hiatus, Marie Paule Courbe begins exhibiting at the Salon again, but now under her married name (though a widow for five years). 168 Chronology December. Gisèle d’Estoc meets Guy de Maupassant? It is not certain if the meeting takes place in December of 1880 or January of 1881. 1881 Death of Marie Paule Courbe’s in-laws, Louise Eulalie Caffieri (on May 7) and François Pierre Parent Desbarres (on September 8). 1882 Henner’s painting Bara (for which d’Estoc reputedly served as model) is exhibited at the Salon. 1883 April 30. Death of painter Edouard Manet (if d’Estoc did any modeling for him, it would have to have been before this). 1883–84 Marie Paule Courbe does not exhibit at the Salon, but according to Borel she does exhibit at the “Blanc et noir” exhibition. 1884 Emile Bayard’s painting Une affaire d’honneur, rumored to depict d’Estoc’s duel with Emma Rouër, is shown at the Salon. First attested use of the pseudonym Gisèle d’Estoc. 1885 Marie Paule Courbe exhibits at the Salon under her married name Desbarres. She now lives on the rue Caroline (in the artists’ neighborhood of the Batignolles, in the seventeenth arrondissement ), where she will spend her remaining years in Paris. 1886 Last known letter to d’Estoc from Guy de Maupassant. 1887 Publication in Nancy of Noir sur blanc: Récits lorrains under the pseudonym Gyz-El. Publication in Paris of La vierge-réclame, her roman à clef about Rachilde. First issue of the Revue caudine (in November?). December. Second issue of the Revue caudine with contributions by “Gyz-El.” 1888 Rachilde publishes Madame Adonis, her fictionalized portrait of d’Estoc. A new work by G. d’Estoc, La bande à Virgile, is announced, but there’s no sign that it was ever published. September. Laurent Tailhade links the names of d’Estoc and Rachilde in print, leading to a lawsuit by d’Estoc. Chronology 169 1889 February 27. Tailhade and a colleague are acquitted, but d’Estoc later wins a fine on appeal. Mid-May. Tailhade serves time in Sainte-Pélagie prison for not paying the fine. D’Estoc’s last-known exhibition at the Salon. 1890 Pillard living at 9 rue du Mont-Doré, “à cent pas” (a hundred paces) from d’Estoc (according to Journal des interviews). 1891 First (and only?) installment of Psychologie de Jeanne d’Arc published. D’Estoc moves with Pillard d’Arkaï to Nice sometime in the early 1890s. 1892 Louis Pillard d’Arkaï publishes an interview with d’Estoc that leads to a lawsuit. D’Arkaï (now editor of the Tribun du Midi) and d’Estoc are sued for libel by Gustave Kahn and Léon Pilate (a poet from Nice), and both are fined 25 francs. (The exact grounds for the suit remain obscure; no copies of the original interview remain.) Pillard d’Arkaï publishes his version of the affair in the Journal des Interviews of August 4–10. Among other things, the article claims that d’Estoc’s father is now dead, and that her “aged and infirm” mother is back in Nancy. It also...