Sidonie Gabrielle COLETTE, known as Colette, was a French writer of the 20th century, who was also an actress and journalist. She symbolizes her era through her depiction of French society during the Belle Époque. Her literary creations earned her a prominent place in French literature and brought her international recognition.
She was born on January 28, 1873, in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Yonne (Burgundy, France), to Jules Joseph Colette, a captain and Saint-Cyr graduate who became a tax collector after being invalided due to a war injury, and Sidonie Landoy, known as Sido, who came from a mixed-race family from Martinique.
Her childhood was a happy one, and she received a secular education. Her mother, Sido, was a staunch feminist and atheist who taught her to observe nature, particularly in the garden of their home. From an early age, Colette read classic literature and received lessons in French and style from her father.
As a teenager, she met Henry Gauthier-Villars, an incorrigible seducer nicknamed “Willy.” They married in Châtillon-sur-Loing, where the Colette family had moved after financial difficulties, on May 15, 1893.
Willy was an influential music critic and a prolific author of popular novels, thanks to a network of ghostwriters (known as “porte-plumes” in politically correct language). He also owned a publishing house bearing his name in Paris, located on Quai des Grands-Augustins. He introduced Colette to the literary and musical salons of the capital, where she made a sensation with her strong, gravelly Burgundian accent (she rolled her R’s).
Recognizing his young wife’s writing talents, Willy used her as a ghostwriter. In 1895, he encouraged her to write her school memories, which were published under his name. The first volume, Claudine at School, was followed by a series of Claudine novels.
In 1902, Colette was one of the first women to cut her hair short, adopting the “garçonne” hairstyle, reflecting her growing independence from her husband’s control.
She divorced in 1906. To support herself until 1912, she pursued a career in music hall, encouraged by the mime Georges Wague. She performed pantomimes with an Oriental theme, touring France and appearing at venues such as Théâtre Marigny and the Bataclan in Paris, and elsewhere in the country. This chapter of her life inspired her novel The Vagabond.
With her friend Missy, daughter of the Duke of Morny, who performed with her on stage, she frequented the fashionable sapphic circles of the time. Missy gifted her the villa Rozven in Brittany, where Colette also hosted Natalie Barney, an American novelist.
Soon after, she met Henry de Jouvenel, a politician and journalist, whom she married in 1912. He encouraged her to write articles and reports for the newspaper Le Matin, where he was editor-in-chief. At the age of 40, she had her only child with him, Colette Renée de Jouvenel, nicknamed “Bel Gazou” (Provençal for “beautiful babbling of babies”). Colette, however, did not care for her daughter, who was raised in the countryside by a nurse and later sent to boarding school in Paris at the age of ten. Colette rarely visited her.
Colette became romantically involved with her stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenel, who was 17 in 1920. This affair lasted five years and inspired her novel The Ripening Seed. Colette and Henry de Jouvenel divorced in 1923.
In the musical realm, she collaborated with Maurice Ravel between 1919 and 1925 on L’enfant et les sortilèges, for which she wrote the libretto.
In early 1925, she met Maurice Goudeket, her third husband, 16 years her junior, whom she married in 1935.
During the Occupation, she took refuge in Corrèze with her husband, where she reconnected with her daughter. However, after a few months, she returned to Paris with Maurice, who was arrested by the Gestapo due to his Jewish origins. He was released in 1942, thanks to Colette and her network of Parisian friends, including Drieu La Rochelle, Brasillach, Sacha Guitry, members of the Vichy government, and Otto Abetz, the German ambassador, whose French wife admired Colette.
Out of financial necessity, she collaborated with newspapers in occupied France (Le Petit Parisien, Le Matin) and Pétainist newspapers in the free zone (Candide, Gringoire), which later earned her criticism from the communist publication Les Lettres Françaises.
In 1945, Colette was unanimously elected to the Académie Goncourt, becoming its president in 1949.
In 1953, she was made Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor.
She died on August 3, 1954, in her apartment at 9 Rue de Beaujolais, near the Palais-Royal in Paris. France honored her with a state funeral, and she was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery alongside her daughter.
A filmed document from 1951 by Yannick Bellon features Colette alongside Jean Cocteau and Georges Wague.
About the Work, La Vagabonde
La Vagabonde is a novel by the French writer COLETTE, published in 1910. The story follows the journey of Renée Néré, a young woman leading an independent life far from the social conventions of her time. The narrative revolves around her life as a music hall artist, her loves, passions, and doubts.
The novel explores the quest for freedom of its main character, who rejects the traditional roles society seeks to impose on her as a woman. La Vagabonde also delves into themes of solitude, romantic disillusionment, and the complexity of human relationships. Through Renée’s portrait, Colette offers a reflection on the feminine condition and alternative life choices, while highlighting the emotion and sensuality of her characters.
The work is characterized by an elegant and intimate writing style, blending autobiography with fiction. La Vagabonde is thus a poignant novel about emancipation and human emotion.
