Genevieve Halévy

Genevieve Halévy , Mrs Georges Bizet, then Mrs Emile Straus , was born in Paris on February 26th 1849 and died in 1926.

Biography

Girl of the type-setter Wheat-bearing Jacques Halévy, it knows a difficult childhood: she loses her father with thirteen years, her older sister with fifteen and sees her mother interned in an asylum. In its newspaper, it will note in 1868: “ the years accumulate in vain on the dreadful memory of the cruel moments which separated me from all that I liked. ”

She marries in June 1869 the preferred pupil of her father, the type-setter Georges Bizet. They settle Avenue Trudaine and have a son, Jacques, in 1871. Bizet dies suddenly in their house of Bougival (Yvelines) on June 3rd 1875.

With her son, it settles in her uncle, the polygraph Leon Halévy, 22 Rue of Douai, where his/her cousin, the librettist Ludovic Halévy, introduces it near his many friends writers or type-setters. It holds a first living room where one finds the baroness Alphonse de Rothschild, the countess Potocka, the duchess of Richelieu, the countess of Chevigné. Very courted, it has with its feet her cousin Ludovic Halévy, Henri Meilhac, Georges of Oporto-Rich person, Guy of Maupassant (who makes of it the main character of Fort like death), Paul Le Bourget, Paul Hervieu, Joseph Reinach…

In October 1886, with the general surprise, it remarie with Emile Straus, lawyer of the Rothschild whose rumor gave it for an illegitimate brother. “It was the only means of me of disencumbering some”, will say it to explain its choice. Having a very comfortable fortune and vast relations, Straus nourishes a deep affection for Jacques Bizet. All three settle in a vast apartment located in mezzanine n° 134 Boulevard Haussmann, with the angle of the Avenue of Messine. The vast living room in rotunda decorates fabrics of Nattier, Quentin of the Tower and Monet, as well as portrait of the housewife by Jules-Élie Delaunay (1876, today with the Musée of Orsay).

Mrs. Straus receives every Sunday and acquires a great influence in Paris. Though Jewish and commoner, it has many relations in the Saint-Germain Suburb, just like in the world of arts and the letters. Among its guests appear of the men of letters like Ludovic Halévy, Henri Meilhac, Edgar Degas, Forain, Paul Le Bourget, Jules Lemaitre, Paul Hervieu, Georges of Oporto-Rich person, Antoine de Ganderax, Robert de Montesquiou, but also of the politicians like Leon Blum, of the actors like Lucien Guitry, Réjane or Emma Calvé, from abroad like lady of Grey, Lord Lytton or George Moore, brought by Jacques-Emile Blanche. But it receives also fashionable notabilities like the prince Auguste d' Arenberg, the countess Adhéaume de Chevigné, the princess Mathilde, the princess Edmond de Polignac, the countess Greffulhe, the countess of Pourtalès, the duchess of Mouchy, the princess Murat, the count Louis de Turenne.

“ the living room of Genevieve, writes Ludovic Halévy, the Saint-Germain suburb goes there as to the Black Chat and the Black Cat as to the Saint-Germain suburb. ” Marcel Proust, friend and school-fellow with the Condorcet college of Jacques Bizet and Daniel Halévy, meets there Charles Haas, model future of Swann. Genevieve Straus itself is given like one of the models of Oriane of Guermantes.

In April 1898, Straus settled with the n° 104 Rue of Miromesnil in a private mansion which they had just made build.

Under the authority of Joseph Reinach, the living room of Mrs. Straus becomes the point of rallying of the partisans of Dreyfus. They is there that the first petition of the Dawn organizes, at the instigation of Emile Straus, Oporto-Rich person, Hervieu and Halévy. On this occasion, anti-supporters of Dreyfus like Jules Lemaitre or Open, and many aristocrats, desert the house, to which it “Affaire” carries a severe blow. That did not disarm Mrs. Straus who intervened in 1899 near Waldeck-Rousseau so that he entrusted the ministry for the War to the general Gaston de Galliffet, favorable to the révison of the Dreyfus lawsuit. In 1900, meeting the Dreyfus captain finally rehabilitated, Mrs. Straus could launch to him with mischievousness: “ I so much heard of you Capitaine! ”.

Starting from 1910, Mrs. Straus, being divided between the street of Miromesnil and its house of Trouville, the Field of the mulberry trees, sank in the Neurasthénie and took its distances with the world. In 1925, when one suggested to him converting with Catholicism, it had this famous word: “ I have not enough religion to change some. ”

“ This spirit so delicate and so finely personal was at the same time of charm and of good sense , will write of it Robert de Flers. Its distributed, where the irony could be so well surrounded by benevolence, was precisely famous. More one was included in famous parts. ” Thus, with a manifestly miserly lady who asked him in connection with a coat that one had known to him for several seasons: “ Comment do you find my Worth last? ”, it answered: “ I find it solid. ” It says also formerly beautiful woman but who thickened into growing old: “ It is not any more one statue, it is a group. ”

Residences

1869-1875 : Which occurred Trudaine (IXe district)
1875-1886: 22 Rue of Douai (IXe district)
1886-1898: 134 Boulevard Haussmann (VIIIe district)
1898-1926: 104 Street of Miromesnil (VIIIe district)

External bond

Note on Genevieve Straus

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