"No one sees the boy in you". It is the Duke of Sesto, her father-in-law, who addresses Mathilde de Morny in these terms, when she is still only a teenager and lives between Paris and the Court of Spain. Mathilde feels like a man and loves women. But how can she assume such a choice when she is the niece of Emperor Napoleon III and the great-granddaughter of Joséphine de Beauharnais? By living in Paris, which at the time was the European capital of homosexuality. Dressed in a full jacket, hair cut short, cigar in mouth, Mathilde becomes Missy, Max, Uncle Max or even "Monsieur le Marquis", figurehead of the Sapphic circles of the Belle Epoque. Colette was one of his mistresses.
"No one sees the boy in you".
It is the Duke of Sesto, her father-in-law, who addresses Mathilde de Morny in these terms, when she is still only a teenager and lives between Paris and the Court of Spain.
Mathilde feels like a man and loves women.
But how can she assume such a choice when she is the niece of Emperor Napoleon III and the great-granddaughter of Joséphine de Beauharnais?
By living in Paris, which at the time was the European capital of homosexuality.
Dressed in a full jacket, hair cut short, cigar in mouth, Mathilde becomes Missy, Max, Uncle Max or even "Monsieur le Marquis", figurehead of the Sapphic circles of the Belle Epoque.
Colette was one of his mistresses.
