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Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux was born Lucie Frederica Marguerite Jourdain on 9 May 1850 in Louviers, into a prominent family of drapers.[1] Her father was Frédéric-Joseph Jourdain.[2] She was the half-sister of the painter Roger Joseph Jourdain. De Saint-Marceaux received an extensive musical education from Antoine François Marmontel and Romain Bussine, among others.[3]
Marriages
As a young woman, de Saint-Marceaux was courted by the composer Camille Saint-Saëns, who asked for her hand in marriage, but her family demanded she refuse him due to his rather Bohemian situation.
She was introduced to the visual arts scene in the 1860s by her half-brother and, in 1870, she married the painter Eugène Baugnies.[1] She gave birth to three sons with Baugnies: Georges, Jacques, and Jean.[1] In 1875, the architect Jules Février completed the construction of the Baugnies' mansion at 100 Boulevard Malesherbes, near Parc Monceau in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.
Upon the death of her husband, de Saint-Marceaux inherited a large fortune. In 1892, she married the sculptor Charles René de Paul de Saint-Marceaux.[4][1] Her second husband's family were part of the French nobility descended from the Lords of Saint-Marceaux.[5] Her husband's grandfather, Augustin de Saint-Marceaux, served as mayor of Reims.[5] Her husband adopted her three sons, who then took on the surname "Baugnies de Paul de Saint-Marceaux".[2]
Colette wrote about de Saint-Marceaux's salons,[1]
"The meetings at the hôtel Saint-Marceaux, more than a social curiosity, were a reward granted to the faithful of music, a kind of lofty recreation, the bastion of artistic intimacy… A dinner, always excellent, preceded these meetings where the hostess maintained an atmosphere of "supervised freedom". She didn't force anyone to listen to the music, but repressed the slightest whisper... No one thought it bad that Monsieur de Saint-Marceaux was absorbed in reading, that the sons of the house retired to the upper floor, that the painters Clairin, Billotte took refuge in a quarrel between painters, whether Gabriel Fauré preferred to music the pleasure of drawing in three strokes of the pen the portrait of long and bearded Koechlin, or that of Henri February, father of Jacques. Sometimes, the phalanx of musicians threw themselves on old music books, played, sang with soul now Loïsa Puget, plundered a repertoire of 1840 haunted by madmen on the moor, Breton brides leaning on the moles, young girls intoxicated by the waltz … Often, side by side on the bench of one of the pianos, Fauré and Messager improvised with four hands, competing in abrupt modulations, out of tune escapes. They both loved this game during which they exchanged duelist apostrophes: "Parry that one! and that one, you were waiting for it? Always go, I'll pinch you again". Fauré, emir bistré, shook his silver crest, smiled at the pitfalls and redoubled them… A parodic quadrille, with four hands, where the leivmotives of the Tetralogy met, often rang the curfew."[8]
In 1901, she hosted Isadora Duncan at a salon, who later performed at de Saint-Marceaux's son Jean's wedding. Some of her salons were hosted at her country estate in Cuy-Saint-Fiacre, which she inherited from her first husband's parents.[2]
In 1900, she hired the violinist Jacques Thibaud, a new graduate from the Conservatoire de Paris, to play at one of her salons. She noted the experience in her diary, writing:
"Thibaud with his quartet plays at my house the 2nd quartet of Fauré and that of Saint-Saëns, and also the piano and violin sonata [by Fauré]. Exquisite evening. It costs me 200 francs, it is worth 1000."
^Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux (pref. Michelle Perrot), Journal: 1894-1927: edited under the direction of Myriam Chimènes, Paris, Arthème Fayard (2007); ISBN 978-2-213-62523-2.
^Colette, Journal à rebours, Paris, Fayard (1984); ISBN 2-213-01455-8.
^Jean-Michel Nectoux, Antoinette Le Normand-Romain and Michel Delahaye, A family of artists in 1900: the Saint-Marceaux, Paris, RMN (1992); ISBN 2-7118-2726-7.
^Nectoux, Jean-Michel (1991). Gabriel Fauré – A Musical Life. Roger Nichols (trans). pg. 34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23524-3.
^Nectoux, Jean-Michel (2004). Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-61695-6.