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CHAPTER 1. JEAN

The date is the last decade of the nineteenth century, and the place is Paris, France. More specifically, it is in the 18th arrondissement, at 82 Boulevard de Clichy, in that part of Paris known as Montmartre, notorious for its bohemian lifestyle and abutting on the brothel district of Pigalle. To many of the more cosmopolitan young men in the city, and in all of Europe, this is the center of the world. The name above the big doors is synonymous with their ideal of heaven: MOULIN ROUGE, the most famous music hall of them all! On the roof was the famous facsimile red windmill, and on both sides of the front door are gigantic posters advertising the reigning archangel of that heaven: Marie Lachaud, the can-can dancer extraordinaire, the wet dream of every red-blooded male in France. The posters show her with her gorgeous legs flung high into the air, her skirts swirling about her, her face beaming with a sexually-enticing smile.

But the hour is 4:30 am. The music hall is dark. Jean Daumer, stagehand aged 18 and a half, has turned off the last of the gas lights and has exited by the small green side door, bolting and locking it from the outside. “She is long gone,” he shouts at the dozen or so men in tuxedos, clutching Champagne bottles and mostly quite drunk, who are hoping for a chance to talk to, or even just touch, the fabled Marie Lachaud. They shuffle off reluctantly, as Jean walks down the street and turns to a small café on Rue Cadet, where, in the back room, a group of a dozen or so women are sitting and drinking tea. These are whores who work at the Moulin Rouge and, their work for the night done, gather together in their "parliament" to gossip and compare notes before drifting home to get some sleep.

(Author’s note: I am not being insensitive here. While all languages have many euphemisms for working ladies of the night, among themselves they tend to prefer being brutally simple and open about who and what they are, and always refer to themselves as “whores”. Also, they preferred to drink tea -- or hot chocolate in the winter -- than to touch any alcoholic beverage. Even the madly expensive “special Champagne” which they insisted that their marks order for them from the bar at the Moulin Rouge was, in reality, just colored carbonated cold tea, which the barmen keep in specially-marked bottles. A working girl cannot afford to have her senses dulled by alcohol. Now, after hours, most of them have removed their makeup — which was smudged anyhow after a hard night’s work — and look more like a group of shop women relaxing after long hours behind the counter. Two have even taken out their knitting, which keeps their hands busy during the conversation.)

Jean had been “adopted” by this parliament many years ago, when he was a street urchin of 12 years old, and they became surrogates for his biological mother, who threw him out of her home so that she could have privacy with her everchanging lovers. From the first — and in return for irregular meals — he ran errands and did other small tasks for them. One night, one of the whores, in a moment of distraction and tiredness, talked to him using the feminine gender and he, without a thought, answered her in the feminine gender. That drew a round of laughs and became the group in-joke. From then on, they always talked to Jean as though he was a girl, and he always answered them in the same vein. They called him “Mimi”, and he became like a little sister to them (or daughter, to the older ones).

Jean was particularly attached to Brigitte Leblanc, the youngest of the group. She had run away from her parents’ home in Brest at the age of 15 and a year later, when Jean first joined the group, she seemed to him to be the ultimate in grown-up sophistication. From the start, at 11:00 each morning, he would knock on her door and wake her up. (Where Jean slept nobody knew, and he refused to divulge.) While Brigitte prepared breakfast for both of them, he would wash her delicates in a wash basin in the corner of the room, and hang them on a clothesline to dry. Meanwhile, Brigitte would tell him about her night and clients. Sometimes she would be excited about a new position or other trick she had learned from one of her clients, and insist on demonstrating it on Jean (he would take the girl’s part, and she would act the client’s part). Sometimes she would show him some new jewelry she had managed to get as a present from a client or shoplift at the new and ultra-chic Galeries Lafayette.

For the most part, Brigitte sewed her own clothes and often used Jean as a model to see how they looked and make minor adjustments. Jean liked wearing them in her room, but was reluctant to go out of doors wearing them, saying that he did not feel right in them. One day, Brigitte surprised him by showing him a frock which she had sewn -- one just right for a preteen girl. Jean tried it on and loved it, especially when Brigitte also produced a pair of matching shoes, which she had "procured" at the Galeries Lafayette. They were so beautiful! Reluctantly, he agreed to go out with Brigitte for a walk in the park, wearing his new clothes. Brigitte did his longish hair in a nice bun and applied some makeup to his face (not to much, for he was only a kid) and they both went out together for a stroll. After that, this became part of their routine. After they ate and Jean did the dishes while Brigitte dressed (she slept in the nude and normally walked around her apartment that way; she had no qualms of being nude in front of “her little sister” Mimi), Jean would help her with her makeup and then she would help him dress and do his hair and makeup. They would go out for a stroll in one of the parks or along one of boulevards. Brigitte liked to point out the nice-looking men to “her sister”, and go into extravagant detail about how she imagined they were equipped between the legs, all the while maintaining the poise and expression of a very innocent teenager. Then she would give a very professional assessment of what she could expect from them in bed. Needless to say, it was quite an education for Jean. As Jean grew older, the clothes which Brigitte made for him became more and more adult in style. There were times that he even wore some of Brigitte's old dresses, which need only small alterations since both "sisters" were very close to the same size. Still, Jean was shy and never went out wearing a dress except in Brigitte's company (indeed, he stored all of his dresses in her room). He certainly never wore them to work at the Moulin Rouge, a job which the whores managed to obtain for him after he reached the age of 15.

Under Brigitte's direction, Jean learned how to care for his skin by rubbing it with various creams. He carefully plucked out his facial hair by the roots, when it started growing, and shaved the hair on his arms and legs, after first doing the same to Brigitte. Little by little, he unconsciously began adopting the mannerisms and body language of a teenage girl, much to the delight of the members of the parliament. By the time he was 15, he was so at home behaving and thinking like a girl that, when he went to work as a boy, he had to keep on reminding himself to behave and talk appropriately.

CHAPTER 2. THE DWARF

When Jean came in, the parliament was in the midst of an animated discussion concerning one of its favorite topics of conversation —The Dwarf. The Dwarf was, of course, the painter Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa, a chronic habitué of the Moulin Rouge and of all of the brothels in the Montmartre area. His posters of Louise Weber, who created the can-can, made the dance, and the music hall, famous; his current posters of Marie Lachaud exceeded them in their vibrant beauty and life. The Dwarf visited the Montmartre brothels so frequently that he often literally moved into one for days on end, not only enjoying the professional services of the whores but also painting and drawing them during their leisure moments. He was one of the most endearing characters of Montmartre, and on good terms with everyone.

And now The Dwarf was upset, and creating a minor ruckus. It seems that he had taken it into his head that he must paint Marie Lachaud not only as a dancer but also in her moments of relaxation. He had asked her to model in his studio, and she refused. Not only that, she refused to tell him where she lived, or even meet with him anywhere outside of the Moulin Rouge. Now The Dwarf was a bohemian at heart and in lifestyle, but he was also an aristocrat, descended from the Counts of Toulouse. He was not used to being spurned, and was very upset. In fact, this evening he had gone to the office of Josep Oller, the manager of the Moulin Rouge, and demanded that his famous posters be removed. It was only with great difficulty that he was reminded that he had been paid a handsome commission for the posters, that they were now the property of the music hall, and would be removed only when the manager saw fit to remove them. He was also mollified with some free bottles of absinthe.

Of course, The Dwarf was not the only male in Paris who tried, without any success, to snare Marie Lachaud outside the music hall. In fact, nobody knew where she lived or what she did when she was not dancing. This gave rise to rumors that she was really the daughter of a high-ranking family, perhaps even of one of the cabinet members (several candidates were mentioned) or, even, that she was of royal Bourbon blood. Others said that she was the wife of a major banker or industrialist (several names were bandied about) or even the mistress of a cardinal. One story linked her to the American ambassador, either as daughter or mistress. Another story asserted that she was really a nun, who escaped nightly from one of the many convents in Paris. Where Marie Lachaud spent her days was one of the biggest mysteries of the city.

The whores were concerned not with that but with pacifying The Dwarf. If Marie Lachaud preferred her privacy that was her affair, but if Toulouse-Lautrec was in a foul mood, a pall of depression covered the whole of Montmartre. Several proposals were put forth, but the whores could agree on nothing and finally decided that they would have a talk with Rosa la Rouge, a notorious fellow whore who was The Dwarf’s favorite model, to try to figure out a way to overcome his current fixation.

Around 6, the meeting finally broke up and Jean went to the secret hovel where he had his bed. The next morning, as usual, he went to Brigitte’s room, but she was feeling poorly and clearly had a high fever. For several hours, he held compresses to her head and tried to cheer her up with various funny stories he heard or made up. It didn’t work all that well. Finally, he had to head to the Moulin Rouge to begin work. He wasn’t feeling all that well himself, but was sure he would be able to function, at least for that evening.

Jean was, as usual, the first to get to the music hall. He unlocked the side door and entered. After lighting the gas lights in the main corridor, he entered the largest of the dressing rooms and, from the inside, locked the door. Then he began the long and arduous process of transforming himself into Marie Lachaud, to be ready in time for the first performance of the evening. After all, it was part of Marie Lachaud's mystique that nobody ever saw her arrive, just as nobody ever saw her leave.

(to be continued)

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(author’s note: This is a direct continuation of Part I, which has to be read first.)

CHAPTER 1. THE END OF A LIFESTYLE

It was not a good performance. Although the vast majority of the audience were ecstatic at Marie Lachaud’s dancing, as usual (but then some of them were so drunk that they would go wild over a dancing iguana), those cognoscenti who were Moulin Rouge regulars realized that the night was far below par. Even The Dwarf left his usual place right in front of the stage and retired to the bar, disappointed and disgusted, before the act was finished. As Jean removed his makeup he realized that his forehead was burning up, just as Brigitte’s had been earlier that day. He barely managed to turn off the gas lights and lock the stage door. Instead of heading to meet the others at the parliament, he went directly to his bed and lay there, trembling, until he fell asleep.

When Jean woke up, it was noon. He was late for Brigitte, and very worried about her health. Quickly, he dressed and went over to her room. When he came there, he was surprised to find all the members of the Rue Cadet parliament there, many of them in tears. One of them took him aside and broke the news to him. “Mimi, cherie, your elder sister Brigitte passed away during the night. She didn’t show up for work as usual, and so we went to see what was wrong. We found her in a very bad state, and managed to pry that old lecher Dr. Maheux away from the bar at the Moulin Rouge and bring him here. By the time he arrived, it was too late — she was gone. Dr. Maheux says it is most likely the influenza which has been sweeping Paris for the past month. He says that hundreds, maybe thousands, have died from it, but the government has ordered the newspapers not to print anything, supposedly to prevent panic but more likely to prevent anyone from questioning the competence of the health authorities.”

Jean looked blank. He tried to cry, but no tears seemed to come. Then he fainted.

When Jean awoke, he found himself lying in Brigitte’s bed, with one of the whores from the parliament sitting by to his side. “You have been sleeping for over 24 hours, Mimi” she said and kissed his forehead. “You had such a high fever, we were afraid that you were on your way to join your sister. Come, let me help you up.” Gently, she helped Jean to his feet and guided him down the hallway to the toilet common to all of the rooms on the floor. Afterwards, she heated some soup on the burner, and fed it to Jean slowly. She put her hand on Jean’s head. “Your fever seems to be lower. You will recover.”

Jean lay in Brigitte’s bed for two weeks, while the whores took turns feeding him and caring for him. They also brought him the news which was creating a sensation at the Moulin Rouge — the great Marie Lachaud had disappeared! She hadn’t shown up for work one day, and nobody knew where she was. Even M. Oller, the manager, had no idea where she could be. He explained to The Dwarf, and others, that he knew no more than they what Marie’s real identity was and where she lived. She had her own key to the back door and arrived early; she was paid every Monday in cash, and c’est tout. She had not given any explanation or excuse for her failure to report to work and, after a week, M. Oller reluctantly ordered the posters of her to be taken down, and be replaced by those announcing another dancer, Olivia d’Evian, who took her place (no pictures yet).

Needless to say, all of the music hall was abuzz with rumors as to what happened to Marie. The general belief was that she, too, was a victim of the influenza epidemic. It was pointed out that several workers at the Moulin Rouge, including two barmen, a waiter, and the stagehand Jean Daumer, were all known to be ill (the whores had reported Jean’s illness to M. Oller, in order to insure that he not be fired). The other barmen and waiters had taken to wearing gauze masks when they served the public. Several of the regular patrons had failed to appear and one of them, retired General Raynaud, had been buried only the day before in a formal public funeral — although the official reason for his death was listed as heart failure, rumor had it that he in fact died of influenza.

Others speculated that Marie had finally been caught by her husband/lover/father/mother superior and prevented from coming. The Dwarf drank himself into a stupor for four days in a row, but now seems to have recovered enough to make sketches of the new leading dancer, for a possible new set of posters (and another hefty commission).

Jean didn’t care. He would not go back to dancing anyway, he was sure of that. The whole adventure had started as a prank, which Brigitte had suggested to him. He had been working at the Moulin Rouge for a few months, and had plenty of time to observe the dancers from backstage. In Brigitte’s apartment, he showed her the steps of the can-can. While the dance is very impressive when seen from the audience (especially if the audience is rather drunk), it is in fact a simple dance to master. It did not take more than a few months of practice for Jean to be able to wag his legs and swing his body like a professional. “Mimi, you should try out as a dancer,” Brigitte teased him. You are better than half of the cows who are on the stage. At first, Jean just dismissed the idea, but Brigitte harped on it again and again until he finally agreed to come to the Moulin Rouge dressed as a girl and ask for a tryout. But he made Brigitte promise that this would be a secret between them. None of the other members of the parliament were to know.

Brigitte sewed a special dress for Jean for the occasion, which was padded so that he appeared to have a large bosom. She also “procured” at the Galeries Lafayette a pair of high-heeled shoes for him, and trained him in how to walk in them. Then, after fixing his hair just right, she had taken him to the music hall and introduced him to the assistant choreographer, who was also a client of hers. When he asked Jean what his name was, Jean blurted out “Marie Lachaud”, the first name that came into his mind. The rest, of course, is history. His audition was sensational and he was put in the chorus line. Within six months, he had moved to the position of lead dancer, and from there to stardom.

CHAPTER 2. THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER

Although Jean made a lot of money dancing, he did not change his way of life one bit. He gave everything he earned to Brigitte, who invested it in various stocks suggested to her by another of her clients, who worked at the Paris bourse and had access to considerable confidential information. Sometimes, the two “sisters” talked about their future plans and they agreed that when Brigitte reached the age of 30, she would retire from her profession and they would buy a building in Paris, which they would manage as a small rooming house or perhaps a restaurant.

Without Brigitte, Jean felt lost and confused. He had to decide what to do, and was unable to do so. His only support was the Rue Cadet parliament, and he decided to turn to them. When he felt himself ready, he dressed himself in one of Brigitte’s best dresses and, for the first time, walked the streets of Paris as a woman, alone. He arrived at the parliament just as the last of the whores had come in, and caused no little sensation. While they were used to talking to him in the feminine, and calling him Mimi, none of the others had actually seen him dressed as a woman. Needless to say, the whores were both shocked and delighted to see him dressed that way. “Brigitte told us that you occasionally dressed in her clothes,” said one, “but I never thought you would look this beautiful.”

“Well,” Jean said, “we kept it a secret, just as we kept the secret of the name I used when I was dressed like this.”

“Do you mean you didn’t call yourself ‘Mimi’?”

“No,” said Jean, “Mimi was my name when I was with you. At other times, I had a very special name, which I used until now. But now, I will use it always, in tribute to Brigitte.

“And what did you call yourself, if I may ask?”

“I am Marie Lachaud.”

A collective gasp emerged from the parliament, followed a stunned silence. Everybody looked at Mimi carefully and realized that , yes, she was indeed Marie Lachaud — without the dancer’s heavy makeup and costume. “So that is how Marie Lachaud entered and left the Moulin Rouge without being noticed! She was disguised as Jean! Formidable!” Everybody rushed to hug Mimi and kiss her. She had fooled everybody, including — and especially — The Dwarf.

Mimi then told them about the money that she had earned and Brigitte had invested for her. The amount that had accrued was quite large. However, she insisted that everything belong to all of them, and not just to her. The question was what to do with it. Mimi suggested that they buy a building and open a brothel, but — perhaps surprisingly — the parliament was dead set against it. They wanted something more respectable. After several suggestions were put forth and considered, one of the whores suggested that they open an art gallery.

“But we know nothing about art,” Mimi objected.

“We do know somebody who does, though; all we have to do is persuade him to help us.”

“Who is that?”, Mimi wanted to know.

“The Dwarf, of course!” shouted several at once. Suddenly everyone was very enthusiastic about the notion and erupted with ideas. An art gallery — why not? It would be called The Parliament of the Arts, and would be located right here in Montmartre. They would aim at the same clients that they met during the nights — rich young men who would be glad to pay a fortune for a picture of the woman with whom they had spent the previous evening. They would commission the paintings themselves. Everybody in the group agreed to pose for pictures, in the nude if necessary. Mimi would act as manager of the gallery and as the “front woman” for them all. The main problem was finding artists with real talent, and to do that they had to persuade The Dwarf to help them. For that too, they devised a plan.

CHAPTER 3. PATRON OF THE ARTS

The next night, one of the whores took The Dwarf aside and told him she had a big surprise for him, if he would follow her after work. He did not believe her, but agreed anyway, since adventure was something he enjoyed and, in any case, he was still somewhat depressed. So, at 4:30 am, he was led to the back room of the café on Rue Cadet and there, waiting for him, was … Marie Lachaud. She slowly rose and kissed him on the forehead. “My dear Henri,” she whispered, “I had always wanted to meet you, but up until now — for reasons I cannot explain — it has been impossible. The situation has now changed. I have been very ill, as I am sure you have heard, and though I have recovered, I no longer have the strength to dance.”

Marie then outlined the proposal to open an art gallery, which she would operate. The gallery would specialize in paintings of various Montmartre ladies, which would be sold to patrons of the Moulin Rouge or their friends. Of course, they expected to exhibit many paintings by The Dwarf himself, and of any of his friends whom he would recommend. Indeed, if he were willing to act as official consultant to the gallery, Marie would show her gratitude by agreeing to pose for him (and him alone), though not in the nude, of course.

And it worked! On the face of it, the whole idea was outrageous — an art gallery managed by a male teenaged former street urchin who had been a famous can-can dancer but now dressed and acted like a lady of fashion, owned by a group of whores from the Moulin Rouge, with artistic direction by a dwarfed and drunken scion of one of the great aristocratic families of France. In practice, it worked wonderfully. The prostitutes of Montmartre who doubled as models steered their clients to the gallery and implored them to buy the paintings. The fact that the fabled Marie Lachaud was usually in the showrooms to personally greet the customers, and the high artistic standards guaranteed by The Dwarf’s careful screening of the painters, insured that The Parliament of the Arts did very well indeed. The paintings not only reminded the purchasers of the good time they had, they were also a sound investment. Soon The Parliament of the Arts was making much more money than the established galleries downtown.

Marie, as befitting her new status, moved from Brigitte’s old room to a large and comfortable apartment just off of the Jardin des Tuileries, which she soon filled with original paintings, including several portraits of herself painted by The Dwarf and his friends. She became a patron of such painters as Henri Rousseau, Georges-Pierre Seurat, and Vincent van Gogh — all of whom did her portrait at least once.

As the new century unfolded, however, the bohemian life of Montmartre slowly petered out. The beginning of the end was marked by the death of The Dwarf in 1901 -- from complications due to alcoholism and syphilis, which he caught from his mistress Rosa la Rouge. One by one, the whores from the Rue Cadet parliament left the profession, and sold their share in the gallery to Marie. With the money they earned, they were able to buy apartments for themselves and open small businesses of their own, ranging from patisseries to shops of one sort or another. One even became a school teacher.

Marie managed to keep the gallery going until the pan-European catastrophe known later as World War I, when it finally closed. She had invested her earnings wisely, and that allowed her to live on her income from them. She became famous as a patron of the arts, and encouraged many young painters who flocked to Paris, including a Spaniard named Pablo Picasso, who replaced The Dwarf as her friend and artistic advisor.

Over the years, many men tried to court her, but she would have none of them. There were rumors that she was lesbian, but nobody saw her with another woman either. After the war, she did become friendly with an American woman living in Paris by the name of Gertrude Stein, and through her with many of the writers who flocked to Paris after the Great War. However, their relations were purely intellectual. Though one of the formidable sex symbols of her age, Marie Lachaud in fact remained a virgin all of her life.

When the Second World War came along, and France was conquered by the Germans, Marie -- now over 60 years old -- put herself and her resources at the service of the Resistance. She was killed in 1942 when she ran into an ambush while driving a car full of explosives for the resistance fighters. The car was hit by a grenade and exploded. Her body was so badly mangled that her real sex was not identified. Later, the Gestapo searched and looted her apartment, destroying or taking many priceless works of art, including The Dwarf’s original posters of Marie dancing at the Moulin Rouge. None of them have ever been recovered.