Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: This is part two of an episode on Natalie Clifford
Speaker 2: Barney that was not planned to be two parts, but
Speaker 2: boy did she get up to a lot. In part one,
Speaker 2: we talked about her early life up to the death
Speaker 2: of her father, Albert, and then today we are going
Speaker 2: to talk about the rest.
Speaker 1: So as we said at the end of part one,
Speaker 1: Natalie Clifford Barney's father died in nineteen oh two, and
Speaker 1: under the terms of his will, Natalie, her mother Alice,
Speaker 1: and her sister Laura all became very wealthy. Alice started
Speaker 1: construction on a new home she called Studio House in Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. In the words of biographer Suzanne Rodriguez, author
Speaker 1: of Wild Heart Clifford Barney in the Decadents of Literary Paris, quote,
Speaker 1: compared to other wealthy homes, Studio House was small. It
Speaker 1: had two basements. The sentence doesn't end there, but that
Speaker 1: is enough to give a sense that even if it
Speaker 1: was smaller than other rich people houses, it was still
Speaker 1: pretty big. It was a combined residence and studio space,
Speaker 1: and it had five bedrooms, three baths, a library, a
Speaker 1: room with a built in stage, and two story studio
Speaker 1: room for exhibition and entertainment. Today Studio House is home
Speaker 1: to the Latvian embassy.
Speaker 2: Yeh, when I read that sentence, and it was just
Speaker 2: like studio house, a small it had two basements, Hi
Speaker 2: started laughing, just the two. Laura had become a Behi
Speaker 2: sometime around nineteen hundred, and her mother had joined the
Speaker 2: High Faith not long afterward. After Albert's death, Laura spent
Speaker 2: some time with her mother, and then afterwards she traveled,
Speaker 2: including to the Middle East to work with Abdul Baha,
Speaker 2: son of bahaula founder of the Bahai Faith, and Natalie
Speaker 2: moved to France. She had spent much of her time
Speaker 2: there since starting boarding school at the age of eleven,
Speaker 2: and from this point her permanent home for the rest
Speaker 2: of her life was in or near Paris. She started
Speaker 2: out in the suburb of Noiee, where she turned her
Speaker 2: home into a gathering place for artists and writers. She
Speaker 2: hosted all kinds of gatherings and parties and arranged outdoor
Speaker 2: theatrical events and concerts in her gardens. She staged plays
Speaker 2: by Collette, who we covered in a previous two parter,
Speaker 2: and Pierre Luis, whose eighteen ninety four book Chanson de
Speaker 2: Bilitis came up in our episode on the Poet's sappho.
Speaker 2: She was friends with both of those people. At one
Speaker 2: of these events, Barney hired the dancer Mada Haari to
Speaker 2: appear on horseback as Lady Godiva. Of course, this was
Speaker 2: well before mada Haari became notorious for being accused of spying.
Speaker 2: At this point, homosexuality was somewhat more socially acceptable in
Speaker 2: France than it was in the United States. Homosexual acts
Speaker 2: were illegal in the US, but had been decriminalized in
Speaker 2: France in seventeen ninety one. Although cross dressing was still outlawed.
Speaker 2: There was still a lot of stigma around same sex
Speaker 2: relationships though, and a lot of people still considered homosexuality
Speaker 2: to be immoral or a perversion, and one of the
Speaker 2: things that Natalie Clifford Barney did as she established her
Speaker 2: adult life in France was to live in a way
Speaker 2: that was publicly, unabashedly and enthusiastically lesbian.
Speaker 1: To be clear, her wealth gave her some protection here,
Speaker 1: people who were not rich enough to just do whatever
Speaker 1: they wanted had very different experiences when it came to
Speaker 1: things like homophobia and harassment. But she wanted to live
Speaker 1: by example and to show other people like herself that
Speaker 1: they did not have to live their lives with the
Speaker 1: shame and self doubt that society tried to imp on them.
Speaker 1: She also continued pursuing relationships with other women. One was
Speaker 1: poet Lucie de la rue Mardus, who was married, who
Speaker 1: Barney had met for the first time before her father's death.
Speaker 1: It is not totally clear whether they started their affair
Speaker 1: before or after the death of Albert Barney, but it
Speaker 1: followed the same basic trajectory as a number of Natalie's
Speaker 1: other relationships. Natalie pursued and eventually seduced Lucy, and then
Speaker 1: their relationship became very intense and very passionate, but eventually
Speaker 1: Lucy started to become unhappy. In Lucy's case, this was
Speaker 1: both because of her feelings about Natalie's other relationships and
Speaker 1: about her own part in it. Lucy had been raised
Speaker 1: as a conservative Catholic, and so she felt a lot
Speaker 1: of guilt and shame around the breaking of her marriage.
Speaker 1: Vows then eventually their sexual relationship ended, but the two
Speaker 1: women eventually built a close friend that continued for the
Speaker 1: rest of Lucy's life. Natalie had also been friends with
Speaker 1: sid Niguabriel Collette, known just as Collette for years by
Speaker 1: the time she moved to France for good. When they met,
Speaker 1: Collette was married to Henri Gautier Villard aka Willie, who
Speaker 1: was publishing her writing under his name, as we talked
Speaker 1: about in our previous episodes on Collette. By nineteen oh five,
Speaker 1: they had started the process of legally separating their assets,
Speaker 1: although they were still married. In nineteen oh six, Collette
Speaker 1: came to stay with Natalie for a time after leaving Willie.
Speaker 1: They had a brief affair and then they resumed their friendship,
Speaker 1: which again continued for the rest of Collette's life.
Speaker 2: Yea, Collette's relationship with Willy wasn't over yet at that point,
Speaker 2: but should stay with with Natalie for a while. In
Speaker 2: the interim, Natalie had continued to be close to her
Speaker 2: first girlfriend, Eva Palmer, who we talked about in Part one,
Speaker 2: but in nineteen oh seven the two women had a
Speaker 2: bitter fallen out. Eva decided to marry Greek poet and
Speaker 2: playwright Angelos Cyclicianos. They had met through Isadora Duncan. Angelo's
Speaker 2: sister Penelope, was married to Duncan's brother Raymond. As we
Speaker 2: talked about in her two parter on Isidora Duncan, she
Speaker 2: was inspired by the aesthetics of ancient Greece, and the
Speaker 2: whole Duncan family had started doing things like wearing robes
Speaker 2: and sandals in an approximation of ancient Greek dress. Angelos
Speaker 2: also wanted to revive the literature and values of classical Greece.
Speaker 2: Eva had fallen in love with all of this, and
Speaker 2: had fallen in love with Greece while traveling there. She
Speaker 2: wasn't really in love with Angelos, but she admired his
Speaker 2: work and his aspirations, and she liked the idea of
Speaker 2: the life that they could build together. Natalie, on the
Speaker 2: other hand, found it all ridiculous, and she did not
Speaker 2: even try to be nice about it. She criticized that
Speaker 2: whole robe and sandal situation, and Angelo's writing and his
Speaker 2: hopes for a Greek revival, and even told Eva that
Speaker 2: she needed to send him away. It really seems like
Speaker 2: Eva decided to marry Angelos because it was a way
Speaker 2: for her to have a life that sounded really appealing
Speaker 2: to her, one that was very very Greek, complete with
Speaker 2: robes made of fabric she had woven herself, and also
Speaker 2: very focused on literature and the arts. She didn't really
Speaker 2: have an emotional connection with Angelos that would have threatened
Speaker 2: her bond with Natalie, which at that point they had
Speaker 2: been nurturing for almost fifteen years. She did try to
Speaker 2: assuage Angelos's fears about Natalie by telling him that she
Speaker 2: loved him more than Natalie, while also telling Natalie that
Speaker 2: her relationship with Angelos could never replace the one that
Speaker 2: the two women had with each other. This all sounds
Speaker 2: like a tangle. Natalie's response to all of this was
Speaker 2: just so petty, including intentionally trying to do stuff to
Speaker 2: make Eva really jealous, and eventually Eva was just done.
Speaker 1: Eva and Angelos got married in Bar Harbor later that year,
Speaker 1: and they pursued the life that they had been talking
Speaker 1: about when they decided to marry. In nineteen twenty seven,
Speaker 1: they held the first of two Delphic festivals, modeled after
Speaker 1: ancient Greek festivals that had combined athletic games with literature, theater,
Speaker 1: and the arts. Although they had an impact on Greek
Speaker 1: culture together, Eva's admiration for Angelos and his ideals doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to have been enough to build a happy marriage on. Reportedly,
Speaker 1: she eventually ended their physical relationship, and the marriage was
Speaker 1: annulled in nineteen thirty four, possibly in the wake of
Speaker 1: her traveling to the US to try to raise money
Speaker 1: to sustain the Delphic Festival. Each of them later remarried
Speaker 1: other people, and at some point during all of this,
Speaker 1: Eva and Natalie made amends to.
Speaker 2: Return to the timeline. In nineteen oh nine, Natalie moved
Speaker 2: to a house on Rujakob. It's possible that one of
Speaker 2: her reasons for wanting to move to a new place
Speaker 2: was that her landlord in Nuill was increasingly critical of
Speaker 2: all these sapphig plays that she was staging out in
Speaker 2: her garden and the kinds of people that she was
Speaker 2: continually bringing together at her home. It is also possible, though,
Speaker 2: that she just wanted some kind of a fresh start.
Speaker 2: She had started looking for a new place to live
Speaker 2: in nineteen oh eight, so that was not long after
Speaker 2: the end of her relationship with Pauline Tarn and her
Speaker 2: falling out with Eva. This move also put her into
Speaker 2: Paris proper, and in her words quote Paris has always
Speaker 2: seemed to me the only city where you can live
Speaker 2: and express yourself as you please. We will have more
Speaker 2: after a break. Natalie Clifford Barney's new home at Jakob
Speaker 2: was on the left bank south of the Senne, a
Speaker 2: neighborhood that was known for its community of writers and artists,
Speaker 2: which later had a reputation for its really bohemian atmosphere.
Speaker 2: It hadn't quite gotten there yet when she moved in,
Speaker 2: but later it did. The house had been built in
Speaker 2: the seventeenth century, and it had a Doric temple out
Speaker 2: in the garden, which had Temple Alamati, or Temple of Friendship,
Speaker 2: carved into its lentil. She had some restoration work done
Speaker 2: on this temple, and the garden and the house and
Speaker 2: the temple became home to her very famous weekly salon,
Speaker 2: which she called her Fridays.
Speaker 1: The salon is the thing Natalie Clifford Barney is most
Speaker 1: well known for, except maybe for her romantic relationships, which
Speaker 1: sometimes overshadow everything else. She held this alone every week,
Speaker 1: starting in nineteen oh nine and continuing for more than
Speaker 1: fifty years. Except what she was traveling or otherwise out
Speaker 1: of the city, and sometimes there were more than one
Speaker 1: hundred people in attendance.
Speaker 2: This is often described as being inspired by the poet's Sappho,
Speaker 2: which includes the museum signage we read at the beginning
Speaker 2: of the episode in part one, but this was open
Speaker 2: to anybody regardless of their gender. Guests included writers like
Speaker 2: Colette and Gertrude Stein, but also Ezra Pound, James Joyce,
Speaker 2: Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, all same ex patriot writers
Speaker 2: who Gertrude Stein also knew. This was about literature and
Speaker 2: the arts, but at the same time there was a
Speaker 2: definite focus on encouraging and nurturing the creative work of women. Specifically,
Speaker 2: men were allowed, but women were celebrated.
Speaker 1: As we discussed earlier, Barney had also made herself into
Speaker 1: a living example of how someone could live a publicly
Speaker 1: lesbian life without shame or self doubt. She continued this
Speaker 1: after moving to Rujakob, and she intentionally focused her salon
Speaker 1: on al allowing other women to do the same. Historian
Speaker 1: Lilian Faderman framed this as quote a support group for
Speaker 1: lesbians to permit them to create a self image, which
Speaker 1: literature and society denied them, and she also helped women
Speaker 1: writers and artists in more direct ways. At first, this
Speaker 1: was usually more about her time and her attention than
Speaker 1: it was about money, like she would help connect people
Speaker 1: to publishers, or promote their work or find teachers. She
Speaker 1: did that a lot more often than doing something like
Speaker 1: directly funding somebody else's creative endeavors.
Speaker 2: This shifted a little bit later on, but early in
Speaker 2: the twentieth century, her encouragement of other writers and artists
Speaker 2: was more about helping people get attention and resources than
Speaker 2: it was about like becoming somebody's financial patron.
Speaker 1: Also in nineteen oh nine, Natalie met Antoinette Correcine Elizabette,
Speaker 1: Duchess of Clermentrurmire, known as Lily, who was married to
Speaker 1: Philibert de Clare. They met through Lucy de la Rue Mordieux,
Speaker 1: who we mentioned earlier. This would be one of Barney's
Speaker 1: longest relationships. We read from the marriage contract that they
Speaker 1: would go on to write together in part one of
Speaker 1: this episode, and they celebrated their anniversary on May first
Speaker 1: every year until Lily's death, with the exception of the
Speaker 1: years that they were separated due to war.
Speaker 2: Lily was a.
Speaker 1: Poet and a translator, and had published the first French
Speaker 1: translations of the works of John Keats.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ten, Barney was connected to a scandal that,
Speaker 2: for once, did not have to do with her love life.
Speaker 2: Her sister Laura had made a plaster copy of a
Speaker 2: sculpture and sent it to her mother's home of studio
Speaker 2: house in Washington, D C. With instructions to keep it
Speaker 2: outside and covered and to have it sprinkled with water
Speaker 2: every day to allow this plaster to cure and harden.
Speaker 2: There are slightly different details of exactly what happened in
Speaker 2: various news reports and whatever, but like the point is,
Speaker 2: there was a statue, it was covered up. This all
Speaker 2: seemed to go fine until one day the cover blew
Speaker 2: off of it and it turned out this sculpture was
Speaker 2: of a reclining nude woman. It probably would not raise
Speaker 2: many eyebrows today, but for this nude woman statue to
Speaker 2: be out in front of a home in Washington, D C.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ten just caused a lot of outrage. It
Speaker 2: was also rumored that Natalie had been the model for
Speaker 2: the sculpture, not really clear whether that's the case.
Speaker 1: She does seem to have denied that, though scandal. Barney
Speaker 1: published three books that year, At Parpiamond, Jemousuvien and Acte
Speaker 1: enract et Parpiamon or Scatterings, was essentially a collection of epigrams.
Speaker 1: Barney was known for having an epigrammatic wit. She would
Speaker 1: basically sit at the salon listening to what was going
Speaker 1: on around her, and then toss off a very clever
Speaker 1: sentence or two. Barney's most popular published works were her
Speaker 1: epigram collections. Jemousouvian was a prose poem about Pauline tarn
Speaker 1: also known as renaevy Vienne, which she had written years before,
Speaker 1: but she didn't publish it until after Tarne's death, and
Speaker 1: At Dampraqte was a collection of short dramatic works and poetry.
Speaker 2: That same year, Barney also made friends with poet Remy
Speaker 2: du Gourmont, who helped popularize at Parpillmont after she gave
Speaker 2: him a copy. Remy du Gourmont is who nicknamed Barney
Speaker 2: the Amazon thanks to both her skill with horses and
Speaker 2: her reputation as a lover. He went on to publish
Speaker 2: two books that were pretty much fictionalized letters to her.
Speaker 2: They were Lettra Lamizon in nineteen fourteen and Lettra INtime Lamizon,
Speaker 2: which was published posthumously in nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eleven, Natalie's mother, Alice, married Christian Hemick and
Speaker 1: her sister Laura married Ippoly Dreyfus in a double wedding.
Speaker 1: Drefus was the first French Bahai, and he and Laura
Speaker 1: each took the surname Dreyfus. Barney Hemick was much younger
Speaker 1: than Alice. She was sixty one and he was twenty six,
Speaker 1: so he was also younger than both her daughters. Neither
Speaker 1: daughter was happy about this, but it did seem like
Speaker 1: Christian made their mother happy. At the same time, this
Speaker 1: marriage was widely written about in tabloids and gossip columns,
Speaker 1: many of them implying that he was after Alice's money.
Speaker 1: After she put that money into an irrevocable trust that
Speaker 1: would eventually go to her daughters, the headlines started focusing
Speaker 1: on how much money she'd been willing to cut herself
Speaker 1: off from in order to marry this very young man.
Speaker 2: Alice's marriage fell apart during World War One. In part
Speaker 2: one of this episode, we talked about how she had
Speaker 2: been planning to stay with Natalie while dealing with some
Speaker 2: drama of her own, but had at least temporarily changed
Speaker 2: her mind because of her complicated feelings about her daughter's sexuality.
Speaker 2: That drama was the end of her marriage to Christian Hemmick.
Speaker 2: Hemick claimed that the marriage had fallen apart because Alice
Speaker 2: did not approve of his involvement in the theater, but
Speaker 2: the last straw was apparently his affair with a young actor,
Speaker 2: specifically a young male actor.
Speaker 1: Also, during World War One, the focus of Barney's Friday
Speaker 1: salons shifted. She was vehemently opposed to the war. While
Speaker 1: many of her friends started working as nurses or ambulance
Speaker 1: drivers or journalists, Barney felt like working toward the war
Speaker 1: effort would essentially be condoning it, so she stayed home
Speaker 1: and she turned the salon into a meeting for pacifists
Speaker 1: and anti war activists and hosted a women's conference for peace.
Speaker 1: The closest thing she did to becoming directly involved in
Speaker 1: the war effort was hosting a movie night for wounded soldiers.
Speaker 2: During the early months of the war, Natalie also met
Speaker 2: one of the other great loves of her life, painter
Speaker 2: Romayne Brooks. Brooke had wanted to volunteer as an ambulance
Speaker 2: driver during the war, but could not because of a
Speaker 2: back problem. Instead, she had established a fund to help
Speaker 2: artists who had been injured in battle. Her relationship with
Speaker 2: Natalie Clifford Barney lasted for more than fifty years. In
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty, Natalie Clifford Barney started a collaboration with American
Speaker 2: poet Ezra Pound on a project called Bells Free. Their
Speaker 2: plan was that they would choose two writers, one working
Speaker 2: in English and one in French, and they would fund
Speaker 2: their work. This plan never came to fruition, though.
Speaker 1: They chose T. S. Eliot for the English language writer
Speaker 1: and Paul Verrie for French, but neither of them accepted
Speaker 1: their financial help. This doesn't seem to have been connected
Speaker 1: to their feelings about Barney or Pound. Both writers were
Speaker 1: coming into other sources of funding, so they just didn't
Speaker 1: really need this kind of patronage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if I'm remembering correctly, this is like right after T. S.
Speaker 2: Eliott published The Wasteland and then suddenly had other opportunities.
Speaker 2: I don't remember what exactly had happened with Paul Valerie,
Speaker 2: but to just move ahead a little bit. It's likely
Speaker 2: that Barney met Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas for
Speaker 2: the first time in nineteen twenty six. Stein and Toklas
Speaker 2: had been living at twenty seven Rue Defderuru, which was
Speaker 2: maybe a twenty minute walk away from where Barney lived.
Speaker 2: At least according to Google Maps, he'd been living there
Speaker 2: since nineteen oh three. But even though Stein and Toklas
Speaker 2: were also Americans, and they also hosted a famous literary salon,
Speaker 2: and they knew and were friends with just so many
Speaker 2: of these same people, they also led very different lives
Speaker 2: from Natalie Clifford Barney. Stein and Toklas had met in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh seven, and they had been in a committed
Speaker 2: relationship with each other and only each other for almost
Speaker 2: twenty years. This was just not how Natalie Clifford Barney
Speaker 2: approached her relationships at all. There does not seem to
Speaker 2: be any clear documentation about why it took so long
Speaker 2: for these women to make one another's acquaintance. But it
Speaker 2: does not seem like it was just happenstance that it
Speaker 2: took more than fifteen years, Like you would need to
Speaker 2: be kind of going out of your way to avoid
Speaker 2: each other at that point.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty seven, Barney established Lacademie de Fame, or
Speaker 1: Women's Academy. This was in response to the refusal of
Speaker 1: the Academy Flances to admit women into its ruling council
Speaker 1: of forty immortals. Lacademie de Femme's first honorees included Collette
Speaker 1: and Gertrude Stein. Although this effort doesn't seem to have
Speaker 1: lasted for very long, it was notable and that it
Speaker 1: brought additional attention to the work of women writers in
Speaker 1: France who were not being taken seriously by the French
Speaker 1: literary establishment.
Speaker 2: Also in nineteen twenty seven, Barney met Dolly Wilde, niece
Speaker 2: of Oscar Wilde. She's often described as an another of
Speaker 2: Barney's great loves, although their relationship, as many of them were,
Speaker 2: was definitely tumultuous, and she and Romain Brooks did not
Speaker 2: get along.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty eight, Radcliffe Hall published The Well of Loneliness,
Speaker 1: a highly autobiographical novel that tells the story of Stephen Gordon,
Speaker 1: who is of course patterned after Hall. Another character, Valerie Semour,
Speaker 1: is a lightly fictionalized version of Natalie Clifford Barney. These
Speaker 1: two characters are dramatically different from one another. Stephen is
Speaker 1: plagued with shame and self doubt, while Valerie is the
Speaker 1: exact opposite. This novel was both groundbreaking and controversial, and
Speaker 1: it was immediately banned in the UK. The year after
Speaker 1: it made its debut, Radcliffe Hall was a guest of
Speaker 1: honor at Barney's salon, along with longtime partner Una Trubridge.
Speaker 2: To pause for just a moment. At this point, the
Speaker 2: way most people talked about in conceptualized sexuality and gender
Speaker 2: was generally much different from how it is today. Many psychologists, sociologists,
Speaker 2: and the like lumped gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people
Speaker 2: all together under the label of sexual invert. One prevailing
Speaker 2: theory was that lesbians were men trapped in women's bodies
Speaker 2: and gay men were women trapped in men's bodies, and
Speaker 2: the vast majority of psychologists and other researchers saw all
Speaker 2: of this as deviant and pathological. There were some exceptions,
Speaker 2: including Magnus Hirschfeld, who we talked about on the show
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, but for the most part, sexuality and
Speaker 2: gender were conflated in a lot of ways. That they
Speaker 2: really aren't today.
Speaker 1: Natalie Clifford Barney did not agree with the idea that
Speaker 1: she was a man trapped in a woman's body, and
Speaker 1: this fed into a dislike of what she perceived as
Speaker 1: cross dressing. We talked in Part one about how she
Speaker 1: dressed as a page to visit and a pougee for
Speaker 1: the first time, but that was different. That was a costume.
Speaker 1: She didn't consider that her mode of dress right. That
Speaker 1: was not her everyday wear at all. Radcliffe Hall and
Speaker 1: Una Truebridge, on the other hand, were the kinds of
Speaker 1: suits that would have been more commonly worn by men.
Speaker 1: There are some scholars today who interpret Radcliffe Hall, who
Speaker 1: identified as an invert, as a trans man. But Barney
Speaker 1: and some of her friends made fun of Hall and
Speaker 1: Truebridge for what they chose to wear and how they
Speaker 1: carried themselves.
Speaker 2: We will get to Barney's life during the Great Depression
Speaker 2: and World War Two after a sponsor break. After the
Speaker 2: Great Depression started in nineteen twenty nine, many but definitely
Speaker 2: not all, of the American writers and artists who had
Speaker 2: been frequenting Barney's salon returned home, so her fridays were
Speaker 2: somewhat smaller, both in terms of their attendance and their
Speaker 2: extravagance until the economy started to improve. Overall, though, the
Speaker 2: Barney family's finances just weren't too terribly affected by it.
Speaker 2: Like Natalie and her mother and sister, they all had
Speaker 2: a lot of money. Alice had less money to access
Speaker 2: than her daughters did, so it does seem like she
Speaker 2: felt it a lot more, But there are times when
Speaker 2: Natalie seemed oblivious to the fact that there was a
Speaker 2: depression going on. Natalie and Romayne Brooks also took a
Speaker 2: trip to North America in late nineteen twenty nine, spending
Speaker 2: some time in New York before Natalie spent six weeks
Speaker 2: traveling with her mother. This was the last visit they
Speaker 2: had together. They were preparing for another when Alice died
Speaker 2: on October twelfth, nineteen thirty one. That same year, Romayne
Speaker 2: Brooks gave Natalie an ultimatum that either she and her
Speaker 2: relationship with Dolly Wilde or Romayne would leave. As we
Speaker 2: said earlier, remain did not like Dolly. Among other things,
Speaker 2: she found Dolly to be immature and shallow. She did
Speaker 2: not like Dolly's heavy drug and alcohol use. After kind
Speaker 2: of agonizing about what to do, for a while. Natalie
Speaker 2: eventually chose to remain, although Romayne did eventually allow her
Speaker 2: to see Dolly again.
Speaker 1: In the early months of World War II in Europe,
Speaker 1: Natalie made arrangements for Dolly Wilde to go to London.
Speaker 1: Natalie's sister Laura returned to the United States. Her husband,
Speaker 1: Ippolyte Dreyfus Barney had died in nineteen twenty eight, and
Speaker 1: while he was a Bahai at the time of his death,
Speaker 1: he was also Jewish by birth. The Nazis had also
Speaker 1: banned the Bahai faith in Germany, and Bahai's face persecution,
Speaker 1: mass arrest, and death under the Nazi regime. So as
Speaker 1: the widow of a Jewish man and a Bahai herself,
Speaker 1: Laura was at risk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not really relevant whether he considered himself Jewish at
Speaker 2: that point, and I could not say, like how I
Speaker 2: did not read any of his own writing on this,
Speaker 2: but like to the Nazis, he was Jewish. Natalie initially
Speaker 2: decided to join Romayne Brooks in Florence, where Romayne had
Speaker 2: been living. She made this decision before Italy formally entered
Speaker 2: the war. Apparently they expected Italy to remain neutral. Of course,
Speaker 2: that neutrality perceived did not last long at all, and
Speaker 2: then by the time she and Remain decided that they
Speaker 2: should try to get out of Europe, they could not
Speaker 2: get a travel permit to do so, so they were
Speaker 2: stuck in fascist Italy for the duration.
Speaker 1: Although Barney had been vocally opposed to World War One,
Speaker 1: her beliefs during World War II are a bit more complicated,
Speaker 1: as was the case with Gertrude Stein's working as a
Speaker 1: propagandist for the Vishy government during the Nazi occupation of France.
Speaker 1: It's not clear how much of this was her attempt
Speaker 1: to survive and how much reflected her actual beliefs. One
Speaker 1: of Barney's great grandparents was Jewish, and she had pre
Speaker 1: written about her Jewish ancestry with pride, but under the
Speaker 1: Nuremberg race laws, one Jewish great grandparent meant that she
Speaker 1: was mixed race. Her landlords at twenty Ru Jacob were
Speaker 1: also Jewish, and at one point during the German occupation
Speaker 1: of Paris, Nazis tried to seize everything from her home.
Speaker 1: Bert Clerue, Bernie's housekeeper for about fifty years, somehow convinced
Speaker 1: them that they'd confused Natalie with her sister Laura and
Speaker 1: that Laura was now in the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't fully understand how she managed to like
Speaker 2: get the Nazis to mostly leave Barney's home in Paris alone.
Speaker 2: Had Barney stayed in Paris, she certainly would have been arrested.
Speaker 2: After Hitler came to power in Germany, Barney had stopped
Speaker 2: talking about her Jewish ancestry, and at the beginning of
Speaker 2: the war she also published another book of epigrams called
Speaker 2: Nouvelle ponseide Lamazon, and some of these were kind of
Speaker 2: anti Semitic. Barney and Brooks also seemed to have genuinely
Speaker 2: believed a lot of the fascist propaganda that they were
Speaker 2: exposed to while living in Italy, which framed the United
Speaker 2: States as the aggressors in the war. Some of Barney's
Speaker 2: wartime writing expressed support for Italy's fascist government. It is
Speaker 2: not possible to simply write all of this off as
Speaker 2: her just trying to stay under the radar during the war,
Speaker 2: though some of Barney's earlier epigrams had also played into
Speaker 2: negative stereotypes of Jewish people, and while she had always
Speaker 2: been really ahead of her time in terms of things
Speaker 2: like same sex relationships, her overall politics tended to be
Speaker 2: more conservative when she was aware of what was going
Speaker 2: on politically at all. She was close friends and collaborators
Speaker 2: with Ezra Pound, who was deeply anti Semitic. At the
Speaker 2: same time, Barney also used her wealth and connections to
Speaker 2: try to get Jewish friends out of Europe and to
Speaker 2: support other people who had to flee. According to some sources,
Speaker 2: when Collette's husband, Maurice Gudaquet was arrested by the Gestapo,
Speaker 2: Barney was one of the people who tried to get
Speaker 2: him released. During the war, she lost a lot of people.
Speaker 2: On April tenth, nineteen forty one, Dolly Wilde died. Her
Speaker 2: official cause of death was undetermined. Some sources cited breast cancer,
Speaker 2: and others said that she had taken her own life.
Speaker 2: Lucie Delarue Mardieux also died in nineteen forty five, and
Speaker 2: Barney had other friends and former partners who died during
Speaker 2: the war. These were mostly unrelated to things that actually
Speaker 2: had to do with the fighting or the effects of
Speaker 2: the fighting. In addition to her grief over these deaths,
Speaker 2: she just found it upsetting that she couldn't be there
Speaker 2: for any of these people, and in a lot of cases.
Speaker 2: She did not even hear about any of their deaths
Speaker 2: until much much later. While World War Two ended in
Speaker 2: Europe in nineteen forty five, Barney couldn't return to Paris
Speaker 2: until nineteen forty s Romayne Brooks remained in Florence. At first,
Speaker 2: Natalie had to move into her sister's old apartment because
Speaker 2: the house on ru Jakub had fallen into so much
Speaker 2: disrepair while she was away during the war. She could
Speaker 2: not start hosting her Fridays again until nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 2: and then she could no longer use the doric temple
Speaker 2: in the garden because the floor had collapsed. Food had
Speaker 2: always been a big part of these gatherings, and that
Speaker 2: was even more true in the post war years. There
Speaker 2: was still so much deprivation, and many of the writers
Speaker 2: and artists who attended were not getting enough to eat.
Speaker 2: Barney was impressed at how Bert Clare Gou managed to
Speaker 2: pull it off every week. Gertrude Stein died in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty six, and after this Barney became closer friends with
Speaker 2: Alice B. Telkliss. Eva Palmer died in nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 2: Collette died in nineteen fifty four, so did Elizabeth de
Speaker 2: Gramma known as Lily, at the age of seventy nine.
Speaker 2: Her relationship with Barney had continued until the end of
Speaker 2: her life. Then Marie lawn Sand died in nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 1: Barney outlived a lot of her friends and former partners,
Speaker 1: like Stein and Toklas. Her salon had brought together some
Speaker 1: of the early twentieth centuries foremost writers and artists, and
Speaker 1: had influenced the development of modernism, but through the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: attendance at her salons gradually got smaller, and both Barney
Speaker 1: and her fridays were seen as less groundbreaking and less relevant.
Speaker 2: She and Laura started making plans for what would happen
Speaker 2: after their deaths, and they decided that rather than being
Speaker 2: buried by her husband in molmart that Laura would be
Speaker 2: buried next to Natalie in Passey's cemetery, and a plot
Speaker 2: that had been given to Natalie by a friend several
Speaker 2: years before.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two, Barney had two heart attacks, and
Speaker 1: by nineteen sixty five she needed help just with her
Speaker 1: day to day living. This came from her housekeeper, Bert,
Speaker 1: and also from Janine La Hoovery, whose relationship with Barney
Speaker 1: had started in the nineteen fifties. Then in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: Barney was served noticed that she would have to move
Speaker 1: out of the house on Ru Jacob in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: This four year notice was legally required, and the fact
Speaker 1: that it was given at all led to outrage, especially
Speaker 1: among the people who recognized the importance of the salals
Speaker 1: she had hosted there for so many years. The landlord
Speaker 1: started construction work on the property, which also raised people's ire,
Speaker 1: and used that as a way to make living there
Speaker 1: unpleasant enough that maybe Barney would just move out early. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the landlord seems to have sort of been like, maybe
Speaker 1: if I just turned the kitchen into a construction zone,
Speaker 1: you'll get fed up with this and I won't have
Speaker 1: to wait for whole years. Toward the end of the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, as all of this was going on, Barney's
Speaker 1: relationship with Romayne Brooks fell apart, and Brooks stopped answering
Speaker 1: her letters. So Barney this was really devastating, and then
Speaker 1: Romayne Brooks died in nineteen seventy. Natalie Clifford Barney died
Speaker 1: in Paris on February second, nineteen seventy two. At the
Speaker 1: age of ninety five in the arms of Jeanine Lehovery.
Speaker 1: During her lifetime, she had published twelve books and written
Speaker 1: tons of other unpublished material, including at least forty thousand letters.
Speaker 2: Barney's tombstone at Pessi's cemetery described her as Ekrevan or writer,
Speaker 2: followed by Elfuis Lamazon de Remy de Gourmont at her request.
Speaker 2: The tombstone also bore the inscription Jesus adetre legendaire ou Gereville.
Speaker 2: I probably said that very badly, but it roughly translates
Speaker 2: as I am this legendary being in which I will
Speaker 2: live again. She was fictionalized in a number of novels
Speaker 2: about Paris in the early twentieth century, including, as you
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, Radcliffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. The Well
Speaker 2: of Loneliness entered the public domain in the US this year,
Speaker 2: so let's read some of its description of Barney's counterpart,
Speaker 2: Valerie Seymour. Quote Valerie placid and self assured, created an
Speaker 2: atmosphere of courage. Everyone felt very normal and brave when
Speaker 2: they gathered at Valerie Seymour's. There she was this charming
Speaker 2: and cultured woman, a kind of lighthouse in a storm
Speaker 2: swept ocean. The waves had lashed round her feet in
Speaker 2: vain winds had howled, clouds had spewed forth their hail
Speaker 2: and their lightning. Torrents had deluged, but had not destroyed her.
Speaker 2: The storm's gathering force broke and drifted away, leaving behind
Speaker 2: them the shipwrecked the drowning. But when they looked up,
Speaker 2: the poor spluttering victims, why what should they see but
Speaker 2: Valerie Seymour. Then a few would strike boldly out for
Speaker 2: the shore. At the sight of this indestructible creature. She
Speaker 2: did nothing, and at all times said very little, feeling
Speaker 2: no urge towards philanthropy. But this much she gave to
Speaker 2: her brethren, the freedom of her salon, the protection of
Speaker 2: her friendship.
Speaker 1: That book also includes the quote her love affairs would
Speaker 1: fill quite three volumes, even after they had been expurgated.
Speaker 2: Uh. I don't think poetry was really Natalie Clifford Barney's
Speaker 2: greatest genre of writing. Like she didn't publish that much
Speaker 2: of it in English, But what she did publish in
Speaker 2: English I would not rank among the great poets. However,
Speaker 2: some of that English poetry is in the public domain.
Speaker 2: Now so we can include one. This is the Phantom Guest.
Speaker 2: We lay in shade diaphanous and spoke the light that
Speaker 2: burns in us, says in the gloomings Net, I caught her.
Speaker 2: She shimmered like reflected water. Romantic and emphatic moods are
Speaker 2: not for her, whom life eludes is vulgar tinsel round
Speaker 2: her fold. She'd rather shudder with the cold attends just
Speaker 2: this elusive hour, a shadow in a shadow bower, a
Speaker 2: moving imagery so fine it must have been her soul,
Speaker 2: your mine. And so we blended and possessed each in
Speaker 2: each the phantom guest, in separate we scarcely met, yet
Speaker 2: other love nights we forget. And then we'll just end
Speaker 2: with one final epigram by Natalie Clifford Barney. This one
Speaker 2: was actually quoted in the biography. We have mentioned a
Speaker 2: couple of times, which was Wildheart a Life Natalie Clifford
Speaker 2: Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris quote. When it
Speaker 2: comes to friendship, I am very lazy. Once I confer friendship,
Speaker 2: I never take it back. It's just easier. That's Natalie
Speaker 2: Clifford Barney. She's a lot.
Speaker 1: Do you have a listener mail that's maybe less dramatic.
Speaker 2: I do have listener mail. It is from Elizabeth and
Speaker 2: Elizabeth's title of the email is Wooly Dogs and the
Speaker 2: Sandal in the Well, Dear Holly and Tracy. Last week,
Speaker 2: I was on my way to give blood when the
Speaker 2: portion of Unearthed about the Salish wooly dog came in.
Speaker 2: I had to sit in the park lad and listen
Speaker 2: to it, even though I could have just hit pause.
Speaker 2: I'm a middle school science teacher and I have just
Speaker 2: read an article with my students about genetic research done
Speaker 2: to find native dogs of the Americas. The article talks
Speaker 2: about how researchers were looking at mitochondrial DNA to determine
Speaker 2: which dog breeds pre day Europeans and the Americas. They
Speaker 2: found that the Mexican and Peruvian hairless dogs, the Chihuahua,
Speaker 2: and the Carolina dog all pre day Europeans, and the
Speaker 2: Chihuahua had DNA not founded dogs anywhere else in the world.
Speaker 2: The article also talked about some of the lost breeds,
Speaker 2: including the wily dog. The article shared the old ideas
Speaker 2: that the Saless had allowed the dogs to be lost
Speaker 2: to ender reading because of the availability of other wool sources.
Speaker 2: Next year, when we read this, I will be sharing
Speaker 2: the new understanding from this research. I love when I
Speaker 2: can bring new research into my science classes to show
Speaker 2: that our understanding of the world changes over time. Also,
Speaker 2: I appreciate your highlighting of the involvement of the tribal
Speaker 2: peoples in this work. Here in Idaho, we have many
Speaker 2: active and vibrant tribes, but it feels like my students
Speaker 2: are often presented with native peoples as if they are
Speaker 2: just history and not part of our modern state and country.
Speaker 2: And then last night I listened to the behind the
Speaker 2: Scenes and your discussion of the sandal in the well
Speaker 2: made me think of an exhibit I saw in France
Speaker 2: in the early nineties that featured the shoe that Marie
Speaker 2: Antoinette lost on her way to the guillotine. It was
Speaker 2: in an empty white room with blank white walls. The
Speaker 2: only thing in the room was the shoe on a pedestal.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth says, dust off your French, and it had a
Speaker 2: link to a video about this. I feel like I
Speaker 2: would have followed the video pretty well if it had
Speaker 2: had captioning, but just trying to listen to the French
Speaker 2: was a little too fast for med keep up with.
Speaker 2: As you talked, I could see something similar happening with
Speaker 2: the sandal, with long discussions of where it came from
Speaker 2: and how it ended up in the well. I particularly
Speaker 2: like your idea of a sibling prank. I know it
Speaker 2: is something my brother would have done. It just seemed
Speaker 2: like such an odd little bit of history. I thought
Speaker 2: you might enjoy it. Thank you for the many hours
Speaker 2: of entertainment and education. Elizabeth pet Tax Below so we
Speaker 2: have Ziggi, a thirteen year old shelter mutt, and Goose,
Speaker 2: a four year old cat found as a kitten under
Speaker 2: some hay bales, had to be bottle fed for a
Speaker 2: few weeks. I sure have bottle fed some abandoned kitty
Speaker 2: casts before, something that simultaneously I enjoyed doing, but also
Speaker 2: it was so much because I feel like this litter
Speaker 2: was like six kittens. It's so much work that needed
Speaker 2: to We're just continually bottle feeding. And then we have Taya,
Speaker 2: who was taken in about eighteen months ago when Taya's
Speaker 2: owner died. So sweet. This is a dog who is
Speaker 2: deaf and vision apparent and anxious, but such a sweet look,
Speaker 2: cute dog. I can tell from this this dog has
Speaker 2: a very anxious face. I will say, I feel like
Speaker 2: I can tell that this is a little uh high
Speaker 2: strung baby. There's Friday, a six year old Ossi, and
Speaker 2: Hank the classroom turtle. Because you Sew and Staid send
Speaker 2: other pictures. I'm really happy how this long jacket turned out,
Speaker 2: especially the pocket's made from a thrift store curtain and
Speaker 2: lined with the cotton curtain lining. This is like a
Speaker 2: long jacket with a design of sort of floury leaf,
Speaker 2: you find. I like it very much. Thank you so much,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth for all of this, one hundred percent of it.
Speaker 2: I love the animal pictures. I love the jacket picture.
Speaker 2: I love the turtle picture. I love the story of
Speaker 2: your experience with this episode and the behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: If you would like to write to us about this
Speaker 2: or any other podcast, word history podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
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