Sidonie Gabrielle Colette spent the first eighteen years of her life in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, a village in Burgundy about two hours drive from Paris. The house where she was born was a vast country residence and her happy childhood there was the inspiration of her first novel “Claudine at School”.
Her parents were forced to sell the house and move.
On a trip to Paris Colette met Henri Gauthier-Villars known by his pen name “Willy”. “Willy’s family owned a publishing house. They were married when Colette was nineteen and Henri was thirty three. Henri appeared to be a prolific writer but mainly used ghost writers. He encouraged Colette to write a novel based on her experiences as a young girl. “Claudine at School” was her first novel, followed by three sequels each of the following year. Henri, as usual, published them under his own name
Henri was a well known ladies’ man. Initially this was a problem for Colette but she got even by having an affair herself with one of Henri’s lovers. When Henri found out he was far from upset and the threesome went to Germany together for the Wagner festival.
At 33 Colette moved in with a famous noblewoman, Mathilde de Morny, known as “Missy”. Missy was a well known lesbian who always dressed as a man. Colette divorced Henri. The relationship with “Missy” lasted about five years.
Colette went to work for a newspaper. The editor-in-chief, Henri de Jouvenel, divorced his wife and married Colette. They had a daughter the following year. The couple divorced after ten years of marriage, three years after Colette had started a five year long affair with Henri’s then seventeen year old son Bertrand. That relationship inspired her novel “La Blé en herbe”, later made into a French movie. Its release in the US in 1954 under the name “The Game of Love” caused an uproar and multiple court cases. It was also made into a BBC television series “The Ripening Seed”.
Two years after the second divorce, Colette, then aged 52 met 36 year old Maurice Goudeket. They travelled extensively together but Colette did not move in with him until 1930, when they set up an apartment in the Claridges Hotel in Paris. They married five years later (so that they could travel in the same cabin on the ship to America and sleep in the same hotel room there). In 1938 they moved into an apartment at Palais Royal.
In 1940 after spending the summer with Colette’s daughter, the couple returned to Paris. Maurice was arrested by the Gestapo because he was Jewish. Colette went to work to free him. She approached the German ambassador whose wife was French and a great admirer of Colette. Maurice was freed less than three months later.
After the war Colette was virtually bedridden with arthritis. Maurice set up a printing company to publish Colette’s complete works. Several of her works were adapted for the theatre and movies. She had written “Gigi” in 1944 and it had been adapted as a stage play. In Monte Carlo, Colette saw a young unknown actress playing a small role in a movie being shot there. Her name was Audrey Hepburn. Colette decided she would be perfect for the role of Gigi on Broadway and Audrey went on to play the role for eighteen months.
Colette died in her apartment in Place Royal in August 1954 at the age of 81. The Catholic church refused a religious service because of her scandalous reputation. The French government stepped in and she was given a state funeral and is buried at Père Lachaise.
In 2011 the Society of the Friends of Colette, aided by the French government, bought Colette’s childhood home at Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye.
It was opened to the public in 2016 and among other memorabilia, it contains the furniture from her bedroom at Palais Royal.
The bedroom she had as a child is also displayed.
