PERSIGNY duchesse de (EN)

Biographical Article

Albine Marie Napoleone Eglé Ney de la Moskowa (1832-1890), Duchess of Persigny and Countess of Villelume-Sombreuil, deserves more recognition for her collection of Japanese flora, assembled during a trip to the Far East (1882-1883) since it was one of the very first Japanese gardens in France. Historians of her time tend to privilege anecdotes concerning the "rare beauty" of her blond hair or her indiscreet behaviour at the Court of the Second Empire (Carette M., 1888, p. 40; Vieil-Castel H., 1884). However, after the death of her first husband, Jean Gilbert Victor Fialin, Count and then Duke of Persigny (1808-1872), Minister of the Interior of Napoleon III (1808-1873), the Duchess of Persigny gave free rein to her passion for travel and foreign cultures (Persigny J.-G.-V., 1896, p. 199; Le Gaulois, 1881, p. 2). This article focuses on the less-period (1872-1890), and above all in the conditions that enabled her to constitute a collection of Asian art objects and Japanese botanical specimens during a year spent in Japan (1882-1883).

"Eglé" Ney de la Moskowa is known today for the perfection of her Bonapartist pedigree: she was the granddaughter of "Marshal Ney" (1769-1815) and banker Jacques Laffitte (1767-1844). She was born in Paris on October 18, 1832 (AP, 5Mi1/380/916), to Joseph Napoléon Ney d'Elchingen (1803-1857) and Albine Étiennette Marguerite Laffitte (1803-1881), Prince and Princesse de Moskowa. Emperor Napoleon III (1808-1873) personally blessed the symbolic marriage between Eglé de la Moskowa (twenty years old) and Victor Fialin de Persigny (forty-four years old), the "principal founder of the Second Empire"; the emperor granted him the title of count and a gift of 500,000 francs at the time of the marriage (AN, Persigny collection, inv. n.c.).

The political life of the Duke of Persigny and his dedication to Louis-Napoleon are well known thanks to his memoirs and the numerous biographies evoking his illustrious career (Persigny J.-M.V., 1896; AN, Persigny collection, inv., n.c.). Less so is his domestic life, which must have been very complicated in light of the pressures necessitated by the establishment of a new regime, the maintenance of a lifestyle appropriate for a minister of the Empire without personal fortune, incessant travels (the Emperor regularly changed Persigny's responsibilities: Minister of the Interior from 1852-1854, 1860-1863; Minister of Commerce and Agriculture from 1852-1853; French Ambassador to England from 1855-1858, 1859-1860), and the demands of a large family. Married in 1852, the couple had five children in quick succession (counting only viable pregnancies): Napoléone Marie Madeleine Lionette Eglé (1853-1880); Jean-Michel Napoleon (1855-1885); Marie-Eugénie Victoria Caroline (1857-1909); Marie Marguerite Egle (1861-1916); and Anne Albine Marie-Thérèse Victoria (1868-1898). The first two were born in Paris (AP, 5Mi1/791/572; AP, 5Mi1/852/1841) and the next two in London where Persigny was appointed ambassador on May 7, 1855 (AP, V4E/2895/17; AP, V4E/3456/112), just eight days before the birth of Jean-Michel (their only son) in Paris.

Madame de Persigny's enthusiasm for England was so strong that she was nicknamed "Lady Persington" on her return to France (Massa P., 1897, p. 144). The French may have teased her, but from a diplomatic point of view this openness to English culture and her ease with the English language (which she had practiced since childhood; AN, Persigny collection, 44AP/17), must have helped the cause of a Second Empire that was distrusted by the English (Persigny V., 1896). The Persignys' long stay in London must also have influenced their geopolitical vision (it was a key moment for British expansion in Asia) and their understanding of the importance of urbanisation (Persigny was engaged in the "Haussmannisation" of Paris upon his return to France).

The family correspondence (AN, Persigny collection, 44AP/17) allows us to understand this highly-placed family whose eventful life between Paris, the provinces, and abroad was largely managed by servants. The children, who were brought up by a bilingual governess, wrote to their mother in English (AN, Persigny collection, 44AP/17). Monsieur de Persigny wrote to his wife and children with much love and affection during his various international trips. Madame de Persigny also left the family to travel, notably in 1869-1872, when she was part of the entourage of Empress Eugénie (1826-1920) when she inaugurated the Suez Canal in November 1869 (AN, Persigny collection, 44AP/17). She remained there to explore the Middle East with friends (including Beirut, Damascus, Jaffa, Mount Carmel, and Jerusalem) and was still in Egypt at the time of the fall of the Second Empire (September 4), while the rest of the family took refuge in London (AN, Persigny collection, inv. nc).

During the Second Empire, the Persignys occupied a series of Parisian apartments located in the 8th arrondissement. They divided their time between London (1855-1860) and the Château de Chamarande (Essonne), which was acquired in 1857 and became their main residence after Persigny’s resignation from the government in 1863. They seem to have lived far beyond their means; it is said that they invested more than 2 million to restore this 17th century residence, and offered legendary hospitality, but also that they were always short of money and were perpetually pursued by creditors (Montgomme, 1881; Vandam A., 1893, pp. 261-287).

The death of Victor Fialin de Persigny in Nice on January 12, 1872 (AP, V4E/3381/83), so soon after the fall of the Second Empire, caused great difficulties for his widow, who was no longer under the protection of Napoleon III and who needed to satisfy creditors and ensure her own inheritance as well as that of her five minor children. The secretary of Persigny (Henri de Laire d'Espagny, 1830-1902) proceeded to liquidate various properties at auction. This included movable and immovable property, in particular the works of art that decorated their main residences from 1871: the Château de Chamarande and an apartment at 5, rue d'Albe in Paris (AP, D42E3/54-55). The inventories drawn up by the auctioneers during these sales (April 4, May 6-8, May 10-11, May 30, 1872), as well as the various lawsuits that were related to an unstable financial situation, allow us to distinguish the tastes of Madame de Persigny – which will be discussed in the second part of this article– from that of her husband.

Such financial precariousness may seem curious in the descendant of one of the wealthiest families of France, but Eglé Ney de la Moskowa had no personal fortune and her mother – the Princesse de la Moskowa – refused to provide a dowry for her marriage to Persigny (Lemoyne E., 1880; Le Gaulois, 1881). When Victor de Persigny died in 1872, his widow received a life annuity of 12,000 francs (his children had their own share of the inheritance), which was not a great fortune for someone of her rank (AP D42E3/55). The financial situation gave rise to a whole series of scandals which were eagerly followed by reporters. When Madame de Persigny wished to remarry a young engineer and lawyer, Hyacinthe Hilaire Adrien Le Moyne (1841-1871), nine years her junior, the Princess of Moskowa not only refused the marriage, but filed a request to ban it, claiming "mental disturbance" on the part of her daughter (Le Figaro, February 11, 1873, p. 2). The judge rejected her mother's request (to which the family council was also "hostile") and the marriage took place in the 8th arrondissement on February 15, 1873 (Le Figaro, February 11, 1873, p. 2; AP, V4E/3385).

Madame de Persigny must have enjoyed herself in this family of travellers and collectors: her new husband was the son of diplomat and naturalist Arnaud Auguste Hilaire Le Moyne (1800-1891), former minister plenipotentiary who had worked in Colombia, Peru, and Argentina and had served as Consul General of Egypt (AN Léonore, dossier "Le Moyne", 1585/37). He was notably in this post during the excavations of Saqqara by Auguste Mariette (1821-1881). The Egyptian collection of Arnaud Auguste Hilaire Le Moyne was sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1891 on the same day as the collection of the Duchess (Gazette de l'hôtel Drouot, May 2-3, 1891, p. 1).

The Le Moyne couple moved to Cairo, after a new scandal: when she remarried, Madame de Persigny was supposed to liquidate the rest of the furniture belonging to Persigny's inheritance, but she refused to give up the objects she held most dear. The auctioneers had to appeal to the courts to enter the apartment at 21, rue Malesherbes where they found a large number of objects "missing" from the inventory made in January (AP, D42E3/55). We will come back to these "missing" objects in the second part of this article below, because the description of certain pieces sold after the death of Madame de Persigny oddly resembles that of 1873. In 1874, the couple bought the Château de Boucheteau (Saint-Hilaire-Saint-Mesmin, Loiret), probably to have a base near Le Moyne's parents (La République du Centre, March 7, 2021).

The death of Adrien Le Moyne from typhoid fever in 1879 created new financial worries, which prompted Madame de Persigny to bring a lawsuit against her mother to force her to pay her a pension (Le Constitutionnel, August 30, 1879). She won the case, but family problems continued: her eldest daughter ("Lionette") died in 1880 during divorce proceedings from her husband (Le Figaro, February 11, 1880, p. 3); her second daughter, Marie-Eugénie Friedmann de Friedland, found herself implicated in a case of fraud (the "Friedmann affair”), for which she was imprisoned: she had  falsified her grandmother's signature a number of times and misappropriated the funds (La Presse, April 8, 1881). This affair, the trial of which was followed by all major newspapers for more than six months, generated so much speculation that Madame de Persigny wrote to the director of Le Figaro (Le Moyne E., 1880) to deny the rumours and to explain her unsuccessful efforts in order to save her daughter’s honour. The case would not be resolved until after the death of the Princess of Moskowa (February 9, 1881). The latter had resolutely refused to support her granddaughter (Bataille A., 1881). The enormous inheritance then enabled the Duchess to settle the 500,000 francs of Marie-Eugénie's debt and to ensure the marriage of her third daughter, Marie-Marguerite Eglé Fialin de Persigny. On March 14, 1881, this daughter married Charles Albert Maximilien in Paris. He was Baron of Schlippenbach (1846- 1920) and vice-consul to the Russian delegation to Japan. (AP, V4E/3456/112).

The death of the Princess of Moskowa thus enabled the Duchess of Persigny to settle all sorts of difficulties and to build a permanent residence, (she had been renting her apartment in Paris (Journal des Débats, August 9, 1884)). She bought land in Cannes in La California district where the first stone of the "Villa des Lotus" would be laid on January 26, 1882 (Gil Blas, January 27, 1882, p.1). She left a few days later (February 5) for Tokyo where she visited her daughter and son-in-law (the Schlippenbachs) (La Presse, February 5, 1882). It was during this year in Japan (she did not return until May 1883) that the Cannes architect E. Hewetson supervised the construction of this English-style villa (Nice Times, October 13, 1883, p. 2). The villa still exists today (at 42, rue du Roi-Albert), although it is now deprived of its magnificent botanical gardens filled with Japanese flora (the land was subdivided in the 1950s). During the Duchess of Persigny's lifetime, the house and its gardens served as a showcase for the many works of art she had purchased in Japan, including a small Japanese "summer house" that she had installed in the garden by Japanese workers in the fall of 1883 (Maumené A., 1907; Nice Times, October 13, 1883, p. 2).

What we know of the life of the Duchess of Persigny during her year in Japan comes mainly from the pen of the traveler and collector Hugues Krafft (1853-1935) who frequented her during his own stay in the Far East (1881-1883). He also describes the Duchess, her "appetite" for bibelots and their mutual love for Japan in letters to his sister, which are now kept at the Le Vergeur museum in Reims (Reed C., 2017, p. 102-103). His descriptions of consular life published in his Souvenir de Notre Tour du Monde give a good idea of ​​the exchanges between Japanese, Koreans, Chinese and Europeans of this period (Krafft H., 1885). Krafft and Persigny were so close that they each bought a Japanese pavilion which they had transported to Cannes when Madame de Persigny returned in May 1883 (Leduc-Beaulieu A., 2005; Reed C., 2017, p. 102-103). In October 1883, the press gave enthusiastic reports (Nice Times, October 13, 1883, p.2) and pointed out the Japanese influence evident in the details of the Villa des Lotus "from the edges of the roofs, the little porches, [and] the overmantels" (Maumené A., 1907, p. 304).

The large expenditure occasioned by the construction of the Villa des Lotus provoked a new lawsuit from Madame de Persigny’s son, who claims that it was madness to "bring from Yeddo [...] Japanese a house, fully detailed, and with this house a Japanese person, a real Japanese [...] to live in it and serve tea there" (Journal des Débats, August 9, 1884). This way of interpreting Madame de Persigny's project shows how far ahead she was ahead of her contemporaries both in recognising the value of this villa and in her tastes for Japanese horticulture, which was all the rage in France a decade later (see, for example, Suzuki J., 2011). In 1907, the professor of horticulture Albert Maumené (1874-1963) devoted a long article to the specimens that the Duchess of Persigny brought from Japan and evoked their arrangement in the gardens of La Villa des Lotus, which was orchestrated in consultation with the landscape architect Édouard André (1840-1911). After the death of Madame de Persigny, it was once again André who worked with the new owners to enlarge the gardens (Maumené A., 1907). Far from being mad, the Duchess of Persigny was as passionate about Japanese landscape architecture as Krafft, who also created a Japanese garden – “Midori-no-sato” – in Jouy-en-Josas (Maumené A., 1908; Leduc-Beaulieu A., 2005).

Unfortunately, the Duchess of Persigny did not live long enough to see the gardens of the Villa des Lotus in the splendour evoked by Maumené in 1907, which we will describe in further detail. She died on May 29, 1890 only a few months after having married her third husband, Count Charles de Villelume-Sombreuil (1861-1912), 29 years her junior, on October 21, 1889 (AMC, 1E66/251876; AP V4E/6118/21).

The Collection

The collection of the Duchess of Persigny was formed and dispersed in two distinct phases: that of the Second Empire (1852-1870), when the Persignys had to conform to the splendour of an Imperial Court which expected an engagement with the arts (McQueen A., 2011), and a more personal second phase (1881-1890), informed as much by newfound financial stability as by a trip to Japan (1882-1883). It is this second collection - focused on Japanese art and horticulture - that interests us here.

The family and financial complexities of the Duchess of Persigny mentioned in the first part of this article have left rich documentary traces exposing the legal obstacles which prevented French women of the 19th century from building collections in their own names. Although visitors to the Château de Chamarande remarked that it was the Duchess who "had bought, restored, fitted out, and furnished it with particular care and tenderness, without counting the millions" (Le Gaulois, February 13, 1881, p. 1), all documents concerning the estate and sales are in the name of her deceased husband (sales of paintings on April 4, 1872, sale of art works May 6-8, 1872, sale of engravings on May 30, 1872). The catalogues of these sales allow us to imagine the opulence of the Château de Chamarande where paintings by Raphaël (1483-1520), Rogier van der Weyden (around 1399-1464), François Clouet (around 1515-1572), Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) and Gerard Terburg (1617-1681) were hung, and where rooms overflowed with Louis XV and XVI furniture, porcelain from Saxony or Chinese cabinets known as Ning-Pô (Tableaux anciens et de premier ordre des diverses écoles, Paris, 1872; Objets d'art, de curiosité et d'ameublement provenant du château de Chamarande Paris, 1872; Tableaux anciens, nombreuse collection de portraits décorant le château de Chamarande, Paris, 1872; Gravures anciennes du xvi^e siècle et autres et tableaux anciens, Paris, 1872; Succession de M. le Duc de Persigny. Riche mobilier, objets d'art et de curiosité, argenterie, etc., Paris, 1873).

After Madame de Persigny's remarriage in February 1873, the family council noted that she had kept some of the furniture belonging to her children's inheritance (in particular lacquered Japanese and Chinese furniture, celadon vases, a piece of Louis XV furniture, a rare clock from Saxony). An inventory was therefore carried out in order to liquidate the estate (sale July 11-15, 1873), despite the Duchess's "protests" before the Tribunal de la Seine (AP, D42E3/55). Her legal complaint (together with the finding in May 1873 that many objects were "missing" from an inventory made in January) and the fact that the Tribunal had to authorise "armed force if necessary" to seize the rest of the furnishings, shows us how much she wanted to keep certain elements of the collection (particularly a series of lacquered Japanese and Chinese furniture and porcelain: "a Chinese cabinet in Japanese lacquer", "a small secretary in black wood and mother-of-pearl marquetry with a shelf in green marble", "a cabinet in carved wood and marquetry from Ning-Pô", "a fireplace screen in carved rosewood, Chinese work with twelve panels in brocaded satin, two large vases in modern Sèvres porcelain on velvet pedestals"). She had to compensate for the 12,352 francs of "missing" objects and buy back other lots (mostly utilitarian or sentimental objects such as plates, sheets and albums) during the public sale, which took place from July 11 to 15, 1873 (AP, D42E3/56).

The sale following Madame de Persigny's death (May 5 to 12, 1891) is described by the auctioneers as consisting of "a collection of lacquerware and objects from China and Japan, watercolour paintings and engravings, tapestries and antique furniture, silverware and finally furniture and miscellaneous movable objects" (AP, D42E3/56). On the other hand, the advertising text minimises the Asian aspect of the collection to appeal to the greatest number of buyers: "opulent furniture, French and English prints of the 18th century, drawings, watercolours and paintings, 4 graceful tops of pots by Lagrenée, beautiful lacquerware from Japan, ivories, bronzes, damascened iron, cloisonné, fans, kakemonos, magnificent screens, rich European and oriental embroidery and fabrics, porcelain from China and Japan, figurines from Saxony, earthenware, beautiful silverware, bronzes from furnishings, antique and stylish furniture and seats, hangings, Oriental rugs, tapestries from the Renaissance & after Téniers" (Comtesse de V.S. veuve du Duc de Persigny. Riche mobilier estampes, tableaux, laques, bronzes, tapisseries, etc., Paris, 1891).

In the end, it was the Asian collection that attracted the most attention and the highest prices: 93 lots of lacquer furniture and boxes, 89 lots of Japanese and Chinese porcelain, 22 lots of Japanese paintings ("kakemonos"), 41 lots of screens and Asian furniture, and 32 lots of Chinese and Japanese fabrics. One piece of Japanese lacquered furniture (lot no. 230) went to the writer Émile Zola (1848-1902) for 1,250 francs (AP, D4E32/76). "Various objects of art from the Orient" - evidently memorabilia from the travels of the Duchess of Persigny - coins, teapots, ashtrays, musical instruments, dolls, scissors, masks, Japanese games, coloured photograph albums, and Japanese and Chinese fans and screens - were very successful among dealers specialising in Asian objects: Florine Langweil (1861-1958), Antoine de la Narde (1839 - around 1912), Philippe Sichel (1841-1899), Madame Hatty ( 1841-1908) and others (AP, D4E32/76). What we discover in this sale is how much the Duchess of Persigny remained faithful to her taste for Japanese lacquered furniture and boxes (and we recall that some objects in this sale, such as the cabinets and furniture from Ning-Pô, strangely resemble the list of objects "missing" in the inventory of 1873) and to the screens that she had already collected during the Second Empire.

Remarkably innovative for 1883, the garden of the Duchess of Persigny was one of the very first Japanese gardens installed in France. The collection of Japanese plants that she brought back from Japan and set up in the gardens of the Villa des Lotus in Cannes is exceptional: it consists of different types of palm trees (notably a Brahea Roëzlii, according to Maumené "the first to have flowered in Europe"), coconut palms, date palms, agaves, aloes, euphorbias, candles, echinocarps, opontias, bamboos, magnolias, mimosas, bird plant, New Zealand flax, tree ferns, nymphaeas, arums, pontederias, acanthus, cannas, and irises from all countries (Maumené A., 1907, p. 307). As Maumené said in trying to take them into account, "naming them would amount to establishing a botanical and floral catalogue, so many and varied are the collections" (Maumené A., 1907, p. 307). Maumené, a specialist in horticulture, allows us to imagine the importance of this garden in his time: he speaks of "superb collections of exotic plants" and praises "their original and powerfully decorative display", classifying them "in first rank of the beautiful gardens of the Côte d'Azur". Thanks to his testimony, we have at least one plan of the gardens in 1907 and a sense of the vision of the Duchess of Persigny (Maumené A., 1907, p. 306-307). Far from having displayed "madness" by buying the land, the steeply sloping character of the property (30 m difference in level) encouraged the installation of "picturesque scenes" which "amazed" visitors (Maumené A., 1907). This is the impression of one of the only other testimonies of the period (1888), which declares the Villa des Lotus to be "the villa that we would prefer, if given the choice" thanks to its "fragrant" gardens with the "jewel" of a small Japanese house and a terrace marked by Japanese vases placed at unequal heights (La Saison dans le Midi, 1888, p. 150).

The garden that Maumené visited in 1907 was enlarged by John Taylor Lord (1833-1903) and his wife (Janet Hay Lord, 1853-1908) with the help of the landscape architect Édouard André who, according to Maumené, designed the first garden with Madame de Persigny. Maumené also evokes the magnificent rosebushes and especially "a tiny construction buried in the Roses: it is a delicious Japanese house, all the materials of which were imported from Japan" (Maumené A., 1907, p. 307). It is not clear whether this rose garden was planted by Madame de Persigny or the Lords, although he specifies that it was they who planted the bamboos and Japanese maples (Maumené A., 1907, p. 308).

Much more ephemeral than the collection dispersed at the Hôtel Drouot in 1891, this collection of Japanese flora is, as Maumené says, one of the first (if not the very first) Japanese garden in France. It deserves - just like the Duchesse de Persigny, who had the vision to create it - to be better known.