Musette of Murger's "Scenes of a Bohemian Life:" The Romanticized Lorette

In Scenes of a Bohemian Life, which documents Bohemian lifestyles in the mid-19th century, Henri Murger condemns the rise of the lorette, a new breed of greedy, sex-obsessed women who seek material wealth through sex and, in the process, wipe out more “respectable” sexworkers, like the romanticized grisette. In the middle of this transition from grisette to lorette, Musette, a character somewhere in between the two categories, makes a living. This lays the groundwork for more destructive lorettes, like Rosanette and Nana, even if Musette is shown in a more positive light.  

The grisette in Scenes of a Bohemian Life is a working girl who is the mistress of one of the students in the Latin Quarter. Murger describes her favorably, characterizing her as someone who is, “half bees, half grasshoppers, who worked with merry songs on their lips all the week, only asking heaven for a little sunshine on Sundays, made cheap love with all their hearts” [1]. The grisette is seen as a harmless, innocent and pure girl who is an easy sexual conquest. It is hard not to notice the objectifying tone in the narrator’s voice. The girls “made cheap love with all their hearts” and asked for “a little sunshine on Sundays,” making the grisette sound like a simple girl made for a man’s sexual pleasure rather than an autonomous woman. Still, Murger looks upon the grisette fondly, especially as a companion to the students she loves. He hates the men who do not value her or romance her, remarking that they, “jeer at these poor girls because of hands scarred with the holy wounds of industrial toil, which do not earn enough to buy a pot of almond paste” [2]. Although Murger despises these men, he victimizes the grisette and, in the process, allows his male characters to become her savior. Eventually, Murger remarks, these men have become so numerous that, “the grisette no longer exists” [3]. Thus, parts of Scenes of a Bohemian Life documents the fall of a grisette in society, which Murger laments, missing the grisette’s romanticized relationship with the students of the Latin Quarter. 

These spiteful men make up a new generation of young people who are materialistic above all else. Lacking any romantic or emotional inclinations, this generation was encouraged by, “the present race of young men” who were, “corrupted and corrupting...encrusted with vanity, stupidity and caddishness” [4]. According to Murger, sex and vanity were cardinal virtues for this generation – pleasure was their only goal. Among these people came the lorette, “a hybrid race of impudent creatures with mediocre beauty, half flesh, half pomatum, whose boudoirs are counting-houses where they deal out their morsels of heart as one cuts a slice of beef” [5]. Pomatum, which is a form of pomade, or hair gel, is “half” of this woman, implying that she is obsessed with cosmetics and beauty. She is, in a way, only half human, because so much of her life is dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure. Thus the lorette’s affairs with men are not acts of love at all because emotional connection means nothing to her. She is in it only for pleasure and materialistic gratification. Murger continues to condemn them, saying that, “The greater part of these girls...have frequently not the intelligence of the creatures whose feathers decorate their bonnets” because they are “lovers of everything ridiculous” [6]. This is certainly contrary to the grisette, who is presented favorably, but, as Murger acknowledges, the grisette is gone, forever replaced by the conniving, vane lorette.

Somewhere in between the grisette and the lorette is Musette, a young woman living in Notre-Dame-de-Lorette who had both the romanticized portrayal of a grisette but the materialism of a lorette. After delighting students of the Latin Quarter for some time, Murger describes how Musette moved to, “the upper realms of Cytherea, in the Quartier Breda” [7]. The Quartier Breda is within Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, the neighborhood from which the lorettes got their name. Additionally, like lorettes, Musette enjoyed, “luxury and all the enjoyments which luxury procures. In her coquetry there was an ardent longing for all this is fine and rare; and though a daughter of the people, she would have felt by no means out of her element amid royal splendours” [8]. Here Murger explicitly links Musette’s sexual prowess (or, as he calls it, her “coquetry”) to her desire for wealth. There is also the notion of a working class woman invading high society through her materialism, a threat to the social order that is explored more in the lorettes of A Sentimental Education and Nana. However, Murger still romanticizes her, characterizing her as a woman who is gentle, sensible, and would go after men because they were “handsome and young,” not because they were old and had money [9]. Although Musette loved social capital and luxury, her more important concern was to find a man she was genuinely attracted to. Murger truly desires her, romantically and sexually, saying, “Ah, charming girl, living poem of youth, with your gay songs and ringing laughter; ah, soft heart, that beat for all the world beneath that loosened bodice” [10]. This is the contradiction that Musette embodies – she has the materialism of a lorette, but the romantic capabilities of a grisette, putting her somewhere in the middle between the two.