Courtesans and kings
The modern world is so hypocritical that the most repressive Victorian aunt would appear as a positive monster of blunt speech and free thought by comparison with us. This is a thought I often had, but never more than when faced with the coverage of the Sarkozy/Bruni affair. The swoony romantic tinges in which this pretty ordinary meeting of a powerful man and an immodest maiden young enough to be his daughter has been written up, really makes me blush for the intellectual honesty of our times.
Carla Bruni is a courtesan. She has never gone to bed with a man who did not do something for her career and reputation; and one does not have to ask whether the likes of Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton ever took their nights with her more seriously than she did. Now, like many of history's more famous courtesans, she has become the mistress of the French head of state. All right. But in the name of not so much of heaven, as of sex, female beauty, lust, and desire, don't call it a love story. Don't pretend there is anything especially romantic about it. Yes, Sarkozy is a well preserved, energetic and not unattractive middle-aged man. There is nothing especially ridiculous about his having affairs. But is there a single person in this world willing to stand up and suggest that Carla Bruni would have given him a second look if he had not been one of the most powerful men in the world?
That is what I find sickening: that every most obvious affair of lust, every encounter that bears on its own face the picture of its own impermanence, is treated as a genuine love affair and written up in the romantic style. The difference between love and sex has been completely neglected; as has that between the ordinary woman, the courtesan, and the tart.
And that, I think, is bad for everyone. It is not only the matter of morality - on which I would have very little to say that has not been already said better. It is the matter of mental balance and sense. For whatever reason, a small number of women in every generation are born with a talent for - to be vulgar - whoring, a talent which, unlike the common run of prostitutes, propels them up rather than down. Lady Diana Spencer, to mention a modern case, was definitely one. Her proper place was not as a royal bride, but as a royal bedfellow, and she would probably have been happier that way. In the saner past, wome like her, from Ninon de l'Enclos to the Marchesa di Castiglione to Pamela Digby, knew exactly what they were and what they were good for; they easily found their place in society and even ended up getting a kind of grudging admiration from society at large. They could even affect history, Castiglione as Cavour's agent and Digby as Churchill's, in significant ways. But as we have been taught to make no distinction between lust and love, or even to ignore that lust exists, the unfortunate young Spencer mistook her predatory instincts for love, and allowed her intended prey and herself to be marched up the aisle. Previous generations of any royal family would never have made such an egregious mistake.
Bruni, at least, is not so confused. Whoever else may be deceived, there is no evidence whatever that she is. All her steps in life have been towards the goal of becoming what her language calls il riposo del guerriero - the warrior's rest - so long as the warrior in question led large armies. And that being the case, she will probably do less harm than the self-deceived Diana did.
Carla Bruni is a courtesan. She has never gone to bed with a man who did not do something for her career and reputation; and one does not have to ask whether the likes of Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton ever took their nights with her more seriously than she did. Now, like many of history's more famous courtesans, she has become the mistress of the French head of state. All right. But in the name of not so much of heaven, as of sex, female beauty, lust, and desire, don't call it a love story. Don't pretend there is anything especially romantic about it. Yes, Sarkozy is a well preserved, energetic and not unattractive middle-aged man. There is nothing especially ridiculous about his having affairs. But is there a single person in this world willing to stand up and suggest that Carla Bruni would have given him a second look if he had not been one of the most powerful men in the world?
That is what I find sickening: that every most obvious affair of lust, every encounter that bears on its own face the picture of its own impermanence, is treated as a genuine love affair and written up in the romantic style. The difference between love and sex has been completely neglected; as has that between the ordinary woman, the courtesan, and the tart.
And that, I think, is bad for everyone. It is not only the matter of morality - on which I would have very little to say that has not been already said better. It is the matter of mental balance and sense. For whatever reason, a small number of women in every generation are born with a talent for - to be vulgar - whoring, a talent which, unlike the common run of prostitutes, propels them up rather than down. Lady Diana Spencer, to mention a modern case, was definitely one. Her proper place was not as a royal bride, but as a royal bedfellow, and she would probably have been happier that way. In the saner past, wome like her, from Ninon de l'Enclos to the Marchesa di Castiglione to Pamela Digby, knew exactly what they were and what they were good for; they easily found their place in society and even ended up getting a kind of grudging admiration from society at large. They could even affect history, Castiglione as Cavour's agent and Digby as Churchill's, in significant ways. But as we have been taught to make no distinction between lust and love, or even to ignore that lust exists, the unfortunate young Spencer mistook her predatory instincts for love, and allowed her intended prey and herself to be marched up the aisle. Previous generations of any royal family would never have made such an egregious mistake.
Bruni, at least, is not so confused. Whoever else may be deceived, there is no evidence whatever that she is. All her steps in life have been towards the goal of becoming what her language calls il riposo del guerriero - the warrior's rest - so long as the warrior in question led large armies. And that being the case, she will probably do less harm than the self-deceived Diana did.