The French Consul's Wife: Memoirs of Céleste de Chabrillan in Gold-Rush Australia

by Patricia Clancy, Jeanne Allen (Editor)

'What a subject for a film, but not, please, Meryl Streep ... Together with Dr Patricia Clancy (Melbourne University) and Jeanne Allen's (La Trobe University) elegant translation and able notes, the memoirs make for a piquant, informative, variegated and often startling read ... Miegunyah Press you've done it again.' (Derek Whitelock, Weekend Australian)

A former Parisian courtesan, circus performer and dancer, Céleste de Chabrillan scandalised Melbourne society when she arrived in 1854 as the wife of the French Consul. These memoirs give a vivid firsthand account of the two-and-a-half years she spent in gold-rush Victoria.

Céleste's arrival in Melbourne was preceded by the publication of her memoirs describing her illegitimate birth, miserable adolescence and celebrity career as a courtesan, bareback rider and polka dancer. As a result she was dubbed the consul's 'harlot spouse' and ostracised by society.

Despite this, Céleste did not avoid the public gaze and continued to employ her literary talents. Her memoirs are of a life spent in the village of St Kilda, the diplomatic and government house circle and the Ballarat gold fields. Her descriptions of a public hanging, Governor Hotham's 'beer ball' and her own Ball for the Victims of Crimea reveal her as a woman of great energy and wilful temperament.

336 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1998

Reviews

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story of Celeste de Chabrillan was pressed upon me by a friend and I embarked upon it somewhat reluctantly. But the stories that unfold within this book are fascinating in themselves and they are told with the lively flair that Celeste must have shown throughout her life. She writes of her marriage to Count Lionel de Chabrillan, the awful sea journeys between England/France and Australia, life in the gold rush Melbourne of the 1850s, especially amongst the French community, and episodes in France.
The editors have skilfully compiled the book from their own translations of Celeste's memoir's, diaries and letters between her and Lionel. Endnotes show they have meticulously checked Celeste's account of events in Melbourne and elsewhere with contemporary reports which show that Celeste was sometimes tempted to adapt an event from someone else's life to add to her own story (her reported trip to the goldfields of Ballarat is an example). It is not at all surprising to learn that Celeste wrote many novels and plays based on her Australian experiences, the first begun while she was still in Melbourne but most written after Lionel's premature death. The harshness of life in the young colony is portrayed vividly.

Thoroughly recommended to anyone interested in colonial Australia, the French in Australia or the life of an unconventional, determined and enterprising woman.

[Elina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! What a fantastic, personal and descriptive memoirs of life in the Australian goldfields during the 1850s. Celeste's insights are endlessly fascinating and highly evocative. I wish this work was more widely known and that it had been made into a movie or TV series.