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Madame de Matignon

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Angélique-Marie Élisabeth Émilie de Matignon, née Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, married Countesse Goyon de Matignon and known in history as Madame de Matignon (14 March 1757 – 14 May 1833 in Paris), was a prominent fashion figure during the French Ancien Régime, known for her extravagant hairdressing expenses.

Early life[edit]

Angélique-Marie Élisabeth Émilie was born on 14 March 1757 in Paris. She was the daughter of Louis Charles Auguste Le Tonnellier, Baron de Breteuil, French diplomat and politician (1730–1807), and Philiberte Jerôme de Parat de Montgeron (1737–1765/1786), the daughter of a wealthy financier. Her father was accredited as the French ambassador in Sweden in 1769.[1] In 1773, her father was the French ambassador in Naples.[2]

Personal life[edit]

Anne-Louise-Caroline de Goyon de Matignon (1774-1846), duchess of Montmorency, daughter of Madame de Matignon

In 1772, Angélique-Marie Élisabeth Émilie de Matignon was married to Count Louis Charles Auguste Goyon de Matignon, Count de Gacé (1755-1773), the last male descendant of the maréchaux de Goyon de Matignon. Before she was widowed at the age of 16 when her husband died in Naples on 18 December 1773 at the age of 18, they were the parents of:

After the French Revolution in 1789, Matignon fled with her father and her lover Bishop of Pamiers (1747–1824) to Switzerland and Hamburg, Germany. They returned to France in 1802.[3]

Fashion and extravagancy[edit]

Matignon was known for her sophisticated outfits ("Elle est d'une élégance achevée")[4] and was a client of the famous fashion designer Rose Bertin. However, when returning to Paris from Naples in 1777, she ignored totally the new fashion of padded false bottom supporting the skirts e.g. Cul de Paris also known as culs postiches which was à la mode from c. 1773 to the 1780s.[5][6] It is known that she paid her tailor 600 livres for one dress. The price for a very elaborate dress could be as high as 10,000 livres.[7]

She gave her hairdresser Le sieur Beaulard, a fashion merchant also given in some sources mistakenly as "Baulard",[8] 24 000 livres (e.g. pounds in silver) a year for styling her hair in a different way every day of the year.[9] [10] The value corresponds in 2014 euros some 1,2 million €.[11]

Considering the enormous amount of money paid, it is not known whether this applied for styling her own hair or her wigs or both. Also it is not known how many employees Beaulard had in his shop. It is known that besides Rose Bertin, Le sieur Beaulard was among the following three top fashion merchants alongside Madame Eloffe and Mademoiselle Alexandre in the 1770s. Beaulard was praised as "a modiste without parallel, the creator and the poet ... because of his myriad inventions and delicious names for fripperies". As the coiffures got very high during the 1770s, Beaulard invented the coiffure à la grand-mére, a mechanical coiffure which could be lowered as much as one foot (30 cm) by touching a spring.[12]

However, the King of the Parisian hairdressing was Léonard Autié, who was Queen Marie Antoinette's favourite coiffeur. The Queen also used the services of Beaulard, which caused rivalry with Queen's favourite fashion merchant Rose Bertin.[13]

Styling and making huge and elaborate coiffures was labour-intensive and costly business. A chignon wig made to the opera singer Antoinette Saint-Huberty (Saint-Huberti) cost 232 livres.[14] A coiffure was usually put together with clients own hair as a base, including metal wire and padded cushion supports, false hair (postiches), wheat starch, pomade made of lard and ornaments like flowers, feathers, jewelry, ribbons, gauze, lace and sometimes even with little objects like miniature ships.[15][16] The number of wigs owned by Countess de Matignon is not known. One of her hairstyles is known to be called à la Jardinière (Gardener Style), adorned with an artichoke and broccoli sprouts.[17]

The information known for the price of a (gentleman's) wig or perruque, varied from 12 livres for the cheapest one, to 35 livres for the most expensive one. It has been estimated that in the 1200 wig making and hairdressing shops worked some 10 000 employees or journeymen (garçons), usually 15 hours a day. In the 1780s there were some 900 master wig makers in Paris.[18]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Nicolas, Sylvie (1998). Les derniers maîtres des requêtes de l'Ancien Régime (1771-1789): dictionnaire prosopographique (in French). École nationale des chartes. p. 264. ISBN 978-2-900791-21-9. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
  2. ^ Blondy, Alain (2014). Documents consulaires, Lettres reçues par le chargé d’affaires du Roi à Malte au XVIIIème siècle, Tome Trois (in French). Lulu.com. p. 61. ISBN 978-1-291-97414-0. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
  3. ^ Price, Munro (23 September 2011). The Fall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the Baron de Breteuil. Pan Macmillan. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-4472-1169-3. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
  4. ^ Mémoires sur la cour de Louis XVI et la société française: avant 1789, Volumes 1-2. Mémoires de la Baronne d'Oberkirch. By Henriette Louise von Waldner Oberkirch (baronne d') 1789, page 192. Meline, Cans et compagnie 1834.
  5. ^ Corsets and Crinolines. By Norah Waugh. First edition 1954, page 67. Routledge 2015 [1]
  6. ^ Mémoires inédits de madame la comtesse de Genlis: pour servir à l'histoire des dix-huitième et dix-neuvième siècles, Volume 5. By Stéphanie Félicité Genlis (comtesse de), page 158. Colburn 1825. [2]
  7. ^ The Woman of the Eighteenth Century: Her Life, from Birth to Death, Her Love and Her Philosophy in the Worlds of Salon, Shop and Street, by Edmond de Goncourt, Jules de Goncourt, page 221. First published in French 1862. Routledge, 2013 [3]
  8. ^ Weber, Caroline (2007-10-02). Queen of fashion: What Marie-Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, p. 111. Macmillan 2007. ISBN 9781429936477.
  9. ^ The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: From Feudalism to Enlightenment. By Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, page 58. Cambridge University Press 1985. [4]
  10. ^ Mémoires sur la cour de Louis XVI et la société française: avant 1789, Volumes 1-2. Mémoirs de la Baronne d'Oberkirch. By Henriette Louise von Waldner Oberkirch (baronne d') 1789, page 192. Meline, Cans et compagnie 1834. [5]
  11. ^ La Femme des Lumières. Une histoire de la femme au XVIIIe siècle. La vie quotidienne. Salaires et prix des denrées de base au XVIIIe siècle. Web blog [6]Archived 2015-06-19 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ The Woman of the Eighteenth Century: Her Life, from Birth to Death, Her Love and Her Philosophy in the Worlds of Salon, Shop and Street. By Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt. Page 238. FPublished first in French 1862. Routledge 2013 [7]
  13. ^ Queen of Fashion: What Marie-Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. By Caroline Weber. Macmillan 2007, pages 111-112 [8]
  14. ^ The Woman of the Eighteenth Century: Her Life, from Birth to Death, Her Love and Her Philosophy in the Worlds of Salon, Shop and Street, by Edmond de Goncourt, Jules de Goncourt, page 237. First published in French 1862. Routledge, 2013 [9]
  15. ^ The Woman of the Eighteenth Century: Her Life, from Birth to Death, Her Love and Her Philosophy in the Worlds of Salon, Shop and Street, by Edmond de Goncourt, Jules de Goncourt, page 235. First published in French 1862. Routledge, 2013 [10]
  16. ^ Hair History - The Origin of the Word Hairdresser
  17. ^ Coiffures Historique - le site du Manuel Histoires de Coiffures. Coiffures Femmes Louis XV 1715–1774 by Alain Ducher [11]
  18. ^ Coiffures Historique - le site du Manuel Histoires de Coiffures. Historique du métier de Barbier Perruquier & Le Métier du Perruquier. By Alain Ducher [12]
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