Noble Cast

PA: Yes. She would have a social trajectory during the '60s, although it would not be what it once was. But her mind went back incessantly to the period of 1856-57, and she relived those years of triumph through her photographs. That's what the Queen of Hearts is, for instance - a celebration of her appearance at a ball in 1856, restaged in the early 1860s.

CS: Which she didn't originally have photographed in '56?

PA: Right. My collaborator, Xavier Demange, noticed that the way her hair was done and the dress was cut could only have been conceived in the '60s. Then we realized that the painted photographs dated from the '60s often referred to the period of 1856-57. The titles engraved on the negatives refer to ballet, operas, and plays she had seen in those two years. Photography helped her to go back to that peak period, where reality and her narcissistic illusions coincided. In a way, her drama was that she had illusions which reality had conspired to make real for a couple of years: She could believe her grandiose ideas about herself. Afterward, she would always return to that period - it was the only time she really lived her life in the now.

CS: How did an Italian countess become an important figure in Paris?

PA: She arrived in Paris probably in the first days of 1856, sent by Cavour to seduce the emperor, to keep him interested in the unification of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II. During the Crimean War, the kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia sided with the French, the English, and the Turks against the Russians. When the war ended, the peace settlement was negotiated in Paris, and the kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia had a seat at the conference table. Cavour maneuvered the kingdom into the war against Russia precisely to get that seat, which allowed him to bring the question of Italian unity to the table. The countess appeared in Paris just before the opening of the Congress in April.

CS: She was a teenager; what kind of influence could she have?

PA: She was married at seventeen and was already a mother. She did seduce Napoleon III. But what influence did she have? Probably none in a direct way. However, she was an indisputable presence on the scene and added glamour to the Italian lobby. She was very beautiful and the press was beside itself with admiration - she really created a sensation.

CS: What was she doing while they were all sitting at the conference table?

PA: She had a cipher to correspond directly with Cavour, and she had her ear to the ground. She made powerful friends - the Rothschilds, Fould, the minister of finance. She was strange, mysterious, a bit of an enigma, so people didn't know exactly what to do with her. Later she capitalized on her image as a sphinx.

CS: How long was she the emperor's mistress?

PA: A bit over a year. In the game of European politics, she made the Austrian camp at the French court very nervous - Austria, which controlled the north of Italy, had a lot to lose if Cavour's ambitions were realized. It was obvious she had entree everywhere. But her role was probably more that of an informant than anything else. Of course, she always imagined a more exalted role for herself and saw reality through that role; she lived according to her illusions.