Partner Isabelle Crombez

Queer Places:
Ca' Dario, Campiello Barbaro, 352, 30123 Venezia VE
149 Av. de Wagram, 75017 Paris, France
Cimetière des Batignolles, 8 Rue Saint-Just, 75017 Paris, France

Augustine Mathilde Victoire Bulteau (February 23, 1860 - September 29, 1922), also known as Madame Bulteau, was a French journalist, novelist, and salon hostess who used the pen names Fœmina, Cleg, and Jacque Vontade.

Educated in a family belonging to the upper middle class of the textile industry originally from Roubaix, her father, Auguste Alexandre Bulteau, lived in Paris on rue du Sentier and was named a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1863. On September 18, 1880, she married the lawyer and future writer Jules Ricard in Neuilly. Though their divorce was granted on November 19, 1896, the actual separation dated back much earlier.

In the meantime, and from the late 1880s onwards, Augustine Bulteau—affectionately nicknamed "Toche"—gathered a circle of artists and writers whom she brought together at her estate in Léry in Burgundy. She practiced painting, drawing, and photography, organized live performances, and left an important iconographic record, partly preserved by the National Library of France, featuring figures such as the artist Maxime Dethomas, who was one of her most faithful friends.

Augustine Bulteau was also very close to Isabelle Crombez, Countess de la Baume-Pluvinel, who published under the masculine pseudonym Laurent Évrard. After meeting at the Bayreuth Festival, the two women became lifelong companions and partners. In 1898, they jointly acquired the historic Palazzo Dario on the Grand Canal in Venice, undertaking extensive renovations and transforming the palace into a celebrated intellectual salon during the winters and springs. There, they received many prominent figures from the world of arts and culture, including Henri de Régnier, Pierre Louÿs, and Claude Monet. Their shared life and partnership lasted until the Countess's death in February 1911.

In 1898, Augustine Bulteau wrote, under the pseudonym Cleg, regular columns in the weekly La Vie parisienne, where she also published her novel Les Histoires amoureuses d'Odile in serial form. In parallel, in 1899, she inaugurated in the society daily Le Gaulois a column signed "Foemina" which she kept until 1901, then continued the following year in Le Figaro until 1914, notably using her platform to support the candidacy of Marie Curie to the Academy of Sciences. In 1900, under another pseudonym, Jacque Vontade, she embarked on a career as a novelist with the publication of Odile's Love Stories at Ollendorff, followed by works such as La Lueur sur la cime and L'Âme des Anglais. On January 11, 1913, she was appointed Knight of the Legion of Honour by the Ministry of Public Instruction.

Augustine Bulteau died in Paris on September 29, 1922, at her home at 149 avenue de Wagram, a place where she regularly received her friends. She was cremated, and her ashes were placed in the columbarium of Père-Lachaise Cemetery, then transferred to Batignolles Cemetery (division 10) the following year. Her writings and memoirs were published between 1922 and 1929, and her rediscovered correspondence revealed extensive intellectual links with Louis Duchesne (from 1902 to 1922), Jean de Tinan, and Paul-Jean Toulet, among others.

References:

• Dossier de la Légion d'Honneur for Augustine Bulteau (Chevalier, 1913), archived at the Archives Nationales de France.
• National Library of France (BnF): Fonds Nouvelles Acquisitions Françaises (including correspondence records, notably Nouv. Acq. Fr. 17506, containing letters from figures like Ernest Lavisse to Augustine Bulteau).
• Bulteau, Augustine (writing as Fœmina, Cleg, or Jacque Vontade). Regular contributions and chronicles in Le Figaro, La Vie parisienne, Le Gaulois, and La Renaissance latine.
• Les Histoires amoureuses d'Odile (serialized in La Vie parisienne, 1898–1899; published by P. Ollendorff, 1900).
• La Lueur sur la cime (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1904).
• L'Âme des Anglais (published under the pseudonym Jacque Vontade, Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1910).
• La Conquête de la joie (with a presentation by Raymond Schwab, Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1922).
• Dans la paix du soir (Paris: Au sans pareil, 1929).
• Laurent Évrard [Isabelle Crombez], Fables et chansons (Léon Vanier, 1900).
• Laurent Évrard [Isabelle Crombez], Une leçon de vie (Mercure de France, 1909).
• La Nuit (Collection of five short stories by Isabelle Crombez, preceded by an introductory note signed "A. B." [Augustine Bulteau], Bernard Grasset, 1912).
• Contemporary journalistic obituaries and tributes: André Beaunier’s tribute in Le Figaro (February 1911) and Henri de Régnier’s notice in Paris-Journal.
• Poncet, Olivier. Research concerning the correspondence network of Ernest Lavisse and intellectual exchanges with Augustine Bulteau.
• Academic studies on Belle Époque women's networks and salon culture, including publications from the Sorbonne research colloquia on the "Décennie saphique" and literary networks at Palazzo Dario (Venice) and Paris salons.
• Biographical dictionaries and cemetery records: Association des Amis et Passionnés du Père-Lachaise (APPL) biographical notice on Isabelle Crombez, Countess de la Baume-Pluvinel.

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