Destroyers and Other Verses/"La Mouche"
SONGS OF LA MOUCHE
"LA MOUCHE."
Elise K———, or, as she preferred to be called in later life, "Camille Selden," was born in Saxony in 1829. She was adopted in infancy by a childless married couple, and her foster parents emigrated to Paris whilst she was still young.
In August, 1847, her foster father went to America to found a business, and she accompanied him as far as Havre. On the return journey from Havre to Paris, she travelled with Alfred Meissner, the Austrian poet and play-wright, then a young man forced to travel abroad for a time by the political unrest in Bohemia. The day after this encounter Meissner left Paris for Germany, and knew his fellow traveller by the name of "Margot" only.
In 1849, Meissner was again in Paris. One April morning, whilst sitting in his hotel, he was surprised by a visit from "Margot," who, hearing he had returned, obtained his address from a bookseller. This meeting was the forerunner of a number of excursions in and around Paris. But "Margot" his friend still remained, and she forbade him to enquire who she was and whence she came. This friendship was ended in May by Meissner's journey to England.
In July of the same year when walking down Regent Street, he saw two ladies alight from a carriage in front of a jeweller's shop. In spite of her changed surroundings, he fancied the younger must be "Margot," and rushing forward through the crowd impetuously greeted her by her pet name—the only name he knew. She "regretted that Monsieur had made a mistake as she had not the pleasure of knowing him."
Then followed "Camille Selden's" unhappy marriage to a Frenchman who ran through her money, and shut her up in a lunatic asylum. She was, however, speedily released, and shortly afterwards obtained a separation from her husband.
In 1855 she was living in Paris with her mother, supporting herself by teaching. Heine had always been one of her heroes, and a chance commission gave her the opportunity of calling upon him in the Avenue Matignon. He was entirely confined to his bed by the disease that ultimately proved fatal, and found pleasure in her brightness and in the activity of her mind. He begged her to repeat her visits, and under the name of "La Mouche," she acted as his secretary, companion, and translator of his poems into French.
This association was only broken in June, 1855, by a journey to the Black Forest, undertaken on account of her health. After her return in July, her visits to Heine were of almost daily occurrence, in spite of the jealousy of his wife, "Frau Mathilde," who saw the place she had voluntarily resigned in her daily search for pleasure, filled by another.
After Heine's death, on February 17th, 1856, Meissner was sent to Paris by the publishers, to save, if possible, Heine's papers from the destructive activity of his wife. Whilst engaged upon this work, he again met his "Margot," whose identity with Heine's "Mouche" he had not suspected. She took him to her home, poured out before him the letters and poems sent to her by the poet, and permitted him to publish some of them in his memoir of Heine.
"Camille Selden" then disappeared from history until 1885, when she published "Les derniers Jours de Henri Heine," as a monument of their friendship.
She died in 1896, at Rouen, where she had long been teaching.