sempozyum_bildiri_kitabi

7.2.2. A drama of Ibsen, “When we Wake up from the Dead” (1899), deals with the life of a
sculptor with a marked taste for young and elderly women. It could refer to Rodin.
8. From the brother
8.1. Camille’s young brother was struck by his sister’s work, which he supported in various
articles. He is full of enthusiasm: "This is a woman of genius”, while his appreciation has a certain
narcissism in it: “Now it’s my bust she’s making, a superb work.” He is dazzled by La valse “drunk…
and lost in its musicality”, by Clotho" an old Gothic woman like a spider tangled in its own web", by
Medusa with that head with" the bloody tresses" that Perseus raises behind him, (...) is that her
madness? or rather a representation of remorse? That face at the end of this raised arm, yes, it
seems to me to recall the decomposed features" (1951). He also likes L’abandon: "The body, after all,
knows as much as the soul." He is fully aware of his sister’s impressive talent: "How all of this, all the
way to the most secret shivers of the soul, trembles with inexpressible life."
8.2. After the heartbreak connected with Rodin’s refusal of marriage and the pain of her abortion,
CC was drained. She endured financial misery and solitude (She broke statues of hers probably
because she was herself broken). Such a sister becomes a burden. Eight days after her father's death,
her sole protector and support, the family agreed with the brother’s assent, on her confinement in
asylum. The writer have visited her a dozen times, he never questioned this scandalous decision. He
had invincible justifications for her: “My sister Camille had extraordinary beauty… exceptional
energy, imagination, and extraordinary determination. And all these superb gifts came to nothing:
after an extremely sad life, she ended in complete failure.”
8.3. P. Claudel gives two distinct versions of this confinement.
The first because of complaints from tenants in 19 quai Bourbon (shutters closed, used to go out
in the morning, report of finding display of the Stations of the Cross hung on the wall!).
The second is of a religious nature: “Understand that a person I’m very close to has committed
the same crime as you and that for 26 years she has been atoning for it in a madhouse. To kill a child,
kill an immortal soul, that's horrible. It's frightfull". Thus the confinement is punitive: «30 years of
confinement would have held the place of purgatory for her” and legitimizes the fact that the
writer/ambassador/Catholic leaves her to rot in the asylum.
Let’s remember that in 1927 Paul Claudel acquired a vast castle of Brangues with farm, stables,
orangery. He doesn’t invite his sister there who remains shut away in the asylum – also a vast similar
building ‐with 200 patients. She, who is stagnating and dying in this place, signs for herself “your
sister ‐in‐exile." He doesn’t react to repeated requests for her liberation, even from the medical staff,
contenting himself by sending packages or money. Dedicated only to his own glory, he will visit her
12 times in 30 years and does not attend her funeral in 1943. On September 29, 1943 (his last visit),
he wrote that each act of his sister “is a step towards disaster." The body of Camille was thrown into
the common grave.
8.4. When the talent of Camille was front and center again at an exhibition in 1951, the brother
writes a piece titled My Sister Camille. He struck a confident posture there, with his arm encircling a
bust of Camille! It was a bronze bust, but his sister was made of flesh and soul.
9. Conclusion
To conclude these biographical crossings: the "freedom demanded” by this woman was never
obtained by her, and that her wrongful detention crushed her more and more every year, leaving her
without the power or the daring to flee. She, who has transformed her soul through sculpture
concluded her own life suffering from hunger, thirst and loneliness, forbidden to write or receive
letters or visits. Even the medical diagnoses that twice suggested that she could leave the asylum was
disregarded by her family. She was too deranged.