In Rodin’s great atelier at Meudon stands a cast of that statuette, so magnificently ugly, which the great sculptor wrought upon the text of Villon’s poem, La Belle Heaulmière.
The courtesan, once radiant with youth and grace, is now repulsive with age and decrepitude. Once proud of her beauty, she is now filled with shame at her ugliness.
“Ha, vieillesse felonne et fière,
Pourquoi m’as tu si tôt abattue?
Qui me tient que je ne me fière (frappe)
Et qu’à ce coup je ne me tue!”[[1]]
The sculptor has followed the poet step by step. The old hag, more shrivelled than a mummy, mourns her physical decay. Bent double, crouching on her haunches, she gazes despairingly upon her breasts so pitiably shrunken, upon her hideously wrinkled body, upon her arms and legs more knotty than vine stocks.
“Quand je pense, las! au bon temps,
Quelle fus, quelle devenue,