| Maria-Faustina spends her early childhood in Italy
before her father decides to cross the Alps to look for a better life in
France. He is a salesman and opens up a new business in the town of Thônes
in Haute-Savoie. Maria-Faustina, whose name has become Mariette in France,
helps her father in the shop. She is a beautiful young woman, has a strong
willed personality, and attracts many men. She gets involved in several
relationships, gives birth to two children that she gives up for adoption,
after keeping them hidden for a while. Her life changes when she decides
to become an actress. She is tempted by the high society life of Paris and
marries Marquis of Thèze, whom she leaves soon after the wedding. She is
quite an extraordinary person: she is one of the first women to drive a
car. The Marquis decides to get back at her and has her arrested after the
Second World War, claiming that she has been a spy. She is incarcerated
in Nontron but uses her charm to talk her way out of jail. She ends up living
alone in Lamalou-les-Bains in the province of Hérault. She has never received
any artistic training but is able to master her own technique with creativity
and freedom. The fear of deteriorating physically is ever present. Her story
is described in a feverish and hallucinatory style. Her family says she
was involved with spiritualism. Her production is restricted to about three
hundred charcoal drawings, created over the course of one or two years,
drawn on invoices from the Mobiloil gas station. |
