Gilded Tortoise

Montesquiou owned a gilded tortoise shell, which had been painted in gold and which he featured in his curated collection of rarities and special items. Montesquiou, being the public figure that he was, inspired many such as novelist Huysmans and thus elements of his life were 'borrowed' and featured in the great works of the day. In Huysmans' "A Rebours," the protagonist Des Esseintes owns a gilded tortoise whose shell is painted with gold and covered in heavy jewels for the spectatorial pleasure of the dandy and his friends. Later in the book, the weight of this shell crushes the tortoise and kills him. For those reading the book, it was evident Huysmans was making an observation about the moral weight of decadence. (Montesquiou, however, took issue not with that commentary but with the way in which Huysmans and others stole from his life and created...