Open Writing

In the Melbourne Cemetery there is a gravestone that reads:

IN LOVING MEMORY
OF
GEORGINA MAËS
WHO DIED 19TH JANUARY 1871 AGED 58 YEARS
ALSO HER DAUGHTERS
MARIE MAËS
WHO DIED 19TH MARCH 1863 AGED 31 YEARS
ALICE MAËS
WHO DIED 24TH OCTOBER 1868 AGED 20 YEARS
ONE WHO LOVED
AND HER GRAND CHILDREN
LAURA MAËS
WHO DIED 18TH JUNE 1890 AGED 8 YEARS
EDGAR MAËS
WHO DIED IN INFANCY

Who was this family of women whose memory is shared on the one gravestone? I thought the story would be that of the mother Georgina. What I soon learnt was that Alice, who also went by the name Marie St Denis, had the tale to tell.

Alice Jacqueline Hyacinthe Maës was born on 3 July 1848 in Belgium to Edouard and Georgina Maës. Alice had five siblings and was educated at a French convent. Life was comfortable for this Flemish landowner and his family until for some reason they seem to have lost their wealth and land forcing Edouard to become a railroad clerk. A few years later in 1858 Edouard died and they were left with very little money.

When Alice was fourteen Georgina decided Australia was the place that might change their fortune. So, along with Alice and another daughter Marie, she sailed for Victoria. Marie was 31 and a governess. Their plan was to establish an independent school.

But the plan was thrown into confusion when Marie died of typhus just three weeks after arriving in February 1863. Georgina and Alice travelled to Clunes, a mining town about 120 kilometres west of Melbourne, to start their venture. This was a failure and they moved around Western Victoria where Georgina found various teaching positions. Meanwhile Alice worked as a governess, finally ending up at a ladies' school in Geelong. Alice had a fine education especially in the arts where she was well versed in the words of Shakespeare and Byron.

By 1866 Alice and her mother were living in Carlton where Alice worked for a photographer. She auditioned at the Theatre Royal and was accepted by William Hoskins as a pupil. She was an excellent student and on 21 November 1866 made her stage debut in The Love Chase. This was when Alice became Marie St Denis.

Over the next couple of years she appeared in a number of plays, many of these alongside visiting English actors. Her roles included quite a few of Shakespeare's famous ladies, and she was also the lead in various other plays.

But as her stage life blossomed her private life started to unravel when she had an affair with a married man. He was Louis Barnard. Marie was in Adelaide at this time and when the season finished she borrowed money from Barnard to return to Melbourne.

Alice was spending money she did not have and with no acting engagements she sank further into debt. Her star seemed to be waning and, depressed, Marie took an overdose of laudanum, an opium based painkiller. Marie was revived and recovered in time to see Barnard when he visited Melbourne.
She appeared in two more plays East Lynne and Lady Audley's Secret where in her role as Lady Audley she died by taking poison. This was her last performance. Although she was offered lesser roles she refused to take them.

Her lover returned to Melbourne once more, but Marie did not see him, for he brought along his wife. Marie sank into severe depression. On 23 October 1868 she again took a large dose of laudanum; as before she was discovered but this time could not be revived. They found Marie dressed as Shakespeare's Ophelia, a role she had played on stage.

Marie St Denis' suicide attracted a lot of attention. The press grabbed onto it and spent a lot of space and time sensationalising her death. Even the burial caused problems. Marie was interred in the Church of England section of Melbourne Cemetery even though she was born a Catholic. After much public debate between the two religions she was dug up and reburied in the Catholic area.

Marie wished to be buried under the name of Alice Jacqueline Hyacinthe St Denis (née Maës) with the following quote from Othello engraved on her headstone 'One who loved not wisely but well'. This did not happen. As in life her death was just as tragic as that of some of the women she depicted on stage.

**

Paula writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au