How the story of ‘the girl of 100 portraits’ inspired two books
Louise Cansot, a Paris artists' model known as 'the girl of 100 portraits,' has been brought back to public attention through two books published simultaneously, including one that won France's prestigious Prix Goncourt.
For almost eight decades, Louise Cansot remained one of Paris's forgotten murder victims. After her body was found near the Seine in September 1949, police dismissed the young woman, immortalized as 'the girl of 100 portraits,' as loose and libertine, closing their investigation after just four months with little effort to find her killer.
Literary Collaboration
Long before author Philippe Jaenada began researching his Prix Goncourt-winning novel 'L'Inconnue du Quai de Javel,' another writer from Cansot's birthplace had already spent decades researching her story. Luc Corlouër, from the Breton village where Cansot was born, had amassed extensive materials on her life and death.
Life of the Model
Born in Tréguier, France, as the daughter of a shoe repairer, Cansot moved to Paris at 16 in 1937. Her beauty attracted celebrated Montparnasse artists who competed to have her pose for them. When war broke out and most artists fled south, she remained in Paris working as a film extra, waiter, and dancer at the Folies Bergère.
Cansot had a five-year-old daughter, Nathalie, whom she left with a nanny in the suburbs while she saved money for an apartment. With the painters gone and no steady income, her situation became increasingly desperate before her murder on September 7, 1949.
Investigation and Rehabilitation
The original police report concluded Cansot was a woman of 'ill repute,' and newspaper reports speculated she was a sex worker, alcoholic, or drug addict. Jaenada's 530-page book offers a more sympathetic portrayal, suggesting the name of the man he believes strangled Cansot after inviting her to visit a flat she hoped to rent.
Corlouër's interest began in 1981 when he met an elderly woman at a war memorial who told him about Cansot. After his own novel about the case was rejected by publishers, he decided to entrust his research to Jaenada. Together, they worked to rehabilitate Cansot's reputation after 77 years of slander.
Finding the Daughter
The authors also traced Cansot's daughter Nathalie, now 80, who was raised by another sister, Valentine. Initially resistant to hearing about her mother, Nathalie had been told by her aunt that Lise was a prostitute. When Corlouër and Jaenada revealed this wasn't true, she was amazed by the truth about her mother's life.
Corlouër described this discovery as bringing a kind of happy ending to the tragic story, noting that Nathalie, 'tough like her mother,' did not cry but was astonished by the information about her mother's true character and circumstances.
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