Jane Avril and Yvette Guilbert

In 1939 a benefit concert was arranged in aid of Jane Avril. It was to take place at The Salle de l'Ecole Normale de Musique in the Rue Cardinet on the 22nd June 1939.

The first to respond to this endeavour was that great heart Yvette Guilbert. Guilbert had not forgotten Jane for they had figured together in the same programme scores of times, in the Moulin Rouge, the Chat Noir, the Divan Japonais and other places.

Yvette was a connoisseur in poverty and distress, for her own struggles had been long and laborious, and since at that time leisure and affection and comfort was hers her heart could not resist the call of a companion in distress. Yvette Guilbert promised to introduce the programme with a speech about the days when she and Jane were young together, and sing some of the songs or recite some of the verses that had made her famous then.

Yvette Guilbert was to lead the programme and retire immediately afterwards, for she was fatigued after an extensive series of programmes in London, and was under Doctor's orders to retire to bed early. Her devoted husband sat behind the stage in the dressing-room waiting for her, as he always sat during her public appearances.

Yvette was superb, as she sat leaning forward as if the audience was with her around the fireside, talking of the sparkling days when she and Jane and the world was young.

"Jane Avril," she said, "was famous for the very special eloquence of her ankle, for her pointed and witty toes that crept from the foam of lacy skirts. There was no vulgarity in her. You felt that she abandoned herself to the dance with rhythmic joy, and Zidler loved her for the very "correct" quality of her rule in the Quadrille."

After the event and with enough money raised to solve Jane's immediate problems which set her once again on the way to health and happiness. Ever-kindly Yvette Guilbert congratulated the organisers with a note which read:

"Bravo! It is a great joy to hear you have made money to help Jane Avril!"
 
Yvette also sent a signed text of her speech to Jane as a gift.

I thought it would be right and proper to steal a rose from the arrangement of flowers I had bought for Jane and rest it along side the grave of Yvette Guilbert as a thank you for a kindness shown some 74 years ago.

The flowers and the rose can be seen in the above photos taken earlier this month.

Yvette Guilbert died 3rd February 1944.