The Last of Chéri
The sequel — the same man after the war, and the tragic completion of this novel's open ending.
Read our take
Chéri
by Colette
An aging courtesan and the beautiful young man she has kept for six years — the novel that made Colette a major writer.
- 1920
- Elegiac
- Atmospheric
- sensual
- intimate
- lyrical
- plot-driven
About Colette
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeLéa de Lonval is forty-nine, rich, and near the end of a courtesan's career. Fred Peloux — called Chéri — is twenty-five, spoiled, and has been her lover for six years. When his mother arranges his marriage to a young heiress, both of them discover that a liaison they treated as convenient has become the center of their lives. Published in 1920, Chéri is Colette's coldest and most exact study of desire, vanity, and the value society assigns to a woman's body as it ages. It is usually read together with its 1926 sequel, The Last of Chéri. (The full plot, including the ending, is below.)
The story, in more detail
Colette had been publishing for two decades when Chéri appeared, much of it fiction closely worked from her own life on the stage and in the demi-monde. Chéri is more detached. The material — the world of kept women, their money, their rivalries, and the young men who move through it — was one she knew, but the novel treats it from a cool distance, and the result was the book that moved her from a celebrated personality to a writer critics took seriously.
The book is short and almost entirely scenes: conversations in Léa's rose-pink bedroom, at Charlotte Peloux's lunches, in the rooms Chéri cannot settle in after his marriage. Little happens in the way of plot. What Colette anatomizes instead is the slow discovery, by two people who assumed they were merely comfortable, that they are in love and that the arithmetic of age makes it impossible.
Colette adapted Chéri for the stage soon after publication, and it has been filmed several times, most recently by Stephen Frears in 2009 with Michelle Pfeiffer as Léa. The sequel, The Last of Chéri, follows the same man after the First World War and darkens everything the first novel leaves open.
The full plot
Léa de Lonval, a wealthy retired courtesan approaching fifty, has kept Fred Peloux — Chéri — since he was nineteen. He is the beautiful, petulant son of her old friend and rival Charlotte Peloux, herself a former courtesan, and the arrangement has lasted six years on the understanding, held by both, that it means nothing serious. Charlotte announces that she has arranged Chéri's marriage to Edmée, the eighteen-year-old daughter of another woman of their world.
Chéri marries. Léa, telling herself she is unconcerned, leaves Paris and travels. Both perform indifference and both fail at it. Chéri, restless in his new household, cannot account for what he misses; Edmée finds herself married to a man whose attention is elsewhere. Léa, away, discovers that the loss is not the vanity-wound she expected but something closer to grief.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Chéri comes back. One night he leaves his wife and returns to Léa, and for a few hours they fall back into the old ease and talk of going away together. In the morning she reads it in his face and in a sentence he cannot finish, and says it herself before he can: he has come here and found an old woman. She sends him back to Edmée. Then she runs to the window, sees him stop in the courtyard, throws up her arms and shouts that he is coming back — and an old woman out of breath makes the same gesture in the tall mirror, and Léa wonders what she has in common with her. Chéri does not come back. He buttons his overcoat on the pavement to hide yesterday's shirt, and the last thing Léa sees before she lets the curtain fall is him raising his head to the spring sky and the chestnut trees in flower, filling his chest with air as he walks, like a man who has escaped. The sequel, The Last of Chéri, records what that escape was worth.
Themes and analysis
Forty-nine pearls in the mirror
Chéri treats the necklace as a test of his freedom from convention: why should accepting a woman's gift become shameful merely because it contains more pearls? His confidence falters, however, when Léa warns him about future wrinkles. The beautiful young man proves as susceptible to an anxious inspection of his face as the older woman he teases. Colette lets the reader hear both their unspoken judgments, exposing the hostility inside this intimate game. The pearls connect pleasure to possession, while the mirror makes beauty a source of vulnerability for both lovers.
The gesture the mirror returns
Léa's instructions cannot make her feelings obey the separation she has chosen. She brings Chéri his clothes but avoids helping him dress, as though practical distance might support a resolution that physical contact could undo. At the window, her raised arms expose the hope her words have tried to dismiss. The mirror returns that gesture as the action of a stranger, separating her sense of herself from the aging body she sees. Chéri's final breath of outdoor air belongs to a different experience of the same departure: apparent release beside unrelieved loss.
Why we recommend it
The book that made her reputation
After twenty years of celebrity, Chéri is the novel that made critics treat Colette as a major writer rather than a famous personality.
Aging told without flinching
Few novels look as steadily at what time does to a beautiful woman's leverage, and Colette refuses both self-pity and consolation.
A love story with no villains
The marriage broker, the spoiled boy, the discarded mistress — everyone behaves badly and no one is a monster. The book withholds judgment and is harder for it.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Léa de Lonval
Forty-nine, wealthy, and at the close of a courtesan's career — the novel's center, and the one who has to do the renouncing. She reads a balance sheet and a mirror with the same accuracy.
Fred Peloux (Chéri)
Twenty-five, beautiful, and idle — the kept young man who discovers, too late, what the arrangement meant to him. The novel's proof that immaturity can be a privilege.
Charlotte Peloux
Chéri's mother and Léa's old friend and rival — a retired courtesan who arranges her son's marriage with a professional's eye.
Edmée
The eighteen-year-old heiress Chéri marries — young, watchful, and married to a man whose attention never arrives.
Bring it to book club
- Léa sends Chéri back to his wife for his own good. Is it a sacrifice, a defeat, or the one clear-eyed act in the book?
- The novel gives Chéri almost no inner life we can respect, yet makes his loss matter. How does Colette manage that?
- Charlotte Peloux arranges the marriage that breaks up the affair. Is she the villain, or simply the one character who understands the economics everyone lives by?
Timeline
1920
Chéri is published in Paris and moves Colette's reputation from celebrity to major novelist.
1921
Colette's own stage adaptation of Chéri reaches the Paris theatre.
1926
The sequel, The Last of Chéri, appears and darkens the story after the war.
2009
Stephen Frears films Chéri with Michelle Pfeiffer as Léa.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Fayard
- 1920
Paperback
- Paperback
- Roger Senhouse
Ebook
- Ebook
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
The Vagabond
The earlier novel of a woman weighing love against self-possession, from the working side rather than the kept side.
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Break of Day
The later meditation on desire relinquished by choice — Chéri's renunciation seen from the far end of a life.
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The Cat
The same jealous triangle a decade on, with a marriage, a rival, and Colette's coldest ending.
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Gigi
The Belle Époque courtesan world again, played for a happy ending instead of an elegy.
Read our takeChéri: frequently asked questions
Who wrote Chéri?
The French novelist Colette. Chéri was published in 1920.
What is Chéri about?
A long affair between Léa de Lonval, a wealthy retired courtesan of about fifty, and Chéri, the beautiful, spoiled young man of twenty-five she has kept for six years. His arranged marriage forces both of them to see how much the affair meant.
Is there a sequel to Chéri?
Yes. The Last of Chéri (La Fin de Chéri, 1926) follows the same man after the First World War. The two novels are usually read and published together.
Is Chéri based on a true story?
It draws on the Belle Époque demi-monde Colette knew well, but no single real couple is documented as its model. It is best read as invented fiction rooted in a world she had lived in.
Has Chéri been filmed?
Yes, several times. The best-known English-language version is Stephen Frears's 2009 film with Michelle Pfeiffer as Léa and Rupert Friend as Chéri.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Chéri, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Chéri
NovelColette, 1920Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2Chéri — Grasset 1927 edition
WebsiteWikisourceUsed forPrimary French text in the Grasset 1927 transcription. Chapters I and XII support the readings of the opening necklace exchange and closing farewell. Not a collation with the 1920 first edition or an English translation.
3Chéri, by Colette, translated by Janet Flanner (Albert & Charles Boni) — catalogue record
ArchiveInternet ArchiveUsed forArchival evidence used to document the historical record connected to Chéri.
4Flanner, Janet (1892–1978)
WebsiteWomen in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia (Gale), via Encyclopedia.comUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Chéri page.
5Société des amis de Colette — Chronology
WebsiteUsed forThe Société des Amis de Colette chronology places Chéri within Colette's life, publication history and stage career.
6Bibliothèque nationale de France — The Worlds of Colette
Exhibition catalogueUsed forThe Bibliothèque nationale de France exhibition resource provides authoritative literary and biographical context for Colette's work.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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