The Vagabond
The music-hall world again, from a performer's point of view — Renée's independence, Mitsou's education.
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Mitsou
by Colette
A music-hall performer and a young officer conduct a wartime romance by letter, and the wit the title promises turns out to be hard-won.
- 1919
About Colette
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeSet in Paris during the First World War, Mitsou follows a music-hall performer who begins a correspondence with an army officer she meets briefly backstage. He signs his first letter the Blue Lieutenant, after the colour of his uniform, and that is what she calls him for most of the book; his first name, Robert, reaches her only near the end. Through the letters that pass between the front and the theater, Mitsou acquires the wit and self-knowledge the ironic subtitle promises, and discovers the distance between theatrical charm and durable love. Published in 1919, it is Colette's wartime sentimental education. (The full plot, including the ending, is below.)
The story, in more detail
Mitsou belongs to Colette's wartime writing, and it takes the music-hall world she knew and sets it against the pressure of a war going on just out of frame. Its heroine is a performer — pretty, good-natured, not especially educated — and the novella is the story of how a real feeling, conducted mostly on paper, teaches her to think and to see herself.
The book's form is partly epistolary: much of it is the correspondence between Mitsou and the Lieutenant Bleu, the young officer she meets when he and a comrade take refuge in her dressing room. The subtitle's promise — how wit, or 'l'esprit,' comes to girls — is gently ironic. What comes to Mitsou is not cleverness but lucidity, and it arrives through disappointment as much as through love.
Colette was writing frequently for the press in these years, and Mitsou reflects that world of quick, serialized fiction while transcending it. It was later adapted for the screen by Jacqueline Audry in 1956.
The full plot
Mitsou is a performer at a Paris music hall during the First World War — cheerful, kept comfortably by an older protector, and largely unbothered by ideas. One evening two young officers on leave hide in her dressing room, and she is struck by one of them, whom she comes to call the Lieutenant Bleu. When he returns to the front, the two begin to write to each other.
The correspondence becomes the heart of the book. On paper, Mitsou reaches past her stage persona toward something more thoughtful, and the letters draw out an intelligence and feeling her comfortable life had never asked of her. The Lieutenant is charmed, then more than charmed, and the war keeps their romance suspended at the distance of the post — vivid, idealized, and untested by ordinary presence.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
They spend his leave together, and the disappointment is entirely his and entirely private. At five in the morning he works out that he has stopped being in love, says goodbye to her under his breath while she sleeps, and then wakes her cheerfully and gives nothing away. Mitsou never finds out. The last words of the book are her letter to him, saying she loves him, offering to give up the music hall for him, and asking for one more night. Colette prints no reply. The wit the title promises is real — Mitsou writes far better at the end than at the start — but she is still holding the illusion on the final page.
Why we recommend it
A romance conducted on paper
The letters between a performer and a soldier at the front give the novella its warmth and its ache, and let Mitsou become more than her stage self.
The music hall in wartime
Colette returns to the backstage world she knew, now shadowed by a war that keeps love at the distance of the post.
A sentimental education, honestly ended
What Mitsou gains is lucidity rather than love — Colette refuses the easy reunion and is truer for it.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Mitsou
A Paris music-hall performer whose wartime correspondence draws out an intelligence and feeling her comfortable life never asked of her.
The Lieutenant Bleu
The army officer Mitsou meets backstage and falls for by letter. He names himself the Blue Lieutenant in his first letter, and he is the one who decides, on the last night of his leave, that the affair was a mistake.
Bring it to book club
- Mitsou becomes more herself on paper than in person. What does the epistolary form let Colette show about her?
- The subtitle promises wit but the book delivers lucidity through loss. Is that a happy ending, an unhappy one, or neither?
- The war is never at the center, always just off the page. How does that framing shape the romance?
Timeline
1919
Mitsou is published, a novella of the music hall and the First World War.
1956
Jacqueline Audry directs a film adaptation.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Fayard
- 1919
Paperback
- Paperback
Ebook
- Ebook
Reader reviews
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Read our takeMitsou: frequently asked questions
Who wrote Mitsou?
The French novelist Colette. Mitsou was published in 1919.
What is Mitsou about?
A Paris music-hall performer during the First World War begins a correspondence with a young officer who signs himself the Blue Lieutenant, after the colour of his uniform. Through their letters she grows in wit and self-knowledge, and learns the distance between charm and lasting love.
What does the full title mean?
The French title is Mitsou, ou Comment l'esprit vient aux filles — 'Mitsou, or How Wit Comes to Girls.' It is gently ironic: what Mitsou gains is lucidity earned through disappointment, not cleverness.
Is Mitsou an epistolary novel?
Partly. Much of the novella is told through the wartime letters between Mitsou and her officer, framed by scenes in the theater and the city.
Has Mitsou been adapted?
Yes. Jacqueline Audry directed a film adaptation in 1956.