Camille Monfort
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0It was ‘believed’ (for example) that this powerful opera singer had the habit of indulging in champagne baths. People believed that Camille would dance through the streets under the afternoon rain. These stories got out of hand, however, because people started to ‘believe’ that this young woman was a vampire, and that Camille would hypnotize her unsuspecting victims with her mesmerizing voice. Her pale complexion only encouraged these wild rumours, which were possibly spread by the jealous wives of the husbands she was said to have had affairs with.
It is true that people would faint during her performances but instead of her hypnotizing the person, it was probably because of the strong emotions that her singing would evoke in the audience.
‘People’ believed that Camille could communicate with the dead, and materialize their spirits in dense ethereal mists of ectoplasmic matter, which the young woman would expel from her body during a mediumistic session. Undoubtedly, this was the start of the Spiritualist movement in Brazil, which was practiced in the palaces of Belem by mysterious cults.
Whatever the truth is, there was an outbreak of cholera by the end of 1896, which swept through the city of Belem, and it took Camille’s young life. Camille was only 25 years of age when she died and she was laid in the Cemetery of Solitude in Batz-sur-Mer, France.
During her young life, Camille was not only a very talented opera singer who studied classical music at the Conservatoire de Paris, but she could also speak Italian, German, English and Portuguese. She learnt to play the piano, violin and the guitar. When she was performing, Camille travelled Europe and performed in several theatres and salons. Her talent and beauty became legendary for the time in which she lived. She had an independent and rebellious spirit, dressing in the most fashionable clothes of the time, some of the dresses were thought to be quite provocative. Camille would smoke, ride hors
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