13. Mary was disfigured by Smallpox in Paris
In April 1828, Mary went to Paris to visit a friend. However, she soon found herself feeling unwell. The illness turned out to be no trivial matter but smallpox. For three weeks, Mary lay ill with the disease. Then, finally, she recovered. However, smallpox had left its mark. Mary was only in her twenties and remained good-looking despite her grief and losses. However, on her recovery, she found that her illness had ravaged her appearance.
Many women would have hidden from society. However, Mary did not. Instead, she made the best of things and accepted social invitations- despite the scars on her face. Mary even managed to maintain a sense of humor- especially since her smallpox scars did not seem to have deterred admirers. “What will you say also to the imagination of one of the cleverest men in France, young and a poet, who could be interested in me in spite of the mask I wore, ” wrote Mary about her meeting with the poet Prosper Merimee with whom she was to strike up a close friendship. “It was rather droll to play the part of an ugly person for the first time in my life, yet it was very amusing to be told- or rather not to be told but to find that my face was not my fortune.”
Unlike many sufferers of smallpox, Mary’s scars were not permanent. However, while the marks faded, her complexion never fully recovered and the famous pale luminosity so many had remarked up was gone forever.