Among Brigitte Bardot’s belongings at the Hotel Drouot

Paris. When Alexandre Millon, chairman of the French auction house of the same name, handed over to Frank Guillou, there was a moving silence in Room 9 of the Hôtel Drouot, where an exhibition of Brigitte Bardot’s personal effects – 285 items in total, due to go under the hammer on 21 September – was inaugurated this morning. “I was by her side for almost forty years; we spoke every day,” says, his voice breaking, the man who served as private secretary to the French film star and animal rights campaigner, who passed away last December. “In 1989, I came into her life almost by chance. I’d gone to make a donation to her fledgling foundation and to offer some of my time. A few months later, she asked me to become her private secretary. For thirty-seven years, I never left her side,” recounts Guillou, the guardian of BB’s legacy, who immediately shares an anecdote linking the French diva to Italy. “She wrote the second volume of her biography, Le Carré de Pluton, on an Olivetti Lettera 22. She would type it out and I would transcribe everything onto the computer,” reveals Guillou. The typewriter, on which she also typed her replies to letters received by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Defence of Animals, is among the memorabilia due to go under the hammer next week at the auction organised by Maison Millon: a selection of items from her Saint-Tropez residences, La Madrague and La Garrigue, as well as from her flat on Rue de la Tour, in Paris’s 16th arrondissement.

There are many drawings and lithographs depicting BB by great 20th-century artists, such as Sempé and Aslan, but also the humble objects that were part of the actress’s everyday life and which she affectionately called ‘merdouilles’: alarm clocks, jewellery boxes, saucers, pendulum clocks, crucifixes, statuettes of the Virgin Mary, lighters, ashtrays and gifts from fans, including a set of matryoshka dolls bearing her likeness. “Brigitte smoked Winston Blue. The packet of cigarettes, the Bic lighter or the ashtrays were part of her everyday life. They are small objects, but they speak of a presence. I remember an orange lighter that was no longer in the ashtray where Brigitte had left it. We had to look for it and put it back exactly where it belonged. Brigitte hated it when objects were moved. Everything had to stay in its place,” says her private secretary, before adding: “She could tell immediately whether an object had been moved or not: when dusting, we would lift it and then put it back exactly where it was.” Also up for auction will be a charcoal self-portrait by Brigitte Bardot, a drawing of her by Roger Vadim – her first husband, the man who enshrined her in legend by casting her in the lead role in Et Dieu créa la femme – as well as the iconic Repetto ballet flats, the flamenco guitars she loved to play with friends during the endless nights in Saint-Tropez, her red boots, her Moon Boots, her black tutu, her honey-coloured sunglasses, her hats, her jewellery and her bottles of perfume.

“L’Heure Bleue was her perfume. In all these years, she never tried another. She used to buy it from Guerlain on Rue de Passy, and always carried a small bottle in her handbag. It was a habit, almost a signature,” says Frank Guillou. On 21 September, a number of pieces of furniture from her homes will also go on sale, including an Emmanuelle wicker armchair – also known as the ‘Peacock’, an iconic piece from the 1960s – and a Knoll-style tulip table. Among the most curious items are an Italian wig box and two dog collars – one made of leather and one of red fabric – with tags bearing the date of the rabies vaccination and Brigitte’s contact details. Among the most expensive items, however, are a Mellerio ring set with a 3.67-carat diamond (estimated auction price: 5,000–10,000 euros) and a gold heart by Fred, engraved with the name of the sculptor Miroslav Brozek, who was her partner from 1975 to 1979 (1,500–3,500 euros). Also on offer is the gold bracelet laden with pendants (two guitars, a heart, a cage and a St Brigid’s medal) worn at her 1959 wedding to Jacques Charrier (€800–1,200).

“I shared in her daily life, her work, her struggles, her joys, her anger and that unshakeable determination to defend those who had no voice. Behind the icon known to the whole world, I had the privilege of discovering a woman of rare loyalty, deeply free, demanding of herself as she was of others, but also of immense generosity, often discreet,” says her secretary. In 1973, when she decided to bring her film career to a definitive close, BB uttered these words: “I gave my youth and my beauty to men; now I shall give my wisdom and my experience to animals.” The proceeds from the sale will be donated to the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, as well as to her son Nicolas-Jacques Charrier. “Brigitte,” recalls her secretary, “couldn’t bear to live without animals around her. When one of them died, it was best not to disturb her during the period of mourning and whilst the funeral was being arranged. She was devastated. They were all buried according to a precise protocol near her in her gardens, and their photographs then took pride of place throughout her homes. All her animals had a special story and a unique past. A glance exchanged, a life of hardship, a disabled animal – in short, a poor creature that needed to be given back the will to live alongside human beings. On every journey or trip, there was often a poor creature that crossed her path and set off with her.”