Hollande’s ex writes about Klimt’s Jewish mistress

PARIS, France — The ex-girlfriend of French President Francois Hollande, Valerie Trierweiler — whose tell-all memoir was a sensation — will publish her first novel next month about a torrid secret affair.

But rather than being set in the corridors of power, “The Secret of Adele” is inspired by the painter Gustav Klimt’s mistress, Adele Bloch-Bauer, her publishers said.

It is the “story of a woman reborn, who lived a life that broke all the norms of her time and class, the novel of a free women,” Les Arenas publishing house said in a statement.

Trierweiler’s explosive first book “Thank You For This Moment: A Story of Love, Power and Betrayal,” was an international bestseller, translated into 12 languages, selling more than 600,000 copies in France alone.

It told of her stormy relationship with Hollande which ended after he left her for actress Julie Gayet after paparazzi photographed him arriving for secret trysts at her Paris apartment.

Outgoing French president Francois Hollande looks on as he leaves after casting his vote at a polling station in Tulle, central France, April 23, 2017. (AFP/ GEORGES GOBET)

The scandal was deeply embarrassing for Hollande, whose popularity never recovered from Trierweiler’s claim that the Socialist leader was disdainful of poor people who he allegedly called “the toothless.”

He denied ever using the term.

Trierweiler, a journalist, said she decided to reveal intimate details of their relationship “to finish it forever.”

Her publishers insisted that her novel about the “torrid affair” between the artist and Bloch-Bauer, had no parallels whatsoever with Trierweiler’s own life.

Instead it tells of Bloch-Bauer relationship with Klimt while she was married to his patron, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer.

Adele Bloch-Bauer I, painted by Gustav Klimt in 1907, was subject of the 2015 film “Woman in Gold” about its restoration to Jewish owners. (Public Domain from Wikimedia Commons)

His portrait of her, “The Lady in Gold”, is one of the most famous paintings of the 20th century, and she also modeled for his most erotic work, “Judith.”

“The Lady in Gold” was seized by the Nazis in 1938 but was later returned to the Bloch-Bauer family, who are Jewish. It was sold to an American collector in 2006 for $135 million (123 million euros).