Simone Barteaut (Momone)

It was in 1930, at the age of 12, that Simone met that she will consider all her life as her half-sister, Edith Piaf.

At twelve, Piaf has just found his father and accompanies him during his street shows by singing and questing. Three years later, Édith still sings in the street, but this time, accompanied by Simone Berteaut called "Momone" whom she calls her "adoptive" sister. The legend tells that Edith would have signed with Simone's mother a form of contract of engagement for her daughter, guaranteeing her 15 francs a day, the lodging and the cover.

Simone saw the first dramas of Edith like the death of "Cécelle" the little daughter of Édith, Marcelle at the age of 2 years. It is on this occasion that is located the only known moment - or confessed - by Édith of prostitution in order to be able to pay the burial of his daughter.

Together they know the beginnings at Louis Leplée, and then thereafter, scandals, tumultuous loves, glory, fall, addictions, alcohol, drugs.

She accompanied Édith in her early days as a true "heart sister" during the lean period and followed her throughout her life to become her assistant until Piaf's death. The characterial side of Edith and his addictions have repeatedly undermined their friendship without ever destroying it.

At the same time friend, accomplice and soul damned. "Momone" was somewhere mythomaniac and constantly invented a life different from his own. At the death of Edith, she had claimed in the biography she had made of Piaf, to be really the half-sister of Edith, the natural daughter of Louis Gassion. She died on May 30, 1975 of a heart attack.