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19th Century Courtesans

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Cora Pearl
Cora Pearl (1835–8 July 1886) was a famous courtesan of the 19th century French demimonde, born Emma Elizabeth Crouch.
Her date and place of birth are disputed, as she was believed to have forged her birth certificate, giving the date as 23 February 1842, and the place as Caroline Place, East Stonehouse, Plymouth, though it is more likely that she was born in London in 1835, and the family moved to Plymouth about 1837.
She became the mistress of Robert Bignell, the proprietor of the Argyll Room. Together they visited Paris, a place she fell in love with so much that she refused to return to London with Bignell. In Paris she adopted the name of Cora Pearl, and embarked on a theatrical career, but was more successful for the sex appeal she exhibited than any real talents. Cora had learned excellent manners at the convent school she had attended early on in her youth, which helped her appeal to wealthy men. Cora's theatrical reputation quickly began to spread, and it was not long before several rich and powerful men of France were involved with her romantically. Although she had little money, she began wearing dresses by Charles Worth and Laferriere with the idea that her appearance of wealth would attract wealthy men to her, and she was right.
Pearl's activities had earned her great wealth. By the late 1860s, Pearl owned several houses, stables, the finest wardrobe and extravagant jewellery. British accounts reported that one bill for lingerie from a supplier in Paris came to more than £18,000.Pearl's lifestyle did have a cost. One wealthy man, Alexandre Duval, harassed her constantly, never ceasing in his attempts to manipulate her. He threw large sums of money at her, and was extremely jealous of her involvement with other men. Her attempts at ending the relationship were unsuccessful. When she finally was able to end the affair, he came to her home, produced a gun and shot himself on her doorstep. (Duval was severely injured, but survived.) Pearl did not summon for help, nor contact the authorities. Instead, she retreated into her house, and went to sleep. Rumours of the incident spread quickly, and abruptly ended her theatre career. She fled to London, thinking that a change of scene might improve her spirits and her reputation, only to find that rumor had traveled faster than her ship.
Her attempts at continuing her career as a courtesan in London were unsuccessful, as few men of wealth wanted to have her as an acquaintance. Returning to Paris, Pearl was dismayed to find that much had changed. The admirers of the past were gone. A new conservatism prevailed, and like London, no wealthy men would take her on.
Her gambling habit continued, and she soon learned that shopkeepers and casinos expected to be paid promptly, one of the life skills Pearl had never mastered. However, she no longer had a wealthy benefactor to pick up the debt. In desperation, around 1876 she began to sell her possessions, first slowly, then ever faster, and returned from time to time to a life in prostitution. She lived in relative comfort for ten years despite her rising debt. By 1886, desperately ill with intestinal cancer, Pearl was forced to move to a shabby rooming house, where she died in poverty and virtually without anyone taking notice.
Marie Duplessis
Marie Duplessis was born Rose Alphonsine Plessis in 1824 at Nonant-le-Pin, Normandy, France. Her father became her de facto pimp when she was about 12 years old, and at the age of 15 she moved to Paris where she found work in a dress shop. As recorded in art of the day Marie Duplessis was an extremely attractive young woman, with a petite figure and enchanting smile. By the time she was 16, she had become aware that prominent men were willing to give her money in exchange for her company in both private and social settings. She became a courtesan at that age, and learned to read, write, and kept herself up on world events and crises so as to be able to converse on those topics when at a social function. She had also added the faux noble "Du" to her name, to sound more like nobility. Duplessis was both a popular courtesan and a society hostess to a popular salon. Prominent authors and politicians attended her salon. She rode in the Bois de Boulogne and attended opera performances. She had her portrait painted by Édouard Viénot. Duplessis was the mistress of Alexandre Dumas the younger, between September 1844 and August 1845. After that, she is believed to have become the mistress of composer Franz Liszt. Throughout her short life, her reputation as a discreet, intelligent and witty lover was well known. She remained popular and in good grace with many of her benefactors even after the relationships had ended. Duplessis died of tuberculosis at the age of 23 on February 5, 1847. Two of her former lovers, Swedish Count Von Stakelberg and French count Édouard de Perregaux, the latter of whom she had briefly married, were by her side. Within a few weeks of her death, all of her belongings including her pet parrot were auctioned off to pay her debts. Still, her funeral in Montmartre cemetery was said to have been lavish, and attended by hundreds of people. Dumas' romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias appeared within a year. In the book, Dumas became "Armand Duval" and Duplessis "Marguerite Gautier". Dumas also adapted his story to a play, which inspired Verdi's opera La Traviata and numerous films (most of which are entitled Camille).
Lola Montez Elizabeth Rosanna Gilbert (February 17, 1821 – January 17, 1861), better known by the stage name Lola Montez, was an Irish-born dancer and actress who became famous as an exotic dancer, courtesan and the mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
Lola's mother was Eliza Oliver, an illegitimate daughter of Charles Silver Oliver, of Castle Oliver in County Limerick, Ireland. Lola's mother was 15 when she gave birth to her, a year before she married Lola's father, Ensign Edward Gilbert of the 25th Regiment.
In 1823 the Gilberts moved to India, where her father's regiment had been dispatched. Shortly after arrival her father died of cholera. Her mother married another officer, called Craigie, the following year and sent Eliza back to Scotland to live with relatives of her stepfather.
In 1837 sixteen-year-old Eliza eloped with Lieutenant Thomas James. The couple separated five years later, in Calcutta, and Eliza became an exotic dancer under a stage name. Her London debut as "Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer" in June 1843 was disrupted when she was recognized as Mrs. James. The resulting notoriety did not hurt her career and she quickly became famous both for her self-created "Tarantula Dance", and the expression "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets." It was around this time that she became involved in the practice of living on an income from wealthy men, as their courtesan.
By her late teens, Montez had become aware of the financial gains of serving as a courtesan to powerful and wealthy men. Amongst her lovers and benefactors during this time were James Alexander and Tim Schwab. Liszt had introduced her to the circle of George Sand, which was one of the most sophisticated and advanced in European society.In 1846, she travelled to Munich, where she was discovered by, and quickly became the mistress of, Ludwig I of Bavaria. She quickly began to use her influence on the king and this made her unpopular with the local population, particularly after documents showing that she was hoping to become a naturalised Bavarian citizen and be elevated to the nobility were made public. Despite the opposition, Ludwig made her Countess of Landsfeld on his next birthday, August 25, 1847. She first met Ludwig when, as a dancer at the Bavarian Opera, he had asked her in public if her bosom was real, to which her response was to tear off enough of her garments and prove it. It seems likely that his relationship with her contributed greatly to the fall from grace of the previously popular king. In 1848 under pressure from a growing revolutionary movement Ludwig abdicated, and Lola fled Bavaria for the United States. This effectively ended her career as a courtesan.
From 1851 to 1853 she performed as a dancer and actress in the eastern United States, then moved to San Francisco in May 1853. There she married Patrick Hull in July and moved to Grass Valley, California, in August. By the mid-1850s her marriage was failing. Lola moved to Victoria, Australia to make her fortune by entertaining miners at the gold diggings during the gold-rush of the 1850s.
In September 1855 she performed her erotic Spider Dance at the Theatre Royal in Melbourne, raising her skirts so high that the audience could see she wore no underclothing at all. Next day the Argus thundered that her performance was "utterly subversive to all ideas of public morality". Respectable families ceased to attend the theatre, which began to show heavy losses. She spent nearly four years in Victoria. At Castlemaine in April 1856, she was “rapturously encored” after her Spider Dance in front of 400 diggers (including members of the Municipal Council who had adjourned their meeting early to attend the performance), but drew the wrath of the audience by insulting them following some mild heckling.
She earned further notoriety in Ballarat when after reading a bad review in The Ballarat Times she chased the editor, Henry Seekamp with a whip. The "Lola Montes Polka" composed by Albert Denning was inspired by this event. She later moved to New York.
On June 30, 1860, she suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed for some time. In mid-December she had recovered enough to walk with a slight limp and went out for a stroll in the cold weather. Her life as a courtesan was over, and her money was by now gone. Lola began to seek out the word of God. In her dying days, she was cared for by a priest.
She contracted pneumonia, lingering for nearly a month before dying one month short of her fortieth birthday. She is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, New York. MyGen Profile Generator

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A courtesan in mid-16th century usage was a high-class prostitute or mistress, especially one associated with rich, powerful, or upper-class men who provided luxuries and status in exchange for her services. In Renaissance Europe, courtesans played an important role in upper-class society, sometimes taking the place of wives at social functions. As it was customary during this time for royal couples to lead separate lives — commonly marrying simply to preserve bloodlines and to secure political alliances — men would often seek sexual gratification and companionship from a courtesan. There have been a few isolated cases of courtesans providing services to wealthy females, however. Courtesans usually enjoyed more freedoms than was typical of women at the time. For example, they were financially stable and independent. Being in control of their own resources meant that they did not need to rely on their spouses or male relatives to survive, as was the case for the majority of women.

Prior to the Victorian era, courtesans were sometimes limited in their apparel by various sumptuary laws and were restricted in where they could appear at social functions. Periods of overt religious piety in a city would often lead to persecution of the courtesans, up to and including accusations of witchcraft. In many cases prior to the 18th century, women leading the life of a courtesan in a royal court, with romantic relationships with kings, achieved wealth and status, but eventually it would lead to many of them being executed following very public trials that often left them appearing to have been evil, or power-hungry, when in fact they more often than not were nothing more than a lover and mistress to the king.Very often, courtesans would betray one another in acts of political intrigue in attempts to climb into higher positions of power within royal courts. There are many cases throughout history where one courtesan would attempt (sometimes successfully) to supplant the mistress to a king or emperor. This was typically preceded by her discrediting the ruler's companion, often by divulging secrets that could lead to her rival being cast aside and replaced by her. However, this was a delicate process, and if a courtesan of lower status attempted to replace a courtesan who wielded a substantial amount of power within the court, it would often result in the lower courtesan being exiled from the royal court, or married off to a lesser noble in an arranged marriage, or even murdered. There are also many examples of courtesans who took advantage of their involvement with powerful individuals, which usually ended in their downfall.