Cora Pearl
Encyclopedia
Cora Pearl was a famous courtesan
of the 19th century French demimonde
, born Emma Elizabeth Crouch.
, Plymouth
, though it is more likely that she was born in London in 1835, and the family moved to Plymouth about 1837.
Her father was the cellist
and composer
Frederick Nicholls Crouch
. In 1849 he left his family and emigrated permanently to the United States. Her mother sent Emma to a convent school in Boulogne where she stayed for eight years and learned passable French, among other things. It appears she had inherited enough musical talent from her father to later perform the role of Cupid
in an 1867 production of Jacques Offenbach
's Orpheus in the Underworld
.
She became the mistress of Robert Bignell, the proprietor of the Argyll Rooms and 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 other talents. Cora had learned excellent manners
at the convent school she had attended 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 in France were involved with her romantically. Although she had little money, she began wearing dresses by Charles Frederick Worth
and Laferrière with the idea that her appearance of wealth would attract wealthy men to her, and she was right.
The Duke of Rivoli became her first major benefactor around this time. However, while with him, she developed a serious gambling habit, and after bailing her out financially one too many times, the Duke ended their affair. But she was cultivating new benefactors, including some of the richest, most powerful men in Europe.
A skilled craftsman of the time earned between two and four francs a day; she earned 5,000 a night. This relatively huge income allowed her to perform acts such as dancing nude on a carpet of orchids and then bathing before her dinner guests in a silver
tub full of champagne. No one seemed bothered by her Cockney French, or her frank self interest. According to the Duke of Grammont-Caderousse, "If the Frères Provençaux served an omlette with diamond
s in it, Cora would be there every night."
One copy of an early version of Cora's memoirs was discovered in 1982 in the hands of a German collector and re-published by Granada in 1983, under the title The Memoirs of Cora Pearl: The Erotic Reminiscences of a Flamboyant 19th Century Courtesan. She discusses in graphic detail her introduction to sexual pleasure at the Boulogne convent and the prowess and tastes of her later lovers, both famous and humble. Possibly the most titillating (and telling) scene describes her presentation at dinner, naked and decked in cream, as a final dish.
Her lovers included Prince Willem of Orange, son of King William III of the Netherlands
; Prince Achille Murat
, grandson of Joachim Murat
; and the Duke of Morny
, Napoleon III's half-brother. Morny, described by one historian as "a taller, handsomer edition of the Emperor", has been said to be the most intelligent and distinguished of her lovers, with an insatiable sexual appetite.
As mistress of the Emperor's brother, she felt important enough to rent the little Chateau de Beausejour on the banks of the Loiret
outside Orléans
in 1864, where she spent a small fortune entertaining. A few years after Morny's premature death in 1865, Cora became the mistress to Prince Napoleon
, cousin to Emperor Napoleon III. He bought her two homes in Paris and supported her financially until 1874.
s, the finest wardrobe and extravagant jewelry. 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 rumour 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 no wealthy men would take her on.
Her gambling habit continued, and she soon learned that shopkeepers and casino
s 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 tab. In desperation, around 1876 she began to sell her possessions, first slowly, then ever faster, and returned from time to time to prostitution
. She lived in relative comfort for ten years despite her rising debt. "Memoires de Cora Pearl" was published in French in the spring of 1886 and according to William Blatchford, transcriber of "Grand Horizontal," "proved extraordinarily dull," to the extent that neither it nor its English translation were ever reprinted. In the same year, desperately ill with intestinal cancer, she was forced to move to a first floor flat (Holden says "The various accounts of Cora spending her last days in dire poverty in one squalid room are very much exaggerated") where she died. Obituary notices appeared in the London and Paris papers and her remaining possessions were disposed of in a two-day sale in October 1886. She is buried in a grave (no 10, row 4) with no tombstone at Batignolles cemetery.
Courtesan
A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
of the 19th century French demimonde
Demimonde
Demi-monde refers to a group of people who live hedonistic lifestyles, usually in a flagrant and conspicuous manner. The term was commonly used in Europe from the late 18th to the early 20th century, and modern use often refers to that period...
, born Emma Elizabeth Crouch.
Early life
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 StonehouseStonehouse, Plymouth
East Stonehouse is one of three towns that were amalgamated into modern-day Plymouth. West Stonehouse was a village that is within the current Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in Cornwall...
, Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
, though it is more likely that she was born in London in 1835, and the family moved to Plymouth about 1837.
Her father was the cellist
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Frederick Nicholls Crouch
Frederick Nicholls Crouch
Frederick Nicholls Crouch was an English composer and cellist.Crouch was born in Marylebone in London. He emigrated to the United States in 1849 and settled in Richmond, Virginia...
. In 1849 he left his family and emigrated permanently to the United States. Her mother sent Emma to a convent school in Boulogne where she stayed for eight years and learned passable French, among other things. It appears she had inherited enough musical talent from her father to later perform the role of Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
in an 1867 production of Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's Orpheus in the Underworld
Orpheus in the Underworld
Orphée aux enfers is an opéra bouffon , or opéra féerie in its revised version, by Jacques Offenbach. The French text was written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux....
.
Life as a courtesan
While she was still trying to find her way in London, she became a prostitute, and happened to meet several reasonably wealthy men who were interested in becoming involved with her for more than just an evening's amusement. These men needed little convincing, as their main concern was an involvement with a woman who was pretty, and who could be socially acceptable, intelligent, witty and discreet. This was her doorway into life as a courtesan.She became the mistress of Robert Bignell, the proprietor of the Argyll Rooms and 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 other talents. Cora had learned excellent manners
Manners
In sociology, manners are the unenforced standards of conduct which demonstrate that a person is proper, polite, and refined. They are like laws in that they codify or set a standard for human behavior, but they are unlike laws in that there is no formal system for punishing transgressions, the...
at the convent school she had attended 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 in France were involved with her romantically. Although she had little money, she began wearing dresses by Charles Frederick Worth
Charles Frederick Worth
Charles Frederick Worth , widely considered the Father of Haute couture, was an English fashion designer of the 19th century, whose works were produced in Paris.-Career:...
and Laferrière with the idea that her appearance of wealth would attract wealthy men to her, and she was right.
The Duke of Rivoli became her first major benefactor around this time. However, while with him, she developed a serious gambling habit, and after bailing her out financially one too many times, the Duke ended their affair. But she was cultivating new benefactors, including some of the richest, most powerful men in Europe.
A skilled craftsman of the time earned between two and four francs a day; she earned 5,000 a night. This relatively huge income allowed her to perform acts such as dancing nude on a carpet of orchids and then bathing before her dinner guests in a silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
tub full of champagne. No one seemed bothered by her Cockney French, or her frank self interest. According to the Duke of Grammont-Caderousse, "If the Frères Provençaux served an omlette with diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
s in it, Cora would be there every night."
One copy of an early version of Cora's memoirs was discovered in 1982 in the hands of a German collector and re-published by Granada in 1983, under the title The Memoirs of Cora Pearl: The Erotic Reminiscences of a Flamboyant 19th Century Courtesan. She discusses in graphic detail her introduction to sexual pleasure at the Boulogne convent and the prowess and tastes of her later lovers, both famous and humble. Possibly the most titillating (and telling) scene describes her presentation at dinner, naked and decked in cream, as a final dish.
Her lovers included Prince Willem of Orange, son of King William III of the Netherlands
William III of the Netherlands
William III was from 1849 King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg until his death and the Duke of Limburg until the abolition of the Duchy in 1866.-Early life:William was born in Brussels as son of William II of the Netherlands and...
; Prince Achille Murat
Prince Achille Murat
Achille Charles Louis Napoléon, Crown Prince of Naples, Hereditary Prince of Berg, 2nd Prince Murat was the eldest son of the King of Naples during the First French Empire and later in life mayor of Tallahassee, Florida in the United States.-Early life:Murat was born in the Hôtel de Brienne in...
, grandson of Joachim Murat
Joachim Murat
Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...
; and the Duke of Morny
Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, duc de Morny
Charles Auguste Louis Joseph Demorny/de Morny, 1st Duc de Morny was a French statesman...
, Napoleon III's half-brother. Morny, described by one historian as "a taller, handsomer edition of the Emperor", has been said to be the most intelligent and distinguished of her lovers, with an insatiable sexual appetite.
As mistress of the Emperor's brother, she felt important enough to rent the little Chateau de Beausejour on the banks of the Loiret
Loiret
Loiret is a department in north-central FranceThe department is named after the river Loiret, a tributary of the Loire. The Loiret is located wholly within the department.- History :...
outside Orléans
Orléans
-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...
in 1864, where she spent a small fortune entertaining. A few years after Morny's premature death in 1865, Cora became the mistress to Prince Napoleon
Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte
Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte, Prince Français, Count of Meudon, Count of Moncalieri ad personam, titular 3rd Prince of Montfort was the second son of Jérôme Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, by his wife Catherine, princess of Württemberg...
, cousin to Emperor Napoleon III. He bought her two homes in Paris and supported her financially until 1874.
Gambling, scandal and downfall
Pearl's activities had earned her great wealth. By the late 1860s, she owned several houses, stableStable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals...
s, the finest wardrobe and extravagant jewelry. British accounts reported that one bill for lingerie
Lingerie
Lingerie are fashionable and possibly alluring undergarments.Lingerie usually incorporates one or more flexible, stretchy materials like Lycra, nylon , polyester, satin, lace, silk and sheer fabric which are not typically used in more functional, basic cotton undergarments.The term in the French...
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 rumour 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
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
prevailed, and no wealthy men would take her on.
Her gambling habit continued, and she soon learned that shopkeepers and casino
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
s 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 tab. In desperation, around 1876 she began to sell her possessions, first slowly, then ever faster, and returned from time to time to prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. She lived in relative comfort for ten years despite her rising debt. "Memoires de Cora Pearl" was published in French in the spring of 1886 and according to William Blatchford, transcriber of "Grand Horizontal," "proved extraordinarily dull," to the extent that neither it nor its English translation were ever reprinted. In the same year, desperately ill with intestinal cancer, she was forced to move to a first floor flat (Holden says "The various accounts of Cora spending her last days in dire poverty in one squalid room are very much exaggerated") where she died. Obituary notices appeared in the London and Paris papers and her remaining possessions were disposed of in a two-day sale in October 1886. She is buried in a grave (no 10, row 4) with no tombstone at Batignolles cemetery.
Sources
- Holden, W.H., (1950) The pearl from Plymouth, British Technical and General Press
- Frayser, Suzanne G. & Whitby, Thomas J. (1995) Studies in Human Sexuality: a Selected Guide, Libraries Unlimited ISBN 1563081318
- Hickman, Katie (2003). Courtesans: Money, Sex, and Fame in the Nineteenth Century. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-9657930-8-7
- Rounding, Virginia (2003). Les Grandes Horizontales: The Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth-Century Courtesans. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 0-7475-6221-0
- Pearl, Cora (1983). Memoirs of Cora Pearl. Granada ISBN 978-0586057056
- Tanahill, Reay (1992). Sex in History. Scarborough House ISBN 0-8128-8540-6
- Pearl, Cora (1983) Grand Horizontal, Stein and Day ISBN 0-8128-2917-4