Katie Hickman Courtesans Аннотация This edition does not include illustrations.‘Irresistible…history at its most human. Elegant and addictively readable.’ William DalrympleDuring the course of the 18th- and 19th-century a small group of women rose from impoverished obscurity to positions of great power, independence and wealth. In doing so they took control of their lives – and those of other people – and made the world do their will.Men ruined themselves in desperate attempts to gain and retain a courtesan's favours, but she was always courted for far more than sex. In an age in which women were generally not well educated she was often unusually literate and literary, courted for her conversation as well as her physical company. Courtesans were extremely accomplished, and exerted a powerful influence as leaders of fashion and society. They were not received at Court, but inhabited their own parallel world – the demi-monde – complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement.In ‘Courtesans’ Katie Hickman, author of the bestselling ‘Daughters of Britannia’, focuses on the exceptional stories of five outstanding women. Sophia Baddeley, Elizabeth Armistead, Harriette Wilson, Cora Pearl and Catherine Walters may have had very different personalities and talents, but their lives exemplify the dazzling existence of the courtesan. Содержание Katie Hickman 6 DEDICATION 7 EPIGRAPH 8 CONTENTS 9 PROLOGUE 11 INTRODUCTION 16 1 SOPHIA BADDELEY 1745â1786 The 58 Actress Courtesan 2 ELIZABETH ARMISTEAD 1750â1842 The 139 Woman of Pleasure Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. 145 Katie Hickman COURTESANS DEDICATION This book is for A.C. Grayling EPIGRAPH âAsk not how many young men their fortunes let slip, and careers, Chancing one night on her couch (and it was worth it, they said); Neo-Platonic sages failed to show up at their lectures â Dream of the touch of her lips, metaphysics go hang!â From âEpitaph for Thaïsâ, by John Heath-Stubbs. From John Heath-Stubbs, Collected Poems 1943â1987. Carcanet, 1988 CONTENTS COVER TITLE PAGE DEDICATION EPIGRAPH PROLOGUE INTRODUCTION 1. SOPHIA BADDELEY 1745â1786 The Actress Courtesan 2. ELIZABETH ARMISTEAD 1750â1842 The Woman of Pleasure 3. HARRIETTE WILSON 1786â1845 The Demi-Rep 4. CORA PEARL 1835â1886 The Parisian Courtesan 5. CATHERINE WALTERS 1839â1920 The Courtesanâs Courtesan CONCLUSION KEEP READING SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX P.S. IDEAS, INTERVIEWS & FEATURES ⦠ABOUT THE AUTHOR PORTRAIT SNAPSHOT TOP TEN FAVOURITE READS ABOUT THE BOOK A CRITICAL EYE THE BIGGER PICTURE COVER STORY READ ON HAVE YOU READ? IF YOU LOVED THIS, YOUâLL LIKE⦠FIND OUT MORE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AUTHORâS NOTE NOTES PRAISE COPYRIGHT ABOUT THE PUBLISHER PROLOGUE ON THE SULTRY EVENING of 26 June 1771 a new play by the comic actor-playwright Samuel Foote opened at the Little Theatre* in the Haymarket. The Maid of Bath was a satirical comedy inspired by the true-life story of a young actress, Elizabeth Linley, whose parents had forced her into a marriage contract with the elderly Sir William Long, a man old enough to be her grandfather. On the opening night the house was packed, not only by crowds of regular theatre-goers, but by friends and colleagues of the playwright, amongst them as many London luminaries as he had been able to muster. As well as being a clever comedian, Foote was a brilliant showman. In the audience that night sat Dr Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds and David Garrick (who had written the prologue for Footeâs play himself). Chief among them, however, carefully positioned by Foote in the most ostentatiously public of the theatreâs boxes, was Sophia Baddeley, the most fashionable and beautiful actress and courtesan of the day. Despite the improvements in theatre design innovated by David Garrick the previous decade, in the 1770s a London theatre was still an exceptionally rowdy place. The areas around the two principal theatres, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, were dangerous stews infested with brothels, bagniosâ and accommodation houses.â¡ Despite this, all classes avidly attended the theatre, even the King and Queen. The most fashionable aristocrats and their ladies, primped, pomaded and patched, filled the expensive private boxes, while their servants and the ordinary London folk, from the orange-sellers to the painted pimps and ladies of the town, squeezed into the pit or the upper galleries, where they sang, jeered, ate, spat, threw fruit at one another, and chatted the whole night long. The English theatre-going public was an opinionated, argumentative, and occasionally violent mob, passionate in its enthusiasms, devilish when riled. Its uninhibited interaction with the players on the stage was a peculiarly English habit which often shocked foreign visitors to London. But Mrs Baddeley, surveying this seething, smelly, rowdy scene from her private box that midsummer night, was as cool and resplendent as a duchess. At twenty-six years old, Sophia Baddeley was at the very height of her demi-mondaine glory. Made famous first by her exquisite beauty, and then by the scandalousness of her many amours, she was a notorious figure. And, as was only to be expected, when she went to the theatre she went not just to see, but to be seen. âThe box reserved for us was next to the stage box,â remembered Mrs Eliza Steele, Sophiaâs constant companion in those days, âthat commanded a sight of the whole house.â And what a sight she was. Her dress and jewels, and the good taste which she displayed in wearing them, made her appearance âequal to a woman of the first rankâ. Her brilliants alone were worth a small fortune. She always wore two watches, âan expensive oneâ and âa little beautiful French watch, that hung by way of a trinket to a chain, set with diamonds, the value of which could not be less than two hundred poundsâ. In addition, she had âfour brilliant diamond necklaces, the least of which cost three hundred pounds; two were of near double the value each, and the fourth was the one Lord Melbourne paid Mr Tomkins four hundred and fifty pounds for. She had a pair of beautiful enamelled bracelets, as large as a half-crown piece, set round with brilliants, which cost a hundred and fifty pounds, and rings out of number.â* But Sophia Baddeleyâs dress and jewels were as nothing to the incomparable allure of her face. She was âabsolutely one of the wonders of the ageâ, the Duke of Ancaster once told her; âno man can gaze on you unwounded. You are in this respect like the Basilisk, whose eyes kill those whom they fix on.â It was not only men who were so beguiled. The ladies of the nobility, too, âspoke of her with rapture: âThereâs that divine face! That beautiful creature!â Others would cry out âHere is Mrs Baddeley â what a sweet woman!ââ âHalf the world is in love with you,â her admirer Lord Falmouth told her. And he was hardly exaggerating. The play began at last, with Samuel Foote himself performing. It went off with immediate éclat. Encouraged by his success, Foote began to improvise: âAbout the middle of the piece,â recalled Mrs Steele, âwhere Mr. Foote enlarged much on the beauty of the Maid of Bath, he added, âNot even the beauty of the nine Muses, nor even that of the divine Baddeley herself, who there sits (pointing to the box where we sat,) could exceed that of the Maid of Bath.ââ At his words a âthunder of applauseâ burst from all parts of the house. Such was the delight of the audience that Foote was encored not once, not twice, but three times. Thrice he repeated the words, to the same ecstatic applause. âEvery eye was on Mrs Baddeley,â wrote Mrs Steele, âand I do not recollect ever seeing her so confused before.â Blushing at this âtrick of Mr. Footeâsâ, Sophia rose to her feet and curtsied to the audience, âand it was near quarter of an hour before she could discontinue her obedience, the plaudits lasting so longâ.1 By 1785 â just fifteen years later â the notorious courtesan was dead: a pauper and a hopeless laudanum addict, the fabulous riches bestowed upon her by her many lovers blown, the jewels, the diamonds, the silks, the carriages, squandered or sold. But all that was in the future. In 1771, on Samuel Footeâs opening night, Sophiaâs candle burned steadily and bright. * Foote had been granted the patent to stage dramas at the Little Theatre in 1766. Before then the only two theatres in London licensed to stage plays were Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Foote was granted this privilege by special request of the Duke of York and some of his friends, whose rowdy behaviour had caused a riding accident in which Foote had lost a leg. He was only allowed to use the theatre in the summer, however, when Covent Garden and Drury Lane were not in use. â A bagnio was a Turkish bath, first popularised in London in the early eighteenth century. When private âretiring roomsâ were introduced they soon became used for other purposes, and by the late eighteenth century the term was synonymous with brothel. â¡ A type of brothel in which rooms were available for hire by the hour. * This amounts to more than £2500 â the equivalent of £1.5 million today. INTRODUCTION IN HIS ESSAY La Vie Parisienne Sacheverell Sitwell tells a story of two small boys who were taken for a walk by Prince Paul Murat one Sunday morning in Paris in the 1860s.