An infamous courtesan who took London by storm with her sisters Amy and Sophia, Harriet was the daughter of a humble Swiss clock maker. By the age of 15, she had already elevated herself as the mistress of the Earl of Craven. When that liaison ended, she took up with the Duke of Argyll, who also had an affair with her sister, Amy.
The young Marquess of Worcester wanted to marry Harriet, but his father, the Duke of Beaufort, paid her off and sent his son to Spain. When Harriet broke the terms of her agreement by writing to Worcester, the duke cut off her funds and, good business woman that she was, Harriet threatened to sue him.
Some of her other “clients” were said to include the Prince Regent, Wellington, and Lord Palmerston. At 40, she published a tell-all autobiography that named names. Prior to publication, thinking to make more money by NOT publishing it, she and her publisher made sure to circulate drafts to several of the important men mentioned in the book, suggesting that for a sizable donation, she would agree to omit passages in which they were mentioned.
It is said that over 200 letters were sent to former clients, asking for an annual annuity of £20, or a lump sum of £200 to keep their names out of her memoirs.
Wellington is famously said to have replied, “Publish and be damned.” Others, including, some say, George IV, paid up. Harriet’s memoirs, published in 1825, were a bestseller, even though much of it was known to be completely fictional.
At the end of this very real annus terribilis, I want to say a few words to you, our loyal readers and attendees. Above all, thanks! Thanks for keeping Shady Ladies Tours alive by reading our blog, attending our Zoom tours, watching our YouTube videos, contributing to our fundraisers—in short, for being a fabulously loyal community. When the pandemic hit the US, in March, it seemed likely to kill the company completely. Who would have thought that 9 months later, as the pandemic continued to rage, we would be putting on our 18th Zoom tour, with audiences regularly over 100, and have gathered over 28,000 views for our videos? It’s been a hard year, but ours is a tiny, flourishing corner. And we have a lot more coming after the holidays! Want to find out more? (more…)
London’s National Portrait Gallery has a great collection of portraits of famous and important people from British history. If you ask the general public what that means, they would tell you it’s a great place to see images of kings, queens, prime ministers, and other great people (mostly men). But actually, the National Portrait Gallery’s collection is much more fun than people realize. It contains a lot of portraits of people with really entertaining stories, and these stories often revolve around the one thing that can make historical people seem really relatable: love and sex. And many of the most interesting stories are about *women*.
Bold and sexy women must always have existed everywhere, but in history they seem to be a French specialty. There are a number of places where you can learn about them in Paris. The Louvre and Orsay museums are great, for instance, or the royal palace at Versailles. But if you are interested in the colorful sides of Paris women’s history, don’t miss Père Lachaise Cemetery!
Père Lachaise, founded under Napoleon in 1804, was Paris’s first non-sectarian cemetery. It was also the first garden cemetery, a 19th century trend that brought us London’s so-called Magnificent Seven cemeteries, New
Père Lachaise Cemetery
York’s Green-wood, Boston’s Mount Auburn, and so on. These cemeteries were intended as parks, where the public could stroll and even picnic. And one of the attractions (aside from groves, ponds, etc) was meant to be the magnificent tombs of well-known people. Indeed, the founders of Père Lachaise jump-started this aspect by transferring some famous tombs there, including the one you see above. Thus is the joint tomb of the iconic romantic couple of the Middle Ages, theologian Abélard and his abbess wife Héloïse.
And they were certainly successful in attracting the tombs of the prominent—including many prominent women. There are certainly famous men in the cemetery, such as (to start with composers) Chopin, Rossini, and Bizet. And the two most visited tombs are those of English-world celebs Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. Yet there are many fascinating women buried here as well. A short list would be long but would have to include: Sarah Bernhardt, Isadora Duncan, Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, Colette, Maris Callas, and Edith Piaf. These are the kind of bold and sexy women that makes Paris women’s history so special and intriguing.
Here are three of my favorite tombs in Père Lachaise. Two are of women, and one is (as I will explain) important to Parisian women.
The racy writer
I’ll start with one from my list above: the tomb of Colette, which is right near the main
Colette’s tomb
entrance to the cemetery. Colette was an astonishing person. She is probably the most famous French woman writer today. Her four early Claudine novels are very popular in France. And her last book, Gigi, is well-known around the world—mainly, no doubt, because of the movie, starring Audrey Hepburn—whom Colette herself discovered. She was also a racy person. After she had left her first husband (who discovered her gift for writing but kept the copyrights to her first books for himself) she created a scandal by carrying on an affair with a cross-dressing aristocrat called Mathilde de Morny, and generally known at the time as Max or uncle Max. The scandal reached its peak when Colette and Max
Colette and Max
kissed on stage at the Moulin Rouge—a pretty bold gesture for 1907! Colette kept most of her raciness for her writing, however, in which her biggest themes are lesbianism and courtesans—the high class sex workers who were so important in Belle Epoque Paris’s life and of whom Colette’s Gigi is the most famous example.
The cross-dressing painter
A thruple in death: Ducas, Bonheur, Klumpke
Next is another tomb of a bold and racy woman, the painter Rosa Bonheur. Bonheur is not famous today, but before the Impressionists began the turn toward abstraction that typifies modern art, she was a big star of the art world. An example in an American museum is the vast hyperrealistic The Horse Fair that fills a wall at the Metropolitan Museum.
Bonheur probably interests modern viewers more as a personality than as an artist, though. She was one of those artistic 19th century women who lived her life in households consisting of two women—what today historians call ‘Boston marriages.’ It is impossible for us to know what went on in private, but one tends to assume that the women in these ‘marriages’ were mostly what today we would call lesbians. But Bonheur was not only probably a lesbian, she was also what we would call gender-queer. She was strikingly non-feminine and often dressed in men’s clothing. She lived in two Boston marriages: the first with a woman called Nathalie Ducas, the second (after Ducas’s death) with an American painter called Anna Klumpke.
Bonheur by Klumpke
I am giving you two pictures. One is a striking portrait of the elderly Bonheur by Klumpke, the other the Ducas family tomb, where not only Nathalie is buried, but also Bonheur and Klumpke both (as you can see from the plaques on the front).
The fertility cult
Finally, let me show you one of the sights every Parisian knows in the cemetery: the tomb of Victor Noir. Noir a young left-wing journalist who was shot by Prince Pierre Bonaparte, and his tomb long served As the center of many left-wing rallies. You might think you’re seeing things, but no, that really is a realistic death erection in his trousers,
Victor Noir’s tomb
and yes, it is rubbed clean of verdigris. If you look carefully, you can see that his lips are also clean. That is because Victor, with his erection, serves as a fertility cult place-of-worship for Parisian women who want to pray to find a boyfriend, get pregnant etc. The tradition is that you kiss his lips, leave flowers in his hand (as you can see in the photo) or hat and rub his erection. I have heard from some gay friends that they pray to Victor Noir as well!
So if you want to know about Paris women’s history—the history of bold and sexy women that really is one of the things that makes Paris Paris—don’t only visit the museums and Versailles. Take a stroll around Père Lachaise as well! Or, if you can’t go to Paris (because none of us can go anywhere right now!) take Shady Ladies Tours’ Père Lachaise tour on Zoom the next time we offer it.
Paris is the great city for the history of racy women. Certainly, other places have contributed—particularly Italy during the Renaissance. But from the time the Renaissance took off in France, scandalous French women have taken most of the world prizes for raciness. (more…)
The world’s museums are full of scandals and secrets. John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, known simply as Madame X, is a great example. When it
was unveiled at the 1884 Paris Salon, it caused such a scandal that Sargent’s career was almost destroyed. Who after all would want to hire a portrait-painter who caused scandals at the Salon? It was also damaging, of course, for Gautreau’s reputation as a society beauty. Her family begged Sargent to withdraw the painting from the Salon, but he refused. After the Salon, however, he repainted the detail that had caused the biggest scandal. (more…)
Lady Cavendish of the Devonshire clan pronounced one of their kind to be “a woman of notorious, shameless character.” The memoir of another was said to be a “list of dirty laundry.” In sixteenth century Venice, Sumptuary Laws forbade them from flaunting in public the gold, silver, silks, and gemstones that were the spoils of their sorcery. Nor were they allowed to “stand, kneel, or sit on the benches that in the church are occupied by noblewomen … taking care not to give offence to other decent persons.” (more…)
Imperia Cognati (also called Imperia La Divina, meaning Imperia The Divine, or The Queen of Courtesans, 3 August 1486 – 15 August 1512), was a Roman courtesan. She has been considered the first celebrity of the class of courtesans, which was created in Rome in the late 15th century. (more…)
Diane de Poitiers, represented on this wall hanging as the goddess Diana, was so powerful in France when she was the mistress of King Henri II that they often signed his correspondence with one word: HENRIDIANE. Find out more about powerful women in history on the Nasty Women tour!
Elizabeth Farren was the great comic actress of 18th century London. She was the mistress of the Earl of Derby and when his wife died, he married her, so she became the Countess of Derby. Don’t imagine that this put their relationship beyond the aim of jokes, cartoons, etc. Quite the opposite: they were favorite objects of every kind of lampoon, as in this cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson, which emphasizes Farren’s height and Derby’s shortness…. Curious about the Shady Ladies of history? Come on our tours of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and have fun while learning about them….
Some of her other “clients” were said to include the Prince Regent, Wellington, and Lord Palmerston. At 40, she published a tell-all autobiography that named names. Prior to publication, thinking to make more money by NOT publishing it, she and her publisher made sure to circulate drafts to several of the important men mentioned in the book, suggesting that for a sizable donation, she would agree to omit passages in which they were mentioned.
