By courtesans, I mean those ladies who, decked out in all the luxury of dress, if not covered with diamonds, put up their favours to the highest bidder, without having either more beauty or accomplishments, perhaps, than the distressed female who sells hers at the lowest price. But caprice, good fortune, intrigue, or artifice, sometimes occasions an enormous distance between women who have the same views.
If the ancients made great sacrifices for the Phrynes, the Laïses, or the Aspasias of the day, among the moderns, no nation has, in that respect, surpassed the French. Every one has heard of the luxurious extravagance of Mademoiselle Deschamps, the cushion of whose chaise-percée, was trimmed with point-lace of very considerable value, and the harness of whose carriage was studded with paste, in imitation of diamonds. This woman, however, lived to repent of her folly; and if she did not literally die in a poorhouse, she at least ended her days in wretchedness.
Before the revolution, of all the gay ladies in Paris, Madame Grandval displayed the greatest luxury in her equipage; and Mademoiselle D'Hervieux, in her house. I knew them both. The former I have seen at Longchamp, as well as at the annual review of the king's household troops, in a splendid coach, as fine as that of any Lord Mayor, drawn by a set of eight English grays, which cost a hundred and twenty guineas a horse. She sat, like a queen, adorned with a profusion of jewels; and facing her was a dame de compagnie, representing a lady of the bedchamber. Behind the carriage, stood no less than three tall footmen, besides a chasseur, in the style of that of the Duke of Gloucester, in rich liveries, with swords, canes, and bags.
As for the house of Mademoiselle D'Hervieux, it was every thing that oriental luxury, combined with French taste, could unite on a small scale. Although of very low origin, and by no means gifted with a handsome person, this lady, after having, rather late in life, obtained an introduction on the opera-stage as a common figurante, contrived to insinuate herself into the good graces of some rich protectors. On the Chaussée d'Antin, they built for her this palace in miniature, which, twelve years ago, was the object of universal admiration, and, in fact, was visited by strangers as one of the curiosities of Paris.
At the present day, one neither sees nor hears of such favourites of fortune; and, for want of subjects to paint under this head, I must proceed to those of the next rank, who are styled
KEPT WOMEN.
What distinctions, what shades, what different names to express almost one and the same thing! From the haughty fair in a brilliant equipage, figuring, like a favourite Sultana, with "all the pride, pomp, and circumstance" of the toilet, down to the hunger-pinched female, who stands shivering in the evening at the corner of a street, what gradations in the same profession!
Before the revolution, there were reckoned in Paris eight or ten thousand women to whom the rich nobility or financiers allowed from a thousand pounds a year upwards to an almost incredible amount. Some of these ladies have ruined a whole family in the short space of six months; and, having nothing left at the year's end, were then under the necessity of parting with their diamonds for a subsistence. Although many of them are far inferior in opulence to the courtesans, they are less depraved, and, consequently, superior to them in estimation. They have a lover, who pays, and from whom they, in general, get all they can, at the same time turning him into ridicule, and another whom, in their turn, they pay, and for whom they commit a thousand follies.
These women used to have no medium in their attachments; they were either quite insensible to the soft passion, or loved almost to distraction. On the wane, they had the rage for marrying, and many of them found men who, preferring fortune to honour, disgraced themselves by such alliances. Some of these ladies, if handsome, were not unfrequently taken by a man of fortune, and kept from mere ostentation, just as he would sport a superlatively elegant carriage, or ride a very capital horse; others were maintained from caprice, which, like Achilles's spear, carried with it its own antidote; and then, of course, they passed into the hands of different keepers. It cannot be denied, however that a few of these connexions were founded on attachment; and when the woman, who was the object of it, was possessed of understanding, she assumed the manners and deportment of a wife. Indeed, now and then a keeper adopted the style of oriental gallantry.
Beaujon, the banker of the court, who had amassed an immense fortune, indulged himself in his old age, and, till his death, in a society composed of pretty women, some of whom belonged to what was then termed good families, among which he had diffused his presents. In an elegant habitation, called la Chartreuse, which he erected in the Faubourg du Roule, as a place of occasional retirement, was a most curious apartment, representing a bower, in the midst of which was placed a bedstead in imitation of a basket of flowers: four trees, whose verdant foliage extended over part of the ceiling, which was painted as a sky, seemed to shade this basket, and supported drapery, suspended to their branches. This was M. Beaujon's Temple of Venus.