In 1965, an elderly impoverished woman was found dead in a hotel room in Nice, France. Her death marked the end of an era. She was the last of the great courtesans. Known as La Belle Otero, she was a volcanic Spanish beauty whose patrons included the Vicomte de Chênedollé, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and Grand Duke Peter Nickolaevich of Russia. She is also sometimes credited as the world’s first movie star. She accumulated an enormous fortune, but gambled it all away. On her death, a rare species slipped into extinction, quietly and unnoticed.
Scarlet Women: The scandalous lives of courtesans, concubines and royal mistresses tells the stories of the lives of the most famous (or notorious) women whose prey were the wealthiest and most powerful men of their time.
The secret of a great partnership is that each partner contributes something of value to the other. It was said of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that he gave her class and she gave him sex appeal. Together, they were unbeatable. Courtesans and kings danced a similar game. Each benefited from the other’s contribution … although courtesans didn’t face quite as challenging a task as Ginger Rogers – she had to do everything her incandescently talented partner did, but backwards and in high heels!
Marriages in European aristocratic and royal circles in past centuries were almost invariably not great partnerships. On the contrary, they could be a lonely business. And ‘business’ is the appropriate word. Marriage in the upper echelons of society was seen as a way of forming alliances between important families, protecting inheritances and producing heirs. Love was not a consideration. A couple sometimes met for the first time on their wedding day. When King George III of Great Britain married Princess Charlotte Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1761, the king and his queen had not met before the day they wed.
Upper class women were schooled in social etiquette but little else. Their thoughts and limited conversation were rarely of any interest to their husbands. The queen’s job was to produce an heir, but, having had a very sheltered upbringing, most queens knew little about how to please their husbands, either in bed or out of it. Husbands looked elsewhere for companionship, conversation and sexual pleasure, so it was common for the nobility and royalty to take mistresses, providing a fertile hunting ground for ambitious and avaricious courtesans.
*All purchases will be sent out to you in a safe and secure package via Canada Post, calculated shipping charges will apply*