Cora Pearl

Cora Pearl
Born	Emma Elizabeth Crouch 1835 (probable) London, United Kingdom
Died	8 July 1886 (aged about 51) Paris, France
Occupation	Courtesan
Parents	Frederick Nicholls Crouch

Cora Pearl (1835–8 July 1886) was a famous courtesan of the 19th century French demimonde, 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 Stonehouse, 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.

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 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 diamonds 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^[1][2] 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.

Gambling, scandal and downfall

Pearl's activities had earned her great wealth. By the late 1860s, she owned several houses, stables, 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 casinos 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.

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

References

1. ^ See a picture of Chateau de Beausejour on Google Earth: set pointer at :47deg.,52mins.,18.00secs N & 1deg.,51mins.,32.23secs E)
2. ^ Image of Chateau de Beausejour

External links

• The Memoirs of Cora Pearl at Google Books

Persondata
Name	Pearl, Cora
Alternative names	Crouch, Emma
Short description	courtesan
Date of birth	1835
Place of birth	London, England
Date of death	8 July 1886
Place of death	London, England