Cocottes (or coquettes) were high class prostitutes ( courtesans) in France during the Second Empire and the Belle Époque. [1] They were also known as demimondaines and grandes horizontales. [2] Cocotte was originally a term of endearment for small children, but was used as a term for elegant prostitutes from the 1860s. [3] The term was also used in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany from the turn of the 20th century (Kokotte). [4]
Overview
For some women, becoming a cocotte was also a way to achieve financial comfort before settling down in marriage. Some managed their fortune, others died in misery, others finally, like Sarah Bernhardt, who in the beginning was a cocotte, became adulated actresses. [5]
For a rich man of the period, keeping a cocotte was seen as a symbol of his status and virility. Cocottes were elegant, fashionable and extravagant, the papers reported on their clothing, parties and affairs. [6]
Several authors of the 19th century wrote about cocottes, [7] for example Émile Zola with Nana. This novel describes the life and tragic fate of a street-walker who rises to become a cocotte, and whose ways lead to ruin the powerful men she meets. [8]
Famous cocottes include Cora Pearl (1835-1886) (her patrons included Prince Napoleon and the Duke of Morny); Laure Hayman (1851-1932) ( Paul Bourget, King of Greece[ which?], Prince Karageorgevich and Prince Karl of Fürstenberg). [9] Several mansions of Paris were built for "cocottes", such as that of Esther Lachmann, known as la Païva, on the Champs-Élysées. [10]
References
- ^ Rudorff, Raymond. "Courtesans and Prostitutes". www.indiana.edu. Archived from the original on 17 February 2019. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
- ^ Rounding 2004, p. 352.
- ^ Smith 2014, p. 11.
- ^ Smith 2014, pp. 2, 13.
- ^ Laing, Olivia (23 October 2010). "Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt by Robert Gottlieb | book review". The Observer. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
- ^ "Prostitution in Paris (1850-1910) Prequel of the billet about Memoirs of a cocodette written by herself by Ernest Feydeau". Book Around The Corner. 17 January 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
- ^ Chu & Dixon 2008, p. 203.
- ^ Willsher, Kim (19 September 2015). "Cocottes, courtesans and sex in the city: Paris celebrates art of the demi-monde". The Observer. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
- ^ Rose 2016, p. 322.
- ^ "Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse Console for the Grand Salon in the Hôtel de Païva". www.musee-orsay.fr. Musée d'Orsay. Archived from the original on 29 October 2018. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
Bibliography
- Balducci, Richard (1993). Les Princesses de Paris: L'âge d'or des cocottes (in French). Hors collection (réédition numérique FeniXX). ISBN 9782258127975.
- Chu, Petra ten-Doesschate; Dixon, Laurinda S. (2008). Twenty-first-century Perspectives on Nineteenth-century Art: Essays in Honor of Gabriel P. Weisberg. Associated University Presse. ISBN 9780874130119.
- Feydeau, Ernest (2013). Souvenirs d'une cocodette (in French). Numeriklivres. ISBN 9782897173999.
- Guigon, Catherine (2016). Les cocottes : reines du Paris 1900 (in French). Parigramme. ISBN 9782840969983.
- Pratt, Theodore (1951). Cocotte. Fawcett Publications.
- Rose, David Charles (2016). Oscar Wilde's Elegant Republic: Transformation, Dislocation and Fantasy in fin-de-siècle Paris. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443887632.
- Rounding, Virginia (2004). Grandes Horizontales: The Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth-century Courtesans. Bloomsbury. ISBN 9780747568599.
- Smith, Jill Suzanne (2014). Berlin Coquette: Prostitution and the New German Woman, 1890–1933. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801469701.