This is about Liane de Pougy, married name Princess Anne-Marie Ghika of Roumania, and her later-in-life involvement in Catholicism.
Born Anne-Marie Chassaigne in 1869, Liane had been born into a Catholic family. After her retirement as a courtesan, due to her marriage to the Prince, she again became acquainted with her faith. She was not especially happy in her marriage as the years went on. She sought some advice on marriage, and she was told that it would be most honorable and spiritual if she stuck with it, though her husband and her were not compatible in important ways. He was younger than she, he was apparently desperately alcoholic and in ill health, and he may also have sought sex with prostitutes. At one point she wanted to leave him and live separate lives.
The Dominican Sisters at Saint Agnes cared for children who were fundamentally disabled. From her Blue Notebooks, here is an excerpt of how she became familiar with their work. She would chose to fund raise for them and the fashion designer and once-upon-a-time Mistress, CoCo Chanel was a generous donor to the same !
Here is an excerpt:
"We were punctual. She took us to the playground... and there I saw sixty-seven unhappy creatures between eight and sixteen years old, ... the most inexorable suffering. I nearly fainted. ... Oh! Those cries! Those contortions, those grimaces, that smell... Once you have seen that, never never again can you complain of anything. I was ashamed of having talked so much about myself to Sister Marie Xavier. I pressed the poor tremulous, rather dirty hands which reached out towards me. I searched those wandering, fixed or mad eyes for some glimmer of light. I laid my hand on those foreheads, tumultuous or stunned. feverish, so pale... I gave five hundred francs. George Ghika (her husband) gave a hundred, and I knew that he was more disturbed than he liked to admit. (page 219 of The Blue Notebooks)
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