VALTESSE PROTECTS HER PROTEGE'S COURTESAN CAREER BUT LIANE DEFIES HER

From my notes:

Liane began a passionate affair with Emilienne d'Alencon, a French courtesan who was also a dancer, actress, and a gambler. She said it was Emilienne who had been her "teacher in the ways of pleasure."  As well the two women were seen out in public together and the gossip columnists loved it that the two were, as we say today, 'out.'   (Notes from page 256.)

Valtesse warned her protoge Liane that lesbians aged badly!  She though Liane was a fool, but worse, in her opinion that Emilienne was when Liane got seduced by the American ex-patriot lesbian Natalie Clifford Barney.

Barney was a pretty woman who had endured her parent's displeasure at her growing reputation as a lesbian. Upon seeing the beautiful Liane, Natalie sent the courtesan letters -signed with a fake name - and flowers until Liane would grant her an in person meeting. Natalie arrived dressed as a Prince.  (I've seen photos of Natalie in this outfit and so I think it was her costume of choice at the time, implying that she was a rescuer of women.)  Liane granted the meeting but Valtesse made sure she was there too, just to send a message to Barney as to who was 'in' on the situation.  The stage was set, Valtesse and Liane in cahoots.

Liane hid herself while Valtesse lingered in the dim light as if she were the prize.  Then Liane floated out 'dressed in diaphanous white and extended her equally pale delicate hand, which gripped Natalie's shoulders with surprising firmness." (Notes from page 238)

Liane was in on this game as well as she set up the situation to tease the besotted Natalie with her intimacy with Valtesse.

As it turned out the affair between Liane and Natalie was brief but they remained known to each other throughout their lives. The day came when Liane would decide to write books.  She would write about Natalie, thinly disguised as a character with a different name.  The day would come when Natalie would also write about her life in Paris and the famous people she had known and befriended, including Liane.  They had made impressions upon each other.

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NOTE  in June 2011 our Mistress of the Month was CoCo Chanel

COCO CHANEL : DESIGNER WHO CHANGED WOMENS FASHION GOT HER START AS A MISTRESS.  Here is an excerpt from the first post that month:

Did Balsan move the seamstress CoCo into his "decadent lifestyle", perhaps father a child or insist she have an abortion?

Certainly he was the person who first funded her ambitions to have a millinery shop, and then design clothes.

There were other women for him - and eventually other lovers also for her - In particular a man called Boy Chapel. Most intelligently CoCo and Etienne continued to be friends until he died in 1953. When she came to Royallieu he already had a mistress there, an actress and beauty known to be well kept by men, Emilienne d'Alecon. So perhaps the romance between them has been exaggerated.

Emilienne was 14 year older than CoCo, and perhaps if not her mentor, an example. She showed CoCo how to get along with and remain friends with ex lovers and providers. (We see this characteristic also in mistress Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman.)

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 Emilienne d'Alencon was born in 1870 and lived until 1945.) 

C 2022 Mistress Manifesto Blogspot

Our primary reference for this month's subject, Courtesan Laine De Pougy, is the book titled the Mistress of Paris by author Catherine Hewitt.