Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris

Celeste Mogador, Monique Fleury Nagem

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2001
• Print ISBN: 9780803232082
• eBook ISBN: 9780803202139
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

When Céleste Mogador's memoirs were first published in 1854 and again in 1858, they were immediately seized and condemned as immoral and unsuitable for public consumption. For a reader in our more forgiving times, this extraordinary document offers not only a portrait of the early life of an intelligent, courageous, and infinitely intriguing Frenchwoman but also an exceedingly rare inside look at the world of the courtesans and prostitutes of nineteenth-century France. Writing to conciliate judges and creditors, Mogador (born Céleste Venard in 1824) explains how with tenacity, wit, and audacity, she managed to escape a difficult childhood and subsequent life of prostitution to become, successively, a darling of the dance halls, a circus rider, and an actress, all the while attracting wealthy young men who vied for her favor. Although her account gives readers a peek into the rakish demimonde made famous by Verdi's opera La Traviata, its greatest value lies in its candid picture of a spunky, self-educated woman who doggedly transformed herself into an esteemed and prolific novelist and playwright, who fell in love with a count and married him, and who made her name synonymous with the bohemian life of the 1840s and 1850s in Paris.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Translator’s Introduction
• 1. My Stepfather
• 2. The Hunter and the Hunted
• 3. The Lyon Insurrection
• 4. M. Vincent
• 5. Thérèse
• 6. Denise
• 7. The Fall
• 8. Effects of a Hospital Stay
• 9. The Bal Mabille
• 10. A ‘‘Queen’s’’ Destiny
• 11. The Hippodrome
• 12. Lise’s Yellow Dress
• 13. A Chariot Race
• 14. Travel Impressions
• 15. Acts of Desperation
• 16. Lise’s Return
• 17. Dinner at the Café Anglais
• 18. Lionel
• 19. In the Country
• 20. Gust of Wind at Le Havre and Masked Ball at the Opera
• 21. Hooray for Reform!
• 22. Roulette
• 23. La Pépine
• 24. The June Insurrection
• 25. Château Life
• 26. Richard
• 27. Cholera Gives Me a Godchild
• 28. Dramatic Follies and Folies-Dramatiques
• 29. Proud Women, Passionate Men
• 30. London
• 31. Unfortunate Encounter
• 32. The Girl from the Provinces
• 33. Death Throes of a Fortune
• 34. To the Antipodes
• 35. My Law Lesson
• 36. The Variétés Theater
• 37. A Dead Woman and a Ghost
• 38. A Miner’s Diary
• 39. Let My Destiny Be Done!
• Notes
• Works by Céleste de Chabrillan