Demi-monde is a French 19th-century term referring to women on the fringes of respectable society, and specifically to courtesans supported by wealthy lovers.[1] The term is French for "half-world", and derives from an 1855 play called Le Demi-Monde, by Alexandre Dumas fils,[2] dealing with the way that prostitution at that time threatened the institution of marriage. The demi-monde was the world occupied by elite men and the women who entertained them and whom they kept.
Demimondaine became a synonym for a courtesan or a prostitute who moved in these circles—or for a woman of social standing with the power to thumb her nose at convention and throw herself into the hedonistic nightlife. A woman who made that choice would soon find her social status lost, as she became "déclassée".
For the men, the high life of the demimonde was isolated from the other world of wives and families and duties (if any). It embraced heavy drinking and other drug use, gambling, attending the theatre and ballet and horse races, the pursuit of high fashion in every aspect of life, and sexual promiscuity. Lavish spending led to indebtedness; promiscuity, in the worst scenario, led to disease.
Historically, the height of the demimonde was encapsulated by the period known in France as La Belle Époque (1871–1914), from the end of the Franco-Prussian War to the beginning of World War I.
The twentieth century brought the rise of the New Woman, changing economies and social structures, as well as changing fashions and social mores, particularly in the aftermath of World War I. Prostitution and the keeping of mistresses did not disappear, but the label demimondaine became obsolete as the 'half-world' changed.
Women called demimondaine
Externally, the defining aspects of the demimonde were an extravagant lifestyle of fine food and clothes, often surpassing that of other wealthy women of their day with a steady income of cash and gifts from their various lovers. Internally, their lifestyle was an eclectic mixture of sharp business acumen, social skills, and hedonism. Intelligent demimondaines, like the fictional Gigi's grandmother, would invest their wealth for the day when their beauty faded. Others ended up penniless and starving when age took its toll on their beauty, unless they managed to marry.
A famous beauty was Virginia Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione, who came to Paris in the 1850s with very little money of her own and soon became mistress of Napoleon III; after that relationship ended she moved on to other wealthy men in government, finance and European royalty. She was one of the most aristocratic and exclusive of the demimondaines—reputed to have charged a member of the British aristocracy one million francs for 12 hours in her company.
Another woman who doubtless influenced later images of the demimondaine was the dancer and adventuress Lola Montez, though she died before the term came into general use.
The actress Sarah Bernhardt was the illegitimate child of a courtesan; in her day all actresses were generally considered demimondaines. Her many lovers and extravagant lifestyle fit the type, though her genuine successes as an artist and innovator eventually gained her a kind of public esteem most demimondaines never achieved.
Marguerite Steinheil, from the Japy family, a powerful dynasty of French industrialists, married minor Academic art painter Adolphe Steinheil in 1890. She acted as her husband's model for some time, but aspired to a more intense and moneyed existence, and opened a salon in their villa at 6 bis, Impasse Ronsin, close to Montparnasse, which was soon frequented by all of Paris. Combining ambition and temperament, her status as the archetypal demimondaine rose as she conducted affairs with some of the most influential and generous men in the country. Marguerite, always concerned about her husband's career, obtained artistic commissions for him from her protectors, which helped Adolphe accept his marital misfortunes.
Marguerite's affair with the President of the Republic, Félix Faure, won Adolphe an official commission for a monumental painting representing The Presentation of Decorations by the President of the Republic to the Survivors of the Disaster of the Fort de la Redoute Ruinée (August 8, 1897), which was exhibited at the Salon des artistes of 1898. Adolphe was also awarded the Legion of Honor cross the same year. Félix Faure is alleged to have suddenly died from a stroke whilst receiving sexual favours from Marguerite at the Élysée Palace. This part of her life has been fictionalised in the TV series Paris Police 1900.
Fictional demimondaines
Descriptions of the demimonde can be found in Vanity Fair (1848), a novel which satirizes nineteenth century society, written by William Makepeace Thackeray. Although it does not mention the terms demimonde and demimondaine (they were coined later), the terms were later used by reviewers and other authors in reference to three characters in it.[citation needed] Lady Crackenbury and Mrs. Washington White are demimonde characters, both of whom Captain Rawdon Crawley lusts after in his younger days. Becky Sharp is perceived as a demimondaine before she is presented at court, and then becomes one when she travels through Europe after her husband abandons her.
Possibly the most famous portrayal of the demimonde, albeit from before the word was coined, is in Giuseppe Verdi's opera La traviata (1853). The opera, in turn, was inspired by Alexandre Dumas fils's La Dame aux Camélias; Marguerite Gautier, the heroine of the book and subsequent play, was based on Marie Duplessis, 1840s Paris courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent men, including Dumas.[3] She would famously be portrayed on stage by the aforementioned Sarah Bernhardt.
In writing his 1924 play Easy Virtue, Noël Coward stated his object was to present a comedy in the structure of a tragedy "to compare the déclassée woman of to-day with the more flamboyant demi-mondaine of the 1890s."
Colette's Gigi (1944), and its 1958 film adaptation, also describe the demimonde and their lifestyle. Gigi is schooled from childhood to be a kept woman, to stifle her feelings in return for a life of ease. "We never marry in our family", says Gigi's grand-mother. But Gigi finds herself a misfit in the demimonde of Paris in the 'Gay Nineties', as she desires true love with only one man.
In A Little Night Music (1973, Stephen Sondheim), the main female character, Desiree Armfeldt, is an actress whose mother, Madame Leonora Armfeldt, sings a song, Liaisons, which describes the material benefits of being a serially kept woman. For example, "At the villa of the Baron De Signac, Where I spent a somewhat infamous year, At the villa of the Baron De Signac—I had ladies in attendance—Fire-opal pendants." And: "At the palace of the Duke of Ferrara, Who was prematurely deaf but a dear, At the palace of the Duke of Ferrara—I acquired some position—Plus a tiny Titian."
In Henryk Sienkiewicz's Without Dogma (1891), the term "demimonde" refers to the affluent, pleasure-seeking portion of society, unbound by morals, religion or tradition, and is loosely analogous to the "jet set" of modern times.
In Marcel Proust's Swann's Way (1913), Odette de Crécy is described as a demimondaine.[4]
Françoise Sagan, in her novel Bonjour Tristesse (1954), uses the term demimondaine to refer to the character Elsa, a young, stunningly attractive woman who leverages her appearance into support by wealthy men, which allows her entrance into the social world of the upper classes.
The high society men in Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor's novella The Old Forest (from the story collection of the same name, 1985) use demimonde to refer to a group of "adventurous" and intelligent young women in 1937 Memphis, Tennessee; in the story, it is common for the men to continue courting such "demimondames" right up until the time they are married to high society women.
In Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (1990s), the term demimonde refers to a semi-tolerated, "off the net" society of commerce and education.
In his ‘’Rivers of London’’ series, author Ben Aaronovitch repeatedly uses the term demi-monde to refer to a societal underworld where supernatural and faerie peoples mingle.
The English-language title of the Hungarian feature film Félvilág is Demimonde.
The Showtime series Penny Dreadful recasts the demimonde as a spiritual dimension. It is also the title of the fourth episode of the first season.
A courtesan is a prostitute with a courtly, wealthy, or upper-class clientele. Historically, the term referred to a courtier, a person who attended the court of a monarch or other powerful person.
Alexandre Dumas fils was a French author and playwright, best known for the romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias, published in 1848, which was adapted into Giuseppe Verdi's 1853 opera La traviata, as well as numerous stage and film productions, usually titled Camille in English-language versions.
Marguerite Jeanne "Meg" Japy Steinheil, Baroness Abinger was a French woman known for her many love affairs with important men. She was present at the death of President Félix Faure, who was rumoured to have died after having a seizure while allegedly having sex with her. She was later tried for the murders of her husband and mother, but was acquitted.
Marie Duplessis was a French courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent and wealthy men. She was the inspiration for Marguerite Gautier, the main character of the 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the younger, one of Duplessis' lovers. Much of what is known about her has been derived from the literary persona and contemporary legends.
Grace Dalrymple Elliott was a Scottish courtesan, writer and spy resident in Paris during the French Revolution. She was an eyewitness to events detailed in her memoirs, Journal of my life during the French Revolution published posthumously in 1859. She was mistress to the Duke of Orléans and to the future George IV, by whom she is said to have borne an illegitimate daughter. Elliott trafficked correspondence and hid French aristocrats escaping from the French Revolution. She was arrested several times but managed to avoid the guillotine, and was released after the death of Robespierre.
The Lady of the Camellias, sometimes called Camille in English, is a novel by Alexandre Dumas fils. First published in 1848 and subsequently adapted by Dumas for the stage, the play premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France, on February 2, 1852. It was an instant success. Shortly thereafter, Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi set about putting the story to music in the 1853 opera La traviata, with female protagonist Marguerite Gautier renamed Violetta Valéry.
Gigi is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn. Costume design was done by Cecil Beaton.
Liane de Pougy, TOSD, was a Folies Bergère vedette and dancer renowned as one of Paris's most beautiful and notorious courtesans. Later in life, she also became a Dominican tertiary.
Camille is a 1921 American silent drama film starring Alla Nazimova as Marguerite and Rudolph Valentino as her lover, Armand. It is based on the play adaptation La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, which was first published in French as a novel in 1848 and as a play in 1852. Camille is one of numerous screen adaptations of Dumas, fils' story. The film is set in 1920s Paris, whereas the original version takes place in Paris in the 1840s. It has lavish Art Deco sets; Rudolph Valentino later married the film's art director, Natacha Rambova.
A mistress is a woman who is in a relatively long-term sexual and romantic relationship with someone who is married to a different person.
Camille is a 1936 American romantic drama film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer directed by George Cukor, and produced by Irving Thalberg and Bernard H. Hyman, from a screenplay by James Hilton, Zoë Akins, and Frances Marion. The picture is based on the 1848 novel and 1852 play La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The film stars Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Jessie Ralph, Henry Daniell, and Laura Hope Crews. It grossed $2,842,000.
Camille is a 1984 television film based on the 1848 novel and play La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. It was adapted by Blanche Hanalis and directed by Desmond Davis. It stars Greta Scacchi, Colin Firth, John Gielgud, Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Ryecart, Denholm Elliott and Ben Kingsley.
Esther Lachmann was the most famous of the 19th-century French courtesans. A notable investor and architecture patron, and a collector of jewels, she had a personality so hard-bitten that she was described as the "one great courtesan who appears to have had no redeeming feature". Count Horace de Viel-Castel, a society chronicler, called her "the queen of kept women, the sovereign of her race".
Marguerite and Armand is a ballet danced to an orchestral arrangement of Franz Liszt's B minor piano sonata. It was created in 1963 by the British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton specifically for Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn. The ballet takes its inspiration from the 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, and other adaptations of the same story such as Giuseppe Verdi's 1853 opera La traviata.
The Lady of the Camellias is a 1981 French-Italian drama film directed by Mauro Bolognini and starring Isabelle Huppert. It tells the actual story of Alphonsine Plessis, who became a famous courtesan in Paris and the inspiration for the novel La Dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, which has in turn become the source for many plays, operas, ballets, and films.
Justine Paris, real name Bienfait, was a French courtesan and madam. She hosted several of the most famous brothels in mid-18th-century Paris and was one of the most known and successful of her trade. She and her brothel are portrayed in the memoirs of Casanova. She has been suggested to be the role model for the title character in Juliette by the Marquis de Sade.
Émilie-Louise Delabigne, known as countess Valtesse de La Bigne was a French courtesan and demi-mondaine. Although born to a working-class family in Paris, she rose through the social ranks and was a supporter of painters, while creating a space for women to participate in the art world through her collecting and Salon.
A Lorette is a type of 19th-century French prostitute. They stood between the kept women (courtesans) and the grisettes. A grisette had other employment and worked part-time as a prostitute whereas a Lorette supported herself exclusively from prostitution. The lorette shared her favours among several lovers; the Lorette's "Arthurs", as they called them, were not financially able or too fickle to have exclusivity.
Cocottes were high class prostitutes (courtesans) in France during the Second Empire and the Belle Époque. They were also known as demimondaines and grandes horizontales. Cocotte was originally a term of endearment for small children, but was used as a term for elegant prostitutes from the 1860s. The term was also used in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany from the turn of the 20th century (Kokotte).
References
↑ "Demimonde, n."Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 30 December 2023.
William Blatchford (editor) (1983), The Memoirs of Cora Pearl: The Erotic Reminiscences of a Flamboyant 19th Century Courtesan. London; New York: Granada. ISBN0-246-11915-2.
Katie Hickman (2003), Courtesans: Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Century . New York: Morrow. ISBN0-06-620955-2.
Joanna Richardson (1967), The Courtesans: The Demi-monde in 19th Century France. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
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