Author’s Note
153 Words
Author’s NoteAlthough Wiedenstein is a fictitious country the details about Paris during the Second Empire are correct.
The word demi-mondaine was coined by Dumas to describe the world of the déclassés – a world which began where the legal wife ends and finishes where the mistress begins.
In a play by Barrière one of the characters says, “ it is neither the aristocracy nor the bourgeoisie, but it floats on the ocean of Paris”.
There were a dozen courtesans, the Queens of their profession who were known as le garde. Each woman considered her beauty her capital and made it pay fantastic dividends. La Païva, born in a Moscow ghetto, wore two million francs worth of diamonds, pearls and precious stones and was called the “ great debauchée of the century”
In March 1871, one year later than this novel, when the Prussians entered Paris, La Païva’s lover Prince Henchel von Donnersmarch in full uniform watched his compatriots march past.
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