20 slightly sulphurous portraits besides of those which one called the demi-mondaines or even the beautiful elongated ones. Spies, journalists, dancers, actresses, they have in common to have been daughters of the people and to have climbed the social ladder. They launch fashions, are of all events. They are beautiful, they have wit, we even wonder if they are not the ancestors of influencers. Because what they often provoked was a scent of scandal that made people talk about them… They wanted to get closer to crowned heads, popular personalities and especially men who have money.
They will weigh on the condition of women, because before the hour, they were free and freed in the middle of the 19th century in the midst of the industrial revolution. They chose to leave as winners when they were born girls and not in the right environment. You can tell, they were all fighters.
In an era that was already changing, in Paris especially with the Belle Epoque and the Second Empire, we will discover Liane de Pougy, Mata Hari, the beautiful Otero, Cora Pearl and many others.
The two authors, Judith Spinoza and Raphaël Turcat have divided them into several categories: superstars, gray eminences, muses, subversives and feminists. What is pleasant is that we hold in our hands a true historical document.
Unfortunately, like comets, their fates are often tragic and their success as dazzling as it is brief. But we can say that these “marginal” women have succeeded in changing the lines of a society that was frozen. The authors tell us: “By serving their cause they served the cause“. For example, they were the first to understand the power of photography.
So without judging them but by getting to know them, this book will enlighten us on a lot of things and in particular on the art of the strategist. “The heroines of pleasure” is at Flammarion.