Blanche Monnier was starved and held captive in filthy conditions for 25 years by her own mother… Or was she? We’re looking at the disturbing true story of what really happened to Blanche.
Read moreThe Marie Lafarge poisoning case that I wrote about last week remains a mystery to me. When I try to decide for myself whether she was guilty or innocent, I find myself going back and forth, unable to settle on
Read moreIn the summer of 1840 Marie Lafarge was the most famous woman in France. She was such a celebrity that everything she did, said and wore was reported in the press. Letters to her husband revealing the most intimate details
Read moreThey broke laws and conventions by… wearing trousers! This week’s mini post is a Mathilde de Morny-inspired list of French women who wore “men’s clothes”. Whether to it was to better express their sexuality, or give them more freedom of
Read moreShe was an aristocrat who dressed as a man and had affairs with some of the most beautiful and famous women of her day. Keeping her sexuality secret was out of the question for Mathilde de Morny but expressing it on stage was a step too far for Paris…
Read moreThere were countless thousands of sex workers in Paris during the Belle Epoque (1871 – 1914) with the vast majority living miserable hand-to-mouth existences. At the very top of the profession were a select few courtesans, or démi mondaines, who
Read moreEugénie Fougère was a well known in Paris high society of the Belle Epoque for her beauty, her lovers and her jewels. She was a demi-mondaine, a woman living outside society’s laws, hated as much as she was admired. And, in an exclusive spa resort frequented by rich and famous, she would become victim of a crime that shocked France.
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