LIANE DE POUGY, was a Folies Bergère vedette and dancer renowned as one of Paris’s most beautiful and notorious courtesans, Born in 1869, she died on this date in 1950;

On her first trip to Paris as a young woman, Natalie Barney walked the fashionable streets of the city studying women while her mother was at a studio studying portrait painting. One day she saw an exquisite woman in the Bois de Boulogne, and, making inquiry, learned that the fur-cloaked beauty was Liane de Pougy, the most famous courtesan in Paris. What she learned as well, was that Liane was a Lesbian just like herself, yet sold herself to men, and at a very high price. Natalie Barney resolved on the spot that she would rescue Liane de Pougy from her “dreadful life” and make her her own. She even went to the courtesan’s house, but was turned away by the maid who informed her that Madame never rose before eleven.

Liane de Pougy, nee Anne-Marie Chassaigne, was born in La Flèche, Sarthe, France, the daughter of Pierre Blaise Eugène Chassaigne and his Spanish-French wife Aimée Lopez. She had an older brother, Pierre and was raised in a nunnery. At the age of 16, she ran off with Joseph Armand Henri Pourpe, a naval officer, whom she married after getting pregnant. The baby was named Marc Pourpe. De Pougy described herself as a terrible mother, saying, “My son was like a living doll given to a little girl.” She also admitted she would have preferred the baby to be a girl ‘because of the dresses and the curly hair’.

Deciding to leave her husband, Anne-Marie sold her rosewood piano to a young man who paid 400 francs cash for the instrument. Within an hour, she was on her way to Paris, leaving her infant son with his father, who in turn sent his son to live with the boy’s grandparents in Suez.

With the failure of her marriage, Anne-Marie began dabbling in acting and prostitution and she became a heavy user of both cocaine and opium. After moving to Paris, from her position at the Folies Pougy became a noted demimondaine, and a rival of “La Belle Otero”. She took her last name from one of her paramours, a Comte or Vicomte de Pougy, whilst other lovers included Mathilde de Morny and Émilienne d’Alençon.

Actress Sarah Bernhardt, faced with the task of teaching Liane to act, advised her that when she was on stage, it would be best to keep her “pretty mouth shut”. Liane became so well known as a performer at the Folies Bergère that the 1890s English female impersonator  Herbert Charles Pollitt referenced her in his drag name Diane de Rougy.

In the meantime, Barney received news that her father wanted her to return to America, where she was to make her debut. Undaunted, she swore that she would return someday to Paris and take Liane de Pougy, whom she had only once glimpsed, as her lover. And she did. De Pougy’s affair with Barney is recorded in her novel Idylle Saphique, published around 1901. In 1899, Barney presented herself at de Pougy’s residence in a page costume and announced that she was a “page of love” sent by Sappho.

Although de Pougy was one of the most famous women in France at the time, constantly sought after by wealthy and titled men, Barney’s audacity charmed and seduced her. The two were said to have had deep feelings for one another for the remainder of their lives.

Upon her marriage to Prince Georges Ghika in 1920 de Pougy became Princess Ghika; this marriage ended in separation, though not divorce. Her son’s death as an aviator in WWI turned her towards religion and she became a tertiary of the Order of Saint Dominic as Sister Anne-Mary. After a life as the most celebrated courtesan of la belle époque, serving both men and women, Liane de Pougy retired to a convent as Saint Mary Magdalene of Repentence. She became involved in the Asylum of Saint Agnes, devoted to the care of children with birth defects. She died at Lausanne