Demimondaine: The Women of Paris’s Shadow World
<p>The evening goes off with a hitch, and it’s time for the final course. Cora beams with pride as she entreats her guests to dig in. She then disappears from the dining room, only to return a few moments later, naked and splayed out on an enormous sliver platter that has been hoisted onto the shoulders of four men. She has garnished herself with parsley.</p>
<p><em>“Though they have the same origin, the same appearance and the same prejudices as women of society, they do not belong in it: they constitute the demimonde or “half-world”, a veritable floating island on the ocean of Paris, which calls to itself, welcomes, accepts, everything that falls from the mainland — not to mention those who have been shipwrecked or who come from God knows where.”</em></p>
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