Courtesan and Countess : The Lost and Found Memoirs of the French Consul's Wife

C leste de Chabrillan, former courtesan and widow of the first French Consul to Melbourne, became the most prolific female stage writer in nineteenth-century France. Forever haunted by her scandalous past, C leste fought to hold her place in an artistic world dominated by men. Courtesan and Countess tells the story not only of her struggle as a creative artist to survive and earn a living, but also of her fascinating life at the centre of the bohemian circles of Paris, surrounded by friends such as Alexandre Dumas p re, Georges Bizet and Prince Napol on. Courtesan and Countess paints a portrait of a remarkable woman and of the turbulent world of Paris during the Belle Epoque. Lost for more than eighty years until discovered by the authors in the attic of a French country manor, these are the unpublished and final set of memoirs from C leste de Chabrillan.