One day, the 19th century courtesan Esther Guimond was traveling through Naples when she was stopped for a routine examination of her passport. When asked her profession, she quietly and discreetly told the official that she was a woman of independent means. Seeing the puzzled look on the official’s face, she exasperatedly declared, “Courtesan! Take care to remember it!”. Then, perhaps feeling somewhat liberated by this word coming out of her own mouth, she told him audaciously to “go and tell that Englishman over there.” On her death certificate of 1845, Harriette Wilson, the famous British Regency courtesan and mistress of significant and very public men such as Major-General William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven,  and statesman Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, is discreetly described as a “woman of independent means.”

Read more about Ancient Courtesans in the blog.