The tale of the ‘Three Graces’, the life story of a real 19th Century courtesan continues

As I told you last week, Lord Lorne was not entirely devoted to Harriette, and perhaps it was his lack of complete devotion which inspired Harriette to raise her game, or maybe it was simply that she had his money to spend now. But whatever inspired and enabled it, Harriette began to increase the circles she moved in and opened up a shop window for her beauty.

Now, for those joining my blog this week, here’s a quick snapshot of Harriette’s history. For anyone who’s already read this, pick the blog up at the end of the italics.

In 1825 Harriette Wilson, a courtesan, published a series of stories as her memoirs in a British broad sheet paper. The Regency gentleman’s clubs were a buzz, waiting to see the next names mentioned each week. While barriers had to be set up outside the shop of her publisher, Stockdale, to hold back the disapproving mob.

Harriette was born Harriette Debochet, she chose the name Harriette Wilson as her professional name, in the same way Emma Hart, who I’ve blogged about previously, had changed her name. Unlike Emma, it isn’t known why or when Harriette changed her name.

She was one of nine surviving children. Her father was a watchmaker and her mother a stocking repairer, and both were believed to be from illegitimate origin.

Three of Harriette’s sisters also became courtesans. Amy, Fanny and Sophia (who I have written about before). So the tales I am about to begin in my blogs will include some elements from their lives too.

For a start you’ll need to understand the world of the 19^th Century Courtesan. It was all about show and not just about sex. The idle rich of the upper class aspired to spending time in the company of courtesans, it was fashionable, the thing to do.

You were envied if you were linked to one of the most popular courtesans or you discovered a new unknown beauty to be admired by others.

Courtesans were also part of the competitive nature of the regency period too, gambling was a large element of the life of the idle rich and courtesans were won and lost and bartered and fought for.

So courtesans obviously aspired to be one of the most popular, and to achieve it they learnt how to play music, read widely, so they could debate, and tried to shine in personality too. They wanted to be a favoured ’original’.

The eccentric and outspoken was admired by gentlemen who liked to consort with boxers and jockeys, and coachmen, so courtesans did not aim for placid but were quite happy to insult and mock men who courted them, and demand money for any small favour.

Harriette says her eldest sister, Amy, was the one who led them all astray. She tells the tale that Amy left home, met a man, and then became his mistress the next day. This man then paid for Amy to return to school and become educated but, while there, Amy ran away with another lover. Amy and Harriette did not get along. But Harriette did visit her when she lived with her lovers even before Harriette had left home. Perhaps Harriett learnt her tricks from Amy.

Fanny was also an ill-example, another of Harriette’s older sisters, and one who Harriette was very close to. Fanny also left home to live with a man but would have married her first lover whom she had three children with, if his wife had not refused to divorce him. Then he died.

But whichever one of Harritte’s sisters inspired her to adopt the life of courtesan, when Harriette was settled in London, and now had Lord Lorne’s money to spend, her sister Fanny and her friend Julia, whom she’d met when she was with her former lover, for company, Harriette realised new heights.

Harriette, Fanny and Julia regularly went about together and they hired an opera box to share for the season. Of course the box meant they might show themselves off to society. It was their shop window, to offer their wares – beauty, conversation and perhaps more.

Harriette’s older sister Amy had her own box near theirs, where she courted her own set of admirers. (Perhaps where Harriette got the idea from). Knowing Harriette through her writing, I bet she loved setting up in competition to the sister she disliked.

At the opera Harriette says she learnt to become a complete flirt. And her implication is that this increased flirtation was inspired by Lord Lorne. When she went to the opera she frequently sat facing him as he occupied a box with his married mistress, leaving his employed one across the room.

Harriette declares that she would purposefully look tenderly towards other men, hinting at seeking to make Lorne jealous. She even says one day when she was with Fanny and Julia and met Lord Lorne in the park she gave him a note, which he slipped in his pocket, thinking it a love note to him, but then Harriette asked him to put in the post. It was addressed to another man she had been at the opera with the night before – that girl had such a sense of humour and a great wicked streak :-).

I love the life Harriette describes when they entertained in her theatre box. It must have been constant banter and laughing as it filled up with the elite men of London Society. She speaks of one evening when she could only let a man in when one left because her box became so full. When Julia and Fanny went to visit the enemy, as one of the men called Harriette’s sister Amy, one of her frequent visitors opened the door and says ‘room for two?’ as he brought in a friend.

William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, known as ‘Hart’

She speaks of the Duke of Devonshire visiting her box too. This was Hart, the son of Georgiana, the Duchess whose story was told in the film. He was also the cousin of Lady Caroline Lamb . He was profoundly deaf and Harriette doesn’t like him and I hate to say it, was a bit mean to him, hinting that he should go and make room for someone she did like.

She mentions men telling her Lord Lorne was looking, from Lady W’s box. Which she loved to hear but refused to acknowledge.

Then she tells us that in the refreshment room Lord Lorne would pass her and whisper in her ear, to ask if she was not going to go home now. Presumably Refusing to be ordered Harriette would tell him, no, and say she would be out another three hours if she was going to one of Amy’s parties. At which Lord Lorne would simply ask if he might visit her in three hours then, to come to her bed. (Let’s remember, he was funding her lifestyle – so she was playing very close the edge).

Harriette describes one of Amy’s parties, saying there were men in the passage, in the parlour and in the drawing-room where Amy sat entertaining three Russians, you could scarcely breathe.

Beau Brummell

So now when Harriette speaks of men she is not talking of one or two but twenty, and she is mixing with men at the very peak of English society in 1800’s. She speaks of a conversation with Beau Brummell, friend of the Prince Regent and the man half of English Society looked up to at the time, and Brummell whispering to her to tease another gentleman and keep him dangling so she might laugh at him.

But all this time Harriette was enjoying herself and seeking to inspire jealousy in Lord Lorne, neglecting the man who was keeping her, Amy who had no constant engagement was angling to win that man for herself…

The story continues next week 🙂

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Another chapter in my Harriette Wilson series; the true story of a Regency courtesan

Last week we left Harriette at the point she commenced a new engagement, with Lord Lorne, the future 8^th Duke of Argyll.

She was not happy to discover that alongside keeping her as his mistress, he was also undertaking a long-standing intrigue (affair) with a married woman, Lady W.

But before I begin this story, let me do a quick recap of the background, for anyone joining the story today. Skip to the end of this block of italics if you’ve already read it.

She was one of nine surviving children. Her father was a watchmaker and her mother a stocking repairer, and both were believed to be from illegitimate origin.

You were envied if you were linked to one of the most popular courtesans or you discovered a new unknown beauty to be admired by others.

Lord Lorne, who became 8th Duke of Argyll

Harriette’s description of sharing Lord Lorne’s attentions was ‘all this was a dead bore’.

I said in one of my early blogs, what comes across in Harriette’s memoirs, is that she is a woman who craves attention, she wants to be flattered and adored.

So taking second place to a long-time favourite in a gentleman’s heart wasn’t something I imagine Harriette enjoyed. But needs must, she needed a house and food, and wanted a good life. She had that with Lord Lorne, so she wasn’t just going to give up and walk away without a fight.

One night when Lord Lorne returned wearing his lover’s rose, Harriette plucked the rose from his breast and threw it aside.

Another time she hid the chain he wore which she imagined this woman had given to him.

Lord Lorne was blind to the fact these actions were deliberate, and Harriette says, ‘for who with pride, and youth, and beauty, would admit they were jealous?’

One night, when Harriette was with him in his town house, and as she said, ‘he really seemed passionately fond of me’, Harriette describes a sudden awareness of the fact that ‘this’ was being shared and he must be just as passionate with the other woman.

She couldn’t stand that. She left Lord Lorne in bed declaring she was going home, at three in the morning on a cold December night.

Blind, or rather unobservant, Lord Lorne believed Harriette was sleep walking. I wonder then if what she doesn’t describe is that she had been laying there in the dark stewing on thoughts of his other lover and not knowing how to break that agreement, and then decided she’d had enough.

She told Lord Loren she didn’t wish to stay with him or sleep with him anymore, and then burst into tears.

Now Lord Lorne realises something is wrong, and asks what he has done to upset her.

Harriette still did not speak of jealously, but merely continued dressing and told him to leave her alone, and cease his pretence of tenderness.

Lord Lorne then pleaded for Harriette to tell him what was wrong, and expressed his fear she might no longer love him, or feel disgust for his attentions. (Clearly, like Harriette, he wants to be wanted).

When Harriette reached for the door handle she tells us he snatched her hand from it, pushed her away and then locked her in. Then he held her against him violently so as not to let her go.

Harreitte starts to think twice.

His anger shows an enthusiasm Harriette loves.

Then she says, he cried.

Well, Harriette is immediately won over and their argument made up, ‘on the spot’.

I think in Harriette’s form of 19^th Century declaration meaning, they didn’t return to the bed.

This is why I love reading letters and memoirs, because you gather far more facts of the actual way people lived and what they felt, rather than just what did and didn’t happen in history.

Next week I’ll talk about how Harriette, her friend, Julia, and her sister, Fanny, became known in London High Society as the ‘Three Graces’.

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.