La Païva
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Esther Lachmann, later Pauline Thérèse Lachmann, later Mme Villoing, later Mme la Marquise de Païva, later Countess Henckel von Donnersmarck, (7 May 1819-21 January 1884) was the most successful of 19th century French courtesans.
She was born of Jewish parents of Polish ancestry in the Moscow ghetto, where Martin Lachmann, a weaver, and his wife Anna Amalie Klein had taken refuge. On 11 August 1836, aged seventeen, she married Antoine Villoing, a tailor. Together they had one son, and then Esther fled the marriage, and took up residence in the slums of Paris, near the Eglise Saint-Paul, assuming the name Thérèse, and set about trying to find a rich suitor. She found one in Henri Herz, a pianist, and became his mistress, gaining entry into artistic, though not aristocratic, society. It was said that they married in London, but it is not clear that this actually occurred - in any case, such a marriage would have been bigamous. By him she had a daughter. Richard Wagner, Hans von Bülow, Théophile Gautier, and Emile de Girardin attended her salon. Thérèse's spending nearly ruined Herz's finances, and he traveled to America in 1848 to pursue business opportunities. While he was away, her spending continued, and Herz's family turned Thérèse out of the house in frustration. She took up residence at the hôtel Valin. One of her friends, Esther Guimond, took her to a milliner, Carnille, who advised her to go to London, with an arsenal of couture, to seek her fortune. At Covent Garden, Thérèse captured the attentions of Lord Stanley.
She returned to Paris, and from there to the spa at Baden, where she met a Portuguese marquis, Albino Francesco de Païva-Araujo. Her first husband had died of consumption, so she was free to marry the marquis on 5 June 1851, acquiring a fortune, a title, and her nickname, La Païva. The day following, Horace de Viel-Castel wrote, she told her husband, "You wanted to sleep with me, and you've done so, by making me your wife. You have given me your name, I acquitted myself last night. I have behaved like an honest woman, I wanted a position, and I've got it, but all you have is a prostitute for a wife. You can't take me anywhere, and you can't introduce me to anyone. We must therefore separate. You go back to Portugal. I shall stay here with your name, and remain a whore." And, indeed, the marquis returned to Portugal, leaving her behind. The marriage was not annulled until 16 August 1871, and the marquis shot himself in 1872.
Her next conquest was Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck, a Prussian count. She married him on 28 October 1871. With his money, she erected the most elegant hôtel in Paris, in the Champs-Elysees, designed by Pierre Mauguin. Viel-Castel says she routinely wore two million francs of diamonds, pearls and other gems. The hôtel Païva became a symbol of the Second Empire, an exemplar of the taste of the time.
She and her husband were exiled from France on suspicion of espionage. She died at their castle in Neudeck on 21 January 1884, aged 65. Her body was preserved in alcohol, and kept by her husband in the castle, even after his remarriage in 1887.
[edit] References
- Joanna Richardson, The Courtesans: The Demi-Monde in 19th-Century France (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), pp. 50 - 66.
- Virginia Rounding, Grandes Horizontales: The Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth-Century Courtesans, Bloomsbury, 2004. ISBN 978-1582344508
