'Skittles' the Victorian courtesan.

 

Catherine Walters - Skittles

Life for most Victorian prostitutes was pretty dismal and often dangerous, but the courtesans weren't cheap tarts. They were not only known for their good looks and style and sexual abilities, but also their erudition, charm, social skills and artistic abilities.

Esther Lachmann (La Paiva), was known as 'The Queen of the kept women'. Another Parisian courtesan, Marguerite Marie Albert (1890-1971), also known as Maggie Meller, had an affair with the Prince of Wales from 1917 to 1918. He later became Edward VIII. The French President, Felix Faure, was said to have died of a heart attack when he was being given oral sex by the Parisian courtesan Meg Steinheil (later Baroness Abinger). The French nicknamed her 'Deadly Lips', but this could also be because she may have been a police informer. She died in a nursing home in Hove, Sussex, in July 1954.

The English courtesan, Catherine Walters, also known as 'Skittles', had been born in Toxteth in Liverpool and was considered a trendsetter for fashion and style and a fine equestrian who rode with the Leicestershire hunt. She became the mistress of Spencer Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington and lived in Mayfair. Catherine Walters had also lived in Paris under the patronage of Achille Fould, Finance Minister to Napoleon III.

Another celebrity Parisian courtesan, was the English woman known as Cora Pearl, born Eliza Emma Crouch in Plymouth in December 1836.