The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People (99 page)

Two men who ranked low on Ninon’s list of competent lovers were soldiers, the Comte de Navailles and the Duc d’Enghien. Navailles fell asleep while she was preparing for bed, so she donned his uniform and crawled under the covers with him. Navailles awakened with a start, and what followed is not known.

What is certain, however, is the fact that Ninon never again took a blond man as a lover. Enghien managed to stay awake, but in spite of his reputation as a formidable warrior, he failed her on the bedroom battlefield. Afterwards, she quoted to him a classical maxim: “A hairy man is either passionate or strong.”

Then she added, “You must be very strong.”

The Comte de Sévigné likewise rated poorly in Ninon’s estimation. She deliberately seduced him in order to aggravate his lover, an actress of whom Ninon was jealous. But the attraction was purely political, for she found the count to be “a man impossible to define … a soul of boiled beef, a body of damp paper, with a heart like a pumpkin fricasseed in snow.” Her victory won, she quickly dumped him.

A persistent but probably apocryphal story has it that a tragic incident occurred to Ninon when she was in her 60s, after she had retired from the courtesan life. She still received a few young men, the sons of close friends, and educated them in gentlemanly virtues. One of them, the son of Monsieur de Gersay, fell in love with Ninon. She had the best of reasons for discouraging his attentions; he was in fact her son. The boy was unaware of his true parentage, because Ninon had insisted that De Gersay keep it a secret. She tried to thwart the young man’s attentions by pleading advanced age. She called his passion for her “ridiculous” and sent him away. But she soon called him back, having decided to reveal the true nature of their relationship. Before she could speak, though, he began again to profess his love.

Ninon angrily protested, “This dreadful love cannot go on. Do you realize who you are and who I am?” She then told him. Taken aback, he repeated the word
mother
, went out into Ninon’s garden, and fell on his sword, killing himself.

—M.J.T.

“The Beautiful Little Thing”

VIRGINIA OLDOINI, COUNTESS DI CASTIGLIONE

(Mar. 22, 1837–Nov. 28, 1899)

HER FAME:
Regarded in the courts of Turin and Paris, and in London society, as the most beautiful woman of her time, the countess was a secret agent in France representing those who fought for the unification of Italy.

HER PERSON:
Born in Florence, Italy,

“Nicchia” Oldoini was the product of a

noble but disinterested father and an ailing

mother. She was raised amid wealth and

luxury in a Florentine palace by her grandfather, a renowned jurist and scholar

named Lamporecchi. As Nicchia matured,

it became evident to all eyes that she had

the looks of a goddess. At 18 she was chosen by her cousin, Premier Camillo Benso

di Cavour, and King Victor Emmanuel II,

of Sardinia, to represent their cause in

France. Their cause was to bring together

the small states of Italy into one nation.

But they could not do it alone. Austria controlled northern Italy. King Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour needed the help of France. And to obtain this help they sent the Countess di Castiglione to seduce Napoleon III, the emperor of France.

The countess fulfilled her mission. Her dazzling beauty made her the sensation of Paris. She was partially responsible for encouraging Napoleon’s army to go to war against the Austrians in Italy. By 1861, with the help of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy was one nation and Victor Emmanuel II was its king.

SEX LIFE:
The young Countess di Castiglione was clever and witty, but basically she was cold, arrogant, egocentric, selfish, and spoiled. Despite her endless sexual activity, she did not enjoy sex as a carnal delight. She enjoyed sex as a means of humbling men, using them.

Few men could resist her breathtaking beauty. She had rich brown hair, slant-ed blue eyes, parted lips (“like an opening crimson flower”), a dimpled chin, a perfect body (“faultless in its symmetry”). Attending balls at the Empress Eugénie’s prim crinoline court and elsewhere, the countess used her state of undress as a lure.

At a ball given by the Count Walewski, France’s new foreign minister, Nicchia entered attired as the Queen of Hearts, a strip of gauze across her breasts with two hearts sewed on to hide her nipples, and a transparent skirt with a heart sewn on to cover her vaginal mound. But her pubic hair could clearly be seen, provoking Empress Eugénie to remark acidly, “Countess, your heart seems a little low.”

SEX PARTNERS:
Nicchia got off to a fast start when she was 16. Her first lover was an Italian naval officer, Marquis Ambrogio Doria. Shortly after, she took his brothers, Andrea and Marcello, to bed. About this time she started a diary, with her sexual activities kept carefully in code: “B—a kiss; BX—beyond a kiss; F—everything!” Her family was worried about
F
and decided to get her married. Just then an eligible young nobleman, searching for a bride and advised to have a look at Nicchia, showed up. He was Conte Francesco Verasis di Castiglione, an aide to King Victor Emmanuel II. Her family forced her to marry the count in January, 1854. She found him to be a weakling, and told everyone, “I am married to an imbecile.” She slept with him until they had a child, a son named George, and then she refused to share his bed again. Bored, she frittered away the count’s fortune; in fact, she put him 2 million francs in debt. By now, Premier Cavour had discovered that his cousin, the new countess, could be most useful if she were put to seducing Napoleon III. He outlined his scheme to King Victor Emmanuel II. The king had to be convinced of Nicchia’s wonders firsthand. He tried her out in bed and pronounced her satisfactory. Leaving behind her bankrupt husband and infant child, the countess was off to Paris in November, 1855. (She did not see her husband again until 12 years later, when she returned to Italy for the wedding of the king’s son. At the wedding her husband, riding his horse alongside the bridal coach, tumbled off his mount and was crushed to death by the wheels of the carriage.) Upon her first arrival in Paris, the countess was 18 years old. Invited to a fancy-dress ball at the Tuileries, she made a memorable entrance. Attired in a low-cut tight gown, she was the center of all attention. The guards, ushers, and servants all fell back to make way for her. Some male guests clambered atop tables for a sight of her. Johann Strauss, conducting a waltz, stopped the music.

Emperor Napoleon III, deep in conversation with the British ambassador, abruptly excused himself and asked her for the next dance.

After that, Louis Napoleon began to woo the countess. He presented her with a house in the Rue de la Pompe. He gave her a 100,000-franc emerald and a 442,000-franc pearl necklace. He visited her house almost nightly. The countess was flirtatious but played hard to get. After months of wooing, Louis Napoleon invited her to Compiègne, his château outside Paris. During a theatrical presentation, one evening, she excused herself to the emperor and empress, pleading a headache. Shortly after, the solicitous emperor visited her room and found her in bed wearing her most fashionable gray batiste and lace nightgown. He undressed and slipped into bed with her. Not long before, the emperor had complained to his physician that sexual intercourse no longer “contributed to his sound sleep.” But that night he slept soundly.

They made love regularly for over a year. She became known as “the woman with the cunt of imperial gold.” In court circles it was generally believed that she had presented Louis Napoleon with a son, who grew up to be the well-known Paris dentist Dr. Hugenschmidt. Gradually, as the affair progressed, the emperor’s ardor cooled. He told one friend, “She talks about herself too much. She has bandied about our relationship. She allows herself to be seen in bed by all and sundry wearing monogrammed underwear that I had sent her.” One night in 1859, an Italian tried to assassinate Louis Napoleon in her bedroom. A bodyguard saved the emperor. Days later, the Countess di Castiglione was deported from France.

Back in Italy, the countess wrote King Victor Emmanuel II, “If you want me, call me.” The king replied, “I want you.” He set her up as his mistress in the Pitti Palace in Florence and gave her a pension of 12,000 francs a year. After two years, and the intercession of French friends, Louis Napoleon allowed her to return to Paris. While no longer his official mistress, she became what he called one of his “little diversions.” This was not enough for her. She began to entertain many men in her bed. The only qualifications required: a noble birth or wealth. She slept with

the French foreign minister, Prince Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, for four years. But other lovers overlapped. A senior member of the richest family in the world, 70-year-old Baron James de Rothschild, fell in love with her. A lady friend advised her,

“Try to keep alive the passion of the old baron, maybe you will profit richly by it.

Make available ‘the beautiful little thing.”’ The countess finally had sex with the old baron, and then also made herself available to his three sons. Her most incredible coupling was with the eccentric British millionaire, the fourth Marquis of Hertford.

He wrote her: “Give me one night of love, without excluding any erotic refine-ments, in exchange for a million francs.” The price for a single night of her favors amused the countess. She accepted. She did not know that Hertford was a stallion.

Once in her bed, he made love to her nonstop the entire night. After he left, she was a wreck, unable to leave her bed for three days.

In a letter, Nicchia’s husband had once warned her, “The day will come when your fatal beauty will have disappeared and the flatterers will be rarer.”

The countess dreaded that day. At the age of 40 she took a ground-floor apartment in the Place Vendôme, shuttered the windows, covered all mirrors. She admitted no friends, no relatives, dabbled in spiritualism, and taught her pet dogs, Kasino and Sandouga, to waltz. She never went out in daylight, took her dogs walking only at night. She sat alone in her unkempt dark rooms with her memories, deluding herself into believing she was ill and impoverished. She was neither. One night she was discovered dead of cerebral apoplexy, with rats gnaw-ing at her body. At her instructions, she was buried wearing the gray batiste and lace nightgown she had worn at Compiègne the night she gave herself to the emperor, with her two pet dogs stuffed and placed at her feet in the coffin.

—I.W.

Royal Favorite

LA BELLE OTERO (Nov. 4, 1868–Apr. 10, 1965)

HER FAME:
Often called the last of the great courtesans, La Belle Otero (or Caroline Otero) was the professional name of Augustina Otero Iglesias, from Valga, a hamlet in Galician Spain. Officially she was a dancer, singer, and actress in the world’s music halls, but in reality she was mistress to some of the most famous men in the world. During her lifetime she made and lost approximately $25 million.

HER PERSON:
The illiterate daughter of the town prostitute, Otero grew up in poverty without a father. At the age of 11 she was brutally raped by the village shoe-maker, who had become excited by watching her dance. The rape left her with a broken pelvis, permanently unable to bear children. She departed Valga the next year and wandered to Barcelona, realizing, like so many young girls before her, that prostitution was the only way to survive.

When she was 14, she met a Catalan

named Paco Colli, who had been a

dancer all his life. He taught Otero the

ways of the stage—dancing, singing, acting—and performed as her pimp, since

she had to continue sleeping with men in

order to support Paco and herself. Paco

also took her to the French Riviera,

where in 1889 he decided to marry her.

She declined his proposal and instead

became a music hall star and courtesan

until she retired more than 25 years later.

During her heyday Otero was as