Cocotte (prostitute)


Cocottes were high class prostitutes in France during the Second Empire and the Belle Époque. They were also known as demi-mondes and grandes horizontales. Cocotte was originally a term of endearment for small children, but was used as a term for elegant prostitutes from the 1860s. The term was also used in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany from the turn of the 20th century.

Overview

For some women, becoming a cocotte was also a way to achieve financial comfort before settling down in marriage. Some have managed their fortune, others have died in misery, others finally, like Sarah Bernhardt, who in the beginning was a cocotte, have become adulated actresses.
For a rich man of the period, keeping a cocotte was seen as a symbol of his status and virility. Cocottes were elegant, fashionable and extravagant, the papers reported on their clothing, parties and affairs.
Several authors of the 19c wrote about cocottes, for example Émile Zola with Nana. This novel describes the life and tragic fate a street-walker who rises to become a cocotte, and whose ways lead to ruin the powerful men she meets.
Famous cocottes include Cora Pearl ; Laure Hayman . Several mansions of Paris were built for "cocottes", such as that of la Païva on the Champs-Élysées.