Anna Deslions

Biography

Anne Deslions (died 1873) was a French courtesan, one of the most famous demimonde courtesans during the Second Empire.[1]. She was born in poverty, and ran away from a brothel at the age of sixteen, after which she was established as a high class courtesan in Paris. One of her most known clients were Prince Napoléon Bonaparte.[2][3]

Portrait de Deslions Anna, (demi-mondaine)

Source: Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris

Notable liaisons

• Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul BONAPARTE, Prince Napoléon 1822-1891
• Lambert THIBOUST 1827-1867

In literature

She has been pointed out as the role model for the character of Nana by Émile Zola.[2][4] < Wikipedia >

Nana by Édouard Manet (1877).

Source: Wikimedia (public domain)

In food

A French potato dish, Pommes de terre Annette or < Pommes Anna >, was created and named by French chef < Adolphe Dugléré > for Anna Deslions, who frequented < Dugléré's Café Anglais (Paris) >.

Described by the Goncourt Brothers

Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, an undated drawing by Alfred Dehodencq, Harvard Art Museums.

Source: Wikimedia (public domain)

From Victorian Paris: Life in 19th century Paris. “Degrees of Prostitution.” (October 23, 2011). < link >

“April 7, 1857. “Rose [Goncourts housekeeper] has just seen in the concierge’s lodge the night-clothes—or morning-clothes if you prefer—that our neighbor La Deslions (see the post Dinner with Courtesans) sends by her maid to the house of the man to whom she is giving a night. It seems that she has a different outfit for each of her lovers in the color that he prefers. This one consists of a white satin dressing gown, quilted and pinked, with gold-embroidered slippers in the same color—a dressing gown costing between twelve and fifteen hundred francs—a nightdress in batiste trimmed with Valenciennes lace, with embroidered insertions costing three hundred francs, and a petticoat trimmed with three lace flounces at three or four hundred francs each, a total of some three thousand francs taken to any house whose master can afford her.” (For comparison, the daily wage of a maid was one franc.)

The brothers spent a dinner with her, and she then commented on her wealth with the words:

"I never aspired to be rich. When money rained on me, I hoarded it. That's all."[1]

From Victorian Paris: Life in 19th century Paris. “Dinner with Courtesans.”
(June 19, 2011) by Iva P. From the “Goncourt Journal” (Text written in 1857 see Wikipedia

June 7th - Dinner at Asseline’s with Anna Deslions, Adèle Courtois, a certain Juliette, and her sister.

Anna Deslions, Bianchi’s former mistress and the woman who ruined Lauriston: thick black hair, magnificently untidy; velvety eyes with a glance like a warm caress; a big nose but sharply defined; thin lips and a full face—the superb head of an Italian youth, touched with gold by Rembrandt.

Adèle Courtois, an old, nondescript tart boosted by Figaro.

Juliette, a little pastel-portrait with her rumpled, frizzled hair worn low on the forehead—she is mad about low foreheads—a slightly crazy La Tour, a little blonde with something of the Rosalba picture in the Louvre, Woman with Monkey, partaking of the monkey as well as the woman. And her sister, a dried-up little thing and pregnant into the bargain: looking like a big-bellied spider.

And to provide a piano accompaniment to the evening’s festivities, Quidant, a bordello jester with a thoroughly Parisian sense of humour, a ferocious irony: hoarse-voiced, mealy-mouthed, red-faced, and slit-eyed.

The ladies were all wearing long white dresses, with hundreds of frills and furbelows, cut very low at the back in the shape of a triangle. The conversation at first turned on the Emperor’s mistresses. Juliette said:

“Giraud is doing my portrait, and this year he is painting Mme de Castiglione.”

“No, she’s finished,” said Adèle. “I have that on good authority. It’s La Serrano now. La Castiglione and the Empress have quarrelled. … You know the witty thing Constance said? ‘If I resisted the Emperor, I should have been Empress.’”

Juliette was in a crazy mood, bursting in a nervous laughter without rhyme or reason, and talking with the spirited irony of a professional actress. Some name was mentioned and Deslions said to Juliette:

“You know, that man you were madly in love with and for whom you committed suicide.”

“Oh, I’ve committed suicide three times.”

“You know whom I mean. What’s – his – name . . .”

Juliette put her hand over her eyes like someone peering into the distance, and screwed up her eyes to see if she could not recognize the gentleman in question coming along the highroad of her memories. Then she burst out laughing and said:

“It reminds me of the Scala at Milan. There was a gentleman there who kept bowing to me over and over again. And I said to myself ‘I know that mouth.’ All I could remember was the mouth!”

“Do you remember”, asked Deslions, “When we went out in that filthy weather to see the place where Gérard de Nerval hanged himself?”

“Yes, and I even believe it was you who paid for the cab. I touched the bar; it was that that brought me luck. You know, Adèle, it was the week after that. . .”

After dinner Quidant did an imitation on the piano of that thrill of cuckoo with one note missing. The ladies started waltzing, the blonde and the brunette, Juliette and Anna, dancing together, all white in a room lined in red rep. With a playful air, Juliette caught Anna’s necklace between her teeth and bit a magnificent black pearl hanging from the end of it. But the pearl was genuine and did not break.

In the midst of this merriment, there was an icy chill, an instinctive hostility between women, who would draw in their claws as soon as someone bared her teeth. Now and then all the women would start talking Javanese, following every syllable with a va. Prisons have got slang; brothels have got Javanese. They talk it very fast and it is unintelligible to a man.

Anne Deslions

Source: Wikimedia (public domain)

In records

She died poor of smallpox.

Anna DESLIONS In France, Church Burials and Civil Deaths < link >

References

1. Swedish Wikipedia cites
   1. Granström, Alvar, Kvinnor och krinoliner: en mode- och sedeskildring från krinolinmodets tid, Carlsson, Stockholm, 1990
2. English Wikipedia cites
   1. Granström, Alvar, Kvinnor och krinoliner: en mode- och sedeskildring från krinolinmodets tid, Carlsson, Stockholm, 1990
   2. Branda, Pierre (2021-01-07). La saga des Bonaparte (in French). Place des éditeurs. ISBN 978-2-262-09481-2.
   3. Marwick, Arthur (2007-06-21). A History of Human Beauty. A&C Black. ISBN 978-0-8264-3945-1.
   4. Granström, Alvar, Kvinnor och krinoliner: en mode- och sedeskildring från krinolinmodets tid, Carlsson, Stockholm, 1990
3. French Wikipedia cites
   1. « Généalogie de Anna DESLIONS » [archive], sur Geneanet (consulté le 12 mai 2023) < link >
   2. Revenir plus haut en : a et b (en) Arthur Marwick, A History of Human Beauty, A&C Black, 21 juin 2007 (ISBN 978-0-8264-3945-1, lire en ligne [archive])
   3. Revenir plus haut en : a et b Catherine Authier, Femmes d'exception, femmes d'influence: Une histoire des courtisanes au XIXe siècle, Armand Colin, 7 octobre 2015 (ISBN 978-2-200-61292-4, lire en ligne [archive])
   4. Revenir plus haut en : a et b Pierre Branda, La saga des Bonaparte, Place des éditeurs, 7 janvier 2021 (ISBN 978-2-262-09481-2, lire en ligne [archive])
   5. Xavier Marmier, Journal, 1848-1890: etablissement du texte : presentation et notes de Eldon Kaye, Librairie Droz, 1968 (ISBN 978-2-600-03487-6, lire en ligne [archive])
   6. « Edmond de Goncourt | Éditions Sillage » [archive], sur editions-sillage.fr (consulté le 20 juillet 2022)
   7. Jeannine Guichardet, Balzac, "archéologue de Paris", Slatkine, 1999 (ISBN 978-2-05-101645-2, lire en ligne [archive])
   8. Charles Virmaître, Paris-galant, Genonceaux, 1890 (lire en ligne [archive])
   9. « Les Pommes Anna » [archive], L'Œuvre, 27 décembre 1928 (consulté le 13 novembre 2019)
   10. Granström, Alvar, Kvinnor och krinoliner: en mode- och sedeskildring från krinolinmodets tid, Carlsson, Stockholm, 1990
4. Anna Deslions. French courtesan during the Second Empire. Ca. 1860. (Photo by adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images). < link >
5. “The COURTISANES, the "unsubmissive" second Empire.” < link >