What wine, what drug, what philtre known of man / Will drown this ancient foe, / Ruthless and ravenous as a courtesan, / Sure as an ant, and slow?

In the notes he wrote for Nana, his novel about a courtesan in Second Empire Paris, Zola imagined ‘a whole society hurling itself’ at her body, ‘a pack of hounds after a bitch, who is not even on heat and makes fun of the hounds following her’. This might also describe the life of Harriette Wilson, whose unguarded pursuit by the leaders of the British aristocracy, the army, the government and opposition made her the most desired, and then the most dangerous, woman in Regency London.

Courtesan

Meaning

Noun

Origin

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