Books: Confessions of a Courtesan

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The closest Harriette ever came to respectability was when the Marquis of Worcester wanted to marry her. Though she paints a picture of the docile marquis lacing her stays and leaping from bed to make her breakfast toast, their domesticity was never formalized in marriage. The tart tone of her Memoirs suggests the likeliest reason why this handsome huntress finally bagged neither title nor fortune. All through her coquetting career she made enemies with her runaway wit. Though a rival says that Harriette and her publisher "fingered £10,000 of the public's money" as a consequence of her last gabby indiscretions, the fact is that Harriette finally married a bogus colonel and died poor, all assets gone.

* Ponsonby later became an ambassador famed for his imperturbable manners, tact, and quick, cool wit. Once, when the Sultan of Turkey felt that the diplomatic corps, headed by Ponsonby, did not show sufficient humility and awe when entering the royal presence, he caused a very low door to be built so that the diplomats would have to crawl to enter the Hall of Audience. His lordship, confronted with the new door, turned immediately and crawled through backward, presenting a splendid expanse of white satin breeches to the waiting Sultan and his viziers.

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