Cocotte (prostitute)

This article is about French prostitutes. For other uses, see Cocotte (disambiguation).

Une cocotte by Bertall from The comedy of our time: studies in pencil and pen, Plon, Paris, vol. 2, 1875.

Cocottes (or coquettes) were high class prostitutes (courtesans) in France during the Second Empire and the Belle Époque.[1] They were also known as demimondaines and grandes horizontales.[2] Cocotte was originally a term of endearment for small children, but was used as a term for elegant prostitutes from the 1860s.[3] The term was also used in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany from the turn of the 20th century (Kokotte).[4]

  1. ^ Rudorff, Raymond. "Courtesans and Prostitutes". www.indiana.edu. Archived from the original on 17 February 2019. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
  2. ^ Rounding 2004, p. 352.
  3. ^ Smith 2014, p. 11.
  4. ^ Smith 2014, pp. 2, 13.