Lorette (prostitution)

The Lorettes: illustration by Paul Gavarni and Grandville from Le Diable à Paris.

A Lorette is a type of 19th-century French prostitute. They stood between the kept women (courtesans) and the grisettes.[1][2] A grisette had other employment and worked part-time as a prostitute whereas a Lorette supported herself exclusively from prostitution. The lorette shared her favours among several lovers; the Lorette's "Arthurs", as they called them, were not financially able or too fickle to have exclusivity.[3][4]

The lorettes evolved into coquettes under the Second French Empire and grues by the First World War.[5]

  1. ^ "La Lorette · Types of Prostitutes in 19th Century France · A la Recherche des Femmes Perdues". onprostitution.oberlincollegelibrary.org. Oberlin College. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  2. ^ Sullivan, Courtney Ann (2003). Classification, containment, contamination, and the courtesan: the grisette, lorette, and demi-mondaine in nineteenth-century French fiction (PDF) (PhD). University of Texas at Austin.
  3. ^ Lascar 2010, p. 12.
  4. ^ Alhoy 1841, p. 12.
  5. ^ Benoît 2007, p. 81.