PEARL

Cora , a umed name of Emma Elizabeth Crouch (one of the 16 children of Frederick William Nicholls Crouch, b. 31 July 1808, composer of Kathleen Mavourneen, who went to America in 1845). b. Caroline place, East Stone house, Devon 23 Feb. 1842; educ. at Boulogne to 1855; seduced by an admirer in London and thenceforth led a life of di ipation under the name of Cora Pearl 1856; went to France with the returning Persigny emba y March 1858; had a series of liaisons with persons connected with the imperial court; large sums of money, diamonds and jewellery pa ed through her hands; maintained an establishment in the Rue de Chaillot, which was known as Les Petits Tuileries; kept the finest horses and carriages of any one in Paris, crowds a embled daily to see her in the Bois de Boulogne and ladies imitated her dre and manners; appeared for 12 nights at Les Bouffes Parisiens as Cupid in Offenbach’s opera Orphée aux Enfers 1869; refused admi ion at the Grosvenor hotel, London 1870; converted her Paris residence into an ambulance during the war and spent 25,000 francs on the wounded 1870; a son of Pierre Louis Duval, founder of the Duval restaurants, spent seventeen million francs on her 1870–1, after which she deserted him and he attempted suicide; expelled by the police at various times from France, Baden, Monte Carlo, Nice, Vichy and Rome; blackmailed her acquaintances, to keep their names out of her printed memoirs; often called La lune rou e in allusion to her round face and red hair; her figure in marble was modelled by M. Gallois in 1880. d. of cancer in squalid poverty in a small room in the Rue de Ba ano, Paris 8 July 1886. Memoirs de Cora Pearl , Paris (1886); The memoirs of Cora Pearl , London (1886); Folly’s Queens , New York (1882) 23–7; Truth 15 July 1886 pp. 105–6; London Figaro 24 July 1886 p. 6 portrait ; Daily News 10 July 1886 p. 5.