St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-09-03
THE LATE CORA PEARL.
A Woman Whose Career Wa
Marked by Extravaganza and

Paris Letter London Truth.
In the advance sheets of Cora Pearls
Memoirs" which she sent round to the old
friends who had survived her decline, she
related how her salon came to be known as
Lies Petits TuilerieS" But all this was
expurgated in return for small sums of
money and replaced by fietional padding
Cora was not the original ''pretty horse
breaker" about whom the smarteSt writer
who was about thirty years ago Oh the stall
of the Saturday Review did not then
diSdaiH to write. Her points as an e9ueS-
trienne were first noticed by the PerSlgny
embassy, and when it returned to Paris she
came with it. NJ. ROuher was one of the
very few leading men OF the empire, who
when she burst upon the French capital,
did not go to her card parties. The earliest
impression she produced Oh the world and
his wife was given in the nickname OF La
hume Reuse, or the Red Full Moon, which.
towards the end of spring. comedies with
blighting blasts and blighting chills. That
nickname was in itself a photograph of the
woman and her disposition. 1t suggested
her round face, carroty hair, unamiability
OF temper, and a laugh which. if bereft of
jollity, stretched her coarse mouth from ear
to ear. Cora had small eyes, nigh cheek
bones, freclIles, but an otherwise beautiful
skin, and good teeth. The mouth was
visibly formed to eat and drink, to talk
''slang" and swear. Like the empress of
Austria, her English had been learned of
stablemen, and her French was of
the vilest kind that british
tongue, round which hung the ac-
cent of Regents park news, could utter.
1t was dreadful in the Bots to hear her cry
out in her strong, husky voice, Now
thenw ''All rightw ''COnfound your
eYes,'' "WOt har you up to. therew But
that sort of vulgarity did not strike the men
who then directed European affairs so I'M
pleasantly as it did the mincing gentility
which is rife in minor middle class life in
England. 1t used to be said here, before
equal rights were talked of England, that
''LAnglaise nest pas fausSe, mais ellie est
fausSee." Cora was neither one nor the
other. Her great characteristics were au-
dacity and the complete absence of kindly
or any other gentle sentiment, unless for
lapdogS and horses. l used in my young
days to sit for hours at time on a bench in
the Bots to study the current of grand world
life which rolled by there in strong and
glinting flow. Cora was one of the promi-
sisters used to go early in
the morning to take their constitu-
tional canter in the alleys reserved for
equestrians. But Cora came late and would
not stand being ignored by those who at
tended her card parties. As they met there
Prince Napoleon. De Morny, Persigny,
Achille, Fould, Barons Heckeren, Konigs
warter and HausSmann, the whole italian
legation, Marshal Magnan, Kualil Bey,
Janvier de la Motto, the gay project of the
Eure and the chief favorte Of the court la
dies, all the NeyS and the COmte Bacciochi.
they were careful not to offend her. l felt
all the establishment of a green goose when
at the first TuierieS ball to which l went l
saw in the cercie in the throne-rOom all the
persons or perSonageS who composed the
cavalcade of Cora She had what she called
an independent English spirit. and wasn't
going to knuckle under to French cats. BY
this she meant that she was to be treated in
public as friend, no matter what foreign
lady was looking on. And so she was.
In habit Cora had fine figure. But in
her ball dress at the opera house she did
not look well. The fnery was too elabor-
ate. too evidently its moneys worth. and
the cOrSage was far too low and not Suffi-
GENTLY adhesive to the bust, which it must
be said was so finely formed that Duval,
when she was almost elderly, had it often
moulded. Her collar-bOnes were too strong,
without, however, being ''salt-cellars." In
MY Bots de BoulOgne and opera house
studies of Cora, was struck with the
character of her mirth. 1t was not light,
or bright, or joyous. and l can only give an
idea of it by comparing it to the boistorous-
ness of an English crowd on bank holiday,
or, perhaps still more. on the road from
EPSON after liquor has replaced the eXhila-
ration Of an outing. The face had none of
that illumination which warmth of heart
and Imagination give. 1t was dismal even
when she was roaring with laughter and
cracking her strong jokes In low English or
ridiculous French. Those who fancy that
because "Bouilion" Duval spent seventeen
millions on her she must have been lovely
creature, will hardly accept my sketch.
They must remember that not only Eros is
blind, but binding. and that most men are
fools where women are concerned.