Illustration to Ludovic Halévy's Cardinal stories, Monotype,
21.5 x 16.5 cm. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Bequest of Meta and Paul Sachs.
These women could easily be the sisters de Lamothe described in The Pretty Women of Paris as looking ‘extremely attractive’ by gaslight and as ‘assiduous frequenters of the fashionable cafés of the Boulevard each night’. At the approach of winter they ‘pack up their bidets for Nice, where they astound all beholders with their ultra-fashionable clothing and commanding appearance.’ The top-hatted, dark-suited gentleman disappearing hurriedly to the right is evidently a potential customer. The woman to the left, rising from her seat, but shown bisected by a column, may be responding to his furtive invitation. Most striking of all is the prostitute in the centre, who raises her thumb to her teeth in an insolent and provocative gesture that has been much commented upon and variously interpreted. We know from Guy de Maupassant’s short story Playing With Fire - about a respectable woman who catches the attention of a passing male from her balcony, with disastrous consequences - that an almost imperceptible gesture in the street was all that was needed to strike a sexual bargain.