Liane de pougy biography

Includes the names: Liane de Pougy, Liane de Pougy

Pen name of Anne-Marie Chassaigne

Canonical name

Pougy, Liane de

Legal name

Chassaigne, Anne-Marie

Birthdate

1869-07-02

Date of death

1950-12-26

Gender

female

Nationality

France

Birthplace

La Flèche, Sarthe, France

Place of death

Lausanne, Switzerland

Places of residence

La Flèche, Sarthe, France
Paris, France
Lausanne, Switzerland

Occupations

sex worker
novelist
dancer
actor

Relationships

Barney, Natalie Clifford (lover)
Ghika, Georges (husband)

Organizations

Order of Saint Dominic

Short biography

Liane de Pougy was born Anne-Marie Chassaigne in a middle-class French family, and received a convent education. At age 16, she married a naval officer and had a child, but her husband was abusive, and she left him after two years. She moved to Paris, changed her name, danced in the chorus of the Folies

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“Liane de Pougy sold her body, and for quite a sum, but she never sold her heart or her soul”. This quote, by her biographer, Jean Chalon, is a striking encapsulation of this twentieth-century woman’s life. She went from prostitute to Romanian princess and finally, in her last years, she became a sister touched by God’s grace.

Born in a poor provincial family in 1869, she, who was then known as Anne-Marie Chassaigne, received a strict education at the Faithful Companions of Jesus convent. Endowed with a solid bourgeois education, her family married her off to a man as lackluster as his name – Armand Pourpe – and who her nurse judged “too husband-like” in 1886. She did not love him, lived a Bovarian life in the province, gave him a son, Marc, and cheated on him.

Ironically, he is the one who apologized. Ironically, she was the one who divorced him and abandoned both husband and child after three years of marriage, fleeing to Paris as a freshly divorced, destitute 19-year-old.

At the time, 80,000 prostitutes worked in Paris. Anne-Marie was young, beautiful and educated. She nou

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Liane de Pougy

French courtesan, dancer and novelist

Liane de Pougy TOSD
Liane de Pougy by Nadar
Born	Anne Marie Chassaigne (1869-07-02)2 July 1869 La Flèche, Sarthe, Second French Empire
Died	26 December 1950(1950-12-26) (aged 81) Lausanne, Switzerland
Other names	Anne-Marie-Madeleine de la Pénitence Marie Anne Pourpe Princess Ghika Anne-Marie Ghika Sister Anne-Mary
Occupation(s)	Dancer, Courtesan, Novelist
Spouses	Armand Pourpe ​ ​ (m. 1886; div. 1889)​ Prince Georges Ghika ​ ​ (m. 1910; died 1945)​
Children	Marc Pourpe

Liane de Pougy (born Anne-Marie Chassaigne, 2 July 1869 – 26 December 1950) was a French dancer, courtesan and novelist. She was a Folies Bergèrevedette, and was known as one of the most beautiful and notorious courtesans in Paris. Later in life, she became a Dominican tertiary.

Early life and marriage

Anne-Marie Chassaigne was born in La Flèche, Sarthe, France, the daughter of Pierr