Paris according to the world’s first celebrity, who dodged the nunnery for a life of debauchery

• One evening in 1859, a 15-year-old convent girl arrived at the Comédie-Française, Paris’ great classical theatre, with a party of adults. There was her mother and her aunt, both high-class Parisian courtesans, and the Duke of Morny, a regular at her mother’s salon. In a private box, the group joined Alexandre Dumas, author of the Count of Monte Cristo, probably another of her mother’s clients. As the lights dimmed and the curtain rose, the young girl was on the edge of her seat. “I thought I was