In Second Empire Paris there were a dozen courtesans who were generally known as la garde: they were the queens of their profession, the women whom visiting princes thought it essential to see. They were the women who encrusted their bathroom taps with jewels, built palaces in the Champs-Elysees, and fought duels in the Bois de Boulogne. They scandalized society and influenced the Press and politics. They also ensnared the husbands and lovers of the most beautiful women in Paris. Joanna Richardson presents her own version of la garde - twelve of the most distinguished courtesans in Paris during their golden age. From the calculating Cora Pearl to the hideous la Paiva, who rose from the Moscow ghetto to indecent wealth and fame, and the admirable Madame Sabatier made famous by Baudelaire, to La Castiglione sent by Cavour to seduce Napoleon III, la garde people these pages with all the color, intrigue, scandal and vivacity with which they peopled the demi-monde of 19th century Paris.