Cora Pearl (born Eliza Emma Crouch; December 1836 – 8 July 1886) was an English courtesan or cocotte of the French demimonde who became most well known during the period of the Second French Empire.
Early life
Eliza Emma Crouch was born in Plymouth in December 1836, just a few months before the introduction of civil registration in England and Wales. She was baptised at St Andrew's Church, Plymouth together with her younger sister Hannah Lydia (born 30 November 1837) on 27 December 1837. Her subsequent use of her sister Louisa's birth certificate in her 1886 Mémoires, amended to appear as if it were her own, led to over a century of confusion over her date of birth. The exact date of her birth in December is still unknown.
Her father was the cellist and composer Frederick Nicholls Crouch, who married her mother, the contralto Lydia (née Pearson), at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden in 1832. By April 1841, Crouch had returned to London, leaving his wife and daughters in Plymouth. In 1843, he went through a Roman Catholic marriage ceremony with Elizabeth 'Bessie' George and had two more children. He left for the United States in 1849, leaving both wives and families behind. With several young children to care for, Crouch's mother Lydia brought Richard William Littley into the household, who was to be considered a “stepfather” by her children.
Crouch was sent to a convent boarding school in Boulogne, France, but later returned to live with her paternal grandmother, Anna Maria (née Nicholls). Following the death of her husband, Crouch's paternal grandfather, Anna Maria married the former Secretary of the Royal Philharmonic Society, violinist, composer and arranger William Watts. In 1851, Crouch and her sister Hannah were living with their paternal grandparents in Jersey, an experience Crouch found confining, leading her to defy her grandmother's cautions regarding the dangers that a young woman faced out in the streets unchaperoned. Whilst out on her own one day, Crouch, approximately twenty years old at the time, accepted the advances of an older man who approached her on the street, allowing him to take her to a drinking den, where he bought her cakes to eat and alcohol to drink, ultimately leading to the man raping Crouch, a virgin at that time.
Upon awakening, Crouch found the man had left her a five-pound note — more money than she had ever seen. Crouch later said the encounter left her with "an instinctive horror of men". After her sexual assault, Crouch did not return to her grandmother's home or that of her mother's, but rented a room for herself in Covent Garden.
Life in London
On her own in London, Crouch made the acquaintance of Robert Bignell, proprietor of a notorious pleasure establishment, the Argyll Rooms. Providing the combination of a bar, a dance hall and women available for hire, the establishment provided private alcoves and rooms where couples could retire for sexual activity. Crouch soon vacated her single room and moved into a suite at the Argyll Rooms, becoming Bignell's mistress.
Studying the life around her, Crouch realized that the life of the common prostitute was a tragic one, with the best result being that a woman could end up "poor and degraded", and the worst being a future that held "disease and death". Crouch resolved to practice the trade with higher expectations, with the goal of becoming the kept woman of select dedicated lovers with the financial means to keep her in luxury.
Crouch's involvement with Bignell lasted for some time, with the two traveling to Paris, posing as a married couple. Crouch became so enamoured with the city of Paris that she insisted that Bignell return to London without her, determined to remain in the French capital. It was at this time that Crouch took on the name Cora Pearl, a pseudonym chosen to resonate with the new identity and future she hoped to craft for herself in Paris.
Life as a courtesan
Again on her own in a major metropolis, Pearl began working and selling sex under her new pseudonym, making a connection with a procurer known as , who set Pearl up in more suitable quarters, taught her the business rudiments of her new trade, and tutored her in refining and broadening her repertoire of professional skills. She worked for him for six years.