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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
In sight seeing in Paris, Twain visited some of the faubourgs and speculated that some of the residences belonged to "lorettes". I guessed the innuendo correctly.
From the Internet:
"The middle ground between street prostitute and grand dame of commercial sex, the courtesan, lorette became an umbrella term for the kept women set up discreetly in a private apartment by a businessman, professional, or wealthy student... Always elegantly dressed, the lorette peeps out coyly from a theatre box, engages in double entendre with male admirers at a masked ball, displays herself while enjoying the view from her apartment window... the lorette slid imperceptibly across the boundaries of acceptability and social stigma."
-Nicholas Green, The Spectacle of Nature
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
The lorettes were named for the church of Notre Dame de Lorette which was the church close to the distict where they lived and which they attended.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear dxb: so professional reporter Clemens didn't do his homework. Thanks.
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