Cora Pearl

One of Charles Worth's models who also became a close friend was Cora Pearl, a Parisian courtesan who became the talk of the town.

Her real name was Emma Crouch, daughter of Frederick Crouch, an English musician who emigrated to the New World and later served as a trumpeter with the Confederate Army during the American Civil War before settling down as a singing teacher in Baltimore where he also worked in a furniture factory. Crouch died in 1896 at the age of 88 having been married four times and fathered 17 children, although various accounts have claimed that the total was nearer 27.

A talented musician, he is best remembered for writing the Irish ballad Kathleen Mavourneen which became a particular favourite during the conflict when it was sung around camp fires, a reminder of the girl waiting for the returning soldier and the welcoming hearth of home and family.

Emma preferred to use the name of Cora Pearl and she soon became one of Worth's greatest advertisements, wearing the underwear that he designed. Numerous photographs exist of her dressed in the fullest, widest and most fussy of his crinolines imaginable and when he launched the bustle, his classic innovation that was to dominate ladies fashion into the next century, Cora was the obvious choice as the first to wear it at important functions and to show it off to the wealthy clientele that frequented his salon.

Cora had a magnificent figure and the capacity to charm wealthy and titled men to the extent that they fell at her feet and spent vast sums on her that she squandered shamelessly. But it was not to last. The years were not kind to her and after a shooting incident involving a rejected lover, she was deported to England, looking old, painted, wrinkled and worn out.

She returned to France using clumsily forged documents but the glamorous life she knew had gone forever and she died of cancer while living in distressed circumstances in Paris in 1886 at the age of 51 and is buried in the Batignolles cemetery.

One of Frederick Crouch's descendants is Philip Crouch of Dowsby Fen, near Bourne. Frederick was his great great great grandfather and he has spent some time compiling a biographical sketch of his life and times, a project that continues as more information comes to light.

"The fact that she and Worth were friends is not surprising", he said. "Both came from fairly humble circumstances in England and made it big in Parisian high society. On a more practical level, they were probably good for each other. He dressed her in the height of fashion and she gave his creations lots of good publicity by her outrageous behaviour. But three facts about Emma make me smile. Firstly, she is probably the only person in the world to have a biography named after her toilet, 'The Lady with the Swan's Down Seat'. Secondly, she was the originator of the popular party piece of a naked lady bursting out of a cake and thirdly, an Australian brothel has a suite named after her."

PHOTO ALBUM

REVISED IN DECEMBER 2011

See also The Cora pearl musical

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