Marie-Anne Detourbay

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Marie-Anne Detourbay (18 January 1837 – 21 January 1908) was a French demimondaine and salon hostess. She became a famous courtesan during the Second Empire and later ran an influential literary salon in Paris, helping connect writers and artists in the early Third Republic. She is also known for her relationship with Jules Lemaître.

She was born in Reims into a poor family. Her mother was a cloth worker and her father is unknown. From a young age she worked, rinsing champagne bottles, and life improved after her mother remarried a carpenter. She moved to Paris with a friend, using the name Jeanne de Tourbey while sometimes keeping Detourbay as well.

In Paris, Detourbay began her career with the help of Marc Fournier, a theater director, and soon became known as a courtesan. A friend, publisher Arthur Meyer, nicknamed her "The Lady of the Violets." Fournier also introduced her to Prince Napoleon, who gave her a comfortable flat near the Champs-Élysées. There she hosted a daily salon attended by writers and journalists such as Ernest Renan, Sainte-Beuve, Théophile Gautier, and Émile de Girardin.

Through her friend Josephine Ennery she met Gustave Flaubert, who fell in love with her. Flaubert wrote passionate letters from afar, expressing his affection for her. Around 1862 she met Ernest Baroche, a government minister who also fell for her. He died in 1870 at the Battle of Le Bourget, leaving Detourbay a fortune and a sugar factory.

In 1872 she married Count Victor Edgar de Loynes. The marriage made her part of high society, though he soon left for America and disappeared. She kept using the title Countess de Loynes.

Detourbay’s salon attracted many famous visitors, including Georges Clemenceau, Dumas fils, Ernest Daudet, Henry Houssaye, and Marcel Proust, as well as Georges Bizet and others. In the 1880s she met Jules Lemaître, who was much younger than her. He later helped found the Ligue de la patrie française and became its first president. They shared monarchist and anti-Dreyfusard views, which strained some friendships. After that, she hosted Édouard Drumont, Jules Guérin, and Henri Rochefort, and supported Charles Maurras.

Shortly before her death she helped Maurras and Léon Daudet found the royalist newspaper L’Action française, donating 100,000 gold francs. Marie-Anne Detourbay died on 21 January 1908 in Paris and was buried in Montmartre Cemetery.