Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
Here till the small hours assembled nightly the élite of European Tiflis. Russian and Georgian officers in gorgeous uniforms of dark green, gold lace, and astrachan; French and German merchants with their wives and daughters; with a sprinkling demi-mondaines from Odessa or Kharkoff, sipping tea or drinking kummel and "kakèti" at the little marble tables, and discussing the latest scandals.
Half the ruling sovereigns of Europe and all the leaders of European swelldom, the more prosperous of the demi-mondaines and no end of the merely rich of every land, congregate there and thereabouts. At the top of the season the show of opulence and impudence is bewildering. The little principality of Monaco is hardly bigger than the Cabbage Patch of the renowned Mrs. Wiggs.
The next week I found lodgings in the very center of the district of court residences and began to seek out the haunts and places of rendezvous of demi-mondaines, favorites and hangers-on of the Turkish officials. On the second day of my arrival, I had presented my credentials and letters at the German Pera Hospital, and had my name entered as a visiting honorary surgeon.
Half the ruling sovereigns of Europe and all the leaders of European swelldom, the more prosperous of the demi-mondaines and no end of the merely rich of every land, congregate there and thereabouts. At the top of the season the show of opulence and impudence is bewildering. The little principality of Monaco is hardly bigger than the Cabbage Patch of the renowned Mrs. Wiggs.
Oh! she was nobody, La Tonietta was the name that people gave her; she was one of the few demi-mondaines that Roman society talked of. Then, with the freeness and frankness which his race displays in such matters, Dario added some particulars. La Tonietta's origin was obscure; some said that she was the daughter of an innkeeper of Tivoli, and others that of a Neapolitan banker.
They all spend their days at the tango classes, from early morning till dark mothers and daughters, grandmothers and demi-mondaines, Russian Grand Duchesses, Austrian Princesses clasped in the arms of incredible scum from the Argentine, half-castes from Mexico, and farceurs from New York decadent male things they would not receive in their ante-chambers before this madness set in!"
Princes and counts, lawyers and doctors, actors and actresses, mondaines of the great world, demi-mondaines of the half world, waiters and porters, all are made use of as occasion arises. It may well happen that your interesting acquaintance in the salon of an express steamer or your charming companion in the tearoom of the Ritz is the paid agent of some government.
From the addresses and the signatures I thus learned the individuals in direct control of the system that was undermining German influence by using demi-mondaines such as Mlle. Balniaux. I gathered that Cecelia Coursan was only a go-between for Mlle. Balniaux in making her reports to the French government. I asked her some more questions, exclaiming that her proposal interested me tremendously.
She was one of the few demi-mondaines that the higher-class society of Rome took an interest in. For a month or so the rich Englishman to whom she owed her means had been absent, travelling. "Ah!" resumed Benedetta, whose budding jealousy was entirely confined to La Pierina, "so my poor Dario is ruining himself in white roses! Well, I shall have to twit him about it.
As for amours and intrigues and subdued lights and dances and cabarets and sparkling demi-mondaines and all-night orchestras and liquid jousting bouts and perfume and champagne and rouge and kohl who would have thought that London, the severe, the formal; London, the saintly, the high-collared, the stiff; London, the serious, the practical, the kid-gloved; London, the arctic, the methodical, the fixed, the ceremonious, the starched, the precise, the punctilious, the conservative, the static; London, the God-fearing, the episcopal, the nice, the careful, the scrupulous, the aloof, the decorous, the proper, the dignified who would have thought that London would loosen up and relax and partake of the potions of Eros and Bacchus?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking