Insufficient attention has been paid to the history of naughty girls, who deployed allure to prosper in a male-dominated world. Moralists insisted that they would all come to a bad end. From Jezebel to Cleopatra, Lady Hamilton to Becky Sharp, many did so. But not all. Salomé died a queen; Pamela Harriman, an ambassador.
There are also fates which transcend earthly glory. Mary Magdalene is often conflated with the woman taken in adultery. In a wooden sculpture, Donatello depicted her in old age, a pitiless portrayal of the ravages the flesh is heir to. Yet she rises above suffering. The expression on her face is beatific. ‘I know that I have been a wicked woman,’ she seems to be saying. ‘I also know that my Redeemer liveth. As I succoured Him in His hours of agony, He will succour me and forgive me in mine.’ No work of art has more pathos. Nothing expresses the essence of Christianity with such intensity.
Sometimes wicked girls have an ambivalent fate. ‘Let not poor Nelly starve,’ said Charles II on his deathbed, referring to Nell Gwyn. Was she the most bewitching whore of all? The king’s wishes were granted, partly because Nelly knew how to save for her old age. But it was all in vain. The poor creature was dead within a couple of years from a syphilis-related illness. Yet even in dust, she achieved immortality. Half the grander entries in the stud books — Debrett’s or Burke’s — spring from her loins.
Most of these girls knew what they were doing. They struck bargains that their male patrons honoured. But there’s one appalling example of male hypocrisy, which almost justifies feminism. Oddly enough, it comes from France. The French pride themselves on being grown-up in such matters, unlike the clumsy Anglo-Saxons.
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