We may think ourselves familiar in this day and age with the notion that whores of every description can very easily achieve fame and fortune. But towards the end of the 19th century, there what came to be known in France as the “ballet park”, a select group of courtesans, who became for a short period, the most celebrated and powerful women in the long history of prostitution.

A respectable and satisfying historicalromantic melodrama. — James Berardinelli