From the seedy underworld of Paris in the early 20th century, to Romanian royalty to bride of Christ, the young woman who assumed the name Liane de Pougy from one of her former lovers, had one heck of a life-and I'll bet you never heard of her. There are over 100 websites dedicated to her on Google alone, but if you don't want to wade through all that then perhaps you'll enjoy this account of what- and who- Liane did for love. After all, every Valentine's Day deserves a great love story-strange as it was.

Anne-Marie Olympe Chassaigne was born on July 2, 1869, a month earlier than a dream her mother had of the Holy Virgin coming to her and declaring that her daughter, whom she would name Marie, would be born on her Saint Day, August 15. In the dream the Virgin told her Marie would have a very eventful life, but will end up in paradise as a great saint. Contrary from the start though she was, it turned out better because July 2 was the most important of the Virgin's Feasts, so in the end the dream did come true. At least that's Liane's interpretation of events. Maman was 43 when Marie was born, on a visit to some friends after checking in on her son Emmanuel at military school.

On July 1, 1919, the day before her 50th birthday, and at the urging of her then husband, Liane began keeping a daily diary, which she kept off and on for the rest of her life. She called these journals her "Blue Notebooks", where she began to retrace her life. She did this because she was sure they would be read after her death. The brother her mother had visited on the day of her unexpected birth at the neighbor's house died in battle in 1886. Her father, a Lancer Captain, died at age 81 in 1892; her mother passed on in 1912. Her only son Marco died in an air battle in 1914. Despite all these enormous sorrows it was always her policy to pick herself up, dust herself, off, and live with it. Her philosophy of life, gained from an old friend Reynaldo, who abandoned her when she told him she was engaged, because "I hate married people", told her that, 'the way to live is to bring all the enthusiasm you can muster to everything: studying, talking, eating, everything". This credo she took for her own, even though she thought Reynaldo had been crazy to give up a friend like her.

She married Armand Pourpe when she was 16 in 1885, and was divorced in 1892. She admitted with extreme regret later that she could not love their son enough to make him a part of her glorious lifestyle. After that she embarked on a career that she later took great pains to make the world forget. But those who knew her before her Princess years tell of a most checkered career, starting with marriage to a mysterious naval officer (Pourpe). After she bore him a son she left them both, heading for the bright lights of Paris where her beauty and personality led her to meet one Viscomte de Pougy. That affair didn't last long either, but she kept the de Pougy name, along with the nickname some of her somewhat more disreputable friends had bestowed on her. So as Liane de Pougy Anne-Marie became a stage actress.

She admitted she didn't have any real talent for it though. Sarah Bernhardt apparently agreed. Armand had taken her to see Bernhardt in Tosca on their honeymoon. After a short stint at the Folies-Berg�re, just looking good in a few sketches, she asked Sarah for a few expensive lessons. She was up for a part at the Theatre Fran�ais in St. Petersburg and wanted the Russian audiences to be impressed. Bernhardt wasn't and after about six lessons told her to forget acting-go to St. Petersburg if she must but keep her mouth shut. She should have taken that advice. She stank, the Theatre let her go and she had to go find a caf� owner who would let her perform her Folies routines or she'd starve.

She returned to Paris, well on her way to becoming the "most beautiful courtesan of the century". Her beauty, her enormous jewelry collection given her by her numerous wealthy admirers, her carriages, and her homes, were all fodder for the popular press. The other three famous ladies of her ilk were all foreigners, but Liane called herself 'the nation's Liane', an admired monument, as she liked to think of herself.

That career ended abruptly when she met years younger Major Georges Gr�goire Ghika. She claims he was 23 and she was 35. From the start he drove her crazy-making appointments and then not showing up; lying about vices he didn't have; always trying to make her jealous with other women, etc. Until the day she pulled the same not -showing up- for- lunch- until -midnight stunt-which appeared to scare him into proposing.

She determined from this that two such like-minded people could not help but be 'deliciously harmonious'. Because she'd been married before, even though widowed, their wedding could not be held in the church of her choice. They were married in a civil ceremony on June 8, 1910. She paid them not to announce her age out loud. They then had the marriage blessed in a little chapel where the day before she had made her confession, "Father, except for murder and robbery I've done everything".

For the next 16 years she was happily married, although her diaries are full of complaints about Georges' habits, moods, illnesses and numerous other things she didn't like about him. She suffered from severe migraines monthly, and Georges was always needing operations for bladder stones. Her mother-in-law Mariette was not too crazy about her entrance to the Romanian royal family, but distance kept them tolerant of each other. As Mariette was barely a decade older than her, she called her Liane, and Liane called Mariette Madam-mother would hardly do.

Nevertheless she was very proud of her 'angel', describing Georges as, "a love, an exquisite little boy, an ancient sage, an erudite scholar..." How did she describe herself?
"Tall, ... I run to length-long neck, face a full oval but elongated, pretty well perfect; long arms, long legs. Complexion pale and matt, skin very fine. I use the merest touch of route, it suits me. Rather small mouth, well shaped, superb teeth. My nose? They say it's the marvel of marvels. Pretty little ears like shells, almost no eyebrows-hence a little pencil-line wherever I want it. Eyes a green hazel, prettily shaped, not very large-but my look is large. Hair thick and very fine, incredibly fine, a pretty shiny chestnut brown. Hardly any grey hairs. One or two, to prove that I don't dye... Marco had my hair, same colour, quality, quantity, growing into seven little peaks all round the head. When he brushed it back he was a real beauty..."

She's married into Romanian royalty, but she'd had a few brushes with Russia's former monarchs when she was there. She recalled being in St. Petersburg when Nicholas II became Tsar. She'd been there for an engagement at a theatre when Nicholas was still Crown Prince. They'd both been invited to a bachelor party for a horse guards officer, but he'd had to go home early to make his parents' curfew. She wrote that at the time he'd seemed timid, embarrassed, good-natured and very mediocre. But at his father's funeral, now as Emperor of all the Russians, even more pitiable under this heavy burden. The ceremony included the Old Reign, personified by a man dressed in black iron armour (so heavy that the poor guy wearing it died on arrival at the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul). He led a black horse decorated in funeral draperies. They were followed by New Reign-a knight dressed in gold riding a white horse decorated in white and gold.

She continued to complain about money and her stingy in-laws. Mariette, although she had plenty of money, refused to send her sons anything, kept them on a very short leash and in a constant state of penury. Something about the exchange rate not being favourable enough. In 1916 they couldn't afford to pay for Georges' appendix operation. A miser she may have been to Liane, but Georges was philosophical. The only thing she loves, he said, is increasing the value of her Romanian estates, and she gets her happiness from that.

On 1914, Georges was summoned to the town hall, and there was given the telegram informing them that Marco had been shot down. It read 'Inform Princess Ghika that her son, the aviator Marc Pourpe, fell gloriously on the field of battle at midday today and that the burial will take place at ten o'clock on Friday morning at Villers-Bretonneux". His birthday was May 17, and five years after his death she lamented that 'fate was to make me a hopeless mother' all of life called me, all the different countries drew me away. My Marco, who was not loved enough and who didn't love me enough!' Several years later she was informed that Marco had several medals due him, and that she could either come get them, at her own expense, or the local magistrate could receive them in the mail and give them to her. Miffed no end she went for the latter.

In 1922 the King of Romania abolished all titles so they were no longer princes except when abroad. In 1926 they celebrated their 16th anniversary by finally collecting the 15,000 francs Mariette had been promising them since April. But there was an unexpected shadow on the horizon in the person of one Mademoiselle Marcelle Thi�beaut, also known as Manon, whom her circle called Tiny One. Apparently Liane thought she was the major physical attraction for Tiny One, but was in for a huge shock on July.4. "Georges loves Tiny One! Tiny One loves Georges! Crack, it has happened! Is it worse than cancer? Georges admitted it this morning..." she wrote. They'd been so happy for 18 years (two years of 'courtship' prior to the wedding presumably). Georges, however, wanted his cake too and thought they should make a threesome out of it. Nothing had to change he begged. The next day the two were gone-Liane was having none of that.

For the next five years or so she contented herself with a series of lovers, both male and primarily female. Tiny One's family was torn between shame for ruining the Princess' life and wanting Manon to be the next Princess Ghika. She figured Georges' family would be furious with him. All this fuss was bound to cost money and he didn't have any. In November of 1926 Liane learned that Georges had no intention of allowing himself to divorce her (he could hardly be divorced on the grounds of his own errors). He acknowledged all his wrongs to her, and that he wasn't going abroad for several years, as Manon had written to her uncle. Georges threatened suicide if she wouldn't take him back in November. She tried to put it out of her mind by going with her 'girlfriend' Mimy to Baron de Rothschild's dinner party. She'd known him when he was 18-an adorable creature in those days, she says, and was his first love. As for Georges, well she forgave him, but wanted him dead, to 'end his suffering and his wrong-doing'. It was all Manon's fault anyway.

By March of 1927 however, Georges is back. No reasons given; no details, but for some reason she has rechristened him Gilles. A new start, and a new Georges. Affectionate, very pale, thin, sad at having hurt her perhaps. Now dedicated to 'learning to know myself', she gave up Mimy's attentions reluctantly, hoping things with Georges would improve. The divorce never went through-they were back together the first day. After all, 'what would be the use of denying pleasure to our bodies?' What neither of them knew is that Georges was suffering from 'hereditary' syphilis and cirrhosis of the liver. By 1931, just when she thought she couldn't stand his weird requests for them both to visit brothels together one more time, Mariette had a stroke. George and his brother raced back to Romania, and Liane took the opportunity to take off and not tell him where she was. He returned to Paris in September and she left it up to God's will for him to find her- which he did in November, while she was in bed with bronchitis. That he drank too much she knew-how he came by the first malady he wasn't saying and she didn't ask. In June, feeling somewhat better Georges decided to go back to Romania, but Liane refused to go with him. Her favourite niece Aimee was near death. Friends were dying all around her, and she turned to the Church for comfort.

Several years earlier she and George were driving through Switzerland, and on impulse they had visited a small hospital for deformed and mentally deficient children, called St. Agnes. She had been so moved by the state of the children, even though well cared for by the nuns, that she had made it her charitable cause since, visiting as often as possible. In January, 1933 Tiny One died. In March, Aimee died of the cancer that took both her parents. George returned for Easter but in July went back again. He took a side trip to Greece and got home in September. A planned sea voyage went away when Georges, being Romanian, didn't have a French passport. The son of the diplomat Gregoire Ghika, the cousin of the minister Demetrius Ghika, the nephew of Queen Natalie of Serbia, couldn't even get an appointment with the Romanian consul in Marseilles to straighten it out. But war was imminent and the cruise was off. In August, 1934 Georges returned to visit Mariette and came home in October, full of admiration for Mussolini. France, she mused, should have a young King, a dictator, a president, a man of energy, a saviour-somebody 'dedicated to reviving and renewing the sickening, stagnant, crumbling government which is at present preparing the darkest pages in our history!'. On July 9, their 25th anniversary she got a card from him in Florence.

In 1936 she was full of sighs and support for King Edward VIII"s desire to marry Wallis Simpson. Divorced she cannot be Queen, and as a divorcee herself is in full sympathy with his plight. Liane's circle is of course thrilled at the romance of it all. She wrote, "It really is the apotheosis of love. Imagine Georges Ghika renouncing his Liane, twenty-eight years ago!" When news of the abdication came she declared his story to be 'a larger version of my own. I was rather younger than Mrs. Simpson at the time of my marriage to Georges Ghika who was many years younger than I was but who was very serious, basically very serious and didn't often laugh". In 1943 or 44, while visiting his aunt Princess Jeanne at the Hotel Mirabeau in Lausanne, Georges suffered a stroke. He fell into a coma, was administered Catholic last rites, even though he was technically Greek Orthodox but actually an atheist, and died. She'd already felt he was gone, picked herself up and dealt with the details.

For some years she had secretly had the desire to be received into the Order of Saint Dominic as a tertiary (third rank) lay sister, with the name Sister Anne-Marie. She was received in a little ceremony at the chapel in the clinic of St. Agnes'. As a nun she became beloved of all she came into contact with. In January 1941, she wrote that she was placing all her 40 notebooks with the Dominican friars at Estavayer, but the last one she gave to her Father confessor Rzewuski. In this she wrote that she would pray for France, for Georges, for her family dead and alive, but especially for the people she offended or had led into sin.

She ended her days, not at the Asylum where she had spent the last 25 years, but at the Hotel Carlton in Lausanne, where she had been living, on December 26, 1950. But days later she was laid out in her habit, and buried in the cemetery beside the Asylum of St. Anne.

She signed her final journal entry in January, 1941 "Anne-Marie Ghika", and ended with a PS "May those who read this say a prayer for the last of the last: A-M-G"

Love to all!