French actress and courtesan (demi-mondaine), who was the muse of several noted Parisian artists. Her salon welcomed Stéphane Mallarmé, Émile Zola, Marcel Proust, François Coppée, Henri Gervex, James Whistler and Édouard Manet.
She was the daughter of a seamstress employed in the household of Marshal Francois Certain de Canrobert, and an unknown father. Her mother sold the virginity of her 15-year-old daughter to Canrobert so that she could become his mistress and receive a lifetime pension of 500 francs a month. This annuity allowed her to go to Paris at the age of 16, where she began a brief career as an actress. She was a light comedienne in the Variétés (playing the role of her life as Vénus anadyomène, naked in her shell) and Châtelet (in Offenbach’s fairy tales).
In 1874, she became a cocotte (high-class prostitute) and met Thomas W. Evans, a dental surgeon of the imperial family, who set her up as his mistress at 52, rue de Rome. Here, in her living room she hosted a salon for the Parisian avant-garde. She became the mistress of Francois Coppee, Stéphane Mallarmé, Antonin Proust and also the mistress and model of Édouard Manet.
On her death, she bequeathed her fortune to her last love and protector, Victor Margueritte, with the exception of an allegorical portrait of Autumn (by Manet) which she gave to the Nancy Museum of Fine Arts.
Méry Laurent died in Paris on 26 November 1900, aged 51. She is buried in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery (56th Division).
Link to Wikipedia biography (French)