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The notorious career of Ursula Restif, the younger sister of French author Restif de la Bretonne, is described in this novel set in 18th century France.
At the age of eighteen, Ursula travels from her native village in Lower Burgundy to the French capital, where she is employed as an apprentice in a dressmaker's shop. The innocent young girl is still a virgin, but she soon falls victim to the evils of city life.
After being seduced by a lecherous libertine, she acquires a taste for sexual pleasure and happily chooses to pursue the easy and lucrative life of a prostitute. As she is a very pretty girl, she is able to charm her way into the affections of the Marquis De Rochefort, who invites her to become his mistress.
The Marquis sets her up in an expensive apartment and provides her with a generous allowance, but Ursula's comfortable existence as a kept woman does not last long. Her wealthy protector surprises her in bed with one of his footmen, and refuses to have anything more to do with her.
Ursula does not lack for other admirers, however, and she next forms an alliance with an Irish adventurer, Captain Rory O'Flynn, who takes her with him to England, where the captain earns a somewhat precarious living by cheating at cards and by commiting the occasional burglary.
O'Flynn is eventually forced to flee England to escape arrest by the Bow Street runners, and in his haste he leaves Ursula behind to fend for herself. The abandoned girl therefore has no choice but to return to her former profession, seeking employment in Mrs Cole's famous brothel in the vicinity of Covent Garden.
Altogether Ursula spends over ten years in England, and is able to save a large sum of money from her earnings as a prostitute. At the end of that time, her beauty is fading, and she decides to return to Paris in order to realize an ambition she has long cherished.
With the assistance of a dissolute monk, Brother Dominic, Ursula establishes a high class house of pleasure, and in the years leading up to the French Revolution, it acquires an enviable reputation as one of the finest and most exclusive brothels in Paris. Only the prettiest girls are employed there, and only men of noble birth and wealth are allowed admittance.
Length of story is over 30,000 words.