The young Esther from Moscow, who later became Thérèse and then Blanche, first a marchioness and then a countess, owes her meteoric social success as much to her beauty as to her exceptional tenacity and intelligence. Widowed from her first husband, she remarries a Portuguese aristocrat, the wealthy Marquis de Païva, who offers her his name—a name that, she asserts, “sounds good”—even though the man is far from being a marquis, and an extravagant mansion at 28 Place Saint-Georges. It doesn’t take long for her to ruin him and divorce. She then remarries, this time with one of her lovers, a genuine Prussian count, the immensely wealthy Guido von Donnersmarck, who helps her achieve her dream: owning the most beautiful mansion in the capital. In these opulent surroundings, now known as Blanche, she finally reigns as the undisputed mistress of all Paris. She is admired, feared, or looked down upon, never escaping her past as a woman of the demimonde. Dumas fils famously quipped about her mansion, almost completed: “It’s almost finished, all that’s missing is the sidewalk…”