Marie-Anne Detourbay (1837–1908), was a French demimonde and salon-holder. She belonged to famous courtesans during the Second Empire, and also hosted a literary salon which had some influence during the Second Empire and the Third Republic. She is also known for her relationship with Jules Lemaître. Marie-Anne Detourbay was born in Reims in a poor family. From her best friend, actress Josephine Clemence Ennery, nicknamed "Gisette", she met Gustave Flaubert and Khalil-Bey, who fall in love with her. Around 1862, she met Ernest Baroche, son of the Minister of Napoleon III, Master of Petitions at the State Council and Director of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Agriculture and Sugar Industry, who fell in love with her. They would have become engaged but, as Commander of the 12th mobile battalion of the Seine, he was killed in action at Le Bourget on 30 October 1870. In 1872, she married the real Count Victor Edgar de Loynes, a retired officer and rifleman. This marriage gives her access to high society, but the Count soon left for America, where he disappeared. Although the marriage was only religious, for her husband's family had opposed their civil union, she carried and retained the use of the name and title of Countess de Loynes. Between 1880 and 1885, she met at Arsène Houssaye the critic Jules Lemaître, 15 years her junior, who would become the man of her life. Under his leadership, she founded in 1899, the League of the French Homeland, of which she became the first president. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Anne_Detourbay)