Essays about famous mistresses presented in this book once again convince us of the correctness of these words. This sign was Love, which ruled over them and through them. They lived at different times and in different countries; in royal clothes or beggarly rags, in extravagant and daring outfits or modest dresses, they immediately stood out from the crowd, as if marked by a sign from above. No matter how painful or hopeless the passion that engulfs lovers may be at times, no matter how tormented they are by the torments of doubt or jealousy, one cannot but agree with Charles Baudelaire, who argued that “a woman is an invitation to happiness.” Talking about the fate of famous mistresses, the authors of this book did not so much strive to describe the piquant details of their intimate lives as to display the very element of love, of which they were the embodiment. It was precisely such stories - romantic or scandalous, happy or tragic - that the lives of the women described in this book were full of. “Love, which is nothing more than an episode in the life of a man, is a whole story in the life of a woman,” said the French writer Louise Germaine de Staël.