Pauline Mercier

According to Ivor Guest, Pauline Mercier was 'blonde, very pretty, and inclined to be buxom, qualities which greatly attracted the discerning Vicomte Paul Daru, whose mistress she was for a number of years. She stirred the Goncourt brothers too, who noticed her one evening at the Opera, bathed in a reddish glow of light that brought out the clear whiteness of her skin; they were reminded of the girl in Rembrandt's Night Watch, and began to ponder over the lighting effects the great artist must have used in his studio' (The Ballet of the Second Empire, 1955).