It was the 19th century, but the French courtesan Valtesse played the press like a Kardashian.

Louise Delabigne, better known as Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne, lived in a palace in the heart of Paris, inspired a best-selling novel by Emile Zola and appeared in paintings by Gervex and Manet. Worth more than $3 million (in today’s dollars) at the height of her fame, Valtesse climbed to the top of the social ladder by transforming herself into a personal brand.

In “The Mistress of Paris: The 19th-Century Courtesan Who Built an Empire on a Secret,” author Catherine Hewitt examines the life and times of a woman who used a 40-year career in prostitution to escape the grips of poverty and rise to fame.

Born to a single mother, Delabigne started working in a dress shop at the age of 13. An eye-catching young woman with blue eyes and red hair, she worked long hours and walked to and from the store alone through the sordid back alleys of Paris. Within a year, she fell prey to an older man who won her trust but eventually took advantage of Delabigne’s innocence and assaulted her.

“Once her purity had been sullied, there was nothing left to lose,” Hewitt writes. Delabigne — whose mother was also a prostitute — entered the sex trade, which at the time was organized by a rigid hierarchy. There were the grisettes: young women like Delabigne who often worked in the garment industry and needed to supplement their meager incomes. The lorettes were considered a step up, because they had one or two wealthy regular clients and the potential to become femmes galants, or kept women, with apartments and closets full of beautiful dresses.

Then there were the courtesans, or grandes horizontales — the crème de la crème of call girls. Courtesans moved through the most fashionable society and had their pick of top-tier clients: counts, princes, even kings. Delabigne, who watched these women get treated like celebrities, was determined to become one of them.

Her ascent, however, was steep. In 1864, at the age of 16, Delabigne was still just a grisette who catered mostly to students living on the bohemian Left Bank. Then, a lucky break: She caught the eye of an influential man in theater and started performing as a chorus girl at the popular Bouffes-Parisiens. At the time, the line between actress and prostitute was still razor-thin, but for Delabigne, the stage offered the distinct advantage of publicity. She chose the stage name Valtesse — a contraction of “Votre Altesse,” or Your Highness — and received her first mention in a local newspaper in February 1866.

Her career as an actress, though, never took off. Valtesse also experienced another professional setback: She fell in love. She bore two children to a man who adored her, but refused to marry her, because he came from a respectable family and his parents disapproved of the relationship. Valtesse vowed never again to let her heart get in the way of her ambition. As Hewitt puts it, “This drive gave her the strength to renounce marriage and commit herself wholeheartedly to her social ascent.”

She left her two young daughters in the custody of their grandmother and used the Bouffes-Parisiens as a stepping-stone to her dominance of the demimonde. Valtesse seduced the theater’s 50-year-old founder, a maestro named Jacques Offenbach, and became his trophy mistress, which gave her access to his world of banquets, galas and travel. As the quality of her clients improved, so did Valtesse’s lifestyle — including her wardrobe. Her background at the dress shop had given her expensive taste, and she demanded that her lovers shower her with gowns, jewels, hats, art and even housewares, so that every aspect of her appearance fit in with the image she wanted to project to the world.

It worked. By her mid-20s, Valtesse had moved on from Offenbach and landed her most illustrious lover yet, Prince Lubomirski of Poland. The prince was rich, and his reputation as a womanizer made him a favorite of the Parisian gossip columnists. For Valtesse, who was always looking for ways to raise her public profile, mentions of her name alongside royalty were invaluable.

‘She saw men as stepping-stones on a path that guaranteed her survival and success.’

When she moved into a chic new residence, the tabloids speculated that Lubomirski had paid for it. But when the prince stopped being useful — he had, during the course of their time together, squandered his entire fortune on Valtesse — she dropped him.

“She saw men as stepping-stones on a path that guaranteed her survival and success,” Hewitt writes. “Once the support beneath her began to give way, she would spring lightly to the next foothold.” Valtesse’s next benefactor, an army general, spent over half a million dollars on her in six months.

Having amassed a considerable nest egg, Valtesse distanced herself from her past even more. She changed her surname from Delabigne to “de la Bigne,” intentionally making reference to a family of aristocrats to whom she bore no relation. She topped it off with the flourish of a title: comtesse.

It was a moment when the class boundaries that defined French society were suddenly beginning to crumble and Valtesse, as a member of the nouveau riche, took advantage. She also chose blue as her signature color to complement her eyes and picked violet as her trademark flower.

“Valtesse was turning herself into a commercial product,” Hewitt writes. To finish the job, she gave herself two over-the-top nicknames, Rayon d’or (ray of gold) and Ego, and had the latter printed on stationary.

Valtesse became the kind of woman she had admired as a young girl — one who ate dinner at the right restaurants, attended opening nights at the opera and took long carriage rides along the Bois de Boulogne. She built herself a palace in the heart of Paris, employed a team of servants and entertained guests in a lavish bronze bed that cost the equivalent of half a million dollars today.

But she understood that as a courtesan, her position in society was vulnerable. The answer to security? Court good publicity. Valtesse befriended artists, like Manet and Detaille, who were inspired to paint her. She provided free services to journalists and gossip columnists, who would then go on to sing her praises in the press.

Valtesse liked to be in control of her public persona, which is why she wrote a roman à clef called “Isola” in 1876. (In it, a stunning redhead falls into prostitution after a horrific early sexual encounter.) She published the book under her pseudonym, Ego, and — as intended — critics were quick to make the connection. But while “Isola” caused a momentary stir, it was nothing compared to the breathless media attention Valtesse received one year later, when the renowned author Émile Zola published his novel “Nana.”

The writer’s condemnation of the demimonde, the book starred a lovely but ruthless courtesan. Nana came from humble beginnings but unlike Valtesse, she was keen to talk about her past. Socially clumsy, she had gaudy taste that revealed her to be a striver.

The portrait was unflattering. This bothered Valtesse because when Zola was doing his research, he had attended one of her dinner parties at her invitation. Speculation that Valtesse had served as the model for Nana only fueled the book’s popularity, which sold 55,000 copies the day it published. She openly condemned the book in the press. Still, she also clung to the notion that all press is good press.

Valtesse retired in her mid-50s, a grande dame who understood that her work was a young woman’s game. By then, she had befriended a handful of up-and-coming courtesans and was happy to share with them everything she knew. She sold her properties in Paris and Monte Carlo and made plans to move to the suburbs of France.

She still enjoyed the occasional flurry of press — particularly when she auctioned off the majority of her possessions in 1902 — but her focus had shifted. She was finished cultivating her position in Parisian society and had moved on to shaping the details of her legacy. She considered auctioning her famous bronze bed but, at the last minute, instead took it with her to Ville D’Avray. Hewitt suggests that the decision wasn’t sentimental but calculated — one last chance to leave the public wanting more.

When she died in 1910 at the age of 62, Valtesse bequeathed her most valuable possessions, including the bed, to a number of French museums. Paintings done by her famous friends — Gervex, Manet, Detaille — went to the Musee de Versailles, the Musee de Luxembourg and the Louvre.

Bur her intentions weren’t selfless.

By donating the paintings, Valtesse ensured her lasting position in high society. Each bequest came with an instruction: It should always be exhibited with a plaque nearby, identifying the source as Valtesse de la Bigne.