Demimonde whom Captain Rawdon Crawley lusts after in his younger days. Becky Sharp is perceived as a demimondaine before she is presented at court, and then becomes one when she travels through Europe after her husband abandons her. Possibly the most famous portrayal of the demimonde, albeit from before the word was coined, is in Verdi's opera "La traviata" (1853). The opera, in turn, was inspired by Alexandre Dumas the younger's "La Dame aux Camélias;" Marguerite Gautier, the heroine of the book and subsequent play, was based on Marie Duplessis, 1840s Paris courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent men,
Royalty Theatre of the Glen". In addition, Philip Carr's Mermaid Society produced Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Again, the theatre was threatened with closure by the authorities, but Santley had it rebuilt again in 1906 to meet safety requirements. After redecoration in French Regency style, which increased the capacity of the theatre to 657 seats, the Royalty reopened on 4 January 1906 with a season of Theatre Français directed by Gaston Mayer. Sarah Bernhardt led her own company in "La Tosca, Phedre" and "La Dame aux Camelias" in 1907. In 1911, J. E. Vedrenne and Dennis Eadie acquired the theatre, and in 1912,