contemporary reader would be all too aware, sharing meals was a crucial ritual in eighteenth-century élite sex work.38 Moreover, any moment at the eighteenth-century table took place alongside a growing cultural consciousness of the body as permeable, vul­nerable to changes effected by a cook’s skilful hand or a consumer’s simple lack of self-restraint.39 Throughout her career, Margot is repulsed but otherwise untouched by such dangers, instead engaging in performances of excess at the table as part of a professional ‘mask’ that marks her as an exceptional libertine heroine:

qu’y a-t-il de plus insupportable que d’être obligée d’essuyer les caprices du premier venu ; que de sourire à un faquin que nous méprisons dans l’âme … en un mot, d’être éternellement couvertes du masque de l’artifice et de la dissimulation, de rire, de chanter, de boire, de nous livrer à toute sorte d’excès et de débauche, le plus souvent à contrecoeur et avec une répugnance extrême?

(Is there anything more disgusting than having to satisfy the fantasies of any Tom, Dick or Harry? To smile at a detestable old fart … in a word, to hide one’s true feelings behind an impenetrable mask in order to laugh, to sing and to drink; to hand oneself over to the wildest excesses, nay, to the most degrading and humiliating acts of wickedness, most often against our will and with extreme reluctance?)40

This impermeable body is matched with a strategic mind. Margot is not just impervious to the effects of food and drink; she deliberately uses it to manipulate others. When drinking with her English patron, for instance, Margot notes that a few strategic toasts could help her fill her purse:

[i]l n’était question que de décrier mes compatriotes, de boire au roi George, et de donner à tous les diables le pape et le prétendant. Moyennant ce petit trait de complaisance, j’avais la liberté de lui vider toutes ses poches.

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