I'll begin with: What is a demimondaine? That's not a way to start, with a word hardly half of your readers are going to understand, it doesn't exactly read as smart, nor obnoxious, it's just silly. If she's a **, she's a **, there's absolutely no shame (technically speaking) in calling her that.

I chuckled when I read 'grande horizontale' and the only thing I could imagine was some silly teenage boy shouting it ~GRANDE HORIZONTALE~ and actually plan on using it in that form from now on because that, that's just hilarious. There are such better euphemisms to use than that, that would be more romantic or at least more appropriate for the period.

That was. A lot. Of E's. Which was interesting, I'll admit, and it's a creative style that can be used in moderation, and you almost had me with it but it was far. Far far far. Far too many. Plus, if you're going to go the alliteration (well, assonance technically) route, you shouldn't start the 'list' with a word that starts with another letter. Knowing that 'inordinate' was the first word used, it took away from the rest of the sentence.

I admire that you used capitalization of 'She' to focus on the character, but if you were going to do that, you need to be consistent, so every 'her' should have also been capitalized. She's still Herself when She is Her, so there's no sense in She only being her, You know~? But points for trying. I liked it.

Until you referred to the cadet as He (and him, not Him). It's borderlining religion. He/Him is always God in literature, regardless of the writer or readers religious beliefs. Unless the male you're writing about IS God in someone's eyes, it's just slightly taboo to refer to him with the capitalization.

Besides, the cadet shouldn't have such an importance to begin with. He's not God, and he's not Godly in her opinion. It's gives too much importance to a character that has little effect on She. He's only one of many, a simpering boytoy, a client.

If you're going to refer to her as the "white and gold courtesan of Champagne and cake" you have to choose. She's either the courtesan of Champagne and Cake, or the courtesan of champagne and cake. It's a creative style to capitalize them both, it makes her title stand out more. But the only reason Champagne would be capitalized on its own would be if she was eating a region of France.

"She was scene by..." That's just a typo, it should be seen.

The random Latin? Dum Spiro Spero? That's just showing off, and unless you're going to translate it in the next sentence or make a footnote, it's just being obnoxious.

Your paragraphing could be improved, especially when changing moods and/or scenes. In the paragraph where the cadet was earning the ten thousand francs, I was still picturing him standing at the ball, so I didn't pick up on the change immediately.

"Nobody could guess that a simple conch, creamy beige with a hint of a pink blush at the edges, could invite ten thousand francs to the velvet or chase it away." Really? REALLY? No. Faux Pas. No. That was. No, no no no. Now, I've seen some euphemisms in my day, believe me, but I have never seen something so purple as that, and I've read Nabakov. For one thing, when I think conch I think sea, and when I think sea, I think fish, and when I think fish, well, the image is distasteful in the end.

"her Turkish Angora" (you forgot to capitalize Her, which was the beginning of the sentence and would have been avoided if you'd just been capitalizing every She/Her in the piece) contradicts itself. You say the cat is "supercilious" yet it goes out and rubs against his leg, and purrs? Supercilious means 'having or showing arrogant superiority to and disdain of those one views as unworthy.' So the cat? Yeah. Not acting very supercilious. It would make sense, I suppose, if you focused more on the cat's character, which you could/would do in a longer story, but since this is short, the cat should be a static character and it should not contradict itself. I know that some standoffish animals are sometimes instantly drawn to people, but it was unneeded this time. So really, in the end, it would have been better to have not called the cat supercilious, to have had it ignore the cadet entirely, or to have taken out that entire part altogether.

Lemon tvorozhnik drunk with blueberry nalivka and grüner veltliner? What is that. Again, it was just obnoxious. They're just getting drunk, it's no big deal, I shouldn't have to feel like I'm ordering some fruity cosmopolitan martini from a foreign menu in a gay nightclub in Paris... or would that be Moscow. You may have thought it clever, and Hell, those may actually all taste delicious mixed together, but it's far too much, and instead of something sweet, it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

"He bent down on one knee, showed off the aquatics of his mouth with the wine shooting up as a jet beside her." DID HE JUST PUKE? My first read of the sentence, I thought 'aquatics of his mouth' was some silly way of saying he was kissing her, but reading on I just became confused, and arrived at the mental image of him throwing up. I had to read this several times before I got what I assume is the appropriate image, and when I did, it seemed completely useless. I'd rather he just kissed her.

"There were, in the words of one poet, "by one hand lightheaded Bacchus hung, and with the other, wine from grapes out run. There might you see the gods in sundry shapes, committing heady riots, incest, rapes." That snippet of poetry was too long to be fashionable. And it didn't help me visualize anything. At all. I didn't know where I was looking (the fireplace mantel I think?) and if I was looking at figures on the mantel, or at the engravings of the mantel itself.

Baby's Breath is a horrible fashion move, miss courtesan (and while on the topic of flowers, gardenias, while gorgeous, aren't the most alluring fragrance. My grandmother smells like gardenias). For the most part, Baby's Breath is often considered a weed, and though usually not fragrant, tends to have a sour smell. I certainly wouldn't want them in my hair, because atop being smelly and not that pretty, they would be hideous to comb out.

And if the cadet were running his fingers through her hair? He wouldn't squash just one flower, he would crush dozens. Though it reads well to have her burn a franc for every petal, it would have been more realistic to burn a franc for every flower.

Now, getting to the whole burning francs business. I understand what you were trying to achieve with it, but it fell flat for me. For starters, it was, if I may say, entirely uncharacteristic of "Her" to do so. This is a woman, as you explained from the beginning, who lived for money. She was the epitome of material girl, she would not have thrown so much money into a fire.

And you either contradicted yourself, or didn't explain properly, because right until the end when he couldn't find the money, I'd had it in my mind that he knew full well what she was doing. For the Baby's Breath, it reads as if he threw the four francs into the fire of his own will, so did he see her or not? Did he know or not? I understand that he would be confused, surprised, but any man in his right mind would have been livid. Why wasn't he stopping her, if he knew? Did he know? I don't know, it wasn't written very well, and because of that, the climax you built up to just fell through.

'Systematically' just doesn't belong if you're going to be so purple about the prose.

I think you left out a word in the final sentence. 'the only always was' is a fragment.

And finally, simply, because of run on sentences, I had to reread things too many times to remember what was going on just in one line.

In conclusion, you had a good idea going, but you tried too hard.

Ah V...it is good to read something sensible. I haven't been able to bring myself to read much of anything grand but this is very refreshing.
10,0 francs...tres exspansif!
Why can't I recall of the Venus in furs?
How simply wretched.
Good show,
E.

I so love your work. You're magnificent!