There was a bewildering array of categories of prostitutes in 19th c. France, from street-walkers to sex workers in brothels registered with the police ( therefore the name of "Maisons de Tolerance") to courtesans and kept women, linked to powerful men, given ( or extracting) an income from them. But while substantial amounts of money sometimes came their way, few managed to hold onto it to live a comfortable life. Marie Duplesis, the model for the heroine of La Traviata , was the mistress of Alexander Dumas and Franz Liszt, among others, had a gift of parting on good terms with all her lovers but when she died of tuberculosis at 23 she was still in debt. The more calculating Blanche D'Antigny , model for Emile Zola's Nana, still was penniless at her death , from typhoid, at the age of 34. Depending on the passions of lovers also meant sometimes a chaotic life: One young man became so obsessed with Cora Pearl that, after showering her with riches, he tried to kill her, and wounded himself instead- which instantly made her an outcast and she had to leave the country. Esther Lachmann, known as La Paiva, was one of the lucky ones, marrying a German aristocrat and becoming Countess Henckel von Donnersmarck, dying at the comparatively late age of 64.

While the 18th c. saw the rise of Madame Du Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, not many courtesans amassed that kind of power. Perhaps their best hope for influence was to start (and preside over) a salon for the bright and beautiful.

I don't like to link to Wikipedia, but the article on Courtesan has a useful list of some famous ones that link to short biographies. I wouldn't depend on their accuracy, but it's not a bad place to start.

Grandes Horizontales, by Virginia Rounding , is a good study of four of the more famous: Cora Pearl, Marie Duplesis, Esther Lachmann, and Apollonie Sabatier.