As the Cynthia Payne case continues, Caroline Phillips flew to Paris to talk to the celebrated Madame Claude

It never really occurred to me that I would make a good prostitute – it wasn’t the sort of thing the university careers officer ever suggested. But it was the first thing that struck Fernande Grudet; Madame Claude, that is, erstwhile owner of the world’s most prestigious call girl agency and brothel, based in Paris.

‘I’d soon have you married to a Duke,’ she said, fixing her doe eyes (pencil-pleat Saint Laurent skirt to match) on me. Nor would it be the first time she had effected such a marriage. Looking uncharacteristically amused (the finely structured, tight-lipped face almost manages the relevant muscular exercise), she says: ‘It makes me laugh when I see the photographs of the ladies and countesses in the social pages of Tatler, Harpers and Vogue, and count up which ones started off by working for me. ‘ Her major coup was when one of her girls – ‘the daughter of a mere concierge’ – married a peer.

‘I have retired,’ she adds, turning her attention to the wine list (her choice of restaurant: un bras et une jambe job). She points to a very expensive bottle of Chateau Margaux. While my face matures to a cheap claret colour, she sits there demurely: 63, looking an elegant fortyish.

Madame Claude gave up her call girl network 10 years ago: ‘Sexual liberation meant that the market was shrinking. ‘ But the primary reason was that she had run into tax problems. By 1975, her earnings were estimated at pounds 600,000 a year, and she faced charges of tax fraud and procuring more than 2,000 girls.

So she went to the United States for a decade’s vacation, and returned last year on bad legal advice believing, mistakenly, that her tax sins had been absolved. She came back to a four-month prison sentence, albeit in a converted 17th-century castle in the South of France. The prison experience failed to ruffle one of the Vidal Sasson-clipped hairs on her head. ‘Prison destroys those who can be destroyed,’ she says, pragmatically. Instead, she reflected on life (‘I have no complaints, no regrets’); watched television and completed her second book, Le Meilleur C’est L’Autre, which should appear in English soon.

The book contains advice to women on how to keep a man, culled from years of being confidante to thousands of disgruntled (mainly married) hommes. It runs the gamut from psychological hints to practical tips oon how a woman can retain her looks and mystery.

She believes that women are superior to men and can instinctively exploit them. But her views are pessimistic. She regards love, with its concomitant jealousies, as a handicap. And she believes that the sexes share little in common. ‘If you didn’t need a man and a woman to make children, they would never talk to each other,’ she says.

The critics derided her book ‘because I didn’t name names’, she says, claiming she doesn’t like scandal and prefers discretion. More to the point is the fact that she still owes pounds 2 million income tax on profits; and with many of her old faithfuls still pacing round Whitehall-sur-Seine, she probably prefers to let sleeping ministers lie.

Her girls were groomed for the most refined tastes, at prices that made dinner at Maxims beforehand seem like McDonald’s. ‘The men wanted the best and were prepared to pay for it. ‘ Kings, princes, ministers and ambassadors were, she claims, among her clients. But it was not easy to find her: ‘You needed high-class contacts to get my number. This was to maintain the calibre of clients. ‘ She had daughters of diplomats and generals, countesses, secretaries, students and married women working for her.

Recruitment was no problem: she maintains she was over-subscribed. ‘About 20 girls a month would come to me, and I would choose one. ‘ She judged them initially on ‘face, figure and intelligence’, and would have one of a handful of ‘friendly’ clients monitor sexual performance. ‘They would tell me whether the girl was any good, useless or worth educating,’ she says in the manner of a sophisticated executive talking about product packaging. Indeed, she liked to regard her girls as smartly-wrapped Christmas parcels, which saved the men the time of shopping.

Despite having been educated in a convent – her first job was selling Bibles – she says she had no qualms about her work. ‘I am a well-balanced woman with no hang-ups. ‘ Instead, she treated her profession with the utmost professionalism, rapidly becoming a workaholic in order to achieve the quality she desired. ‘I took out everything that is shameful in prostitution and elevated it to something chic and dignified,’ she says. ‘The girls were proud to be Madame Claude girls. ‘

She is a perfectionist, and wanted to create the perfect woman. ‘I felt like a sculptress,’ she says. She would send her ‘graduates’ to couturiers, beauticians, health farms and plastic surgeons. She taught them correct posture, to talk intelligently and read books. ‘A man wants a woman who is sophisticated, funny, intelligent and interested in him – totally supportive and never bothering him with her problems. ‘

It seems that she found the correct formula. ‘No one has matched me, before or since. ‘