Note 59 — Chapter IV

Let the reader compare this with the description of the state of Paris given by M. Le Cour himself, the Prefect of the Police Médicale. There is a staff of special police appointed for the “surveillance” of the public women. It is a post which is despised by the more respectable men who take the office of regular police. These women-hunters or “Mouchards” are intrusted with large and arbitrary powers for hunting down and imprisoning these women. What is the effect? Is prostitution thereby restrained? I quote Le Cour’s own words (Prostitution in London and Paris, 1789–1870, by M. Le Cour):—“These public women are everywhere, in the drinking shops, the music saloons, the theatres, the balls; they haunt the public establishments, the railway stations and carriages, they push respectable women off the pavement, they roll in carriages, they frequent the Bois de Boulogne, they plant themselves outside every coffee-house, they drive slowly along the footpaths, there is a place by the lady’s side which she seems to offer to the passer-by; there are hotels which freely open their doors to them at any hour if they do not come alone.” As with the French smugglers spoken of by Lord Hardwicke, the rigour under which they lived gave rise to an esprit de corps which enabled them to brave the authorities, so do the most vicious persons in Paris band themselves together as a compact community to defy authority. To quote Le Cour again: “Panderers are numerous at Paris, where they find more than anywhere else in the world the opportunity of practising their manœuvres and escaping the attention of the authorities. They keep registrary offices and restaurants, they sell articles for the toilet, millinery, gloves, or perfumes, and they constitute true snares for all young girls who are engaged as workwomen and employées.” Mme. Daubie also says in her book, La Femme Pauvre, that panderers and procurers band themselves together in such a compact corps d’élite that they are able to engage the best houses in the city on the best terms, and to oppose any measures adopted by the authorities which may seem to be unfavourable to their abominable traffic.