“The curse which thro’ long years of crime,
Is gathering, drop by drop, its flood.”
There was a whole world of misery contained within the walls of the St.
Lazare. As I reached the stone portico leading out of the street to the
large gates of the prison, a huge prison-van rolled in under the arch,
drawn by stout horses with clattering hoofs, and followed by
_gens-d’armes_, also on stout horses, and armed. The van was on high
wheels, and had apparently no window at all; strongly secured, and
dismal to look at, like an immense hearse. People fell back as if awed,
and the great iron gates rolled open; the _cortège_ rattled in, and the
gates rolled back again. I tried to make my way through the gates in the
wake of the prison-van, but there was no time, they closed so quickly
and looked so inexorable when shut. What powerful ruffians, what
dangerous, strong-sinewed criminals were they conveying with all this
show of armed force into the prison? The van contained only a few poor,
weak, helpless _girls_, guilty of the crime of not ministering to
impurity in accordance with official rules. I could not help exclaiming
to myself in my bitterness of soul: O, manly, courageous Frenchmen! ever
athirst for “glory,” how well it looks to see you exercising your brave
military spirit against the womanhood of your own country! You cannot
govern your own passions, but you can at least govern by physical force
the poor women of your streets, and swagger to your hearts’ content in
your hour of triumph, as you proudly enter the prison gates with your
trembling caged linnets. But no! miserable men, you cannot even do this;
you are beaten by your own women. They cannot meet you on stout horses,
with helmets and military swagger and police tyranny, but they beat you
with other and more deadly weapons.
We speak much of women, under the vicious system we oppose, being the
slaves of men, and we realise all the tyranny and oppression which has
reduced women to so abject a state; but when I went to Paris I began to
see the picture reversed in a strange and awful way, and to understand
how the men who had rivetted the slavery of women for such degrading
ends had become, in a generation or two, themselves the greater slaves;
not only the slaves of their own enfeebled and corrupted natures, but of
the women whom they have maddened, hardened, and stamped under foot.
Bowing down before the unrestrained dictates of their own lusts, they
now bow down also before the tortured and fiendish womanhood which _they
have created_. Till now I had never fully realised Nemesis in this form.
The degenerates of to-day plot and plan and scheme in vain for their own
physical safety. Possessed at times with a sort of stampede of terror,
they rush to International Congresses, and forge together more chains
for the dreaded wild beast they have so carefully trained, and in their
pitiful panic build up fresh barricades between themselves and that
womanhood, the _femme vengeresse_, which they proclaim to be a
“permanent source of sanitary danger.” M. Lecour, in his last book which
he gave me, appeared to regard every woman who is not under the
immediate rule of some man as he would a volcano ready to burst forth
under his feet; his terror had driven him to contrive a scheme by which
all the single women of Paris, the virtuous as well as vicious, shall be
netted by the police and held fast!
When a man abuses the good gifts of nature to brutalise himself by
excess in wine, that passive agent, in itself unconscious and incapable
of motive for good or evil, becomes to him a fiery scourge, his tyrant,
and he its slave; “in the end it biteth like a serpent.” Much more, and
in a far more awful sense, does abused womanhood become the fiery
scourge, the torment, and the tyrant of the men who systematically
outrage, in her, God’s best gift. Just so far as the soul of a woman is
above all inanimate things which are susceptible of abuse, so far is the
punishment of the man who outrages it increased. It is true he does not
become the slave of the woman, but merely of the _female_. Yet, inasmuch
as she is not a mere inanimate thing, like intoxicating drink, nor a
mere animal, but is endowed with intellect, affections, will,
responsibility, an immortal spirit, and inasmuch as men have turned _all
this to poison_, so is the vengeance suffered by those men in exact
proportion. The men who are guilty of the deliberate and calculating
crime of organising and regulating the ruin of women prepare for
themselves an enslavement, an overmastering terror and tyranny, compared
with which the miseries and enslavements brought about by other vices,
terrible as these are, are but as the foreshadowing of a reality.
Already they cringe, the abject slaves of the tyrant they have created;
they are ruled, cajoled, outwitted, mocked and scourged by her. They
rave at and curse her, as a wretched dipsomaniac curses his intoxicating
drink, madly grasping it all the time, and in the end she slays them.
A couple of surly-looking guards at the gateway of St. Lazare did not
vouchsafe me any answer when I asked how I was to get in; as I
persisted, however, one said “Vous pouvez battre,” jerking his head over
his shoulder towards a smaller and heavily iron-barred door. Yes! I
could “beat” no doubt, but my hand made no sound or impression at all
against that heavy iron door. I thought it rather typical of our whole
work on the Continent, beating at the outside of a strong Bastille of
misery and horror. Then the words came to me—“I have set before thee an
open door, and no man can shut it.” I went into the street and took up a
stone, and tried beating with that. It succeeded; a solemn old man in
livery opened; I gave him M. Lecour’s letter, desiring that they would
show me the whole place; and after looking at it narrowly, he passed me
on to the care of a nun, the second in charge.... I visited every part
of the building; it took a long time.... In the central court of the
prison, where a few square yards of blue sky are allowed to look down
upon the scene, troops of young girls were taking their hour of
prescribed “recreation,” namely, walking in twos and threes round the
sloppy and gloomy yard, where half-melted snow was turning into mud. It
was a sight to wring the heart of a woman, a mother! Most of them were
very young, and some of them so comely, so frank, so erect and graceful,
in spite of the ugly prison dress. Well might Alexandre Dumas exclaim,
“O besotted nation, to turn all these lovely women, who should be our
companions in life’s work, wives, and mothers, into ministers to vice!”
They were not all Parisian; they were from all the Provinces, and some
from Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and England. I was not allowed to
speak to them. Never in my life did I so much long to speak; and I
fancied _they_ wished it too, for their steps slackened as they came
round, and they paused when they got near me, with looks of kindness, or
gentle curiosity. One knows enough of the heartless, artificial, or
hardened women of Paris, but my memory recalls _these_ who were the raw
material, fresh from nature’s hand, out of which Babylon manufactures
her soulless wild beasts who become a terror to their manufacturers.
After the other members of my family, with Professor Stuart, had joined
me from England, we accepted several invitations to hold meetings in the
salons of leading persons of the Protestant community of Paris. One of
the first who offered his aid was Pastor de Coppet, who suggested a
Conference at the house of a friendly member of the Chambers, where, he
said, “we shall all speak out what we have kept down in our hearts so
long.” Pastor Lepoids also strongly aided us in our efforts, and soon
after we gained the efficient co-operation of M. de Pressensé, M.
Theodore Monod, the venerable Dr. Monod (a physician), M. George Appia,
of the Church of the Augsburg Confession, M. Frederic Passy, Mme. André
Walther, and others; Madame Jules Simon and M. Victor Schoelcher,
Senator, gave their adhesion and advice. I received letters of sympathy
and approval of our efforts from M. Jules Simon, at that time President
of the Chambers, and from M. Louis Blanc. I had an interview by
appointment with M. Jules Favre, in his own house. My readers of the
present day may not perhaps know the position then held in France by M.
Jules Favre (who died not long after I saw him), nor the high character
of his utterances as an Advocate and politician. His words to me on this
subject were impressive. He spoke sadly and doubtfully of the
probabilities of realising so great a moral reform in his own country,
but yet resolutely as to the necessity of taking immediate steps to
create an improved public opinion on the subject; he expressed full
concurrence in our view of the absolute equality of moral responsibility
for both sexes. He gave me introductions to some Catholic gentlemen,
urging upon me the importance of appealing to all religious
denominations. He admitted that he had no faith in governmental help in
this matter, reminding me that “governments had never looked the
question fairly in the face, but when interfering at all, had almost
invariably done so in order to elevate the social vice into ‘an
institution,’ by which means they had increased and given permanence to
the evil.” He said: “Regard for the public health is their sole excuse.
But even the worst that could befall the public health is nothing to the
corruption of morals and national life engendered, propagated, and
prolonged by the system of official surveillance. It is utterly
inexcusable, and an act of supreme folly, to give a legal sanction to
the licentiousness of one sex and the enslavement of the other.” He
further spoke emphatically of the necessity of women being heard on this
subject. As he was curious to know by what methods the French system had
been introduced into free England, I gave him an account of the tactics
pursued, at which he appeared profoundly astonished.
Madame Jules Simon invited me to attend the annual meeting of the
committee of management of the Professional Schools established by
Madame Lemonnier. She said to me (though speaking sympathetically) that
my mission would not have any success in France, “because it was too
high and holy to be understood.” She said, and I feared there was truth
in this, that “all men, even the best men, in France had been from their
childhood so accustomed to look upon this shameful evil as a legal
institution that it would require a very long process of patient
educating to get them even to acknowledge that it is not honourable for
governments to create and maintain such an institution.” Madame Simon,
however, having read, ten months later, “A Voice in the Wilderness,”
wrote to me: “You are not under any illusion, for your voice is indeed
at present but a voice in the wilderness; but you have no grounds for
any discouragement; for those who do not understand you to-day _will
understand you to-morrow_.”
My sister wrote to me from Naples on New Year’s Eve, 1874–75:—
“_Midnight._
“Beloved of my Soul. I want to spend this solemn hour with you. My heart
is overflowing with gratitude to Him whose cross you bear. This passing
year, which began with so much discouragement, has finished gloriously
with the carrying of the standard of the fiery cross over the sea and
into another land; and you—God surrounds you with His shield. Everyone
out of England to whom I told your mission said you would be insulted
and outraged in Paris, and could not do any good. Even people who
believe in your mission told me of the way in which irreverent Frenchmen
ridicule anything spoken with a foreign accent, spoke of the dangers you
would incur, and the impossibility of your making any impression. When
they talked thus, I smiled and said, ‘Wait and see! this is of God, and
He will justify His handmaid!’ I felt so surely that God gave it you to
do, and whatever the world may think, God knows what He is about. He is
not an idealised Joss who lives in churches. He is present among us. He
can manage even the Paris police! How He laid your enemies under your
feet!
“Your mission is too high and holy to be understood, they tell you! Is
it not strange how people persevere in thinking it lovelily humble and
sweetly meritorious to go on picking off an evil-smelling leaf here and
there from the upas tree, instead of taking the sword of God and
striking at the root—nipping here and there the results of its growth,
instead of cutting off the source of its life? The long chain of
prejudice, habit, and received opinion twists itself, coil after coil,
around men’s minds. It is the virtuous and religious whom I mean who are
so chained, not by vice, but by faithlessness and timidity. It is not to
all that it is given to break the chains of others, but there seems to
me little excuse for those who do not allow their own chains to be
broken.”
We went on to Lyons, Marseilles and Genoa, at each place gathering
individual adherents, men and women of real worth of character. Thence
we went to Rome.
In Rome we first met one of the most ardent apostles of our cause whom
we have known in any country, Signor Giuseppe Nathan. His mother was a
distinguished Roman lady, and his family were friends of Mazzini. I had
been told of the recent overwhelming sorrow which seemed for a time to
have broken short the promise of Giuseppe Nathan’s noble young life, and
which had had so serious an effect upon his health as to alarm his
family. He had married a young English lady, who died very suddenly,
after a few months of an ideally happy marriage. He was a young man of
great ability and earnestness of soul. It was thought by some of his
friends that if some vital work were to be put before him at this time
he might recognise it as an authoritative call to action, and that it
might be to him a revival of interest in life, and a motive for living,
after all life’s sunshine, for him, was gone. The rapid progress made by
our principles in Italy after this first visit to Rome was almost wholly
due to the untiring energy and apostolic zeal of Giuseppe Nathan. He had
been known before to his countrymen as a friend of Mazzini, and had, in
fact, like most of that group, suffered for his principles. His personal
influence was great for one so young, especially among the working
populations, whom later he succeeded in arousing throughout the length
and breadth of Italy, travelling himself to every place, engaging the
best men and women in the work, and winning the hearts of all to our
cause. I recall my first interview with him. He looked sad and absent,
and was very weak in health. He had the appearance of a man who had had
a shock which might prove to be his death blow; and, in fact, he died
only six years later, the end probably accelerated by his arduous
labours in our cause telling upon a sensitive frame already shaken by
his domestic sorrow. His loss was a very serious one to our cause in
Italy. There was no one of like character who could entirely take his
place, although his brother, Signor Ernesto Nathan, has worked
indefatigably for the cause up to recent times.
The following quotations from letters which I received from Giuseppe
Nathan after my return from Italy to England will throw some light on
the gentle, chivalrous, and, I might say, almost inspired character of
the man. In addition to his arduous propagandist work, he laboured to
save individual victims of the curse against which he continually
protested, and had planned a work of rescue on simple, kindly and humane
principles. It was in regard to this effort that he wrote to me as
follows:—
“I wish you were here to teach me how to act in this case. I would ten
thousand times sooner face the mouths of twenty guns than a poor girl
who feels that she has lost all right to respect; though not in _my_
eyes. No! God is my witness that I judge _no_ woman unworthy of respect;
her womanhood outraged is in itself more than sufficient claim for the
respect of every man. Had not one of _my_ sex robbed her of her peace,
withered in its bloom all happiness, all that made life a blessing to
her, she might now have been happy and making others happy. Her poor
betrayed soul, her robbed innocence, her misery and suffering, call
loudly in God’s name for the respect which all men owe to grief and
suffering.
“It is impossible for me to tell you how much I long to be of some
slight comfort to these poor fellow-creatures of ours, whom cowardly man
has taught even to despair of the salvation of their souls. Could my
remaining years bring but one of them to hope in God’s everlasting
mercy; could I make but one of them feel that the possibility of
redemption is eternal as the everlasting soul with which God animated
their bodies; could I but awaken in one city the true, deep, fervid
faith, that without purity and morality no nation can possibly advance;
could I teach effectually in even one place the lesson, that because
woman is our _first_ teacher, her lessons can only bear good fruit on
condition that we hold sacred and _do not despise_ our teacher—then I
could understand why God has dealt so sternly with me, and I could
patiently wait till I should be able to prove to my lost angel through
my actions that _together_ she and I have accomplished on earth the task
appointed us.”
Later he wrote:—“I have received a paper from England relating to the
_Social Purity League_. I not only sympathise with the aim of the
League, but I consider its aim noblest among the noble. To talk of
purity is well, to lead a pure life is better, but it is best of all to
oppose impurity with all the powers of heart and intellect bestowed on
us by God, under whatever form it presents itself to our eyes, and by
whomsoever it may be promoted. Destroy purity, admit the necessity of
prostitution, and materialism and profligacy will have full sway; but
then efface from the English, language the words _Mother_, _Home_, and
_Heaven_.”
Under Mr. Nathan’s guidance we visited the Italian Parliament, where, as
in London, one may request an audience of any member of the Chambers.
Our guide knew very well upon whom in the Chambers he could depend for
sympathy in this matter, and we had several memorable conversations in
the Lobbies.
Signor Asproni, an old man, formerly a monk, but who had found it
impossible to continue in that character, had been, when we saw him, for
some years a hard-working Deputy. He was known as a most honest man,
attached to principle rather than party. He expressed great sympathy
with our movement. Several others, men of weight and character, took up
the question; and from these elements Mr. Nathan was enabled soon after
to form a Committee in Rome for active work.
I must go back a little to describe briefly the introduction of this
system into Italy, and the opposition which it had already met with.
In 1860 Count Cavour proclaimed the Regulation originally invented and
imposed on the French people by Napoleon I. Cavour seems to have deemed
it an admirable measure. An explanation of its professed benefits was
appended to a subsequent issue of it by the Minister Lanza in 1871.
Public opinion was at once aroused against this regulation, its meaning
having been thus explained. The Liberal party in the Chambers have been
at different times accused of party-spirited motives, in having from the
first protested against the Regulations of Cavour. It is not true that
the Radical party alone revolted against this system. Italian Radicals
assured us that from the first a protest had arisen from every part of
the Chambers. From Dr. Bertani, who sat on the extreme left, to De
Renzis on the left-centre, and Vittorio Giudici on the extreme right,
all took part in the revolt against what the Italian conscience
instinctively felt to be a measure degrading to women and to manhood.
Outside Parliament it was the same; “Men of all parties,” said a
well-known Deputy, “rebelled against the idea of this judicial
oppression of women, which no possible argument was found to justify.”
This awakening of the public conscience continued through all classes of
society until it reached Pope Pius IX. The Venerable Pontiff, shortly
after the Regulations were introduced in Rome, wrote a letter with his
own hand to King Victor Emmanuel, protesting against the iniquity which
had just been perpetrated, and solemnly adjured him to forbid that a
“patented merchandise of human flesh” should be established in the Holy
City.
So early as 1862 (only two years after Cavour’s publication of the
Regulation) the revolt against it was such that Rattazzi, then Minister
of the Interior, and President of the Council, was driven to appoint a
Commission to modify or alter it.
But little came of this. Attempted modifications of an essential evil
always fail.
After the impulse given by the exertions of Giuseppe Nathan, and when he
had successfully convinced and moved some of the most earnest public men
of Italy, the cause in that country went through the usual Parliamentary
course of Reports called for from experts, Commissions of Enquiry,
Parliamentary Debates, partial reforms and attempted substitutes; and up
to the present day it cannot be said to have got much beyond that stage.
To return. I was counselled to see Senator Musio and his wife. I first
saw her alone. She was in her bedroom surrounded by a number of ladies
who had formed a Committee for aiding the needy families of working men.
I gave her a little Italian paper setting forth the objects of my
mission. She read it slowly and carefully to the very last word, and
then said “Good! Musio must see this.” She had grasped the whole
question simply and clearly at once. She was very aged and
“old-fashioned,” but full of intelligence. She then tapped her snuff-box
and conversed with us in a low and feeble voice, but in a manner that
showed no feebleness of judgment. In the evening we called again, and
were quite as much pleased with her venerable husband as with herself.
He was a very distinguished jurist, and was then working at some
important legal reforms. I must not omit to mention Signor Maurizio
Quadrio, one of the old Mazzinians, a true patriot, who had suffered
much and long for his principles. He encouraged us much in our work. It
is needless to say that I found very hearty sympathy among the
Protestants (Evangelici) then working in Rome, Signor Ribetti, for
example, Mr. Wall, and others.
Of a very different kind was a visit I paid to the Minister of Justice
and Police, Signor Vigliani. I had been advised to appeal to him
concerning our mission; but when I announced to Mr. Nathan my intention
of doing so, he smiled and remained silent. I said, “Do you not advise
me to go?” He replied, “Oh, yes, go, but——”; and he smiled again. I went
alone. The reception Vigliani gave me was cold and scarcely courteous.
Few things are more chilling than the atmosphere of the audience chamber
of a great Government official, who has no sympathy with your errand. It
was clear to me from the first moment that nothing was to be gained
here; but I remained a little longer, just to get the Minister to
express his own opinions on the subject, which were curious enough,
though not new to me. He seemed immensely amused at the idea of
abolishing legal prostitution; spoke of the enslaved as _not human_ at
all, and of the errors of men as something to be regretted, but
inevitable, and to be taken into account, _i.e._, provided for. He said:
“A woman who has once lost chastity has lost every good quality. She has
from that moment ‘_all the vices_.’” And so pleased did he seem with
this theory that he smiled and repeated it, “Once unchaste, she has
_every vice_.” He asked, “Who have you got to help you in the Italian
Parliament?” and seemed to wait eagerly for the answer, which he did not
get! As I went down the broad marble stairs and through the gateway over
which the beautiful title of his office is inscribed, I thought, “You
are ill-named, Office of Grace and Justice!”
Then I understood why Giuseppe Nathan smiled.
From Rome I went on alone for a week to my sister Madame Meuricoffre, at
Naples. We had there one or two quiet meetings. The medical men offered
some opposition at one of them, but, on the other hand, we had then, and
for some years after, the strong adhesion of Dr. Palasciano (who became
publicly an opponent of the Regulations) and of another distinguished
medical man of Naples. The tender sympathy of my sister, Madame
Meuricoffre, and her deep understanding of our motives, I need scarcely
say, were from that time, and have been all along, among my most
constant consolations and sources of strength. I cannot refrain from
giving the substance here of a letter which she wrote to me shortly
after my visit to Naples; for it expresses what comparatively few even
now understand—the hold which this question takes upon some thoughtful
and tender natures, and the reasons why it makes this impression:—
NAPLES, _January, 1875_.
“I told my friends here that when you were sent to us I had asked to
meet you those whom I thought likely to wish to hear you, in order to
see if God would choose any of them to come forward to the rescue of
those most pitiful and most unpitied of Christ’s little ones. He who
looked for some to have pity on Him, but there was no man, neither found
He any to comfort Him, called _us_ to have pity on _these_. But none of
those to whom I refer have been led into _that_ work. Still, I must not
for this reason judge that they are not His servants. I have faith that
they are, and are working in some other way, for in His army there are
many kinds of soldiers,—sappers and miners to open up roads, artillery
to attack forts, troops who have an easy victory, and ‘forlorn hopes’
who will never see victory, but make a bridge of their dead bodies for
their comrades to march over. There are, I doubt not, many who have been
elected to this work who, when God first took them by the hand, shrank
back. It was the last thing they would have chosen for themselves, but
He kept them to it till they accepted it, and then taught them the
sweetness of the dedication, by letting them feel how close it brought
them to Himself. There is a great deal in ordinary society, even where
there is nothing bad, which imperceptibly hardens, or gradually
establishes in the mind slightly false standards; and I wish to tell you
how strikingly I felt that entering into and interesting oneself in your
work brought one back, every time one touched it, into realising the
Living God, His nearness to us and our dependence on Him, and forced one
to measure all one’s thoughts, acts, and feelings by the standard of His
purity, instead of lowering oneself to the convenient and conventional
standard of the world. A person whose conscience has never been wounded
about this question, whose heart has never burned and bled with pity for
the woes of the helpless, devoted to destruction, might wonder, and ask,
‘Why should _this_ subject, above all others, produce this effect?’
Well, I cannot quite tell; perhaps because _in it_ culminates the awful
contrast between the results of man’s devices when he forgets God and
the unspeakable tenderness and pity of Christ for the most forsaken and
lost. He stooped to take upon Himself our nature, and to minister to us.
How much less is the interval between the best man or woman and the most
fallen! and how He pitied them, and how awfully solemn are His warnings,
not only not to offend one of the little ones, the weak and young, but
not to pass them by with the cold, worldly doctrine that ‘it must be
so.’ Such doctrine rouses in me a passion of grief and indignation that
some of us should be so honoured, while others, born with like
capabilities for virtue and sweet family life and happiness, should be
sold to men’s lusts, and then held down by a network of laws and
regulations; _held down in hell_. You and your fellow-workers will
understand well what I mean when I speak of a vital interest in this
question becoming a sifting power and a purifying fire in one’s own
soul; I tremble for those who are obliged, or think they are obliged, to
crush it out. Pray for them.”
On our return journey we visited Florence. Several persons here told me
that the system of Regulation was, for the moment, practically at an
end. This was, in part, the result of the opposition of the country
people of Tuscany, who resist the registration of their daughters on the
roll of shame. The character of the Tuscan peasant is simple, honest,
home loving. Mr. McDougall, a Scotch clergyman, who had resided many
years in Florence, said to me: “In character they stand as high as the
peasantry of my own Scotland.” Some sad tragedies had occurred. A
peasant girl escaped from one of the Government houses of infamy and
fled to her parents’ cottage. She was followed by the police, who
endeavour to “reclaim,” that is, _bring back to bondage_, every girl who
escapes. The parents barricaded their house; a struggle followed, and
blood was shed. This and other incidents which I might relate,
illustrating the tyranny of the system, had become public; the
Florentine people have hearts; their sympathies had been roused for the
homes and daughters of the poor; the State regulation of vice had become
unpopular, and was then very languidly carried out in Florence.
In Milan we had again the advantage of the presence and organising
ability of Giuseppe Nathan, who joined us there. We had a large
conference in that city. There were present some ex-Deputies and
well-known doctors. Some of these latter were strongly opposed to us,
especially Dr. Pini, who spoke at some length. He was seconded in his
views by an advocate of Milan, and Signor Brusco Onnis replied to him.
The address of the latter made a great impression on those present. A
useful discussion followed. Dr. Pini made a kind of recantation towards
the close, and a resolution in our favour was passed almost unanimously.
_La Gazetta di Milano_ of January 28, 1875, reported the meeting, and
remarked favourably on our aims. It gave also the resolution, and a
brief address to the group of citizens who had supported us, which was
printed and circulated the next day.
The address was as follows:—
“Gentlemen! the expression of sympathy with the cause which I advocate,
conveyed to me through you from the city of Milan, is deeply gratifying
to me; and in the name of all who co-operate with me in this holy
crusade, I tender you my heartfelt thanks. For pioneers the path is
always arduous and difficult, especially when before building up they
have to destroy an evil which for a long period has been corrupting the
moral sense of the most civilised populations. Such is our own case. I
will not, at the present time, dwell upon the fact of man having gone so
far as to convert that which is in itself supremely a question of
morality into one of opportunity and facility for the satisfaction of
his physical instincts, simply as instincts, and of his having, in order
to attain this end, perpetrated the most flagrant violation of right and
justice by crushing one of two persons equally guilty, in order to
render more easy the commission of sin for the other.
“The question for us resolves itself entirely into a moral question—a
question of justice. Even if it were the fact, which is not the case,
that statistics seemed to prove that by means of the existing system it
is possible to diminish the maladies attendant on prostitution, our cry
would be precisely what it is to-day—war, war to the death against all
which tends to deaden the moral sense in man, and which, ultimately,
must of necessity enervate the race. We believe that the aim of all
legislation should be the gradual moral progress of the governed, and
that the labours of science should be directed to the furtherance of
that aim.
“In order to obtain pure laws, and a higher morality, we will lend all
the force of our intellect and will.
“Will you, gentlemen, give us your aid, and do what you can to form
throughout the whole of Italy, committees which will put themselves in
relation with our associations in England?
“JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER.”
I must not detain my readers too long on this journey through Italy.
After a brief visit to Turin, we crossed the Alps to Geneva. It was at a
meeting at Geneva on this question at which one of the hardest and
longest portions of our conflict was inaugurated. Up to the present time
Geneva clings to the odious system which was on that occasion—twenty-one
years ago—first publicly arraigned, in spite of reiterated protests from
her best and noblest citizens, and blows aimed from many sides. But the
doom of the system is approaching, in spite of its apparent vitality.
Everything looked very dark for my first meeting beforehand. The
opposition threatened was of a different kind to that which we generally
met, which had been mainly materialistic. Here, in Geneva, there was a
good deal of sentimentality, much talk about the police being good
Christian men, and about reclamations effected by them. It was requested
by a friend that the legal aspect of the matter should be especially
dealt with. Professor Hornung was with us in sympathy from the first. He
was Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Geneva, and a very
able and distinguished man. My spirits fell, however, when a note came
in the afternoon to say that the Professor had been taken suddenly ill
and could not come to the meeting. The room was crowded at the hour
announced, and at the last moment Mr. Hornung entered, wrapped in shawls
and looking very pale. He took the presidency. Towards the end, when a
pause was given for objections to be brought forward, behold, there were
no objectors! but one after another stood up and gave in his adhesion to
our cause. Père Hyacinthe spoke very eloquently for us. He also wrote a
kind letter to me the following day, in which he said, “One feels, dear
Madame, that God is with you in your heroic crusade against what you
have so well called ‘the typical crime, the gigantic iniquity’ of our
race. God is with you, Madame; it is necessary that men should be with
you also. I beg that you will count entirely upon my weak but sincere
services.”
I cannot easily forget the impression of that first visit to Geneva, a
city of glorious traditions, and formerly the stern upholder of liberty
of conscience.
Geneva! still full of activity and life and educational movements, whose
glory is chiefly of the past, but in whose midst there is still high
profession of religion and spirituality, and at the same time desperate
social evils and Governmental iniquities which many of your best men and
women find too horrible to speak of; what, I asked myself, will be
_your_ judgment at the last?
Before the meeting many proofs had come to me of sinister influences
exercised to prevent my being heard, and to discourage people from
coming. Some of the professing Christians of Geneva seemed to be the
most deeply in love with the system of legalised vice. At one time the
anxiety was almost greater than I could bear, and I felt the pressure of
the responsibility all the more because at that time my husband had been
compelled to return to his duties at the Liverpool College, leaving me
to complete my immediate mission on the Continent without his comforting
and strengthening presence. My heart was burdened with all the shameful
things I had heard concerning the slave system in Geneva, the buying and
selling of young girls, and the corruption of young men, students,
school boys, and whole families. The good and venerable Pastor Borel had
told me of his experiences, and a tradesman of the town, M. W.——, who
had worked hard to try to save a few victims, called to see me. The
latter was an old, hard-sinewed man, apparently with little
sentimentalism about him; but during his recital he was so moved that he
burst into tears.
When the hour came, however, for the encounter, pity and sorrow were
stronger than the anger I had felt; and as I spoke I could see that the
people were moved. I happened to stand with my back to the light, which
fell fully upon the audience, and I was much struck by the rows of old,
grey heads and venerable faces. It was like an assembly of Elders, not
only of the Church, but Elders in science and in learning. I thanked God
when I saw that many of the Elders wept! Those tears made me glad. In
some sense no doubt this was a fruitful initiation of our Abolitionist
work; but of results we saw little or nothing for many years, in spite
of Geneva having become, two years later, the seat of our first great
and important International Congress.
On the morning following this meeting it was that I became first
acquainted with Madame de Gingins, whose name is so well known as one of
our most constant friends on the Continent. She was then emerging from
the shadow of a great sorrow, and felt that the call to this work would
be to her a revival of life and hope.
From Geneva I went on to Neuchâtel, where the tone was very different.
It was here that I first made the personal acquaintance of our beloved
friends and fellow workers for so many years, M. and Mme. Aimé Humbert,
and their family. M. Humbert speedily called together a Conference, and
it was on this occasion that I first gained a knowledge of his breadth
of view and intellectual grasp. His long experience of political life
and of men had endowed him with a readiness and tact and power of
controlling and guiding an assembly even of the most discordant elements
such as I have scarcely seen in any other man. I must give some extracts
from M. Humbert’s address at this first meeting.
“What response,” he asked, “shall we make to the appeal which has been
made to us?”
“We are not, it is true, in the same situation as the associations which
have been mentioned. The reformist agitation in England aims at
effecting the repeal of laws protective of immorality. In the first
place, no _Federal law_ analogous to these exists in Switzerland.
Legislation relating to public morals is within the province of the
several cantons. Then, again, in the canton of Neuchâtel, the criminal
code takes cognisance of vice, and visits it with correctional or
criminal penalties, as the case may be, without consideration of person
or sex. We have, then, a legislation protective of morality, and which
admits neither exception nor reservation. I may add that in general it
is respected, especially in our chief city of Berne, which is, perhaps,
of all Switzerland, the town the most exempt from the scourge of
prostitution. On the other hand, in our principal industrial centre, at
Chaux-de-Fonds, immoral houses were established some years since, as in
Geneva. The fact is public and notorious, and it has already called
forth the remonstrances of the Synod of the National Church of
Neuchâtel, which have been without result. Consequently our situation is
this:—We have, I repeat, a legislation protective of morality, but this
legislation is openly violated in a portion of our territory. Thus,
instead of seeking, as in England, the repeal of a law the enactment of
which constituted an innovation, we have to demand the strict observance
of the existing law. If we do not do this, we sanction by our silence a
state of things worse than in England. There, at least, there is no
longer any _legal hypocrisy_! the law declares openly what it intends to
tolerate. Here, on the contrary, the prohibition of vice is held to be
complete; it is officially proclaimed, and, nevertheless, in one portion
of our territory, all the crimes and misdemeanours which fall under the
ban of the penal code are daily committed with the full knowledge of
every citizen.
“Without respect for the laws, there is no true Republic. If a good law
becomes a lie, it tends to deaden the national conscience and to deprave
the people, just as much as a bad law could do. Let us, then, have the
courage of our opinions! If our law is good, let us compel its
observance; if, on the contrary, we judge that we ought to substitute
for it the toleration of immorality, let us boldly legalise vice! I am
persuaded that this will not be done. A law of tolerance is an
impossibility in our canton. Neither our present Grand Council, nor any
Grand Council of Neuchâtel, will ever sanction it. Could an institution
exist in our Republic of Neuchâtel which braves the legislative power,
and subsists in spite of public opinion? Such a thing would be the
commencement of the downfall of our Republic. And what description of
institution is it, for which we should have to introduce a _régime_ of
privilege incompatible with our constitutional guarantees? An
institution which is, in itself, a flagrant violation of individual
liberty, and of the equality of all the inhabitants of the country,
whether men or women, before the law. The inauguration of legal
prostitution is nothing else than the triumph of brute force, the
consecration of police despotism over the weaker sex—the protection of a
white slave-trade—in a word, the organisation of female slavery.
“But hygienic considerations are invoked. We are told that certain
diseases would thus become rarer or less pernicious. Well, let us admit
for an instant—what I consider by no means proved—that this assertion is
incontestable. I will tell you of another disease, which, wherever this
system obtains, becomes ever more deadly and less rare. It does not,
indeed, attack any single organ of the human frame, but it withers all
that is human—mind, body, soul. It strikes our youth at that unhappy
moment when first they cross the threshold of the abodes of State
regulated vice; and when they recross that threshold to the purer air,
oh God! what fatal deed has not been done! For them the spring of life
has no more flowers; the very friendships of their youth are polluted;
they become strangers to all the honourable relations of a pure life;
and thus it is that more and more in these days we see stretching wider
and wider around us the circle of this mocking, faded, worn out,
sceptical youth, without poetry, without love, without enthusiasm,
without faith, and without joy. And yet this is the generation on which
the hopes of our country rest!
“There is something truly mysterious in the way in which a social
scourge makes its way and propagates itself; but what is still more
astonishing, or rather more admirable, is the means by which Providence
puts an end to it.
“For some time past have Jules Simon, in his work, _L’Ouvrière_; Victor
Hugo, in _Les Misérables_, John Stuart Mill, Acollas, Hornung, and many
other writers denounced the crime of female slavery, and declared it the
duty of democracy to provide for the extinction of prostitution. Many
applauded; but the thing would have ended there had not the advocates of
legal prostitution in Great Britain themselves solicited and obtained
from Parliament an official sanction of this system of slavery. Then—not
till then—this system was unveiled in the full light of publicity, and
publicity is fatal to it; for on the one hand vice cannot bear the light
in a country where the Press is free, and on the other hand no _law_ of
Parliament can, in the mind of the British nation, over-ride the
_Charter_ of its ancient liberties, it having been one of the first
among the great nations of Europe to formulate the guarantee of personal
rights. The Charter of our little country of Neuchâtel is of still more
ancient date (1213). The first Compact of alliance of our Confederation
belongs to the close of the same century (1291). _Individual Liberty_
founded alike the greatness of England and the happiness of Switzerland.
We cannot, any more than the English, permit slavery upon our Republican
soil. It may not be allowed an entrance there, whether official or
secret. Let us all mutually unite to protect liberty and justice from
the evil which threatens them in common. Mrs. Butler’s mission will
prove to be for us a providential event, the opportunity which we must
quickly seize, in order to act upon our canton and upon Switzerland, and
to associate ourselves with the great reformatory struggle which is
coming upon Europe, and, sooner or later, upon the whole world.”
In company with Madame Humbert, I visited the largest industrial town of
the Jura, La Chaux-de-Fonds. There was much moral evil there, but also
many sternly just and good people. I was fully rewarded for the visit
there by the adhesion of persons who have remained constant to our
cause, and whose work was crowned by complete success in 1892 by the
final abolition of the infamous institution in that city, and in the
entire canton of Neuchâtel.
The town stands high on the Jura. I was warned that the cold would be
many degrees greater than at Neuchâtel; and, indeed, I found it so. Even
the extraordinary beauty of the vast expanses of snow, the black forests
of enormous pine trees, with their weights of heavy clinging snow, the
glimpses of the distant Alps, stretching from Mont Blanc to the
Wetterhorn and Wellhorn, scarcely gave me courage enough to hold out
against the cold as we ascended. Madame Humbert kindly accompanied me.
As we came near the town, however, I found I had not come among cold
hearts. Several venerable men met us a little way from the town, with
fur wrappings about them, and faces full of kindly welcome, and stood
with heads uncovered until the sledge started again for the town. The
deep snow made everything very silent; no rattle of wheels, only the
soft, sweeping sound of the sledges flying swiftly about, and the
musical ringing of the horses’ bells. We had excellent meetings there.
From Neuchâtel I visited Berne and Lausanne, finding warm friends in
each place. Thence I returned to Paris. It was on this second visit to
Paris that I made the acquaintance of Madame de Morsier, whose name is
endeared to many of us with whom she has worked on the Continent ever
since. M. Humbert joined me in Paris, having determined, after grave
consultation with his wise and gentle wife, to throw himself into the
cause, although it might involve for him some sacrifice from a material
point of view. “_God wills it_,” he said. “This was the cry of the old
Crusaders, and still more do I feel that it is the motto of those who
are being drawn into this great movement.”
I will not dwell upon the rather bitter experiences of the first part of
this my second visit to Paris, arising from the opposition and cynicism
which we met with. “It is a hard crusade,” exclaimed M. Humbert one day,
as he returned from a long and fruitless controversy with M. Mettetal,
ex-Prefect of the Morals’ Police, the predecessor of Lecour. M. Mettetal
was a Protestant, and esteemed a religious man, but on the subject of
justice, equality and legality, _he was stone blind_.
It is pleasanter to recollect the kindness, which never failed, of
certain warm friends, and the readiness to accept our message which we
found among the humbler classes of the people. Several interesting
meetings were held, promoted by M. Ed. de Pressensé and other
distinguished men of the Protestant community, and others by leaders
among the working men and women of Paris. At one large meeting, at which
there was a crowd of women present, an advocate opposed us. He proceeded
to say all the untrue and cowardly things which men generally say when
defending the enslavement of women, for they use the same arguments all
over the world. Before he had gone far, however, he seemed rather taken
aback, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the furious burst of
scorn and anger which proceeded from all the women, and almost all the
men, present. He endeavoured to go on, but the women hissed, and moaned,
and protested so energetically that his voice was drowned. It gladdened
my heart to see this furious protest from these poor Frenchwomen. The
advocate became somewhat excited and tried to fling back the scorn of
the women, getting, however, more and more into the mud, and floundering
hopelessly. When he declared that the unhappy women for whose civil and
natural rights we had pleaded, were the vilest of creatures, scarcely
human, and justly expelled from and scorned by society, the women
present sprang to their feet, and almost with one voice demanded, “But
the men! What about the men? Are they not equally guilty, base and
despicable?” I thanked God in my heart for this storm of righteous
indignation. But there was sadness, too, in it. It had a maledictory
sound which reminded me of the deep and deadly wounds which had been
inflicted upon the population of Paris, and spoke of still further
tribulation which might be in store for her.
Dr. Armand Deprés, a physician of the Lourcine Hospital, a man of great
statistical knowledge on this question, gave me valuable help during
this visit. He attended with me another large meeting, chiefly of the
working class, and addressed them with a wonderful tenderness, giving
also at the same time, clearly and delicately, the results which only a
medical expert like himself could furnish.
Many proofs of sympathy reached us from other parts of France. One of
the most touching of these was a letter from Mr. Charles de Bourbonne, a
magistrate of Rheims, who had pronounced a severe, just, and eloquent
judgment in a case which had occurred in carrying out the regulations in
his own city. On account of that judgment, which is a masterpiece of
clearly-stated principle _versus_ opportunism, and would well deserve to
be quoted in full, he was degraded from the magistracy. He wrote to me:—
“Madam,—Yours is a work of lofty aims and noble purposes. Your voice
will not sound in the desert. You will be able at length to create that
phalanx of workers so much needed, which shall constitute an
indissoluble alliance, an alliance indispensable to the cause which you
defend. England is a privileged country, since liberty of discussion
prevails there. It is not so in France. It is as a martyr in the great
Cause which I dared to defend, that I address you to-night. I have
committed the wrong of being in the right, and, after nineteen years of
arduous labours in the Magistracy, I am degraded for having dared to
oppose abuses which I considered infamous, and am now compelled at an
advanced age to seek some retired business which shall permit me to live
honestly. You ask me to become an honorary member of the International
Congress to take place next year. I accept it with all my heart, and I
am proud to do so.
“C. DE BOURBONNE,
“_Ex-Justice of the Peace_.”
This Magistrate had said, in his published judgment, “I have discovered,
and have proofs, that it is the police itself which is one of the main
causes of the depravity and demoralisation of our great cities. Without
much education, of a morality at least doubtful, and in possession of an
arbitrary power which is beyond any possible control, the agents of the
Morals’ Police are believed upon their simple word, and their reports
obtain credence.”
The close of this year was marked by a vigorous correspondence in the
French Press on the subject of the Police des Mœurs, which bore much
fruit, bringing many hideous things to light, and arousing slumbering
consciences in the matter.