THE PRISONS OF ASPASIA.
It is not easy, in telling the story of the prisons of old Paris, to
avoid mention of the subject with which this chapter is concerned. That
subject is not, however, an attractive one, and readers whom it repels
are invited to let the chapter go.
According to the authors of _Les Prisons de l'Europe_, Charlemagne was
the first monarch of France who "formally punished" the calling of the
_femme publique_. His edict swept the field, so to speak; the _femme
publique_ (known then, however, as the _femme du monde_) and all who
gave asylum to her were absolutely banned. The prison, the whip, and the
pillory were their portion; the keepers of houses of ill-fame had to
carry the pillory on their backs to the market-place, and the women whom
they lodged had to stand in it. This edict, completely prohibitive, was
in force during four centuries, and its principal result seems to have
been to augment the custom of Aspasia. She and her industry increased a
thousand-fold.
The state of France in this respect struck Saint Louis with horror on
his return from the Holy Land. His _ordonnance_ of 1254 bade the women
of the town renounce their calling, on pain of being deprived of house
and clothing, "even of the clothes in which they stood up." If, after
being warned, these women continued as before, they were to be banished
the country. But, wiser and more humane than Charlemagne, Saint Louis
set apart for repentant Magdalens a shelter in the convent of the
Filles-Dieu, and drew from his private purse the moneys to lodge and
maintain two hundred of them.
The new law, enforced with as much rigour as the old one, proved every
whit as impotent. Aspasia went her ways in secret, and devised many
arts. She borrowed the manners and the costume of her more respectable
sisters (_Les prostituées singèrent les manières et le costume des
femmes honnêtes_), glided into the churches, and went with sidelong
glances through the most frequented places of the town. This clandestine
pursuit of the calling, and the hypocrisy which of necessity it bred on
every side, were beyond measure distressing to Saint Louis. A good king,
and a pious one, he considered the matter deeply, and then, in the
interests, as he believed, of public and private morals, he resolved
upon a novel and hazardous measure. It was, to allow the _femmes
publiques_ a degree of liberty, and the exercise of their calling, under
certain strict conditions. Amongst other regulations, they were to live
in houses specially appointed to them, and these houses were to be
closed at six o'clock in the evening, no person being allowed to enter
them after that hour.
Thus, strangely enough in one point of view, the King who won the name
of "Saint," and whose memory has been justly cherished, was the first to
give legality in France to the calling of Aspasia. Yet this was also the
King who, above all others on that throne, had sought to keep in check
the moral disorders of his kingdom. It was only when he had seen that
measures of repression were of worse than no avail, inasmuch as the
immorality of the town appeared always to increase in proportion to the
stringency of laws, whilst the secrecy of the traffic confounded the
_femme du monde_ with the "respectable" woman, that he resolved upon
giving to the former a domain and status of her own. In this manner, the
unrecognised _femme du monde_ was transformed into the _femme publique_,
a woman with a standing of her own, and with the King's authority to
prosecute her mournful industry.
She entered under the special jurisdiction of the Provosts of Paris, who
from time to time made various enactments on her account. Thus, in 1360,
the chief magistrate forbade the _femmes publiques_ to wear certain
specified apparel in the streets; and, in 1367, a police order confined
them to particular streets in Paris, "a measure rendered necessary by
their unseemly behaviour in all places, to the great scandal of
everyone."[24] During the next two hundred years they were occasionally
transferred from one quarter of Paris to another, and Parliament more
than once took upon itself to "regulate their costume."
In 1560, an edict given at Orleans formulated afresh the stern
prohibitions of Charlemagne. Once more, the calling of Aspasia was
forbidden throughout the whole of France. The difficulties of enforcing
this new-old _ordonnance_ were great everywhere, but nowhere so great as
in the capital; and the Provost, it is said, was five years in
concerting his measures. The statement is easily credited. Paris herself
was little in sympathy at that date with laws to restrict the liberty of
Aspasia; and it cannot be said that the average citizen had received
much encouragement to virtue from the examples of the Court, the
nobility, the clergy, or the magistracy itself. Dulaure asserts in his
_Histoire de Paris_ that "_La prostitution était considérée à l'égal des
autres professions de la société_." The _femmes publiques_, he adds,
formed a corporation by themselves, received their patents, as it were,
from the hands of Royalty, "_et même étaient protégées par les rois.
Charles VI. et Charles VII. ont laissé des témoignages authentiques de
cette protection._" The commerce to which was extended the august
protection of the throne "_était encore favorisé par le grand nombre de
célibataires, prêtres et moines, par le libertinage des magistrats, des
gens de guerre, etc. Les femmes publiques, richement vêtues, se
répandaient dans tous les quartiers de cette ville, et se trouvaient
confondues avec les bourgeoises, qui, elles-mêmes, menaient une vie fort
dissolue_." Provosts of Paris sometimes refused to put in force laws
which themselves had framed against the "daughters of joy"; and in so
refusing they seem usually to have had with them the sympathies of the
town.
Footnote 24:
_Les Prisons de l'Europe._
This being in general the attitude of society in Paris, it might be
thought that the attempt to revive the code of Charlemagne would be
received with small popular favour. It appears to have been received
with no favour whatever. Seven years, from 1560 to 1567, did the Provost
prepare his way, and then the edict was launched. It was read aloud at
either end of every street in which Aspasia had her dwelling, and in
several of these streets a violent resistance was offered, by the women
as well as by their friends and protectors, to the not too-willing
agents of the law. By main force at length the women were taken as by
press-gang, their streets were closed, the temple of Venus was
demolished, and there were once more no _femmes publiques_ in Paris.
So, at least, did the Law assure itself; what then had become of them?
As may be supposed, the great majority were still in Paris. Not a few
were in prison (but for short periods only); the rest were scattered
throughout the town, or in the villages surrounding Paris. As in the
days of Charlemagne, and before the second decree of Saint Louis,
Aspasia had merely disguised herself. No Magdalen repented on the order
of the State. She sought a retreat until the passing of the storm, and
in a little while the history of the affair repeated itself: _la
prostitution clandestine inonda Paris_.
Matters continued apparently without the slightest improvement until
1619, when the authorities could devise no better plan than a renewal of
the prohibitions of 1565. The _femmes publiques_ were commanded by
proclamation to betake themselves to some domestic or other occupation,
or to quit the town and suburbs within four and twenty hours. The utter
infeasibility of the injunction is not more striking than its stupendous
absurdity. Imagine the whole corporation of Aspasias, _richement
vêtues_, converting themselves at a day's notice into seamstresses,
cooks, or chambermaids. It would have been so easy for them to find
employers! Saint Louis had shewn himself more generous, more thoughtful,
and more sensible in opening his private purse to lodge and maintain the
would-be penitents of the order amongst the recluses of the Filles-Dieu.
Needless to say, the foolish and impossible decree was quite barren of
result. During the next sixty-five years, that is to say until 1684, no
definite legal action was taken with respect to the position of the
_femme publique_. Unlicenced and unacknowledged, she fared well or ill
according to the laxity or the vigilance of the bench and police, who
sometimes harried and sometimes tacitly or openly abetted her. The
secret or semi-open practice of her calling was often as profitable as
the pursuit of it by sanction of the Crown, but it was attended by the
risks of an illegal industry, and in seasons when provosts or
lieutenants of police shewed an unwonted activity, Aspasia went to
prison. Thus she fared, now sparkling in the finest company, now pinched
for a meal, and now doing penance on the prison flags, or perhaps sick
(eight to a bed) in Bicêtre hospital, until 1684. At that date, another
move was resolved upon, and for the second time Aspasia had the gracious
permission of the State to style herself _femme publique_, and to sell
her liberty to the police, to buy _une licence de débauche_,—for this
was what it came to.
At the period arrived at, it was no longer merely a question of
irregularities to be repressed, but of the public health to be
preserved; and in the new regulations the hospital was named along with
the prison. From this time forward, a brief interval under the Consulate
excepted, it does not seem to have been questioned in France that women
who chose to do so, or who might be driven to do so, were entitled under
specified conditions to enter on the calling of _femme publique_. What
steps must be taken to secure the dubious privileges of the order, and
what dissuasions were employed by the magistrate who dispensed them,
will presently be shewn.
Up to the reign of Louis XIV., the monarch responsible for the
provisions of 1684, there was no special prison for the women of this
class, who, when under lock and key, were herded with female offenders
of all degrees. The first special prison for the _femmes publiques_ was
the Salpêtrière, built by Louis XIV., under the designation of "Hospital
General." At this era, the women arrested were not put upon their trial,
nor was any formal judgment pronounced against them. They were under the
sole jurisdiction of the newly appointed lieutenant of police, who
dispatched them to prison on the King's warrant, which took the form of
a _lettre de cachet_. Curious, that the _fille de joie_ should be placed
in this respect on a footing of equality with the prince of the blood,
the nobleman, and the prelate!
At about the end of the eighteenth century (say, towards 1770), the
police authorities distinguished two classes of women of the town, the
_femmes publiques_, or authorised women, and a numerous and unlicenced
class, of more dissolute habits, officially stigmatised as _débauchées_.
To strengthen the line of demarcation between the two classes, the
_femmes publiques_, or the majority of them, were inscribed on the
police registers (paying a fee of twenty sous), and being to a certain
extent _protégées_ of the State, the treatment accorded to them was
generally of a more lenient character. The terms of their imprisonment
(for soliciting in the streets or public places, for brawling and
rioting, for signalling from their windows, etc.,) were entirely at the
discretion of the lieutenant of police; but it would appear that they
were frequently released, at the request or on the bond of a parent,
sister, or other relative, after a brief confinement. The houses in
which the members of the unlicenced class lived together were
continually raided by the police, who descended upon them after dark,
"_parce que les femmes en étaient arrivées à ce degré de scandale, qu'on
ne pouvait plus les arrêter pendant le jour, à cause du désordre
qu'elles causaient, et des collisions qu'excitaient leurs amants et
autres adhérents_."
Eighteenth-century documents concerning these houses are still to be
read, and some of them have a curiously modern flavour. There are
complaints of householders, and the reports of the police agents whom
these complaints set in motion. A certain, M. Ledure, writing under date
of the 23d of July, 1785, asks the attention of the police to an
unlicensed house of ill-fame adjoining his own, and details his
annoyances with a freedom of expression which debars translation. The
burden of his protest is, that being a gentleman with a family of
daughters, and the holder of a position which obliges him to entertain
"des personnes de distinction," his existence is rendered intolerable by
the worse than light behaviour of the "females over the way." He can
scarcely even get into his own house of an evening.
"To satisfy M. Ledure," runs the police report, "we began by visiting,
in Beaubourg Street, the house in which the women complained of were
lodging. We arrested there, Marguerite Lefèbvre, the other women having
taken themselves off.... In response to the complaints of the residents
in Rohan Street, against the women living at No. 63, we forced an entry
there, and arrested the woman Rochelet, and the two _filles d'amour_
kept by her. We fetched them out, to take them to Saint-Martin"—a house
of detention, from which the women were transferred to the
Salpêtrière,—"but, although our guard was composed of five men with
fixed bayonets, we were so set upon by the man Rochelet, a hairdresser,
and twenty blackguards with him, that we had to let the women go."
The origin of the prison of Saint-Martin, abolished by Louis XVI., is
quite unknown. It was a small confined place with a villainous
reputation. Regarded by the authorities as a temporary lodging for both
classes of public women, a sort of fore-chamber of the Salpêtrière, no
attempt was ever made to render it decently habitable. The dark and
dirty cells were absolutely destitute of furniture; a truss of straw,
thrown from time to time on the stone floor, was both bed and bedding.
The food was strictly in keeping; all that the prison gave was a loaf of
black bread a day, and whilst prisoners who could afford it were allowed
to do a little catering for themselves, the rest soaked their black
bread in the soup provided by charitable societies.
Every petition to improve Saint-Martin was answered by the formula that
no one stayed there above a few days, which was a callous misstatement
of the facts. It is true that the women arrested "by order of the King"
were not detained after their _lettres de cachet_ had been obtained; but
the women of the other class, who were arrested by simple act of police,
and tried at the bar as ordinary offenders, lay for weeks or months at
Saint-Martin, awaiting the pleasure of a judge of the Châtelet. When the
cases to be disposed of were numerous, a part only were heard, and the
women whose fate was still to be pronounced were remanded for a further
period of weeks or months to Saint-Martin. It was thus not less a prison
in the ordinary meaning of the word than what the French call a _dépôt_;
and when its inconveniences were no longer to be endured, Louis XVI.
abolished and demolished it, and constituted by letters-patent the Hôtel
de Brienne as a _prison des femmes publiques_, under the name of _La
Petite Force_. This continued to be the temporary prison until the
revolutionary era, and here at least the women had air to breathe and
beds to lie on.
The first rules for the conduct of the Salpêtrière were issued from
Versailles in April, 1684, over the signatures of Louis XIV. and his
minister Colbert.
The women were to hear mass on Sundays and Saints' days; to pray
together a quarter of an hour morning and evening, and to submit to
readings from "the catechism and pious books" whilst they were at work.
They were to be soberly attired in dark stuff gowns, and shod with
sabots; bread and water with soup were to be their portion; and they
were to sleep on mattresses with sufficient bed-gear.
The nature of their tasks was left to the discretion of the directors,
but the labour was to be "both long and severe." After a period of
probation, prisoners of approved behaviour might be employed at lighter
occupations, and receive a small percentage of the profits, which they
were to be at liberty to spend on the purchase of meat, fruit, "_et
autres rafraîchissements_."
Swearing, idleness, and quarrelling with one another were to be punished
by a diminution of rations, the pillory, the dark cell, or such other
pains as the directors might think proper to inflict.
These continued to be the rules for the prisons of the _femmes
publiques_; their spirit is modern, but we shall see later on to what
extent they were enforced.
In no long time, indeed, after the decrees of 1684, the conditions of
life in the Salpêtrière seem to have been little if at all better than
those in Saint-Martin. Six women shared a cell by night; the one bed
which was supposed to hold them all accommodated four; two of whom slept
at the head and two at the foot, while the two latest comers made shift
on the bare floor. When one of the bed-fellows got her discharge, or
went sick to Bicêtre, the elder of the floor-companions took the vacant
place in the bed, resigning her share of the boards to a new _fille
d'amour_. Complaints evoked the cut-and-dried response that the bed was
intended to hold six. The cells were always damp, and "_il y régnait
absolument, et surtout le matin, une odeur infecte, capable de faire
reculer_." Despite the lack of sanitation, and the fact that the food
was always of an inferior quality, the death-rate was not abnormal in
the Salpêtrière.
Such was the first regular prison of the _femmes publiques_, and its
régime. The sensible intentions of Louis XIV. were never realised, nor
does the character of the monarch himself permit it to be inferred that
he was very seriously concerned on the subject. The Salpêtrière
continued to receive, if not to chasten, the "daughters of joy" until
two days before the September massacres, when, as the beds for six were
wanted for political prisoners, they were restored to liberty.
The year '91 saw the overthrow of everything, and the women of pleasure,
so-called, entered upon halcyon days. Aspasia, left to her own devices,
was "regarded as exercising an ordinary trade." Scandals and disorders
followed, and when the public health was again in danger, there being
neither control nor supervision of this traffic, a new census of the
women was ordered. This was in 1796, but the work was so badly done that
the opening days of the Directory found the situation more deplorable,
if possible, than ever. Strange to say, the dissolute Directory (which
admitted to its salons "gallant dames" who lacked nothing of the status
of _filles d'amour_ save inscription on the police registers) turned a
severe eye upon the morals of the public. The police were bidden to be
active in the haunts of Aspasia, but Aspasia had not forgotten the
Republican doctrine of liberty, and when haled before the bench she
gathered her lovers and friends about her in such numbers, that the
cloud of witnesses in her favour quite overawed the magistrates, who
were fain to let her go free.
The Consulate renewed the attack. It was at this era that the Central
Bureau, which displaced the old office of Lieutenant of Police, was
created, with a special sub-department called the _Bureau des Mœurs_.
This department gave its attention principally to the sanitary aspects
of the matter. Then was established the _Préfecture de Police_; and the
new prefect, M. Dubois, ordered a fresh numbering of the women, which
was made in 1801. The police, however, continued to ask for larger
powers, which, to be brief, were conferred on them by article 484 of the
_Code Pénal_. There were here revived at a stroke the _ordonnances_ of
1713, 1778, and 1780, which gave to the heads of police, "_une autorité
absolue sur les femmes publiques_."
During the period which has been thus hastily reviewed and which
commenced soon after the close of the Reign of Terror, three prisons in
succession served for the women of the town: La Force, Les
Madelonnettes, and Saint-Lazare.
For many years—indeed, until the year after the battle of Waterloo—they
were taken to prison in the keeping of soldiers, who led them through
the streets in broad day; a crowd following, the women in tears or
swearing, the crowd jeering or applauding. If a woman were well known in
the town, there was an attempt to rescue her, and she was often snatched
from the soldiers before the prison was reached. This public scandal,
and bitter humiliation to all women above the most degraded class, was
allowed until the year 1816, when the _femmes publiques_ were conveyed
to prison in a closed car.
They went to the Force, which has not left a kinder memory than the
Salpêtrière. Prison rule was, an art as yet in its infancy, and there
was scarcely an idea of cleanliness, moral control, or discipline. The
Force, it is said, was "as inconvenient a place as could be found for
its purpose." The infirmary, always an important department of prisons
of this class, was "unwholesome and wretchedly ventilated." The women
were altogether undisciplined, and as workrooms had not been opened they
passed their days in idleness and gaming. In the summer months they
swarmed in the yard; in winter, they slept, played cards, quarrelled,
and fought in dusky and ill-smelling common-rooms. They had no keepers
but men, before whom they displayed the most cynical effrontery. It is
asserted that, on the days on which clean linen was distributed, the
women were accustomed to present themselves before the warders in the
precise state in which Phryne astonished her judges.[25] These things
were noised, and the prefect of police had to devise afresh. In 1828,
the _filles d'amour_ were transferred from the Force to the
Madelonnettes. The record of the Madelonnettes in this connection is not
important, except that here it was attempted to employ the women at some
strictly penal tasks. This project was more fully developed at
Saint-Lazare, to which prison all classes of women of the town were
relegated in 1831. At this date, the number of registered public women
in Paris was 3517.
Footnote 25:
Un ancien gardien de la Force nous a dit que le samedi, jour où on
leur donnait des chemises, pendant l'été, elles se mettaient
entirement nues dans le préau pour les recevoir des mains des
gardiens.—_Les Prisons de l'Europe._
Before penetrating within the prison of Saint-Lazare, the reader will be
curious to know by what means a woman desirous of doing so enrolled
herself in this singular militia. She must seek the countenance and aid
of a magistrate of Paris, whose task was in equal measure a delicate and
a painful one. Without doubt, it was a strange spectacle; a woman
presents herself before a magistrate and says that, renouncing her
woman's modesty, her hope or desire of an honourable future, she wishes
to be cut off from the world, that she may cast herself _dans la
prostitution publique_. At first sight, she seems to make the magistrate
her accomplice, but that this was not the case the sequel will shew.
The applicant underwent a most minute interrogation. She was asked if
she were a married woman, a widow, or a spinster; if her parents were
living and whether she lived with them, or why she had separated from
them. She was asked how long she had inhabited Paris, and whether she
had no friends there whose interest the magistrate might evoke for her.
She was asked whether she had ever been arrested, how often, and for
what causes. She was asked whether she had ever followed the calling of
_femme publique_ in any other place, and finally, what were the true
motives of her application. Procès-verbal of the examination was drawn
up, and the applicant had then to be seen by a medical man attached to
the police service. Next, her certificate of birth was asked for, and if
she could not produce it, and had been born out of Paris, she must give
the name of the mayor of her department. The magistrate wrote forthwith
to the mayor, and after setting forth the facts which the applicant had
submitted in her examination, requested him to report upon them, asking
particularly whether the relatives of the woman could not be moved to
induce her to return to them. All this was done in the case where the
girl or woman went alone to solicit her enrollment, but it has to be
said that not infrequently one or both of the parents of the applicant
attended with her at the bureau, to support her request!
When every effort of the magistrate had proved unavailing, a final
Procès-verbal was prepared, to the effect that such-and-such a female
had requested to be inscribed "_comme fille publique_," and had been
enrolled on the decision of the examining magistrate, "after undertaking
to submit to the sanitary and other regulations established by the
Prefecture for women of that class." Thus, and in all cases by her own
act, was she launched upon those turbid waters.
Of the 3517 women on the Paris police registers in 1831, 931 were from
Paris and the department of the Seine, 2170 from the provincial
departments, 134 from foreign countries, and the remaining 282 had been
unable or unwilling to satisfy the authorities as to their place of
birth. There were amongst them seamstresses, modistes, dressmakers,
florists, lacemakers, embroiderers, glove-makers, domestic servants,
hawkers, milliners, hairdressers, laundresses, silk-workers, jewellers,
actresses or figurantes, acrobats, and representatives of many other
trades and callings, together with six teachers of music, and one
"landscape painter." As regards the education of this army of outcasts,
rather more than one-half were unable to sign their names on the cards
or badges which they received from the bureau; a somewhat smaller number
appended "an almost illegible signature" (_fort mal, et d'une manière à
peine lisible_); whilst a hundred, or thereabouts, wrote "a neat and
correct hand."
As for the causes which induced them to cast in their lot with their
sister pariahs, they were traceable for the most part to the weaknesses
or defects of the social organisation. Thus, a majority of the women
pleaded "excess of misery," and the class next in point of numbers were
"_simples concubines ayant perdu leurs amants, et ne sachant plus que
faire_." A large proportion had lost both parents, or had been driven
from home; many had left the provinces to seek work in Paris; some were
widows who could find no other means of supporting their children; and
others were daughters looking for bread for aged parents, or for younger
sisters and brothers.
-------
And now, standing on the threshold of their prison, we may ask what were
the commoner causes which sent these unfortunates to Saint-Lazare. It
has been made sufficiently clear that by the act of procuring their
licences they sold their liberty to the police. This indeed was the sole
condition on which enrolment could be obtained. The _femme publique_, in
becoming such, bought herself an army of masters; the whole force of
police were in authority over her, and almost equally so were their
agents and spies, and the medical men in their employ. She had
subscribed obedience to all the regulations invented by the Préfecture,
and she was under perpetual surveillance. The great power of the police
over her rested on her submission in writing to the prefect's
"_règlements sanitaires_" and his "_mesures exceptionelles de
surveillance_," and infringement of the most arbitrary enactment brought
her within the danger of prison. Failing to render her prescribed visit
to the police doctor, she was almost certain to find herself a day or
two later in Saint-Lazare. Special rules and regulations apart, the
irregularities of life and infractions of common law which at times were
almost inevitable in the calling she had entered on, were amongst the
causes contributive to her troubles with the powers at whose mercy she
had placed herself. On the whole, one gathers that the _fille de joie_
paid at siege rates for that none too felicitous title.
She seems to have found herself often on the less desirable side of the
prison door; and as the class of _filles publiques_ in Paris has always
included some of the handsomest and some of the most ill-favoured, some
of the most elegant and some of the least refined, some of the brightest
and some of the most villainous women in the town, it may be supposed
that the floating population of Saint-Lazare (which amounted sometimes
to fourteen hundred) offered a marvellous variety of types.
It was the place of waiting for women and girls whose applications to be
registered had not been disposed of, and for the women who were to be
tried on police charges; and it was also the place of punishment for
those who had received sentence.
The position of the untried was in many respects worse than that of the
convicted prisoners. The former had the privilege, to be sure, of hiring
what was called a private room, but if they went in penniless they were
in a bad case indeed. They had no right to the full prison rations, and
were fed strictly on bread and water. The convicted prisoners were
warmly clad in winter, but the untried were not allowed to add to the
clothing they took in with them a wrap or comforter from the prison
wardrobe. In hard weather the public women of the poorer class seem to
have suffered keenly both from hunger and from cold. Untried, and
presumably innocent (and many honest women were sent to Saint-Lazare on
the vaguest accusations or suspicions of the police), they were
compelled to receive the visits of the doctors, which were not always of
the most delicate character. Women awaiting trial sometimes offered
money to escape this humiliation, and the case is recorded of a girl who
preferred suicide to submission.
It was better, in respect of physical comfort, on the penal side of the
prison. There the women were clad to the season, fed not meanly, and
lodged with a certain decency. The untaught and feckless had opportunity
to learn a trade, for the workrooms were now conducted on a much more
practical principle, and the small bonuses bestowed on the industrious
were to some extent a corrective of the _femme publique's_ inveterate
indolence. There was, for the first time in the history of French penal
discipline, a clean, more or less wholesome, and well ordered infirmary
for the treatment of maladies peculiar to that class.
In the material point of view, in a word, the prison of Saint-Lazare
was, for convicted prisoners, an infinitely better place than any of its
predecessors. But the régime from the standpoint of morals left more
than a little to desire.
Certainly, it offered none of the grosser features of the old system.
The male attendants had disappeared. The principle of work had been
established, and discipline was pretty well maintained in the wards,
cells, and refectories. When the women had lived together in all but
absolute idleness, their prison was always in a state of disorder, and
often in a state of uproar. Quarrels were of daily occurrence, and a
quarrel usually issued in a fight. Two women, armed with combs or
holding copper coins between their fingers, stood up to do battle for an
absent lover, whom each claimed for her own; and the other prisoners
made a ring around them, not so much in the interests of fair play, as
to see that each combatant got her due share of "punishment." If the
warders attempted to interfere, they probably retired with broken heads.
There was almost no restraint upon the women, and the lack of
discipline, which permitted sanguinary fights at any hour of the day,
pervaded the entire system. The _femme publique_ could receive what
visitors she pleased, and her lovers and friends crowded the "parlour,"
and laughed, sang, and swore at their ease. They brought her money,
food, clothing, and whatever else she desired. As long as her purse was
filled, she was never without luxuries, and she selected from amongst
her fellow-prisoners some table companion, called a _mangeuse_, with
whom she shared her meals. This companionship was usually a _liaison_,
the character of which permits no more than a reference; the cult of
Sappho was universal in the women's prisons.
At a pinch for money, or for food more dainty than the prison kitchen
furnished, the women had recourse to the prison usurers. These were old
crones, very familiar with prison, who committed some petty offence
which would entail about a month's confinement; a strictly commercial
speculation on their part. They took in with them a certain sum of
money, with which they bought clothes from, and made loans to,
necessitous prisoners. To procure money a woman would sell the clothes
on her back, until "_elle restait presque nue, et dans un état
indécent_." Others borrowed from the old women at a fixed rate of
interest, which was never less than fifty per cent. These were regarded
as debts of honour, and the payments were punctually made.
Letters might be written and received without the scrutiny of the
director; and the _écrivains publics_, or scriveners of the prison, were
continuously employed in composing for their illiterate bond-sisters
(always, of course, at a price) epistles to lovers outside, which are
described as _brûlantes d'amour_. All unknown to the authorities,
betrothals of a very curious kind were made through the prison post.
Five male prisoners at La Roquette, let us suppose, were on the point of
completing their sentences; but the prospect of liberty without a
companion of the other sex held no attractions. Where were the fiancées
to be found? At Saint-Lazare, where five engaging hearts might be
expecting their release at about the same date.
In the men's prison there was always an artist whose services could be
hired for an affair of this kind, and to him the five gallants would
present themselves, with a request for "a bouquet."
"Of how many flowers?" asked the artist.
"Five."
The artist then traced on paper five separate flowers, to each of which
a number was attached; and the five prisoners made their choice of a
blossom. From La Roquette the "bouquet" was magically wafted to
Saint-Lazare, and once there it seldom failed to reach the hands it was
destined for. The recipient summoned to her four other single hearts,
and each of the five chose her flower. The same mysterious agency which
had introduced the bouquet to Saint-Lazare conveyed a fitting answer to
La Roquette, and the affair was arranged.
But the new brooms of the Préfecture swept out of the system all these
injurious relaxations. At Saint-Lazare, the director took note of every
letter that passed into or out of the prison, and the _écrivains
publics_ had need to chasten their epistolary style. At Saint-Lazare,
Aspasia had no clothes to sell for pocket-money, for the black gown
striped with blue, which was her daily wear, was the property of the
State. At Saint-Lazare, she could hold no receptions of her lovers; and
the presents of money and jewels with which they sought to solace her
through the post could not be converted into spiced meats; for all
Aspasia's moneys and other valuables were taken care of by the director,
who rewarded her good behaviour with a few sous at a time. At
Saint-Lazare, she could seldom use her comb as a weapon of offence, and
the hours which had been devoted to the duel were absorbed by some
industrial or penal task.
All this implied a moral reform of no inconsiderable kind; but, as has
been stated, the morals of the new régime were not perfection. The great
shortcoming in this respect was that no attempt was made to classify the
prisoners.
This, however, in such a prison as Saint-Lazare should have been
regarded by the authorities as a paramount duty and necessity. It has
been suggested, though not yet expressly stated, how great a variety of
types this population embraced. Not all of these were _femmes
publiques_, and of those who belonged to that class by no means all were
of a really abandoned or degraded character. There were prisoners
scarcely out of their teens, who had not yet quite crossed the Rubicon,
and who were importuned day and night by the old and vicious hags to be
rid once for all of their virtue, and betake themselves to the "life of
pleasure." The crones who had traded as clothes-dealers and
money-lenders in the older prisons were not less active in Saint-Lazare,
albeit in another and baser capacity. They acted here as the agents and
procuresses of the women who kept houses of ill-fame in Paris and the
provincial towns. A large proportion of the population of Saint-Lazare
were essentially women of the people, girls fresh from the restraints
and hard monotony of shop and warehouse. They were in prison perhaps for
the first time, paying the penalty of some not very serious offence
against the law. But they would leave the gaol with its taint upon them,
and whither should they go? The young and pretty ones amongst them were
flattered by the addresses and importunities of the harridans who were
there to recruit for the _maisons de tolérance_, and who promised them
silk gowns, fine company, and gold pieces. There were here also wives of
the middle class, whose first false step in life had changed its whole
aspect for them, and who knew that home was closed to them forever.
There were young _filles d'amour_ who had sickened of their calling
almost before the ink had dried on the page of the register which they
had signed, and who longed for a means of escape.
This was good soil to work in, and it would be unjust to say that it was
quite neglected. The prison was visited by sisters of mercy and other
charitable women, and there were even at that date homes and refuges for
the penitent, whose agents sought in the prison and at the prison door
to rescue the young offenders, and those whose feet were still
half-willing to lead them back to virtue. But for inexperience which
lacked strength of character, and for indecision which had no moral or
religious sign-post, the influence of the prison was omnipotent. Without
separation of the classes there was no hope for the weak, and the
classes were not separated. At the moment of her release, at the door of
the prison itself, the woman who had made no plan for her future found
three to pick from. Philanthropy was ready to receive her into one of
the houses of refuge. But she was hungry and ill-clad, and a toothless
procuress came forward with an offer of clothes, a dinner, and a soft
bed. If she still wavered, there was a skulking limb of the law on the
watch—probably the creature by whom she had been arrested—whose
"protection" was hers if she would accept it; and in this case, at
least, refusal was indeed dangerous. For the police spy knew the
"history of the case" and would dog the steps of his victim.
It resulted that, up to close upon the middle of the century, the prison
of Saint-Lazare, its intelligent aims notwithstanding, was largely a
recruiting ground for the _maisons de tolérance_ of Paris and the
departments, and a place in which uncertain virtue had every opportunity
to decline into finished vice. The _maisons de tolérance_ have been
mentioned once or twice in this connection, and a word in explanation
will dispose of them. The _femme publique_ had her own house or lodging,
or she lived with others of her calling, under a common roof, a _maison
de tolérance_. Licences for these houses were obtained from the _Bureau
des Mœurs_ by a process similar to, though less tedious than, that which
has been described. The applicant was almost always a retired _femme
publique_, and her request to the prefect was usually composed for her
by an _écrivain public_, who kept an office for the purpose, under the
discreet sign, "_Au tombeau des secrets_." He had two styles of
composition, the plain and the ornate. Adopting the first, he would
write:
"Monsieur le Préfet: M——, a native of Paris, and inscribed on your
registers during the past eighteen years, has the honour to request
your permission to open a licenced house. Her excellent conduct
during the lengthened period of her connection with a class which is
not remarkable for sober living, will, I trust, be a sufficient
guarantee for you that she will not abuse her new position, etc."
For a sample of his finer style, the following petition will serve:
"To his Excellency, the Prefect of Police, whose signally successful
administration has changed the face of Paris.
"You will be gracious enough, Monsieur le Préfet, to pardon the
importunity of my client, Mme. D——, who solicits your authority to
open forthwith a _maison de tolérance_. She knows and appreciates
the responsibility which this undertaking involves, but the
austerity and circumspection of her conduct, her calm and peaceful
life in the past, proclaim her fitness; and the inquiries which you
may deign to make on my client's account can only result to her
advantage."
This was the tenor, and these the terms, of the official requests to the
prefect; and if the applicant could show that she was in a position to
support an establishment, she generally received her licence. Amongst
the women whom she lodged, and the frequenters of her house, she was
styled at different periods _maman_, _abbesse_, _supérieure_, _dame de
maison_, and _maîtresse de maison_. During the Consulate and the Empire,
she might be sent to prison as a _femme publique_; but after the
Restoration it became the custom to punish her—on any conviction
involving the conduct of her house—by suppression of her licence.
If, however, no attempt at classification was made by the prison
director, certain distinctions of rank existed which were generally
acknowledged by the prisoners themselves. The authors of _Les Prisons de
Paris_ mention a class of elegant adventuresses who were always apart in
Saint-Lazare, and who stood as the shining examples of the aristocracy
of vice. The passage is interesting and worth translation:
"Amongst the class of swindlers, so numerous in Saint-Lazare, who
boast their skill in exploiting the ambitious fools of Paris, you
might recognise beneath the prison cap, so coquettishly worn, dames
whom you had met perchance in the most elegant houses in town, and
whose protection you might have sought. This one was a countess,
that one a baroness, and, rightly or wrongly, the badge of nobility
was painted on the panels of their carriages. Did you need the
friendly word of a minister or the countenance of a capitalist, it
was enough that you were known to have one of these angels for your
friend. There were four of them in the sewing-room of
Saint-Lazare,—rogues and swindlers of the first water! For years
these corsairs have laid violent hands on all fortunes they could
come at, but they continue to hold a position in society which is in
itself a more scathing satire on the morals of the age than any
which I am able to imagine. At intervals, these dames are lodged for
a time at the country's cost in one or other of the houses of
detention, without, however, losing one jot or tittle of their
prestige in the world of fashion! When they reappear, society
receives them open-armed, as poor banished exiles who have returned
to the fatherland, or prodigal children whose wanderings are ended."
Nothing delighted plebeian Saint-Lazare so much as to hear the
countesses and baronesses discussing the merits, as a gallant, of this
or the other minister, nobleman, poet, or banker of renown; and the
interest culminated when the question arose as to which of the two could
produce the greater number of letters signed by names with which all
Paris was familiar.
Roving like satellites around these gaudy planets were a small class of
habitual criminals who, out of prison, served the noble adventuresses in
several offices, as spies, go-betweens, receivers, etc. These also
enjoyed a certain celebrity in the prison. One of them used to open
chestnuts with a knife with which, in a passion of jealousy, she had all
but murdered her lover, and which had become an object of the devoutest
worship since the lover had gone to hide his scars under the red jacket
of the galley-slave. Another woman arrived at the prison in a flutter of
pride, eager to display a novel charm which decorated her ears. She also
had lost her latest lover, but _Monsieur de Paris_ had been kind enough
to extract for her two teeth from the head which he had just severed.
The disconsolate mistress had had them set in gold as earrings! Nearly
all these women carried on the neck, arms, and upper portion of the body
specimens of the work of the professional tattooer; they preserved in
this way the names of their successive lovers, and the figured emblems
sometimes included the most ignoble devices.
Of the licenced women who restricted themselves mainly if not entirely
to the calling of _femme_ _publique_, Saint-Lazare recognised two
separate orders. They were the _Panades_ and the _Pierreuses_. The
_Panades_ carried a high chin in the society of their humbler
associates; they were generally members of some _maison de tolérance_,
where, so long as the mistress found it profitable to maintain them,
they lived in luxurious indolence; fed, and pampered, and extravagantly
dressed; captives, but in gilded fetters. In prison they separated
themselves, as far as it was possible, from the rest, to whom they never
addressed a word. They would be known only by some delicate or romantic
name: Irma, Zélie, Amanda, Nathalie, Arthemise, Balsamine, Léocadie,
Isménie, Malvina, Lodoïska, Aspasie, Delphine, Reine, and Fleur de
Marie.
The _Pierreuses_ regarded them with the bitterest jealousy, and spited
and abused them at every opportunity. Memories of a gayer past
intensified the feelings of the _Pierreuses_; they too had been
_Panades_ until the _abbesse_ had cast them out, faded and worn, to join
the foot-sore legion of street-walkers. They used to whisper mockingly:
"You may sneer, you _Panades_; but we were like you once, and you'll be
like us;" and as for the prophetic part of the reproof, it was more than
likely to be realised. Like the _Panades_, the _Pierreuses_ had a
peculiar set of names: Boulotte, Rousselette, Parfaite, la Ruelle, la
Roche, le Bœuf, Bouquet, Louchon, la Bancale, la Coutille, Colette,
Peleton, Crucifix, etc. To the _Panade_, prison was a place of horror
and disgrace; to the _Pierreuse_ it was often the kindest home she had;
and as years advanced on her, and the gains of her trade grew ever
miserably smaller, the poor creature felt never so happy as in the hands
of the police, on the once dreaded journey to Saint-Lazare.
There was a strangely sympathetic side to this saddest of the prisons of
Paris. The sick and worn-out were always tenderly regarded by their
fellow-prisoners, and a woman who brought in with her a child in arms
was an object of intense and almost affectionate interest. If a woman
died in the prison, it was not unusual for the rest to club together to
provide a substantial and costly funeral, and masses for the repose of
her soul. Sometimes the affections of the whole prison, directed upon
one weak girl, had the result of saving her from ruin and insanity.
In the early years of the Restoration, Marie M——, a pretty peasant girl,
was sent to Saint-Lazare for stealing roses. She had a passion for the
flower, and a thousand mystical notions had woven themselves about it in
her mind. She said that rose-trees would detach themselves from their
roots, glide after her wherever she went, and tempt her to pluck their
blossoms. One in a garden, taller than the rest, had compelled her to
climb the wall, and gather as many as she could,—and there the
_gendarmes_ found her. She was terrified in prison, believing that when
she went out the roses would lure her amongst them again, and that she
would be sent back to Saint-Lazare.
This poor girl excited the vividest interest amongst the _femmes
publiques_ in that sordid place. They plotted to restore her to her
reason, christened her Rose, which delighted her, and set themselves to
make artificial roses for her of silk and paper. Those fingers, so
rebellious at allotted tasks, created roses without number, till the
cell of Marie M—— was transformed into a bower. An intelligent director
of prison labour seconded these efforts, and opened in Saint-Lazare a
workroom for the manufacture of artificial flowers, to which Marie M——
was introduced as an apprentice. Here, making roses from morning till
night, and her dread of the future dispelled, the malady of her mind
reached its term with the term of her sentence, and she left the prison
cured and happy. The authors of _Les Prisons de Paris_, from whose pages
her story is borrowed, declare that Marie M—— became one of the most
successful florists in Paris.
[Illustration]
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[Illustration]