We do not intend here to justify any profligacy. Let us only compare the voluntary degradation of a female carefully educated in the bosom of a wealthy family, which has set her none but the most virtuous examples. Let us compare, we say, this degradation with that of La Louve, a creature, as it were, reared in vice, by vice, and for vice, and to whom is pointed out, not without reason, prostitution as a condition protected by the government! This is true. There is a bureau where she is registered, certificated, and signs her name. A bureau where a mother has a right to authorise the prostitution of her daughter; a husband the prostitution of his wife. This place is termed the "Bureau des Mœurs" (the Office of Manners). Must not society have a vice most deeply rooted, incurable in the place of the laws which regulate marriage, when power,—yes, power,—that grave and moral abstraction, is obliged, not only to tolerate, but to regulate, to legalise, to protect, to render it less injurious and dangerous, this sale of body and soul; which, multiplied by the unbridled appetites of an immense population, acquires daily an almost incalculable amount.
Goualeuse, repressing the emotion which this sad confession of her companion had made in her, said to her, timidly:
"Listen to me without being angry."
"Well, what have you to say? I think I have gossiped enough; but it is no matter, as it is the last time we shall talk together."
"Are you happy, La Louve?"
"What do you mean?"
"Does the life you lead make you happy?"
"Here,—at St. Lazare?"
"No; when you are at home and free."