1st. Those who have, so to say, gone through the world, having been kept by officers in the army, or men of property, who, perhaps, are thrown over by their ci-devant admirers, and possessing some money, establish themselves in this way as a means of making a livelihood and obtaining a provision for their declining years.
2nd. Those old prostitutes who have exercised some economy during their youth, and are thus placed in a position to live somewhat at their ease.
3rd. Old servants and confidential women who have lived in the service of keepers of houses of ill-fame, who have an agreement with their mistress to take her business or succeed her on her death or bankruptcy. These women have a knowledge of the places where they have lived, and know perfectly well how to manage the girls who resort to these houses, and thoroughly understand the men who visit them.
4th. The fourth class is composed of women who have never been prostitutes, who often are married and have children. The appetite of gain has launched them in this career. It is to keep a furnished house that they have taken in prostitutes, or having set up a public-house they entertain loose women to make men come there.
There are in Paris some families who have kept prostitutes for several generations, having positively no other source of revenue than the keeping of introducing houses or houses of ill-fame. One sees the mother exercising her profession in one quarter of the city and her daughter in another. The daughters succeed their mother, the nieces their aunt, etc., but in general this is very rare, one not being able to indicate more than six families of this description.
There are some conditions which these people must subscribe to, and which offer some guarantee to the authorities for the good management of the house. To begin with: they must not be too young, lest they are unable to possess sufficient authority over the women under their jurisdiction; twenty-five is generally the lowest age, experience teaches us, at which a woman can become a safe manager of an immoral house. As a rule, licences are refused to those who have never been prostitutes.
Force, vigour, energy both of mind and body are requisite to a keeper of a house of ill-fame, as well as a habit of commanding, and something of a masculine manner. If to these qualities they join good antecedents, if they have not been taken before a justice of the peace, if they are honest, if they do not favour clandestine debauchery, if they are unaccustomed to get intoxicated, if they know how to read and write, if while they were prostitutes they had not a tendency to infringe the regulations, the authorisation they ask for is not refused them; but unhappily it is found too late, that licences are given to women who are unable to, or certainly do not, carry out these wholesome conditions and necessary stipulations. The desire to possess this coveted distinction, and pass from the condition of a simple prostitute to that of “dame de maison” often fills young women with the greatest anxiety, as they do not very well know how to invest their money, and they often embark in this career in a speculative manner causing their enterprise to end in bankruptcy and failure; this fills the authorities with great trouble and they are extremely particular in giving licences, frequently only giving a fourth-class one when the party applying for it could easily set up a first-class establishment.
Certain speculators will often furnish a house, and place a woman in it for immoral purposes, who will encourage other women, and it becomes a house of ill-fame; other intriguing women will also club together and establish a house of this sort, and install one of their creatures. Now these installed women are not really and truly, from their subordinate position, to be called “dames de maison” for if they do not every week pay so much money to the speculators who have employed them, they are instantly turned out and some one else comes in their place. It is easy to see that this system does not give them much authority over the women who live in their houses, and through whose instrumentality and prostitution the money is made. Without authority disorder must ensue, and then the police have to interfere. There were—
| In 1824 — 163 | of these houses | in Paris. |
| „ 1831 — 209 | „ | „ |
| „ 1832 — 220 | „ | „ |