Homage to the grisette. Statue erected in 1830

From Europe Viewed Through American Spectacles by Charles C. Fulton. Text written in 1873.

It’s a common remark among strangers in France that about every third man wears a uniform of some kind and such is almost the case here in Paris. Nearly all of these uniformed men are forbidden by law to marry, and they belong to a class who have never been taught to entertain such an idea as pertaining to their future existence.  They have always found it difficult to get food for themselves, and hence have never entertained such a preposterous undertaking as marrying and supporting a family.

These men have sisters who have always recognized themselves as belonging to a class who are never to know the relations of husband and wife. Such a thought never enters the head of a girl or a boy belonging to the poorer classes of Paris. Sometimes they succeed in drawing themselves out of their natural state of existence, and aspire to higher things, but the great mass of them have for generation found that the chief aim in life was bread and wine. They have the natural passions of ordinary men and women, and hence the grisette.

They are not taught, even by their spiritual counsellors, that there is any sin in the life they lead, and are as punctual in their church attendance as any class in Paris. Nor are they regarded as degraded, unless they fall still lower and become professional courtesans.  They are considered as fulfilling their destiny, and love and are beloved as other mortals. Sometimes these ties are permanent, but in the generality of cases they are merely for a time, and when broken a new one is formed.

Thus they pass through life, and their children, of whom they furnish the state about eighteen thousand per annum, are sometimes kept and maintained by themselves, but oftener passed over to the orphan-asylums, just as most of their mothers were passed over in their early infancy. The grisette, it will thus be seen, is a feature of Parisian society that is regarded as inevitable, and, being inevitable, those who raise themselves out of its slough are not deemed to have been tainted or tarnished in character. Those who pass through life as grisettes are not regarded as “fallen angels” but as women who are fulfilling their sad and unfortunate destiny and whose chances for heaven are quite as good as those whose lots are cast in pleasanter ways. So long as the youth lasts they live a merry life, and when this departs, they become waiting-maids. They are the unfortunate victims of kingcraft, which requires standing armies and draws the youth of the country away from the ordinary pursuits of life and happiness.

From the Goncourt Journal

Text written in 1857

***

June 7^th

Dinner at Asseline’s with Anna Deslions, Adèle Courtois, a certain Juliette, and her sister.

Anna Deslions, Bianchi’s former mistress and the woman who ruined Lauriston: thick black hair, magnificently untidy; velvety eyes with a glance like a warm caress; a big nose but sharply defined; thin lips and a full face—the superb head of an Italian youth, touched with gold by Rembrandt.

Adèle Courtois, an old, nondescript tart boosted by Figaro.

Juliette, a little pastel-portrait with her rumpled, frizzled hair worn low on the forehead—she is mad about low foreheads—a slightly crazy La Tour, a little blonde with something of the Rosalba picture in the Louvre, Woman with Monkey, partaking of the monkey as well as the woman. And her sister, a dried-up little thing and pregnant into the bargain: looking like a big-bellied spider.

And to provide a piano accompaniment to the evening’s festivities, Quidant, a bordello jester with a thoroughly Parisian sense of humour, a ferocious irony: hoarse-voiced, mealy-mouthed, red-faced, and slit-eyed.

George Drysdale The Elements of social science… 1861

“The question first arises “what is a prostitute ?” To this the law answers, that it is one, who openly and with little or no distinction of persons, sells her favors for money : and who with this object endeavours to make herself publicly known as a prostitute. On the contrary, the woman, who does not court notoriety, but admits few lovers and in secret, although she receive money, cannot, and dare not, under penalty of damages for libel, be called a prostitute. This distinction is in Paris of great importance, for the police of that city exercise a surveillance over all the public prostitutes, who are obliged to enrol themselves in a registry, to receive sanitary visits &c., while they have no control over any other women. Hence the numbers, habits of life, and destiny of the prostitutes are much better known in Paris, than in any other city : and this gave M. Duchatelet facilities for gathering information, which he could have had nowhere else…”

Related posts:

Degrees of  Prostitution

Cocottes and Cocodettes: Two faces of the same morality

La Grisette

Saint Lazare: Women in prison

 (From Paris Partout! A guide for the English and American Traveller in 1869 or How to see PARIS for 5 guineas)

Jean -Louis Forrain "At the Public Garden", 1884

Beware of the flower girls at the bals publics, cafés chantants, and outside the theatres, as well as the wily advances of well-dressed and spoken women. The uncouth boldness of the street-walker will strike the visitor with immediate amazement and distaste: but how could one expect that under a lady-like appearance and language the Parisian gay woman hides the evil designs of a fallen angel, and laughs inwardly at the gullibility of her victims?        

In markets barter is the rule: let an inexperienced lady make her appearance, and she will at once be asked the double the price that would be expected from an obviously sharp-witted French cook. There are no fishmongers in Paris: all fish are sold at the market.

Jews selling lorgnettes, plated jewellery &c., who may also offer you licentious, forbidden literature and illustrations.

The concierge, or caretaker of apartment buildings. This person, if offended, has it in his or her power to give much annoyance, mislaying letters, misinforming callers, and speaking ill of you to tradespeople.

It is desirable to avoid the free discussion of politics. The police are ubiquitous and zealous, with wide powers of arrest and detention. The wiser course must certainly be to express yourself with great temperance in referring to the Emperor and government of France, and not to do or say anything that may serve to lessen the entente cordiale at present existing between our nations.

***

This  concludes the The Guide series. I hope you have enjoyed the trip to the Second Empire Paris. Let me know!

 Next: How to succeed in Paris

This drawing of tarts in a low-class brasserie provides food for thought. In the Victorian era, destitute women had few choices for making a living: servitude, drudgery in sweat-shops or, failing that, prostitution.  I think that in our time the four women in the scene could be a real-estate agent, a hairstylist, a marine biologist and a police officer. Or perhaps they’d be tarts again. Who knows? The difference is that women have more choices now.

In July 1865, one of the Goncourt brothers (more about them in a future post) records his visit to a brothel where both the surroundings and the women were a step above the previous bleak picture:

“Just past the Ecole Militaire, a front shop with white curtains. Another story above a large number on the door. The Big 9. A large room lighted from above by the van daylight. Some tables and a bar lined with bottles of liquor. There are Zouaves (*), soldiers, and workmen in smock and grey sitting at the tables with tarts perched on their knees. The girls wear white or colored blouses and dark skirts. They are young and pretty, with pink fingernails and their hair carefully dressed with little ornaments in it. Smoking cigarettes or drawing on a friend’s Maryland, they walk up and down in pairs between the tables, playfully jostling each other, or else they sit playing draughts. Singers turn up now and then to sing some dirty ditty in a bass voice. The waiters have big black mustaches. The girls call the pimp who runs the establishment “the old marquis”. A negress goes by in a sleeveless dress.

“One the first floor, there is a long corridor with a lot of tiny cells just big enough to contain a little window with broken blinds, a bed, a chest of drawers, and, on the floor, the inevitable basin and jug of water. On the wall there is one of those colored pictures entitled Spring or Summer that you win at a fair and, hanging from the mirror, a little Zouave doll.

“These twenty-sou women are not at all like the terrifying creatures drawn by Constantin Guys, but poor little things trying to ape the language and dress of the higher class prostitutes.”

Constantin Guys: Girls in a Bordello

Moving up the scale of prostitution to the very top, the Goncourts report the following:

“April 7, 1857

Anna Deslions

“Rose [Goncourts’ housekeeper] has just seen in the concierge’s lodge the night-clothes—or morning-clothes if you prefer—that our neighbor La Deslions (see the post Dinner with Courtesans) sends by her maid to the house of the man to whom she is giving a night. It seems that she has a different outfit for each of her lovers in the color that he prefers. This one consists of a white satin dressing gown, quilted and pinked, with gold-embroidered slippers in the same color—a dressing gown costing between twelve and fifteen hundred francs—a nightdress in batiste trimmed with Valenciennes lace, with embroidered insertions costing three hundred francs, and a petticoat trimmed with three lace flounces at three or four hundred francs each, a total of some three thousand francs taken to any house whose master can afford her.” (For comparison, the daily wage of a maid was one franc.)

(*) Zouaves: Body of light infantry in the French army, composed of Algerian recruits, popular for their exotic uniform.

The following anecdote from Paris: With Pen and Pencil by David W. Bartlett published in 1854 tells the life story of two women, but the same fate was dealt to an entire class of poor Parisians for whom marriage was an unattainable goal. The author does not mention that the free unions produced children (about 15 thousand a year) which were often abandoned at the door of orphanages.

***

One evening while walking in the Luxembourg gardens, the band playing exquisite music, and the crowd promenading to it, I met a friend, an American, who has resided in Paris for seventeen years. Taking his arm we fell into the current of people, and soon met a couple of quite pretty looking ladies arm-in-arm. They were dressed exactly alike and their looks were very much of the same pattern, and as to their figures, I certainly could not tell one from the other with their faces turned away.

“They are sisters,” said my friend, “and you will scarcely believe me when I tell you that I saw them in this very garden ten years ago.” I replied that I could hardly credit his story, for the couple still looked young, and I could hardly think that so many years ago they would have been allowed by their anxious mamma to promenade in such a place. I told my friend so, and a smile overspread his countenance. He then told me their history. Ten years ago and they were both shop-girls, very pretty and very fond of the attentions of young men. As shop-girls, they occasionally found time to come and hear the music in the gardens of an evening, and cast glances at the young students. Soon they were student’s mistresses. Their paramours were generous and wealthy young men, and they fared well. For four years they were as faithful, affectionate, and devoted to the young men as any wives in all France. They indulged in no gallantries or light conduct with other men, and among the students were reckoned as fine specimens of the class. Four happy years passed away, when one morning the poor girls awoke to a sad change. The collegiate course was through, and the young collegians were going back to their fathers’ mansions in the provinces. Of course the grisettes could not be taken with them, and the ties of years were suddenly and rudely to be snapped asunder. At first they were frantic in their grief. When they entered upon their peculiar relations with the students, they well knew that this must be the final consummation, but then it looked a great way off. That they really loved the young men, no one can doubt. It would not be strange for a little shop-girl to even adore a talented university student, however insignificant he might be to other people. To her he is everything that is great and noble. These girls knew well that they were not wives, but mistresses, yet when the day of separation came, it was like parting husband and wife. But there was no use in struggling with fate, and they consoled themselves by transferring their affections to two more students. Again after a term of years they were forsaken, until the flower of their youth was gone, and no one desired to support them as mistresses. Then a downward step was taken. Nothing but promiscuous prostitution was before them—except starvation. And still they could not forget their old life, and came nightly to this public promenade to see the old sights, and possibly with the hope of drawing some unsophisticated youth into their net. While my friend repeated their story, the couple frequently passed us, and I could hardly believe that persons whose deportment was so modest and correct, could be what he had designated them; but as the twilight deepened, and we were walking away, I noticed that they were no longer together, and one had the arm of a man, and was walking, like us, away from the gardens.

I do not know as I could give the reader a better idea of a great class of women in Paris, than by relating the brief history of these girls, and certainly I could not sketch a sadder picture. To the stranger the social system of France may seem very pleasant and gay, but it is in reality a sorrowful one. While the mistress is young, she has a kind of happiness, but when she loses her beauty, then her wretchedness begins.

Related posts:

La Grisette

Parisian Foundlings

By William Walton, published in 1899

Searching a prisoner at Saint-Lazare

Saint-Lazare, on the Faubourg Saint-Denis, is at once a hospital, a police station, and a prison for women, and its methods and regulation have long been the object of earnest denunciation. As a prison for women, it is divided into two sections, for those accused, and for those condemned to less than two months’ imprisonment; among the latter are women of the town, who have a special hospital. The only condamnées who remain for any length of time within these walls are the sick, nursing women having a child less than four years of age, and those enceinte. There is a special crèche for the newly-born babies,—for there are no less than fifty or sixty births annually. The nursing mothers, whether convicted or only accused, have special dormitories, and there is a shady garden for the wet-nurses. The prostitutes are provided with a special section. These unfortunates have not passed before any court; they have been condemned without appeal by a Chef de Bureau of the Préfecture de Police to an imprisonment of from three days to two months. During the day, the inmates are assembled in a workroom under the surveillance of one of the Sisters of the Order of Marie-Joseph, to whom is confided a general oversight of the workrooms and the dormitories. These prisoners take their meals in common, take their exercise walking in a long file, and at night sleep in a great chilly and crowded dormitory. Those who have merited it by their conduct are given one of the cells of the ménagerie, a double story of grated cells, furnished each with a bed, a stool, a shelf, and an earthenware vessel. The menagerie was formerly devoted to the service of the correction maternelle.

Saint-Lazare: Morning prayer in the section of prostitutes

In the great dormitories, there may be witnessed each morning such a scene as that reproduced in the illustration, the prayer addressed to the image of the Virgin on the wall, decked out with faded artificial flowers and with tapers in front of her; following the example of the Sister, all stoop with more or less reverence before this symbol and utter with more or less sincerity from impure lips the prayer for a pure heart. This grand dormitory is a great hall containing more than eighty beds arranged in four rows. The red tile floor is of irreproachable cleanliness, the eighty beds, with their gray blankets and white bolsters, are arranged with military symmetry. But this cleanliness and this good order, it is claimed, count but for little in the amelioration of these unfortunates, gathering contamination from each other in this indiscriminate herding together.

According to the law, those merely accused, the prévenues, and those actually convicted, are kept apart from each other, but in each of these two classes no distinctions are made—the homeless unfortunate, arrested for délit de vagabondage, is associated with the criminal guilty of infanticide or assassination. Even the little girls of ten and twelve years are kept together in the same promiscuousness, those already hardened in criminal ways corrupting the more innocent.

The prévenues enjoy certain privileges; they are not obliged to work, though it is but seldom that they refuse to take up some of the light sewing which occupies their leisure and brings them in small sums of money; they are not obliged, when they take their exercise, to walk round and round in a circle in the préau, forming in line only at the entrance and the exit. The formalities of search and interrogation, upon entering the prison, are the same for all, as are the general regulations and the discipline. All rise at five o’clock in summer, and at six or half-past six the rest of the year, and all go to bed at eight; all receive meat with their bouillon only on Sundays. The children are more favored in this respect, being furnished with eggs, roast meat, etc.

Everywhere are seen in these gloomy and unwholesome halls and corridors “the austere and consoling figures” of the Sisters of Marie-Joseph. They wear a dark robe, sometimes with a white apron, a white cornette under a black veil which has a blue lining, and they supervise all the details of the monotonous life of the prison. Rising in the dawn, a half-hour before any of the prisoners, they perform their devotions, and one of them rings the bell which summons all to leave their beds; they direct the workrooms in which the prisoners sew, a Sister sitting upright in a high chair, like a teacher presiding over her class, and they keep a watchful eye during the night on all the sleepers, in all the dormitories, great and little. Their hours of service as guards are from five or six o’clock in the morning to ten o’clock in the evening. After this hour, until the morning again, two Sisters remain on watch in the first section of the prison and one in the second. Their sole comfort and recompense is found in prayer and meditation in the mortuary chamber of Saint Vincent de Paul, now transformed into an oratory for their use. There is also a chapel for the use of the inmates, as well as a Protestant oratory and a synagogue.

Related post: Prostitutes in Paris

“Come and See Pretty Pussies” – Street advertisement for a brasserie

Among the big headaches for municipal authorities of Paris in the second part of the 19^th century was the appearance of the brasseries à femmes. Until then, drink and sex were generally served apart. A man looking for a drink would go to a café  and, should he feel need for female company, he’d make his choice (and an abundant choice it was!) among the streetwalkers, or he’d visit a brothel. In accordance with the law, the staff of the maisons de tolérance, was kept under a weekly medical supervision and therefore more or less free of venereal disease. However, a licence for opening a brothel was not easy to come by and, should any complaints arise, the business would be mercilessly closed by the authorities. This was not the case with public places offering alcohol. Traditionally, these employed male waiters, but in the 1860’s a few establishments appeared where drink was served by pretty women in seductive garb whose duty was to encourage the consumption of alcohol by being friendly with the patrons. This new way of serving drinks expanded rapidly not only in Paris but in all large cities across France. By the end of the century, in Paris alone, the brasseries employed between 1,500 and 2,000 waitresses. Although the interior of a brasserie might appear above reproach, most of them contained rooms for private encounters.

With the growth of the brasseries à femmes, the statistic of venereal disease shot up accordingly. Unlike registered prostitutes, waitresses were not subjected to medical control and, as there was no shame attached to entering such an establishment, many patrons, who would hesitate to be seen in a brothel, became victims of both drink and disease. Young men were the most at risk. Students and apprentices saw their future dissolve in excesses of drink to the chagrin of their parents and teachers. Patrons became attached to the girls and when a successful waitress crossed the river to “remake herself a virginity” on the opposite bank, some of her clients followed her like faithful dogs.

Serving in a brasserie was no sinecure. Twelve hours a day in the noisy and smoky atmosphere, where the women were required not only to serve, but to sit at the tables and match the patrons drink for a drink, took a heavy toll on their health. Very few lasted more than ten years.  The following is a questionnaire filled by an applicant from Marseille seeking a job in Paris:

An early brasserie poster, circa 1875

Have you already served in brasseries?

Yes, in Lyon and here.

Are you young?

I’m 24.

Pleasant?

Like a jewel.

Pretty?

See my photograph.

Flirtatious?

With art. I offer, I attract, and I hold.

Do you have a good stomach?

I have a robust constitution and if I don’t have sobriety, the virtue of a camel, by contrast I possess the stomach of an ostrich used to all kinds of drinks, even adulterated ones. I have, like many of my co-workers, begun to practice fraud and today I can drink without getting drunk. You will hear my voice, you will see my chic and you will appreciate my talent for manipulation.

She, no doubt, got the job.

Why were these women so keen to apply for a work in which their health and morals suffered an irreparable damage?  The answer, of course, is money. Morals set aside, a smart brasserie waitress made in a day the monthly wages of a factory worker.

After many protests, a law put an end to the brasseries à femmes. With the exception of the owner’s family members, no other female employees were allowed to serve in these establishments. It was also forbidden for a waitress to drink with the patrons.

Related posts:

Degrees of Prostitution

Prostitutes in Paris

The following text by Octave Uzanne comes from the book The Modern Parisienne, published in 1910.  Although Edwardian instead of Victorian, Uzanne’s book describes Paris that had hardly changed since Queen Victoria’s death in 1901. The writing is superb:

Our next subject is the sinister and somber queen of Paris by night—the prostitute. She is a wandering creature who appears in many forms: she murmurs her solicitations at the street corners; she brushes by you on the boulevards, you meet her at cafés and hotels; she signs to you from her window; she awaits your arrival at the railway stations; she watches you from behind the curtain of a shop where the goods displayed are not those which she means to sell. Or, again, she lies immured in some dark house, where she offers to all comers her passive lips.

At the very bottom of the prostitution ladder is the woman who haunts the fortifications. She is an aged, battered, exhausted being, who hides herself by day and comes out only when it is dark. She is to be seen wandering along the ramparts, her eyes alert with fear of the police. She is usually of enormous size, clad in a patched black jersey which ill contains her flabby bust. No one could define the precise shade of her skirt, which an impressionist painter of our acquaintance justly described as “the colour of a very dusty spider’s web in a corner of a yellow wall”. She wears an apron, stops her wrinkles with brick-dust, “does her eyes” with the burnt end of a match, and flattens out her grizzling hair with rose or jasmine pomade at two sous a pot. Such jasmine and such roses! She dawdles about, waiting for customers, hardly daring to solicit, for she is afraid of being too closely inspected, knowing full well, poor thing, that if a man looked twice at her he would at once take a flight. Some of her customers are navvies, who are themselves very poor; but she caters chiefly for soldiers in barracks on the bastions or in the outskirts of the city.

The soldiers do not even know her name: they call her  “la paillasse” (mattress) , “Marie-mange-mon-prết” or “the ammunition loaf”.  The last name arises from the fact that in order to pay for her favours, they sell the ration of bread that is served out to them and give her the five or six sous they get for it. She asks no more.  She cannot afford the rent of a room in a disreputable hotel, so she takes for boudoir the embankment of the fortifications.

She leads a melancholy life, the prostitute of the fortifications: she neither laughs nor sings. She is too repulsive and earns too little to attract a souteneur; but for all that she is often beaten, and sometimes thrown into the ditches by the marauders who hover about the barriers, and who rob her of the few sous she has earned by the sweat of her old body.

When she has done very well and made as much as two or three francs, she gets drunk on cheap brandy or absinthe, and staggers to her lair in some wooden shed open to all the winds, where she sleeps off her potations on a heap of noisome rags. If business is brisk, she subsists on scraps bought from low-class eating houses. If not, she rakes the rubbish heaps. She is humble and uncomplainingly resigned to her fate. So long as she can walk she gives herself to whomsoever will have her, or cannot find better. At sixty or seventy she is found one morning lying dead, or half dead, on the slope of some earthwork. If she has the good fortune to be picked up by a night patrol of the police, she does not die in the open; she ends her days in the hospital or in some local police infirmary.

Next time: La Gigolette

Related post:

Drink and prostitution: The Belle Epoque Hooters

The following text by Octave Uzanne comes from the book The Modern Parisienne, published in 1910. 

A much more formidable species is the gigolette, who is also to be found on the outskirts of Paris.  She is the mistress of the garroters of La Vilette or the stabbers of Grenelle. She it is who beguiles the passer-by, decoys him into an ambush, and she whistles for her souteneur, who rushes up with his companions  “ to do for the cove”. She frequents the evil places known as bals musettes, a sort of dancing halls, where the habitués empty salad bowls of mulled vine à la Française and where every dance costs a penny. The dancers are workmen who have fallen into evil courses, souteneurs, garotters, thieves of all kinds, servant girls and workgirls on the spree, the vilest prostitutes, and “police narks”.

The gigolette is almost always young, and often pretty or else she has the fascinating ugliness which in many Parisiennes is a more deadly bait than beauty. She evades the vigilance of the police as much as possible and tries as long as she can to avoid being “put on the list”. If she is arrested as a result of some robbery with violence: or taken up in the course of a police raid, she regards her term at St. Lazare as a disagreeable experience: but she is not in the least reformed  when she is discharged, and the very severe regimen of this prison has no effect on her except to breed ideas of vengeance, in which she is sedulously encouraged by her amiable friend and bully.

So long as she is not registered she wanders hither and tither, following her “p’tit homme” from lodging to lodging: for owing to the attentions of the police, with whom he has often a crow to pick, he is frequently obliged to change his address. As soon as she gets on the list, a definite  space on the side of such and such street or a certain beat on a boulevard is assigned to her. There she “does her turn” and walks backwards and forwards hooking her arm into those of passers-by. If she transgresses the limits set by the police, she is liable to a fine: but when their backs are turned she does so all the same, and this leads to terrible quarrels with her colleagues who are in possession of another part of the street—quarrels which end in blows and are conducted after the fashion of the dog-fights of Constantinople. When she secures a customer she takes him to a room at some low hotel.

Meantime, her souteneur sits at a table at a neighbouring wine-shop or hides in the recess of a door, keeping a close watch on her movements. If she lets slip an opportunity he abuses and beats her; he insists that she shall “give her mind to her work”. When he thinks she has made enough he fetches her back to their headquarters at Belleville or La Vilette, or in one of the streets  in the Clignantcourt Quarter which are affected by this class. She surrenders all her money to the souteneur, and if she attempts to divert any and is awkward about concealing it he gives her a sound trashing. When times are good and she has got hold of some “oofy Johnny” or cleaned out a drunken man, her lover allows her a night off, and then they go together to the dancing-hall. As a rule she spends most of the night drinking, so she sleeps late, rises about eleven, has her absinthe, and she spends the day in taverns with her bully and his friends, who for their part are accompanied by their women. She is usually faithful to her man. If he goes to prison for a short term she is not unfaithful to him and does not join forces with another “type” unless her original master is sent to penal servitude. In such a case it is not unusual for the bully to choose one of his boon companions whom he indicates his successor.

However constantly she may be beaten and maltreated by her petit joyeux , she continues to adore him, and even if he ends by stabbing her she dies heroically without peaching. If by exception she does denounce him she very rarely escapes the vengeance of other souteneurs.  She may change her quarter as much as she likes, she always ends by being knocked on the head. With the women of her own class she has frequent disputes , especially if they try to take her man away from her. Then follow battles in which the knife plays its part. The happy man who is the subject of the quarrel watches the fray as a gratified spectator, and awards himself to the conqueror as the prize of victory. The fortune of these women are so closely linked to those of their souteneurs that if by any chance, such as the passing caprice of some rich protector who sets up house for her, one of them rises a step in the ranks of prostitution, she does not leave her bully, but installs him in some corner of the flat. From which he emerges if the miché is not generous enough.

Prostitutes of this type pursue their occupation so long as they are not too old or too much exhausted by debauchery, drunkenness, or disease. The older they grow the younger are their souteneurs. I heard of prostitutes of forty or fifty whose souteneurs were only from sixteen to eighteen years of age. Of course, as they age and become faded their takings diminish, and instead of walking up and down the pavement, they hire a room at a franc a night in some house of ill-fame, where, half-invisible in the shadow, they call for custom.

Related post:

Saint-Lazare :  Women in prison

The following text by Octave Uzanne comes from the book The Modern Parisienne, published in 1910.  Although Edwardian instead of Victorian, Uzanne’s book describes Paris that had hardly changed since Queen Victoria’s death in 1901.

Many prostitutes of the lower orders, in order to protect themselves from the activities of the police, pretend to have a trade. This is particularly the case with girls under age. Some of them are as young as fifteen, some even younger. The disgraceful evil of the small flower-girl is everywhere; you see them passing by the terraces of cafés and stopping opposite those whom  with their precocious perspicacity they judge to be susceptible to their attractions.

Others, again, instead of selling flowers, pass themselves off as work girls. You will often meet these impostors in the Avenue de l’Opéra, in the Rue du Quatre-Septembre, or on the boulevards. They dawdle along in couples, with hatboxes or baskets on their arms and their eyes alert. Contrary to the practice of real workgirls, who do not receive such attentions kindly, they accept invitations without any display of annoyance, are perfectly willing to have a drink, and do not require to be pressed to enter a providential cab.

There are grades and degrees in all this peripatetic prostitution. Better turned out and also older are the bands of women who wear hats with extravagant feathers and loudly coloured dresses, and who are to be seen at any hour of the afternoon, but principally at dusk, on the boulevards and in the adjacent streets.  They promenade slowly, or else pretend to be in a hurry, jostle you as they pass, or launch a significant ogle which invites you to follow them. If you mend your pace and overtake them they take you to some squalid hôtel garni in the quarter which extends from the Rue des Martyrs to the Boulevard Rochechouart.

Since the beginning of the last century they have had their headquarters there, especially in the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, from which comes the obsolete term lorette by which they were still designated so recently as twenty years ago. The Rue de la Bruyère, the Rue Chaptal, and the Rue Bréda are also much affected by them, and there they form colonies which fill whole houses. These places, known as  boîtes à femmes, are veritable pandemoniums crowded with women who sleep till near noon, and go about all the rest of the day in frowsy undress, smoking cigarettes and drinking absinthe. Until the hour of business—that is, till about five in the afternoon—they sit playing with each other or with their favourite lovers interminable games of cards, at which they lose the money they have extracted from the passing visits of the previous night. The souteneur properly so-called is rare in these surroundings. He is replaced by the amant de coeur, some shopwalker or clerk who is chosen for himself and his companionship.

These ladies must be in straits indeed, or their landlord must be unusually exacting on the subject of arrears for rent, food, and drink, before they can be induced to go out before the night, but every evening  the man-hunt recommences. Their first care is to dine, and for this purpose they take conspicuous places at a café sometimes accompanied by their favourite female friend.  They reckon up the men present with a glance, question the waiters, with whom they are on good terms, and talk and laugh loudly. If a gentleman, excited by their manoeuvres or by the number of his drinks, yields to the temptation, all is well; the evening’s amusement is provided for and also the earnings of the night. If not, there begins a long pilgrimage through the cafés.  They go from one to another, making the circuit of the tables, brushing by the customers and looking well in their faces in order to sound their inclinations. If by ten o’clock they found nothing they try to get around the waiter in order that in exchange for their favours he may pay for the two or three sandwiches and the glass of beer which will be all the dinner they will get. If even this fails they do without food and go to a place of amusement, and if no one comes to the rescue they try the night clubs; and she who toward three in the morning succeeds in getting the offer of a modest choucroute garnie sups and dines in one.

The prostitute always hopes to meet some generous person who will take a fancy to her and launch her on a great career, but this happy chance rarely occurs. She prays for it daily, and the fortune-teller has no more devoted client. If it does not come to pass she continues the same vicious circle of the daily hunt.

Related posts:

The Guide to Gay Paree 1869: Beware!

The Sad Story of Two Grisettes

Again, let’s thank Octave Uzanne for his insightful book The Modern Parisienne published in 1912 :

If we are to believe the adroit matrons, the distinguished old ladies, the venerable grandmothers who preside over the destinies of certain houses of recreation which are famous in the gayer circles of the capital, which evolve about the boulevards or the elegant quarters near the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, every woman in Paris has her price. These ladies have at their disposal a floating staff which can be mobilised at any moment; they produce albums of photographs faithfully rendering the features, the smiles, and the attitudes of the actress, the fair unknown, or the disguised lady of the middle-class, for benefit of clients who have a well-lined purse. But beside all this, these agreeable and well-bred procuresses, whose gestures are as unctuous as their tongues are smooth, will tell you that—given a little patience—they are ready to bring to the arms of the sighing swain any woman whom he may happen to think particularly desirable.

They have an organization, they declare, which can “bring to reason” any woman in Paris whose fortune does not place her beyond the reach of temptation of certain character. They have, in fact, a troop of female agents or canvassers who have a prodigious address in these matters. They start out on the quest at an early hour and begin visiting the large shops, where they mark down the prettiest saleswomen or the most modest and attractive of the customers who appear to their experienced eyes to possess the necessary qualities. Then they visit and consult with their various accomplices – ladies ’ maids, fortune-tellers, perfumers, and hairdressers. From them their learn all necessary particulars about their intended victims. They dress with great elegance, and in the afternoon they frequent the grands couturiers, scrape acquaintance with the customers, and thus discover all about the jolies madames who are deeply in debt. All this they note down in the register of the exploitable part of Tout Paris. In the evening they go to the theatres, see the fair performers, and find out from their dressers all about the financial crises which oppress these charming creatures.

Once a catastrophe becomes inevitable, they advance to the attack with all the artifices of rhetoric. They promise a golden future if only the lady will be sensible and nice about it and respond, just a little, to the passion of an elegant gentleman who will be waiting on such and such day at such and such hour in a house to be indicated. The deepest secrecy and the most absolute discretion are assured.

Some of the procuresses give parties in their own houses, where “little ladies” assemble in full strength to meet foreigners of fashion, American millionaires, or provincial gentlemen in comfortable circumstances. At such gatherings there are tremendous bouts of baccarat. Roulette and other games are constant features and while the habitués are absorbed in play, the hostess is busy making her introductions in the more secluded part of the rooms, where she regulates the terms of her bargain with the sagacity and seriousness of a notary. She arranges marriages for fixed periods of three, six, or nine months, with power to renew at will, and duly charges her commission on the price. There are numerous agencies in Paris for left-handed unions of this kind, and anything you want can be provided according to the sum you are able to pay.

Backstage at the Opera by Jean Béraud

The title of this post is not an exaggeration, although the Opera directors would have preferred a more subtle one or, ideally, a complete silence on the subject.  The Béraud’s painting above needs no further words. There is the internationally popular Edgar Degas with his paintings of hard-working, hard-driven little dancers, and there is our say-it-as-it-is Jean Béraud (more of him here), who bluntly covers the other end of the story. The true story of the Degas’s dancers.

In our day, such an enablement of the sex commerce in a prestigious cultural institution would be unthinkable.  Welcome to the 19^th century for a taste of life without women’s rights and women’s education, where a career choice outside marriage was limited mainly to servitude or prostitution. In a world made by men for the men, the Opera direction facilitated the meetings between wealthy men and the ballerinas by providing the former with an access to the backstage and, above all, to the dance foyer, where they could observe the dancers at a close range and, eventually, make a choice.  The access was available for a substantial subscription fee.

In the 19^th century, the ballet was more than the high-brow entertainment that makes today’s real men yawn. It was the height of an erotic experience.  In an age, when an accidental glimpse of a female ankle could send a man’s heart into overdrive, the spectacle of exposed legs and nude arms in a variety of alluring positions would beat the Stanley Cup in attendance. (Also, and this may be somewhat important, there were no sports matches to watch.) A man’s prestige mattered as well. To maintain a Paris Opera ballerina, or at least to be seen dining with one, meant that you have arrived socially and economically.

The Dance Class by Edgar Degas, 1874

Now back to Edgar Degas and his suffering little dancers. Since the profession was morally disreputable, the recruits came from a disadvantaged socio-economic background. A pretty daughter with a dancing talent was a God-sent gift to a struggling family.  It was on the frail shoulders of this 12- to 13-year-old that the future of the family rested – it was her duty to provide them with a better life. Dancing alone would not bring the riches, the riches would come from the admirers; the girls knew that from the very beginning.

For the dancer, the road to success inevitably comes through men.  First, there is the ballet master with his close touch while straightening a waist, repositioning a leg, or stretching an arm. The girl surrenders to the inescapable in order not to compromise her professional ascent. Then come other men, who all, one way or another, hold her career in their hands: the librettist, who gives her a role – or not – in the next ballet and the director who renews – or not – her contract. If she really wants to break out of the anonymity of the dance corps, she must quickly seduce a wealthy protector, who would pay for advanced dance classes.

A daughter’s virtue was a subject to negotiation

To maintain a pretense of respectability, the direction allowed chaperones to be present at all times. These women, whether they were a mother, an aunt, or an older cousin, were the driving force behind each dancer and the unavoidable intermediaries between the girl and men.  Other lessons were needed and provided:  how to be desirable was taught with the same importance as the pas de danse. Théophile Gautier notes the results of this licentious education:  “The young ballerina is at once corrupt as an old diplomat and as naïve as a good savage. At the age of thirteen, she could teach a courtesan.”

The “mothers” then negotiate the charms of their daughters and they can be quite tyrannical. Is the interested party old and ugly? Too bad, he’s got money so the daughter better be nice to him. Prices are agreed upon and, if a long-term liaison is in the making, a contract is signed at the notary’s office. A skillful mother can make herself included in the monthly allowance.

Those, who are not urged by their mothers to give themselves to a man do so on their own will. Without the protection of a wealthy man and, if possible, a titled one, they have no access to a professional recognition. It’s a man’s world and, in this profession, the masculine element holds the power. The only weapons in the arsenal of the ballerina are cunning and seduction.

Related posts:

Jean Béraud: The Most Parisian of the Paris Painters

The Guide to Gay Paree 1869 – Part 6: Entertainment

An attack on a police wagon. Criminal gangs were the scourge of Paris

It was never easy to police Paris. The Parisians, instead of being glad for the help and protection, have always despised their policemen.  The contempt has been profound and general. It could be that the Parisians, more than most, don’t want to be told how to behave. A strike, a riot, a revolution, have been their tools of political and social change across the 19th century and well beyond. To say that policing during the Belle Epoque  (1870 – 1914) was a martyrdom would be a slight exaggeration but it was a very hard job on a tiny pay. The police staff was recruited mostly from the army and the discipline in the police corps was just as hard, if not harder. The recruits had to have a virginal criminal record. According to the 1880s tariff, the policeman earned 4 francs and 75 cents for an eleven and a half-hour day. In comparison, a maid-of-all-work touched one franc a day.  For that pitiful wage, the men had to risk their lives in many wild scenarios that are nowadays shared among different rescue services. In 1884, for example, the statistics show one killed policeman and 144 injured ones.

Let’s have a look at a policeman’s day and the variety of crimes committed in that era:

Strikes of all sorts are still part of the urban life in Paris. They may be less violent than in the past when the police collected bruises in the street

The Belle Epoque Paris faced the threat of various anarchist bomb-throwers. Bombs exploded in the National Assembly, in police stations, in cafés, or simply in the street. Premature explosions also happened, as in this picture

The public, accustomed to the explosion of anarchists’ bombs, reacts to a malfunctioning motorcar

Police had to deal with the raging crowd when a hated criminal was transported. Here they protect Jeanne Weber, a serial child killer

Arrestation of the Sirène de Reuilly. Marie-Thérèse de Gordoue, or simply Gourdon in real life, was a successful courtesan and the head of a large crime organization

Criminal gang members, suspected of snitching, were separated from their noses during a surgery without anesthesia

Shopkeepers, working alone, were often victims of robbery and murder

The Bois de Boulogne on the outskirts of the city continues to this day to be the playground of vice and crime. From time to time, the authorities ordered a thorough cleanup.

A police raid in a “hôtel de passe”. These establishments rented rooms on the hour. Considered immoral, they were often visited by the police. Men went Scott-free but women caught in the raid were transported to the police depot, and from there to the La Roquette female prison

Escapes and roof chases kept the policemen in good physical condition

The police operated at different height levels. A pickpocket plucked from a tree

At the commissariat, a thief surrenders a watch he had swallowed

Family drama: The father is not dead yet but the fierce competition among the siblings is already in a full swing

A police commissaire is seriously injured in a Paris riot

Another victim of duty, an undercover police officer is shot in front of the Moulin Rouge

Acts of bravery and dedication abounded despite the public contempt for policemen

Related posts:

The Gangs of Paris: Les Apaches

Murder Most Horrible: The Bloody Trunk Case

Saint-Lazare: Women in Prison

1890’s Terror in Paris: History Repeating Itself

The Milliner on the Champs Elysées by Jean Beraud

In this fifth  and last part of the series, Octave Uzanne explores the hidden side of the Parisian sex industry. The text was published in 1912. This post is longer than usual, but then the clandestine prostitution possessed more secrets and inventions than the open sex trade.

The clandestine prostitution of Paris is the most interesting branch of the subject for it is the most ingenious, the most fertile in resource, the cleverest in passing off what it has to sell, the most expert in creating an atmosphere of illusion.

As its name indicates, this province of vice is a thing apart. It is a mysterious trade, which depends for its success on histrionic capacity and on a tangle of tricks and intrigues which would be impossible to unravel completely. Clandestine prostitution, like the spider, weaves its web in the shadows. It has its spies, its brokers, its beaters whose business it is to drive the game into the toils. Its methods are rarely direct, and whatever mode of action be chosen it very rarely comes into the light of day, and uses extraordinary and marvellously combined subterfuges to conceal its operations. Labyrinths are constructed the windings of which can never be known to the police. A mise en scène is chosen which prevents the most subtle observer from guessing the kind of play on which the curtain is soon to rise.

In Paris, a clandestine prostitution is everywhere. It surrounds a man in all his acts and avocations. It presents itself in hotels, in restaurants, in shops, in omnibus shelters, at the Louvre and the Luxembourg, where it appears armed with a Baedeker, ready to guide the foreigner. In certain circles—aye, even in the official ones—it shows itself discretely, almost impenetrably disguised. It insinuates itself into your pockets in the form of circulars, visiting cards, and unusual and curious invitations. In the newspapers you find it in advertisements on the fourth page where it well understands the use of such euphemisms as “massage”, the “removal of superfluous hair”, “dyeing”, “manicure”, or “private lessons in gymnastics”.

It enters your house on the various pretexts of charity, literature, art, or applications for employment. It is to be seen at photographers’, in places where ladies show themselves in tights, in reading rooms and libraries, and in bars. It is familiar with every subtlety and knows the use of every kind of mask. It reveals itself slowly and does not give itself away till the ground has been made secure and the right moments has come.

The triumph of this form of prostitution is assured at the beginning of this century, when secret and selfish pleasure, the love of comfort, the search for poignant and abnormal pleasures are so much in favour with the blasé beings of our generation. The ordinary prostitute has no attraction for that section of the public which hates to vulgarize its pleasures by indulging in debauchery too flagrant or too commonplace. They want something possessing character and originality. An orgy to suit their fancy must be scented, subtle, and graceful; their gallantries must be veiled and dissimulated under the outward appearance of correctness and propriety. To such people clandestine prostitution offers just the right flavour of perversity, for it provides just every sort of feminine corruption.

Let us attempt a summary sketch of the various ingenious disguises, tricks, feints, and pretences to which the clandestine prostitute of Paris resorts, whether the scene of her operation be the streets or other public places, a shop, a theatre, a hotel, or a house of rendezvous.

Out of doors, clandestine prostitution is rampant. Many do not see it even when it is at their elbows, for one’s power of observation must be sharpened by long residence in Paris and by an innate curiosity in these matters before one can be certain, so deceptive are the appearances which this culpable trade assumes. The rake of long standing, the impenitent libertine, the corsair of the pavement – all those who love the streets of Paris for the sake of the women they meet there, the amateurs of fresh faces and alluring curves, are never deceived, for daily exercise in the chase keeps every sense alert. They divine everywhere the discreet invitation, the mere insinuation of an advance, and it is rarely indeed that they are mistaken.

“Believe me,” said one of them to us, “that out of a hundred young women whom you will meet unchaperoned in the course of a stroll along the boulevards you may be certain that, however respectable they look, more than a third are adventuresses. I’m not speaking of obvious harlots. I take merely those whose bearing is modest, whose manner is virtuous, and whose composure is all but middle-class.”

“Come,” he continued, “let us observe. You see that young girl tripping along with a roll of music under her arm. You think she is an artist, or perhaps some young lady who has been having a music lesson. Follow her for a little, using the approved method and taking care not to frighten so wary a bird. Accost her at the psychological moment in some passage, square or blind alley towards which the sly minx will have led you on. A hospitable room will soon receive you, and you will not be long in discovering what are the lessons given and received by the subtle lady who looks as if she came from the Conservatoire.

“Again, look at that pretty creature in deep mourning. How elegant she is and shapely in her black gown. Her pale charming face is delightfully framed by the crape of her English widow’s cap, and the air of sadness on those features which were surely meant for dimpling smiles inspires the spectator with sincere sentiments of pity. Hasten, then, to console her. Your sympathy will not go unrewarded. Follow on the track of the bereaved. She belongs to the department which ‘does mournings’ for a special class of client.

“Behold this adorable girl passing in the company of that respectable lady. Is she not a pupil at some girls’ school? She is as fresh and charming as a half-opened rosebud. You are in ecstasies at such a delightful spectacle of youth and innocence, and think of the happy marriage the dear child is sure to make. Simple soul! I look more closely at the venerable chaperon and exchange with her an imperceptible smile. A few minutes later pass ahead of the pair, and when you come to the first corner turn and confront the matron saluting her as you would a friend. Compliment her on her daughter’s charms, and propose calling on her. If you care for such things you will find the girl as complaisant as she is already calculating and depraved.”

Mothers who sell their daughters as soon as they reach thirteen or fourteen are unfortunately only too common, and their bearing as they walk the streets does not escape those who understand these things. There are also sham waiting-maids, sham workgirls, sham sick-nurses, and even sham Sisters of Charity, whose business, when they are not working on their own account, is to canvass out of doors or from house to house for the numerous clandestine salons of the capital.

A favourite scene of operations is a railway station—the Gare de l’Ouest for choice—where there are such crowds of women that one is tempted to suppose that it received its name of Saint-Lazare because it’s the favorite issue for prostitutes coming from the sanitary prison of the same name. Their game at such stations is, of course, the foreigner and the provincial – the Englishman arriving from Dieppe, and the suburban man of business who, when he comes to Paris, is often not unwilling to indulge himself with a little diversion.

Many of these pseudo-travellers provide themselves with a railway rug or a travelling-bag and dress themselves in the tailor-made English fashion. In that case they do not merely haunt the vestibules, the waiting-rooms, or the neighbouring cafés, but actually travel from Paris to Saint-Germain, or take the Nord-West via Argenteuil, Enghien, and Saint-Denis – an itinerary which appears to suit their particular line of business. Some do the Paris-Versailles route, where there are plenty of foreigners. They all travel first class, and inspect the train carefully, choosing if possible a compartment in which there is a man alone.

Others of the clandestine sort frequent picture shows, courses of lectures or the reading rooms at the Bon Marché or the Magasins du Louvre. There they are on the look-out for serious-minded clients, and consequently they themselves affect an interest in the fine arts, in literature, and intellectual things generally. They are often the most intelligent and interesting of their profession, and have quite a gift for conversation.

Some frequent only the large hotels, where with the connivance of porters, valets, grooms or upper servants, they get to know the names of new arrivals, find out their financial position, and lay siege in form to the victims of their choice. Then they have recourse to letters—and what clever letters!—or to visits in the character of canvassers for shirt-makers, jewellers, or tobacconists. Some even go the length of taking a room in the same hostelry if the coveted person is important enough to make it worthwhile.

Clandestine prostitution is sometimes carried on by means of circulars or through newspapers, thanks to the “agony column”. It is a method which is coming more and more into fashion. The woman of the agony column is usually well-educated, original, and witty writer, and in the columns she produces phrases such as these: “Eve is bored. Write to her, X. Y., office of this paper”’ Or again: “A chilly swallow wants a nest. Who will give her one?” She gets answers, stupid, amusing, impertinent, arrogant or timid by turns, which, if she has any penetration, will show her clearly enough what is the moral and social position of her correspondent. It is therefore an excellent method for courtesans, who are using it more every day and competing with the respectable women who amuse themselves in this way.

Theatres which speculate upon the curiosity of the public by producing what are known as “pièces à femmes” are also hotbeds of clandestine prostitution. Whether they play fairy pieces for the delight of children, or revues which are crowded with characters who must appear in tights, every minx who is vain of her figure rushes to offer her services. Such women know very well that they will have a favourable opportunity of exhibiting themselves and of showing that if they have no talent they have, at any rate, an attractive pair of legs. At the stage door connoisseurs, escorts, suitors, and lovers mix in groups with the merely curious, awaiting the exit of the charmers. They glare at each other like china dogs, and they are content to wait for hours with angelic patience, often in evening dress, at these back entrances, which are horrible places, dirty, damp and malodorous.

We must now track the clandestine prostitute into less accessible retreats where chance must serve us in lieu of observation – the shops, flats, and salons of all kinds in which women carry on a trade in their own bodies without solicitation and consequently without scandal. First of all we must speak of the shops which sell perfumery, gloves, artificial flowers, collars, ties, shirts, photographs, engravings, and even new books. The exterior has no special feature, except perhaps that there is very little in the window, and that what there is allows you to see between the half-drawn curtains into an elegant but sparsely furnished shop, with a counter in the middle, covered with little articles, at which a woman sits and simpers, gracefully turning her head towards the street as soon as she feels that she is observed. If the customer accepts her invitation to enter, the curtains are discretely drawn, and the conversation which follows very soon clears up the situation. Usually there are two women in these “shops” – one of ripe age and notable embonpoint, the other a slim, girlish creature with her hair in plaits. They have a joint stock, and share the profits scrupulously every night. Their business hours are approximately from midday to midnight.

In the purlieu of the Rue Montorgueil, of the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle and the Boulevard du Château-d’Eau there are to be found establishments of a different character. These are the sham milliners, dressmakers, and jewellers established on the first floor of houses of ill-fame. On the doors are such inscriptions as “Mme. Jeanne, fleuriste”, “Mlle. Alexandrine, modes”, “Fiorina, artiste”, or, again , “Pauline, plumes métalliques”. It would require the pen of Biartial, a Suetonius, or a Juvenal of the present day to describe the putrescent immoralities of these dens of iniquity where the most unmentionable vices of the ancients are practiced.

Other posts of interest:

Saint Lazare: Women in prison

Mark Twain and the Cancan

The Arrival of the Midinettes by Jean Béraud

In the earlier Parisian fauna, we met the grisettes and the gigolettes. The former were independent working-class girls often romantically involved with students. The latter, the equivalent of gangsters’ molls, were mostly full-time prostitutes. Generally speaking, while the grisettes centered in the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank, which housed the Sorbonne, the Polytechnic School, and other important educational institutions, the gigolettes inhabited the working-class neighborhoods on the city periphery.

The Right Bank, around the rue de la Paix, saw a rapidly-growing number of couture houses and luxury accessories workshops populated by young and fashion-conscious female workers. At noon -midi – these girls hurried out to take a light meal – dinette – in a cheap restaurant or simply on a public garden bench. The age of the midinette extends from around 1850 to the 1960s, when the haute-couture business began to fade.

The Milliner on the Champs Elysées by Jean Béraud

Both the grisette and the midinette were steady figures in the romantic imagery of Paris. Poems, songs,  novels, and later movies, paid homage to them. They acted as the muses for writers and painters. The tragic Mimi, from the opera La Bohême, immediately comes to mind.

The midinette is painted as she trots the streets delivering a dress or a new hat. She is immortalized dancing in public balls or enjoying a Sunday picnic. Little is said about a 12-hour day and insufficient wages. The girl, who wants to be fashionable, may resort to prostitution to pay for her finery.

The temptation is ever-present. At noon, the vultures are waiting. Old men in the pursuit of youth gather at the entrance of the couture houses, offering the treat of a luxury lunch; men with dark intentions roam the public gardens, where the girls rest.

“With no regard for your white hair, you run after the midinettes. Merry Spring finds Winter scary – don’t bother the young girls,” says this postcard

Paris honored her working girls. The washerwomen became queens for a day.  As for the midinettes, once a year, they participated in a grueling competition known as The Race of the Midinettes.

The course started on the Place de la Concorde and led up the Champs Elysées, and past the Arc de Triomphe, to end after 12 kilometers (approx. 8 miles) in Nanterre. A newspaper describes the event in 1903:

All these young ladies, competing first, in the most varied costumes, some, not all, very successful: then the crowd of relatives, friends, and finally innumerable, thick, the troop of the curious. The departure was laborious. At last, at half – past eleven, a real army sprang from the Place de la Concorde towards the Arc de Triomphe; cars, cabs, bicycles, motorcycles, struggled in the midst of all this and, although preceded by Paris guards on horseback, the Midinettes sometimes had to play fists to make their way. The first arrival was Miss Jeanne Cheminel, a pleasant twenty-four-year-old brunette who shot her 12 kilometers in 1:10, which is meritorious. This sturdy walker is a milliner, and that somewhat upset a few seamstresses, who, behind her, nevertheless obtained the best places. Here, in fact, were the first: Jeanne Cheminel, milliner; Lucie Fleury, seamstress; Marie Touvard, seamstress; Louise Balesta, seamstress; Alice Brard, seamstress; Mathide Mignot, seamstress; Kugel, seamstress; Marguerite Pradel, seamstress; Jeanne Brederie, seamstress.

A competitor in the race offered a pleasant sight: a chic naval hat sitting on freshly curled hair, a dress with a lace collar, the waist squeezed with a corset. A bouquet of fresh flowers pinned at the shoulder completed the outfit

The end of the race shows considerable damage to the outfit and the hairdo. Sport was in its infancy and so was the fashion for the competitors

Related posts:

From Washerwoman to Queen of Paris

La Grisette

Parisian Prostitutes (2): La Gigolette

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Paris, with its grand boulevards, iconic landmarks, and rich cultural heritage, captures visitors and residents alike. Yet, beneath its glamorous façade lies a lesser-known aspect of its history—the Zone. The wide boulevards that run in circles were once moats and defensive ditches surrounding the walls. Names such as Porte de Clichy or Porte Saint-Denis, now mere metro stations, recall the former gates to the French capital.

Permanent construction was prohibited within 250 metres (55 yards) of the fortifications. Outside the protective walls, a no-man’s-land emerged, inhabited by those on the fringes of society. Over time, this area became known as the Zone. This was a place where the destitute and outcasts found shelter amidst poverty and squalor. Rag pickers, beggars, and other marginalized groups eked out a living in makeshift dwellings constructed from scavenged materials. These offered little protection from the elements. Urban amenities such as street lighting or running water were missing.

ies such as street lighting or running water were missing

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The Zone was a fertile ground for crime and violence, as gangs and thugs roamed the streets with impunity. It was a lawless wasteland, with little hope for a brighter future. The city’s efforts to maintain order and protect its citizens were constantly challenged by the criminal activities originating from the Zone, making it a significant concern for the overall well-being of Paris. The Zone housed the cheapest eating places, the roughest bars, and was the working domain of prostitution dregs. (See the post The Fortification Whore below.)

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A rag picker

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Crime was not the only danger emerging from the Zone. The activity of rag pickers worried the authorities as they carried and spread various diseases. Rag pickers relied on scavenging for their livelihood, combing through the streets, alleys, and garbage dumps of Paris. They searched for discarded items that could be salvaged, repaired, or sold. They collected everything from rags and bones to metal scraps and discarded furniture, transforming what others saw as waste into commodities. Long hours spent scavenging through garbage heaps, exposure to unsanitary conditions, and the constant threat of illness were part and parcel of their existence. The child mortality rate in these parts was four times that of the healthier parts of the city.

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Sorting the scavenged material

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The Commission for Unsanitary Housing of the Department of the Seine produced a report for 1851 that uses the terms of a report from 1832. The situation does not seem to have changed in twenty years:

Most are busy sorting, during the day, the product of their nocturnal rounds, squatting around this dirty loot. They pile up in every corner, and even under their bunks, bones, old linens soiled with mire, whose fetid miasmas spread in the middle of these hideous garrets, where often a space of less than two square meters serves as shelter to a whole family.

Rag pickers had to be adept at finding solutions to challenges, whether it was repairing broken items, repurposing materials, or devising innovative ways to make ends meet. For instance, they kept records of weddings and other celebrations. After such gatherings, the ground was a source of cigarette butts and cigar stumps. The remaining tobacco was meticulously extracted and recycled. Discarded food, too, could be a source of income. The post Poor and Hungry in Paris: Gambling Eateries and Harlequin Luxury Food describes this industry.

Despite their vital role in recycling and waste management, rag pickers were viewed as social outcasts, relegated to the fringes of society. Their bags could contain stolen items, and they sometimes did. This social stigma only served to further isolate and marginalize them, making it even more challenging to escape the cycle of poverty and deprivation.

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The recycled goods on sale

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The history of the Zone offers a sobering glimpse into the darker corners of Parisian society, where poverty and exclusion were stark realities for many.

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