System of Regulation
The system of regulation was relatively straightforward at its outset: all prostitutes must register with the police prefecture, after which they would be subject to regular medical exams for venereal disease, and treated at the prison hospital if necessary. Regulations governed the times and places prostitutes may solicit customers, and they would be subject to “administrative detention” - imprisonment without trial - for violation of these regulations, as well as failure to appear for their regular medical exam, and for causing a disturbance. After their exams, prostitutes were to be presented with a document verifying their good health.
Paul Gavarni's Charitable Mosieu, que Dieu garde vos fils de mes filles shows an older poor women, presumably a retired sex worker, imploring the man, "kind sir, may God protect your sons from my daughters." Here, prostitution is passed on maternally, as class distinction. Divine intervention would be needed to continue to protect the upper class from the vice of the lower classes.
It would be the police, not God, who would "protect" the upper class from the lower class. Once registered as prostitutes formally, women were subject to an immense series of regulation. A notice of regulation, shown left in its original format, reads as follows:
- Prostitutes are responsible for presenting themselves once every 15 days at the Dispensary, to be checked out.
- It is [not acceptable] to appear in the public eye before the night, in a noticeable way, and to stay after 11 pm.
- Their appearance must be decent: hair-dos in their hair are prohibited.
- They cannot provoke debauchery, to have inappropriate things, and cannot frequent cabarets and work there.
- They cannot, under any circumstances, show themselves at their windows, which must be constantly covered shut.
- They cannot station themselves in the public eye, to form groups, to reunite or circle up, to go near any space too small/narrow, and to follow or accompany men.
- The passages, gardens, and outskirts of the Royal Palace, the Tuileries of Luxembourg, and the Garden of the King are always forbidden.
- The Champs Elysées, the Esplanade of Invalides, the Boulevards Exterior, and the general routes around these places are equally forbidden after the fall of day.
- It is expressively forbidden to frequent the establishments or particular public houses where prostitution is favored (tends to be).
- Prostitutes will abstain, while they are in their home, from all that could give place for complaints from passerby or neighbors.
- They must always present their cards to all demands of the officers or agents of the police.
- Those who break these rules will be arrested and punished.
- Those who resist or who give false information about themselves will face even greater punishment.[1]
The system of regulation elected by the police prefecture is evidence that the eradication of prostitution was not the goal so much as its containment. If the regulation of the act of prostitution were the only goal, I argue that the prohibitions on prostitution would have been sufficiently broad when they allowed police to arrest and register any woman they liked as a prostitute. The policing of the manner and location of people registered as prostitutes is evidence of the class-based distinctions the regulations maintained. Additionally, the police actively used social class as an indication of possible prostitution, which meant that the methods of enforcement worked to actively contain and marginalize lower social classes. Prostitutes were forbidden to adorn themselves with hairstyles, to take up space in the public eye, to visit spaces reserved for the upper class such as palace gardens, or to make noise in their own home[2] - perhaps for fear of their being mistaken for upper class people. It is clear that repression of people, not the act of prostitution, is at play.
The police’s methods also aimed to confine prostitution to maisones de tolerance, or illegal-yet-officially-tolerated brothels. This was motivated by the efficiency with which the police could surveil the location: the police had the authority to enter a tolerance at any time, without warrant or warning. Jill Harsin notes that for the police, “the instant accessibility was the most valuable quality of the tolerance, providing the police, or so they thought, with immediate entry into the activities of the lower classes…” [3]
Pictured left is an original copy of minutes from first meeting of committee to repress prostitution. This meeting standardized the "sanitary card" that certified sex workers regular visits to dispensaires and the status of their health. Pictured inset is a sketch of the card itself. Click on it to see a full translation, as well as the full pages of the original.