State Sanction of Madams

An image of the letter sent by Monsieur Givez to the Chamber of Deputies in 1842, in which he complains about the public spectacle caused by prostitutes in his area. This letter is part of the Paris Police Archives.

Containment of Prostitution

In 19^th century France, dames de maison played an important role in the containment and regulation of prostitution, and thus received legal tolerance. During this period of time, historian Alain Corbin notes that there was a concern with the purification of public space, particularly in regards to sewage and social vice. Both were seen as necessary evils whose presence should be contained and obscured from the public eye. [1] Intrusions of prostitution into the public sphere were denounced by “honest” citizens, as evidenced by this excerpt from an 1842 letter from Monsieur Givez to the Chamber of Deputies:

Surely, you will no longer tolerate the notion that in the 19th century, prostitution, this social plague, still shows itself in plain sight.  The administration could easily take measures on this issue retaining the prostitutes to the houses that it could survey with ease, preferable to the current state of affairs. [2]

The measures alluded to by Givez and ultimately adopted by the administration translated to “a scattering of houses, a commercial archipelago pragmatically designed to respond to the city’s sexual misery”. [1] These houses, which were granted official authorization, were known as maisons de tolerance and occupied a special niche between legality and illegality. In her work, “Policing Prostitution,” Jill Harsin clarifies the unique status of these establishments:

The maison de tolérance was not necessarily a brothel; rather, it was simply a place to which the police granted dispensation from the 1778 regulation, tolerating the existence of prostitution there so long as the holder of the tolerance obeyed certain rules. [3]

According to Alexandre Jean-Baptiste Parent du Châtelet, a 19^th-century French hygienist and researcher of prostitution, these rules were largely aimed at keeping the administration abreast of the comings and goings of women to and from maisons de tolérance. When a woman was granted a tolérance, or permission to establish a maison de tolérance, she received a book “intended for the inscription of prostitutes who are under the surveillance and responsibility of the madam”. [4]

In this way, madams contributed to the administration’s surveillance of the sex industry, and ultimately, as Harsin notes, to an overall decrease in clandestine prostitution. [5]

Taken as a whole, it becomes clear that the government’s main incentive in the toleration of madams and their establishments was that they brought order to disorder. In his book on prostitution, Parent du Châtelet directly reprinted a letter written to the police prefect by a madam that reveals the degree to which women took advantage of this motivation to gain legal credibility:

Before my arrival in the neighborhood in which I live, the most frightful disorder … publicly took place and attracted the most vile rabble of the capital; through care and vigilance, I put an end to this, and rendered the administration a service by reestablishing order and tranquility; [6] 

Having laid out the social good she has enacted, the madam goes on to request authorization to move her maison de tolérance to new premises, observing to the prefect that, “you will not refuse me”. [6] Along with granting authorization to aspiring madams, the administration also had a vested interest in facilitating the continued functioning of existing maisons de tolérance. As Parent du Châtelet notes, “the bad business of a madam is the cause of great disorder, her bankruptcy is followed by so many inconveniences that it is the duty of the administration to prevent this as much as possible”. [7]

Tolerance in Exchange for Intelligence

Interestingly, madams and their industries were sanctioned a century earlier for very different reasons. In 18^th century Paris, successful madams had extensive networks consisting of elite prostitutes, members of high society, and other madams. This rendered them invaluable to the Parisian police. In her book, Erotic Exchanges, Nina Kushner examines this unlikely symbiotic relationship, noting that madams “were given the privilege to operate, and although this was not a formal, legal privilege, it still had to be paid for: in this case, with information.” [8]

The nature of information furnished by madams was varied. From a compilation of police reports from the 18^th century, it is clear that the bulk of intelligence had to do with which aristocrats were seen attending which brothel-sponsored functions. Accounts of these events and their attendees were matter-of-factly trotted out in police reports, often running like this one:

On the 30th [of July, 1764], the Marquis de Romey dined at Brissault’s [brothel] with Miss Duval. The same day, Brissault provided the Marquis de Chimène with Miss Jeannette, who dined with him at the Palais-Royal. [9]

Beyond these mundane reports, madams would also conduct surveillance of certain individuals on behalf of the police, and blow the whistle on fellow madams who subverted the prefecture’s regulations. According to Kushner, part of madams’ power derived from the decision of what information to forward to the police and what information to withhold. [8] Through selective informing, they were able to protect clients and undercut competition.

Between the 18^th and 19^th centuries, one thing that remained consistent in the relationship of madams to the administration was the notion of give and take. Madams were given legal leeway to operate, so long as they provided the police, and by extension, society, with certain benefits. The only variable was whether this benefit was intelligence, or social stability and containment of vice. Moving forward to the modern-day relationship between third-party intermediaries and law enforcement, we will no longer this kind of symbiosis, but rather a mutual distrust that precludes cooperation.