Les Maisons Closes
If a woman in 19th century France didn't want to find customers on her own, she could work in a brothel, also known as a maison close. There were two types of women in the maisons closes—the “madams” and the prostitutes. The madam was the older woman in charge of the establishment who kept everyone in line and was in charge of dealing with any problems that arose. The prostitutes who lived in the brothels were of a lower class than grisettes or lorettes, since they didn’t have one man that they had any sort of non-sexual relationship with, but they were of a higher status than the filles publiques of the streets. However, there was a fair amount of variability in the kind of prostitute that lived in a brothel. In many cases, there were different tiers of prostitutes within the same house—bourgeois men went to one section of the brothel, and the working class went to another. For example, Guy de Maupassant's short story "La Maison Tellier," the bottom floor of the house is for the casual fun of young sailors or working men, while the second floor is used by middle class men who are more frequent visitors.
Excerpt from the Police Archives
These “houses of tolerance” as they were sometimes called differed from other forms of prostitution at the time because they existed in cooperation with the police. Even though prostitution was technically illegal for most of the 19th century, the police had “informal arrangements” with the madams of the houses (1). They were allowed to continue to run their brothels in exchange for giving the police information and having the women who lived there registered and medically treated. Maisons closes were “tolerated,” meaning they were “not authorized or protected or prosecuted,” but simply allowed to exist (2).
This is a translated excerpt from the police archives in Paris at the time:
“On the subject of these untested regulations concerning brothels, one must find which is least detrimental, and it must be carried out. First, prostitutes must not show themselves during the day, and at night no more than one or two may be in front of each door of a brothel. Next, we would have to force this girl by the door to not wander off and to stay in place. I have heard on several occasions that having one girl by the door of the house, if she can’t move, it is almost as if the brothel does not exist/ is less noticeable. How great will things be when we can arrive at this result? The more this class (prostitutes) grows, the more we need to look for the means to eliminate them” (3).
Even though, for the most part, the police recognized that brothels were a necessity for the city, they were by no means in favor of them. They had strict rules and regulations that the maisons closes (and the prostitutes within them) had to abide by.
For more information of police regulation of prostitutes, visit the exhibit "Governing Class Through Prostitution" or "Tolerance in the 19th Century: Maisons Tolerées."
Gavarni Lithograph
This is a lithograph illustrated by Paul Gavarni in 1853. The caption reads “Allons! va au marché, M’man…et ne me carotte pas!” which translates to: “Go on! Go to work, little lady…and don’t bother me!” (4). It is not explicitly about women in a maison close, but there are a lot of hints that suggest that it is. There is an older woman, who is probably the madam at the brothel, telling the younger woman to go to work, and it is assumed that the work is of a sexual nature. The caption reads “les lorettes vielles” which translates to “the old lorettes.” Since lorettes were considered no longer useful as prostitutes past a certain age, they would frequently become madams of maisons closes as they grew older.
La Maison Tellier
"La Maison Tellier" is a short story by Guy de Maupassant which describes the life of women who live in a maison close. Mrs. Tellier, the madam of the brothel, is a widely respected and loved member of the town, and acts as a mother figure for the women who live and work there. The brothel is split into two sections—one for common men and one for the upper-middle class—and there are different women for each section of the house. The following translated quotation from the story provides a good description of how it is run:
“The house had two entrances. At the corner, a sort of shady bar opened, each night, to common men and sailors. Two of the girls in the house were designated particularly to the needs of this part of the clientele…the three other girls (there were only five) formed a sort of aristocracy, and remained reserved to the company of the second floor, unless, however, they were needed downstairs and the second floor became empty” (5).
This story provides insight into the inner workings of a maison close with a less critical eye than official records, both through its indifferent descriptions of the brothel’s logistics and its emotional understanding of the women’s lives.
(1) Jill Harsin. Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-century Paris. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, 70.
(2) Jill Harsin. Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-century Paris. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, 95.
(3) Paris Police Archives DA221, “Rapport hebdomadaire,” trans. Austin Lewellen, Noelle Marty.
(4) Paul Gavarni. "Allons! Va Au Marche..." Digital image. 1853. http://allenartcollection.oberlin.edu/emuseum/view/objects/asitem/id/15783.
(5) Guy De Maupassant. "La Maison Tellier." Compiled by Louis Forestier. In Contes Et Nouvelles, 257-58. Paris: Gallimard, 1979. Translated by Rosie Kerwin