Some tales of the trade:
Aubryet told us yesterday that a little girl in the street offered him her sister, a child of fourteen. her job was to breathe on the windows of the carriage so the police could not see inside.
...from the Goncourt Journals for May 11, 1863. Later:
Our little cousin Labille came to see us this morning. He had a rendezvous with a cocotte who was going to take him out in her carriage to Asnieres. There exists a peculiar type of high class prostitute these days who finds her custom among boys still at school, emptying their pocket books and building up a reserve of men who will keep her in later years.When the boy had gone we reflected on the course taken by love in our three generations. The elder of us...had a girl who stitched shoes for a living. I had a tart who always kept a few sous in her chest of drawers. And this woman has a youngster who keeps her own carriage and horses. The world progresses.
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