The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 3 of 6

"And where are your own relations, La Louve?"

"How should I know?"

"Is it long since you saw them?"

"I don't know whether they are dead or alive."

"Were they, then, so very unkind to you?"

"Neither kind nor unkind. I was about eleven years old, I think, when my mother went off with a soldier. My father, who was a day-labourer, brought home a mistress with him into our garret, and two boys she had, – one six, and the other my own age. She was a barrow-woman. She went on pretty well at first, but after a time, whilst she was out with her fruit, a fish-woman used to come and drink with my father, and this the apple-woman found out. Then, from this time, every evening, we had such battles and rows in the house that I and the two boys were half dead with fright. We all three slept together, for we had but one room. One day, – it was her birthday, Sainte Madeleine's fête, – and she scolded him because he had not congratulated her on it. From one word another arose, and my father concluded by breaking her head with the handle of the broom. I really thought he had killed her. She fell like a lump of lead, but la mère Madeleine was hard-lived, and hard-headed also. After that she returned my father with interest all the blows he had given her, and once bit him so savagely in the hand that the piece of flesh remained between her teeth. I must say that these contests were what we may call the grandes eaux at Versailles. On common and working-days the skirmishes were of a lighter sort, – there were bruises, but no blood."

"Was this woman unkind to you?"

"Mère Madeleine? No; on the contrary. She was a little hasty, but, otherwise, a good sort of woman enough. But at last my father got tired, and left her and the little furniture we had. He came out of Burgundy, and most probably returned to his own country. I was fifteen or sixteen at this time."

"And were you still with the old mistress of your father?"

"Where else should I be? Then she took up with a tiler, who came to lodge with us. Of the two boys of Mère Madeleine, one, the eldest, was drowned at the Ile des Cygnes, and the other went apprentice to a carpenter."

"And what did you do with this woman?"

"Oh, I helped to draw her barrow, made the soup, and carried her man his dinner; and when he came home drunk, which happened oftener than was his turn, I helped Mère Madeleine to keep him in order, for we still lived in the same apartment. He was as vicious as a sandy-haired donkey, when he was tipsy, and tried to kill us. Once, if we had not snatched his axe from him, he would certainly have murdered us both. Mère Madeleine had a cut on the shoulder, which bled till the room looked like a slaughter-house."

"And how did you become – what – we – are?" said Fleur-de-Marie, hesitatingly.

"Why, little Charley, Madeleine's son, who was afterwards drowned at the Ile des Cygnes, was my first lover, almost from the time when he, his mother, and his brother, came to lodge with us when we were but mere children; after him the tiler was my lover, who threatened else to turn me out-of-doors. I was afraid that Mère Madeleine would also send me away if she discovered anything. She did, however; but as she was really a good creature, she said, 'As it is so, and you are sixteen years old, and fit for nothing, for you are too self-willed to take a situation or learn a business, you shall go with me and be inscribed in the police-books; as you have no relations, I will answer for you, as I brought you up, as one may say; and that will give you a position authorised by the government, and you will have nothing to do but to be merry and dress smart. I shall have no uneasiness about you, and you will no longer be a charge to me. What do you say to it, my girl?' 'Why, I think indeed you are right,' was my answer; 'I had not thought of that.' Well, we went to the Bureau des Mœurs. She answered for me, in the usual way, and from that time I was inscrite. I met Mère Madeleine a year afterwards. I was drinking with my man, and we asked her to join us, and she told us that the tiler had been sentenced to the galleys. Since then I have never seen her, but some one, I don't remember who, declared that she had been seen at the Morgue three months ago. If it were true, really so much the worse, for Mère Madeleine was a good sort of woman, – her heart was in her hand, and she had no more gall than a pigeon."

Fleur-de-Marie, though plunged young in an atmosphere of corruption, had subsequently breathed so pure an air that she experienced a deeply painful sensation at the horrid recital of La Louve. And if we have had the sad courage to make it, it has been because all the world should know that, hideous as it is, it is still a thousand times less revolting than other countless realities.

Ignorance and misery often conduct the lower classes to these fearful degradations, human and social.

Yes; there is a crowd of hovels and dens, where children and adults, girls and boys, legitimate children and bastards, lying pell-mell on the same mattress, have continually before their eyes these infamous examples of drunkenness, violence, debauch, and murder. Yes, and too frequently unnatural crimes at the tenderest age add to this accumulation of horrors.

The rich may shroud their vices in shadow and mystery, and respect the sanctity of the domestic hearth, but the most honest artisans, occupying nearly always a single chamber with their family, are compelled, from want of beds and space, to make their children sleep together, sons and daughters, close to themselves, husbands and wives.

If we shudder at the fatal consequences of such necessity almost inevitably imposed on poor, but honest artisans, what must it be with workpeople depraved by ignorance or misconduct? What fearful examples do they not present to unhappy children, abandoned, or rather excited, from their tenderest youth to every brutal impulse and animal propensity? Have they even the idea of what is right, decent, and modest? Must they not be as strange to social laws as the savages of the New World? Poor creatures! Corrupted at their very birth, who in the prisons, whither their wanderings and idleness often lead them, are already stigmatised by the coarse and terrible metaphor, "Graines de Bagne" (Seeds of the Gaol)! and the metaphor is a correct one. This sinister prediction is almost invariably accomplished: the Galleys or the Bridewell, each sex has its destiny.

We do not intend here to justify any profligacy. Let us only compare the voluntary degradation of a female carefully educated in the bosom of a wealthy family, which has set her none but the most virtuous examples. Let us compare, we say, this degradation with that of La Louve, a creature, as it were, reared in vice, by vice, and for vice, and to whom is pointed out, not without reason, prostitution as a condition protected by the government! This is true. There is a bureau where she is registered, certificated, and signs her name. A bureau where a mother has a right to authorise the prostitution of her daughter; a husband the prostitution of his wife. This place is termed the "Bureau des Mœurs" (the Office of Manners). Must not society have a vice most deeply rooted, incurable in the place of the laws which regulate marriage, when power, – yes, power, – that grave and moral abstraction, is obliged, not only to tolerate, but to regulate, to legalise, to protect, to render it less injurious and dangerous, this sale of body and soul; which, multiplied by the unbridled appetites of an immense population, acquires daily an almost incalculable amount.

Goualeuse, repressing the emotion which this sad confession of her companion had made in her, said to her, timidly:

"Listen to me without being angry."

"Well, what have you to say? I think I have gossiped enough; but it is no matter, as it is the last time we shall talk together."

"Are you happy, La Louve?"

"What do you mean?"

"Does the life you lead make you happy?"

"Here, – at St. Lazare?"

"No; when you are at home and free."

"Yes, I am happy."

"Always?"

"Always."

"You would not change your life for any other?"

"For any other? What – what other life can there be for me?"

"Tell me, La Louve," continued Fleur-de-Marie, after a moment's silence, "don't you sometimes like to build castles in the air? It is so amusing in prison."

"Castles in the air! About what?"

"About Martial."

"About my man?"

"Yes."

"Ma foi! I never built any."

"Let me build one for you and Martial."

"Bah! What's the use of it?"

"To pass away time."

"Well, let's have your castle in the air."

"Well, then, only imagine that a lucky chance, such as sometimes occurs, brings you in contact with a person who says, 'Forsaken by your father and mother, your infancy was surrounded by such bad examples that you must be pitied, as much as blamed, for having become – '"

"Become what?"

"What you and I have become," replied Goualeuse, in a soft voice; and then she continued, "Suppose, then, that this person were to say to you, 'You love Martial; he loves you. Do you and he cease to lead an improper life, – instead of being his mistress, become his wife.'"

La Louve shrugged her shoulders.

"Do you think he would have me for his wife?"

"Except poaching, he has never committed any guilty act, has he?"

"No; he is a poacher in the river, as he was in the woods, and he is right. Why, now, ain't fish like game, for those to have who can catch them? Where do they bear the proprietor's mark?"