Nantes prostitutes in the eighteenth century were on average twenty-five years old and single. Usually coming from a poor background, they received very little training in their youth and described themselves as seamstresses, thread and needle makers or laundresses. They received their customers in their own room or met them in inns and taverns: they mostly lived in districts near the port and the plebeian suburbs of the Marchix.

In each of these districts lived a commissaire who was under the supervision of the lieutenant général. Eventually this office of lieutenant général was taken over by Nantes city council or the Bureau de la Ville in 1776. Commissaires were the most important officers on the beat as they had the right to arrest and detain culprits, take fines and use mediation and summary justice. They were assisted in their daily patrols by the militia or garde bourgeoise. Vincent Danet showed that commissaires were generally appointed for more than a year and therefore, as they lived in the district they patrolled, they had close connections and relationships with the inhabitants and a detailed knowledge of the various public houses and inns as well as their tenants and customers. These continual interactions, it may be argued, must have eased the judicial process by encouraging mediation and summary justice, reducing the number of affairs going to court.

The relations between commissaires and prostitutes were structured around two different categories of prosecutions. The commissaires responded to complaints from neighbours or family about the women’s behaviour as well as carrying out routine patrols that brought them into direct contact with prostitutes. They targeted women responsible for disturbing the peace, for example by screaming, partying, receiving noisy people or generally behaving in a disorderly manner (being noisy or throwing stones or garbage in the street or insulting neighbours and passer-bys) once they had received a complaint. They would then attempt to verify the allegations by interviewing the women’s neighbours and recording their testimonies. Only after having carried out these investigations, and finding the prostitutes guilty, did the commissaires take the women into custody (a rare occurrence) or give them twenty-four hours to leave their place of abode. At the same time, patrols were made daily in order to check that the gates of alleys were shut, that taverns and inns closed on time, that no alcohol was served during Mass and that lodging-keepers kept their books up to date.

The reports of these patrols offer an interesting insight into the attitude of the commissaires towards prostitutes: even when meeting prostitutes and their customers in their homes, or in a tavern, commissaires simply reported their presence but did not take any action against them. In most cases they did not even take their names. These attitudes reveal two characteristics of the mentality of Nantes commissaires in the eighteenth century. Firstly, it appears that prostitution was not considered a crime if no one was offended by it or, in other words, if no complaint was filed. Commissaires’ duties concerned public order and, by definition, if the order was not disturbed their action was not required. Secondly, their attitude towards prostitutes did not reveal any ‘unprofessionalism’. Of course their reports recorded only one side of the story, and it is possible that they behaved differently on the spot, but it remains interesting to note that they did not blame or stigmatise prostitutes for having received money for sexual intercourse. The reports of their patrol were read by the clerk and possibly by a magistrate if the affair was to go to court and it is plausible that these people from the upper middle-class would have been sympathetic to the condemnation of immorality. Commissaires nevertheless limited their writings to expressions like ‘femmes du monde’ or ‘filles publiques’ and no derogatory term was recorded. Admittedly, the expression ‘femme du monde’ did not carry positive connotations and it implied lewd and disorderly behaviour, but rather than targeting the women for such behaviour, the reports underlined the fact that the neighbours had rather been disturbed by noises and drunken visitors. The limited number of convictions for more than six months clearly shows that commissaires were not actively looking to convict and imprison prostitutes.

Marion Pluskota is part of the Centre of Urban History at the University of Leicester. Read more of her article on prostitutes in Nantes in the Spring 2012 edition of the Women’s History Magazine– out soon!