Prostitution, Space and Urban Life in Eighteenth-Century London and Paris
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Durham E-Theses Prostitution, Space and Urban Life in Eighteenth-Century London and Paris RAITZ, KIRSTYN,ARIANNA How to cite: RAITZ, KIRSTYN,ARIANNA (2020) Prostitution, Space and Urban Life in Eighteenth-Century London and Paris, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13754/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Kirstyn Arianna Raitz Prostitution, Space and Urban Life in Eighteenth-Century London and Paris July 31, 2020 Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History 1 Abstract Life in eighteenth-century London and Paris was inherently chaotic. At the centre of this chaos stood the prostitute: both a figure and a product of the dynamic urban landscape. This thesis compares the issue of prostitution in both Paris and London and uses spatial analysis as a way to further understand collective urban anxieties during this period. Historians of prostitution in the West have already made a case for the toleration of the sex trade throughout the early modern period. Here, I investigate the fragile nature of tolerance and attempt to understand what made prostitution so problematic not only for urban authorities and reformers, but for everyday inhabitants. In addition, I also explore broader institutional and cultural responses to prostitution in order to understand what the prostitute came to represent within the urban environment. Both London and Paris had, as I will demonstrate, dramatically different legal systems and thus varying approaches in how they dealt with the sex trade. One commonality is that both systems had ambiguous approaches to the offence of prostitution. This suggests that tolerance was conditional not only within the small-scale example of the neighbourhood but within the overarching context of both cities’ legal systems. Here, I discuss how the condition of tolerance was based on spatial and sensory awareness especially within the contested space of the urban neighbourhood. Through mapping the sex trade, I demonstrate the fluidity of sex work throughout the urban landscapes of both capitals and show that the sex trade was being increasingly dispersed (albeit somewhat localised) throughout both Paris and London over the course of the eighteenth century. As prostitutes became further dispersed and remained integrated figures of local communities, certain institutions and contemporary commentators sought to separate them out from the rest of honest society. I explore the confinement and imprisonment of former prostitutes throughout which they were expected to adhere to specific spatial practices in order to reform. However, the agency of confined sex workers undermined these practices through their own communal bonds and agency. In addition to being confined to institutions, the prostitute was culturally represented as a series of tropes throughout the course of the period. I compare these tropes in both Paris and London and investigate an overlooked one: prostitution as a disease upon the urban body which contributes to the argument that the anxiety of prostitution was rooted in unsettled feelings about the urban environment itself. Overall, this thesis offers a more complex approach to eighteenth-century sex work and, through the use of spatial and comparative analysis unearths collective sensitivities and anxieties about the chaotic nature of urban life and society. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ 1 Figures and Tables .............................................................................................................. 4 Maps .................................................................................................................................... 4 Images ................................................................................................................................. 5 Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... 6 Copyright Statement ........................................................................................................... 7 A Note on Language ........................................................................................................... 8 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 9 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 11 ‘Defining’ Prostitution .................................................................................................... 13 Sources, Questions and Approaches .............................................................................. 23 The ‘Spatial Turn’ & Comparative Method ................................................................... 33 Chapter Layout ............................................................................................................... 36 1. The Limits of Tolerance: Prostitution in the Neighbourhood .................................. 38 I. Policing Prostitution ............................................................................................... 45 II. Prostitutes in the Neighbourhood .......................................................................... 50 III. Tolerance in Practice .......................................................................................... 66 IV. Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 78 2. Urban Landscape and the Geography of the Sex Trade ................................................ 80 I. Urban Landscape ................................................................................................... 83 Layer One: The View from the Street ........................................................................ 83 Layer Two: Commerce and Sex ................................................................................. 88 Layer Three: Known Areas of the Sex Trade ............................................................. 93 II. The Geography of the Sex Trade ......................................................................... 101 Disorderly Houses & Lieux de Mauvaise Vie .......................................................... 103 Streetwalking ............................................................................................................ 115 III. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 126 3. Confining the Prostitute ............................................................................................... 129 I. Admissions and Releases .................................................................................... 142 II. Structural Implications: Division & Functional Sites .......................................... 155 III. Time: Routines & Movement ........................................................................... 167 IV. Control: Communities & Punishing Behaviour ............................................... 173 V. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 185 4. Cultural Representations of Prostitution ..................................................................... 187 I. Seduction: Progress & Deception ........................................................................ 194 II. Prostitution as Pestilence ..................................................................................... 214 3 III. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 230 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 232 Appendix .......................................................................................................................... 237 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 239 I Manuscript Sources ................................................................................................... 239 a. Paris, Assistance Publique des Hopitaux de Paris (APHP) ............................ 239 b. Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal (BA), Archives de la Bastille ......................... 239 c. Archives Nationales (AN) ................................................................................ 240 d. London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) ............................................................ 241 e. Bridewell Royal Hospital (BR) ........................................................................