Voice of Conscience

The conscience of the new France was speaking. Militant Mme. Marthe Richard had served her country well as a spy in World Wars I and II. Now, as a Councilwoman of Paris, she called for her city's moral regeneration.

"I will not rest," she cried to her fellow councilors, "until Paris is cleansed of these stinking sewers which are a shame to our country and the world." The stinking sewers were the city's 178 legalized houses of prostitution and 7,000 registered prostitutes, an incorporated iniquity doing a billion francs ($20,000,000) worth of business annually.

Mme. Richard denounced the bordellos on physical, patriotic and economic as well as moral grounds. They were responsible for the sharp upsurge in venereal disease: only three doctors serviced the 7,000 prostitutes. They were deep-dyed collaborationist: they had accommodated German soldiers by the truckload, provided the Gestapo with stool pigeons, paid tribute to the most hated Vichyites, including Pierre Laval. They spawned black marketeers. They viciously monopolized 6,000 rooms much needed for decent folk.

The councilors listened, forgot their political differences, joined ranks (from Communists to Popular Republicans) behind the voice of conscience, pointing out the long-neglected connection between private and public morals. Police Prefect Charles Luizet announced that the brothels would be closed within three months. The Council earnestly applauded.

Incorporated iniquity struggled to still the voice. Mme. Richard was offered, privately, a million francs ($20,000) to call off her crusade. She spurned it, publicly. It was predicted that licensed prostitutes would merely be chased to the streets, already dangerously crowded by some 8,000 unregistered streetwalkers. There was even an attempt to dismiss the crusade with a wisecrack. Leered one bordello operator: "We are honorable merchants. . . . We are left with but one alternative--to take to the maquis!"

But the France of 1945 did not laugh. If incorporated iniquity went underground, Mme. Richard would go after it.

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