Personal reminiscences of a great crusade / by Josephine E. Butler.

  • Butler, Josephine Elizabeth Grey, 1828-1906.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Personal reminiscences of a great crusade / by Josephine E. Butler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    91/264 (page 77)
    romance.’ I thanked him for his information, and asked him to be so good as to give me a letter which would admit me to the whole of the St. Lazare. (The St. Lazare was then entirely at the Prefect’s service, an immense prison, hospital, and general depot for all the unhappy women of Paris, both for the vicious and those accused only of vagabondage, or who were seeking work and had no friends.) He summoned a secretary, and in a commanding way, directed him to write a letter giving me carte blanche to see everything. When the man brought it back, Lecour sat down and wrote a post- script, in which he requested ‘that every facility should be given to the very honourable lady from Euglaud.’ Then he signed it largely and stamped it with the stamp of the Prefect. So now I can go about under his benign protection. I smiled as he wrote, thinking of the shadowy fears which some of my friends felt when I was leaving England, lest I should be seriously annoyed by the police. How wonderfully Providence turns things upside down ! Here was the very head of the much-hated Morals’ Police himself sanctioning all I might wish to do with a great flourish, and full of vanity in the performance. “ I could now enter even any of the dreadful houses which are under his superintendence; his letter would be all- powerful. At the door, I suddenly remembered the case of an innocent Swiss girl I had found, whom his police are tormenting. I stated her case, assuming that he would at once give orders for her to be let alone. At this his smiling character suddenly changed for a moment. Almost spitting like a cat, he said, with sudden irritation, ‘ Mais quelles betises vous ont-elles dit! ’ and a strange expression came over his face. But he quickly recovered himself. He evidently was making an effort to produce a good impression, and to part friends. I felt very sad as I left his place.”