ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the evolution of attitude towards prostitution to highlight how the reforms of the police and the changes in the division of the urban territory had an impact on the control of prostitutes at a time when national legislation remained silent on this particular topic. The territorialisation of the police meant creating official administrative divisions of the urban territory, to be placed under the control of designated officials. Prostitution seems to have remained a trade confined to the city centre, though a few prostitutes were recorded living in the peripheral parishes. The relationship between tenants of public house and prostitutes was ambiguous because of the legal status of prostitution. The Revolution, the violent Chouans uprisings in Brittany and the civil war in Vendee were the starting point for a campaign of suspicion against prostitutes, which led to an official regulation of the trade.
