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....
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