What strange prostitutes these brothel girls are

Gustave Mace (Head of the Paris Judicial Police) : What strange prostitutes these brothel girls are. Pretty, ugly, stupid, spiritual, all of them have their moments of folly and of despair, they can go instantly from laughs to tears, from threats to caresses. If you overhear their confidences, they name fate as the cause of their first abandonment, and in order better to inspire the pity of the clients; they renew that eternal and ancient story of young girls who were seduced. Not one of them was born for this line of work and it is only out of need that they exercise this repugnant work. Their moral corruption is rarely complete, for in their own rooms, bare, dilapidated, are found objects of piety, dried flowers, souvenirs of their birthplaces and honestly written books. . . . Most of these girls are excessively superstitious.