The young man who has not attained his majority thus meets with a special protection in corrupting himself; for, while our law courts, upon the pretence that it is swindling, annul the pecuniary engagements made with courtesans by men of all ages, they keep the young man under 21 especially safe. When robbery occurs, the fact of prostitution brings the two principles of family and property face to face, but the former is, in this matter, always sacrificed to the latter. Military men, even officers, bring before the law courts the robbery of their epaulettes, which has been effected in a brothel; and, without any blame, without any penalty against these family destroyers, the Government or Magistrate, after imprisoning the woman inculpated, replaces the symbol of official honour on the shoulders of her accomplice in profligacy. Has not the student, too, the privilege of declaring to our judges that he claims the repayment of 30, 40 francs, &c., pilfered by women with whom _he was cohabiting_; not only does the court not pronounce him guilty, it by no means seeks to know if this youth, the hope of his country, has been the cause of a wrong, irreparable, perchance, to society, by allying himself with abandoned women and outlawed youths, whom his irresponsibility in wickedness has urged on to commit larceny. It neither condemns this rebel against society to a fine nor to disgrace as a citizen, and, by imprisoning the woman, it proclaims the man’s right to be dissolute. A well-known courtesan who lived in a splendid town-house in one of our wealthiest districts, was there receiving, every year, from her admirers, an income of about 100,000 francs. Carriages, liveries well known in the official world, were shamelessly standing at her door. In those orgies, which are only to be compared to the Babylonian nights, she boasted of having _the particular charge of training young people_. The police, forcing an entrance into her house, accused her of illegal gambling. It is unnecessary to say that the court did not sentence—did not even name, any of her high-placed accomplices; certain organs of the periodical press gave an account of this affair, and spoke of the courtesan under the appellation of _amiable hostess, well-known in the fashionable world of Paris for the choice suppers she gave_. Our jurisprudence is still the zealous protectress of these men who manifest an equal shamelessness in tricking out the courtesan with their heraldic name, and taking it from her when they are in search of the marriage portion necessary to restore their fortune impaired by profligacy. With an unfeeling barbarity they then set to work to drag their discarded mistress before the courts of law, to take her ducal coronet from her, to efface the coats-of-arms they had themselves engraven upon her carriage, and, at length, to have her sentenced for usurping the titles of the aristocracy.