In no long time, indeed, after the decrees of 1684, the conditions of life in the Salpêtrière seem to have been little if at all better than those in Saint-Martin. Six women shared a cell by night; the one bed which was supposed to hold them all accommodated four; two of whom slept at the head and two at the foot, while the two latest comers made shift on the bare floor. When one of the bed-fellows got her discharge, or went sick to Bicêtre, the elder of the floor-companions took the vacant place in the bed, resigning her share of the boards to a new _fille d'amour_. Complaints evoked the cut-and-dried response that the bed was intended to hold six. The cells were always damp, and "_il y régnait absolument, et surtout le matin, une odeur infecte, capable de faire reculer_." Despite the lack of sanitation, and the fact that the food was always of an inferior quality, the death-rate was not abnormal in the Salpêtrière. Such was the first regular prison of the _femmes publiques_, and its régime. The sensible intentions of Louis XIV. were never realised, nor does the character of the monarch himself permit it to be inferred that he was very seriously concerned on the subject. The Salpêtrière continued to receive, if not to chasten, the "daughters of joy" until two days before the September massacres, when, as the beds for six were wanted for political prisoners, they were restored to liberty. The year '91 saw the overthrow of everything, and the women of pleasure, so-called, entered upon halcyon days. Aspasia, left to her own devices, was "regarded as exercising an ordinary trade." Scandals and disorders followed, and when the public health was again in danger, there being neither control nor supervision of this traffic, a new census of the women was ordered. This was in 1796, but the work was so badly done that the opening days of the Directory found the situation more deplorable, if possible, than ever. Strange to say, the dissolute Directory (which admitted to its salons "gallant dames" who lacked nothing of the status of _filles d'amour_ save inscription on the police registers) turned a severe eye upon the morals of the public. The police were bidden to be active in the haunts of Aspasia, but Aspasia had not forgotten the Republican doctrine of liberty, and when haled before the bench she gathered her lovers and friends about her in such numbers, that the cloud of witnesses in her favour quite overawed the magistrates, who were fain to let her go free.