They went to the Force, which has not left a kinder memory than the Salpêtrière. Prison rule was, an art as yet in its infancy, and there was scarcely an idea of cleanliness, moral control, or discipline. The Force, it is said, was "as inconvenient a place as could be found for its purpose." The infirmary, always an important department of prisons of this class, was "unwholesome and wretchedly ventilated." The women were altogether undisciplined, and as workrooms had not been opened they passed their days in idleness and gaming. In the summer months they swarmed in the yard; in winter, they slept, played cards, quarrelled, and fought in dusky and ill-smelling common-rooms. They had no keepers but men, before whom they displayed the most cynical effrontery. It is asserted that, on the days on which clean linen was distributed, the women were accustomed to present themselves before the warders in the precise state in which Phryne astonished her judges.[25] These things were noised, and the prefect of police had to devise afresh. In 1828, the _filles d'amour_ were transferred from the Force to the Madelonnettes. The record of the Madelonnettes in this connection is not important, except that here it was attempted to employ the women at some strictly penal tasks. This project was more fully developed at Saint-Lazare, to which prison all classes of women of the town were relegated in 1831. At this date, the number of registered public women in Paris was 3517. Footnote 25: Un ancien gardien de la Force nous a dit que le samedi, jour où on leur donnait des chemises, pendant l'été, elles se mettaient entirement nues dans le préau pour les recevoir des mains des gardiens.—_Les Prisons de l'Europe._ Before penetrating within the prison of Saint-Lazare, the reader will be curious to know by what means a woman desirous of doing so enrolled herself in this singular militia. She must seek the countenance and aid of a magistrate of Paris, whose task was in equal measure a delicate and a painful one. Without doubt, it was a strange spectacle; a woman presents herself before a magistrate and says that, renouncing her woman's modesty, her hope or desire of an honourable future, she wishes to be cut off from the world, that she may cast herself _dans la prostitution publique_. At first sight, she seems to make the magistrate her accomplice, but that this was not the case the sequel will shew.