Sodomy, Subculture, and Surveillance in Paris, 1739–47

Abstract

Recently digested evidence from the 1740s confirms both patterns and variety in the sodomitical subculture of Paris in the 1720s and 1730s that historians have already analyzed. Men who desired men understood the methods and hazards of solicitation in the Luxembourg and Tuileries gardens, where the police deployed decoys to entrap them. Records of arrest demonstrate continuity over three decades as well as evolution in practices of surveillance. In 1748–49, agents interrogated not only the men they arrested but also the men these men mentioned, who named others, almost none of whom ended up in prison. We still do not know why the police prioritized information over imprisonment at this time because we have no documentation about administrative deliberations. Thanks to archival inquiry, however, we can now follow the steps that preceded the shift.