Child Labor and Exploitation

Despite laws limiting child labor, thousands of Parisian children worked in conditions destroying health and futures. The gulf between Belle Époque childhood ideals—protected, educated, cherished—and working-class reality revealed the era's fundamental inequalities.

In the artificial flower workshops of the Marais, girls as young as six attached petals to stems for twelve hours daily. The work required nimble fingers but destroyed eyesight. Inspectors found children who couldn't read the eye chart at any distance. Employers argued they provided valuable training for future seamstresses.

Boy street traders—newspaper sellers, boot blacks, message runners—faced different dangers. Working unsupervised on streets, they encountered violence, sexual predators, and criminal recruitment. The lucky ones like Louis Lépine (future police prefect) escaped through intelligence and luck. Most remained trapped in poverty.

The match factories employed children despite knowing phosphorus caused "phossy jaw"—devastating bone necrosis. The Bryant & May strike in London had publicized the condition, but French manufacturers continued using white phosphorus. Children mixing paste and dipping matchsticks developed facial deformities and died young. Profits outweighed lives.

Theatrical children faced unique exploitation. The law permitted stage work at younger ages than factory labor. Children performed in music halls, circuses, and theaters with minimal protection. Stage mothers lived off their children's earnings. Sexual abuse was common but rarely prosecuted. The child star Polaire later revealed the prices of her early fame.