She knows this district well in the heart of Paris, in which she worked as a prostitute for more than 50 years… Originally from the Ardennes, Linda had a poor and difficult childhood, but it was a meeting with a man that would turn her life upside down .

“I told my aunt, you know the first one that will come it will be the right one, even if I don’t like it it will be the right one, I don’t want to stay here anymore. she confides “.

A life of violence

In 1963, the young girl was pregnant and was 19 years old, she followed her future husband to Paris with in her luggage the dreams of a young provincial. Violence comes brutally into her life when her husband forces her to have an abortion.

“They were holding my legs and arms and then all of a sudden I hear something come down and… I saw my baby, I said give me my baby, give me I saw him hurt, he had wounds on his back, you can’t imagine how horrible it is “.

Linda is physically and psychologically broken. Under the influence, her husband then forces her to prostitute himself. The years pass, under the blows and threats of her pimping husband, Linda obeys.

The infernal spiral

“I made 35 clients for 8 years every day. I was no longer living, it was my worst times the most … in the evening I came home I couldn’t take it anymore I was knocked out, we don’t live , not you are just a machine “.

Shame and fear prevent her from leaving her husband, especially since they had a little girl together. During all these years, Linda leads a double life and hides her true profession from her family.

“When you’re a prostitute, you always live a lie, anyway, you always have to lie to your children, your friends. When you’re a prostitute like me, you become an actress, because you play so many roles. How many times have I played the little girl, the mother, you know there were some who slept with me insulting me but it was not me they were insulting, it was their wives.

For 50 years, Linda has been able to fulfill the fantasies of her clients while protecting herself from sexually transmitted diseases. The worst was syphilis because at that time the girls did not wear a condom but with the arrival of AIDS everything changed, they immediately protected themselves.

At 77, Linda wrote a book for her daughter in which she reveals her story to her… Touched, she replied by letter.

Today Linda is released and she hopes to alert young women to the dangers of prostitution so that they do not fall into this trap in which she has been locked all these years.

• The angel of Pigalle
  Linda
  Ed. XO, March 2021