8g. Ferdinand Lunel, The Henry IV Brasserie, ca. 1880, Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Brasseries served by women - La Brasserie Henri IV. on these matters and they know for a fact that certain brasseries are nothing but clandestine houses of prostitution, so they are not stunned to learn that the principal service is not serving 55 beer or lighting cigarettes!" There were strong financial reasons for the experienced prostitute to value regular employment in one of the new-style beer halls. The waitress in a brasserie a femmes earned good wages and was likely to make much more than a woman struggling to get by in one of the "suspicious" professions. Even after a number of required work costs were subtracted, the brasserie waitress earned between five and twenty francs a day,56 or between three and half to thirteen times the daily wage of a milliner or laundress. Compared with other categories of prostitute, it appears that the fille de brasserie maintained a markedly stable employment. The apparently minimal turnover of personnel in these jobs was probably at- tributable to the relatively good wages and the manageable working hours — generally between mid-afternoon and 2 A.M. It was a very reasonable job for a relatively unskilled woman, if she was willing to fulfill its diverse requirements. The way in which the server earned her wages varied some from one place to the next. Food was usually provided by the owner, who was, apparently, a man (and hence the occasional use of the expression proxenetisme masculin — masculine pimping — in accounts of this phe- D7 nomenon). The waitress was free to keep the service fees she collected, out of which she paid a daily droit de servir (a right-to-work assessment), which was between fifty centimes and three francs.58 There were other miscellaneous small fees charged by the patron (owner), such as the payments based on the profitability of the server's assigned tables and a tax that was proportion- ate to the number of passes effectuees (tricks turned).09 She was also generally responsible for 60 paying for her own uniform and for the matches she furnished to customers. Lunel's drawing of the Brasserie Henri IV done around 1880 (fig. 89), for example, makes a point of the the- matic outfits worn there and of one costumed waitress who uses her own match to light the customer's smoke. 141