*Google AI Overview
While the story of a Napoleon relative sending exactly 500 prostitutes is likely an exaggerated tale or myth, a
relative of Napoleon III’s government did organize a bizarre lottery scheme that inadvertently resulted in thousands of French men and women, including a disproportionate number of prostitutes, arriving in San Francisco during the Gold Rush.
The Lottery of the Golden Ingots
The event in question was known as the “Lottery of the Golden Ingots” (or Loterie des lingots d’or), a scheme devised in 1850 by the government of Napoleon III, who was Napoleon I’s nephew and the future Emperor of the French.
- The Goal: The official purpose of the lottery was to raise funds to send French citizens to California to participate in the Gold Rush and presumably send gold back to France, while also providing a “solution” for dealing with perceived “undesirable” political and criminal elements and the poor in Paris.
- The Scheme: Tickets were sold nationally, raising significant funds. The grand prize was a gold brick worth 400,000 francs.
- The Result: The scheme led to over 3,000 French men and women disembarking in San Francisco in the early 1850s. Among them were many who could not find other work, and the severe gender imbalance in gold-rush San Francisco at the time (as many as 50 men for every woman in 1849) meant that prostitution was a profitable, albeit often exploitative, occupation. French women, in particular, became a significant part of the city’s prostitution scene, with one part of the city even earning the nickname “Frenchtown”.
So, while no specific relative is known to have individually “sent over 500 prostitutes,” a government plan initiated by Napoleon III did lead to the large-scale migration of thousands of French people to San Francisco, many of whom were women who entered sex work.
