Marseilles Madam’s Death Ends Era of White Slavery, Drugs

MARSEILLES, France — Marseilles’ most infamous madam, Marie Paoleschi, has died at the age of 82, the last survivor of the port city’s once powerful gangland empire of white-slave traders and drug peddlers.

Better known as Marie-la-Jolie, the woman who died last weekend with only one tooth to her name began her international career as a prostitute at the age of 17 after falling in love with a small-time criminal at a local dance.

The chance encounter with her future pimp took her from the sleazy sidewalks of Marseilles to the steamy brothels of Saigon and Buenos Aires, and the crowded cabarets of the Place Pigalle in Paris.

In two volumes of memoirs published a few years ago, Marie gave a livid account of 60 years spent in the company of Marseilles’ notorious underworld bosses--men she grew to hate.