The history of the BRP can be traced back to the creation of the general police lieutenant under the command of Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie.
Based on a network of paid informers and provocateurs (known as les mouches, or "flies"), he succeeded in dismantling the "court of miracles".
[1] The essential function of this office was as an intelligence service that used prostitutes and housewives to obtain compromising information about their clients, even if this led to repression.
The most publicized incidents related to honest women being confused with "girls of joy" and arrested by police officers, who seemed to have become uncontrollable.
It designated a Commission of the Police des mœurs, whose work culminated in the dissolution of the vice squad in 1881.
[3] Its functions were defined for a long time as controlling the following: In 1930, the name was officially changed to the Brigade mondaine (because of the confusion with the service and agents of the municipal police, who were responsible for monitoring prostitutes on public roads), a name it kept until 1975.