Published judicial statistics show a significant increase in prosecutions for sex crimes against children during the course of the 19th century. From 1825 through 1830, an average of 133 persons (or 4.2 per million population) were tried each year for the rape and indecent assault of minors under the age of 15. After this, the annual average number increased sharply, until it reached a maximum of 809 (or 21.9 per million population) from 1876 through 1880. The number of cases then declined significantly during the quarter century from 1881 through 1905, before increasing again from 1906 through 1913. French law and the French state slowly began to concern itself with protecting children from abuse and exploitation on a number of levels toward the middle of the 19th century. This included new law enacted against child molestation, in particular those of 1832 and 1863, and prosecutions for sex crimes against minors soared. Even after prosecutions began to decline in the 1880's, an accelerated campaign against the prostitution of minors got underway, culminating in the law of 1908 that banned the registration of children under the age of 19 as prostitutes. The new attitude was also undoubtedly helped along by the fact that the French had come to recognize the existence and scope of child sexual abuse, even incest, well before the British, the Austrians, and the Americans had done so. 11 tables and 168 notes