For International Women's Day: Paris 1870-71

Extracts from La Commune: Histoire et Souvenirs, by Louise Michel, edited and translated.
(Louise Michel herself was of course the best-known Femme de la Commune.)

"Women active in the Commune"
from The Paris Commune, by Mary Kennedy (Collins 1979)

(Vol.1 in Petite Collection Maspero:-)
Section 2. The Republic of September 4 (1870). #9 The women of '70 pp.118-121

Among those who struggled most resolutely to combat the [Prussian] invasion and defend the Republic as the dawning of freedom, there were many women.

All the women's groupings rallied round the Society to Aid Victims of the War, in which bourgeois women, wives of members of the Committee for National Defence who did so little defending, were heroic.

If anyone in the Aid Committee had spoken of surrender, he would have been thrown out as forcibly as in the clubs of Belleville and Montmartre (working class districts). We were the women of Paris, just as in the (working class) suburbs.

... I was imprisoned after 31-10 - not for taking part in a demonstration but for saying I was only there to share in the women's dangers, not recognising the government...

 So many things were attempted by the women of '71! Everything and everywhere!

Women did not ask whether something was possible, but whether it was useful, in which case they would manage to do it.
One day we decided Montmartre didn't have enough first-aid posts (ambulances) so we resolved to set one up. There was no cash but we (LM, Jeanne A) had an idea for fund-raising.
We took along a tall, impressive member of the National Guard, who marched in front with fixed bayonet. We were wearing red sashes and holding specially made purses. The three of us set off, looking solemn, to where we'd find the rich. We began with the churches, the National Guardsman walking up the aisle tapping his rifle on the paving; we took a side each, asking the priests at the altar first.
By turns the devout, pale with fright, poured money into our collecting bags, all the clergy contributing, some with a good grace. Then it was the turn of certain Jewish or Christian financiers, then respectable folk (braves gens); a pharmacist from the Butte provided supplies. The first-aid post was set up.
At Montmartre town hall (mairie) we had a good laugh over that expedition which no-one would have encouraged if  we had told them about it in advance.

Decree abolishing conscription and consolidating the National Guard in Paris,
from The Paris Commune, by Mary Kennedy (back cover)

 p.121 I remember the day three ladies came to find me in class (LM was a teacher) to see about starting the women's vigilance committee. They simply told me 'You have to come with us' and I answered 'I'll go.'
At that point there were nearly 200 pupils in my classes, girls aged 6-12 whom my deputy and I taught, and small children aged 3-6, boys and girls my mother took charge of (and spoiled). One or two of the older pupils in my class helped her.
The little ones, whose parents were country folk seeking refuge in Paris, had been sent by Clemenceau. The town hall took care of feeding them: they got milk, horsemeat, vegetables and often a few treats (friandises).
There has been a lot of talk about rivalries between different bodies; I didn't experience those. Before the war we operated a teaching exchange, with my neighbour Mlle. Potin giving drawing lessons at my place and me giving music lessons at hers; we would take our senior pupils to courses in rue Hauteville. During the siege she took my class, when I was in prison.

Paris May 1871, showing fortifications
From Frank Jellinek, The Paris Commune of 1871 (Gollancz, Left \Book Club, 1937) 



(Vol.II in Maspero edition:-)

Section 3. The Days of the Commune, continued

#10 The Army of the Commune;

Women of the Commune.

 p.7 The Commune army was a mere handful compared with that of Versailles.

 p.10 Among the Commune's forces were women: providing canteen and first-aid services and as soldiers, they appear along with the others.

A few of them are known by name (- 18 listed in various capacities including teachers).

pp.173-180 Manifesto as published by proscribed Communard exiles in London, June 1874. Defining themselves as Atheists, communists, revolutionaries in ends and means, and putting their case in some detail in those terms.  Signed by 31, not including LM, who was exiled to New Caledonia before establishing herself in London.

p.181-190 Report of LM's trial hearing of 16-12-1871 from Gazette des tribuneaux, hostile but giving some idea of her views, with long quotations, and background.

"Her anger, which never left her, arose as soon as she set foot in Paris,
at the sight of the poverty and injustice rife in the Montmartre district where she opened a school..."

Fictionalised biography of LM, 2002

Reminder:

As previously posted, the March meeting of the New Anarchist Research Group is about Louise Michel.

Saturday 24th March 2018  2:00pm - 4:30pm in the MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet St., London EC4

Louise Michel in London (1890s-1905): a Political Reassessment by Constance Bantman